#Somali quotes

[beerlula-00]

Anna ubaxyo kuu keenay

Adna odaxda ii dhiibtay

I brought you flowers,

you handed me the thorns.

- Xasan Dahir Ismail ’Weedhsame’

[gennsoup]

The refugee's heart often grows an outer layer. An assimilation. It cocoons the organ. Those unable to grow the extra skin die within the first six months in a host country.

Warsan Shire, Assimilation

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Our ancestors, multiplying rapidly in their home ranges, chose not to spread in that direction; instead, little bands wandered from what is now Somalia across a land bridge to southern Arabia, and then to Iran (Figure 1.3).

"Why the West Rules – For Now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future" - Ian Morris

[axmed-omaar7]

Ahmed Omaar Somali Quotes

Ahmed Omaar Somali Quotes

[songofwizardry]

ok I'm not an expert but I'm not seeing much specific info going around here, and there's a lotta Palestine solidarity protests in the UK this weekend, so here is some (including UK-specific) protest info and resources (mostly pulled whole-cloth from Twitter)

policing is heavy at Palestine protests generally

Hamas is a proscribed org under UK law. that means "inviting support" for them or "wearing clothing or displaying articles" that implies you are a supporter is a criminal offence (if you're interested, here's the full list of criminal offences from gov.uk). Palestinian flags etc are ok*, but do not have something that could be mistaken for Hamas imagery. don't go out there looking for convictions pls.

*in spite of what Suella Braverman has implied, the London Muslim Community Forum has just confirmed that the Palestinian flag is not a proscribed flag and is not banned (apologies for quoting the "we advise the met police" group but I thought it was important to have that info explicitly)

don't talk to cops. that includes the police liasion officers in blue bibs.

particularly if you're concerned about your face ending up on social media etc, but also just good practice in general (both in terms of COVID and protest safety)—mask up. cover up tattoos etc.

have bustcards or contact details for protest legal support on you. Green and Black Cross can be contacted on 07946 541 511. write the number on your arm etc.

if you witness an arrest: check if there's a legal observer nearby and if so call them over; if not: if the arrestee doesn't have a bustcard, give them one, find out where they're being taken, and contact eg GBC or a protest support line

if you have the time and can help out, there will likely be arrestee support required after—GBC tend to post callouts on Twitter for this

other links

for particularly children and young people and their families being referred to PREVENT for pro-Palestine statements, contact PREVENTWatch and maybe also Palestine in School (newer initiative I think, I don't have an excessive amount of detail on them just FYI)

Liberty, Migrants Organise and Black Protest Legal Support have bustcards in different languages, including Arabic and Somali (also Liberty's website has lotsa useful info, including advice for disabled protesters, protesting and immigration status, and what to do if you're kettled)

GBC's thread on what to do if you see an arrest is useful, as are all their resources generally

if I've missed anything or made a mistake, lmk—as I said, I am very much not an expert. if you know people who are protesting, pass them the legal support line numbers; if you're attending, stay safe and be vigilant; and ofc carry water.

[newtscamandersbf]

harry potter takes place in britain and then theres little to no poc okayyy .. anyways heres my main poc hcs !! ^_^

pakistani james / potter family (culturally hindu) (fleamont was born & raised in britain while euphemias family is from pakistan & punjabi and she moved when she married him, her full name is euphemia yasam paracha)

⁠puerto-rican lily / evans family (not exactly white ?)

⁠pakistani-puerto rican harry (hindu, but practiced secretly @ the dursleys as theyre catholics) (bear with me)

⁠black hermione / granger family (specifically ghanaian father & somali mother, culturally muslim but not religious) (her and her parents were born in britan)

⁠mexican-irish ron / weasley family (irish weasleys & mexican prewetts, molly is a second generation immigrant and grew up around british wizardry. her parents immigrated to britain when they got married as young adults) (white but i felt like sharing this)

⁠iranian pansy / parkinson family (of iranian descent)

⁠blaise zabini is canonically black of 'italian' descent but specifically i hc him as shona (zimbabwe) of sardinian descent (both him and his mother were born in britain) (sardinia is part of italy but sardinians are a different ethnicity if youre wondering y i put 'italian' in quotes)

⁠wasian sev / snape family (british father & vietnamese mother) kay thx these r the main ones

[matan4il]

Thank you for your daily updates.

