you ever got that one distant mutual u always figure must have unfollowed u by now and then they pop up in your notes and you’re like….. wow shes still Doing That… bitch is still here despite it all….. what kind of validation
One of the reasons Avatar is one of the few epic fantasies I’ve actually liked is that nobody is above indignity.
This is a thing a lot of genres do, but epic fantasies seem to be impressively devoid of any sense of humor, and often cave to the temptation to make the villains or heroes so badass that nothing embarrassing or stupid ever happens to them.
In Avatar (the last airbender, anyway, haven’t seen Korra), everyone has stupid shit happen to them. Even Fire Lord Ozai has his moments– “No, Fire Lord Ozai, YOU aren’t wearing pants!” Azula gets covered in mud. Zuko has… well, getting conked in the head by a boomerang is only the beginning of the stupid undignified shit he experiences. (Though he still doesn’t compare to Sokka, the emperor unto perpetuity of Shameland.)
And I love that. Because in life, sometimes you get covered in mud. Sometimes you get conked in the head when you’re trying to be brooding and dramatic. STUPID SHIT HAPPENS TO YOU. And in real life, you still manage to be badass, or terrible, even in your moments of human frailty.
I wish I saw that more often.
Yes! This, so much. That’s definitively something I’ve noticed too, and I love it!
Actually, in a way, I think it’s kind of addressed in the show itself:
Zuko was publicly humiliated, punished and banished for speaking out of turn at a meeting. This was considered a personal offense to the Fire Lord: they were so strict and enamored with their “dignity” that the slightest misstep by a child could turn into some sort of great insult. And if you’re insulted the proper response is to defend your honor in Agni Kai, a duel to the death (with a child if need be).
In contrast, among the Air Nomads, it was okay to throw mud pies at the head monks and laugh your ass off. It was even encouraged: creativity, fun and humility were seen as the most essential qualities. No one was above pranks – neither being pranked nor even doing the pranks. And it didn’t mean they didn’t know respect – we know Aang had enormous respect for his elders and their teachings. It’s actually a much truer form of respect than what you could find in the Fire Nation, where fear kept you silent.
So, I think there is a lesson here, that maybe we should learn not to hold our dignity in such high regard, that it’s good to know how to laugh at yourself? And when ATLA has fun with its serious characters, it’s also a way to illustrate this idea – the show is all the richer by not taking itself too seriously.
The Entertainment Software Association, which represents the video game industry, said it told the president that “numerous scientific studies” show there is “no connection between video games and violence.” In fact, Markey said his work shows when a new violent game is released, crime actually drops.
when a new violent game is released, crime actually drops.
CRIME ACTUALLY DROPS.
its almost as if giving people harmless outlets for their aggression allows people who use that outlet to vent safely as part of their coping process, imagine that. perhaps we should be encouraging people who need to vent that they should actually go vent instead of telling them that safe venting is socially unacceptable
this is similar to when people were blaming edgy music- listening to depressing songs will not cause depression nor cause someone to kill themselves, but listening to them while writing bad poetry and wearing stylish yet regrettable outfits may allow someone to work through an emotional time in their life better then listening to equally embarrassing in hindsight pop music
its entirely possible ‘Doom’ prevented someone with anger issues from killing someone, its entirely possible ‘suicide solution’ by ozzy has prevented suicides
let people have safe outlets for their emotions
Yo my psychiatrist encourages me to play video games when I’m dealing with PTSD related rage episodes. She’s told me that it’s one of the safest ways to decompress and sort my shit out. And you know what? She’s right. By the end of an hour or so I’m chill again and can get on with my day. The alternative is doing real physical harm to myself via punching a wall or slamming my head into something. Video games negate that urge.
Video games. Play them for story, fun, and stress relief.
things english speakers know, but don’t know we know.
WOAH WHAT?
That is profound. I noticed this by accident when asked about adjectives by a Japanese student. She translated something from Japanese like “Brown big cat” and I corrected her. When she asked me why, I bluescreened.
Me, a humble draugr, quietly minding my own business in my barrow tomb, doing my daily chores (lighting the candles, taking the frostbite spider for a walk, making the large swinging axes swing in the corridor of large swinging axes), having a sleepover with the lads in the deathlord’s chamber
YOU, loud, alive, obnoxious, barging into our tomb eating an entire wheel of cheese, making a mess, plundering my life savings from my burial urn, setting fire to frosty (the frostbite spider), re-killing me and the lads, WAKING the deathlord
Did I ever tell you all about the time my dad was teaching and a student climbed IN the window?
I only got like two responses on this but it’s one of my favorite stories from my dad’s classroom so buckle up.
So my dad taught junior English at a local high school, he taught on the second story of a building that was built back when schools had large windows that opened, and his windows faced the front of the building.
So one day in like April he’s teaching Moby Dick or Gone with the Wind or something with the windows open a crack to allow spring air into the classroom and one of the windows opens further and a kid climbs in through the window.
This kid, who hasn’t been at school since winter break, puts his finger to his lips. crouches for a second under the window, crawls to the classroom door, peaks out the window in the door, opens the door and slips into the hall.
He apparently then dashes down the hall, slips through the door into another junior English class (taught by my dad’s friend), where he again puts his finger to his lips, jogs across the room, climbs out the window (which faced a courtyard on the backside of the front hall) and disappears.
Turns out, the kid had been in a juvenile detention center since Christmas, escaped, and decided no one would look for him in his school. To this day I have no idea what happened after he climbed into the courtyard.
#this kid and the pie kid are my favories
Please tell about the pie kid because this story is hilarious and I want to hear about the pie kid
Ah yes, pie kid. The pie kid is legendary at the school.
So my dad’s school has faculty meetings every Teusday after school, and the teachers would all bring food (because after 7+ hours of school even teachers are hungry then they have to sit in a meeting for at least an hour talking about test scores or whatever).
So this kid, I don’t know what the motivation here was, but he would sneak into the library and take food from the meetings. Usually they just let him because, I mean, he’s not really harming anything. That just made him bolder though. One day he began taking an entire pie from the meetings.
So one day he’s sitting in the hall eating an entire pie because high school, and security took offense at this (because he was in the building after all students were supposed to leave, also he was apparently a trouble maker who security was familiar with) and this is where the story starts getting a little crazy.
Obviously, when security shows up, pie kid runs (carrying the uneaten half of his pie). This becomes a normal Teusday afternoon sight: security chasing pie kid through the halls as he’s eating pie stolen from a faculty meeting. The kid regularly found himself in odd corners of the building, including the roof, the boiler room, the field house, the magnet school behind the high school, etc. hiding from security and eating his pie.
Eventually, security caught up with him and his pie and dragged him to the principal’s office.
Now, the principal at this point is a little.. strict. He runs a tight ship.. or thinks he does.. you know those people who are VERY concerned with their world being EXTREMELY orderly and the world just stares them in the face and refuses? That was this principal’s life. He was trying to make a 2,500 student high school walk in lock step. As shown by the last story, that doesn’t happen at this school.
So the principal is alerted that pie kid, who’s been on the run from security for 2 months, is in his office with today’s pie. So the kid waits in the office finishing his pie and the principal walks in, closes the door, sits down, and says something like “what is going on?”
At this point the kid (who has finished his pie of the day) gets up, calmly walks over to the window, opens it, climbs out, hops the bushes under the window, and runs away.
That was the last anyone at the school saw him.
Well that was unexpected but a lovely tie in and that school needs to have better control of its windows.
