#In click baity titles where they ‘learn’ a language

[littlemizzlinguistics]

Me @ YouTube “polyglots”

[myriadlabrynth]

Kiridai Hobby Ramblings

Some of these are repeats from other posts, but wanted to consolidate them here.

Hanamiya - Reading

Has expressed some interest for visiting the Starfield Library in Seoul (same for Furuhashi)

Has a soft expression whenever he is reading, which can somehow be off putting for some. Hard to tell what’s going on in his head.

Is above-conversational fluent in a few languages, enough to read some foreign novels in their original language. For these novels, he will include a couple of sticky notes here and there within, whenever he has to look up an unfamiliar word or phrase.

He’ll commit it to memory soon enough but with foreign languages being a little more tricky to learn, especially the slight nuances, he’ll take notes.

Booktok was a mistake

Prefers borrowing books over purchasing them. Not really interested in having shelves lined with books in his home. 

It would have to be books he truly truly enjoys, or books that his mom purchased for him.

Despite him insisting that his mom not buy him gifts, he will have those books displayed where they can be seen clearly.

Furuhashi - Gardening

First, a really sweet hobby, and interesting that it's one that requires some level of delicacy and gentleness.

It’s an outlet for him to relieve him of some stress, out of the recommendation from someone, since he used to have…other means of doing so.

For sure is all “Plants >>>>>> People”

Cause plants are pretty and quiet and stay still,  letting you take care of them with no resistance  :)

Spends a lot of his time in his greenhouse, even when he’s not taking care of his plants, just being in there and taking in the scent gives him solace.

More into gardening outside than indoors, but he has a few indoor plants.

His parents were initially not sure about the gardening, since they normally would have their hired gardeners take care of it. But they soon grew accustomed to it and now enjoy the literal fruits of Furuhashi’s labor, taking advantage of the fresh crops that are available. 

It’s certainly a bragging point whenever people visit the home.

His parents got him a hydroponic system, but he’s not really into it.

His parents had also made suggestions of how to make the gardening more “efficient”, with some tools that would supposedly “speed up the process”, but Furuhashi refused.

He doesn’t feel the desire to rush the process, as the process itself is what he enjoys.

Enjoys the "repetitiveness" of it and how he can shut off his brain and go on autopilot for some of it.

For your sake, please do not disturb him while he is at work.

Has an area in his garden with plants that are good for honey bees. 

Uses organic fertilizers.

Has a dehydration machine for drying out flowers for tea.

I can see him treating relationships similarly.

I know his type is a masochist, but for those he loves, he treats them with a similar delicacy at times.

Hara - Music

Has a playlist of songs that he plays drums to regularly.

Comes up with rearrangements of his favorite songs in his head, but has never tried to create it irl.

Related to the above, he purchased high-end music software, out of impulse and from  the recommendations of videos he’s seen. But he has yet to use them.

Also has other instruments in his house, catching dust. The only other instrument he dabbles with occasionally is his acoustic guitar.

Great at master level difficulty for rhythm games. 

He loves when he zones out and his hands move almost automatically, still getting perfects. (the closest we’ll the “zone” from Hara)

Had once thought of making reaction videos that are titled like “Drummer reacts to (insert artist and song) MV”, except they would be click-baity as he wouldn’t put too much intellectual/drummer related input, just to piss people off.

They could also be random, not music related videos like, “Drummer reacts to best fighting compilation videos”. And these random videos are when he would commentate on the “percussions”, even though it’s not relevant.

Yamazaki - Fighting Games

The most we’ll get out of Yamazaki as far as injuring people.

Gamer rage for sure, has gotten kicked out of arcades a couple of times for manhandling the machines too roughly or just being loud and disruptive. He’s toned it down since.

One incident was caused by Hara, who was just standing behind him, backseating or distracting him. 

The backseating being particularly infuriating cause Hara doesn’t know much but will just make suggestions like “Have you tried dodging? Can’t you use your super strong ultimate  attack?”, cause he knows it’ll get under Yamazaki’s skin.

Has a decent MMR/ranking in games.

Takes new character reveals very very seriously (like new Smash or Tekken character reveals). 

Has a separate group of online friends that he enjoys playing games with.

Some of these friends include members of other teams, but he doesn’t know that it’s them. Like in the drama cds where Hanamiya has played games with Imayoshi, Riko, etc but doesn’t know it’s them(presumably anyway).

Seto - Memorization

I think the facts that we do know about Seto, including his hobby, go hand in hand.

His motto of “Free and unrestrained”, the reason he joined the basketball club, and even the fact he sleeps most times.

Dabbles in and jumps around new activities and skills. He like to learn new things and doesn’t like to be tied down to any one particular thing. The exception being basketball since that is because of Hanamiya.

