Something I find incredibly cool is that they’ve found neandertal bone tools made from polished rib bones, and they couldn’t figure out what they were for for the life of them.
Until, of course, they showed it to a traditional leatherworker and she took one look at it and said “Oh yeah sure that’s a leather burnisher, you use it to close the pores of leather and work oil into the hide to make it waterproof. Mine looks just the same.”
“Wait you’re still using the exact same fucking thing 50,000 years later???”
“Well, yeah. We’ve tried other things. Metal scratches up and damages the hide. Wood splinters and wears out. Bone lasts forever and gives the best polish. There are new, cheaper plastic ones, but they crack and break after a couple years. A bone polisher is nearly indestructible, and only gets better with age. The more you use a bone polisher the better it works.”
It’s just.
50,000 years. 50,000. And over that huge arc of time, we’ve been quietly using the exact same thing, unchanged, because we simply haven’t found anything better to do the job.
At Voxtek, we strive for nothing less than perfection ~
Or something something about feeling inadequate (totally not projecting)
It was so important to me that Stolas was able to be sad throughout the entire episode. Usually media likes to rush a character's grief/depression/sadness. Like "Stop moping around" or "get over it already." Depression doesn't just go away. It is a persistent feeling of sadness.
His depression was also presented through various emotions/emotional states.
Lethargy
Crying
Anger / frustration
Self-blame
Not wanting company and being emotionally drained and unable to reciprocate
We even see him Smiling / Laughing which is so important because we see that he is still in there behind the sadness and tears. His laugh is not as lively as it once but he is still capable of smiling and finding joy.
His problems weren't fix in the end and his sadness didn't go away even if he has someone who loves him by his side (and even if he loves him too). And I think this is one of the best depictions I have seen of a depressed character in media in a long time.
One of the most important things to unpack and unlearn when you’re part of a white supremacy saturated society (i.e. the global north) and especially if you were raised in an intensified form of it (evangelicism, right wing politics, explicit racism) is the urge to punish and take revenge.
It manifests in our lives all the time and it is inherently destructive. It makes relationships and interactions adversarial for no good reason. It undermines cooperation and good civic order. It worsens some types of crime. It creates trauma, especially in children.
Imagine approaching unexpected or unacceptable behavior from a perspective of "how can this be stopped, and prevented" instead of "you’re going to regret this!”
Imagine dealing with a problem or conflict from the perspective of “how can this be solved in a way that is just and restorative” instead of “the people who caused this are going to pay.”
How much would that change you? How much would that have changed for you?
Look man, I don't know. There are a lot of fascist fuckwits trying their best to ruin everything for everyone right now. There have often been a lot of fascist fuckwits trying to ruin everything for everyone. Not to downplay the pain and trauma we're all feeling at having to struggle through this particular go-round when the future looks especially dark, but it's not exactly a new thing in human history. Alas.
There are still many, many people telling the fascist fuckwits to eat shit. There are still long green spring evenings and slow golden summer afternoons and winter nights and autumn leaves. There are still coffee shops and weird little bookstores and small businesses on sidewalks lined with flowered trees. There are still sunrises and sunsets and blue skies and ocean shores and mountains. Oh yes, there are still mountains, which I have an especial fondness for. High up there in thin air, you can see forever.
There are still Gay People In Your Phone and texts and in-jokes. There are your blorbos. There is still fic and fanart. There are still books and music and games and art. There is a lot of art. Even with the AI beast trying to gobble and commercialize everything, there's still art! There are still people who think using your own brain to do things is important! There are still universities and publishing houses and other places where it's our job to think about things that matter!
There is still work that feels fulfilling to do. There are still constant little moments of quiet and beauty and rest. There are still jaw-dropping pictures of nebulae and galaxies and the great immensity of space, as we continue to learn things we never knew before. And amid all those stars, there is still a tiny, beautiful, and vulnerable blue planet which we only get to live on for a very short time, and there are still kids who are counting on us to make sure they get to inherit it in some kind of recognizable form. There is still the weird fact that when you give someone a hug and sit with them for a while and tell them over and over that it will be okay, it actually feels like it might be okay. I think that all means something.
Doomerism is really easy right now. I get it. I honestly 100% do. But I also don't see any point whatsoever in throwing up our hands and letting said fascist fuckwits gleefully terrify us into submission and make us live in fear and act like they're the Actual Meaning of the World (they are not). They suck so incredibly hard, but they're also so small and so stupid and so ultimately insignificant. They will not define this particular moment if we don't let them, and if we stick around to make sure they don't. Fuck 'em. I believe in you.
Courage, etc.
After years of living in the adulting world, I think I’ve come to a realization: Manners exist to guide you to good conduct even when you’re in a bad mood.
When you’re happy, when you’re feeling generous, when you’re pleased with your gift or your service or your outcome, it’s easy to be nice. It’s easy to tip the waiter well when you’ve had a good day. It’s easy to thank the teller or the clerk when you got what you wanted out of the transaction. It’s easy to smile and chit-chat with strangers on the road when you’re in a good mood.
It’s hard to tip the waiter when you didn’t enjoy your food. It’s hard to thank the clerk for their time when you’ve just been told there’s a problem with their account and they weren’t able to fix it for you. It’s hard to think of something nice to say when your aunt gave you a crappy sweater you neither need nor want. It’s hard to be nice to people when you’ve had a shitty day. It’s HARD.
That’s what manners are for. Scripts and phrases that you learn by rote to say when you can’t think of a single nice or good thing to say from your own volition. Yes, they’re scripted. Yes, the sentiment is empty. But the scripts work in every situation, and the emptiness provides a buffer between your own unhappiness and the rest of society.
Because most of the time, it’s not the waiter’s fault that the food you ordered wasn’t what you expected. It’s not the clerk’s fault that your account is overdrawn. It’s not the fault of the barista or the stranger on the subway that you got fired today or your favorite aunt died. But even when you can’t summon a smile or a cheery word, you can still have manners, because they will serve you the same in sunshine or rain.
Garmadon in the past;
Garmadon now;
This just goes to show how insecure garmadon is, he really has fallen deep into depression and he doesn't even realise it, he's just lost himself, and it's even implied in Spinjitzu brothers that garmadon had a utter swept of loneliness after finding out that THIS was who he was gonna be,, oh boy :(
"Ninjago is my home" turned into > "I wanted Ninjago to be in my image, I never realised I already had, in you", LLOYD is his home <3
Gripping a sword overview
Let’s not forget to acknowledge Alexandre Dumas this Black History Month
The writer of two of the most well known stories worldwide, The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo was a black man.
That’s excellence.
when the objectively bad person has traumatic and honestly reasonable reasons for why theyre like that but it doesnt excuse their actions and only serves to make them more tragic as a character