#respectfully enjoying a culture you're connected to

[wilcze-kudly]

I need those American "I love my Polish heritage" groups executed via firing squad.

WTF DAVID (Bunia or Busia are words used fo4 grandmas this is such an easily explained misunderstanding). The soviets took much from us and apparently calling our grandmother "lips" is one of them 😔 tragic how that happens

Idk what these people expect. The cermonial pierogi? To be knighted and given land?

American poles are acting like the real Poland sunk like Atlantis a century ago and the current Poles are delusional cosplayers wtf

[indiatripadvice01]

How to Prepare For a Haridwar and Rishikesh Tour From Delhi

Introduction

Planning a trip from Delhi to the serene towns of Haridwar and Rishikesh Tour From Delhi can be an exhilarating experience. These twin towns on the banks of the Ganges are known for their spiritual ambiance, yoga retreats, and adventure activities. Whether you're seeking spiritual enlightenment, a wellness retreat, or an adrenaline rush, preparing for the journey is crucial for a seamless experience. This guide will help you plan your trip effectively, ensuring you don't miss out on the essentials.

1. Planning Your Itinerary

a. Duration of Stay:

Haridwar

1-2 days to cover key attractions like Har Ki Pauri, Mansa Devi Temple, and Chandi Devi Temple.

Rishikesh

2-3 days for places like Laxman Jhula, Ram Jhula, Triveni Ghat, and adventure activities like river rafting.

b. Best Time to Visit:

Peak Season

February to June and September to November. The weather is pleasant, and most activities are available.

Off-Season

July to September (monsoon) and December to January (winter). Monsoon offers a lush green landscape, while winters can be quite cold but less crowded.

2. How to Reach

a. By Road:

Self-Drive

The distance from Delhi to Haridwar is around 220 km, taking approximately 5-6 hours. Continue to Rishikesh, which is another 20 km.

Bus

Regular buses run from Delhi to Haridwar and Rishikesh, including luxury and state-run buses.

b. By Train:

Several trains connect Delhi to Haridwar, such as the Shatabdi Express and Jan Shatabdi Express, taking around 4-5 hours.

c. By Air:

The nearest airport is Jolly Grant Airport in Dehradun, around 35 km from Rishikesh. Flights from Delhi take about 1 hour.

3. Accommodation Options

a. In Haridwar:

Luxury

Haveli Hari Ganga, Ganga Lahari.

Mid-Range

Hotel Alaknanda, Regenta Orkos.

Budget

Hotel Ganga Sadan, Hotel Hari Heritage.

b. In Rishikesh:

Luxury

Ananda in the Himalayas, Aloha on the Ganges.

Mid-Range

Divine Resort, The Glasshouse on the Ganges.

Budget

Zostel Rishikesh, Live Free Hostel.

4. Packing Essentials

a. Clothing:

Comfortable and Modest

Given the religious significance of these towns, it's advisable to dress modestly. Light cotton clothes for summer and warm layers for winter.

Footwear

Comfortable walking shoes for exploring and sandals for temple visits.

b. Other Essentials:

Sunscreen and Sunglasses

To protect from the sun.

Reusable Water Bottle

To stay hydrated.

Personal Hygiene Products

Hand sanitizer, tissues, and wet wipes.

Medication

Any personal medications, along with a basic first-aid kit.

5. Cultural Etiquette and Safety Tips

a. Respect Local Customs:

Remove shoes before entering temples.

Avoid public displays of affection.

Participate respectfully in local rituals and ceremonies.

b. Safety:

Stay cautious of your belongings in crowded places.

Avoid wandering alone late at night.

Use only registered taxis and autos.

6. Key Attractions

a. In Haridwar:

Har Ki Pauri

Attend the evening Ganga Aarti.

Mansa Devi Temple

Accessible by cable car.

Chandi Devi Temple

A serene spot atop Neel Parvat.

b. In Rishikesh:

Laxman Jhula and Ram Jhula

Iconic suspension bridges.

Triveni Ghat

For evening aarti.

Adventure Sports

Try river rafting, bungee jumping, and trekking.

7. Food and Dining

a. Vegetarian Cuisine

Both towns primarily offer vegetarian food, with numerous options for delicious local cuisine.

Must-Try

Aloo Puri, Kachori, Chole Bhature, and local sweets like Jalebi and Ladoo.

Cafes in Rishikesh

Enjoy a meal at popular spots like Little Buddha Cafe, Ganga Beach Cafe, and Ramana’s Organic Cafe.

