Have you had any ✨Ghost Experiences✨ in Scotland yet? Meet any new ghosts???
Ohhhh plenty, but far too many to list without going off on a ramble haha
We’ve done many overnights in castles and old buildings up and down the UK with a team of investigators which has led to really neat experiences, some of them absolutely poignant. I think my favourite interaction has been with a sweetheart of a young seaman called William aboard the RRS Discovery docked in Dundee, also the best K2 session I’ve ever had was there. But yeah, various castles, historic buildings, manors, prisons, etc with some really fascinating results.
I do like how it’s also putting the mediumship to the test which is something I still don’t really like bringing up in general to people but I have apparently shocked investigators/employees at these places with describing events, people, and other things with detail that is not even public or only known privately by people who frequent that location. Nearly all locations I’ve never been to and make a point not to read up on them before I go, which makes these instances more compelling? I often don’t even know the significance of what I’m (sheepishly) describing only to be told I just described a specific thing that happened in a room when there’s no way I could know about said thing. One of the best instances of this was on the RRS Discovery when trailing behind the group in the lower decks, I stopped suddenly. It felt as though something SMACKED very hard and very sudden right where I was standing, someone had lost their life in this very spot. I thought with the boilers around perhaps someone had been hit somehow and died or maybe fallen from the above platform and hit their head on the metal below but was told there were no known records of someone dying in that room and that the platforms didn’t exist at the time. I was perplexed by this as I was 100% sure something had happened there but I just ignored it, maybe I was wrong. We get up to the top deck finally and are told about a boy who, in 1901, tragically fell from the crows nest and died. The investigator and I suddenly realised I had been standing directly below the spot he would have hit on the upper deck when he fell. Another would be a nice young man I’d encountered at a private castle who seemed to be wearing some sort of chainmail and white tunic, followed me around for most of the night, and at one point I picked up on a story about a strange looking gold disc with all these markings on it on the alter in the chapel which he immediately told me not to ask about and refused to elaborate more, I had no idea why he was so adamant about this. I later learned after enquiry the castle historians have documented the place being used by the Templars and it’s a private fact at this location that the Templars have buried artefacts beneath the castle they are working to recover… most notably, beneath the chapel. I’d be talking for ages if I described the other occurrences, but that’s one I’ll always remember!
All and all, I do actually recommend doing it, even if you don’t believe in the stuff, because you get entire historic locations basically all to yourself, at night, which is cooler. I once sat for nearly an hour in a 200 year old jail on the floor, in the dark, at 2 AM, just chilling. On free roam while everyone is usually at base, I’ve been able to explore places by myself, in the dark, opening doors to rooms not even shown to us, panning my torch to old paintings and artefacts in basements to attics and bedrooms and so much more. I’ve sat alone in century old ships and played sea shanties which echoed hauntingly down the passageways. Sprawled out in the pews of medieval chapels in the pitch dark, wandered dark castle corridors alone, sometimes I’ll sing out old songs and just listen to it drift out through the halls and rooms. You feel like some character in a novel, it’s quite a liminal space! Like all these places where so many other people came before you, where people lived and died, sometimes even right where you’re sitting, and you’re able to lay out on the stones in the dark with it all and just feel connected to it yk?
Anyway that still ended up being a ramble HAHA so yeah! I recommend it for both believers and those less inclined because at the end of the day, you’ve basically got several hours of private access to historical locations, at night, no tourists, and sometimes to places the public isn’t allowed at all, and hey maybe something Strange will happen while you’re alone in the darkness.
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The whole Haitian Grill Hoaxes.
Warning: Talks about Haitian history of slavery briefly and of cooking animals.
Not my usual line of posts, but meh, I kinda want to so some solidarity, education and attempt at least to weave in some talk of anthropology and worldbuilding with it.
