The Skellingcorner

[alexreadsboooks]

Day 16 of #februarylibrary17 is Green
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This one kind of jumped into my face when I was looking at the bookshelf in our living room. These are my mum’s German editions of the Lord of the Rings. She’s actually the reason I got into Tolkien in the first place. When I was a kid she read the Hobbit to me and then later she showed me the LotR movies when they came out on VHS/DVD and all was lost. 😂
Is there any book most of your family can agree on?
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#bookstagram #bookish #booklover #bookworm #booklr #books #bibliophile #februarybookchallenge #bookstagrammer #booklove #booksofinstagram #instabook #read #reading #reader #buch #bücher #lesen #bookstagramfeature  #bookphotography #leser #igbooks #bookishallure

[honeysuckleace]

[purrsianstuck]

During the Bubonic Plague, doctors wore these bird-like masks to avoid becoming sick. They would fill the beaks with spices and rose petals, so they wouldn’t have to smell the rotting bodies.

A theory during the Bubonic Plague was that the plague was caused by evil spirits. To scare the spirits away, the masks were intentionally designed to be creepy.

[twinkletwinkleyoulittlefuck]

Mission fucking accomplished

[cellarspider]

Okay so I love this but it doesn’t cover the half of why the design is awesome and actually borders on making sense.

It wasn’t just that they didn’t want to smell the infected and dead, they thought it was crucial to protecting themselves. They had no way of knowing about what actually caused the plague, and so one of the other theories was that the smell of the infected all by itself was evil and could transmit the plague. So not only would they fill their masks with aromatic herbs and flowers, they would also burn fires in public areas, so that the smell of the smoke would “clear the air”. This all related to the miasma theory of contagion, which was one of the major theories out there until the 19th century. And it makes sense, in a way. Plague victims smelled awful, and there’s a general correlation between horrible septic smells and getting horribly sick if you’re around what causes them for too long.

You can see now that we’ve got two different theories as to what caused the plague that were worked into the design. That’s because the whole thing was an attempt by the doctors to cover as many bases as they could think of, and we’re still not done.

The glass eyepieces. They were either darkened or red, not something you generally want to have to contend with when examining patients. But the plague might be spread by eye contact via the evil eye, so best to ward that off too.

The illustration shows a doctor holding a stick. This was an examination tool, that helped the doctors keep some distance between themselves and the infected. They already had gloves on, but the extra level of separation was apparently deemed necessary. You could even take a pulse with it. Or keep people the fuck away from you, which was apparently a documented use.

Finally, the robe. It’s not just to look fancy, the cloth was waxed, as were all of the rest of their clothes. What’s one of the properties of wax? Water-based fluids aren’t absorbed by it. This was the closest you could get to a sterile, fully protecting garment back then. Because at least one person along the line was smart enough to think “Gee, I’d really rather not have the stuff coming out of those weeping sores anywhere on my person”.

So between all of these there’s a real sense that a lot of real thought was put into making sure the doctors were protected, even if they couldn’t exactly be sure from what. They worked with what information they had. And frankly, it’s a great design given what was available! You limit exposure to aspirated liquids, limit exposure to contaminated liquids already present, you limit contact with the infected. You also don’t give fleas any really good place to hop onto. That’s actually useful.

Beyond that, there were contracts the doctors would sign before they even got near a patient. They were to be under quarantine themselves, they wouldn’t treat patients without a custodian monitoring them and helping when something had to be physically contacted, and they would not treat non-plague patients for the duration. There was an actual system in place by the time the plague doctors really became a thing to make sure they didn’t infect anyone either.

These guys were the product of the scientific process at work, and the scientific process made a bitchin’ proto-hazmat suit. And containment protocols!