Conclusion

Preparing for a Haridwar and Rishikesh Tour From Delhi involves meticulous planning and an understanding of the local culture and attractions. By following this guide, you can ensure a fulfilling and enriching experience, whether you're on a spiritual quest, a wellness retreat, or an adventure-filled holiday. Pack your bags, plan your itinerary, and get ready to explore the divine beauty of Haridwar and Rishikesh.

[13urningstars]

"plots please!" (for whoever you're interested in here)

⤏ send me “plots please”

And I'll respond with  3  (or more)  interesting  plots / relationships / connections  I can think of for our muses! spinning around in circles okay so as excited as i am i don't actually have that many ideas past vague yippees my brain is doing and some of these focus on some of my muses and not cherr and ill tag their blogs respectfully. Most of these other then the last one are for your sideblog ahsdjadhjasdsorry

INTERACTION #1 : pink aliens

Purely based on that one meme you sent once on your sideblog! I think cherr and grum have a fun possible dynamic, with them both being aliens but from diffrent cultures. Their both very diffrent, and trust once cherr gets over the looking like a brain thing she would enjoy interacting with him. let them talk!

INTERACTION #2 : 2012 shenanigans

okay this one has a bunch of diffrent dynamics so ill speedrun them

@dr3amr1ft - Fiona and grum. put both the most nonchalant but also very chalant teen and the alien in the same room and see what happens. fiona while distrusting of kranggs, would if prompted make a very good attempt at making friends with grum, mostly cause shes curious about krangg stuff and donnatello is not a reliable enough source of information on said subject. will actively try not to be grossed out at his squishy ness (its the tism)

once again another fiona interaction with an alien but with bishop this time. im not saying put the out of touch alien secret agent in the same room as the teenager but maybe do that maybe she'll teach him some very legit and very real earth stuff yes yes of course mister agent Foshizzle IS the word you should be using in this scenario

@dreamjumps - Crossover moment. May i suggest the possible hilarity that would come with 2018 mikey meeting (my hc based) 2012 april? or god for bid the alternate universe version of the alternate version of his brother?? (leo? responsible? and also even more of a nerd? also also a girl???) so many posibilities

anyways i have rambled and braindumped so here are the crumbs as i go to pass out.

[solar-systr]

I very much respect that this is coming from a surprisingly nuanced place of appreciating the hegemonic racial tensions at play here! However, I still must respectfully disagree.

The thing about stuff like honorifics is...the vast majority of the time, they exist to indicate things that the English language already cover anyway, because honorifics/relative station and tone are universal concepts. Like, take an example from the OP; if a JP->EN script is localized two different ways, one calling someone Mr X, and the other calls them X-sensei, which one is more 'authentically Japanese'?

My contention is that it's a trick fucking question. Both are literally the exact same thing! Yes, 'sensei' in its literal sense conveys specific implications of a 'teacher' role, but because language is flexible and colloquial, that isn't always the correct read in context! Just like there are multiple english shorthands that don't always serve the same functions relative to a Japanese primary language perspective! 'Mr.' is 'technically' more ambiguous divorced from context, but language doesn't exist out of context! In fact, I have been given the impression that Japanese is *huge* on implied context which makes having to parse what 'Mr' means look easy.

Legitimately what, in actual context, is achieved by calling a teacher-character 'sensei' vs 'sir/maam/mr/mrs/etc' apart from being More Clearly Japanese(tm) apart from feeling very smart and cultured for enjoying something visibly not western? Like yeah, I hope you'd know that. And if you need something like that to tell you, you're either clueless enough that you were never really engaging with the topic substantially to begin with, or even if its just an honest confusion, putting in the research to be sure intrinsically makes you more seriously 'engaging' with culture than that ever will. A JP->EN translation that removes one single passing reference to Bon Matsuri or a Bon Odori but keeps all the honorifics and shit is near *infinitely* more culturally erased than one with doesnt but uses 'english' tone/hierarchy inflections. And I know this is an insultingly on the nose example binary, person who my comment is immediately after, but other less engaged people like I am need a straightforward example to better get at my point; culture is the lived experiences, norms, and values of people underpining their behaviour and connections to each other. One is that; one is linguistic trivia (at least, the vast majority of the time, because again, JP creatives are mostly not concerned with being Cultural Ambassadors(tm) as far as I know. I am open to being corrected). And I know, language and culture are interconnected and all that, but we've all experienced enough weebs to know that people sometimes *really* assume that means the things in my previous sentence are interchangeable.