I've been seeing people discussing why/not the ICJ case is valid, but nothing on how the judges are likely to rule, a discussion that happens often when there is a big SCOTUS case.

What of their temperaments? Sure there's a Lebanese judge, that doesn't inherently make him antisemitic. Do you know if the judges are more "left" or "right?" My hopes are not high, considering they refuse to see evidence of the actual Oct 7 massacres (shame, since Hamas really wanted that broadcasted).

Hi Nonnie,

I usually try to reply to asks at the same order I got them, but I'll make an exception, because of how relevant this is to the current proceedings at the ICJ right now.

I don't think that being Muslim makes anyone inherently biased, nor do I think being Jewish means a person is free of the antisemitism of their environment, so I generally believe it's impossible for judges to be completely disconnected from what their country's position is. I believe the ICJ recognizes this as well, and that's why, a country that is suing or sued at the ICJ without having a representation among the permanent judges, has the right to appoint one. Specifically when it comes to Lebanon, I have to admit that IDK how possible it is for the Lebanese judge to ignore the fact that his country has for decades implemented an actual apartheid, a legally imposed policy of discrimination against Palestinians who live there.

Well, for this trial, we have an Israeli judge, a SA judge, and the 15 permanent judges. Here's one analysis about the 15 that I read:

American judge: had worked as a legal advisor to the administrations of Clinton and Obama, believes the scope of international law is limited (so she's less likely to grant SA a provisional measure that's a legal precedent).

Russian judge: advises Russia on two legal matters (regarding Georgia, and Kosovo), believes the scope of international law should be wider, has voted against demanding of Russia to stop the military operation in Ukraine, and has published independently his opinion that the ICJ has no right to judge the Russia-Ukraine conflict, because Russia didn't recognize its authority on this. Has visited Israel in 2015 for an international space conference, and together with 2 other ICJ judges, has conducted a "trial" regarding space law.

Slovak judge: sees the scope of international law as narrower, in the past he indicated that he thinks the crime of committing a genocide can't be decided in this court (that it should be in a criminal one), he has also said that quotes uttered in "the heat of battle" (the kind at the basis of SA's lawsuit) are not indicative of policy intent, they're just war propaganda. Has visited Israel in 2015 for an international space conference, and together with 2 other ICJ judges, has conducted a "trial" regarding space law.

French judge: Jewish, considered critical of Israel. In the past, while arguing against Israel, he has also said that the conflict here is political by nature and that the involvement of the ICJ in it is unhelpful to dialogue between the parties.

Moroccan judge: in the past, his decisions included non-legal considerations (for example, he said he's not sure Ukraine's move against Russia fits the convention on the prevention of genocide, but he still was in favor of granting Ukraine the provisional measures it was asking for). He was also a minority vote in the matter of whether the Serbs committed a genocide against the Bosnian Muslims, where the majority determined that the conditions to define it as such were not met.

Somali judge: there are no past indications of how he might rule from an international law perspective. He's Muslim, but in the past he has joined an Iftar dinner at the home of the Israeli ambassador at the Hague, and has also once opened a Holocaust Day lecture for the ICJ.

Chinese judge: has worked for her government in the past. She has voted against the provisional measures Ukraine has asked for against Russia, saying that it seems like an attempt to use the convention in order to get the ICJ to decide in broader political matters than the convention allows for. She has also argued against provisional measures that only demand one side would stop the fighting.

Ugandan judge: has worked for her government in the past. There are no past indications of how she might rule from an international law perspective.

Indian judge: tends towards an expanded view of what is discrimination. Has visited Israel in 2015 for an international space conference, and together with 2 other ICJ judges, has conducted a "trial" regarding space law.

Jamaican judge: has worked for his government in the past. Has voted against Russia when it came to the provisional measures demanding it stops its fighting against Ukraine.

Lebanese judge: has expressed anti-Israel views in the past, and has also repeatedly shown that he takes his country's position into account in his decisions. Has argued in the past that in situations of military occupation, the burden of proof is very low, or that the burden of proof should be on the occupier.

German judge: in the past, he has published his opposition to an Israeli law professor's article, arguing that a wider view is required when it comes to the right to self defense.

Japanese judge: in the past, he has published an article that sees the right of third party countries to appear before the ICJ (as is SA in this case) as limited.

Australian judge: very active in the field of women and gender rights. In the past, she has criticized ICJ rulings that allowed the coalition forces a lot of freedom in Iraq.