[zacharielaughingalonewithsalad]

reblogging for the sweet history lesson

[honeysuckleace]

Reblogging because of the History lesson and because the masks, the masks are cool

[arrghigiveup]

[thgchoir]

no offense but this is literally the most neurotypical thing i have ever seen

[pyrrhicgoddess]

Uhhhh… no. This is what they teach you in therapy to deal with BPD and general depression. When I got out of the hospital after hurting myself a second time, I got put into intensive outpatient program for people being released from mental hospitals as a way to monitor and help transition them into getting them efficient long-term care. This is something they stressed, especially for people with general depression. When you want to stay at home and hide in your bed, forcing yourself to do the opposite is what is helpful. For me, who struggles with self harm- “I want to really slice my arm up. The opposite would be to put lotion on my skin (or whatever would be better, like drawing on my skin) the opposite is the better decision.” It doesn’t always work because of course mental health isn’t that easy, but this is part of what’s called mindfulness (they say this all the time in therapy)

Being mindful of these is what puts you on the path to recovery. If you’re mindful, you are able to live in that moment and try your best to remember these better options.

I swear to god, I don’t get why some people on this website straight up reject good recovery help like this because either they a)have never been in therapy so don’t understand in context how to use these coping tactics. Or b)want to insist that all therapists and psych doctors are neurotypical and have zero idea what they are talking about. (Just so ya know, they teach this in DBT, the therapy used to help BPD. The psychologist who came up with DBT actually had BPD, so….a neurotypical women didn’t come up with this.)

[greenjudy]

I have clinical OCD and for me, exposure therapy–a version of “do the opposite”–has been fundamental. I’ve had huge improvement in the last year, but I’m 100% clear that if I hadn’t done my best to follow this protocol I’d be fucked. I have a lot of empathy for that moment when you’re just too tired to fight and you check the stove or you wash your hands or go back to the office at midnight to make sure the door is locked. But the kind of therapeutic approach outlined above has been crucial for me. 

It’s hard to do. I’ve weathered panic attacks trying to follow this protocol. But I’ve gotten remarkable results. I was afraid to touch the surfaces in my house, okay? I was afraid to touch my own feet, afraid to touch my parrot–deliberately exposing myself to “contamination” has helped me heal. I can’t speak for people with other issues, but this has helped my anxiety and OCD. 

[cameoamalthea]

I feel that tumblr, in an effort to be accepting of mental illness, has become anti-recovery. Having a mental illness does not make you a bad person. There is nothing morally wrong with having a mental illness anymore than more than there’s something morally wrong with having the flu. However, if you’re “ill” physically or mentally, something is wrong in the sense that you are unwell and to alleviate that you should try to get better. While there is not “cure” for mental illness, there are ways to get better.

There was a post on tumblr where someone with ADHD posted about how much you can get done when you focus and was attacked for posting about being “nuerotypical” - when she was posting about the relief she got from being on an medication to treat her illness. 

I saw another post going around tumblr that said something along the line of “you control your thoughts, why not choose to have happy thoughts” which again was shot down as “nuerotypical” but while you don’t have control over what thoughts come into your mind, you absolutely can and should choose to have happy thoughts. In DBT we call this “positive self talk”.

I’m in DBT to help treat PTSD stemming from child abuse. The abuse and abandonment I experienced destroyed my self esteem and created a lot of anxiety over upsetting other people. DBT has taught me to recognize when my thoughts are distorting realty ‘no one likes you’ and answer back ‘plenty of people like you, you don’t need everyone to like you, especially if the relationship doesn’t make you happy’, to respond to the thought ‘I’m so worthless’ with ‘you’re really great and have accomplished something’ 

And it’s not easy to challenge your thoughts, it’s a skill that’s learned and it’s hard to force yourself to think something that doesn’t seem authentic or even seems wrong to think - it’s hard to be encouraging towards yourself when you hate yourself - but you force yourself to be aware of your thoughts and push back when you fall into unhealthy patterns 

That isn’t “so neurotypical” that’s recovery. 

Not shaming mental illness doesn’t mean shaming RECOVERY.

Pro-Recovery isn’t anti-disability. 

Do not shame healthy behaviors as “neurotypical”.

