Loid doesn't think Yor is odd because as far as he knows she supported herself and her brother by doing sex work at a young age of course she knows how to throw a punch and kick a man through a wall. That's why he never clocks her freaky strength or judges what he believes is her past. He knows that it's tough out there and that you gotta do what you gotta do to survive.
Yuri's weird possessive obsession with Yor makes sense when you realize that as far as he knows she supported them both as children by going off with creepy old men and coming home bruised and bloody. He thinks she was forced to become a sex worker because he wasn't strong enough to protect her. That's why he gets so weird whenever he thinks about her and Loid getting intimate and why in the beginning he feels like he needs to control her love life by setting her up with guys (that he's fully vetted and can easily blackmail if needed). To him, Loid is just the latest in a long line of creeps that he can't protect his sister from.
Meanwhile, Yor, bless her dumb jock heart, has no idea that people are making these assumptions about her and genuinely thinks that she is getting good grades in being a normal woman, a goal that is both possible to achieve and normal to want.
It's apparently only ONE population of this species that does this. Everyone else hunts and caches normally. The other falcons probably talk shit about this fucked up torture family.
You know the parable about how the foolish man built his house upon sand and the wise man built his house upon rock and it’s always about having a sturdy foundation well there is also the fact of location which is that the sand probably used to be rock except it’s been eroded to sediment because it’s a FUCKING FLOODPLAIN
flood Plain perfec t size for put town in to b\uild! inside very Soft and Comfort town safe happy put town in Floodplain. Put Town In Floodplain. no problems ever in flloodplain because good Shape and Support for town roads weak of big town citizens. Afloodplain yes a place for a town put town in floodplain can trust floodplain for giveing good place for town. friend flood
Canadian figure skater Maddie Schizas had to ask her college professor for an extension on an assignment due to getting the dates mixed up as well as being in they Olympics
And he responded! He said absolutely and told her to just focus on the competition and that they’re all rooting for her 🥹
He also posted his first and only photo on Instagram of him watching her in the Olympics with the caption “I’m so proud of you Maddie!”
As a culture we moved on too quickly from Lori Lemaris, Superman’s Ex-Girlfriend Who Is Also A Mermaid. Just as a concept, she’s a beautiful encapsulation of the levels of comic book bullshit (affectionate) that you stumble across in superhero stories. Mermaids are emphatically real and one of them was a legitimate love interest for Clark Kent for most of the 60s
I don’t need an entire movie about her, I just need the Superman 2025 sequel to have a bit where Lois goes “Hey I have an assignment in Atlantis you want to come along” and Clark says “Ahhh eesh I don’t know my ex lives there might be awkward” and Lois goes “Your fucking what”
My favorite thing about Lori was that she a really good friend who was over Clark (during the Silver Age). Highly recommend the Casually Comics video about her if you don’t know who we are talking about!
there will never be anything as funny as the mutual disbelief between long form and short form fic writers about each other's style.
short form writers look at people writing 100k+ fics as though this is some sort of talent given as part of a fae bargain, that the commitment required shows some sort of ungodly mental fortitude.
meanwhile long form writers look at people writing 1000 word one shots like god I would cut off my left nipple to be able to say anything concisely. i would love to play with multiple ideas. free me from the shackles of this child I have birthed. i love them but I now must take them to t-ball and doctor's appointments and they're going to destroy everything I own.
alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.
we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)
please rb for larger sample size!
Question 1/3
What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?
Something I'm noticing, even with six days left in the polls (in case you want to bring it up to your boss OP):
While the support for AI in the first poll is still abysmal, its still better than the support for AI in museums. Sure, the first poll has 10,000 more people, but there's still some support for AI at 1% in 30-45 year olds and 1.2% in 18-29 year olds.
But it's use in museums? .2% .2% and three <.1%.
Even the people who like AI don't want it in museums
This has been bugging me for ages and I feel like you’re the only other blog who would appreciate my conundrum here. Do you think people in the avatar-verse drink cow’s milk?
On the one hand the lost lore archive seemingly confirms that cow-pigs produce “delicious” milk, but how canon can we really consider that? On the other hand, if you didn’t already know, most humans are lactose intolerant. The gene for lactase persistence (the ability to digest milk past babyhood) originated in the Middle East or Europe and spread from there. Even today East Asia has some of the highest rates of lactose intolerance in the world, and lactase tolerance was virtually nonexistent in North America pre-colonisation. Not drinking cow’s milk is the norm for humanity, not the exception, so I just think it would be cool to have at least one fantasy world where the main characters are lactose intolerant and soy milk is the norm.
