#secular Manon

[eldritchboop]

My Harvest results. Pear custard pie and two kinds of roasted squash.

The squash was served with some honey mustard chicken, and whichever we like better will probably get added to the Thanksgiving menu.

I’m not a huge wild hunt follower, but I made sure to spend some time outside and work on my garden, too. The shoulder season is good for spinach and radishes.

Today, we decorate for Halloween!

#harvest home wild hunt #secular witchcraft #secular Manon #my practice

[broodparasitism]

Happy STS! Do religious beliefs (or non-beliefs) play an important part in any of your stories, and how?

Sorry this one is also late! For everything other than tHatD, not much, and for that, very much so. I myself come from a not at all religious background and it shows. Christianity definitely has a presence but I'm not really getting into depth with faith.

Wormwood: Religion itself not much at all, but a couple of girls are identified as either Catholic or Anglican and that has a small part to play in faction in the Wormwood Society - a lot of the pre-existing bonds are formed over what school the girls attended. Elinor, Maria, Hannah and Manon are catholics who graduated from Sacred Heart. Portia, Olivia, Josephine, Terrie and Tamsin are Anglican Cheltenham College alumni. There's a majority to both sides, but the former includes Varsha (Hindu + Cheltenham), and the latter includes Janine (Catholic + Ermitage). The remaining 3 all went to 'ordinary' not famous schools and join the latter. Raphaelle is Catholic, Cora has one Catholic and one Protestant parent, Noel is a very secular Anglican. And I think in my next draft I'm going to change more - perhaps switching sides? But with all that said, actual religion isn't major in Wormwood at all.

The Cellars of Sulis Hall: Zachariah Whitewood is very attached to his faith. He's a zealot, to say it simply. He's become utterly obsessed with his very skewed sense of morality to cope with his perceived wrongdoings. The man is really into Hell. Maternity Colony: Only in that I was inspired by Christian concepts of witchcraft and the Devil for the story. Namely crossroads, familiars, hares being significant and at least one vision based on some testimony at the Pendle Witch Trials. (The idea of witch hunts fits well with the lengthy interrogation scene and the Traherne's family being outcasts as well.)

The Holy and the Damned: There is so much to say here. Probably too much. I think I have a whole seperate post actually - here it is - but it is all about a conflict within a single religion. I was inspired a lot by the reformation but one thing I really don't want to do is create a 1:1 analogy for the real world. Neither denomination is any good. I think it's easier for me to articulate my dislike of Christianity when it's indirect. They aren't Christian, their dieties have little at all in common with the Christian God, but the institution itself is terrible.

Unnamed project: Not at all, so far. I've considered if some characters are from a religious background if that would tie into their inner conflict but there's nothing I've decided on yet.

#floriane cancelled for her atheist agenda. #i hope not but like. that i'm not a fan of it does show #sts asks #letters #laufire

[crescent-woods]

sprint fic - the dupain-couffaine-cheng christmas

[happy christmas, @mamanabeille! i hope you enjoy! i chose your prompt christmas traditions, but it’s also got some first christmas in it!]

ao3

Ankara, Juleka, Luka, and Rose gathered on the couch across from the lone chair Marinette sat in. Luka had told her about some big, important tradition she absolutely needed to be at their house on time for, but he hadn’t said anything about what that tradition was. Knowing the Couffaine Chaos for years at this point, Marinette guessed it had something to do with music, either live or recorded, blasting from the massive speakers and shooting multi-holiday decorations onto people and buildings from canons. 

She was half right. 

The big, important, be-there-on-time, please don’t miss this it will literally kill Momarka tradition, was… playing rock-covers of holiday music when they decorated the boat. Honestly, that was calmer than what she expected from them. 

Luka and Anarka set to dragging out the boxes of decorations from somewhere in the boat, Juleka pulled out some snacks (chips and dips and guacamole?) from the kitchen and set the playlist to gently sound throughout the boat, and rose bounced Marinette through the boxes and their labels, holidays, meanings, and which rooms to decorate with them. That last part was surprisingly specific.