Learning healthy behaviors and taking steps to treat mental illness and disorders including taking medication if that’s what works for you is important. You shouldn’t be ashamed if you have mental illness, but you shouldn’t say ‘well I’m not neurotypical therefor I can’t do anything to get better’ - while there is no cure for mental illness, there is a lot you can do to get better, to function better, to manage your mental illness and be safer, happier, and healthier for it. 

[arrghigiveup]

It’s worth noting that these may not work for some people depending on the type and circumstances of their neurodivergence. And sometimes even for the same person some things work sometimes and don’t work other times, like, if I’m feeling drained AND sad, going out to socialise will make it worse, GUARANTEED. But sometimes I’m just kinda… stewing in my sadness and self-loathing; that’s when I have to force myself to go out and socialise, because shutting myself in at that point just creates a set of conditions that’s conducive towards being sad in. So different things work for different people. But the above’s definitely worth thinking about.

[nimblesnotebook-blog]

Limb Prosthetics

readmymindcharles submitted:

Recently, I started writing a piece where one of my characters suffers a traumatic double amputation. When I first had the idea, I had absolutely no idea how to go about handling the medical side of limb amputation and prosthetics.

Enter the Atlas of Limb Prosthetics.

This is a FANTASTIC resource for writers who are including amputees/potential amputees in their story. I personally had a physiotherapist who worked with my amputee, and he needed to have all the medical knowledge that I didn’t have.

So, I turned to the Atlas. It covers everything. Seriously. Everything.

• Want a guide to different types of prosthetics, with guides on when they’re usually used, and how long for? Got that.
• Want to read some guidelines on how to treat pain in amputees? Got that.
• Want to know about the psychological effects of amputation - both before and after amputation? Got that.
• Want to know about what happens when children have amputations? Got that.
• Want to read the step-by-step method of performing a transfemoral amputation? Got that. (warning: detailed description of surgery)

Want to know everything there is to know about the medical, professional side to amputations? Got that.

[writingwithcolor]

Revealing Mixed Race Characters

Anon asked: My MC is mixed race and the story might be told in first person POV. Since she’s mixed there’s not much I can say to make it physically obvious she’s only half white, and I won’t be going into her backstory for a while. Would it be enough to drop hints like giving her a Japanese middle name? And what other hints could I use?

From your question I deduce that your character is half Japanese, half white. Giving her a Japanese middle name could work. You could also describe features which she could have inherited from both sides. Maybe she had features which set her apart from one or both sides.

Other things you could do are have things from her backstory come out in her actions/reactions. Maybe she shares things from both cultures. And how does she feel about mixed ancestry? Does it make her feel different from her friends? I’d advice you on using a few different hints, scattered throughout your story.

~Mod Alice

One hint that might work is to introduce us to the parents. If your MC, her parents or someone else makes a comment on their race, looks, culture or background, this could be one way to reveal she’s mixed.

~Mod Colette

[septembercfawkes]

15+ Tactics for Writing Humor

A monster-length master list of over 15 tactics for writing humor, with examples from The Office, Trigun, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Emperor’s New Groove, The Fault in Our Stars, Harry Potter, Pink Panther, The Series of Unfortunate Events, Elf, Enchanted, The Amazing Spider-man, and more. Be prepared to laugh.

(Please note that this article is best read on my off-Tumblr blog here so that you can watch the videos that go along with it, embedded into the post. Otherwise, enjoy reading it right here, with links to the videos.)

Introduction

I’ve been to a few workshops on writing humor, and I’ve read about writing humor, but the funny thing is, none of them really taught me how to actually write humor. But yet they all said the same thing: Writing humor is hard, harder than writing seriously, because if you fail at humor, you fail horribly.

I heard it so much, it made me fear failure rather than strive to develop that writing talent. For years I avoided writing humor, period. But the catch to that is that I also often hear how humor is a huge draw for an audience.

I read recently in Showing & Telling by Laurie Alberts that humor is hard to teach and that some writers believe it can’t be taught at all. If you know these writers, send them to this post, send them to this post, or send them to this post about why the concept that writing can’t be taught is bullcrap.