Since, maybe this is just me, but I've heard the point of translation was to understand and engage with the intent/themes of the work. You aren't doing that better by making sure it's more Visibly Japanese in expressing that. Because, and this is my big thing, I'm pretty sure the creators themselves, in most cases, do not care about their work being Clearly Japanese(tm). They used Japanese language devices to convey specific ideas and effects because well, they and their primary audience are Japanese so naturally those are gonna be the expressions that make sense to them. Obviously there are sometimes specific, nuanced cases but in *general* I believe that creatives that aren't weird cranks don't really give a single shit how many -san's or -chans in adaptions of their work, as long as it seems like the people reading it get as best an experience they can! Tho, that's just my impulse as also a creative maybe; I know I'd much rather JP fans have honorifics in my works if it truly helped them grasp my concepts as opposed to snottily insisting on none because of 'purity of intent'. Because my intent with a pronoun isn't to be An English Pronoun That Is My Uniquely English Way Of Perceiving Gender, its to convey shit about someone. I assume a lot of people, Japanese or otherwise, are similar.

And yes, I already anticipate a rather reasonable followup response, which is that, naturally, translators are inherently responsible for how works of art from other cultures will be received in this culture, that's the point. The considerations of the creator needs must can't always be the considerations of the localizer. And that's very fair to point out! I merely worry about the idea that the very real desire to Own The Right or try and rally around banners in the culture war worst-faith dipshits have dragged us all into about stuff like this, has led people into potentially worrying and untenable philosophical ground about how art, foreign or otherwise, should be engaged with. Wanting to push back against the hegemonic influence of racism/white supremacy is one thing, being potentially willing to not care where your ideas/arguments logically end up at purely to be in the moral right is completely another. If you need bad logic to end up at a good position, then either the position isn't very good, or you will only be more of a credit to it by willing to get better. And I believe caring about art, culture and its respect is a good position! On a personal level even, as alluded to.

I'm just not willing to sit here and say that we're justified in engaging in shallow essentialism purely because we think we need to do so to not 'concede' things to 'the moral enemy'. I think caring overmuch about stuff like that is missing the forest for the trees in my book, even aside from all that shit.

Does potentially caring overmuch about whether honorifics are conveyed via Japanese means or not signify dubious intentions? Oh absolutely. And as for the stuff like the potential double standard the 4chan cap argued...I will not honestly claim to have a great answer! I definitely have thoughts about it being related to the nature of white hegemony, the fact that such will naturally not be received as 'fetishization' because of how racism actually works (fwiw, I do kinda think those examples can be/are bad too), the fact that the culture war became about all this stuff due to the unique nature of Japan's relationship with the West and the US in particular and how that interacted with western 'weeaboo' culture, etc.

But they are not particularly compelling or well arguable, so I will refrain from elabourating.

@ruisa-faa, if you somehow read this, i know you're definitely coming from a place that is more nuanced that what my arguments here sometimes seem to be engaging against, but I will freely admit that a lot of it is for the sake of my own space and those who might engage with me. I know for a fact that a lot of people's takes validated by your considered words will be unfortunate ones, and ones I wish to make clear I will not tolerate. Thank you for offering your opinion regardless.

im so sorry but i like it when translations keep the word sensei and keep the honorifics im so sorry

[youhavenoideahowbadiwantthis]

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SOME HORROR MOVIES

I've been a fan of horror since I was probably.....11 or 12? I haven't always been desensitized to it, but I've enjoyed it my entire life. Monsters and ghosts and murder are all fair game. I love all of it. This isn't a new revelation, but any means, and I'm far from alone, but I feel I'm losing my ability to stomach some of it. My own childhood circumstances, as well as some other events that I've experienced very recently have made it difficult for me to deal with certain themes.

SPEAK NO EVIL

I watched this movie last night, hearing good things and realizing toward the middle that it wasn't for me.

A couple with a young child goes on vacation and meets a local family, also with a young child. The vacationing family falls for the generosity and courtesy of the local family and stays with them only to see multiple instances of weird disrespect as well as child abuse. Also, the local family's child has no tongue.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

The local family kills vacationing couples and takes their children, cutting out their tongues and "adopting" them until the next one comes, then they kill that child and begin the cycle anew.