Brazilian judge: in the past, he has referred to the PLO as a terrorist organization (at the time about which he was writing), but he did the same regarding the Jewish underground movement, the Hagana (which worked to protect Jews, and to smuggle them "illegally" into the Land of Israel to save them from the Nazis during WWII).

According to one legal correspondent that I listened to, SA has asked for so many provisional measures, that the ICJ is unlikely to turn them all down. This reporter believes that the ICJ will likely not grant the provisional measure calling on Israel to stop the fighting, but it will probably grant at least two other provisional measures. She had a bet which two, the provisional measure calling on more humanitarian aid to be brought into Gaza (if true, this would be so redundant. One of the points made at the ICJ proceedings, was that Israel has agreed to allow in as much humanitarian aid as could be taken in on the Gazan side, and was willing to expand its operations on the Israeli side for this to happen. In other words, what's currently limiting the amount of aid going in is the capacity to handle it on the Gazan, not Israeli, side), and to collect evidence regarding the fighting in Gaza (which Israel is already doing).

I hope this helped! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[bastardtrait]

10 random fax about me

i'm stealing this from @papermint-airplane because the yappening is from midnight to midnight baby. please feel free to do this if you see this and you're bored.

i've had some form a tumblr account since 2010. 14 years ago!! dude i was 15 omfg ew! i've seen entire empires rise and fall, do not quote the scripture to me witch etc.

i can speak a few languages (english, tagalog, japanese, some fr*nch) but i can understand better if i'm reading. i also know how to read a few languages idk how to speak, such as korean, greek, and anything written with cyrillic.

tumblr and instagram are the only social media i spend any time on. i haven't had twitter since it was bought by apartheid clyde. i have a reddit account but i actively avoid it unless i need advice from some reddit sage from 7-10 years ago, otherwise it's a hate-filled echo chamber inside a septic tank.

i LOVE karaoke (i will never escape the filipino allegations). if u invite me to karaoke i will literally rise out of a deep cryogenic sleep to fuck up some hozier i swear to god n jesus.

my spotify is a churning mess. my current daylist is called "pink pilates princess shojo evening", filled with: noise, energetic, fresh, sticky (????!!!!). tell me why xg, chungha, megan thee stallion, and babymetal are on this bitch together.

i drink an exorbitant amount of water a day. i drink between 4-5 litres on a normal day.

my favourite alcoholic drink is a gin and tonic with citrus juice. any citrus, but lime is chefs kiss and grapefruit is bitter in a good way.

i love to cook and bake! you guys already knew that though. i firmly believe that if you have a good understanding of a wide range of techniques, you can make anything you want without needing a recipe. just feel it in your heart n soul.

my top 5 cuisines in the world are thai, mexican and korean tied for 2nd, chinese-filipino, indian, and somali. i love FLAVOUR baby!!! and spice. i just love spice.

my favourite movies are horror movies. me and my one friend pretty much exclusively go out to watch new horror releases. the last one we saw was longlegs. i kind of hated it.

[estellaestella]

Why does Arrakis have another name? And why is that (native) name the title of the book?

So DUNE (novel)'s wiki page cites a quote where Frank Herbert said he chose the title DUNE because it sounds like "Doom", you know , in line with the ecological message of the books.

In addition, I would like to suggest that DUNE is yet another word that he borrows from Arabic, as with so many other references throughout the saga. Just as FREMEN is a worn down version of FREE MEN I believe DUNE is a time eroded version of DUNIYA. According to Google Translate DUNIYA means world in Arabic, Turkish, Corsican, Swahili, Somali, Twi, Zulu, Hausa, Sanskrit, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, and Yiddish. (I might hv found more instances if I kept on looking.) It seems like a good fit as the Fremen language is full of words with Arabic roots.

Given that Dune is the lesser known name of the planet, it would also make sense to call the novel DUNE if it meant world to Frank. Unless the word DUNE made a big statement (like announcing he's about to give you a whole new world) it makes no sense for Frank to unnecessarily complicate things by giving Arrakis a second name.

Sidenote: the Fremen who initially landed on Arrakis (thousands? of years before the first novel starts) were technicians, scientists, mathematicians, etc who were fleeing the oppression of a slaver- scientist. They couldnt go back to the planet they were captured from and had to make Arrakis their new homeworld out of necessity. In light of that, calling this place their DUNIYA makes sense.