People think writing humor can’t be taught because they don’t know how to teach it. Some people can write humor, but can’t teach it. They don’t know how they are funny because it’s just intuitive and natural to them. I was at one workshop on humor, and the only “how-to” tip they gave was that humor had to just come up naturally in the story. But professional comedians slave away and work their butts off writing their jokes, and then practicing them. That’s not natural. Sure, some comedians do improv (Whose Line is it Anyway? was one of my favorite shows), so they’re more natural, but I believe most comedians have to work to be funny.

Look at shows like The Office. Those writers obviously know how to write that kind of humor. And they use some of the same humor techniques over and over–that’s not just happening, that’s planned out. It’s formulaic. Look at the Marvel movies. They have their own style of humor too. I once read an interview with Jeff Kinney, author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, in it he talked about how insanely difficult it is to come up with jokes sometimes.

So yes, writing humor can be hard. But it’s not impossible. After all the (non)advice I got on writing humor. (Sure, some of them did mention one or two humor tactics, but not how to do them) I decided to take it into my own hands. So I’ve studied humor on my own, and I’ve made my own “How to Write Humor” article that actually tells you (or rather myself) HOW to write humor.

It’s not all-encompassing by any means. And I’m still learning. And note that you might have a different sense of humor than me, but you should be able to revamp most, if not all, of these tactics to suit you. Some of the tactics I will talk about today overlap each other, so one example might actually fit into several of these categories.

15 Humor Tactics

Overstatements and Exaggerations

An overstatement or exaggeration is playing up something–making something seem bigger than it is.

Humor articles I did read said exaggeration or overstatements are a no-no, and then go on by giving examples like “My room was so messy, it looked like a bomb had gone off.” Well, guess what? That’s just a bad example. It’s cliche. And just… blah. (I’ll explain why it doesn’t work in a second.) The articles are right, don’t write that one! But the articles are wrong in saying that there are no good exaggerations. That’s not true. There are loads of good exaggerations and overstatements. Most parodies and spoofs are exaggerations.

[fjorn-the-skald]

A Look into the Grágás (Medieval Icelandic Law):

Grágás I: Treatment of Homicide Section, On Burning, pg. 169.

“It is prescribed that if a man asks another to go with him to burn a building with people or people’s property in it, the penalty is lesser outlawry [1]; and the same applies to anyone who promises to go, and nine neighbors of each one of them are to be called locally. If they set out and fire with them, then neighbors are to be called from the place where they took the fire. But once fire is taken for burning the fall with forfeit immunity and the penalty is outlawry [2]. But if they burn a building with people or people’s property in it, the penalty is outlawry, and neighbors [of the people burnt] are to be called locally.”

---

Sources and Notations

[Gen.] Andrew Denis, Peter Foote, and Richard Perkins trans., Laws of Early Iceland: Grágás I. (University of Manitoba Press, 2012), 169. Also, this type of homicide is somewhat “featured” in Njal’s Saga, giving a taste for the cultural opinions regarding such action.

[1] It is much like full outlawry (see notation 2), but less severe. It generally called for a person to go abroad for three years, but sometimes this also resulted in some loss of property. It was not uncommon, at least in the saga world, for people to go raiding abroad while outlawed.

[2] Full outlawry (skóggangr) was the most serious punishment that the Icelandic system could offer. It mean the “loss of all juridicial status and property, privileging anyone to kill the outlaw and indeed obliging the prosecutor to do so (Grágás Ia 189).” William Ian Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland. (University of Chicago Press, 1990), 234.

[madmaudlingoes]

[dirkar]

I know discourse is the word of choice in fandom nowadays but I kind of wish we would have stuck with “fandom wank” because it carries the implication that the anger involved culminated into effectively nothing and that the act was wholeheartedly masturbatory in nature rather than for any greater cause.

