#immigration notes

[magz]

The basics of how we got a U.S. phone number and SIM card with a budget phone plan to prepare for immigration.

A lot of things of immigration, services, and moving preparations can require having an active U.S. phone number. This also applies to people that moved away from the U.S. but still need a point of contact with U.S. institutions without being flagged. This is not a universal method! It is just one way.

Things used in our method:

A phone service that ships SIM cards and allows for Wi-Fi calling / texting (alternatively, an e-sim)

Compatible phone (For physical SIM cards: phone carrier unlocked, with VoLTE capability. For e-sims: phones with e-sim capability)

Proxy Shipping service if you live somewhere with shipping customs issues or that the SIM card doesn't directly ship to ( - can also use someone willing to bring the SIM card to you if they come to your country)

A U.S. (residential) address you can write down, even if don't live there (example: can use the address of family, friends, future address, previous address, proxy carrier address if it has residential option, or people willing to help lend you / suggest an address. Some might consider just making one up.)

Debit card, Credit card, or PayPal to use to pay.

Explanation:

If your phone is compatible with e-sims, you actually have a lot more options than we did.

E-sims makes using a proxy shipping address, and maybe even having a residential address - unnecessary. You can basically skip the rest of this. Opens up options a lot more, as long as they're compatible with Wi-Fi calling (Example list of e-sims for "travelers") (Check if phone is compatible with e-sim)

Because our phone isn't compatible with e-sim, though...

We used Tello Mobile and it's $5usd + taxes a month custom plan (unlimited text, 100 minutes of calling). The sim card itself costs $3 from official seller on Amazon, but $3.99 to $6 from resellers. (optional: here's our Tello Mobile referral link, so you can get $10 of credit. You have to manually set it as a payment method whenever you want to use it, before autopay goes thru though.)

Alternatively, there's Ultramobile PayGo which have seen others vouch for wrt Wi-Fi calling outside the U.S., but have not used ourself. It is $3 a month, but the physical SIM kit is $13.

There are more "cheap U.S. sim cards" but we cannot claim familiarity nor experience with them, so any risks from using a lesser known phone service has to be considered.

If you're getting the physical sim of Tello Mobile, check that your phone is compatible first in the official site's compatibility check page.

What we did after, was to buy the Tello SIM card from an eBay reseller with decent reviews *instead* of buying a plan and SIM directly on Tello all at once.

The reason for this decision is that:

1. if buy from Amazon then the shipping cost is not transparent for items as low as $3usd (and also Amazon hates us).

2. Tello is more likely to deny the purchase and not ship the SIM card if the shipping location vs residential location is different or suspicious to them. (the residential location you put will affect the area code you get btw)

Consider if proxy shipping or asking someone to give the SIM card to you is the answer, if default shipping method isn't an option for your country. For proxy shipping options, please search the options available for your country and location, as it is varies a LOT. Be sure that the method of delivery works for you, and check how much it costs to receive things or if it requires a membership fee or what. (our proxy shipper costs money to receive things, based on weight and category of product, but no membership fee)

When you get the Tello physical SIM card, it comes with an activation code. You can use this code to conect a purchase of a Tello plan to be specifically for your SIM card.

Then you add the U.S. residential address that will affect the area code you get, and add the payment method. If it goes through, it's supposed to activate your phone number soon after.

To receive texts and phone calls outside of U.S. territories using that U.S. phone number, enabling Wi-Fi calling or VoIP whenever you need it may be necessary.

So, that's basically the main deal!

[serpentface]

The god Od depicted in a symbolic representation of the word's creation as a docile bull awaiting sacrifice at the altar.

It carries the foundations of the world in its horns (via a very old cross and wheel motif representing cyclical totality, now mostly used as a visual shorthand for the world). It has three sets of horns in the form of the lunar crown, a mostly obsolete symbol of Wardi royalty. The altar is decked with an orange lily motif, after a hardy native water lily capable of regrowth in waters that dry seasonally. This symbol of rebirth and fertility in a sacrificial scene evokes the sacrifice-rebirth cycle initiated by Od's primordial slaying, which is fundamental to the world's functioning.

This is a rundown on interpretations of the god Od, a deity that has a long history in the lands surrounding the Mouth of the eastern inner seaway, and the impact (or lack thereof) of its primordial sacrificial nature in religious practice.