First off, Anthropologists are required to take as undergraduates Physical Anthropology. We have to be able to tell the difference between a carnivore, an herbivore and a omnivore. And also are taught things like how to tell the difference between human bones and animal bones. No lie, this was one of the most difficult classes I took and I spent for probably the first time in a long time studying my ass off. I usually don't study, but for this one I studied really hard. 'cause you have to memorize the names of bones and how they differ. (Cue me crying because I still remember frontal parietal and occipital and semi-have nightmares about this class. I still have mandible, but then semi panic about the names of all of the nose bones.)
This isn't what I thought I'd be using my degree for, but here we are.
Next, I 100% do not condone and 100% condemn everyone being AHs to Haitians who've had enough crap in their history, such as, but not limited to Columbus depopulating the Island of Taino (It's a word that starts with G), enslaving a bunch of Africans, and then people getting upset when they overthrew their slave owners. This is designed as a defense against the racist who accuse them of eating an animal rarely eaten in human history especially WITHOUT ANY FLAVOR. WTF. Only people who are from the Europe do that. Did you really get insulted by Tim Walz making fun of the white American Palate and then confirm he was correct? Yes, you did.
I'm pulling out my love of food anthro for this too. lol Did I almost write a book about it? Yes, yes I did.
Also, I have graphic design knowledge to be able to tell things.
***
This is the image. Those are chickens, whole, not free of their internal organs.
Might be 3-4 chickens, but this is my best guess:
That's the anatomy break down.
Basically, the tail is not a rabbit tail. The tail is also not a cat tail. It matches a bird tail.
The legs are not rabbit legs—they are too long and there is a claw. There is a wing in the picture.
Cats don't have the anatomy. They have longer tails and it wouldn't look that way.
For reference, the Sphinx Cat. (which is really expensive, BTW. They've been catnapped before.)
The red in the picture is glare from a window because the person is standing and as the video goes, if you focus on the glare you can see it is a white person taking the video—or at least very light skinned wearing a red t-shirt and dark pants. Might even be a Trump T-shirt, but I couldn't confirm it on repeated viewings. This means the window is pretty big. It's not a car. The way the person shifts within the video means they are likely in their own house. There is a level of comfort there. This was also likely taken with a phone because the resolution is terrible. The way the camera shifts as the person shifts their position, etc and the bad camerawork, suggests amateur with a phone. (Also didn't expect to use my graphic design knowledge for this)
Dude, just go outside your house to film.
The second reason this isn't from a car like some people suggest is there is a fence that goes along the back of the property where the beveling of the fence suggests it's to protect the current yard. This means the fence likely goes the entire perimeter of the yard which would mean it's not visible from the street. The majority of grills are set up to face the house, not the street, unless you're planning on selling it.
Sphinx is an all furless cat. This looks nothing like what is in the picture. Those are birds.
It was pointed out to me that it might be stewing chickens, i.e. after they've been retired from egg laying. The kind you make into something like Dak Komtang. This means the picture was 100% faked.
Now, why is it a badly faked image:
Cultural Anthropology and food anthropology here.
In order to cook any animal in a BBQ setting, every culture I know of where you are physically using a grill: You would have to chop it up so it cooks evenly and if you don't do that, put it on a spit to cook it whole. It *is* possible to cook a whole chicken, however, one would have to have taken out the giblets, and then dressed and marinated it thoroughly so that the breasts are correctly tied, plus you would have to tie it up so that the wings are tied to the body:
https://bluejeanchef.com/cooking-school/how-to-truss-a-chicken/
Truss it tight. This helps the chicken to cook evenly. Similarly with rabbit you'd have to empty the main cavity of the innards.
No one leaves the chicken feet on in that case. It's better to take off that part of the legs and do something else with them, like say Chinese Chicken feet for dim sum.
Nunzio pointed out that the chickens were likely stewing chickens, i.e. retired breeders.
based off of this picture. i.e. terrible for grilling on the barbecue because it's much tougher meat.
