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bestworstcase · 2 years

Note

something that has been on my mind recently. So Eugene is taken from the dark kingdom as a baby but he grows up in Corona. So how the heck did he get all the way from the dark kingdom and why did the maid/wet nurse decide on corona. Like I wish we had more insight into baby Eugene.

wellll ok. so. timeline,

A horse-drawn wagon can travel approximately 10-30 miles per day, depending on terrain. We’ll split the difference and assume that team corona averages 20 miles per day. They’re also following the roads, so all distances estimated here are by-road, and distances as the crow flies will be shorter.

They leave Corona at the end of S1. For discussion purposes we’ll keep track of both total days and traveling days, so: this is Day 0, and Traveling Day 0.

Beyond the Corona Walls establishes that Vardaros is one week from corona by wagon. So, they arrive in Vardaros on Day 7 and Traveling Day 7, they have traveled about 140 miles.

The events of BTCW last two days (7-8). Return of Quaid takes place over the course of the next four (9-12), and Goodbye and Goodwill the two following that (13-14). When they leave Vardaros, they’re headed east with the sun behind them, indicating that it’s the evening after the gopher grab—so, evening of Day 14, Traveling Day 8.

There’s no hard time references in Forest of No Return to give us an idea of how long it’s been since they left Vardaros, but it doesn’t seem to have been especially long, and thanks to KOTS/RTTS we know that 1. the Forest of No Return is somewhere in between Corona and the Spire, and 2. the Spire is about half a day’s journey from Corona by powered balloon, which I would guess has an average ground speed of maybe 30mph. So, assuming a six-hour flight in RTTS, we can estimate that the Spire is around 180 miles from Corona as the crow flies. The terrain in that region is pretty gnarly, so we’ll double that and round up and say the distance by road from Corona to the Spire is about 400 miles. That puts Vardaros about one third of the way to the Spire, making the distance from Vardaros to the Spire about 260 miles and the Forest of No Return somewhere in the middle of that.

Let’s assume the Forest is at the southeastern tip of Kresten Loch, as is vaguely implied by the map in RTTS. That would put it closer to the Spire than to Vardaros, so we’ll say the Forest is roughly two-thirds of the way there and put it at 160 miles from Vardaros by road. That would make the beginning of FONR Day 22 and Travel Day 15.

FONR begins on D22/TD15. They lose the caravan that same day and camp in the woods for the night, make it out of the forest in the evening of D23/TD16. They lose quite a bit of time in the forest on account of the shifting geography and basically cross the thing twice on foot, so we’ll call it 10 miles total. End of D23/TD16, they’ve traveled about 310 miles from Corona.

We’ll skip over Freebird and Vigor the Visionary; both of them occur between the Forest and the Spire, which we’ve estimated to be a distance of about 90 miles by road, and both episodes make a point of noting that Team Corona is not traveling at an especially rigorous pace; so let’s assume that they’re averaging about 10 miles per day during this leg of the trip, and say they get to the base of the Spire nine days after escaping the Forest.

That puts the beginning of Keeper of the Spire at D32/TD25, about one month and four hundred miles after their departure from Corona. Keeper of the Spire lasts from the afternoon of D32 to the night of D33.

The map in Rapunzel’s Return is definitely not to scale, but it implies that the distance from the Spire to the Coast is about half the distance from the Spire to the Forest. Assuming that map was sketched by someone in the caravan, I think we can take the relative distances of things as more of an indication of travel time than actual distance, and therefore conclude that they reached the coast in about half the time it took them to get from the Forest to the Spire. If they resumed their normal pace of 20 miles per day after leaving the Spire, that would make the approximate distance to the coast about 90 miles. Let’s round that up to 100 for a nice even five days of travel.

So, they reach the coast on D38, TD 30. They’re approximately 500 miles away from Corona by road, less as the crow flies. They spend an unknown amount of time converting the caravan into a boat—let’s say a week, so they set sail D45/TD31. Let’s be very generous and assume the caravan-boat can sail at a speed of about 3 knots, just a little under 4 miles per hour, for an average of about 80 miles per day.

When King Pascal begins, they’re far enough out to sea for the entire horizon to be water but have not been sailing long enough for their terrible caravan-boat to get its ass kicked yet. I figure they set sail in the morning of D45/TD31 and KP begins at noon (the shadow of the flying seagull at the beginning is directly below) of the same day. Thus, they’re about 24 miles from the coast when the storm hits.

They wash up on the shore of Terapi Island, which is close enough to the mainland for that coast to be visible from the beach—about 4-5 miles assuming the curvature of the planet is similar to that of the earth. It’s noted that they’ll be stranded on Terapi until the next new moon, and Happiness Is takes place during the full moon. It’s strongly implied that they missed the ferry that arrived after Happiness is and had to wait for the next one—Lance states that they’ve been on the island for six weeks at the beginning of Peril on the High Seas.

So, PotHS begins at dusk. The sun is setting to the west, in in what appears to be the direction of the bit of visible coastline that can be seen from Terapi. This suggests that the storm in King Pascal blew them backwards, and Terapi is within four or five miles off the east coast of Corona’s continent. This is congruous with the relative distances shown in the Rapunzel’s Return map.

That puts them about 505 miles away from Corona when they leave the island on D87, TD32. PotHS takes place that night, and they appear to continue sailing through that night and all of the following day (at least): when they arrive on the eastern coast, the sun is on the horizon to the west again. We’ll assume that we only skipped one day, which puts the end of PotHS in the evening of D88, TD33. A regular sailing ship will travel at about 4-5 knots which’d make this twenty-four hour journey approximately 200 miles in length. They are 705 miles from Corona now.

The next episode is Curses!, which revolves around Lombard’s Pass. In the Rapunzel’s Return map, Lombard’s Pass is drawn immediately on the coast, but the terrain shown in the episode is emphatically not coastal. Applying the same standard we used to guess the approximate distance from the Spire to the coast based on this map, let’s assume that Lombard’s Pass was a journey of three days from the coast and that they rushed a bit to try to make up for lost time, averaging the maximum possible 30 miles per day. That makes Curses begin on D90/TD35, 795 miles from Corona.

Curses is another two-day episode, ending late in the afternoon on D91/D36.

Eye of Pincosta picks up apparently quite some ways from Lombard’s Pass: they’ve passed through at least one town (Zulberg) and traveled far enough from there to be running low on supplies again, so there was probably a bit of a time skip here. This section of the story seems to take place in a relatively populous region, with a lot of towns and roadside inns; I think we can assume that they’re not stopping to resupply in every single town they come through, so their need to stop in Pincosta isn’t necessarily suggestive of there being a huge distance between it and Zulberg. We’ll call it a month, at their usual pace of 20 miles per day. That’s about 600 miles, and puts EOP’s beginning at D120/TD65, 1,395 miles from Corona.

EOP lasts for three days; they leave Pincosta on D123, TD66.

Rapunzel and the Great Tree gives us an approximate temporal reference of “after being cramped in that caravan for the last few months.” I think—given the relatively dense population in the Pincosta region and the likelihood of the Great Tree itself being very remote—we can take this to mean the last few months since the end of Peril on the High Seas, NOT since they left Corona. If we interpret “a few” to mean three, which seems reasonable, then it has been about two months since they left Pincosta. We’ll round up to get a nice number and say RATGT begins on D185, TD128; and again, using their usual 20 miles per day pace, that’s 1,240 miles from Pincosta and 2,635 from Corona.

They camp in the Great Tree on D186. RATGT ends at dawn on D187, TD130, and from there they travel on foot for the next few episodes. At this point they have minimal supplies and will need to scavenge for food, are in unfamiliar wilderness, and one of them is seriously injured, so they’re not going to be making especially good time. Let’s use 8 miles per day as our average.

It’s unclear how much time elapses between RATGT and Brothers Hook, but 1. it’s long enough for all of them to be sick of each other, and 2. for squabbling over their scant supplies to have become commonplace, but 3. not long enough for the unspoken tension between Cass and Rapunzel to boil to the surface. Let’s say the episode picks up a week after RATGT, so they’ve walked 56 miles, and it’s D194/TD137.

West Ipsil is stated to be three days from their current location on foot at their usual pace. At Rapunzel’s behest, they walk at “twice their usual pace”, without stopping to eat, drink, or sleep, and manage to arrive in West Ipsil by the evening of the following day. Using 8 miles per day as our estimated average, that would mean they walked for 24 miles with minimal breaks—which would be completely exhausting, but IS physically plausible. (For the sake of comparison, a marathon is 26.2 miles.)