The god Od appears in religious practices throughout the region, having the utmost significance to the Imperial Wardi faith and lesser or separate significance elsewhere. The five religious practices wherein variants of Od has longstanding historical significance are the Burri Faith, the (Imperial) Wardi faith, the Old or 'Heathen' Wardi faith, the faiths of the Hill Tribes, and the Wogan faith.

—

The name Od and most significant elements of this god have origins in the Burri faith, which was transferred across the sea to the Wardi, Wogan, and Hill Tribes in the time of its second and third empire.

The Burri Od is described as having been the first being. The universe began as a cosmic sea and empty, eternal sky, loosely representative of a primordial and fundamental female and male dualism. Od appeared at their borders as a result of their interfacing, in the form of a giant aurochs or bison whose hooves touched the seafloor and horns touched the sky. He dipped his head down to the silt and lifted it out of the sea in his horns, thus forming the foundations of the world. His semen spilled into the cosmic sea and created the first seven gods, who then killed and divided their father, giving the world its form with his body.

While significant to the creation story, Od is of relatively little importance in everyday practice of the Burri faith and is not commonly worshiped (rather his seven children are, as they were the original and most powerful group of gods and created life).

Though the Burri Od takes on a sacrificial role in creation, animal sacrifice is not central to the Burri faith and is only performed in specific contexts (some festivals and holidays, in times of great strife, and to a few specific gods within a wide pantheon). The Burri faith does not involve a sacrifice-rebirth cycle as foundational to the world's functioning and god's health, and offerings are instead mostly gifts to please and rightly venerate the gods (or avert the malice of less savory deities). Offerings of food, drink, and precious materials are preferred by most gods. When animal sacrifice does occur, bulls ARE generally favored, as a reflection of their primordial counterpart.

—

The modern/Imperial Wardi Od is partly an import of the Burri tradition, which fused with both native monotheistic/animist worldviews and animal cults during the reign of the 2nd Burri Empire and developed into a new faith, which has presently become the state religion of the Wardi Empire.

‘Od’ in the Imperial Wardi context is best translated as capital G ‘God’ (anyone saying 'God' is, in-universe, saying the word 'Od'). Its creation of the world plays out in a very similar fashion, but the first human life (rather than other gods) is created by Its semen mingling with the cosmic sea. It willingly sacrificed Its body at the hands of the first people, who formed the world with its remains. Its shed blood spattered the earth and can be found today as meteoric iron, and animal life emerged from the mingling of the blood and the soil. Its death initiated the eternal cycle of sacrifice/death and rebirth, with each begetting the other and necessary for the world to function.

Od's body is dead and the world is Its corpse, but Its spirit survives in seven 'faces' which govern specific functions of reality and society. The connection of Its spirit to Its body is maintained by right practice, right prayer, and right sacrifice (in the form of food/drink offerings, bloodletting, common sacrifices of animals and occasional sacrifices of people).

The Imperial Wardi Od is generally regarded as genderless and dual-sexed, and referred to with a unique deified pronoun most effectively translated as capital I 'It'. Its sex is of relatively little significance to everyday religious practice, and discussions of Its dualism are more likely to occur in scholarly and philosophical contexts (like debates on the minutia of how Its semen, milk, and menstrual blood are all mentioned in old accounts of creation, and how the implications of this should translate to body politics and taboo).

—

The Old Wardi or ‘Heathen’ Wardi faith is a separate branch of old ethnic Wardi religion with significantly less Burri influence. This is a minority practice that only survives intact in isolation. Its practitioners are often hostile to all foreign influence and the Imperial Wardi faith, and suffer minority status and religious suppression.

Its version of Od is a more intact surviving remnant of ancient Wardi monotheism, as an androgynous creator god who lost physical form in the act of creation, and lives on as innumerable spirit aspects of its whole. This deity is referred to as Od in describing its primordial form, but is mostly referred to as a unique word for spirit, which is 'the Koya'. Practitioners of the old faith often identify the seven-faced Od as a twisted, foreign misinterpretation of the Koya. 