Granted, given that cheese can be made to be palatable to lactose intolerant people and that there does seem to have been some lactase persistence traditionally in northern Indian and Himalayan regions (at least at a cursory research glance), you would probably expect it to vary by region and culture. Maybe cow-pig milk is consumed in only certain regions and otherwise usually made into cheese. I personally headcanon that air nomads eat sky bison cheese, which might taste similar to chhurpi.
From what I've read, dairy cows aren't native to East Asia, hence the lack of cow milk in most of the traditional cuisine of that region. I would say that cow-pig milk in Avatar might just be a local delicacy unique to the EK town from "Zuko Alone".
However, a predisposition towards lactose intolerance is not necessarily a permanent roadblock to enjoying milk products. Speaking from personal experience, I can generally build up my tolerance for dairy if I make a point of drinking milk every day. However, if I take a break of more than a week, then I have to start the whole process over again.
As for the consumption of other animal milks...
Based off cultural inspiration, the Air Nomads likely had close to 100% lactase persistence. Dairy is a huge part of Tibetan and other Himalayan cuisine. Plus, if Appa is any indication, sky bisons were roughly the size of sperm whales. Assuming there was a sky bison for every nomad, there was probably enough extra milk produced for it to become a staple of the Air Nomad diet.
The Northern Water Tribe probably has some lactase persistence, since they have Mongolian and Sakha cultural influence in addition to Inuit. Both Mongolian and Sakha culture are known for their consumption of mare's milk, both as a drink and as an ingredient in dishes. Plus, the NWT canonically has Buffalo-Yaks, which is a combination of two animals whose milk is commonly consumed in parts of Asia. Lactase persistence might not be as strong in the Southern Water Tribe, who don't seem to have domesticated any milk-producing animals.
The Earth Kingdom probably only has lactase persistence in certain regions, such as the village in "Zuko Alone". This aligns with its primary cultural inspiration, China. While most of China does not have a cheese-making tradition, there are pockets of regional cheeses: cow and goat acid cheeses in Yunnan, fermented cow milk cheeses in Xinjiang, and yak cheeses in the Tibetan and Mongolian autonomous regions. However, on the whole, I think most EK citizens stick to non-dairy milks made from soy, seeds, or nuts.
Finally, there's the Fire Nation. I don't think they drink much milk. In addition to China, the Fire Nation's other major cultural influences are Southeast Asia (Thailand, especially) and Japan. Historically, none of these cultures consumed much animal milk. I think the Fire Nation's choice of milks would be soy, sesame, coconut, or peanut.
Aren't arctic camels a domesticated animal in the swt? camel milk is a pretty common staple among people who keep them (and I know several north American farmers that have brought camels. onto their farms specifically for milk!) Sami people also milk reindeer, but immmmm not sure how well snow leopard caribou would take to being milked
You're right! In Korra, we do see arctic camels, so the SWT likely consumes dairy regularly, at least in the post-war period. This would imply that Katara and Sokka have some lactase persistence. I can just imagine Sokka bringing this up whenever a game or situation requires the Gaang to split into teams:
Sokka: Alright, Team 1 will be me, Katara, and Aang. That leaves Suki, Toph, and Zuko for Team 2.
Suki: Are you basing this off seniority in the group or something?
Sokka: More like who can handle a few rounds of drinks without turning into a tomato.
Team 2: *glares*
Sokka: Kidding! It's based on who can have a milkshake without turning into a walking stink bomb---*gets dirtball to the face*
Okay, this really got my cartography brain going, so...
Lactase Persistence in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender!
The map is inspired by the above thread, but also some additional real-world biological anthropology, heavily referenced from this paper.
Of course I kept the high lactase persistence (LP) around the air temples, but I also showed the diffusion of that trait in the areas around the temples. This could be because of Air Nomads mixing into the non-nomadic local populations (genetically and culturally) and due to the trading/gifting of sky bison dairy products to those populations. I think the latter would reinforce the former, in this case.
Important to remember is that this map is representative of the percent of a population's LP if there is a population living in a given location. For example, for over a hundred years, there were no people living in the air temples, but if there were, they would have high rates of LP. Similarly, the Si Wong Desert is sparsely populated, but those who do populate it likely have LP (operating under the assumption that the sandbenders and other nomadic people get milk from the camelephants).