[berlynn-wohl]

I saw this post about an hour after I saw a post that said, essentially, “There should be a word for that thing where [exactly describes ‘squeeing’].”

I feel like the time has come to produce something like this:

[transformativeworks]

citrus 

[naknaknakadile]

@vergess

[vergess]

Squee: The noise you make when something is so good that all you can really do is squeak or squeal. A high pitched sound of delight, often accomanied by hugging yourself or others.

Squick: A fic/art/concept/topic that is repellent to you, so you reject association with it and instead retreat to your personal comfortable spaces- all the while remembering that someone else’s comfort is not your own.

YKINMKATO: Also called “kink tomato.” Abbreviation meaning “your kink is not my kink, and that’s okay.” Used to explain why you are rejecting art or fic brought to you by someone else. A solid mantra to recall instead of sending flames in people’s comments

Flames: The comment equivalent of anon hate.

AMV: “animated music video” or “anime music video.” Often, this is stylized to fit a specific fandom, such as a “PMV” (pony music video) in my little pony. May also be referred to as a lyricstuck.

Filk: Combination of the words “film” and “folk,” this is a music genre, to which “fan songs” and “fan parody covers” belong. If you don’t really understand what this means, take a quick listen to American Pie, then compare Weird Al Yankovic’s Saga Begins

BNF: Big name fan. You know that one person who is just so fuckign popular in your fandom? Their art is always on your dash, everyone knows their fics? Being spoken to directly by them is basically being noticed by everyone ever’s senpai? That’s what these people are called.

DL:DR; Not unliked the teal deer (tl;dr, or “too long, didn’t read”), DLDR means “don’t like? Don’t read!” It’s a reminder that you are under no obligation, ever, to expose yourself to uncomfortable (or, squicky), or potentially harmful (or, triggering), material. Not ever. If you don’t actively like something? It’s not worth your time. Skip it.

Gen: or “genfic” “genart” etc. Fan works which contain no or very little romantic content. Often these are styled after the canon material, and may be called “episodic” ro “slice of life” in addition. 

Lemon: Work containing strong pornographic elements

Lime, or Citrus: Work containing mild or implicit pornographic elements

Sockpuppeting: The surprisingly common scenario of someone making a bunch of fake accounts/sideblogs to send themselves reviews or hate, to try to increase views or drama surrounding a work. The accounts they make are called Sockpuppets. 

WAFF: Warm and fluffy feelings. A genre of fic that exists just to be therapeutically sweet. Nowadays, usually just called “fluffy.”

Schmoop: Take WAFF and somehow make it even more syrupy. You’ll know it when you see it.

Whump: Imagine if you will, a hurt-comfort fic. The comfort might be considered WAFF. The hurt? That’s the whump.

Wapanese: When white autors pepper their anime fanfic with random, tonally inappropriate japanese words. 

Anthropomorfic: Nowadays we just call these “humanstuck” or “humanized AU.”

Wank: Wildly disproportionate drama that crops up because someone wrote/drew/did something that someone else didn’t like. Seriously, I cannot begin to express the fiascos that have come about from all this. Just… Just go look at this.

 Plot bunny: Story ideas that you probably won’t ever actually deal with, but that multiply entirely out of control, creating huge worlds in your head that you’re probably not going to write. But hey! You might! And until then they make great sideblogs/askblogs/tumblr posts.

Casefic: Fanfics that try to create an episode-like feel for procedural and crime dramas, moster of the week shows, etc.

Jossed: When popular fan theories and fanon are addressed in the canon of a series, and whoops, turns out we were all very, very wrong.

Kripked: When popular fan theories and fanon are addressed in the canon of a show and, hot damn, we fucking called it.

Secret Masters: The people who run the websites/ communities/etc that we all do our fanning on. Less relevant now that we have things like tumblr, but when everyone had to run their own archival and social sites for each fandom, it was more important to pay our respects to the strange and powerful beings that brought us all together and gave us our fannish homes. Think the staff of AO3, for example.