Postscript: there is another layer to the word DUNIYA in that it also refers to the transient nature of the world we live in. In Arabic, it can mean this world as much as it can mean this temporary world. And the original Fremen had initially thought that they would find a way to go back to their home planet and that Arrakis would be a temporary home. So yeah, DUNIYA makes sense in that way too.

Share your thoughts, please!

[talonslockau]

Curious why you chose to have Princess join as compared to the books?

So, this partially goes back to chapter 20 of Fire and Ice (where Firepaw first meets Princess), partially Chapter 7 of Forest of Secrets (where Princess reveals her pregnancy to Fireheart), and it's going to cover the implications of things said in those chapters specifically. So, fair warning if you don't want to read further: this discusses in depth the concept of animal husbandry from the perspective of humans and the animals themselves. Trigger Warning: Dubious Consent, Pregnancy, Abortion, Depression, Implied Animal Abuse

When we first meet Princess in Chapter 20, she's 7.5 moons old (the same age as Firepaw), give or take a moon or so given that we don't actually know for sure that Rusty was actually 6 moons old when he joined. They're both bright-eyed young cats for whom the world can be anything, and I think at this point their personalities are pretty similar. Granted, Rusty's encounter with Graypaw ended in a brief fight, while Princess simply ran off back to her housefolk: however, Rusty was also going to run until he realized Graypaw was gaining on him, whereas Firepaw didn't bother chasing Princess until he realized she was his sister.

We even see that Princess loves the idea of the forest! Quote from Chapter 20:

"Living in the forest all the time… that must be nice." [Firepaw] perked his ears, unable to ignore the wistful tone in [Princess'] voice.

She wants to be in the forest as much as him! So why doesn't she? Again, quote from Chapter 20:

"I wish I could. I love being in the forest, and I'd like to get to know you better. I really would." [Princess] admitted, brushing her tail against [Firepaw's] paw. "But my housefolk… she needs me. She's alone in her nest all day, until her mate comes home, and sometimes she just sits and stares at nothing all day when I'm not around. She needs me to keep her functioning." The tawny molly looked away with a heavy sigh. "I'm not sure what she would do if I just left."

I think a lot of people overlooked this dialogue - maybe because it was early in the series, maybe because it wasn't that important (in the grand scheme of things), maybe because they didn't understand what it was getting at. This is one of those things I left implicit, both because cats don't really understand how humans think and because it's one of those things that would definitely dampen the relatively light-hearted mood of Fire and Ice at that point. However, since we're getting into the nitty-gritty here, I'll explain what this means and why it's an ample part of Princess' reasoning - enough that she wouldn't follow her heart to get to know her brother and live in the forest.

Princess' female human has severe depression. It's not entirely clear whether or not her human is treated for it or not, but it doesn't particularly matter. She and her 'mate' (again, a cat's way of looking at them) had heard of emotional support animals to help combat depression and decided to contact a local Somali Cat breeder at the behest of their neighbor after asking around about kittens. Their neighbor would have been one of Rusty's owners, who told them that the breeder currently had five kittens and they were looking at picking one out. This is how Princess and Rusty ended up being so close geographically, even though their siblings and mother aren't!

Princess can sense that her human has depression, even if she doesn't fully understand what that means. And she does indeed help support her human! She makes sure that her human eats food at a regular time, does the laundry when it's needed, and she's there to cuddle with her on her worst days. She's needed, so she can't leave to fulfill her heart's wishes. Instead, Princess lives vicariously through her brother's tales of the forest, and telling all her friends about her strong wild cat brother.

In canon, Princess is scared of the wild cats. She doesn't understand why her brother left his housefolk. She can't handle the sight of Brightheart, because she's just too soft as a kittypet. Hell, when we meet her for the first time, she's already pregnant! Her sole reason for being is to give Cloudkit to Fireheart, so that he can have a relative in the Clans.

Given that she's Fireheart's sister, and therefore his equal (more or less), this has always read to me as misogyny from the Hunters. Why can't Princess join to be his relative in the Clans? Sure, it could be to give him a replacement apprentice, not just a relative, but back then kits just kind of showed up out of the ether. There's no reason he couldn't have been Fernkit or Ashkit's mentor, or some other sudden apprentice! She could have even been his apprentice if she joined, and he taught her how to be a wild cat (bonding moments)! But no; the only female relative of Fireheart's we see in the first series is pregnant, serving solely as a mother to his Clan relative, too scared/soft for the wild, and then just disappears after the first arc.