In addition, while there are cultures that do eat chicken heads, often to make the chicken cook more evenly, they are cut off of the body and grilled/cooked separately because the rate at which the head cooks is faster than the rest of the body. In the picture you can see the chicken combs.
The next point of clue that this is a faked image is that there is NO FUCKING FLAVOR ON THE CHICKEN.
White food travel shows, Haitians themselves when making their food, my own mouth is going to tell you, that is is packed to the gills with flavor. OMG, some of the food is so spicy, even this Asian feels like they were crying. C'mon now, that's a crime to say that Haiti people are going to cook anything on the grill with no flavor.
You know the only cuisine in the world that gets close to doing that? Europeans and people of that direct descent. And I've eaten my way through South America, Central America, North America, Texas BBQ, Louisiana, NE America, South West America, Italy, France, England, Germany, Poland, Russian, Hungarian, Iranian, Armenian, Tunisia, Nigeria, Ethiopian, Greek, Chinese (Northern and Southern, BTW), Japan, Korea, most of SE Asia, Philippines, and some of the South Pacific (Working on it). There is only one continent that does not flavor their meat before putting it on the grill—effing Europe. WTF.
The rest of the world is begging you to at least marinate your meat. !@#$ Even effing Texans are begging you to marinate your meat.
Anyway, no self respecting home chef or any type of cook would cook their meat this way.
Food experience
I've eaten and cooked whole rabbit, whole chicken, whole turkey, whole goose, venison (legally hunted and shot), beef, lamb, goat (not whole), and !@#$ there is no way someone is cooking it that way without any heat on the grill first. In order to grill anything, you need a lot of prep time to make it work, even for smoking. You need to heat up the grill.
Let me tell you as a kid when I first arrived to the US, my mom would serve up crap meals which consisted of mediocre rice, fish sticks, and carrot and celery sticks. God, I hated the cooking. And she kept saying how she would not ever put in more effort into our meals. Having some semblance of foundation about cooking, I watched cooking shows, read cook books, and managed to get the foundations of cooking from asking and doing.
This meant by the time I was a teenager I was making the majority of the meals for the house. In fact, my parents made me do the majority of the cooking some nights AND clean the dishes I cooked with sometimes because they were seriously assholes.
They also would have me heat the briquettes for the grill ALONE. --;; Unsupervised. Yeah, not recommended, and I would never ask kids to do it on their own. Don't do as my parents did.
On the list of things they had me cook was things like venison and goose. When I flunked out of college the first time due to lingering trauma, they also had me do all of the cooking for rent and made unreasonable demands on me.
Fuck. Go back to your fucking fish sticks.
The point is that I know the foundations of cooking meat very, very well. I got so good at it, I could sense the difference in smell to know when it was cooked versus not cooked.
I made up recipes too.
Anyway, there is NO way you would be cooking meat like that with the head still stuck on. For the cultures like Ireland that eats things like brains, the head is ALWAYS cooked separately from the body. The brain is squishy in there and can make the skull explode in some cases because it cooks at a different rate from the rest of the body. The same with the internal organs. Those are removed in every culture or taken out, rinsed and carefully placed back into the cavity of the animal to cook *with additional* things added (sometimes rocks, sometimes extra meats, etc.) Again, if you don't do that, the inside will explode. (And in some cases make things really bitter like gall bladder tastes nasty. You can see people eating the gall bladder on Youtube.)
This is why this is a faked picture.
In addition, the cultures that do eat things like cats are usually ravaged by imperialism, therefore, poverty. And I know how much imperializing nations like to make fun of other cultures they imperialized to the point of crippling their food supply and their inability to get new technology like refrigerators.
This is why I think it's best to not ridicule other culture's foods.
And don't believe hoaxes like this. Including the whole This is a dog without canine teeth video hoax. It's simply not worth it.
And I'd also beg you to fact check, fact check before you perpetuate rumors. But I suppose this is a lesson in racism and xenophobia too.