The typical, secular Christmas decorations were reserved for the kitchen and the family room, and their fake Charlie-Brown-esque tree in the family room. The more Christian Christmas decorations went in the bathroom. More specifically, the small, creepy, plastic nativity set right at eye level in the shower.

Yule decorations were mostly in Juleka’s room, although some were also placed around the family room and in other places of the boat. That was typically done by Rose because she knew more about meanings and significance than the other residents. 

Hanukkah decorations were places *where they need to go* and in Anarka’s room, but don’t you dare set them up for her, just place them in the doorway and she’ll put them ex-act-ly where they need to be. 

“Okay, lassie. If ye think ye got all that down, stick to Luka and he’ll make sure this boat’ll be lookin’ spiffy by the time we’re done!” Anarka yelled as she grabbed a box and set off on her own path.

Marinette mock-saluted, muttering an aye aye, Captain, and followed Luka to the kitchen with the Christmas box. 

***

By the time the family was done decorating, the house really looked like one would imagine the Couffaine house during the holidays. Their small tree was loaded with ornaments, and as the two couples settled on the couch to enjoy a movie and some treats, Anarka set one last ornament on the tree.

“Well, I suppose it’s time to welcome you to the boat family, Marinette. Since my mother’s mother, each child in the house gets a special ornament added. Ye can probably guess which one belongs to who.” It was actually pretty obvious, Juleka’s was the smallest but also had the most sparkles, Luka’s was covered in blue and flowers, Rose’s was hot pink and purple, and she thought she saw a broken, lime green gingerbread man in the back.

“Now that yer part of the family, the kids picked this one out for ye. Welcome, darlin’.” Her friends, and family she supposed, squished her in the tightest, most loving hug she had ever been the center of (don’t tell her Papa).

┈ ┈ ┈ ⋞ 〈 ⏣ 〉 ⋟ ┈ ┈ ┈

The first thing Luka was greeted with upon entering the bakery at a cheery 6 in the morning on December 1 was the almost-nauseating scent of gingerbread, closely followed by a bellowed “Luka, my boy! Good to see you! Come back to the kitchen and we’ll get you set on up!” From Tom.

It was way too early for this on any typical day. 

Somehow the bakery kitchen was filled with not just the Dupain-Chengs, but the Dupains, the Chengs, and Alya, Nino, Adrien, and Manon. Everyone Marinette cared about, it seemed.

Luka could only mutter a croaked good morning at the merry band.

Marinette launched into her well-prepared speech. Hot cocoa was stationed on the stove, with a tray of additions - marshmallows, flavored marshmallows, shaped marshmallows, more chocolate, sprinkles, peppermint, sugar, coffee, pretty much anything anyone would want to add to their drink. Ornaments were boxed next to the tree already set up in the bakery, and rolls of lights, ribbons, and popcorn garland were next to it. The supplies for gingerbread houses were out on the counter for the afternoon. Window decorations were up front, wall decorations were placed next to their respective walls (this was very specific), counter decorations were, you guessed it, on the counter. In the afternoon everyone would move upstairs to decorate the Dupain-Cheng home. Any other special decorations their friends brought could be placed wherever they thought it looked nice.

He grabbed a cup of caffeinated hot cocoa before Marinette pulled him to help decorate the massive tree. “What do you think, Luka? I know it’s sort of different than how your family does holiday decorating, with so many people and decorations and everything, but I hope it’s not bad!”

 “I think it’s a very Dupain-Cheng way of celebrating Christmas with all of the people you love, and I’m glad you’re letting me be a part of it, sweets,” Luka responded in that oh-so-poetic tone that never failed to make Marinette swoon.

Marinette blushed almost as red as the Santa hat on her head before she turned around to grab another ornament.

At around 11:30, Sabine paused the music and shouted, “Okay, everyone! I think the bakery is done for the day, why don’t you all come upstairs for some soup and gingerbread!” 

Cheers rang out across the room and everyone marched up into the house for a bowl of Mrs Cheng’s amazing soup. 

┈ ┈ ┈ ⋞ 〈 ⏣ 〉 ⋟ ┈ ┈ ┈

Luka rolled over one morning to find his wife missing from their bed. Just as he was about to roll out of bed and find out what hyperfixation she was on today, a body lunged from the doorway to bounce on top of him on the bed.