I wanted to show that she is his equal in my canon, and that means that she wants to be wild just as badly as him. She would be, if she didn't have someone that was already reliant on her as an ESA. Instead she remains; but she's still not soft, or scared of the forest. She loves seeing Fireheart, she worries for him, she even wants to learn battle moves from him in Chapter 47! Every time she's portrayed as soft, it's because Fireheart is handling her too gently; because he's trying to protect her from his own imagined fears. Whenever she reacts negatively, it's always to things that Clan cats themselves react negatively to (such as Spottedleaf dying, or the kits getting stolen).

Now that we've covered her character in Fire and Ice, it's time to get to how I've been developing her in Forest of Secrets. Obviously, the first chapter we see her in is Chapter 7, and it's not great. Her long fur is ungroomed; her tail is low, and she doesn't respond very much to Fireheart's prompting. She is deeply upset and clearly in her own head. We find out this is because she was bred with a cat she didn't know, and she didn't entirely want to do it, but did so out of fear of making her owners mad.

At this point, she is about 12 moons old, again give or take a couple of moons. I want to state that this is young. I know how early a cat's puberty can begin, and it's much earlier than this, but these are sapient cats and as such that doesn't really apply. Still, even by living cat standards, this is young; responsible breeders state that a cat should never be bred before their first year, and it should ideally wait until they are 18 months or two years old.

(This is made even worse in canon, because she's actually 10 moons at this point. Seriously, Erins, what the hell?)

From her point of view, her housefolk have betrayed her. She loved them and cared for them, but she wasn't enough for them. All they see her for is a potential baby factory, not for the value of their bond on its own. She thought they loved her for her, and now she's wondering if they love her at all. Will they love her kits at all? How can they, when they don't even seem to love her?

Also to be clear, her humans are definitely in the wrong here. This is made even clearer when we think about who Princess was bred with, Oliver. He's mentioned to be a white tom, but... there's no white in the Somali Cat breed standard. The only crossbreed allowed by the standard is to Abyssinians, and those also don't allow white. Her kits won't be able to be registered Somalis, even if they meet all the other classifications (they won't). This means that they were breeding her just for the sake of breeding her, which is a huge no-no.

I come from rescue circles, so I'll admit that the idea of willingly breeding cats is foreign to me anyways. There's so many cats out there that need good homes besides purebreds! I can't even begin to fathom why Princess' humans bred her; maybe the female wanted something to do all day and thought taking care of kittens would be good? I don't know. Regardless, they bred her to the first tom with papers whose owner would accept the cash and not question anything else. In my head, Oliver is probably a Turkish Angora, though that's not terribly relevant to this conversation.

Getting back to Princess: Even though Yellowfang and Dewpaw and all her friends did their best to comfort her, at the end of the day she was still home with her housefolk day in and day out. The more she helped her, the angrier she became. Despite all the love she'd given her, her housefolk had still forced Princess to carry kits for her own amusement. She would likely make Princess' kits carry kits for her own amusement - and that, more than anything, scared Princess to her core. She didn't want anyone else to go through what she did. Especially not the kits growing inside her, which despite it all she was growing to love. (This is also why she turned down the opportunity for an abortion from Yellowfang - even though she hated how she had gotten pregnant, she loved the idea of her own kits.)

Then she thought of her brother, Fireheart. She thought of how she'd first met him, and how he'd offered to let her join his Clan. That made her angrier, too. She should've accepted his offer. She should never have stayed with housefolk that didn't care about her. Then she wondered; why couldn't she join him now? The wild was dangerous, though; wouldn't it be safer for her kits to stay with housefolk?

But the more she thought about it, the more that she wondered how the Clans could survive out in the wild if it wasn't mostly safe. After all, Fireheart mentioned kits and queens all the time! She resolved to learn more about the nursery when he came back. And she did just that, as we see during his visit in Chapter 20. Quote again:

“Really?” [Princess] was leaning into [Fireheart] now, as though she needed to hear every word he said as soon as it left his lips. “How does one become a nursery queen, then?”

"Maybe it’s nice, in the nursery.” Princess whispered softly, so much that for a heartbeat [Fireheart] thought she was talking to herself. “What do you think?” She asked him, speaking louder now.