This practice is somewhat animistic in nature and involves veneration of individual spirits that form a larger whole. Every aspect of the world has a spirit (plants, animals, minerals, bodies of water, etc) that exist in an ideal balance and as strands of an interconnected death-rebirth cycle. Each spirit is referred to as 'the [noun]-koya'. All discrete forms of life/matter have at least one attached Koya, while living beings also have a soul (which is separate from the Koya and reincarnated upon death).

Each Koya exists as a quintessential essence (ex: the lion-koya, the maize-koya, the iron-koya, the salt-koya) rather than separate individual objects having separate individual Koya, though unique landmarks do have their own (the Brilla River-koya is separate from the Yellowtail River-koya, though both share the freshwater-koya). Each individual may have multiple spirits (geese have the goose-koya, but also the bird-koya, the freshwater-koya, etc), a system that categorizes the world by intrinsic natures and precisely dictates how each physical body has unique metaphysical significance.

Animal sacrifice plays a somewhat similar role in Old Wardi religion to Imperial Wardi religion in the sense that it intends to maintain the stability and oneness of the divine spirit and a death-rebirth cycle. In this case, in freeing part of the spirit, balance can be brought to the Koya totality and restore the death-rebirth cycle. (Ex- in times of drought, the sacrificial release of the migratory goose-koya can encourage the return of the rains). This is far from the only way to re-balance the Koya. The most significant rites come in the form of songs that summon, release, or expel individual Koya as needed.

—

The Od of the Hill Tribes is a mingling of the Burri/Wardi Od and a much older goddess of fertility and agriculture, and is strongly associated with cattle and barley. This version of Od did not create the world and is only one of many gods, though she is said to have been born from the sea and carried up fertile soils with her (which is likely a direct result of Burri/Wardi influence). A few tribes venerate Od as a chief or patron god, though none are fully monotheistic (outside of converts on individual or clan levels).

She has a distant common ancestor with the Finn goddess Morgren (as the various Hill Tribes are descendants of a single proto-Finn population who migrated across the Viper seaway in prehistory), who is also a goddess of agriculture associated with fertility and barley (though in Morgren’s case, she is THE god of the staple crop barley and lacks the cattle association, and has no direct influence from the Burri/Wardi Od whatsoever)

Most of the tribes of Greathill do not practice animal sacrifice but offer grain and fruit to Od, and create a sanctified mix of crushed barley and oil that is anointed on livestock and people to confer Od's blessings of fertility. In some cases, the dominant cow in each herd is considered to belong to Od and will not be milked or slaughtered, and is buried with full rites upon its death.

—

The Od of the Wogan religion is distant to the rest of her counterparts, though has absorbed some Burri and modern Wardi elements over time and is referred to by the same name (a definite foreign import). She shares the fertility aspect ubiquitous to other Od variants, and is occasionally depicted as a cow.

She is a goddess of the earth and sea, who was wed to Iapedi, the god of the sky. The ocean is functionally her womb (which may be trace Burri/Imperial Wardi influence, or merely coincidental) and all life emerged from within. 

These are the only two true gods to the Wogan, though there is an additional element wherein the mating of Od and Iapedi also created innumerable spirits found throughout nature that act as an animating life-force. The concept is very similar to the Old Wardi '-Koya' (as the two faiths had close common ancestry), though this one lacks the sort of taxonomical system of its counterpart, and only ascribes spirits to living things. Each spirit in the Wogan religion is distinct (rather than each type of animal, plant, etc potentially having multiple spirits), and the spirits existing in each body are part of a greater whole that exists as a sentient consciousness that can be communed with (ex: each lion has A lion spirit, all part of The lion spirit, the latter of which can be engaged with).

Wogan religion strongly retains ancient animal cult practices common across the ancient Wardi-Wogan sphere, some of which have been translated into the faces of God in the Imperial Wardi context (both religions share commonalities of lions, snakes, albatross, migratory ducks, and cattle being significant sacred animals). The function of animal worship to the Wogan is communication and interface with the greater spirit of each animal (which can range anywhere from gaining personal blessing and protection, to dispelling plague, to 'lay off on eating our crops').

The Wogan faith does not involve animal sacrifice (though ancient variants almost certainly did). This is connected to traditional vegetarianism among the Wogan (as a means to avoid offending animal spirits), which some view as a point of pride and a mark of distinction against their Imperial Wardi majority.

