#if you are religious a lot of holidays at this tine of year are about miracles of smallness of survival of impossible odds and humble work

[princessnijireiki]

anyway my most spiciest political take right now is so many people are showing how easy it is to lash out when they are feeling helpless, or to believe in a villain they can defeat on a smaller scale than the way the bigger wheels of the world are grinding beyond our reach, because they want to be able to do something, anything, even though that can be propaganda in and of itself, and it makes you lose track of the power of kindness and aid and support in our hands that we can do.

I think the biggest thing people can do is log off, not offline entirely, but log off the platforms where people are screaming at each other just because things feel so fraught that they have to scream and having a target lulls you into feeling like it is productive, and reach out to whoever it is you DO want to help, and ask them what you can do. financially, volunteering, labor, prayer, therapy, buying phone cards, whatever.

it's not as emotionally cathartic as feeding into your own self righteous indignation by fighting strangers on the internet, it won't lie to you and tell you that you're singlehandedly making somebody across the world bulletproof or neutralizing somebody's weapon, but it is better, because it will be the truth that you need to hear, and agency over not the smallness of your limitations, but the actual span of your reach and your capability to help beyond wishing to be superhuman and hating yourself for not being that.

[bucketsquid]

squid holidays!

thoughts about holidays in inkopolis. . .

splatfests are a cyclic thing, once a month or once every two months for a few years in cycles; every big inkling city has a few people (typically idols or other musicians/performers) that are selected to present splatfest to the public during those cycles. 

there’s gaps between splatfest years for everyone to kinda chill out + for people to be chosen to present it again... but there’s always new themes and idea-pairings being produced by the fax machine. the inkling family that works at the fax machine’s shrine are in charge of saving all of the faxes, which are then carefully considered and later made into full-blown fest themes.

building off of that, the fax machine is the closest thing to a god or kami for inklings. they don’t follow religion, per say, but they do have a sort of pseudo-shinto approach in the sense that they revere the fax machine as a peculiar and fantastic entity. it has its own shrine, designed after japanese shinto shrines (the one turf war stage that’s a shrine is a big indicator of what to expect, just on a larger scale), and it’s really quite a big deal. there’s small events held year-round to honor the fax machine and raise funds for its shrine.

most other holidays are lifted wholesale from human ones, but have lost a lot of their human meanings and have been adapted more into general celebrations of themes and a good time:

christmas is a concept, just “squidmas” now-- it’s completely lost the religious tones and is just a winter solstice holiday meant to celebrate being with family and friends. gift-giving and baking food and staying warm + cozy are the big things here, because inklings are cold-blooded and winter isn’t fun for them! but you can still have fun inside!

new years is a particularly big event in japan, and it’s one of the cultural events that persisted quite well. it’s often a huge festival if not a splatfest outright. there is a lot of food, drink, music and wishmaking going on here; one particularly inkopolis trend that’s caught on is burning all your homework or unimportant paperwork from the previous year to symbolize you moving on from past difficulty.

valinktines day is a thing too, meant to be a sort of “it’s almost spring! time to show your crush/partner/s/etc that you love them!” thing since spring is the designated romance season. basically, it’s still the same

easter has also had its religious roots lost, and is now just a spring equinox celebration that’s merged with various human traditions. warm weather, new life, fertility, romance etc. the animal associated most with this event is the sturgeon, which spawns in the spring around inkopolis, and is highly beloved for its large, delicious caviar.

springtime in general is a big thing because it means you can go outside comfortably again, everything’s growing again, everyone’s happy. there’s usually a romantic “spring fever” that comes with the weather for many species. it’s all good and nice.

summer solstice and autumn equinox are big as well-- basically all the seasonal solstices are significant in some way. there’s a lot of outdoors-y activities associated with these, gardening and food harvest have a big deal made out of them, etc.

the yearly tanabata festival is another local thing that’s survived to see inkling culture as well; often it’s right in the middle of the year, to compliment new years, and it involves both human tradition and new inkling flavor (mostly in the form of reflecting on wishes and changes that have happened between the new year and the current moment). it’s a little more chill than other big events due to its more thoughtful nature, but there’s always food and drink anyways.