So, they make it to West Ipsil in the evening of D195/TD138, where they meet up with Hook Hand. The following morning they depart West Ipsil in Hook Hand’s wagon, heading for Trevor Jr.’s wedding. [SIDEBAR: while it’s true that TTS geography is…malleable, the people who complain about the nebulous geography by pointing to Brothers Hook are WRONG Trevor Jr.’s wedding is EXPLICITLY STATED to be a destination wedding. Brothers Hook DOES NOT TAKE PLACE IN EQUIS]. It’s a big wagon, so it’s probably slower than the Team Corona wagon; plus it’s unlikely that Hook would’ve played a concert too far away from the wedding venue, so let’s estimate that they travel 10 miles with him. The wedding occurs on D196/TD139, and they presumably continue their journey on foot the next day, D197/TD140. They’ve traveled 90 miles since leaving the Great Tree, and a total of 2,725 miles from Corona.

Again, Rapunzel: Day One lacks any temporal references that would tell us how long they’ve been traveling since TBH. It’s long enough that Cassandra has begun to retrain her injured hand, and for Rapunzel to have become frustrated with Cass’s attitude. They’ve also, I think, gotten down to the foothills of the mountains where the Tree was and found the caravan washed up on the river bank. 2-3 weeks since TBH seems reasonable to me—let’s be generous and say two. That puts the beginning of RDO at D211/TD154, 2,837 miles from Corona.

RDO lasts for about three days, during which they repair the caravan. Thus the episode ends on D214, TD154.

At this point they resume the caravan pace of 20 miles per day. It’s not clear how many days pass between the end of RDO and Mirror Mirror, but I don’t think it would be much more than a few days: at the end of RDO they’d just gotten out of the mountains, and the HOYT seems to still be in the foothills. Let’s say three days, 60 miles. So, the HOYT arc begins D217/TD157, 2,897 miles from Corona.

Mirror Mirror lasts for one night. You’re Kidding Me begins the following morning (D218) and is over by that afternoon. Rapunzeltopia occurs at night, possibly the night of D218, and is over by dawn (D219/TD158).

Lost and Found opens with Team Corona a single day’s travel from the border of the Dark Kingdom; they’ve also been on the road long enough for Eugene to fall for the birthday prank for a second. I generally put this one about 8 months after departure from Corona, and if we go with that that puts LAF about 20 days after they escape the HOYT, so D239/TD178 and another 400 miles, for a total of 3,297 miles from Corona.

Destinies Collide begins the following day (D240/TD179), at border of the Dark Kingdom itself. They’re traveling fast when the episode begins, so let’s say they’ve been going for about 10 miles—putting the exact border of the DK approximately 3,307 miles from Corona.

From that point, the dark fortress is clearly visible at the horizon. Depending on the relative altitude of the bordering cliffs vs the fortress, it’s probably somewhere between 5 and 10 miles from the border.

The caravan rolls off a cliff at the border and they proceed on foot, arriving at the fortress around nightfall, so I figure it’s closer to 5 than 10. Let’s say 6ish. That makes the capital of the Dark Kingdom approximately 3,312 miles, by road, from the capital of Corona. It took Team Corona a total of eight months to get there, or about six if we exclude delays from being stranded or otherwise not traveling. Most of that was in a heavy horse-drawn wagon, though they spent about a month altogether traveling on foot and there is an approximately two hundred mile wide sea between the Coronan and Dark Kingdom continents (so the overland part of the journey is only 3,112-ish miles).

To put that into perspective, the continental United States are about 2,800 miles across from easternmost to westernmost point as the crow flies, but a journey of about 3,550 miles by road. And, as a point of comparison, the Oregon Trail was about 2,200 miles and generally took about 6-7 months, so even with their significant delays Team Corona made pretty decent time, overall averaging—according to my estimates—about 14 miles traveled per day.

Their return journey, by unpowered balloon, is much faster. How fast is a little unclear. However, the record speed for a hot air balloon is 245 miles per hour, and while the Coronan balloon wouldn’t have gotten anywhere close to that—they’re far too heavy—if they had favorable winds they could’ve gone at a pretty fair clip. They also have the advantage of traveling as the crow flies, which I’d estimate could knock as many as 1000 miles off the journey given that they traveled through not one but two mountain ranges en route to the DK. So, let’s say their return flight is about 2,312 miles.

Rapunzel’s Return appears to end at or near Rapunzel’s birthday, if the lanterns are any indication, which would put the return journey around three months and their daily average about 25 miles traveled per day, which seems very reasonable for a heavy westward-traveling balloon.

Edmund arrives in Corona, having traveled alone on horseback from the Dark Kingdom, in the next episode. There’s not a hard temporal reference here, but Corona has been fully repaired from the damage done during the Separatist regime and Rapunzel has settled into her role as acting Queen, so some amount of time has certainly past.

At a DRIVING PACE, a well-conditioned horse can travel at a rate of 50 miles per day, but this is very grueling and not sustainable over very long periods of time. It’s likely that Edmund would have been traveling somewhere closer to 30 or so miles per day. Assuming he caught a boat across the sea, he had 3,112 miles to cover on horseback. It’s likely that he left for Corona within a few days of Team Corona’s departure, so he would have been traveling while they did. Traveling at 30 miles per day on horseback, Edmund’s journey from the Dark Kingdom to Corona would have lasted approximately three and a half months, putting his arrival at the beginning of Return of the King somewhere between two and three weeks after the end of Rapunzel’s Return.

That seems like a reasonable amount of time for all the trash and grime that built up during the Separatist regime to get cleaned up and for Rapunzel to hit her stride as acting queen, and the math all works out pretty logically without requiring any ludicrous fast traveling. Loosely, these numbers also square with the Captain being able to make it all the way to the Demanitus Labyrinth and then back to Terapi Island on (presumably) horseback based on the very rough timeline we have of Events in Corona:

If we assume that Ulf’s journey to the Dark Kingdom, by balloon, also took about three months, then that puts the Saporian coup loosely between EOP and RATGT. The Captain would have left around the same time to search for Rapunzel, slowly retracing the caravan’s path. We know that Cassandra continues to hang around the Labyrinth region for quite some time while she struggles to regain control of the moonstone’s power, and that the events of Be Very Afraid evidently convince her (or Zhan Tiri) that she needs extra help in the form of the incantations in the Great Tree. It’s not clear exactly when the Captain’s flashback in Islands Apart occurs in relation to BVA and Cassandra’s arrival at the Great Tree in IA, but my thinking is that the flashback actually happens AFTER Beginnings but BEFORE Be Very Afraid—in Beginnings, Cassandra is still east of the Labyrinth, kicking around the ruined caravan. Assuming she’s been gradually drifting westward since getting the moonstone, she would have been within a day’s walk of the labyrinth at that point, and the IA flashback confrontation would give fuel to her wavering conviction and anxiety at the beginning of BVA.

So, all of that gives the Captain somewhere around 6-7 months to make it to the Labyrinth, where he comes face to face with Cassandra and is briefly trapped—super plausible for a man on horseback searching for someone whose location he doesn’t know. From there, he would have to travel about 2,592 miles to get back to the coast, whereupon he could hop a ferry and be on Terapi in a day. Riding fast—at a rate of 40 miles per day—he could cover that distance in a little over two months. He spends an unknown number of days digging for the wishing well’s coin, then makes his wish eight days before Rapunzel and Eugene arrive on the island. (By powered balloon, using previous estimate of 30 mph, they could have traveled the 250-or-so miles as the crow flies to Terapi from Corona in about eight hours. This tracks with their midday departure and arrival late in the night.)

All of this would put Island Apart ROUGHLY eight or nine months after the Saporian takeover, five or six months after Destinies Collide, and two or three months after the end of Rapunzel’s Return; and Cassandra’s Return would have to be—if we assume that after Islands Apart Cass booked it to Corona by walking at the very brisk pace of 20 miles per day and again hopped a boat across the sea—another four or so months later. Making the entire first half of S3, from the time of Rapunzel’s arrival in Corona to the midseason, about six or seven months.

