pendathomine

[pendathomine]

The thing about Cottagecore is that is a fetishized aesthetic of country life, divorced from labor and idealized by a primarily urban audience with a backward looking ethos of tradition. They are not prepared for the stresses of a rural life: farming; harvesting; tapping pumpkins to ensure none of them have been replaced with flesh; losing out on income by having to use one of your pigs in a blood sacrifice to paint protective sigils over your doors and windows; checking cracks and chimneys for the flesh-vines of the Pumpkin Lord; having to decide, before the Growth is complete, whether that's really your tradwife or an amassment of vines, leaves, and blood in the shape of your tradwife; ignoring their desperate pleas that "I'm me! No! No!" as you burn them alive, realizing too late you picked wrong; and the exploitative corporate nature of commercial farming in 2024. All seen through a deeply colonial lens, of course

[pendathomine]

[pendathomine]

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's attempt to impose martial law collapsed after 190 Members of Parliament barricaded themselves into the National Assembly chamber and voted to end martial law while the military tried to break in to stop them before they could vote. Many members had to climb a fence at the back of the building to break in to get a majority of the 300 member body in the room to vote.

[pendathomine]

Fellas, if something is truly inspiring, it is:

Hayao Miyazaki made an uncompromisingly personal, artsy movie that no one was supposed to get because it's too personal, too dark, too 'exotic' or whatever. And it actually became immensely successful and popular despite it (because of it???) And Disney made the safest, most backbone-less, most non-combative and soy and politically correct and soft and crowd-pleasing 'Wish' and it failed!!! It fucking failed, my friends! A historical moment! Should we finally throw away all those Hollywood seminars and workshops that try to sell us 'how to make the universally loved stories Disney style'???

There is nothing universal about any movie.

And the world is finally hungry for something different.

[pendathomine]

[pendathomine]

What was the basis for shifting to a 5-element thing in LOK? I’d love to hear you expand on that! (I’ve never seen LOK, just ATLA, but I’ve already spoiled the whole thing for myself anyway)

Hi!

To be fair. I’ve only seen the first season of LOK, so I’m pretty much in the same boat. And it was more a lost opportunity, if you know what I mean?

The chinese tradition is that there are five elements that hold the same kind of importance as the four elements do in western culture. Those are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water in a cycle that I am going to include a picture of because I think its pretty

So! (Obvs this is personal world building headcannon) In the past of ATLA the four nations were talked about as being balanced, both in the world and spiritually (as represented by the cycle if avatars). When Sozin killed the Air Nomads and started the 100 year war he brought the world out of balance in more ways than one.

However nature always tries to make its way back to homeostasis. And I believe by the time Aang wakes up we are shown a world that is spiritually trying rebalance itself without Air. Thus in the 2nd season we are introduced to woodbending from Huu and Toph inventing Metalbending. Now these are introduced as a subset of water and earth bending respectively BUT if you notice in the chart above, water creates the wood element and earth creates metal! So it fits philosophically!

So when I saw those elements being introduced to the world if atla I thought that was another reason the show was called “The Last Airbender” Aang would save the world by defeating the firelord and restoring balance to the world, and when he died airbending would die with him. Meanwhile woodbending and metal bending would branch off from the elements that birthed them to become their own fully fledged bending styles with their own distinct cultures. (Heck, wood would have had a headstart on that.) And the world enters a new age with 5 elements being the cornerstones instead of 4.

Which brings us to the first season of LOK, and my disappointment in the world building (which to be fair is only because it totally disrupted my assumptions). We see this incredible technological/industrial revolution that has completely changed how people live in the world. But only for three cultures. Miraculously one of Aangs kids was an Airbender, and has now dedicated his entire life to reviving a way of life that was eradicated, what, 150 years ago? Woodbending is never mentioned again, and metalbending, instead of being associated with a specific culture like every other element introduced in this world, is a proprietary technique of ... the police. Which uuuuuh, never sat right with me.

A world where airbenders are an endangered species that are isolated in the middle of a world that has moved on without them doesn’t seem balanced to me. And just struck me as a cop-out by whoever in the development team made that decision to return to a world system that was successful in the first place.

[pendathomine]

it’s wild to me how there is literally ZERO correlation between what a piece of media is like and what its fanworks are like. 2014 captain america fans were out there writing poetry and full-on academic papers inside of their fics. sonic the hedgehog and my little pony fandoms are both famous for drawing fetishes you’ve never even heard of. les miserables fans spent most of their energy on college aus. there is literally no consistency or observable pattern and it’s incredible

[pendathomine]

the protection of matriarchs & handmaidens: iron in Jewish folklore

many different cultures throughout history have viewed iron as having the ability to protect us from supernatural harm, and Jews have our own unique folklore about its power and uses! 

in YIVO’s Folklore of Ashkenaz class, Professor Gottesman shared a story about his father asking him, on Christmas day, to cover all the pots in the kitchen with iron lids so that the contents would be protected - an Ashkenazi custom that grew out of a combination of old winter solstice beliefs and a reaction to the Christian celebration of the day, making “unique Jewish folklore for a non-Jewish holiday.”

Jewish tradition tells us that iron is powerful against demons, both because it was the material of weapons, and because it was created after demons came into existence, so they have no immunity to it!

possibly the most interesting thing about iron is its connection to four important biblical women. the letters of the Hebrew word for iron, barzel - B R Z L - are believed to represent the names of Jacob’s wives and their handmaidens: Bilah, Rohkl, Zilpa, and Leah. according to Professor Gottesman, “because of the merits of their good deeds, iron protects us.” there are other Kabbalistic connections to be made: iron is “taken from the earth” and therefore connected to the sefira of malchut, which is viewed as feminine. the matriarchs and handmaidens represent different transitional aspects of malchut - you can read more here!

the image above is a hand-forged iron mezuzah created by Autumn Dog Forge.

[pendathomine]

[pendathomine]

51 feels like the least likely number to be divisible by 3 you know what i mean. and yet

[pendathomine]

“Baby Rhino needs a good brushing”

(via JinxTheClown)

[pendathomine]

Ipnotico

[pendathomine]

Glorified summerhouses seem an essential part, somehow, of that famous British institution, the country house weekend. This one is exceptionally well-furnished for outdoor pleasures, with cane seats and cushions, coconut matting and curtains, as well as an unexpected but welcome fireplace against the none too rare times when summer weather is less than clement.

English Country Style, 1986

[pendathomine]

We’re only finding out recently that a lot of animals have colors and patterns that we cannot see because they’re outside of our visual range. It calls to attention how much of the world we can’t experience because our senses are limited. When we shine UV lights on them, they glow pink or blue, but these are the colors that we CAN see…. they could be a bunch of different colors, which we SEE as all pink. It’s also interesting to consider that most of these animals are not aware of having glowing patches on their bodies…. isn’t it also possible that we have skin or hair patterns that were not aware of? . . (There is actually some research out there to support the idea that our own skin fluoresces as well and that there are gender differences in the pattern and glow.) Other places to see my posts: INSTAGRAM / FACEBOOK / ETSY / KICKSTARTER    

[pendathomine]

[pendathomine]

A series of dreams and things. The text of the first is from @normal-horoscopes