#i have so much to say and no one to say it to like. 60% of the time

[hasufin]

FR though, it is too expensive!

Some friends got me a food dehydrator a while back, and I use it to make turkey jerky all the time.

Now, a big issue is, it's pretty hard to get turkey jerky. I can't eat beef, but with inflation up, a lot of companies are cutting their secondary products. That's why you can't find that awesome niche flavor of soda or whatever lately.

Now, I'd have to go dig up my notes and I'm not going to, but it turns out making jerky is actually really easy if you have a dehydrator. Mind, some toaster ovens can work as a dehydrator, but I'd check their manual. A food dehydrator does two things: it gently warms, and it circulates air. That's pretty much it.

So how do you make jerky?

You get the meat. You want lean meat. Fat and gristle are right out. Bear in mind that the resultant jerky will be about 1/4 to 1/3 the weight of the meat. If you're using game meat like deer, you'll want to freeze your meat at 0°F for at least 60 days before you use it, to kill parasites.

Cut the meat. First, trim as much fat and gristle as you can. Then you want to cut across the grain to make thin strips of meat. The thinner it is, the better. Remember to cut across rather than with the grain like you would normally. This is important to keep the resultant jerky from being too tough.

Marinade the meat. Now, I don't have a good set marinade to offer here. There are some online, and you can buy a pre-made marinade. This is really where you can get super creative if you want. Personally I have been experimenting with a slightly sweet curry-based one. You might imagine that the salt in the marinade is important to preservation, but it really isn't; the drying is what matters. So you're going to take your meat and marinade it for about 24 hours to let the flavors soak in. (Most marinades are some combination of salt, sugar, onion and garlic power, pepper, chili powder, soy sauce, and Worchestershire sauce. But there are no rules here.)

Dry the meat. This is where that dehydrator comes into play. You're going to lay your meat on the dehydrator trays and run it at one of the higher settings, probably about 160°F. You'll want to flip it about once an hour, and use a paper towel to blot off any excess fat which gets squeezed out. This will take somewhere between 4 and 16 hours to dry, depending on the meat and how you cut it. You're looking for it to be tough and dry but still very slightly pliable - basically the texture you expect with jerky. This is pretty much the step when it goes from being "meat" to "jerky". But! You're not done. The next step is absolutely crucial.

Sterilize the meat! Note that up to this point it's still uncooked meat. So, heat up your oven to 165°F and bake your jerky for at least 30 minutes.

Store your meat. Jerky will last a pretty long time.. if you keep it cool and dry. I keep it in airtight containers with some dessicant packets, and I haven't had it mold yet. This being online, I'm going to say you can probably store it for about three months.

And that's it. Jerky in the store is painfully expensive, but - once you get a dehydrator - it's quite cheap at home.

[toothlespoggers]

U don’t understand. He’s a Nindroid. He has a soul. He has ice powers. He’s TRAUMATISED. He does not value his own life. He is borderline suicidal. He is SOFT. And he loves people too much. But OUgh he’s actually a little fucked up even tho he’s calm and calculated Caus he toucheda forbidden stick and it made voices in his head and then he was like a genocidal murderer for like 60 years and he had no memory of anything and then he was dragged out of that situation and nobody even asked if he was ok and he never questioned that because he’s lived his whole life with the expectation that he’s fine and he’s got everything under control and he doesn’t even know what mental health awareness is because no one ever talked to him about it because no one ever asked if he was okay, not physically but mentally. Because even if people cared no one ever thought he was not okay, and so Zane never thought he was not okay so he’s lived his life for probably a hundred years or so by now, always moving forward and never addressing his problems or traumas or demons, which is DESTROYING HIM, from the inside out. He has absolutely NO SELF WORTH. His entire existence is based around his role as a ninja, he has been trained from when he was a “teenager” that his worth is based around his ability to preform, that the most important thing is to save lives and the world and stuff. Which it is but like he’s never been allowed to do anything else and on the rare occasions he and his friends relax they immediately get scolded and told to keep fighting. He’s never had a sick day. He literally sacrificed himself to save the world. He rebuilt himself, and immediately the next opportunity he gets, he sacrifices himself again, and he tries to do that over and over and over again because that’s his job he states that he is expendable! He says that multiple times. He always volunteers to take the hits because his view on his humanity his person hood is so WARPED, that he believes he has less value than a human. That he is a TOOL. To be used by those around him because people sure, they’ve treated him with kindness on many levels but it’s kind of shallow when they never care enough to prevent him from getting hurt, they use him, he almost dies, they fix him and then put him back into the line of fire. His entire worldview is based on fighting.