As in our reality, there are also high rates of LP in less fertile lands like deserts or higher latitudes (by the poles) and altitudes, as these regions tend to have more issues growing crops that can meet diet requirements. By having dairy producing animals eat the less nutritious crops, their bodies can basically add in the missing nutrients. This is why I have marked more mountainous regions + the Si Wong Desert as having more LP.
Version without the location labels:
Reference map (Wells 2021):
🌊 If I missed something or anyone has questions, always feel free to tag me! Big thanks to anon, atlaculture, and lizardlicks for the inspiration today!
@atlaculture Your wish is my command~ Almost—I added the character for milk in the negative space because I thought it looked cute there.
Additionally, here's a new map:
Dispersal and Domestication of Ruminant and Dairy Cattle!
We are really going down a rabbit hole with this one.
So once again I'm referencing the Stock and Wells paper, because it has really nice maps and it's pretty accessible in terms of academic language.
This map is pretty straightforward—circles represent points (areas) of origin, and the arrows denote the dispersal of the species. But for lore purposes, this requires some notes.
Flying Bison: I have marked their area of origin as being in the Southern Air Archipelago. We really don't know where they're specifically from, but seeing that there are populations of bison living in the Fire Nation (with/around the Bhanti tribe), I'm guessing they're from either the Western or Southern Air Archipelagos. And purely because the Bhanti tribe lives in the southern part of the Fire Nation, I've placed the bison as from the South. Their dispersal paths are also the most unique of the list, as, since they can fly, I imagine them flying directly to their preferred habitats, and the Air Nomads following/settling based on that.
(Really, the bison are too enlightened to be considered 'domesticated' by humans, but I included them because of their teamwork with the airbenders + their dairy potential.)
Arctic Camels: These creatures have more appearances in the Southern Water Tribe than the Northern, so I've placed their area of origin in the South. Perhaps they reached the North on trading ships or pirate ships traveling between the tribes?
Moo-sow (Cow-pig) and other pig hybrids, excluding the Picken/Pigster: The moo-sow are the only pig hybrids confirmed to be raised for their milk. Others, like the wooly-pig (cross between a sheep and a pig), are raised for specific functions like wool for clothes. But seeing as sheep in our world have been utilized for dairy, I don't think it's a big jump to think wooly-pigs would be in similar circumstances. All other pig hybrids are fully mammal (so this inference could still apply) except the picken (pig + chicken) and pigster (pig + rooster). (I don't know why they're two separate things. Weird!) Since these are birds crossed with mammals, they might not be able to produce milk. In Beasts of the Four Nations, Aang supposes that they lay eggs, and makes no mention of milk.
If the Picken and Pigster are more like chickens than pigs, they are likely to be native to A:tLA's equivalent of Southeast Asia—the Fire Nation. (Wikipedia page for the red junglefowl, from which chickens were domesticated.)
On the subject of the Fire Nation, I remembered—after completing this map, of course—that the Fire Nation has a native milk producer: the hippo cow.
Admittedly, this throws a wrench in the whole 'lactose intolerant Fire Nation' theory, but we could suppose that they are raised primarily for meat, and milk is an extra. According to the wiki, hippo cows are also domesticated in the Earth Kingdom after the Hundred Year War.
Final notes:
Non-hybrid yaks also exist and can be found around the Northern Water Tribe. Their dispersal pattern likely follows that of the buffalo yak quite closely, so they were not included in order to prevent crowding and clutter on the map.
Goat dogs and goat gorillas exist in the Earth Kingdom. While goats in the real world produce milk, these goat hybrids seem to express their non-goat 'genes' more prominently than the goat ones. Therefore, I have decided not to consider them.
New version of lactase persistence map, without labels:
Version of cattle map with labels:
And the lovely reference map (Stock and Wells 2023):
🌊 Questions, comments, concerns, critiques? I'll take them all :P
Your posts are so good! I love how easy it is to encounter academically minded people on Tumblr for literally any subject.
However, regarding the Hippo-Cow, I actually contend that it's not originally from the Fire Nation. Here's the excerpt from the original profile that was on the Nick website:
Creature: Hippo-Cow
If you haven't already guessed, this animal is a cross between a hippo and a cow, and can be found on farms throughout the world. While in most cases the hippo-cow is known to be a vegetarian, in the Fire Nation, things are a little different. The hippo-cows of the Fire Nation love meat. Like Sokka says: In the Fire Nation, "Even the meat eats meat."