…ANYWAY I’M DRIFTING AWAY FROM THE ACTUAL POINT OF ALL THIS WHICH IS TO SAY:

it’s not actually that far from the DK to corona. a significant distance for sure, but one that can be traveled on horseback in 3-4 months with relative ease if you’ve got the money for supplies. weather does not seem to be a problem and given chameleons live in corona we’re probably looking at a fairly low latitude, without much seasonal variation, and the dark kingdom seems to be only a little further north. so bad winters are clearly not a significant issue when making this journey.

it makes sense to me to assume that the residents of the dark kingdom would have wanted to get the fuck away from the black rocks, hence going as far as they possibly could from the dark kingdom, hence a lot of them likely ultimately ended up on the west coast—either in the lombard region, or for the ones who really wanted to get away, sailing across that sea to settle on the west coast in the corona/equis region.

i’ll bet that eugene’s wet nurse was acting on orders from edmund to get his infant son AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE, because ultimately what edmund wanted was to save his son from being trapped as the moonstone’s guardian. assuming there’s not another continent somewhere far to the west of corona (or at least, none discovered), corona is quite literally as far as it’s possible to get from the dark kingdom, and thus the last possible stop for anyone fleeing the dark kingdom.

personally, though? i figure she didn’t quite make it. eugene didn’t grow up in corona—he grew up in vardaros, just 140 or so miles from corona. (the series is a bit murky on this but recall that eugene in the film is clearly familiar with but not from corona, and that eugene in the series was a teenager when he was engaged to stalyan in vardaros, hence likely grew up there.) and… well, while the journey from the dark kingdom is certainly doable for anyone with a horse and enough money for supplies, and the wet nurse of a prince would certainly have had both of those things, there’s still a lot of things that can go wrong when you’re fleeing across a whole continent and i think the most logical explanation for how eugene ended up in an orphanage in vardaros with a different name from the one his parents gave him is that the woman who was tasked with taking care of him died. (or, given that it happened in or near vardaros, got murdered lmao). and then he just became a foundling child and taken to an orphanage.

( not in bitter snow, though. basically with bitter snow eugene the plan was for him to be raised by the three most trusted knights of the brotherhood—quirin, adira, hector—and that uh. WENT AWRY. because they had a very nasty falling out and parted ways, and the baby prince ended up in care of adira "i cannot take care of this toddler i need to find the sundrop" sólyom, who promptly changed his name and dumped her two year old prince in an orphanage like Good Luck Kiddo ghskdfhg )

( has adira made the eugene fitzherbert = prince liron connection yet no because she's the WORST at names, doesn't know eugene's name, and has forgotten what fake name she gave the baby. )

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skinnyxsin · 3 years

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skinnyXsin❦

Active ED blog December 2021

IF YOU ARE RECOVERING FROM AN EATING DISORDER, PLEASE DO NOT INTERACT!

IF YOU ARE LOOKING TO REPORT MY ACCOUNT, PLEASE JUST BLOCK!

MY ASKS AND MESSAGES ARE OPEN ❤︎

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He / Him

My Stats ;

(I’m roughly 5’ 3”)

Current Weight ; 95 lbs

Start Weight ; 140 lbs

Highest Weight; 160 lbs

Lowest Weight ; 95 lbs

Goal Weight 1 ; 110 lbs ✔︎

Goal Weight 2 ; 100 lbs ✔︎

Goal Weight 3 ; 80 lbs

Ultimate Goal Weight ; 69 lbs

Safe Space for;

❦ Anyone who is NOT in recovery

❦ LGBTQ+ (INCLUDING my xenogender friends! Your pronouns WILL be respected and you ARE VALID

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omniversalobservations · 3 years

Video

youtube

Dragons Size Comparison (2021)

After this spring gave us a fairly nebulous answer as to whether everyone’s favorite giant movie lizard could beat the living shit out of the world’s most famous giant movie monkey, we’ve been hungry for precise data that would sidestep artistic considerations to properly rank the fictional monsters once and for all. While the only recent, scientifically sound rankings we’ve seen to date deal with outdated 2D charts and kaiju scat, a new video from 3D animator Álvaro Gracia Montoya has gathered evidence of a bunch of pop culture dragons’ sizes in order to start us on a path toward objective proof of which fantastical beast can crush another.

Using a boatload of research presented in the YouTube video’s show notes, Montoya has created 3D models of many dragons from film, TV, and video games. They’re all presented as simple, clay-like gray models, making it easier to appreciate the scale of the beasts, and are shown hanging out in a background that occasionally presents a tree, house, truck, or human being in order to drive home the massive size of the monsters at hand.

The video starts off with relatively small dragons, like the 3.6-meter Elliott from Pete’s Dragon or the somehow shrimpy 8-meter Bahamut from Final Fantasy VII. Before long, though, we’re panning around an approximately 100-meter-tall Dragon God from Demon’s Souls and the 140-meter-long menace of The Hobbit’s Smaug.

The information presented here is invaluable. Not only do we now know exactly how big a Charizard is when set next to a suburban home, but we also have solid evidence that Toho’s King Ghidorah, a nearly 160-meter tall brick shithouse, could crush Drogon from Game Of Thrones (roughly 50-meters long) into pulp with ease. If science is meant to clarify long-standing mysteries and help us more confidently understand the nature of the world we inhabit, then this video deserves a Nobel prize.

Source: The AV Club

#unofficial #The Dragon Prince #Mulan #My Little Pony #Pokemon #American Dragon: Jake Long #Quest for Camelot #Spirited Away #Pete's Dragon #How to Train Your Dragon #Final Fantasy #Eragon #Dragon Age #DragonHeart #Dragonriders of Pern #The Elder Scrolls #Harry Potter #Minecraft #Sleeping Beauty #Fairy Tail #Last Airbender #Monster Hunter #Shrek #God of War #Dark Souls #Dragon's Dogma #Game of Thrones #Reign of Fire #Ultraman #Subnautica #Lord of the Rings #Warcraft #Super Mario Bros #Legend of Zelda #Dragon Wars: D-War #Godzilla #Dragon Hunters #One Piece #Dragon Ball Z #Guild Wars #League of Legends

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raijinswaifu · 3 years

Text

Hecate, Mistress of Magic

Pantheon: Greek Class: Mage Preferred Roles: Mid, Jungle

Passive- Library of Secrets: Hecate has access to a secret library that contains answers to the many mysteries of the universe. Hecate has a unique passive icon that contains a small book which she can upgrade through the item store. The upgraded versions of her book stay within the passive icon and do not take up an item slot.

Arcane Notes (Tier 1) Gold Cost: 0 30 Power 50 Mana

Book of Shadows (Tier 2) Gold Cost: 750 55 Power 100 Mana 15 MP5

Maiden’s Script (Tier 3) Gold Cost: 1900 Passive: Whenever an allied god is in the area of one of Hecate’s abilities they are healed for 30% of the damage it would deal. 90 Power 10% Lifesteal 250 Mana 20 MP5

Mother’s Diary (Tier 3) Gold Cost: 1900 Passive: If Hecate or an allied god within 70 units is reduced to 40% health or lower, Hecate is imbued with maternal rage. While powered by this rage, Hecate gains 20 of each protections and 55 additional magical power. This effect lasts for 5 seconds. 70 Power 30 Physical Protections 30 Magical Protections 200 Health 200 Mana 15 MP5

Tome of The Crone (Tier 3) Gold Cost: 1900 Passive: If Hecate witnesses an enemy god cast an ability within 80 units a blue flame ignites and dances around her. Each flame grants 8 magical power and Hecate can have up to ten flames at a time. If Hecate does not have enough mana to cast an ability she may expend one of her flames to cast an ability. 100 Power 300 Mana 20 MP5

Ability 1- Graveyard Embers: A dance of blue flames ignites within an area of Hecate’s choosing. The area deals damage over time to all within the area. Every enemy killed while being damaged by this ability reduces the active cooldown by 1 second.

Damage: 70/85/100/115/130 (+30% Magical Power) every .5 seconds Area Duration: 3 seconds Cooldown: 14 seconds

Ability 2- Arcane Bolt/Shadow Flourish: Arcane Bolt: Hecate fires a bolt of pure arcane energy that damages and roots all enemies in it’s path. The bolt persists for 5 seconds in it’s landing area but does not deal damage or root while in this state. For the next 5 seconds after casting Arcane Bolt, this ability becomes Shadow Flourish.

Shadow Flourish: Hecate teleports to the landing area of Arcane Bolt dealing damage and knocking up all enemies within the radius around her.

Arcane Bolt Damage: 80/120/160/200/240 (+70% Magical Power) Root: 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 seconds Shadow Flourish Damage: 80/110/140/170/200 (+60% Magical Power) Cooldown: 15 seconds

Ability 3- Rune of Warding: Hecate places down a rune on either herself, allied god or onto an area of her choice. If placed on herself or an allied god, they gain a health shield that explodes when it expires. If placed on the ground it becomes invisible until an enemy god steps over it which causes the rune to explode, dealing damage and blinding the god.