“Do you think the queens are happy in the nursery?” [Princess] wondered out loud, looking over her shoulder into the forest for a brief moment before gazing back at [Fireheart].

[Princess]: “That’s lovely to hear. And the kits, do they like it in the nursery?”

For most of the conversation, she's probing him for what it's like in the Clan; how queens are treated, how kits fare. It's subtle - subtle enough that Fireheart barely catches onto it - but she's already imagining her own life in Thunderclan. She's not sure whether she wants to be a warrior anymore, but she does want to join - and being a nursery queen sounds like the perfect role for her. She loves her kits now, and she loves the idea of getting to care for many kits, even if they aren't her own.

Princess makes up her mind sometime over the next half-moon, and resolves to ask him to let her join when Fireheart comes back. But he doesn't, too involved with Graystripe and Tigerclaw to think about his sister. As her belly grows even larger, her housefolk starts closing the catflap; just at night, usually, but sometimes throughout the day as well. It's only through Princess' desperate begging to see her friend in the garden that her housefolk relents, and that's the final straw for her to leave instead of waiting for Fireheart like he ordered. She doesn't tell Fireheart about this because she's afraid he'll order her back to her housefolk for her own safety, or the Clan's safety. She won't tell anyone until after the kits are born (and it will take place off-screen regardless), but it will be enough to cement her decision as the 'right' one in the eyes of the Clan.

Sorry for going so long - I wanted to point out moments that have led up to this that I've laced throughout the series thus far, as well as explain my own rationale behind the development of Princess. Had she been adopted by different humans, similar to Rusty's, I think we would be seeing her become a warrior right now. Still, I wanted to keep the story sort of in line with canon - having her be his 'kittypet sister' for a while, until I needed to diverge from canon with how I handled Cloudkit. Thanks as always for the question, I could rant about just about anything in this series for ages ^^

[beerlula-00]

Maahmaah - Proverb

Afku wuxu la xoog yahay magliga xawda kaa jara.

“The tongue is equivalent to the dagger that takes away life itself”

- Salaan Carrabay

@ig Qudhac_

[gennsoup]

I'll rewrite this whole life and this time there'll be so much love, you won't be able to see beyond it.

Warsan Shire, Backwards

[libraford]

gods as someone that was raised in several churches (mom minister so I got all the shitty behind the scenes drama starting at like 4yo and never really believed beyond general agnostic-ish feelings. which apparently is a super common trend for pastor/minister kids to nope tf out of the church asap) the 'forcing you to be The Right Christian™ Or You Don't Deserve™™ Charity' thing hits hard. especially when I psych myself out of asking for help because I'm constantly remembering how openly hostile some of those places are to even poor christian people using their services.

like one particular church (the "open and affirming" one that threw the only trans woman out of the 20 person congregation because the old white guy treasurer learned she was trans after like 8 years and suddenly didn't want to look at her, or "worse", hear her sing) had a monthly meal for the (very poor neighborhood) community. they'd make everyone pray to God for 20 minutes before letting anyone touch even a slice of bread, but lock them out of the sanctuary during church hours because they were, I wish I was joking and that this wasn't a direct quote, "dirty homeless looters". you had to pray correctly to get food but don't you dare sully the churches doorstep trying to attend worship. meanwhile the church people organizing it are going off about how dare these people be standing in line for food instead of attending church as Real Good Christians Should.

🙃

That's fucking frightening and unfortunately I have my own similar stories.

Tw for racism, homophobia, anti-Muslim, and just... really bad stereotypes.

One of the reasons I started walking away from the church (there's a couple reasons) was at our summer mission trip (yes, I know.) In previous years, we had kept local: deep cleaning the homeless shelter, renovating the local Latino advocacy building, soup kitchen stuff. But one of the (more wealthy) girls in our group wanted to try doing a mission abroad.

Best we could do is Toronto.

We signed up with a shelter there and they gave us some tasks. The shelter REALLY played up how bad it was in this part of town- the gang violence, the culture of sin, the regressive way the men treat women in their home country.

So like... I'm from America. I've been to Chicago. Not to compare but like... hmm..

So during the introduction to how terrible it is in Toronto (...?) Our ambassador takes us through parts of town to show us what it's like to be homeless there. It was a very somber thing. We were given a small amount of money and we were to pretend it was all we had. Try to survive on a few coins.

We take our tour. Remember that this is supposed to scare us.