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Thinking about steddie future where they're both just average guys. No rockstars, no basketball players just two Normal men living a normal life because honestly? they deserve it. They deserve soft domesticity and happiness.
They both have jobs they like but don't love and they're happy with that. Eddie maybe becomes an electrician, working for someone else's company. His coworkers are chill, he gets to get out and work with his hands and that's more than he could have asked for. Steve is a physical therapist, or a manager in some business. He likes his team and the steady hours. He's not working for his dad which is a plus.
They buy a house together, that's not a mansion but it's not a trailer either. Steve does a lot of the dishes because Eddie hates it, hates the feeling of old food on the plates and cutlery. So Eddie will kiss Steve on the cheek and does the laundry because Steve fucking hates laundry. And sitting on the floor watching TV while he folds clothes is honestly sort of relaxing?? Love is doing the chores your partner hates.
Steve and Robin go out for brunch at least once a month, where they catch up and gossip for hours and hours and Steve comes home lighter with updates on Robin and Vickie. Eddie will have nightly phone calls with Wayne, where they talk and laugh and Eddie will eventually hand the phone over to Steve so he and Wayne can talk sports together. When he's in town Dustin will come over and stay in their spare room and they laugh and joke so much it's just like old times. They go over to Jeff's house for dinner on a semi regular basis, and it's nice having normal friends.
They adopt a very annoying cat who will climb all over them in bed and meow in their faces when they don't wake up to feed it breakfast in time. Steve will go for jogs on a Saturday morning, coming home to Eddie reading in bed. Some old western book Wayne recommended to him. There's a steaming cup of coffee waiting on their bedside tables that Eddie's prepared.
They take time off of work and go on a week long vacation because they can do that now. They do dorky touristy things and Eddie buys a mug to send to Wayne. Steve takes a lot of dorky photos of the two of them.
Idk they deserve to be normal and alive and happy with no upside down anymore <3
Oh I love this! I had actually been thinking about tradesman Eddie for a little bit I am so, so glad you’ve come up with this!
I can so completely see him learning a trade and just getting employed and put through his time by a small local employer! He has to go through his exams and that part of it worries him when he first gets the job but his team end up being really supportive and Steve stays up late with him, practicing circuits and wiring and quizzing him on currents and volts. Eddie returning the favour, letting Steve mark up his muscles and be a living anatomy dummy. Sure it gets a little sexy from time to time but more often than not it’s just them testing each other as Steve identifies bones and Eddie talks about parallel circuits.
The monthly brunches mentally and physically revive Steve after working extended hours with patients that he really does want the best for but a jobs a job and it can get pretty tiring. They joke that they rebalance each others chakras but they really do feel realigned after their meet ups. Eddie can see it to, sometimes he’ll come pick them up when it’s been a boozy brunch and delights in seeing them happy and light, clambering over each other to tell Eddie something about one of the waiters or an especially good dish they ordered. When he drops Robin home Steve sits in the front and looks at peace and Eddie feels the same way.
Their weekends are for them, sometimes that means staying home and cleaning the whole place between ordering food in and sometimes that means going on a day trip and taking Wayne around all the antique spots around the county and seeing what horrors they can uncover. Top spot currently sits with Wayne’s find of a doll whose limbs had been replaced with horse legs and had the head of a fish. Of course they bought it.
Every time they go on a holiday they make sure to send postcards to everyone, including themselves, seeing if they’ll get home before the postcard does. Steve keeps them in a photo album, each with a Polaroid of them next to it. Sometimes taken by a stranger, sometimes just a close up of their faces squashed together. It’s Eddie’s favourite thing to go through on their anniversary, or any day really, just loves being reminded that this is the life they get to have.
It’s mundane, dare say even normal, but they love it. Steve comes home every night, happy to put his scrubs in the washing machine next to Eddie’s uniform, happy to be where he feels loved.
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