But I think that’s part of why Seto was ok with joining the basketball club, because it was something new for him to learn.

His sleeping is a key part of his ability to memorize and learn things quickly and thoroughly. Sleep is known to help with memory retainment after all.

“I’ll sleep on it”

That’s why Hanamiya is chill with Seto being asleep during games, because there’s some “productive” element to it.

Throwing this in here, but I think Seto being really smart was something that developed throughout his life. 

It wasn’t something that came natural to him at birth. And I think that created a bit of an inferiority complex for him, especially when he was often compared to his older brother.

That’s also why Seto started to wholeheartedly learn things and expand his knowledge.

At first it was to try to surpass his brother but he started caring less about that, and now just learns things more out of enjoyment of it.

[flowerphoenix]

The bull myth

I am sorry for bringing up the bull skin again, but the history/ archeology nerd part of me is crying a bit at some of the inaccuracies regarding the myth/legend and the origin that has popped up in the discussion. 

I am in no way an  expert. This is merley what I have been able to find within a few hours of research so if you have any corrections or links to sources discussing the topic they are more than welcome, as I am very eager to learn more. Unfortunately I have also had quite a few run in with paywalls when it comes to academic publications.

Apologies for funky grammar and spelling errors, English is not my native language.

Warning for discussion of tourture device.

Absolutely no salt to anyone, information and knowledge change all the time and its never easy to know what is ‘’true’’ (In the case of archeology what are the most likely scenarios, based on material findings and the current ideology of how they should be interpreted. Especially interpretations are ever changing)

So to start off with the part that inspired this.

The time period. 

In the post first touching upon the issue with the skin, on the Flameforger's announcement thread, the Brazen bull (In game skin name now Forged automaton) is referred to as a medieval tourture device. So far I have been unable to find a single text mentioning the brazen bull in medieval times. A few mentions of usage during ancient Rome, but all without sources to back them up.

The time period that I have seen mentioned in most texts credits its creation to somewhere before 450 BC in ancient Greece, this being around 1000 years (depending on where in Europe you are) before medieval times. 

Myth or truth 

So this just might be because of English being my secondary language, there might have been something I missed. But I feel like I have seen people stating this as a fact that they learned in history, that it actually existed. 

I have been unable to find a single piece of text referencing an actual material finding of any brazen bulls. 

Sensationall sells. Judging from how far the myth has spread online I feel like it is justified to say that it's already quite famous, and should a find be made the media coverage would likely be huge. Both as the find itself would be physically quite extrordinary and from one of the most popular time periods to study, when it comes to European history. As well as with the myth already sourounding it being so gruesome.

But as it stands, while I am able to find loads of both academic publications/papers and popular culture (articles, youtube videos etc) referencing or telling the myth of the brazen bull, not a single one seems to mention a find of a brazen bull being made. 

While myths can contain grains of truth, the myth of the brazen bull seems to have gone through quite a few retellings. It has been mentioned that the myth might have served as propaganda around the time when it first appeared and there is a huge problem with actually verifying what, if anything, is the truth.

To sum it up I have so far ben unable to find anything to suport the brazen bull being anything more than a myth.

To anyone that made it this far thank you.

 It is getting quite late so I will have to cut my ramblings short here.

I am very tempted to return to this topic with a better written text when it is not the middle of the night and I have had the time to read and compile more academic literature. There seems to be a lot of interesting stuff that popculture intrpretations miss.

For now links to some of the stuff that I did read in part or full within the limited time. I apologize for how few there are as parts of what I wrote was more taken from what was not presented in the material that I found. 

https://www.greecehighdefinition.com/blog/facts-about-the-brazen-bull (click baity title but summed up the main points of the myth that seems to pop up, lacks sources) 

https://arkeonews.net/the-worst-torture-device-in-history-brazen-bull/  (also sums up the main points of what i found, lacks sources)

https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/39415  (while the letters the text discusses are found to not be authentic I found it to be a good example of how the myth has been retold and the scraps of truth it may or may not hold)

[apenitentialprayer]

Hi, are there any catholic theology books you could recommend? I really want to dive deeper into my faith and be ready when somebody tries to bad mouth Catholicism or spread false information. I feel like I should know more than I do? Idk if that makes sense😅

