I went to high school from 2014ish to 2018ish and smoking was like super counter culture within small groups because everyone mainstream thought it was so gross and weird ect, and especially when everyone had just started juuling, so smoking was like a super “I’m so cool I don’t care what y’all think I’m not like other girls, I don’t vape like you lames I smoke like a Real Adult”
Reflecting back as a 24 year old that was a terrible way to see things but I thought it may offer some insight into the resurgence of smoking, it’s like a backlash reaction to vapes tbh
That's really interesting!
I know I was part of a counterculture set, but more in the Artsy Queer Nerd sense. We had no real interest in rebelling against the "smoking is gross" norm because our whole thing was being Smarter Than Other Kids and smoking wouldn't have been smart. (we read a books and drank a tea, after all!)
Juul probably brought tobacco/nicotine products back in a big way- whether by making them more appealing to the mainstream or by, as you say, driving counterculture kids to smoke
anyway fuck Juul
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hey I always wandered why do you chose certain characters in roles for your DC au like sonic as Harley Quinn or knuckles as bat man?
also I love your content btw!
usually i just choose what character roles i think would be interesting to explore for that character, or just what would be most fun
like when you think of Sonic in the dc universe you would instantly think ‘ok he would be the flash’, and its true that he would probably make a pretty good flash and a good story could come out of that, or maybe making Amy ‘harley quinn’ and again lots of character stuff you could do with that
But those options kinda just. write themselves tbh, its a bit too easy for me to just choose those options and call it a day cuz just looking at them you’d get their entire deal.
So when im choosing character roles im basically asking myself, not just ‘what sonic character would fit in this dc role the best’ but ‘what would this specific sonic character have to do/go through to become some version of this character’ or ‘what how would this dc role have to be moulded to fit this sonic character’
lets take Shadow for example!
he was the first person i made Shadow would obviously be batman, just looking at him and his backstory he would make an amazing batman, he fits that pretty well no question
but at the time i made Shadow poison ivy, i was reading the the comic series ‘Poison Ivy: The Virtuous Cycle’, it went into detail into Ivy’s hatred for humanity and how they’re destroying the planet, and how she plans to kill all of them off (including herself) in order to save it. It was so interesting to think about her hatred for humanity this way, so interesting that my brain was like ‘wow if when shadow woke up from his cryostasis and learnt all this he’d probably wanna kill humanity even more lol’
then i thought about it more, Poison Ivy cares deeply for the environment and basically wants to kill all humans cuz they’re destroying the planet and giving Shadow that role kinda adds another layer to that because human’s are destroying the world that Maria so desperately wanted to see and he can literally feel the planet dying cuz of that plant connection + the fact that he was created artificially in a lab by humans (plus alien deadbeat) away from the planet and having that intrinsic connection to that planet below the Ark his whole life, a direct connection to the planet that Maria loved so much, a connection that he would’ve never fully known the extent of if GUN hadn’t raided.
So what if wanting to destroy the planet, he wanted to save it and to save it he had eradicated a certain ‘infestation’, humanity.
that was super interesting to me to explore as a concept so Poison Ivy!Shadow, the first character in my dc au was born!!!
it’s important to me that though im making Shadow and Ivy have the same role im not just copypasting Ivy’s backstory onto Shadow, they’re different characters and those backstories aren’t necessarily interchangeable, different things happened to make them who they are and one might not work for the other.
And if i do make the backstory similar, i wanna make changes so i can justify why they made these choices, like with what i did Sonic
Sonic’s dc au backstory follows similar beats as Harley Quinn’s backstory, but i added some details make it more believable for me to understand how Sonic could ever became what Harleen Quinzel became. So i started him out Nicky from the sonic manga, an insecure, weak, nerdy kid that’s easy for people to beat up and pick on, so he’d be someone with vulnerabilities and insecurities. Then i had Tails and Amy be his number 1 protectors cuz he can’t protect himself, his insecurities deepening cuz of this (not only can he not protect himself, he doesn’t even have the strength to protect them), he lived in the worst place in gotham, etc. Basically a lot of stuff that Eggman could use to exploit and manipulate him.
this made it really interesting and fun for me to delve into his mindset and see how he would tick!
then from Sonic’s kidnapping came Tails and Amy’s motivations to become vigilantes, to save their friend, people like their friend and to stop people like the joker from hurting them
other times times i just make the choices based on vibes and what would fit the plot <3
this character exploration and thinking process is why i personally don’t allow ppl to make character suggestions for any of my aus, cuz its really a personal process of picking out roles and dissecting them in my brain
but yh that’s pretty much why i picked who i picked lol
ty for the question!
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Just had a thought about abilities in BSD.
Under a read more because I accidentally made a wall of text talking about this-
Oops ._.;
What if your control over your ability depends on how much you accept it as a part of you? The idea that every single ability has a consciousness, one that, no matter what, is made to protect or assist its user in some way. If you don't accept and come to terms with having a second 'you' inside you, then your ability will not work with you, simply because you are not willing to work with it when all it's trying to do is help you.
Because of this, it won't always do what you want it too at first, it won't always work, and it'll do what it thinks is best, not caring about what the user will think about it. You have to understand it was there to help you, learn that your ability is a part of you, even the parts that hurt others, the parts that hurt you, because in the end, all its doing is to fulfill the most human wish.
Survive. Live.