“Luka! Guess what day it is!” She whisper-screamed.

Luka closed his eyes to slowly adjust to the morning. “Um, November… 32nd?”

Marinette giggled. “It’s December 1st, Luka! Our very first December in our very first house!” 

“Did you already get the decorations out?”

“Of course! Now get your tired butt out of bed and start decorating!” Marinette emphasized with another bounce as she ran off the bed.

“Okay, darling, I’m getting there,” he groaned.

In the family room, Luka found boxes. And no wife, until she popped up from behind a stack near the tree he was mostly sure was not there the night before. In typical Marinette fashion, she had somehow decked herself out in a full elf costume between the time it took him to roll out of bed, change into his ‘festive’ pjs, and was down the hall. “Where did you get all these boxes? I don’t remember them from when we moved in,” Luka commented.

“Oh, that’s ‘cause they weren’t here then. I grabbed them last week!” She pointed to different sections of boxes, “Those are a couple things I bought that I thought might look nice, these are some boxes Maman gave me last week, and the rest of them are things that I got from Momarka.” She paused when she saw the strange look on Luka’s face. “I hope you don’t mind that she gave me some things, I mentioned that we hadn’t really done any Christmas shopping yet and I didn’t know what we were going to decorate with and she just handed me a couple boxes of things that she said were your favorites! If you don’t want them I can bring them back and we can go out shopping today, I just didn’t know an-”

“Marinette,” Luka was somehow in front of her, gently cradling her face to look up at him. “Thank you for doing this. I didn’t realize Christmas was so close and I love you so much for all of this.”

There were tears in his eyes, and that brought tears to her eyes.

“The only question I have, dear wife, is how in the world are we going to combine the Couffaine and the Dupain-Cheng decorations?” 

#ngl i was Worried i wouldnt be able to finish this lmao #endgame lukanette #luka couffaine #marinette dupain cheng #lukanette #luka x marinette #lukanette fanfic #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug fanfic #lbsc sprint fic challenge #xmas fic #peachy fics #pro lukamari

[yuwhala]

Trying to read a lot of post right now and trying to be open minded (which is, I'm ashamed of it, not my forte) because I'm confused about a lot of things and why we (Tumblr) didn't like this season. Just a heads-up before you read the rest : this is not sarcasm, my writing is not the best and I'm sorry about it, I'm not trying to say that you should love this season or feel comfortable with it, I just wish to share how I feel about it all and wish to know why we do not agree on others things. I also mostly write because it helps me sort out my thoughts and see things more clearly. I wish not to offend anyone and please let me know if I did.

There are some things I really didn't like :

- The thing I wish happened (like apparently everyone else) was the girls apologising. Because right now it feels like they never did any wrong when ......they did. And that's bad, because the only one that is pointed out as the bad person by the show is Ingrid. When she's not the only one who behaved badly. But that's what the problem is. The show doesn't even show us that the girls not supporting Imane is a Bad thing. None of them said anything when Ingrid was saying obvious bullshit or when Daphné is saying her usual shit. It's always Imane doing it. And no one going her way either. The only time someone other than Imane was being angry at a racist comment was Manon back in season 1 when she stormed out of the room after Daphné was being (once again) racist af and she told her that she didn't understood how  she could say so much bullshit. But that's all. So yeah I wish they would have made the white girls apologize for not being here for Imane. Ever. The fact that we got that amazing clip of Manon and Imane talking about how Imane never feels like she belongs and that we never ever got a following consequence of that discussion is ridiculous.

- Manon and Charles going back together. For obvious reasons. Like ? Urgh. No.

- Jamila talking back to Imane on pure coïncidence like she never abandoned her when Imane entered highschool with no explanation other than "sorry I don't think that we should talk anymore" ????? What ??????? And now they're BFF ????? When Jamila never apologized either ????

- That's a really small complaint that is nothing near as terrible as the other things I pointed out but there is a lot of small time mistakes. Some clips were clearly supposed to be aired on other days than the days we got them.

- Another small complaint but one of the things I liked the most about Sana's season was seeing her praying and the whole process that went with it. I feel a little robbed here. Those were moments that felt utterly beautiful and mesmerising to me when I first watched Sana's season.