I’m not sure how many books I can recommend that are straight up theology, but I’ll recommend a few, sure! I’m going to start with two that I haven’t actually read yet but have heard good things about; after that, I’ll talk about books I have read and can confirm. First, all of my siblings were given this book the years of their Confirmations; Joe Paprocki’s The Bible Blueprint: A Catholic’s Guide to Understanding and Embracing God’s Word, which is pretty much exactly what it says: a guidebook to learning how to read Scripture. It explains how Catholics view the Bible to be structured, explains different interpretive lenses Catholic theologians have used in analyzing the texts, and ways to quickly locate and reference passages. Likewise, I have heard good things about Matthew Kelly’s Rediscovering Catholicism: A Spiritual Guide to Living with Passion and Purpose, which attempts to bring the essentials of the faith into one easy to read book. I’m looking at the table of contents of my copy now, and among the subjects that the book covers is the basic philosophy of Catholicism, an attempt to describe how to live out an authentically Catholic life, and the practices that are the pillars of a Catholic’s spiritual life. As I have already said, I haven’t read this book, but I have read another of his (which I will recommend next), so I can confirm he is a clear writer. Onward to what I have read.... Matthew Kelly also wrote The Biggest Lie in the History of Christianity: How Modern Culture is Robbing Billions of People of Happiness. A very click-baity title, I know. But the book nonetheless has what I thought was a life--changing idea; that as saints in the making, we shouldn’t be worried about the fact that our lives are not continuous streams of holiness. Rather, what makes a saint a saint is that they seize the chance to make moments holy as the opportunities present themselves. Kelly tries to explain how to find those moments where grace presents itself in our lives, and choose to act on those moments. Not so much theology as Christian living, but still, a good (and quick) read. Hilda Graef wrote two books that I am a huge fan of. The first is titled Adult Christianity, and its primary objective is to elaborate on a worldview beyond the “God is the king in the sky who rules all of creation” image. The book tackles the subjects of what it means to believe in a transcendent God, the use of symbolism in religious language, the significance of Christ and how we encounter Him spiritually and in the personhood of our neighbors, and suffering, death, and resurrection. The other one she wrote is The Commonsense Book of Catholic Prayer and Meditation, which talks about the nature of Catholic prayer, the pitfalls many Catholics fall into, and some suggestions concerning methods and guildelines, as well as elaborations upon Eucharistic theology, the cardinal virtues, and praying alongside the liturgical calendar. G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith isn’t really theology in the normal sense of the word, but it nonetheless represents a very important worldview in that it beautifully explains the sense of wonder faith can bring. As the title suggests, Chesterton saw faith primarily through the lens of romance and adventure, and so he emphasizes the fantastical, the paradoxical, the heroic, and the revolutionary elements of Christianity. This is less of an intellectual discussion on Christianity, but more about the mood that faith is capable of producing. Hilaire Belloc wrote a book called The Great Heresies; as the name gives away, it isn’t so much about Catholicism as many of the great movements that have challenged Catholicism (Arianism, Islam, Albigensianism, Protestantism, and Modernism). Nonetheless, what Belloc does is use the differences between Catholicism and these movements to talk about the philosophical underpinnings of these competing theologies. My biggest takeaway from this book is that even seemingly small theological differences can created profoundly different worldviews. I’m going to give you one more modern author before I take a step into the past; Caryll Houselander is the author of one of my favorite books, The Passion of the Infant Christ. This book is important for its concept of the inscape; essentially, the world is patterned after the Life of Christ, which itself is patterned after the Passion of Christ. It’s a good introduction to the concept of typology, but beyond that we have a book with a special reverence for the sacramental aspect of our faith, as well as some profound insights on the Eucharist and how each individual is a mother of the Christ-life. I don’t think I can overestimate how impactful this book was on me. Okay, so now books from the early Church Fathers, which you can find online. I’ll provide links for all of these. The first is one that literally everyone will recommend you; The Confessions of Augustine of Hippo. The book is structured as an autobiography, the story of how Augustine ultimately found the truth of and joined the Catholic faith. It talks about his experiments in philosophy and religion, his relationship with his mother, and the tensions he experienced in his attempts to find God while living a life of fornication. Interspersed throughout are his own observations and thoughts about the nature of God, humanity, sin, and salvation. (X) You might also be interested in his City of God, which is a massive door-stopper of a book that is part Biblical commentary, part history of the world as told through a theological lens, and part defense of Christianity against angry pagans. (x) After that, I’d recommend Athanasius of Alexandria’s On the Incarnation, which provides a short outline of the fall of humanity and its redemption through God’s decision to assume human nature. Athanasius talks about not only why the Incarnation happened, but also how this helps to solve the problem of sin and redemption, and argues against certain arguments made by detractors. (x) Justin Martyr’s First and Second Apologia are two short works that try to justify Christianity in the eyes of the pagan society that he was addressing. He tries to explain some of the similarities between Christian and ‘heathen’ mythology, attempts to show how the great pagan philosophers anticipated Christ in their writings, and provides arguments for how Christians have improved life in the Roman empire. (X, X)