Dead trees and black birds.

So! Some things I would add to these resources. Obviously, modern tattooing traditions are generally very personal. Also like, my knowledge comes from a friend from Labrador, so her traditional tattooing knowledge is not necessarily the same as someone from Nunavut or Alaska.

If you can get your hands on it, one of the best sources on traditional tattoos and their revival is Tunniit: Retracing the Lines of Inuit Tattoos. More generally, and almostvivian has done this, be skeptical of sources written by/based on work done by old, white anthropologists. It’s biased as hell y’all, and I can tell you for a fact that my ancestors weren’t telling anyone who can and hung out with us for a bit and wanted to write all our knowledge down everything, especially personal stuff like “So what exactly does that tattoo mean?” especially when they were simultaneously going: “Also, stop that. It’s a sin and you look bad.”

Here is a larger post I made on how to research Kardala well.

HYNPOS’ MYTH EVENT - fave greek/roman deity

(via Saturday Morning Cartoons: Baopu #15) by Yao Xiao

eat your gods.

EAT YOUR GODS. TEAR INTO THEM DEVOUR THEM LET ECSTATIC TEARS RUN DOWN YOUR FACE AND MIX WITH THE JUICE OF THEM.

get drunk on godflesh, stumble with divinity, whoop and shriek as they hit your bloodstream, roll in the dirt, suck their remnants off your gritty fingers, float, tumble, howl, chase, ascend, obliviate, transcend, transform.

wake disoriented, sick and aching with the loss of them. wipe your face, coax out your tangles, inspect your skinned knees and palms. leave your shoes where you threw them as an offering.

cultivate the hunger that only theophagy can sate.

This time I used my rage to not only record some of the sound from my bedroom window (which i also did at about 11pm) I went up to talk to them, with Micah *my de facto brother* as back up, this makes 4 times total that we’ve spoken to them.

We’ve sent emails to the property manager, and despite the rental agreement covering sound as being reasonable and considerate at all hours and Bellevue noise ordinances which start at 10pm, this guy was aggressive and argumentative and defensive. Typical intimidation behavior, trying to talk over me, interrupt me, twist my words, trying to tower over me, misdirect and distract.

This is why I had Micah with me. I can trust him to keep me safe, and he kept cutting off the knitted human condom when I’d get distressed from the tactics.

Since I was barely holding it together and was getting no where with him, I did disclose the fact I have PTSD and these events trigger it and how I cannot live with panic attacks every. FUCKING. Weekend.

He remained borderline hostile until I started the very beginning of a breakdown and the start of tears had him back tracking so fast I almost got whiplash. But this is it. If management can’t do something about this I will call the police every goddamn night at 11pm if they break the 45 decibles. If they’re gonna fuck my world up, I will be that person.

I cannot fathom these burning trash piles and their fucking privilege and the goddamn bullshit he kept pulling out (including denying ever having been spoken to, nevermind Micah had spoken to both him and his roommate and I’ve spoken to him about he and his posse smoking weed in the courtyard of our 100% no smoking community which triggered an asthma attack, like…. fuck off you crumbly moldy cheese monster.)

I’m so beyond just fucking. Done. And now I’m sick to my stomach from panic and anxiety and stress and now every loud voice is gonna make me flinch for days.

Also I know even from this zoomed-out instagrammed screenshot that the one dark-blue spot in Iowa is the county where I live. 

Also here is a link so you can look at the map in detail as well as the rest of the information in the article, rather than a screenshot on instagram, where you can see a variety of important notes including “The twelves counties in Oregon, Arizona, and Washington where a one-bedroom apartment is affordable to minimum wage workers (shown in yellow) are largely rural, far from job centers. (NLIHC)” (emphasis mine). 

Additionally, “Americans earning median wages in many of the country’s fastest-growing occupations—customer service agents, nursing assistants, health aides, retail workers—aren’t making enough to manage even a one-bedroom without dumping more than 30 percent of their income.” These tend to be jobs where women make up a bulk of the workforce. 

Also lol nobody realizes how high cost of living in Alaska is. They’re like DON’T YOU GET PAID TO LIVE THERE? like it’s that simple... And that’s just rent, not accounting for the cost of food which mostly has to be shipped up from outside. 

People who have never seen Lake Superior do not often understand how deadly and terrifying it can be. I’ve been asked many times if there is a monster legend associated with the lake, because I am an American highway legend specialist and Scottish folklorist. There are a few legends associate with the lake. For example, there is an old Anishinaabe legend that there is a sturgeon in Lake Superior that can swallow an entire city. 

However, when I have been asked this question, I often respond:

The lake is the monster.

There are old sailor’s superstitions still current among sailors and residents of the towns around the lake. I learned many of them while working on the water one summer and gaining a newfound respect for Lake Superior’s incredible power. There is a sense among the people there that the lake itself is sentient.

One example of the lake’s power is a phenomenon called The Three Sisters. This is when three rogue waves form and wash across a ship so quickly that the water does not have time to clear the decks. Many shipwrecks have been caused by The Three Sisters, most notably the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The ship was found at the bottom of the lake split in half, and it is thought that The Three Sisters were responsible for its sinking.

source: http://lakesuperiorartgallery.com/Home/LakeSuperiorShipWreckMap.aspx

Lake Superior is also so cold that it doesn’t allow the bacterial growth necessary for dead bodies to rise to the surface. The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead, as the old legend goes. There are many shipwrecks where the bodies are still there, almost perfectly intact despite having been down there for years.

The lake is a force of nature on its own, and as one explorer said, the most dangerous piece of water in the world.