“…and [turtles and other shelled animals] are, at the same time, the caravan and the caravaneer, the lodge and the lodger.” - Markus Kajo (a Finnish comedian).
Sorry, I don’t currently have the book at hand to have the exact citation but will probably edit this.
It’s one of those things that make me say “OK my parents MAY have a few of those in their garden. Gotta see them to be sure, maybe. But it was a thing in that ill defined era maybe, so, you know, maybe.”
I remember when one of our local publications asked their readers “what kind of old appliances you still have around at home that you use regularly?” and the article was flooded with photos of 1970s kitchen appliances. Well duh, of course those still work, if you take them out of the cupboard once a year to bake a cake or whatever.
You can tell this is an ancient meme because you somehow expect “non-full-time job” position to be worthwhile in any shape or form. If it’s not a full-time position, my personal belief is that either 1) they’re probably going to screw you over somehow, or 2) the government regulations are going to screw you over. (I’m in Finland. The government’s going to screw you over if you do anything besides staring at the phone and accept the first full-time position that miraculously comes your way. In recent years, they invented a new activity: SPAM JOB APPLICATIONS. This has not worked as well the government thinks it did.)
I also wonder what animals think of how they are depicted in culture.
My own weird fantasy worldbuilding thing:
Common people usually picture the vampires the usual way, as aristocracy living in seclusion in spooky fancy castles. But in actuality, most of them come from lower classes. Vampires had a whole little communist revolution because they had no civil rights (on the account of them being deceased), and set up their own little autonomous grand duchy. Vampires elsewhere get mildly tolerated as long as they behave themselves but still have to work crappy factory jobs… in the Night Shift. (title drop)