But there is a lot of things I liked and I think are important to show on a french TV show mainly directed for a young audience :

- They adresses a LOT the day to day racism a black Muslim woman can get, they voiced the fact that it was racism a lot too and that Imane had all the rights to be angry at that kind of comments. They made it real too : Imane had to stop dancing because the teacher didn't want her to wear her hijab in the lesson. That's an actual debate in everyday life in france : we're living in an "secular country" (lol not really but that's what politicians like to say whenever they want to be islamophobic. Funny how our joke of a president actually said we had to reconnect with our catholic roots. Lol. Secular country indeed. ANYWAY) and that's why Imane doesn't wear hijab at school, because “no one” should wear signs of religion in public school (but hey guess little crosses or Mary’s face for catholic folks around their necks or David’s star for jewish kids around their neck is not a sign of religion right ? Because I’ve seen them more than once in school) . Perhaps you know that not too long ago there was a polemic about a french store for sports equipment announced that they wanted to start selling sports hijab for hijabi women and well our country went NUTS and the company had to abandon that project because they were sent death threats and whatnot by racist people. And the show addressing that issue (that is french people being racist) is important. The show showing us that wearing the hijab is Imane's choice is important. Imane voicing that being a black women who is muslim in France is making her life difficult is important. And they showed us that many time. With ordinary racism. With Ingrid being afraid of black girls for no reason other that they're black. They've showed us a lot of hardship that comes with it : people being ignorant and racist, people being racist because they're racist, people judging and assuming things because they heard that thing somewhere but never checked the facts. And the fact that Imane said on many occasion 'this is racism' was important. They give us an explanation on why in the first seasons Imane seemed harsh and that being linked with the racism she has to face everyday was really nice. They made Imane tell that she was not feeling like she belonged anywhere. 

- I know a lot of people hated this but I'm glad she apologized whenever she did a bad thing. This is showing her growing up and be a mature teenager. This is showing up that she knows when to apologize but she also knows when she doesn't have to. I'm glad that Imane messed up. I'm glad she had a lot of communication issue. I was sad with her, I was ashamed with her but in the end I think we could all understand why she was acting the way she did. You can make mistake, you can realise that you made a mistake and still apologize.For me the drama was necessary. There was drama in every season of Skam and that’s kind of the goal of the show, to show that you’re allowed to make mistakes. The thing that was not handled well was the outcome of the drama.

- The family interactions and clips were incredible. Her mom being the 'bad cop' and her dad being more of the laid down dad type was perfect. Put Idriss on this and have them talk about why they think they're making their parents disappointed in themselves, why it's difficult to live as a Muslim in France, how they can talk to each other and understand multiple points of view too. How it's ok to be angry to feel emotions but to take them out on people who just wish for you to be happy is not the way to do it.

-The Lucas's talk. Again this is going with my first point but the fact that they added Imane saying that she's not the one who should have to be patient with racist people because they're ignorant was nice.

- The first four episodes were incredible and I think we all agreed on that. It was just Imane day to day life + her falling in love and enjoying life.

- Three of my favourite clips of the show : The bus clip, the chair clip and the mom clip. The bus was such an important scene where Imane was also asking questions to herself + all the cinematography that went into a simple bus ride was so great. The chair clip showing four very different Muslim girls talking about Ramadan and rules and how they're hungry, and love and sex and random things was so nice. They all had they're own way of talking, one reminded me of Emma because she had the same kind of vocabulary and way of saying things, one was more uptight etc. They all wear their hijab in different way they all say on different chair it was so nice. The mom clip, well, seeing a parent apologizing is not something I'm used to on TV show. Well they do apologize when they did extreme horrible things like killing someone but they never apologize for simple things like Imane mom did. The music in general used in the show is really nice and since season 3 Skam France outdid themselves on the cinematography part of the show.