The Hippo-Cow's "default" state is being an herbivore, but it seems to have adapted to becoming a carnivore in the Fire Nation. This implies that they're native to somewhere else, most likely the Earth Kingdom. This leads me to think they're a rather recent (<100 years) import from the colonies and the Fire Nation raises them for meat rather dairy. They kind of look like those scarily buff cows they raise for their lean meat.
At 1 PM on a Friday I get an email from my boss. I'm busy as hell so I don't check it immediately. Then I get a phone call from my boss, which has almost never happened before. I'm a white collar worker, a historian. There's never a 'historical emergency' requiring a phone call to kick me in the ass and get to work.
The request is so urgent my boss needs it by the end of the work week. Which, y'know, is 5 PM on a Friday. So I have four hours to do it.
It's a forwarded request. Somebody contacted a member of the donation team asking for help, "I need a map from the Vietnam War to use for a presentation." It's somebody she's trying to coax into giving a five figure donation to the museum.
The request was asked to the donation team member, who then emailed my boss, who then emailed and called me urgently.
This map required:
North and South Vietnam in it
All four areas that South Vietnam was divided into for military purposes ('Corps') clearly delineated
Four cities, all of them horrifically misspelled, and only identifiable because I know what battle the requester is asking about (it’s in III Corps on the border with Cambodia) (the requester danced around the battle but I’m knowledgeable enough to identify it)
Has Laos and Cambodia in it
Has the Ho Chi Minh Trail in it
So. I was mad about the 'you have literally four hours to find a map with a lot of requirements.'
I was then mad at myself about finding a copyright free map from Texas Tech University within half an hour, proving her right for asking me to do it.
Then, after I found a map that perfectly met the requirements, I was equally amazed, baffled, and horrified when I read further into the forwarded email chain.
The donation team team member they were speaking to used AI to generate a map.
The above put half of North Vietnam in South Vietnam, made the Ho Chi Minh Trail a country, made 60% of Cambodia part of South Vietnam, put the DMZ extremely high up in North Vietnam, completely disconnected the southern tip of Vietnam, misplaced all of the Corps zones, etc etc
At the very last second the donation team member had a moment of divine clarity, remembering there's three historians on payroll to ask for this kind of thing from. So she contacted my boss while saying, "I had fun with this, but I decided I should check for accuracy before I send it to the donor! I need a fact check by the end of the day, then I send it"
My boss, while not the most knowledgeable on the Vietnam War, does know her geography. She took one look, and knew it was so off she called me to tell me how urgent it is that I look at the email and respond
good fucking god, jesus tap dancing goddamn christ, I'm glad I was asked to look at it and then find a real map
My fear has never been that AI would replace human intelligence. My fear has been that the people who Know Things and the people who Make The Decisions are almost never the same people.
We’re throwing real intelligence out on the street to starve while worshipping the shambling Frankenstein-ed corpse of knowledge puppeteered by those who see us as disposable assets.
alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.
we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)
please rb for larger sample size!
Question 1/3
What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?
This got more traction than I imagined and has motivated me to make a more thorough survey where I can actually parse the data.
No email is necessary to input to complete the survey. Please also consider sharing this off tumblr with people in your life to get a broader sample, especially people who love history and love museums!
Please give your thoughts on Generative AI (such as Sora, ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) usage in museums, archives, and other cultural heritage sit
i personally believe that maximus was the former captain of the guard who was cursed into horse form pretty recently, and everyone’s having trouble adjusting to it.
like, he’s entitled to sick leave, he really ought to take a couple months to break the curse and come to terms with whatever the fuck just happened to him, but instead of embarking on a journey of self-discovery and healing he just keeps showing up to work. no one can get captain maximus to go on his fucking voyage of self actualization and fix the curse because he’s obsessed with catching flinn ryder. everyone really fucking hopes that when he finally catches this guy the curse might be broken anyway, but it isn’t.
he just keeps showing up to work. he glares at the stablehands until they saddle him up. everyone’s gone over the regulations a dozen times but there’s nothing there saying you’re not allowed to saddle and ride the captain of the guard if he makes you do it. his former second in command rides him around like ‘sir i really don’t know about this’ and he’s just like ‘are we going to catch some criminals or what.’
you can see in the movie that everyone in the royal guard defers to this horse. it’s absolutely because that’s their boss. and secondarily because now he’s two thousand pounds of percheron.
there is no evidence against this theory and you cannot prove me wrong.
