I like to think that at least once, the Avatar cycle seemed to skip the Water Tribe—like people knew it was the water tribe’s turn, everyone was looking for them, the tests are done on all the kids, but like 60-80 years go by and no avatar until some Earth Kingdom kid shows up. People wonder if the cycle skipped a generation or what, but nothing serious was going on at that time so they shrug and move on.
It’s only many many years later that someone is researching Swampbender oral history and someone tells the story of “Ol Stinky Jess, she was a funny one, could light the swamp on fire an’ all sorts o’ shenanigans! Best catfishgator catcher in the tribe, she was” and thats literally it, she just lived a totally chill life in the swamp and nobody knew what an avatar was at the time so they just rolled with that funny gal’s odd bending ways.
everytime i tell europeans my favorite cuisine is texmex & sonoran they are like “American bastardized Mexican food?” and i feel like im going insane. its not bastardized. its their fucking cuisine.
europeans are absolutely missing the context that sonoran chicanos and tejanos have existed on that land long before the US conquered that territory. there actually isn’t a strict clean line between american and mexican cultures. North America is full of multiple cultures that aren’t easily divided up by arbitrary borders enforced by the state.
My favorite cosmic horror has always been “It isn’t that they are so large and incomprehensible that they do not care about us any more than you care about a single flatworm in the river muck of some Siberian woodland”.
It’s been “This magnificent thing which defies explanation and is so grand and big it refuses to obey such tiny concepts like physics and reality cares about us so much. It loves us. It is fascinated by us endlessly. It wants to bring us closer to it, to talk to it, to hold conversations. But it cannot understand us. And we cannot understand it. And so it is terrible and dangerous.”
Cosmic horror where the haunted house loves you so completely that it creates a door to a perfectly black hallway in your living room. You can walk down it for five and a half chilly minutes. Cosmic horror where your lonely domicile is so grateful that you live within its bones that it grows new ones for you.
It flexes its wallpaper tendons. It splays its stony foundations out for you, home-liver. It takes itself and it builds a home from which you are safe from all the outside world which could harm and age you. Here in these eternal attics and parlors and boudours and stairwells, the house will love you so deeply that no one will ever see you again.
Horror which is scary because the incomprehensible doesnt care about you will always amount to nothing when you know about horror which is scary because the incomprehensible cares about you in a way which you cannot tell it you do not want.
I was showing my class that, contrary to popular belief, divorce rates aren’t at an all-time high but actually peaked in the 80s. When I asked them why they thought divorce rates went up so quickly in the 60s-70s, none of them could guess. One guy thought it might be because of all the “free love,” drugs, etc but I told him it wasn’t all hippies getting divorces. Not a single one of them had any idea just how hard it was for women to leave an abusive marriage before the late 1960s at the earliest.
In the late 90s, having secured a permanent and full-time position as a teacher, I applied for a car loan. During the conversation with the credit union rep I was told that I was a risk because I might get married within the 5 year loan period (with the unspoken implication that if this hypothetical marriage were to occur it would immediately result in my becoming a housewife) and that, not entirely linked to the possibility of nuptials, I might also get pregnant (and again, be rendered incapable of paid work.)
I was dumbstruck.
My parents had to go guarantors for the loan. My freaking parents.
I was in my mid-20s. I had a well-paying, secure job. I was single with zero intent to marry, and even if it had been on the cards it sure as fuck wouldn’t have been to the sort of person who would immediately insist I quit my job and stay at home.
But apparently, the fact that I was a woman overshadowed all of that stuff. That single factor meant I was a risky prospect and had to get my parents to back me.
It was absolute bullshit.
Dude, women in Ireland were forced to resign from their jobs upon getting married up until 1973
In the late 60s, no-fault divorce became possible, and it spread throughout the US through the 70s.
The combination of “you do not have to prove to a [male] judge and [mostly-male] jury that your husband is abusive (without being able to afford a lawyer)” and “you can now have a bank account in your own name” did indeed kick off many, many divorces.
Divorce rates are lower now. Marriage rates are also lower now - because, again, women no longer need to get married to get access to a bank account, rent an apartment, own a car, etc.
and even with these advancements women still get paid significantly less and often remain dependent on men for stable and supportive income. that’s why i hate the “evil gold-digger” stereotype because we did not choose to be financially dependent on men. they did.
The little directional nose and skinny legs get me. What a horrifying little charmer. I like him well.
Waow taht is a creachur
that is one of the most animals
well that certainly is a Thing
Well, It’s That
If I saw one of these in a sci-fi or fantasy movie I would just accept them as a made up part of the fantasy without question. The possibility of them being a real thing would never even enter my head
good news! it’s real and it’s a black and rufous elephant shrew and it’s god’s gift to your dashboard
*minimum level of comfort = the bare minimum you excpect to get and if they can’t provide this, you’d consider not staying over or would be unhappy about it. more is always appreciated but less is a no-go for you.