That's all the things I can think about for now so what's the conclusion of all that ? I don't really know. As you may have understood I'm a white girl, I'm a part of some 'minority' groups (what's the word when it's not really a minority but still a group that is being pointed out as 'bad' by media and a large group of people ? The more I write the more I'm losing my English) like I'm a Bi girl, I have depression and I'm fat but I'm aware that's nothing to compare with being a woman of color and being a muslim woman. So yes, I think there is a lot of things that I did not understandd in why people hated this season and I should just accept WoC European Muslim critics and not try to say 'you're wrong' so I hope I'm not doing that here. I just wish to share my likes and dislikes of the season. Sometimes I have to think about an issue for a whole week to just kind of understand something I didn't agreed on before, so I'll be patient . Perhaps in two weeks I will just see the whole season on a different way. Perhaps I'm being too kind on the compliments (The other day I read that you shouldn't praise someone because they're being against racism because racism shouldn't exist in the first place. I'm still debating on that subject but I'm wondering if that applies here).

The thing is I'm still glad that this season exist. Yes it's really not perfect and yes the whole 'the girls never apologized or stand by Imane' is awful. I'm glad in the sense that I wished I could have seen this on TV when I was myself in highschool. When I was as ignorant as Daphné (...yeah... That sucks....I don't really understand how I managed to have friends). Because seeing that show, seeing all of what Imane had to go through would really made me oppened my eyes. It would have been a slap to the face and a needed wake up call. But yes, I agree, it was far from enough. So I'm a little on both sides. But as the same time I’m saying that this is an important season to see as a white ignorant woman, but perhaps that’s the whole issue ? That Imane’s season shouldn’t be made for white woman like a POV on a WOC every day life but just a story for Imane to live herself ?

#skam france #some thoughts

[mcdirtyoldtown-blog]

http://www.ruralstudio.orgDAINTREE BUILDING :

by Mike Haslma, Solearth : http://www.solearth.com/projects/view/the-daintree-building

- Manon : Why did you choose to specialize your work in sustainable architecture ? - Mike : Why ? well i supposed the, its basically interest, i supposed, in a very simple way i could say I’ve always been interested in how the environment, buildings in the environment and how the two work together. Back ground the green sensibility and my partner Bryan would be the same. And that kind of a college, in the UK that wasn’t particularly taught very strongly but Bryan and myself we had some slightly, we know each other from student days and he went off to work in America and have a lot of green experience from working with various people like kliny fisc,you would not know them but it’s cal cold green people of the USA in the west cost and whereas i was working in germany and particular picking a lot of the green sensibility of German architecture and then i worked with a company called « Filly Clade Brightly », ACB Studios in UK and at the time, 1998-1999, they were very much the one of us the big green practices in the UK, so very good experience and then, the two of us (i was more European and Bryan More American green background) came together started working about 2000. It’s not really « why » but that’s kind of it, i think, you should found some sensibility int he back of your mind, you start to seek out a sort of reinforcing structures offices profession, that make you become greener and greener. Morgane : You made project abroad can you tell us if there is different vision of sustainability ? Mike : Actually we didn’t do that many around the world but in terms of our practice Solearth Most but we don’t consulteasy in various places, like you might have seen from the website, like Vietnam or China Most of our actual work are in Ireland and a little bit in the UK. But towards the question i think the experience of doing consultulsy particularly in China make you reflect quiet a bit on what you’re doing here because the scale is so massively different and we’re involved in a new town in china and the end , « i think it’s call the end of the new suck road » whatever a huge port, the city is massive, they decided to make into a green city was the probably the size of the centre of Dublin and yes that was just a small part of the overall city. In a sense what’s quite humbling about it’s that they work in such a huge scale that in Ireland, perhaps less in France, what we’re doing here whatever we do here it’s a very small scale whereas, China, like they can make a such huge difference to how they decide to, do they want to seriously greener the all city or do they just want to make took and gesture. I suppose our experience from that project was a little bit, it’s great to do it but it’s actually such a small part of much a bigger enterprise that maybe only make us a sightly gestural approach to greening our infrastructure. I think generally in Ireland what I found for working in Germany, it’d be like main land of Europe, Ireland tend to be a little bit behind the rest of Europe, I don’t know about France, behind Germany in terms of its approach of sustainability hasn’t had a great culture of that I suppose in the building world, recently but it’s caching up, it’s actually caught up I think, in many respects and the building regulations here are actually quite rigorous and strong. It’s really a part of the building culture now whereas its wasn’t 15 years ago. I suppose that’s the most positive thing about the last 15-16 years of seeing the change from doing Daintree, it was quite an adventurous building, whereas now, it would be relatively normal in the building context, the building culture. That’s a good thing. Flore : Would you like to change something in this building today? - Mike : Yes! quiet a lot ! I mean I think, I suppose there’s a couple of things in terms of the energy, one could do, we wouldn't probably increase insulation of the building, but we would start to look at covery ventilation system, perhaps, mechanical ventilation VHR in the apartments or in the spaces that we generate in the office, or in the cafe, could be easily use to heat the water in the rest of the building or in the radiator system. That sort of think, which we would have liked to do if we had the money originally we would certainly like to do now, if we had the possibility. I think just in term constitutionality, like it’s a timber frame building, i suppose one of the big lessons about timber frame for me,is that you actually try to shade?? the water of the building as quick as you can, and it’s quite a complex roof structure because we wanted to have different experiences, different terraces, so that is good in term of the concept but in term of constructing it it makes it quite tricky, draining the water off the building,it’s a ?? think to do I think we could have made it easier, if we would’ve known we would be here as architects and every time there’s a leak in the building, someone knocks on our door “what’s the problem up here ? not again !” That’s an interesting thing : you’re involved in the maintenance of the building so you get to understand what works and what doesn’t work. There’s not a big thing we could have loved to change but there are little things we cold probably have done better.