The only person. Who has ever asked if he is okay and treated him like a human being. Is a STUPID GOSH I LOVE HIM BUT JES SO DUMB. FROG MAN and Zane is SO NOT USED TO IT that he has to repeatedly inform. This man. That he is in fact. A robot. Because he expects that to change the way people interact with him. He’s a machine, he doesn’t need a break, he’s built to serve a purpose. But frog man, does not listen.

Frog man is kind, frog man is good.

FROHICKY TRIES TO PLEASE ZANE SO MUCH THAT HE GIVES ZANE A FROHICKY PLUSHIE. SO THAT ZANE CAN VENT HIS FRUSTRATIONS AT THE PLUSHIE. SO THAT HE WILL FEEL BETTER. AND ZANE SAYS “I do not experience heightened emotions.” see see this this proves one of my points urghhhguugh FROFFS BARKS GROWLS HE DOES. WE ALL KNOW HE DOES, ANY NINJAGO FAN WITH EYES CAN SEE THAT ZANE EXPERIENCES HEIGHTENED EMOTIONS. HE JUST KEEPS FUCKING LYING TO HIMSELF AND OTHERS BECAUSE HES GOT THIS ROBOT MINDSET EVER SINCE SEASON 3 HES JUST BEEN ENTIRELY CONSUMED BY THE IDEA THAT HE ISNT HUMAN AND SO HE HAS TO BE DEFINED BY THAT IDEA. He has so many inconsistencies all relating to this weird brain he has this weird weird robot brain it’s SO INTERESTING. I WILL BE GATHERING INFORMATION AND I WILL BE MAKING A FULLY RESEARCHED FULLY COHERENT RANT ABOUT ZANE IN THE FUTURE. BUT RIGHT NOW I HAVE OTHER STUFF TODO BUT URGHH THIS CHARACTER MY BRAIN IS TINGLING SO MUCH URGHH

[theoncomingchaos]

Who loves Rook: Spite or Lucanis

I've been seeing a lot of discourse about this, and I just want to add my thoughts.

I might be totally wrong about this, but here we go. When Spite was put into Lucanis, he was still Determination. The fact that he changed throughout the torture, forced insertion, and imprisonment suggests to me that they have been put into a speedrun of a similar situation to Anders and Justice/Vengeance where they have started to meld. (As Anders put it, you wouldn't know where one begins and the other ends). Just like Anders and Vengeance, Lucanis and Spite can have separate consciousnesses and even disagree about things, but their core values have started to influence one another and become a part of one another- heightening certain aspects.

I think this melding is why we see some dialogues where Rook tells Lucanis that he sounds like Spite and similarly it's also the reason for the shared attraction- which I fully believe is coming originally from Lucanis.

I'll be honest my first time through I romanced Lucanis and was very disappointed. I didn't even see him and Neve ever flirt (she only ever encouraged us!) But still, it seemed to go from 0 to 60 with him. Now, I am on my second playthrough and I only just met him, but I am starting to see some really subtle looks and dialogues that suggest that Lucanis wasn't lying later when he said he was attracted to Rook from the beginning, but was afraid to really pursue anything or even acknowledge the possibility of being with them. With his fear of trusting people, ptsd from the prison, failed history in romance, and his new situation with Spite that he still hadn't worked out yet, he never thought anything would or could ever come of his feelings. We know Lucanis loves romance stories and likely longs for one of his own, but in such a situation it must have seemed truly impossible and terrifying to let someone else in. Especially someone you really care for and are starting to trust. So, he pushed it all down. Rook flirts? Maybe a small smile, but then quickly lock it all up with everything else he can't handle. Focus on work. Don't think about Spite, or Rook, or anything difficult.