Bashing: When a writer purposefully writes a specific character as a horrible, horrible person so that they can throw them out of the storyline, usually to allow their OTP to get together without trouble. Distinct from fridging in that it doesn’t require the character to die, but rather to be such a screaming harpy that they get rightfully removed from the main characters’ lives for being an abusive hell beast. Generally, a type of character hate. Be wary of people who bash women, queer people, and POC with consistency: they are not safe to be around.

[ryttu3k]

‘Squick’ also has an alternate horrible meaning for Harry Potter fans who were in fandom a while back. Dear god.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Also:

Purple prose: Fic that is excessively flowery and complicated. Basically the “me, an intellectual” meme. If it has the phrase “cerulean orbs” you know it’s purple prose.

Beige prose: The opposite of purple prose. Basically, the plainest (and, if done wrongly, the most boring) type of prose.

R&R: Read & review. Back from when fic comments were called “reviews” and there was no such fucking thing as the kudos button.

[meridok]

I don’t know if it ever got used outside of one particular small fandom I was in, but I’ve always been fond of TFWIC: “the fuckwits in charge” aka the show writers. Who, as you may guess, consistently made frustrating writing decisions (and yet we kept coming back for more).

[madmaudlingoes]

TPTB (“The Powers That Be”) can also refer collectively to the show’s creators (especially for shows that don’t have a single prominent creator or show runner) and/or the network/production execs overseeing the show. Example: “TPTB wouldn’t let Xena and Gabrielle be in lesbians with each other, but calling each other ‘soul mate’ was apparently fine.”

[djjvmz]

The hijab Q&A that nobody asked for but everybody needs

[rnashallah]

hi okay if you don’t know any hijabis/muslims personally, you might be wondering how it “works” and im here to answer ur questions!!

Q: Do you like.. wear it all the time?? (re: do u shower in it?? do u sleep in it?? when was the last time u sAW UR OWN HAIR??? ) 

A: Nope! To put it simply, we wear the hijab when we are around strange men. And by strange I mean men who are not directly related to us. That means I can show my hair to women. It also means I don’t have to cover from my brother/father/uncle/grandfather/child. I would have to cover from my male cousins because you can technically marry them (note: this is only one of the reasons we cover! it’s not only to cover from possible suitors lol. Just bc I wouldn’t marry a gay man, doesn’t mean I don’t have to cover from him. The quran says to cover from men and not from women. that’s pretty broad and open for interpretation. I keep it simple for myself- I cover from all men and do not cover from any women, regardless of sexual orientation. This could differ from one hijabi to another). I also would not have to cover from my husband if I were married. Lastly, we don’t have to cover from any young boys who haven’t been “through puberty” yet. I guess it’s up to the individual to decide when that is as well. 

Q: It seems kind of sexist to me that men don’t have to wear hijab, but women do…

A: Actually, men have their own hijab. (It’s not the turban you may see some men wearing, they are Sikhs, an entirely different religion.) Men have their own modest dress code to follow and are expected to follow the same rules the women do action-wise. Remember that equal does not have to mean identical. It wouldn’t make sense to ask men to cover their boobs or women to grow beards (we’ll come back to that later). 

Q: I always hear about women being forced to wear it… That’s oppression and wrong.

A: I completely agree. “There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion” (2/256). That’s taken directly from the Quran. Forcing someone to wear the hijab is a sin. Furthermore, many Muslims believe that hijab is not required/is only preferred/is optional. There’s a lot of interpretation involved in religion. It totally depends on the person and their own beliefs. 

They way a Muslim chooses to wear their hijab also differs from person to person. Some women choose to cover their entire body. Some wear abayas (the black dress) and niqabs (the veil that covers the face). Some wear a simple scarf to cover their hair and dress “modestly” (this, again, depends on your interpretation of what modest means). Some just cover their hair. Some show a some of their hair. Some wear turbans. Some dress modestly, but don’t cover their hair. Some only wear it on certain occasions. (more here on the diff types of cover)

For men, some choose to grow beards (many believe this is just “sunnah” which means it is preferred, but not compulsory). Lots of men don’t follow the rules set for them. That can be due to personal beliefs, but I won’t deny the misogyny apparent in the Muslim culture (note: culture, not religion) probably has a lot to do with that. 