Manon : you have some architect from  sustainable  architecture  that you’re looking up to ?

Yes we probably both have individual heroes if you like but  i think,  like in terms of thinking about more radical designers, we would have a look to  people like Rural Studio, i don’t know if you know them from Alabama, from the states,  and they in terms of reused of materials and there inventiveness  they are very good, very exciting. And then in terms of a sort more professional aspects of building green architecture i would say FeildenClegg in the UK who have been doing great building for longtime and it’s interesting to watch how they have refined their  architecture down, i wouldn’t say they big practice now they don’t build every building high and green but when they do do that you can see that they really refined that works, they ‘re always interesting to see how the developed over 20-30 years now.

I quiet like Joachim Eble who is german architect who is a bit freaky in his architecture style its a little bit over the place some times but something like the house in Frankfurt are very much nos.., old building now, 20 years probably but that is very, it’s a little bit, it’s like DAINTREE but it’s even more radical than DAINTREE.  It’s quiet a good role model of social architecture make in the city and then i think probably Bryan more than myself would probably look back to the american guys … his forced side vision of technologie very sustainable and the people like Pliny Fisk who i mentioned before who he worked for a while, quiet obscure industrial designer architect but really thinking very deeply about sustainability circular thinking and reusing.

- Of all the project you’ve done what’s your favorite project ? 

 - Air Field, this one I was talking about earlier, it’s probably the most refiling architectural building, or set of buildings because there are four or five that we’ve done, partly because it was a pretty good mixture of client and architectural design team, generally as in the values about sustainability, the land, we were thinking as well. It was quite a good marriage of the two sides, which sometimes works, sometime doesn’t. We’ve been lucky on the all because I think most of our clients, they come to us because they think we’ll be like us. I think it kind of represent, probably because it’s one of the most recent building, sustainability in the building, landscape and site generally. -You said Daintree building was one of the first building you built ? -Yeah it was - This is the baby -In many respects, it’s actually one of the bigger building we’ve done. I mean it was literately designed in 1995-2000, so it was right at the beginning of the practice, and although it didn’t get built until 2004-2005, let’s call it the baby, it was the incubator of a quite lot of different ideas. We haven’t done so much housing since, of this sort of scale, but, you know the idea is material usage, low energy, secular economy, I’ve got into F Field, cost less that you’ll see around.



By solearth architecture

For more photos : http://www.solearth.com/projects/view/airfield

Architects : 

Rural Studio : http://www.ruralstudio.org

FeildenClegg : http://fcbstudios.com

Joachim Eble : http://www.eble-architektur.de

Pliny Fisk : http://www.cmpbs.org/who-we-are/staff/pliny-fisk-iii

Laure, Flore, Manon & Morgane