She takes us to an area where we hear drums. We hide behind a building. "You hear those drums? This is a homeless village. Young people come here seeking community, but you will be turned away if you cannot provide a service for them. They will only use your body for so long."

So... I'd been to drum circles before. And this was very much a drum circle. Like sure these people were a little crunchy, but it was pretty clear to me that these guys were just cutting loose after the day of work.

She takes us to the red light district.

"This is the red light district," she says. "This is where all the homosexuals come. You see that there are many young people here who are attracted to the high life. But you will see: the older men will always come looking for the younger one's to manipulate and that's how many homeless people become prostitutes."

I, a half-in-half-out of the closet lesbian, for the first time in my life, saw two happy gay men arm in arm and it was moving for me. I saw people having a good time. I'd already figured out she was full of shit. Now I was mad.

So we get back to the church we're staying at and I'm already having second thoughts about this visit to Canada. She tells us that our mission this week is to tutor some Somali kids in English and math.

... I feel... oncoming dread.

They didn't give us a lesson,plan or anything. Were supposed to just help them learn where they're stuck in their lessons. And then on Friday we'll have a trip to the museum of science and industry.

I was the only one in our group that had ever encountered a Muslim to know that Friday was their holy day. And that was when I realized that it was a conversion tactic. I asked her about it like... 'is Friday really a good time to do that?' And she was like 'well, it's the last day you'll be here and we want to celebrate don't we?'

And I was livid, but I was in a different country with a bunch of people who believed this woman's lies. And I didn't say anything to my friends because I was already kind of an outcast there, no one was going to believe me.

So I held my tongue, but from then on I lost a lot of respect for Christian-run charities and even now I'll always be looking for their angle.

[blimbo-buddy]

Leafpool

sexuality headcanon

Bisexual, she is the Bisexual warrior cat, not FireStar, not Jake. LeafPool.

gender/pronouns headcanon

He/She, Cis Girl, Butch. Although I really like Transfem LeafPool, it sweeps

rate them out of ten

9.5/10: If it weren't for that fucking trial scene it'd be a perfect 10/10

favorite thing about them

Her relationship with her sister, her themes, her entire fucking arc, so much I could list off. Also her beef with BrambleStar is just -chef's kiss- brilliant

least favorite thing about them

Didn't like that "JayFeather you're blind" scene, she would not fucking say that

why i first started liking/disliking them

It just sorta happened, I liked her but she wasn't one of my favorites until now

do i relate/project onto/kin them?

No

favorite quote/moment

"Be brave, my little son. I will always walk beside you, I promise."

my fav ship

I mean. MothPool is pretty alright. Fandom's version of it though made me feel less great about it though. S'alright

my fav platonic friendship

Her and Cody's friendship, genuinely amazing even if considered short-lived

a ship i hate

LeafCody. That is her mother figure, dumbass

do i prefer canon or fanon?

Mix of both honestly

random headcanon

Constantly fatigued/burnt out LeafPool, anybody?

what color do i picture them as

A slightly darker brown with just a little bit of red, just a tad bit

cat breed headcanon

Somali LeafPool sweeps

unpopular opinion

LeafPool is more Transfem than MothWing could ever even DREAM to be

things i associate with them

Fallen angel, an old flask filled with strong whiskey, dead leaves

song i associate with them

Skinwretch can give better LeafPool songs than be honestly

favorite MAP/PMV/AMV with them

-shrugs- No clue I'm sorry

[nnasstuff]

Wth

The presidential election is happening right now in Finland

And we have a thing called "youth elections" where we teens get to vote and see which one we would have chosen

And the fucking Jussi Hullu-Aho came on second

The guy who compared teens to domestic animals

The guy who thinks there's exactly two genders

The guy who wrote extremely racist and questionable things on his blogs some years ago (in 2000s or so) and tbh never took responsibility of what he said (direct quote: "Prophet Muhammad was a pedophile, and Islam is a religion that sanctifies pedophilia, i.e. a pedophile religion." And "Robbing passers-bys and parasitizing with tax funds is a national, perhaps downright genetic characteristic of Somalis.") (Sorry for bad translation)

The guy who thinks racism isn't a problem in finland

The guy who thinks that it's too easy to live in finland with government subsidies/social security even though finland has repeatedly gotten criticism from the EU because the level of the basic security is so low

And a fifth of the teens who voted, voted for that guy

What the actual fuck