They graphically show the child getting her tongue get clipped for an unnecessarily long time. Then they take her away for the rest of the movie, make the couple strip naked and stone them to death in a ditch after telling them that this was happening because the vacationing couple "let it happen."

This movie is cruel. The overarching themes of social niceties, communication and presumption of intent, are present. The ability to respect your own interests and maintain autonomy while respectfully dissenting from someone else, is something that should be emphasized more when raising children so they are able to spot predation and know when to ask for help.

The tongue scene and the deaths at the end, as well as the fate of the child are all brutal and not my style.

A SERBIAN FILM

This will not break new ground and is far from an original opinion.

I'm not spoiling anything. If you like horror and have an internet connection, you know what it is.

The last third of the movie is tasteless as all get out. The themes don't translate to me as someone not involved in the culture that this movie apparently metaphorically represents.

The violence toward children is sickening and the deaths at the end along with the scene following the death are beyond filth.

RESURRECTION

Let me clarify before getting into the weeds: I love this movie.

Incredibly acted, incredibly convincing, incredibly sickening content. I will also preface this "review" by saying that this movie is heavily spoken word with little graphic content, and honestly the graphic content was the least of my concerns.

The movie centers on a single mother who's past abusive lover reappears in her life to mentally and emotionally torture her.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

She reveals that when she was with him he'd gaslight her and force her to do strange tasks because they "inspired" him like a muse. She'd gotten pregnant and given birth and he hated the child. She left to go to the store, came back and found a couple of severed baby fingers and he said he'd eaten the baby.

When he reappears in her life he continues to tell her that he hears the baby calling for her in his stomach and drives her insane. Eventually she cuts open his gut and may or may not find a living child inside his gut.

The gaslighting, the death of a child, the inability to properly handle grief and to have another not allow you to process it are all staggering. This movie, again, is incredible, but if you're having....regrets....don't watch it just yet.

I am more emotionally mature now than when I started ingesting horror. I am more capable of not only accepting the things that I've been exposed to through my life, but also able to contextualize what has happened and realize that those things have shaped aspects of my psyche and my personality that I'm still attempting to reign in on a daily basis through active thought and pharmaceutical assistance.

I was abused in multiple ways as a child by multiple people. I wish I had the understanding of bodily autonomy and self-respect that I have now. Instead, I'm an adult with major intimacy issues who both hates physical touch and also craves it constantly.

As a parent, I hope my child never suffers the same issues that I faced inside or outside the house. I think I've done alright so far. But I have to be consistent and patient and kind. The hill isn't getting less steep but I can't lose traction.

The novelty of r/kidsarefuckingstupid is foul. Children make mistakes. They're selfish. They're rude. Teach them. Be to them what you want them to be to others. Watching a child in danger or getting hurt or failing should make you sad. One day, that child is going to be old enough to make impactful decisions, and if they don't receive the guidance and respect they deserve as children, how are they going to know how to act thoughtfully as adults.

Sorry for the tangent. I love you.

Thank you for listening, though I'm not sure why you would.

[septembersghost]

I had a teacher in a introductory to film mentioned that in order to enjoy a film- you need to have a “suspension of disbelief” while watching it. Reaction videos of artists on social media- posted & viewed by amateurs to professionals can be fulfilling and/or lucrative to a point. As a fan consuming music or art, you get a deeper appreciation with further knowledge. A YT making the video said he enjoyed various artists’ work but in the process didn’t need to know all the personal details…

But in SM, eventually background info is shared to “understand the context” to appreciate it even more. One poster mentioned higher traffic with content from certain fanbases- so it’s deliberately chosen. Remember TS’s “Blind for love” Gucci hoodie LWYMMD reference “Love is Blind” Eros (aka Cupid) & Psych? (Sad story). Fans react strongly a negative or positive. Flaws can be damaging- ���to err is human” which is inevitable-so for a person placed on a higher plane- the fall may be “fatal.”

this is one of my favorite topics because i connect to it and find it very complex - suspension of disbelief is certainly necessary for fiction to a degree. when you're watching a group of characters traverse a magical world, or seeing people burst into song onstage, or reading a tragic romance, and so on!, you have to be able to set aside certain boundaries and logic and immerse in that world being created, which typically has its own rules and design. even when something is ostensibly set in "our" world, with recognizable features and figures and guides, there's still a blurring that happens with fiction. we're meant to suspend that to appreciate the story, and then we apply our own subjective interpretations, emotions, experiences, beliefs, to that. knowing about a writer's background can impact how one looks at a story (in positive and negative ways depending on the circumstance), but death of the author can come into play too, where one chooses to provide a meaning separate to authorial intent or background.