[muppetminge]

gd i get so fucking angry when i see crying about "boys are doing worse in school :(" being pulled up to look like a huge problem. you're not upset about boys doing 'badly' - you're upset about girls doing well. blaming it on the school system is so funny because tell me how the school system is suddenly modelled after the girls when we weren't even allowed in when the basis of the current system was being created lmao.

the difference between average grade by sex is about the same as the regional/geographic difference and it's less than the difference sorted by race/ethnicity (not even to mention the socioeconomic differences), yet these aren't the differences creating headlines every year. why?

because you find girls doing well wrong, like it's upsetting the natural order. you're hanging on to this idea that girls are stupid, yet when you're proved wrong you refuse to accept it, hanging on to an excuse of systematic differences that have to be solved now, because won't somebody please think of the poor boys :(

so we're looking at averages. here's the thing: those are never going to level out. we're always going to see one group being above/below others. you're just upset it's not in the "right" order.

the difference is smaller than you'd think, by the way. when i was in high school (non-us system, meaning voluntary/different kinds of secondary) we were 70 percent women. you know what else? the girls, in general, were working fucking hard. every single grade point they fucking earned. there's this story of girls' grades being inflated due to this and that, but all i've seen is boys getting grades for doing less - because they're outnumbered, the poor things, so it's obviously the teacher's job to support them, right? right??

even in trade school where we were a handful of girls per year, i saw nothing but the girls putting in their all and the boys showing up. sometimes. if they felt like it.

but it's a systemic problem, right? how else would girls be doing well? we've got to solve this, lest the boys get their egoes wounded by not placing in their 'natural' position. gd forbid we end up with an overweight of women professionals.

[twolovelyberries]

assorted armand/amadeo/andrei/arun. i cannot escape him…

[ask-the-hws-immigrants]

Alfred, what is your favorite thing each of your roommates has brought over to your country? And to Ireland, Romano, and Lithuania, what is your favorite thing about America? (the country not Alfred.)

As for the others...

Alfred can afford to be a little more idealistic, but that's just his way.

**Historical Note: Though immigrants from each of these groups contributed in a variety of ways, these are some of the ways in which they contributed most prominently.

Irish Americans were incredibly active in the entertainment industry, especially in music. Irish Americans were very prominent in vaudeville, and eventually Broadway. However, this was due to a pre-existing music tradition that stemmed from Irish immigrants bringing over their folk music. Many Irish airs became popular parlor songs in the UK, America, and Canada. The strong Irish presence in the Union Army during the Civil War also further popularized folk songs such as "McLeod's Reel." Though the Potato Famine caused the decline of traditional music in Ireland, many songs and playing styles were preserved by Irish Americans in the United States and later carried back to Ireland in the 1890s-1920s when recordings began to become accessible. These recordings were also among the first to be sold in the United States.

Italian American cuisine is one of the most influential marks left by the community, especially from Southern Italians. Many innovations in Italian cuisine occurred in the United States, and many Italian immigrants became successful restauranteurs. This explosion occurred due to previously inaccessible foods suddenly being affordable in the United States, such as meat and imported cheese. Today, Italian American food is still one of the most popular cuisine choices in the United States.

Though all of the groups mentioned had involvement in labor union activity, Lithuanian Americans were particularly prominent activists. One of the most famous of these activists was Emma Goldman, but there were several others who formed the United Mine Workers and the Amalgated Clothing Workers Union. Sydney Hillman, a Lithuanian immigrant, was the head of the Amalgated Clothing Workers Union from the 1910s to the 1940s. Even in fiction, in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Lithuanian workers and their union activity are the central focus. Lithuanian Americans' strongest import really seemed to be their activism!

For all of these groups though, one big part of what made American so attractive was the comparative plenty to what they had in their countries of origin. Though many immigrants worked long, difficult manual labor jobs, they were able to afford new goods in the United States that had previously been unimaginable. This is mostly due to the United States' ability to produce goods en masse, which made them cheaper. Furthermore, in Ireland and Southern Italy, land ownership had become virtually impossible (through landlords hiking rent prices in Ireland or land distribution after the Risorgimento in Italy). Even if their positions were not enviable in the United States, from a financial standpoint, their salaries and the resources available put them in a slightly better position.