Go to the inaugurations of littlely known artists’ exhibitions.
We are always begging for people to attend, there actually is the “hack” to invite your whole family but tell them to pretend they don’t know you. People with money are more willing to buy your work if they think many people likes it, so your mere presence eating our cheese and canapes will be a great helps. Please bring whoever you want too.
one time a pal of my pals was having a tough time selling their work in an art exhibit and called us up on the last day, ‘us’ being about 8 students who were Very hungry and also bored. We put on the nicest/artsiest clothes we had available (one dude had a legit fancy suit and put on some shades which were Bright Pink he looked like a movie star I swear) and rolled up to the show in pairs, separately. Fine Art Pal has some nice paintings! but nobody is really paying attention to them, so after getting some fancy cheese cubes in a manner that did not betray that we were actually a ravenous pack of starving students we casually wander around the show and then, fairly individually, drift to a stop by their work. Some of us even walked away, then came back a bit later ‘captivated’ by the art (it was actually really nice but recall we were all poor as shit and this was a help hustle). Our group’s interest naturally caught other folks, and eventually there was a small clump of about 15 people musing over this art, and within ten minutes the biggest piece had been snatched up by a shrewd investor. by the end of the exhibit every single piece was sold. It helped pay off the artist’s student debt and on that success they got into another exhibit! They’ve been doing well ever since.
So yes, please attend new artist shows, you get free cheese, get to look at nice art, and you can really help out people who deserve more attention.
One! Use the maps app for a generic “Gallery” search to find galleries in your area. Then select some and follow them on social media or join their email list. They will post about openings (and sometimes closings) where you can meet the artist and get said noms and dress up fancy.
Two! Follow local museums on social media. I know this is advocating art shows, but museums often have openings with similar food and dress code that are also often open to the public (and will post more about the ones open to the public). They sometimes also have educational talks that might be free and fun!
Three! If there’s a specific (local) artist you like, follow their accounts too! They will let you know where their artwork is being displayed! (And you can also use where they’ve exhibited previously as a list of places to follow for my first suggestion!)
Galleries (and museums) want people to attend openings and exhibitions! They often don’t have the marketing budget to make a splash and rely on word of mouth and their community! So if you want to attend openings, just following their social media is usually enough to become part of the communities who know about the events! ^_^
(I like how my “there’s a few ways” boils down to following on social media and email lists.)
Just wanted to bring to your attention that the term whump was actually coined by the Stargate fandom specifically to describe making this guy suffer. He is the original Mr. Whump (no that's not his actual name). That's how torturable this guy is.
Everyone say mean things about him.
Here is a non exhaustive list of what he goes through in canon btw:
His parents get crushed to death right in front of him when he is a kid
He is forced to relive the memory of his parents death countless times
He dies and gets resurrected
His wife gets possessed
He fails to save her and she dies in his arms
He dies and gets resurrected again
He gets infected by a virus that makes him act crazy and gets put in an insane asylum
He dies and gets resurrected again
His ex gets possessed
He is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation
He dies and ascends to a higher plane, then gets kicked out of the higher plane and his memory is wiped
from what we see in the show, in the fire nation all top nots seem to be worn pretty high and dead center, do you think theres a reason for that? is that the only respectable way to wear it? are you liable to get looked down if its even slightly askew?
That's a good question. In the Qin Dynasty, lower ranking soldiers, like infantry, wore their topknots on the side of their head and higher-ranking soldiers wore their hair in the center covered with a topknot cap called a guan (冠) or xiaoguan (小冠).
However, from what I've researched, the Qin Dynasty might have been the only time where asymmetrical topknots were the norm. Later dynasties would simply use different guans/hats to distinguish rank/social role, rather than the location of the topknot. A guan can only stay put on your head if the topknot is positioned high and center.
This image is from a post by @ziseviolet that showcases one of the more well-known guan: Wushamao or "black gauze cap". They were commonly worn by civil servants. As you can see, they have a little pocket in the back for your topknot to fit snugly inside. These hats wouldn't work on an off-center topknot.
Maybe the Fire Nation encourages their men to wear their topknots high and center to symbolically give the illusion of meritocracy. Any day now, you'll get the special hat that tells everyone you're important, so you better be wearing your hair correctly!
Anyways, I imagine that wearing your topknot off-center or low in that kind of environment could give people the impression you're probably careless and unambitious.
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