with something like music, this becomes more difficult, particularly when it's highly personal and/or autobiographical/diaristic. CAN you listen to any artist knowing absolutely nothing about them and still enjoy their work? absolutely! and i certainly do! but you aren't ever quite getting a whole picture, or a full expanse of what an artist is conveying. knowing details enhances the breadth of the work, and i do find that i connect more compassionately to artists who speak to me as human beings. "As a fan consuming music or art, you get a deeper appreciation with further knowledge." yes. and then you can ask, is knowing details intrusive? it's impossible to make a definitive decision on this. fans wanting to know about their favorite artists' lives and experiences is as old as art itself, and has always been an aspect of modern pop culture, most assuredly heightened and ingrained with the beginnings of hollywood and the modern music industry. it's why there's always a market for memoirs. there is so much we absorb without even intending to at times. i couldn't begin to trace how i might know a given fact about an artist because it's usually an aspect of me following along with their career - unless you disengage entirely from other media and coverage, the stories are bound to get through, and that in turn influences your perspective on what they've created. this can be very enriching - knowing the paths they've taken, the heartbreaks, the triumphs, certain loves and losses - is connective across the work, but it also makes it inextricable, since once you know...you know. it doesn't preclude us from having personal interpretations as well, these things exist simultaneously, but it does indelibly give us insight into the artists' personal experiences. i don't believe it's wrong or irresponsible to try and empathize with/understand that, or to discuss it, when it helps to humanize and bring forth meaning from the work. it can be done respectfully and using the details and truths we know from the artists themselves. it just requires a certain amount of care.

that said, social media has certainly worsened this and made it more difficult for artists to escape, and that has notable downsides. i don't believe human flaws or mistakes from someone should ever be ruinous (unless it's something actually terrible like abuses, harmful prejudices, etc, but you know what i mean). everyone is going to mess up and stumble eventually, and there's a little too much reveling in mockery sometimes rather than extensions of grace. i also feel like the pedestal is a dangerous thing, and for me personally, it's helpful and grounding to know more about the PERSON, not the idol or the icon, to feel that empathy and recognize that reality, because then the pedestal doesn't matter, it becomes a more genuine expression of connection to their work. while we still keep respectful lines in place, i do believe we can analyze, we can put pieces together, we can follow a journey and the stories being shared, we can discuss the scope of that, and we can find the human heart at the center of things, and it brings illumination and wholeness to the art itself.

[naramdil]

even though I’m not Indian, my family and I grew up with Bollywood music and movies because they lived in India until like 1990s(I was born in the states) so they listen to it all the time, at parties too lmao. They even know how to speak Hindi besides Tibetan and English. Is it weird that I love these films and songs? I’d love to talk about these movies with others but it’s weird coming from someone who looks East Asian lMAO 😐 it’s always been a self conscious thought of mine.

not weird at all honey, idt you should feel self conscious about it! 

[taltos-seidmadr]

hello! i'm a burgeoning queer norse heathen and i was wondering if you would be willing to talk about your personal view on odin, specifically his relationship to loki and their partners and children. i'm interested in working with all of them but i'm conflicted on how i feel about odin tricking and getting rid of loki's children, especially the children of angrboda since i am currently working with her. does it ever feel like, unethical to work with gods who have a bad personal history with each other? or is that an oversimplification of the gods? thanks for any thoughts!

Awww dear anon, as another queer heathen let me extend a hug (respectfully)! I'm happy you wrote. I hope that you will enjoy your newly blossoming spirituality and if you wanna talk to someone about literally anything, don't hesitate to reach out.

I think what you're asking is an extremely interesting question because it fundamentally hinges on what you think the gods exactly are, like what is a god overall and what they do, as well as what the myths actually are, and what they mean if anything? These are extremely complicated questions and depending on the underlying beliefs you can get wildly different answers from different people and even one person's belief can change over time (as mine did quite a lot). I can definitely tell you what I believe/built up from my personal experience but I don't want to convince you to think the same, I thought I would just kinda circle around the topic a little bit and maybe you can sort of use it as a springboard to discover what you want to believe.