Shield Health: 100/150/200/250/300 Shield Explosion Damage: 100/140/180/220/260 (+75% Magical Power) Rune Damage: 100/160/220/280/340 (+80% Magical Power) Blind: 2 seconds Cooldown: 18 seconds

Ultimate- Arcane Punishment: Hecate leaps into the air becoming cc immune and gaining damage mitigation and ensnaring all nearby enemy gods with arcane chains that deals initial damage and damage at the end of the chain’s duration. If a god afflicted with a chain casts an ability they take additional damage. The chains also stun enemy gods on the final instance of damage.

Initial and Final Damage: 150/175/200/225/250 (+55% Magical Power) per hit Additional Damage per cast: 100/130/160/190/220 (+30% Magical Power) Damage Mitigation: 20/25/30/35/40% Chain Duration: 5 seconds Cooldown: 90 seconds

Notes:

- For those curious using Hel as an example. Hecate’s ultimate deals roughly 2040 (+320% Magical Power) if Hel uses 7 abilities while afflicted with a chain.

-Hecate serves as an anti-mage without the use of silences. With Tome of The Crone, she easily can maintain staying in combat even on low mana and gains power if she isn’t. Her ultimate also heavily punishes teams that rely on constant ability casting. Her movement and control options make her a possible jungler and able to easily gank mages especially those who can’t handle her movement and lock down.

- Like most mages, Hecate benefits from high cooldown reduction and power. Her longer cooldowns put emphasis on this. Rod of Tahuti while not a cooldown item does indirectly reduce the cooldown of her 1 by increasing damage on low health targets increasing the likelihood of the ability’s cooldown being reduced.

- Hecate’s passive is a reference to her three aspects commonly seen in mythology and acts as a “seventh” item slot but is exclusive to the unique items granted by her passive. Each serving a different purpose.

- Maiden’s Script aids the more supportive Hecate who wants to provide for her team as well as shut down the enemy. It also provides her with a little more sustain. The healing applied by Maiden’s Script is affected by items like other sources of healing. So lotus crown, rod of asclepius and caduceus shield do benefit her healing.

- Mother’s Diary lends to a more bruiser focus on Hecate giving her a berserk esque effect. Jungler Hecates who want to go protector of the jungle may see value in this particular item when it comes to sustained fights in the jungle.

- Tome of The Crone meanwhile is the most power centric of the three item choices and lends itself to the most traditional of mage items. While the base stats are less stellar than the other two, the passive makes up for it. This is the item that cements Hecate in her anti mage role. With a high mana and cooldown build, this style of Hecate can persist in fights much longer than her competition.

#smite #smite game #smite fan concept #hecate #smite hecate

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askwhatsforlunch · 4 years

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Havrekakor (Swedish Oat Biscuits)

I’ve always wanted to bake Havrekakor (Swedish Oat Biscuits), and I don’t know why it took me so because they’re incredibly easy to make. I followed this recipe (i svenska!), and all it takes is four ingredients, a quarter of an hour, and you’re in for a tasty fika!

Ingredients (makes 20 biscuits):

140 grams/5 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature

85 grams/3 ounces caster sugar

160 grams/5.65 ounces rolled oats

80 grams/2.80 ounces plain flour

Preheat oven to 180°C/°F.

In a large bowl, cream softened butter with caster sugar with a wooden spoon, until smooth, pale yellow and fluffy.

In a smaller bowl, combine rolled oats and flour; give a good stir.

Gradually stir oat and flour mixture into creamed butter and sugar, until a ball forms, and no spec of flour remains. Divide dough into 20 roughly equal pieces, and roll each into a ball. Flatten each dough ball gently with your fingers, and place onto prepared baking tray, spacing them apart.

Then, press each biscuit with a fork, to further flatten. Place in the middle of the oven, and bake, at 180°C/°F, for 12 to 15 minutes, until a nice golden brown colour. Remove from the oven, and let cool completely.

Enjoy Havrekakor with a cup of coffee or tea!

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resinrosebjdexpo · 4 years

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Hello everyone! We're excited to announce our 2020-2021 exclusive bjd! To fit with our theme of Fairy Tales we've asked this adorable little frog fellow to join us! Mr. Frog will be available for pre-order from May 10th until July 10th. His body is being pro cast by @harucasting in unique forest green and his wings are being glitter printed in resin by @syntheticephemera who also sculpted him. Each frog will ooak wings with a unique glitter resin. Mr. Frog sits 8cm tall with his wings and is roughly 14.5cm around. His head, wings and front arms are jointed. For 2020 ticket holders he will be $140 + shipping or can be picked up at the 2021 show. For non ticket holders he is $160 + shipping. You can see more information, pictures and details about ordering him on resinrosebjd.com #bjd #abjd #balljointeddolls #balljointeddoll #bjdpet #petbjd #frog #bjdfrog #resinrose2020 #resinrosebjdexpo #resinrose2021 #mr.frog https://www.instagram.com/p/CABfZ86Jcc9/?igshid=1xu9tk9pxpwge

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englishworldkurukshetra-blog · 4 years

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ESSENTIAL TIPS, STRATEGIES. GRAMMAR,SPELLINGS AND VOCABULARY TO SCORE 125+ IN THE DUOLINGO ENGLISH TEST

What is the Duolingo English Test?

The Duolingo English Test is an online English language examination that you take on your personal computer from the comforts of your home. Like the PTE, TOEFL and IELTS, it tests all four language skills: Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing. However, you’ll find these skills tested in pretty revolutionary ways!

The test is adaptive which means, it has some significant consequences for test-takers. If you answer a question correctly, the next one gets harder. If your answer is wrong, the next one gets easier. This means that with relatively a few questions, the exam can pinpoint your ability level quickly—that’s why it only takes around an hour to complete.

Why should you take the Duolingo English Test?

Duolingo is primarily being accepted in Canada and the U.S. for undergraduate admissions. Moreover, Duolingo could be a good option for you if you don’t do well in traditional English exams like PTE, TOEFL or IELTS. The format is completely different, and maybe easier for you.

How is the Duolingo English Test different from the IELTS/PTE/TOEFL?

Though all the tests can be computer-based, there are many differences between the Duolingo exam and the IELTS/PTE/TOEFL. Those differences go far beyond the location, timing, and price!The first thing you’ll notice is that Duolingo test items look different from traditional test items. There aren’t long texts to read, listen to, or write about. Most of the items on the Duolingo exam are relatively brief; Besides, IELTS/PTE/TOEFL divides question type by section (Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing), while Duolingo blends all questions into a single exam. You may encounter a reading question followed by a writing question. This can require the test takers to think on their feet and change the gears pretty quickly.

How long is the test?

Somewhere between 55 and 60 minutes; however, to some extent, it depends on your English level. Since the test is adaptive, a proficient test-taker can finish the test in a shorter period.

How should you prepare for the Duolingo English Test?

It’s tricky to prepare for the Duolingo exam as it measures everything from how natural your intonation is to your ability to accurately describe a photo you’ve never seen before! However, there are a few things you can do to ensure you’re ready to take it. The best thing you can do for your score on the Duolingo exam is to work on your overall English proficiency using high-level materials including this reference and practice book. Further, you should read well-written articles, listen to podcasts in English, understand the rules of grammar, learn new words, get acquainted with spellings of typical words and have as many conversations as you can with English speakers.

Since the Duolingo English test presents you with unusual item types, it’s really important to take the short (8-10-minutes) practice test on the Duolingo official website. The sample test is a great opportunity to understand how the test interface works.

Understand the rules

The rules include not wearing earphones, not interacting with anyone else, not using your phone or other devices, and not looking off-screen. It is important to follow these rules during the test, or you will need to take it again. Since you take the Duolingo English Test online from your computer, you will have to make sure that you have everything you need to avoid encountering any tribulation while taking the test. Ultimately you must have:

· A government-issued photo ID

· A quiet, well-lit room

· About one hour of uninterrupted time

· A computer equipped with a front-facing camera

· An internet connection and a compatible browser

Duolingo has some stringent rules in place to make sure that you’re the one taking the test—without any additional help.

You’ll be required to be alone and nobody else can be in the room with you or speak to you during the exam. You can’t turn away from the browser window for the length of the test (it may be helpful to go into the full-screen mode to prevent this!). You have to show your ears for the entire test, so get an elastic band ready if your hair is long. There are other guidelines to follow, so make sure you read them through before sitting for the exam.

