....this Sounds Weird, But This Post Kind Of Invaded One Of My Dreams Last Night. So In My Dream, I Was

This is beautiful! I love this song; I learned the lyrics a little while back and it’s such a pretty language to sing in. (I’ve kind of made a hobby out of learning songs in several different languages.)

I’m also a trained dancer, and I’ve been fascinated with hula for a long time. It’s so different from the kinds of dance I’m familiar with, and it’s so graceful and rhythmic! If I ever got the chance to learn about hula dance in a respectful and authentic way, I would definitely do it.

Floral triceratops by Vallavica

A friend of mine with a passion for folklore and small presses recently introduced me to Inhabit Media, and I’m so glad to have had a chance to peruse these books. 

Inhabit Media is an Inuit-owned publishing company based in Iqaluit, Nunavut (i.e. very very very North). They are dedicated to preserving and promoting the stories, knowledge, culture, and language of the Inuit and of Northern Canada, and they publish a range of books for children and adults that include contemporary and historical fiction, folklore and legends retold and beautifully illustrated, and non-fiction on history, science, and arctic life. 

If you enjoy folklore, oral history, wintertime storytelling, or really superbly creepy mermaids, definitely check them out. 

these are the most accurate dinosaurs I’ve ever seen in animation, I’m genuinely blown away

Our world does not welcome wild things.

As a zoology student, this is a brutal truth I must face. We slaughter keystone predators, leaving ecosystems to rot, then ponder why we are so overrun by the animals they hunt. We destroy forests, jungles, prairies and marshlands, then wonder why these pests dare encroach on our land. 

We hunt rare creatures for their tusks, for their horns, for their skin, for their bones, forcing those that remain onto reserves, culling them when their populations grow beyond our control. Our highest-ranking political figures publicly delight in murdering endangered species for mere thrill of the hunt. If a creature is fierce, or frightening, or mysterious, or beautiful… we kill it. 

This is why How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is important. Grimmel is a trophy hunter. He kills dragons for the fun of it. Because Night Furies are beautiful and rare and dangerous and the world heralds him as a hero for it. He doesn’t need another reason for it, anymore than any of the trophy hunters of our world need a reason for shooting an elephant and proudly posing with its bloody tail other than it boosts their egos. 

“Our world doesn’t deserve you…”

…because our world destroys all that which is fierce and beautiful and wild. So until the day comes when mankind stops desecrating, polluting, and exploiting the natural world we are meant to protect, I hope the dragons stay hidden, where man cannot reach them. 

So a lot of people are rightfully unhappy about the possibility that Katara will be aged up in the new Netflix version of The Last Airbender. That has a lot of issues and I’m glad people are talking about it.

But truthfully, I’ve always had some issues with how Katara’s relationship with Aang was handled. Generally, ATLA did very well with its female characters and gave us a lot of strong girls and women to admire, but it still had its flaws.

Specifically, the thing that bothered me the most when I first saw it as a child was the scene in Day of Black Sun where Aang kisses Katara without warning and without permission. That always made me uncomfortable. 

There’s also the way the writers handled the development of their relationship. Throughout the series, it is made very obvious that Aang has a major crush on Katara. But while Katara cares deeply for Aang, she is pretty much never shown to have romantic interest in him - except for that time that the fortuneteller tells Katara that she will marry a powerful bender and Katara is reminded that Aang is a powerful bender, plus that time they dance together in the Headband. But honestly, neither of those carries a lot of weight, in my opinion, especially compared with other scenes. Katara explicitly has a pretty negative reaction to the idea of a relationship with Aang in the Ember Island Players episode - where, again, Aang kisses her without permission, right after she said she was confused. Again, she reacts negatively to the kiss, and to Aang’s pushiness regarding a relationship. It’s kind of hard to see how they could move from this point to a full blown romantic relationship over the next few episodes. (Honestly, I hate that scene for Aang. It’s a pretty negative characterization for him. This scene made me uncomfortable as a kid as well. Actually, I might have hated this scene more than the Day of Black Sun scene.)

Anyway, for most of the series, Katara acts more like an older sister or mother-figure to Aang. And then at the end of the series, Aang defeats the Firelord and suddenly Katara is all in for a relationship? I remember the first time I saw it, it seemed sudden within the context of the story. Outside of the context of the story, it pretty much looks like Katara was treated as a reward for Aang - the hero saves the day, gets the girl trope. I don’t think I need to explain why that’s bad. It was also weak within the story’s plot, because it’s not well-supported by Katara’s character arc.

So the two main problems with the Katara/Aang relationship, in my view, are  these: one, Aang’s treatment of Katara within the story; and two, the writers’ treatment of Katara from outside the story.

(Plus, a 12/13 year old dating a 14/15 year old comes off kinda weird to me. A couple years difference matters at that age.)

This is honestly my biggest criticism of the series. It was still a great show, and I loved it, but as iconic as it was, it wasn’t perfect. 

hahaha

hm, this sounds like Dutch?

Unmute !

so I met this kid who was like 9-10 today and...

kid: do you have a boyfriend?

me, walking by: no.

kid: can I be your boyfriend?

me, laughing: no.

kid: I'm 25!

me: sure, kid.

Imagine if, instead of buying NFTs, those people "adopted" wild animals, zoo animals, or animals in rescue and rehabilitation and get to help great causes and conservation AND get cute photos and stuffed animals and updates about the animals they're supporting.

Imagine if all the money that went into mining cryptocurrency and buying NFTs went into general conservation efforts instead, if it was used to help our planet instead of destroy it more.

I could not figure out what this was about until the last sentence

The wrong Dodo went extinct