So... I will start there, that I don't treat the myths like what you are describing, at all. I think of them as entirely man-made constructs, beautiful stories that explain how a certain culture thought the world works. That doesn't mean that they don't matter, of course, but they matter in the same way that for example a beautiful poem does, and not like scientific facts do. I still think that they can and might hold truths, but in ways that are a thousand ways more removed from reality than say, a historical account. It's not even whether they actually happened or not, it's just that like a poem, it's not really the point whether they did.

I wanna point out that if you wanna treat the surviving myths as an actual account of things that really happened, I don't want to attack that - you absolutely can - but keep in mind that that is also an "artificial" and subjective choice. There are two reasons for this. One, is that type of storytelling where the individual stories all hang on a singular, cohesive narrative thread and make up One Big Series of Ragnarök Netflix Original, either didn't exist yet (afaik) or even if it did, it can only be applied to norse myth as a creative exercise, because "norse myths" as they were, were always a collection of regional traditions that sometimes tell wildly different and occasionally conflicting accounts. The reason why this is important is because originally a version of the narrative where, say, Ódin over the course of five separate but tightly connected, linear episodes "turned evil" and "betrayed Loki's family" did not really exist. There is no linear timeline. There are only stories, loosely scattered across a landscape, in which gods sometimes appear, taking on different narrative roles. There are stories in which Ódin is the villain, and there are stories in which Loki is the villain. And there are sometimes accounts that all tell the allegedly same story but in one everything is Loki's fault and in another Loki wasn't even there.

Is this where I insert the gif? You know the one. Yeah, I think it will fit just right here.

The second point overlaps with the first a little bit, but I wanna point out a different side of the same coin. We KNOW this, for a fact, that those versions of the myths that exist today, are texts that were written by human authors (some of which we know by name), specifically for entertainment purposes, with their own unique authorial voices and intent, and the text should be understood within that context before attempting to take it at face value. This is true for all texts, generally. So it's actually less like Ragnarök Netflix Original and more like Ragnarök Extended Universe (as in like, superhero comics) full of parallel universes, retcons, and being handled by different authors who all might have had different visions of what the canon should look like.

Sorry, unfortunately I learned philology and questions like "what is the context?" "what is canon, and why is that canon?" "what does a text actually say, why that, and how is it trying to say it?" are actually SUPER interesting to me and therefore I had to make this detour. But I wanna point out one more thing, and not as a philologist, but more as a friendly fellow believer.

Like I said, treating the texts as something that literally happened is a subjective choice, and not one that I would make, but making choices like that about your beliefs is not only absolutely okay but YOUR prerogative. If someone tells you otherwise, they are either trying to control you, or take your money, or both. Dems the facts.

To stay a little bit closer to the point, my answer to this question is that to me to blame a god for something they did in the myths would be like blaming an actor for something that the character that they played committed in a movie. This would be nonsensical to me because the context is different. Which is a really simple and maybe kinda boring answer. But if you choose to treat the myths as facts, you have some really interesting questions to ask yourself, like, why is it that there are different versions of the same story? Which one do I choose to believe, and why? Are they maybe... really all factually true at the same time? How is that possible? What does that say about Aristotlean logic? Btw I personally do believe that gods come from a place where two things can be true at the same time, if that's anything!

Ok, so, you're asking about the morality of it all, which is I think an even deeper and more intriguing question. The thing is, that there was a time, when I was just a newly beginning Heathen, when I was very convinced that the gods are actually kinda like personified/conscious forces of reality (kinda like forces of nature, but more abstract) and the myths are like an approximation of the blueprint of how they interact, in an extremely metaphorical way. So at that time I was kinda like what I believe is called a "soft" polytheist except that I ALSO did believe that the gods are actual beings that you can interact with somehow, so I was more like a hard if slightly platonistic animist, if you will, without being completely aware of it. At that time, I would have told you that Loki and Ódin being "in conflict" is more like how fire and ice are "in conflict". Ya feel? That's just kinda how things are and there isn't really any morality involved.

However as time went on, I almost completely shedded this belief, and did so extremely quickly. I'm sure there's someone out there who believes the same thing right now, so I don't want to sound even a little bit dismissive, I think it's just a good example of how you don't have to set your beliefs in stone cause time will shape them regardless.

Today, with all the experience(s) behind me, I can say only one thing. I have no fucking idea what the gods really are, where they come from, and what they are doing when they are not interacting with us, if anything. But I do think that even if they are not exactly like people, they are kinda like people. Thinking, feeling persons with their own choices and preferences, and their capacity to have emotions is either like that of a human, or at least comparable to it in some kind of way. So... yeah, from my subjective point of view treating them like the Blorbos from the Ragnarök Show is a little bit reductive... but only if you are willing to take my assumption as true.