What may be most difficult for those used to other exams is that you can’t take any notes. Since the exam questions are relatively short, you don’t need to take notes during it. However, if you’re a life-long note-taker, this can be a hard habit to break! This is another area where taking the practice test can get you ready for the full experience.

What happens after you take the Duolingo English Test?

After you complete the exam, it’s sent to the proctors, and you’ll receive an email letting you know when you’ll get your scores (48 hours). When your scores are ready, you’ll get another email notifying you, though you’ll also be able to check into your home page on the site to check.

You can take two “certified” tests within 30 days. A certified test is any test you complete and receive a score on. In other words, if you have technical glitches during the exam, it won’t count against the two-test limit. Scores are then valid for two years.

Once your scores are in, you can send them to institutions right from the results page. There’s no limit to how many reports you can send.

Is the Duolingo English proficiency test right for you?

If you’re applying to colleges in Canada or the U.S. which accept it - it could be a good choice; however, you should check in advance with the university or college to which you want to apply, whether it accepts it or not as a proof of your English level requirements.

How is the test scored?

Once the exam is over, you’ll receive a score from 10-160. This is a holistic score, not broken down by section. Top programs may require a score above 120, but requirements differ, so check with each school/college/university. You can also see how your score on Duolingo roughly correlates to IELTS scores.

Duolingo IELTS

75-80 5

85-90 5.5

95-100 6

105-110 6.5

115-120 7

125-130 7.5

130-140 8

145-150 8.5

155-160 9

What does the test Involve?

You’ll see a variety of test items on Duolingo in formats that may be entirely new to you. The test includes:

· Typing a statement that you hear

· Completing missing letters from a text

· Listening to spoken words and selecting the real ones

· Reviewing written words and selecting the real ones

· Describing an image in writing or aloud

· Recording yourself saying a written sentence

· Verbally answering a spoken question

· Responding in writing to a written question in 50 words

In addition to the above items, Duolingo includes a “video interview” section of the exam, in which you speak for 1-3 minutes on a topic you choose (they offer two), and write on a chosen topic out of two topics for 3-5 minutes. These two activities are ungraded, but go along with your test results to universities/colleges—which can be a great addition to your application!

#keep reading and supporting

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creepingsharia · 5 years

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They Are ‘Infidels and No Good!’: Muslim Persecution of Christians, March 2019

“a Christian living in a majority Muslim country is 143 times more likely to be killed by a Muslim for being a Christian than a Muslim is likely to be killed by a non-Muslim in a Western country for being what he is.”

by Raymond Ibrahim

When it comes to violence between Muslims and non-Muslims, March news was dominated by the Christchurch, New Zealand massacres, where an Australian man killed 51 Muslims in two mosques on March 15. However, to place matters in perspective, a statistical report did some number crunching and found that “a Christian living in a majority Muslim country is 143 times more likely to be killed by a Muslim for being a Christian than a Muslim is likely to be killed by a non-Muslim in a Western country for being what he is.” Although the report refers to the persecution of Christians by Muslims as “the most egregious example of human right violations in today’s world”—citing the fact that “at least 4,305 Christians … were murdered by Muslims because of their faith in 2018” and that “300 million Christians, overwhelmingly in the majority-Muslim countries, were subjected to violence”—it found other, similar disparities. For example, based on precedent and in one country alone, France, “Frenchmen are exactly ten times more likely to be murdered by a Muslim than a Muslim being killed by a non-Muslim terrorist anywhere in the Western world.”

The following report, which documents the widespread persecution of Christians in the month of March alone, further confirms these disparities:

The Massacre of Christians

Nigeria: As in previous months, dozens of Christians were massacred and churches destroyed at the hands of Muslims in the West Africa nation. A partial list follows:

On March 4, Muslims slaughtered 23 Christian villagers. “It was bad,” said a local in reference to the incident. “Some were killed by gunshots and some by machete hacks!… The displaced persons are scattered all over…”

Three days later, the Muslim terrorists launched another raid in the same area; three people were killed. Commenting on that attack, a local pastor said, “Even today, they attacked. One of my members came to report that his father was killed, and another member said his son-in-law was also killed.”

On March 11 Muslim tribesmen slaughtered over 70 Christians and injured 28 in another region in Kaduna State. According to eyewitnesses, the terrorists were “torching houses, shooting and hacking down anything that moved.” About 100 houses were destroyed in the attack. Another report notes that “[t]he victims included women and children. According to survivors, their assailants divided into three groups; one group was shooting, another set fire to homes as people ran away, and the third waited in the bush to intercept fleeing villagers.”

On March 16, Muslim herdsmen killed another 10 Christians in southern Kaduna state, “bringing the lives lost in the past five weeks to 140 with 160 houses destroyed” said the report. “We were all asleep in our various homes when at about 4 a.m., we heard gunshots everywhere in my village,” explained a local Christian. “Everyone ran out of their homes to escape from the Fulani herdsmen. Three hours after the herdsmen left, those of us who survived the attack returned to the village to find that [30 of] our houses were destroyed and 10 of our villagers killed.”

On March 14, Boko Harem jihadis attacked another predominantly Christian village; although most people managed to flee into the bush, they killed one person, kidnapped two sisters, and burned down a church and six homes. A church leader said the local pastor had called him soon after the raid: “I could hear desperation in his voice, just coming out of the bush. His voice sounded completely demoralized as he was saying only God… We don’t know what else to do! There’s no security presence here.” The church leader further “regrets that these attacks are rarely reported on by the local media anymore. As a result, their people continue to suffer in silence, with minimal help from others.”

On March 23, right after “beating, raping and killing a 19-year-old Christian woman,” Muslims attacked two predominantly Christian villages, and burned down 28 Christian homes and two churches. Joy Danlami and her younger sister and brother, 16 and 14 respectively, were ambushed while walking home from a Christian community feast; the two younger siblings survived with machete and gunshot wounds. According to their father, “The armed herdsmen chased them with dangerous weapons. Joy’s nose and face was battered, and then she was sexually assaulted by the herdsmen before being killed. She was shot.”

After finding the slaughtered body of a kidnapped Catholic priest who had been abducted two weeks earlier, two other church leaders were also kidnapped on March 25. One of the men, the Rev. Emmanuel Haruna of the Evangelical Church Winning All, was seized at gunpoint outside his church. Earlier, in 2016 he had spoken out against Muslim tribesmen raids on Christian communities: “Fulani herdsmen take their cattle to farms of our church members and destroy their crops, and security agents have not been able to take measures to stop them.” The report adds that “It is estimated by the United Nations Centre for Peace and Disarmament that of the 500 million illegal weapons that flooded into West Africa after the Libyan crisis in 2011, 350 million (70%) ended up in Nigeria, supplying the predominantly Muslim herders with added teeth in their campaign against Christian farmers.”

On Sunday, March 10, “Boko Haram Suicide bombers tried to enter a Catholic Church service,” says a report:

The two bombers, who were women, tried to enter the church through a clinic before being stopped, and then detonating the bombs a short distance outside the church. Despite the two bombs going off, only one person other than the bombers was reportedly injured….. It is very likely that the two bombers were captives of Boko Haram who were forced to commit this attack. Boko Haram is known for kidnapping women and children and forcing them to act as suicide bombers for their attacks. In 2017, between January and August, UNICEF reported on at least 83 children having been used by the group as suicide bombers.

Democratic Republic of Congo: “Islamic militants,” notes a report, “attacked the dominantly Christian village of Kalau in the North Kivu province.” Six Christians, including three women and a 9-year-old child, were slaughtered. The rest of the villagers, “an estimated 470 families evacuated their homes following the incident.” The terrorists are part of the Allied Democratic Forces, “a group that was designed to overthrow the Ugandan government in the 90’s and replace it with an Islamic regime. The group has been known for associating with other terrorist groups such as al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda. They are responsible for thousands of deaths…”

Attacks on Churches

Ethiopia: In a rampage that lasted five hours, large Muslim mobs shouting “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is greater) attacked ten churches, “destroying one and burning the property inside all the structures,” says a report. The attacks, which were apparently sparked by a false rumor that a local mosque had been attacked, occurred in “a predominantly Muslim town with nearly all Christians there having moved from surrounding villages for work reasons, creating an underlying tension.” Several Christians were injured and required hospital treatment. One of the desecrated churches has since been vandalized again, and its Christians threatened and harassed. Although only one church was destroyed during the rampage, “the other nine church buildings were not set ablaze only because of the risk to neighboring Muslim-owned properties,” says the report. Instead, “[t]he contents of all the churches were removed from the buildings and set on fire on the street…. Huge amounts of property were destroyed, including Bibles, song books, instruments, benches and chairs.”