[dkettchen]

Brennan: in the mountains of Luxembourg

me, from Luxembourg: *gets jumpscared*

me: mf we ain't got mountains in Luxembourg

[supercantaloupe]

What is the antisemitism in TUC season 1? Does it have to do with Wally the golem?/gen

[ID: an ask from an anonymous tumblr user that reads "would love to hear more about the antisemitism in unsleeping city! was a while ago that i watched it and can't remember what you might be referencing but definitely want to be aware of it.]

no, it's not about willy the golem -- i actually think willy is a great addition to the season (even if i wish we got to see more of him), and an indication to me that brennan/the showrunners were definitely trying to be sincere and inclusive. i want to make it clear that i don't think anything antisemitic in tuc is there intentionally; i think it's there out of simple ignorance, which is also why i think fans don't frequently see/comment on it either. but i don't think that's an excuse, either.

my grief with tuc1 is largely centered around its portrayal of robert moses as the villain. especially by making him a greedy, power-hungry lich working en league with bloodsucking vampires. (also his mini is literally a green skinned skull man in a suit. yikes.) here's the thing; i know robert moses was a real life horrible person, who actually was racist and powerhungry etc etc. and i know that robert moses, the real actual person, was jewish. my grief with tuc1 is not that they chose to use robert moses over literally any other person (real or fictional) to be their season villain (though i'd be really curious to know what tuc1 would have looked like with a different villain), but that they chose to take a real jewish person, turn them into an antisemitic caricature, and then only barely add other portrayals of judaism to balance that out.

like, tuc isn't completely devoid of other jewish representation. as you mention, there's willy the golem -- and again, i really like willy, and i love that it's a portrayal of a golem that's faithful to jewish folklore (ie as a benevolent, guardian construct rather than a mindless destructive monster. i am not a fan of how 'golem' is so frequently misused as a generic enemy creature in other fantasy and ttrpg spaces, including other seasons of d20). but as i said earlier, i wish we see more of him in the season, because he's not around very much, and feels a little more like worldbuilding than a full character to me. also, he's not human. jews are people.

the only other human jewish character in tuc1 is...stephen sondheim. which, again, yeah, that's a real person who really was jewish. but i really wouldn't blame you if you had no idea of that when watching tuc1. maybe from the name you could guess he might be jewish, but i don't think people ought to make a habit of trying to 'clock' someone being jewish by having a 'jewish-sounding' surname. as he's portrayed in tuc1, you'd never know he's jewish, unless you happen to already be pretty knowledgeable about the man in real life. it's far more likely you'll know him as a theater legend than anything else (may his memory be a blessing).

now i'm not saying that brennan or the showrunners should have played up the jewishness of Real Person Stephen Sondheim to counterbalance the depiction of robert moses; that just feels weird to me, especially considering that sondheim was literally alive when tuc1 was filmed and released. it's a tricky thing to portray real people in fiction alongside made up characters, especially when they are contemporaries, and i don't think 'outright caricature' is the way to go about that. nor do i think that moses' jewishness should have been played up at all, because again i don't think that would have been particularly true to the person/character, and also Fucking Yikes. but, c'mon, if you hear the names 'moses' and 'sondheim' next to each other, which one do you associate more with judaism?

and as it stands, these are the only representations of judaism in tuc1. one admittedly nice but very minor nonhuman character; one human character you'd never be able to tell was jewish; and a third human character who, while never explicitly referenced as jewish, plays into some really hurtful antisemitic stereotyping. and it was a choice to not include anything else. maybe not a deliberate one, probably more likely one made out of simple ignorance than anything else, but a choice nonetheless. in a city with one of the largest and most visibly jewish populations in the country, and a culture that is inextricably influenced by that jewish population. a jewish population which has been and continues the target of rising hate crimes for years. i know that nyc means different things to different people, and everyone's nyc is their own -- but my nyc is jewish, and it sucks that that its jewishness is referenced directly in only one very minor way, which is greatly overshadowed by its, in my view, really insidious indirect references.

i don't know exactly how to go about addressing this. obviously, the show can't be changed by now. even if it could, i think the final product would be very significantly different from what it is now if the villain was something/someone else. i think including more references to jews in new york, more (human) jewish characters, hell, even mentioning hanukkah celebrations and menorahs in windows (it takes place in late december, after all; depending on the year it's not at all out of place for hanukkah to coincide with xmas!) would help. having literally any more positive jewish representation in tuc1 would, i think, help balance the bad stuff that's there. because, yeah, robert moses was real and he was terrible and he was jewish. but he's one jewish guy in a city with over a million jews, the vast majority of whom are just normal people. i don't want him to be the only vision of us that people get, in tuc1 alone or in any media. i'm not saying that jews can't or shouldn't be villains in fiction; but especially if you are a goyische creator, you should be really careful in how you're portraying us, and if there are other contrasting depictions in your work, too, in order to not (even accidentally) demonize jewish people as a whole.