That also means that I'm absolutely sure they occasionally experience conflicts among many other things, most of which we will probably never hear about. But I will be honest, just for me, subjectively, it's hard to imagine that the gods engage in conflicts with each other that are irreparable in nature, because it's bad for PR, to put it bluntly. Like, there are so many forces in the world you could be focusing the anger on instead of infighting. It's way harder to Get Things Done (what things, I don't know, but I do believe that the gods are doing Something, influencing the way the world is going as it were) if they sow pointless discord among the few individuals (human followers) that they can count on. On the other hand, even if Ódin and Angrboda are not like, bosom buddies per se, with a little courtesy and encouragement a human who is willing to listen to Angrboda can become a person who is willing to listen to Ódin VERY easily. That's a net positive for everyone involved. Free of charge!!!!

I don't actually believe that the gods are forming like little high school factions against each other that will one day actually and physically go to war, even though the myths literally say that. I'm sure a lot of people would beg to differ, and they would not be able to convince me. In my belief, there are enormous conflicts in the world, maybe even battles, but they are somewhere completely different, and on entirely different scales.

Because I see gods as Kinda Like People, I would treat the issue of hanging out with one or the other as more or less like an interpersonal relationship, as well. Which is to say, I would ask what they think of it, and then I would think about it for myself and whether I give the gods the right to have a say in that or not. And if you believe in gods as persons you can talk to, I would urge you to do the same.

I wanna go into a hypothetical for a second, cause I feel like there is an interesting sub-question embedded into this that I have several thoughts on. Let's say that you take the myths as something that actually happened (which I think you do) and you also think of a god as a person, more or less like you and me (I don't know if this is true but I wanna assume it for the sake of the hypothetical) AND you think that "following" a god means something like "having a friendly or familial relationship with" (which I agree with, and... I think that's also what you think? I'm not sure but let's assume that too, for now.)

So let's say, that said god comes to you, and they reveal it to you as your friend that the other god was really mean to them and/or their family, and let's say you have accepted that as your personal truth. Is it unethical to hang out with said god knowing that they were in some way harmful to your friend? On a completely hypothetical level I think there is at least some sort gray area. But I wanna add two things to this. One, I personally believe that if your answer is "Sorry, I'm a human and this is god stuff and I don't want to be involved/take sides" or even "I don't want you to try and influence my relationships with other gods" it is entirely in your right to set that as a boundary. The second thing is, that the hypothetical is completely moot, because it is my personal experience AND logical conviction that gods never actually do this. If this exact thing happened to someone reading this, I'm not gonna fight that, that's your truth and I'm sure that happened for a good reason. But again, generally this is bad for PR, and also they tend to respect people's boundaries about making their own worship. If a spiritual entity comes to you and tries to control what other spiritual entities you are talking to, that is usually the exact same in the spirit world as it is in the human world. A big red flag.

I will say this. I, as a devoted Lokisperson, not only work with Ódin very frequently, but second to Ódin from his family the one I interact with the most is actually Baldr (if you can believe!) and the only conflict that has ever arisen from this was that at the very beginning Loki was a little bit upset that I assumed he could cause problems about it, which he never did, and truly, it was unfair of me to put him into such a defensive position right off the bat.

I wanna add just one more thing, that I don't really know if it will help or not but I feel like is important to add. Even if you don't believe in the myths as fact even the slightest, like me, being influenced by them on some or other level is not stupid, and in fact in a way kind of unavoidable, I think. Unfortunately it happened once that I had to say: sorry, I know this is unfair to you but the story about you just hits so incredibly close to home in a bad way that it might not ever work out between us in this whole lifetime, no matter what I do. I do think of this as a bad thing, but it is what it is, and we could discuss that and let it rest with no further conflict or issue. I don't really know in which direction the pendulum is swinging for you. But however you feel about working with these gods, is valid, and it's up to you to change it or leave it as it is.

Okay, so Ódin. I like to talk about him, because I think he is a little bit misunderstood and I fancy myself being capable of bridging over this gap, even if shoddily. I think he gets a bad rep because his followers love to talk about him as That Motherfucker(affectionate) and it makes perfect sense from an inside joke point of view but it scares potential new followers away from him as someone not to be trusted. This is really bad for many reasons but especially because he deserves way better than being (mis)represented by fascists and we could always use more people to drown them out.