The report incorrectly refers to these attacks as “unprecedented.” For example, last year, 19 churches were torched—and 15 Christian priests killed, four burned alive—during Muslim uprisings in the east, where most of Ethiopia’s 33 percent Muslim population is centered. Similarly, in 2011, after a Christian was accused of desecrating a Koran, “Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.”

Sudan: A report by the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART), a UK based NGO, found that 72 churches were either torched or demolished in the Nuba Mountains region in 2018. Elaborating on these developments, a separate report notes that the “Nuba Mountains is home to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North,” which is “fighting the oppression of the Sudanese National government.”

Due to this, the Sudanese government has been committing genocide against the people living in the Nuba Mountains for years. They indiscriminately bomb the region, trying to clear it of the rebel army. However, they often just kill and maim the local civilian population who has nothing to do with the fight. They also destroy homes and churches in the attacks. The people living in the Nuba Mountains are primarily traditional believers or Christians. This also contributes to the attacks, as Bashir, the countries president, believes that the country is only for Muslims ever since South Sudan gained its independence.

Sudan is considered the sixth worst nation in the world to be Christian in.

Germany: Four separate churches were vandalized and/or torched in March. “In this country,” the report explained, “there is a creeping war against everything that symbolizes Christianity…. Crosses are broken, altars smashed, Bibles set on fire, baptismal fonts overturned, and the church doors smeared with Islamic expressions like ‘Allahu Akbar.’” In the Alps and Bavaria alone, around 200 churches were attacked and many crosses broken: “Police are currently dealing with church desecrations again and again. The perpetrators are often youthful rioters with a migration background.”

France: On Sunday, March 17, arsonists torched the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris soon after midday mass. Such incidences have become endemic in France, where two churches are desecrated every day on average. In the previous month, February, vandals plundered and used human excrement to draw a cross on the Notre-Dame des Enfants Church in Nimes and desecrated and smashed crosses and statues at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur . In 2018 alone, 1,063 attacks on Christian churches or symbols (crucifixes, icons, statues) were registered in France.

Algeria: Throughout March, Algerians protested against a fifth term for President Bouteflika. In an attempt to exploit the unrest, al-Qaeda publicized new content calling for Sharia governance in the North African nation and referred to those protesting against Bouteflika as the “sons of Islam,” while presenting Bouteflika as “loyal to the Jews and Christians.” According to the report, “Terrorist groups have a long history of attempting to take advantage of political unrest to capitalize upon and increase hardline Islamic sentiment. Christians are often used in their propaganda as part of their efforts.” In reality, however, “Algerian Christians have faced heavy persecution at the hands of the government.”

In fact, on March 3, the French Parliament “officially opened an inquiry into the persecution of Christians in Algeria,” notes a separate report:

The inquiry specifically points to Algeria’s closure of churches and legal proceedings held against Christian leaders, including those who imported Christian books. Algeria uses building safety committees to shutter churches indefinitely. The authorities also create substantial obstacles for the opening of new churches, making it impossible and leaving Christians to worship in buildings intended for other uses. Algeria has cracked down against churches since 2017, increasingly forcing Christians out of the public sphere. The authorities have not only closed churches, but have also targeted Christian leaders. Algeria’s constitution provides for the freedom of worship but declares Islam to be the state religion. Insulting or offending Islam is considered a criminal offense. In addition to imprisonment, convicted Christians can also face hefty fines if convicted of blasphemy.

Kazakhstan: Police raided two unregistered churches on two consecutive Sundays. Several members were fined; one had to pay the rough equivalent of two months wages. Discussing these developments, a separate report says,

Since 2011, when the government introduced a new religion law, Christians have faced heightened restrictions on meetings and ‘missionary activity.’ To obtain registration, churches are required to provide the names and addresses of at least 50 members, an impossibility for smaller congregations. Kazakhstan is officially a secular state; around 70% of the population are Muslim, with Christians comprising about 26%. Many Christians are from a Russian background and some are ethnic Kazakhs who have converted from Islam. Protestant Christians, and especially those from a Muslim background, are viewed with great distrust.

Attacks on Apostates, Blasphemers, and Preachers

Netherlands: As evidence that “Christian refugees in the country are being threatened or bullied on a regular basis, especially when they used to be Muslim,” a March 14 report recounted the experiences of three such Christian refugees.

“Directly after my conversion to Christianity” in 1999, after reaching the Netherlands, Faradoun Fouad from Iraq “received the first threats. People who I thought were my friends, became my enemies…. Even Muslims who are not very conservative told my wife that they would kill me…. I’m still getting threats every single day.”

“After my conversion” to Christianity, “the threats started,” said Esther Mulder, whose Muslim family fled Somalia. “Most of the time they’re coming from other Somalis. They write to me in Somali, so no one else is able to understand what they’re saying. We once posted [on Facebook] a picture of a Somali conference where everyone was standing in front of a cross. People didn’t like it and we received several threats. I was really sorry about that.” When she visits her family, “my father leaves the house. The last thing he ever said to me, is that I’m no longer his daughter.”

“In 2015 I became a Christian,” said Jassim, from Morocco. “My mother taught me to respect everyone and to be kind. That was in stark contrast to what Islam was teaching me. I had to hate and curse Jews and Christians. Muhammed was my big role model, but his life was bad. He killed Jews and married a girl of six. How could he be my role model?” Due to the large volume of threats he was getting, “I went to the police with eight pages full of threats…. The police advised me to delete my picture from my website…. It’s strange isn’t it: I’m not doing anything wrong, why would I need to hide? I live in a free country.”

Afghanistan: A former Islamic child soldier who converted to Christianity—despite “threats to his life”—shared his experiences. Jahan, 24, said he was taught to kill people who were Christian because they were “infidels and no good.” However, Jahan eventually began “reading the Bible for himself,” an experience he described as “eye opening.” He discovered that “what he had been taught about Christians and Christianity was wrong” and eventually converted—only “to flee from his family who threatened to kill him when they heard about his new faith.” According to the report, “Persecution in Afghanistan is extreme for the country’s tiny Christian community. Most Afghani Christians are converts from Islam and face very real and very deadly threats because of their conversion. In some cases, Christian converts are attacked by their own family who are ashamed that one of their own has become a Christian.” Afghanistan is considered the second worst persecutor of Christians in the world.

Kenya: Muslims beat a Christian pastor of an underground church with wooden clubs on Friday, March 6; among other injuries, he suffered a broken thigh bone. According to the report, “Pastor Abdul (surname withheld for security reasons), a 30-year-old father of three, had finished leading a prayer gathering at 9 p.m. on the outskirts of Garissa and was on his way back to his house when several ethnic Somali Muslims attacked.” As the Muslims approached, one of them said, “We have been following your movements and your evil plans of changing Muslims to Christianity.” “Immediately,” continues Pastor Abdul, “several assailants began hitting me with wooden clubs, and I became unconscious. I woke up and found myself surrounded by neighbors. I was rescued by the neighbors who found me in a pool of blood.” They rushed him to a hospital: “Apart from the thigh pain, I now feel pain all over my body, especially the waist, the back and my left leg near the ankle. I’m almost unable to bear the pain. My family is in great fear, and Christians have located us to another place. Our prayer for now is to get a safe place for my family. My life and that of my family,” a wife and three children, 8, 5, and 3, “is at stake.”