However, if the melding has already happened as I suspect, then the feelings Spite is expressing are shared with (and likely sourced from) Lucanis, he's just better at expressing it directly- which makes sense for a spirit that was once Determination. When you first talk to Lucanis after the rescue, the thing Spite says about Rook changes accordingly to your tone, but to me the responses still sound like they come from Lucanis and are then echoed in Spite: "He doesn't want to hurt us." Even the "He's more fun than you" is something Lucanis seems to think about himself as he is fully aware that much of his life has not been his own and believes "all he knows is death."

Leading back to the main point, Lucanis's trust and interest in Rook would be heightened by Spite the way Anders' anger towards the templars was heightened. Even though they are finally free from the prison, their is a sense of constant suffering from still feeling trapped by fear, regret, and pain- Spite feels that suffering too. The elements of determination are still within him the same way justice is another side to vengeance. Both spite and vengeance are the results of failing to achieve their goals of Justice and Determination. Spite sees Rook as a way to free them from pain and restraint, a glowing and beautiful key to the prison door, and he is determined to do what needs to be done to solve the problem. That's why he doesn't hesitate. He has no fear. He wants to talk to Rook. He wants Rook to come in and free them.

After Rook has freed them, they become a source of comfort and safety, once they encourage Lucanis and Spite to find a way to cohabit comfortably, the two continue to meld, and the need to protect Rook, to love Rook, to keep them, is very deeply shared. Now, IF Spite was somehow removed or even somehow restored (Both of which I think are impossible) that would likely change. Determination outside of Lucanis would likely become more like Compassion. He would likely forget the horrors he experienced to return to his original purpose.

So, that leaves some final questions, particularly one Hawke helpfully asked Anders- Is Spite an unwilling party in the threesome?

That's up to everyone's own morality. While both Spite and Lucanis didn't have a choice to become like this, it is the situation they are in and the way they have to find a way to accept and live with because there really doesn't seem to be any real way to change it. Through their time together, Lucanis and Spite have influenced each other and grown into something new. Part of that is Spite also loving Rook. In that way, for those who are feeling (rightfully) underwhelmed by Lucanis's romance, Spite can almost be seen as a symbolic expression of Lucanis's love.

All that being said, I think there were some small things they could have done to make the romance more satisfying over all...but I'll save that for another post.

[striveattemptfail]

a cursed realization: wade and logan are old men. logan especially so.

they MUST have weird old man habits and general body weirdness. and not the endearing shit like preferring to use old school tech, or having a "get off my lawn, my favourite miscreants" kinda attitude, or being unable to keep up in sex, or any of that kinda cute stuff

i mean the unpleasant sweaty old man smell, having walking farts, snoring while awake, their stomachs just making noises for no goddamn reason bc their digestive systems are no longer 30 y/o

all of which they don't even realize they're doing bc they're old and either a) have more pressing things to worry about [at their age]; b) stopped giving a fuck; or c) both of the above

source: i live with two very old men (my dad and uncle). one is a few years away from retirement and the other is already at that age. they are family but they are still gross old men who act like drunk uncles given half the chance

and while neither logan or wade are in their 60s, these habits don't just magically appear once you hit that age. they begin long before that and accumulate over time until the stinky old man package is complete

"but jercy," you say, "they have perfect regeneration!! they can't have any health problems!! they're too self-conscious to be that gross!!"

1: (re: perfect regeneration) that is an even worse argument for wade, who has mega cancer and canonically does not smell pleasant or have a properly functioning body. he'd 100% have old man problems as a symptom of his cancer bc his mutation is physically keeping him in a constant state of dying. everything he does is out of sheer stubbornness and willpower to make a joke out of his life

1b: to play on a popular headcanon: any aromatic, artificial fruity skincare routine he has can easily be used as a reason for him to cover up his old man smell

2: see point B above for logan

2b: see the movie, logan (2017), or the comic, death of wolverine (2014), for the fact that logan can canonically age/die. albeit it's at a vastly slower pace than everyone else, but it means logan WILL eventually have these issues with his body too, if he doesn't have them already