It's not always liking your ability, it's knowing that the ability is trying to protect you, to let you live and survive in grow no matter the cost. The pain it's caused will always be there, sometimes it will come back as a memory, and that pain comes flooding back. It's trying, and so are you. Yes, it will hurt sometimes, sometimes you'll wish you never had it, that you died instead of obtaining it, because that would prevent the pain it's caused. It's not learning to love your ability, it's learning that it embodies the part of you that wanted to survive. It's not entirely you, but a part of you. The more you know that, the easier it is to deal with and use to your advantage.
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if u’re still doing these… top 5 most insane martian moments.
Sry for the late response, I really had to think on it! But these have been pretty fun to do so thank you!! <3
1. The entirety of Monaco 2010
Any Monaco celebration has a special place in my heart as you probably well know! But just Monaco 2010 as an entirety is insane to me, to name a few: the matching Porsches...their parc ferme hug...Seb trying and failing to pull Mark into the pool...them jumping into the harbor together and Seb having to pull Mark up onto the dock, MONACO REALLY GAVE US SO MUCH 🤧 but also this race being the calm before the storm, like seeing them be all cute with each other but then knowing how the season ends and how things continue to proceed after that
2. Their Singapore 2008 date
Always holds a special place on my heart. Just that we have so many pictures and even footage(!!!) of their PR mandated date in a time where this kind of thing wasn't really common yet. The caption of the YouTube vid "Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel share an evening in Singapore" 😵💫 and I also think often about this comment on that vid calling Seb a "kleine Mädchen." I just think it's very cute. Giggly STR Seb and older gruff RBR Mark, not yet affected by teammate tensions
3. Japan 2007
I think its always very interesting the foreshadowing you can read into while watching older races. I love that Martian were always on an inevitable collision course. Like imagine being Mark and that rookie who crashed into the back of you then goes to win a race before you and then becomes your teammate and then becomes wdc. That they were on this collision course before they even became teammates and Seb had barely been in the sport yet. And LIKE that quote from Mark about Seb about "kids with no experience" and Seb crying in his garage, crazy.
4. Turkey 2010
I have such a fondness for "WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING HERE!? WHAT A STUPID ACTION! I'M GOING HOME! FUCK YOU!"(to the point where my friends who know nothing about f1 know about that quote by proxy bcs I quote it so much") I think it's interesting how much Martian's conflicts revolve around team orders and disobeying radios. It's funny bcs in Turkey 2009, a very similar situation to both Turkey 2010 and Malaysia 2013 happens, them telling Seb to stay behind Mark bcs of whatever reasons. And in 2009, Seb is clearly 🫤 about it but obeys but then goes on to try to overtake Mark in 2010 and fails, but then succeeds in 2013, very interesting to see how that dynamic evolves and grows more toxic! But by far the best part about Turkey 2010 is them having to take that "Us in our Get-Along T-Shirt" pic 😭 it's so funny and I wish they'd do press releases like this nowadays
5. That Monaco 2021 interview where Mark interjects about knowing the meaning behind the coins in Seb's race boots
It's just very sweet to me. There's some post about it on here that explains how meaningful it is, but I don't feel like searching for it, so I'm kinda just paraphrasing that. But like imagine them having a conversation where Seb explains it to Mark and the meaning behind it, and like probably a decade later, Mark still remembers it in perfect detail, enough to remember about the specificities about which coin goes in which boot and why.
Obligatory mentions: Malaysia 2013 of course(but I wanted to mention others, but Multi-21 is a given when considering crazy Martian moments), Australia 2016 podium, Mark's various Instagram forays during Seb's retirement, that one interview where Mark grabs Seb from behind while Love Will Tear Us Apart plays, when Seb sat on Mark's shoulders, anything of them from Abu Dhabi 2022, etc etc
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man i just remembered the first time i learned in depth about transgender ppl was when in 7th grade we were asked to choose a "controversial topic" to practice writing a persuasive essay about, and i chose something i genuinely had zero opinion and prior knowledge about, which was about transgender athletes being tested for hormone levels and being allowed to compete in general. and i remember doing all this really intense research and it just seemed abundantly obvious to me that even the lines between the apparent two sexes weren't even readily provable, and on top of that, there was no evidence of a "biological advantage" being due to sex or gender, because cisgender athletes routinely had different hormone levels compared to the average person (duh). i remember the opinion pieces and news articles being vaguely biased and noting that, but the moment i actually dug into medical research and historical records and like, firsthand resources, i had to draw my own conclusion that being transgender or intersex was 1) difficult to define (and most of the time it seemed like the ppl demanding the testing didn't care about the big difference between the two), 2) intrusive to define, and 3) didn't even actually impact performance at all anyway.
and i was a straight A student and a bit of teacher's pet, and i hadn't gotten anything lower than a 90% on any major assignment my entire academic life at that point, and i got a B- on that paper. and i remember being absolutely dumbfounded and confused, bc i knew it was one of my better efforts. i had the chance to do a "revision" and submit for a higher grade, so i doubled down on my research and hammered in every single point, and i still barely got a B+ in the end, and i remember seething with anger because i knew i was RIGHT. like undoubtedly, this was a "controversial" topic but i had done all the due diligence and uncovered the incontrovertible truth at the bottom of it. literally one of the most significant moments in my life where i realized this was how the real world played the game of human rights through just sheer refusal
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