You know, "tricksterness" is an extremely broad term that entails an entire kaleidoscope of different things, and trickster entities can be so different from one another depending on what aspects they tend to take to. I don't know if you have a personal connection to Loki at this moment, but if you know him, then whatever you think of him (and I can blindly say that, with certainty) you will find Ódin somewhere deep down, in the core, a little bit of the same but in the actual, practical manifestation completely different. What I personally think - and I'm not alone with this view, as far as I can tell - is that Ódin likes to perpetually do something that I could scientifically describe as a "little bit of trolling". If you pick up contact with him, it is very possible that he will purposefully challenge you and especially provoke your intellect and worldviews. Depending what kind of person you are this may seem exciting, annoying or a mixture of both. I think that the sentence "Ódin cannot be trusted" is a 10000000% true statement but more like an optical illusion cannot be trusted. In an emotional sense, he is perfectly capable of building a relationship based on trust and he does deeply care about his followers, like any god worth their salt would. It is definitely worth at least a conversation to figure out whether this is for you or not.

You did ask what I believe personally, so. In my experience Ódin and Loki are clearly very close, and I have never personally witnessed bad blood between them about anything even the slightest bit. Do they bicker, or even fight, yes of course but in the way that two people (and/or two beings who are intertwined across narratives and beyond time and space) who care about each other do. Honestly... I don't even know how to describe that but whatever they have going on makes even such a weighty thing as a narrative plot point in a thousand years old myth completely irrelevant and weightless in comparison. Wherever the story goes, they can go bigger. A book about them may say whatever, their bond is like that which holds the ink of the print to the paper. It cannot be torn apart because it's just on an entirely different level.

As for my tiny little personal perspective, they only ever encouraged me to reach out to the other, I often ask one of their opinions on my workings with the other and they are always supportive and helpful. Needless to say, I treat the myth of Ódin mistreating Loki's kids as entirely fictional, and while this does not necessarily mean that Ódin has never crossed them in any way in the history of time, I have literally never heard about it, saw them behave like that's a thing that happened, or even encountered them referencing it even one time. Somehow I never actually saw Ódin interact with any of Loki's kids but I know that Sleipnir and Ódin are in contact with each other a lot, obviously, and seem to be just fine (yes, I know this may not be the same for everyone but I do treat Sleipnir as a god in his own right). Just going off of gut feeling I would say that out of the whole bunch maybe Angrboda and Ódin are the farthest from each other emotionally, though it wouldn't veer into animosity, just in a room full of gods it's very little likely that they would be the ones to stop to talk to each other unless they had something very important to say. I must admit that I interacted with Angrboda very rarely and I really don't know her well enough to know her true opinions on anything. When we interacted, she seemed like a person who likes to keep a little respectful distance in general, but it was not even a little bit a problem to her that I was connected to Ódin.

The tl;dr of the whole thing is that I don't think that you have to be afraid of picking up contact with either of them if this is what you truly want. I don't know what they will tell you if you do. But I can't imagine they would have anything against it - as far as I know, being an Ódin and Loki follower in some or other capacity, at the same time, is actually very common.

[aeroknot]

hey! i just wanted to give you a heads up that 'inuit' is a plural word and if you're talking about a single person its 'inuk'! i saw your amazing art of ukiuk and was giddy to see a mermaid based around my culture and just wanted to let you know

thank you so much for correcting me!!!

also i’m elated to hear you enjoy her. like, i want anyone to connect with her, but i especially want her to respectfully represent or pay homage to your culture and stoke a little happiness! i’ve seen a few indigenous bloggers mention positive things but as i was saying to a sweet woman last night, i am so open to promptings and corrections like this to help me learn and do better for next time. thanks for your understanding and guidance! :)

[taeandkookie]

It's just important to remember that kpop has a different culture from western pop music culture. Just ship peacefully and don't objectify/fetishise your idols and stay in your lane and I think you are doing fantastic job as a shipper. Ship them respectfully & peacefully and with much love etc because they are still people. & if you keep it harmless and remind yourself that you'll never truly know if they are tgt, but just ship whatever love/connection they have between them, then you're good.

I am aware of the difference and I want to relay the best of what a fan can do for bangtan here on this blog. I will do my best to support all of them and I hope I can do all this while enjoying my time with taekook moments without offending any members or fans.