Pakistan: A mentally ill Christian man was apprehended for blasphemy. Stephen Masih was arrested after Muhammad Rafiq and Muhammad Imran told Muhammad Mudassar—a renowned hafiz, one who has memorized the entire Koran—that the Christian “had made derogatory remarks against the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH),” says the report. Stephen, 38, is unmarried and lives with his mother and sister. After contracting typhoid fever as a child, and receiving little medical attention due to his family’s impoverishment, the family noticed changes in his behavior; he was eventually taken to a “doctor [who] declared him mentally disabled.” On March 10, Stephen got into a loud quarrel with his mother and sister. Female Muslim neighbors soon got involved and before long “a few Muslim men … pulled Stephen out of his house and started beating him brutally, gradually joined by others.” Police eventually arrived and arrested the mentally unstable Christian on the testimony of the local cleric. Afterwards, his sister Alia “went to the police station. She says her brother only shouted and used abusive language against the local ladies but did not utter any derogatory remarks against the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), but the police didn’t believe her.” If convicted, Stephen could face the death penalty. According to Section 295-C of Pakistan’s penal code, “Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”

General Abuse and Rape of Christians

Pakistan: A Muslim man abducted, tortured and forced a married Christian mother of three to convert to Islam and marry him. When her original husband, Naveed Iqbal, reported the matter to police, the only action they took was “to alert the suspect, Muhammad Khalid Satti, that he [Naveed, the Christian husband] had filed a report against him for abducting his wife, Saima,” says the report. Then, “[o]n March 5, police informed me, said Naveed, that Saima had been found … but that she had converted to Islam and married Satti,” and that “a local Muslim cleric had solemnized” their marriage. Local police further counseled him “to forget about his wife and stop pursuing the case,” even though they had been married and raising children for 15 years. “Satti is a hardened criminal, and this is not the first time he has targeted Christians,” the 40-year-old Catholic husband elaborated. “Some 300-400 Christian families live in the area, and almost everyone has been bullied or tortured by Satti and his accomplices over the years.” It was only after Naveed threatened to set himself on fire before senior officers, that police arrested Muhammad. However, before the hearing, “the accused and the IO [Information Officer] both threatened Saima to say that she had converted to Islam and married Satti of her free will, otherwise her family would suffer severe consequences. Fearing for our lives, Saima said what she had been forced to say, resulting in grant of bail to Satti.” The wife later told her husband how she was kidnapped, raped, tortured and then forced to sign a marriage certificate. “She also showed me the torture marks on her body, and how she had been coerced into submitting to the demands of her tormentor.” Naveed decided to do all he could to get her justice, including uploading a widely watched video of his wife tearfully explaining her ordeal and appealing to Prime Minister Imran Khan for justice. “The video was a desperate attempt to get the attention of senior government officials, because the police were openly siding with the accused.” It worked, and Muhammad was arrested again. Although reunited with her husband and three children, aged 4, 8 and 13, Naveed said his wife is suffering from post-traumatic stress: “She is not the same person now, but I have faith that the Lord will heal her spirit with time.”

In a separate but similar incident, three Muslim men kidnapped a 13-year-old Christian girl, forced her to convert to Islam and marry one of her abductors. When the girl’s distraught family finally discovered her whereabouts, her new Muslim family insisted that she had willingly become Muslim and produced a forged marriage certificate falsely indicating that she was 18, the legal age of marriage.

Discussing the regular abuses Christian and other minorities suffer in Pakistan, a separate March 28 report says,

Across Pakistan, women and girls from religious minority communities are targeted by extremists for abduction and forced conversion. According to the Movement for Solidarity and Peace Pakistan, an estimated 1,000 girls and women, ranging in age between 12 and 25, are victimized by their cruel practice every year. Pakistan’s Hindu and Christian communities are most effected…. Forced conversions to Islam remains one of the cruelest abuses suffered by Pakistan’s minority communities. Practitioners of this abuse often use rape and forced marriage as a means to cover up their crime. To compound the matter, the majority of victims claim that Pakistan’s police force is often unhelpful and regularly sides with the kidnappers because of their shared religious identity.

Egypt: On Sunday, March 17, the ruling court in Minya surprised the Coptic Christian community by recusing itself and stepped down from two ongoing cases concerning the victimization and killing of Christians. Due to this unexpected move, both cases—which had already been at court three and six years—must now be retried anew, a process that will likely take several more years before any hope of justice is met.

The first case concerns Soa‘d Thabet, a 70-year-old Coptic Christian grandmother. On May 20, 2016, a mob of 300 Muslim men descended on her home, stripped her completely naked, beat, spit on, and paraded her in the streets to jeers, whistles, and triumphant shouts of “Allahu Akbar.” They were angry because her son was allegedly involved with a Muslim woman.

The second case goes back to July 2013, when General Sisi ousted then President Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, following massive popular demonstrations against Morsi. Then, Brotherhood sympathizers all around Egypt rioted, mostly by targeting Coptic Christian people, homes, and especially churches, of which almost one hundred were set ablaze or destroyed. During these rampages, rioters randomly killed an elderly Coptic man, Iskander (Alexander) and dragged his body on the ground to jeers and more cries of “Allahu Akbar” (graphic video here). His corpse was then hurled into a garbage bin. For three days, his children were prevented from retrieving it for burial. An unknown person eventually buried Alexander in an unmarked grave. His relentless murderers found the grave, exhumed the mangled body, propped it up, and used it for target practice.

In both the case of the stripped Christian woman and the case of the slaughtered Christian man, the names and faces of the culprits and murderers are well known. Commenting on the recusal, Adel Guindy, of Coptic Solidarity told Gatestone, “The judiciary system in Egypt, as well as the rest of the pillars of the state (often referred to as the ‘deep state’) have become impregnated with fundamentalist Islamic ideology, and are thus decidedly biased against Copts. The political leadership of the country takes no concrete corrective measures and, worse still, lets this ideology shape and dominate the society, through education and media.”

United Kingdom: In two unrelated cases, the United Kingdom denied asylum to persecuted Christians by bizarrely citing the Bible and Islam. Both Christians, a man and a woman, are former Muslims who were separately seeking asylum from the Islamic Republic of Iran, the ninth worst persecutor of Christians, particularly those who were formerly Muslims, as in these two cases.

In his rejection letter from the UK’s Home Office, the Iranian man was told that biblical passages were “inconsistent” with his claim to have converted to Christianity after discovering it was a “peaceful” faith. The letter cited several biblical excerpts, including from Exodus, Leviticus, and Matthew, as supposed proof that the Bible is violent; it said Revelation was “filled with imagery of revenge, destruction, death and violence.” The rejection letter then concluded: “These examples are inconsistent with your claim that you converted to Christianity after discovering it is a ‘peaceful’ religion, as opposed to Islam which contains violence, rage and revenge.”

In the second case, an Iranian female asylum seeker was sarcastically informed in her rejection letter that “You affirmed in your AIR [Asylum Interview Record] that Jesus is your saviour, but then claimed that He would not be able to save you from the Iranian regime. It is therefore considered that you have no conviction in your faith and your belief in Jesus is half-hearted.” Discussing her experiences, the rejected woman said: “When I was in Iran I converted to Christianity and the situation changed and the government were [sic] looking for me and I had to flee from Iran…. In my country if someone converts to Christianity their punishment is death or execution.” Concerning the asylum process, she said that whenever she responded to her Home Office interviewer, “he was either chuckling or maybe just kind of mocking when he was talking to me…. [H]e asked me why Jesus didn’t help you from the Iranian regime or Iranian authorities.”

These two recently exposed cases appear to be symptomatic of the Home Office’s bias against Christians (as more fully documented here).

Raymond Ibrahim, author of the new book, Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic. Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month.

#Sharia #Jihad #Persecution #Islam #Legal #News #Politics

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cosmicvastness · 6 years

Photo

Climbing the cosmic distance ladder

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals an ancient, glimmering ball of stars called NGC 1466. It is a globular cluster — a gathering of stars all held together by gravity — that is slowly moving through space on the outskirts of the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our closest galactic neighbours.

NGC 1466 certainly is one for extremes. It has a mass equivalent to roughly 140 000 Suns and an age of around 13.1 billion years, making it almost as old as the Universe itself. This fossil-like relic from the early Universe lies some 160 000 light-years away from us.

Nestled within this ancient time capsule are 49 known RR Lyrae variable stars, which are indispensable tools for measuring distances in the Universe. These variable stars have well-defined luminosities, meaning that astronomers know the total amount of energy they emit. By comparing this known luminosity to how bright the stars appear in the sky, their distance can be easily calculated. Astronomical objects such as this are known as standard candles, and are fundamental to the so-called cosmic distance ladder. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

#space #astronomy #cosmos #science #astrophotography #universe #cosmology #star cluster #globular cluster #stars #NGC 1466 #Hubble #Hubble Space Telescope #HST

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whimsicallyenchantedrose · 6 years

Text

Fluffy Fridays—Chapter 142: The Ice Wall

Pairing: Captain Swan

Summary: A series of unrelated, fluffy one shots featuring Killian Jones and Emma Swan and the relationship that makes us all swoon. Will contain both canon and AU stories. My contribution to Operation Rainbow Kisses and Unicorn Stickers (aka, my attempt to drown out the season 4 finale angst with ridiculous levels of fluff.)