[willowways]

While it’s important to not let the ( suspected; not yet convicted) shooters politics overshadow what he did it’s weird how many people believe that the revolution will begin with people of color and other minorities “getting over themselves” and keeping their mouths shut about his views altogether

[the-busy-ghost]

Minor throwaway sentence in a book on corruption I've just finished was talking about 1930s gangsters and about certain organisations in Chicago which the author stated were more ethnically diverse than the Italian mafia, and whose members were said to have included 'Irish, Welsh, Italian, and Jewish' gangsters.

Now call me sheltered but I've seen MANY Italian American gangsters immortalised in film, I've heard of the Jewish mob, and the police Irish American gangs but I have yet to see a movie about the Welsh mob. As a rule I don't go in for gangster movies but I feel there's an unfilled niche here and also I need more info.

[irenespring]

I was going to make my next politics post about Project 2025 and its likelihood of trying to ban fic in the US but then I saw this and fuck it, we're talking about this right now.

Not sure whether my Jewish alarm bells or history person alarm bells are ringing louder, but this is getting really scary. This is Nazi shit. Full-tilt unabashed Nazi rhetoric. He's talking about assigning people numbers and putting them on buses in massive groups. He wants to do it with violence. With the Supreme Court the way it is right now, he could do it. He can kill people with impunity, as long as he's doing it as President. That is the current law.

If you can vote in this election, you need to vote for Harris. Whether you like her or not, she is not using Nazi rhetoric and elevating admitted Nazis (*cough* Robinson in North Carolina *cough*). She is the only one with a shot at victory.

We need to stop this man. If that means making a pragmatic move and voting for someone you detest on some issues but who is not going to assign humans serial numbers and round them up into detention camps bloodily---fucking pinch your nose and do it.

Take it from someone who has to spend a large portion of their week reading history studies...history will not remember your supposed reason for not voting. You will be remembered as a Trump supporter, because you supported Trump.

Tldr: We need to stop this man in this election. Vote for Harris.

[pokemon22551]

Please forgive my chicken scratch

[anthropwashere]

Man, I'm replaying Stormblood on a casual alt and the Lyse-Wuk Lamat comparisons absolutely SHIT on Lyse???

Like Stormblood was absolutely Lyse's Story but even at it's most egregious it didn't come anywhere near as In Your Face as Wuk's Story in Dawntrail?? Which is frickin' wild???

Like for real my biggest Stormblood Main Character Complaint is Lyse's first outfit design. Legit all I think about when she's on-screen is how unsupportive her white-ass bra is, and how likely she's dealing with wedgies with her white-ass booty shorts. Fucking for realsies, the rest of her OG outfit is great! But her "I'm 12 and unsure how to deal with puberty" undies-vibes drive me fuckin' nuts.

At least the recent graphic update saved Hien and Gosetsu's outfits? To the point that I'm probably gonna buy Hien's samurai outfit for my Xaela dude who hasn't even unlocked samurai??

Anyway outfit aside, Stormblood MSQ Lyse isn't HALF as frustrating as Dawntrail MSQ Wuk Lamat is, good christ can we stop shitting on Lyse for 5 dang minutes

[crithaus]

Happy pride to my dad who is both homophobic and so in love with Donald Trump at the same time. vent in tags

[bibleofficial]

i’m myself at home, me in public, & i runs it all

[everydaydeeds]

Day 3929 - I don't know how much words help right now - but it's something I can do, so it's worth the effort.

[wooly-nooly]

All i want to think about is sleep token and scooby doo but instead im trying not to cry because trump won and project 2025 feels more real than it shouldve ever had to and thats only gonna get worse. I hate it here.