Q: Do women only wear hijab for religious reasons? 

A: No. I mean, that’s probably one of the most prominent reasons women choose to cover their hair, but there are many different factors. In many cultures, hijab is considered a thing of beauty. It’s a fashion statement (for Muslims, we’ll talk about cultural appropriation in a sec). It’s tradition. It’s a part of their identity. It keeps them in-tact with their religion and it identifies them as a Muslim to other Muslims. The reasons are endless, but I think you get the picture. 

Q: I heard hijab is just keep men away.

A: As @angrymuslimah put so eloquently: Hijab is not to prevent men from looking at women or “protect them” from men. Hijab is not for men, or to help men control themselves - it’s for women themselves, to empower women. Men in Islam have a responsibility to lower their gaze and respect a woman no matter what she is wearing or what she looks like. 

Q: Can women ever take the hijab off for safety reasons? (ie: heat exhaustion/possible attacks by islamophobes) 

A: Totally! You’re obviously never supposed to compromise your health for anything, regardless of your religious beliefs. I once got asked if it would be okay for a women to remove her scarf when playing soccer in serious heat and my answer she could if she wanted to (again, she can do wtvr she wants), but playing soccer is optional. there’s a difference between wanting to play soccer and really having your life in danger. If hijabis choose to wear the hijab while playing soccer in 100 degrees, they’re badass and props to them for sticking to it even when it got hard, but that’s kind of the point of hijab. Again though, your health always comes first. 

Q: I see hijabis sometimes and I want to compliment them/tell them it’s pretty, but I don’t want to be disrespectful. 

A: It’s totally okay to compliment us! Please do! I live for the validation of strangers! For real, though. Just think about it this way, if you can say it to a non-hijabi and not offend her, you can probably say it to a hijabi. You can compliment anyone on their scarf regardless of where it is on their body. 

Q: Can I wear the hijab if I’m not Muslim?

A: There is no specific way to wear a hijab. there is no specific fabric. We get our scarves from h&m and forever 21 like everyone else. There is nothing that identifies a hijab as a hijab except the wearer. So if you want to cover your hair for your own religious/personal reasons, you can do it! That doesn’t make it a hijab! The only thing that makes it a hijab is the wearer labeling it as a hijab. As long as you aren’t doing that, you’re not being disrespectful or appropriating our religion. (wearing it out of respect if you’re in a mosque or a predominately muslim country is also okay!)

I would however, advise against wearing it as a fashion statement. It’s not a style or accessory. 

/So this got really long and I’m stopping here but I haven’t even really made a dent in the hijabi discourse. If yall have any more questions, you should ask your friendly neighborhood Muslimah! I promise, we won’t be offended, we just want yall to know the truth. 

[djjvmz]

Thank you for this!

[magic-in-every-book]

Read PoC//Fantasy and Science Fiction

I only listed one book per author, usually their most popular or highest rated book/series, so make sure to check out their Goodreads page for more of their hardwork!!

• Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
• Tales of Moonlight and Rain by Ueda Akinari
• Prince of Ayodhya by Ashok K Banker
• Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard
• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
• Three Souls by Janie Chang
• The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate by Ted Chiang
• Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
• The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin
• The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
• My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
• Acacia: The War with the Mein by David Anthony Durham
• The Antelope Wife by Louise Erdrich
• Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
• The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
• Sunbolt by Intisar Khanani
• Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai
• Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
• The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
• Warchild by Karin Lowachee
• The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna
• The Stars Change by Mary Anne Mohanraj
• 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
• Nexus by Ramez Naam
• Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
• Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyami
  
• Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
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• A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar
• Of Bees and Mist by Erick Seitawan
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Young Adult//Historical Fiction//General Fiction//Autobiographies and Memoirs