Other Chapters: ( 1) (2) ( 3) ( 4) ( 5) (6) ( 7) ( 8) ( 9) ( 10) ( 11) ( 12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25) (26) (27) (28) (29) (30) (31) (32) (33) (34) (35) (36) (37) (38) (39) (41) (42) (43) (44) (45) (46) (47) (48) (49) (50) (51) (52) (53) (54) (55) (56) (57) (58) (59) (60) (61) (62) (63) (64) (65) (66) (67) (68) (69) (70) (71) (72) (73) (74) (75) (76) (77) (78) (79) (80) (81) (82) (83) (84) (85) (86) (87) (88) (89) (90) (91) (92) (93) (94) (95) (96) (97) (98) (99) (100) (101) (102) (103) (104) (105) (106) (107) (108) (109) (110) (111) (112) (113) (114) (115) (116) (117) (118) (119) (120) (121) (122) (123) (124) (125) (126) (127) (128) (129) (130) (131) (132) (133) (134) (135) (136) (137) (138) (139) (140) (141) (143) (144) (145) (146) (147) (148) (149) (150) (151) (152) (153) (154) (155) (156) (157) (158) (159) (160) (161) (162) (163) (164) (165) (166) (167) (168) (169) (170) (171) (172) (173) (174)

(ao3) (ff.net)

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CS Genre: Canon divergence from 4x2

Cold.

It was the first thing Emma noticed when she came to. It was cold. The kind of cold that reaches down your throat and freezes your lungs. The kind of cold that seeps into your very bones. The kind of cold that convinces you you’ll never be warm again.

Emma groaned, reaching behind her to gingerly prod the knot on her head as the ringing in her ears gave way to frantic shouts of her name.

“Swan! Wake up love! Say you’re alright!”

Emma groaned again, finally opening her eyes to look into the terrified face of her….well, whatever Killian was to her now.

“What happened?” she asked, her words slurred, as she continued rubbing at her aching head with hands that were starting to go numb with the cold.

Killian sat on the ground beside her and gently pulled her into his warmth. “That woman we saw, she trapped us in the ice wall.”

It all came back to her at once. The town power going out. Her and David investigating. The ice wall. Killian showing up, swaggering over to them. His quip about their second date. The woman with the icy blue dress and pale blonde braid watching them. Her going to investigate. Killian following. The woman pointing a hand at them, fear on her face. The deafening roar of falling ice…

Emma got quickly to her feet, swaying a bit as her head protested the quick movement, and rushed to the wall.

It wouldn’t budge. None of them would.

They were trapped in a space roughly the size of her parents’ living room…a space completely made of ice.

No wonder she was cold.

“Killian, we’ve got to get out of here!” she said frantically. “We’ll freeze to death!”

Killian put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Calm down, Swan,” he said in a soothing voice. “I’ve already tried digging us out with my hook. It’s no use.”

“Calm down?” she asked, hearing the hysteria starting in her voice. “You just told me we’re stuck in ice that we can’t dig ourselves out of and you want me to calm down? We can’t just give up!”

Killian pulled her into a hug. “We won’t. Your father called us on your talking device. He’s gone for help.”

Emma remained tense in his embrace for a moment, but then the warmth of his body, the comfort his reassurances always brought began to seep in. She relaxed in his hold letting the panic bleed away.

Emma looked up at him. “How long was I out?”

“Perhaps a minute?” He said. “You were hit quite hard with a shard of ice, love.”

“That why it feels like Grumpy and all six of his brothers are using their pickaxes on the back of my skull?”

He laughed. “I’d assume so.” His face became serious. “Are you sure you’re alright, Swan?”

She waved him off. “Concerned I’m going to freeze to death, but otherwise nothing more than a little headache.”

Killian didn’t look entirely convinced, but after a moment, he let the matter go with a small nod.

“You sure there’s no way to dig ourselves out?” Emma asked.

He gave her a quick, assessing look. “I’m quite sure we have no hope of digging ourselves out via natural means, but perhaps…”

“Perhaps what?”

Killian took both her hands looking intently at her. “Perhaps your magic…”

Magic. Right. She was still getting used to the fact that she had magic. (How did a normal person get used to a fact like that?!)

Emma nodded firmly (and then immediately regretted it as her head throbbed) and raised her hands before her. She closed her eyes, concentrating. Thinking about the wall melting. Thinking about saving herself and Killian. Thinking about saving Henry and the rest of the town from whoever this new threat was.

Nothing happened.

She tried again.

Still nothing.

Emma growled. “I’m sorry Killian. I don’t know if it’s the cold or the bump on my head or what, but I just can’t summon my magic.”

Killian led her over to a wall and urged her to sit. “It’s no matter Swan. As I said, your father has gone for help. It’s simply a matter of waiting this out.”

The ice wall was cold behind her, below her, her body heat melting it just enough for icy water to seep onto her jeans. She shivered, teeth chattering with the cold. Why hadn’t she thought to bring a parka when she left the house this evening?

Killian glanced over at her, noting the way she shivered so much her teeth chattered. Shrugging out of his heavy pirate duster, he draped it around her shoulders. The warmth, the smell of leather and him, it was immediate and quite possibly the best thing she’d ever felt.

Emma luxuriated in comfort for a moment before turning back to him. “Killian, I can’t take your coat! You’ll freeze in nothing but that vest and shirt that makes me think you’re allergic to buttons.”

He laughed and then gave her a teasing grin. “Perhaps you’ll need to warm me up, then.”

Emma looked into Killian’s face and an intense feeling of affection, maybe…maybe even more…washed over her, warming her as much as his coat did. Turning to him, she reached up, tugging at the back of his neck until she’d brought his lips to hers.

The kiss was long, slow, infinitely tender, Killian reaching up to cup the back of her head, let her hair slip through his fingers, much like it had when she’d kissed him outside Granny’s the other day.

Whatever this was between them it was real, and it was happening. Emma waited for the fear to come, but it never did. This felt right. Maybe even with all the crap that always went down in this stupid town…maybe even though she was the savior…maybe every once in a while she could just enjoy and take advantage of the good moments.

Killian moaned deep in his throat (the sound positively indecent) and pulled away, resting his forehead against hers.

“As much as I’d like to follow this to it’s logical conclusion, darling,” he said, his voice hoarse, “and gods know I do, we are in a room entirely made of ice and there are simply some places a man does not wish to get frostbite.”

Emma laughed, pulling away. “Good point.”

“Besides,” he continued, draping an arm around her and nodding in contentment when she laid her head against his shoulder, “your father should be arriving momentarily, and if he’d interrupted us, I suspect frostbite would be the least of my concerns.”

Emma laughed again. “Good thing I’m a big girl and I can make my own decisions about who I kiss…and do other things with.”

His grin was wicked. “Indeed. I suppose we’ll simply need to wait for a more auspicious time to engage in our more enjoyable activities.”

Emma leaned over and kissed him again, a quick, but thorough thing. “You’re cute when you use big words.”

“If they earn me kisses like that, I’ll make use of the entire dictionary,” he said, grinning at her.

Sudden static came over Emma’s walkie talkie.

“Emma? Hook?” David asked. “Everybody doing alright in there?”

“We’re fine, Dave,” Killian answered. “Your daughter and I are quite enjoying ourselves.”

There was a beat of silence.

“You better not be enjoying yourselves too much.”

Emma rolled her eyes, taking the device from Killian. “As Killian said, we’re fine dad. What’s the status on Operation Dig Your Daughter and Her Boyfriend Out of the Ice Wall Before They Become Human Popsicles?”

“Just hold tight for another couple minutes,” David said. “Long story, but we should be able to break through momentarily.”

After signing off with her dad, Emma settled back into Killian’s embrace as they waited for David to execute whatever plan he had. “Killian?”

“Hm?” he asked, idly rubbing her arm.

“If I had to be trapped in an ice wall, there’s no one I’d rather be trapped with.”

He smiled, leaning over to kiss the top of her head. “I feel quite the same.”

Notes:

--Sorry for the long posting hiatus, but January’s been a rough month—between being sick myself a few times and then my grandma having a stroke, which brought with it a lot of stress for the whole family (she’s doing better now, although it will be a long road to recovery, and she’ll probably never fully get back to where she was before), I just haven’t had the motivation to write at all. Feels good to get back to it, even just a little.

--I don’t know how the weather’s been where you live, but the Polar Vortex in my neck of the woods has made it cold beyond cold this week…which is what inspired me to write this story. If I’m going to be cold, I might as well inflict the cold on my favorite characters as well, lol.

--Up next: I hope to update every other week going forward (barring any other illnesses or family emergencies), so next up will be something for Valentine’s Day

NEXT CHAPTER -->

#cs ff #cs fluff #csfridayfluff #fluffy fridays #my fanfiction #cs canon divergence

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