2c: feral/animalistic logan who takes on animal traits would be so much worse bc wolverines are called "skunk bears" for a reason. wolverines (and any wildlife/animal that you can compare logan to) fucking STINK!! they have EVEN GROSSER ANIMAL HABITS!! you just gotta accept it

3: (re: self-consciousness) you got a point there, but once again refer to point B. most folks i know at their age are on their way to or have already stopped caring about what others think of them. and even if wade and logan are somehow the exceptions to this, i'm sure they let loose in private and probably indulge in their grosser habits when they're alone

4: if you want biblically accurate old man yaoi you're gonna have to contend with the fact that it comes with the non-sexy old man problems. i'm sorry i have to break the illusion but this is the reality we must face together

5: suspension of disbelief, friends. do engage with that once in a while lol

in conclusion: i unfortunately have every bit of confidence that wade and logan are not exempt from old man behaviours and bodily functions and i will die whining about it. thanks for coming to my ted talk

[dytabytes]

As a dentist, I have to slide in here with some notes:

1) If you want to keep your teeth healthy, vaping is actually, unfortunately, a really bad option. The carriers used for most vape juice are often some kind of vegetable glycerin, which will stick to the teeth, significantly weaken your tooth enamel and promote bacteria growth, which leads to cavities. It might not stain them as much, but if you want to protect the look of your teeth, vaping is definitely not the way to go.

2) Marijuana use affects the effectiveness of lidocaine, which is one of the most commonly used dental anaesthetics in North America. This means that, if you want to be numb in the dental chair, I recommend trying to take a break on use for at least a week, if not more, before going for treatment. That said, if you really need some help calming down (and I know a lot of people do), tell your dentist so that they can change their treatment plan! Depending on the patient, sometimes I'll give a double dose of anaesthetic right off the bat, or I'll switch what I'm using altogether for something that's not as affected by marijuana use! Your dentist wants you to be numb just as much as you do, believe me!

3) Night grinding is often related to a sleep breathing issue. If you're a clencher or grinder and/or you snore, I'd strongly recommend speaking to your doctor about a sleep test before having a nightguard made, because treating the sleep issue might negate the need for the nightguard altogether! This would either be because you won't be grinding anymore, or because the doctor might put you into a specialized kind of nightguard made to treat sleep breathing problems. If you've already have a nightguard made and you find you can't sleep with it, or you're taking it out at night because it's uncomfortable, that is also a sign that you might have a sleep breathing issue. A normal nightguard takes up just a little more space in the mouth, which decreases your airway size, and if you already have an airway that is too small, your body will respond by saying "I don't like this".

4) Xylitol is actually more than a saliva stimulation item! It's what we call a "cariostatic" sugar; the bacteria in your mouth can't process it, so it slows down their growth. Because of that, I actually also recommend people use it if, say, you have trouble brushing regularly because of mental illness or sensation trouble, or if just get cavities a lot. That said, be careful with how much you eat! The bacteria in your mouth can't process xylitol, but neither can the bacteria in your gut. If you have too much, you might end up with bloating or other tummy trouble. Everything in moderation! 5) Last tip! A lot of people out there have trouble affording dental care. If this is an issue for you, I strongly recommend searching out if you have a dental school or hygiene college near you. Students are watched over super carefully, so the work you get done at those institutions will be very thorough, and schools often give steep discounts on price to encourage people to come. You will, however, likely be paying for your treatment with time, instead of money. It's been a while, but as an example, when I was in school a root canal at a dental office would have taken an 60-90 minutes and cost over $1000. In school, the same root canal would be 6 hours, split into 2 appointments... but would have only cost $75. Stay healthy, friends c:

STUFF NOBODY EVER TOLD YOU ABOUT TEETH (and how to take care of them if you are poor and/or depressed)

Contrary to what the US health industry would have you believe, your teeth are NOT luxury face bones. You need them. Healthy teeth are a cornerstone of good health in general for a lot of reasons. You can’t eat well without them. You need them to speak. And tooth bias is real.

This makes me very sad because I love teeth. I am not a dentist. I’m a biological anthropologist whose expertise is oral disease and the evolutionary anatomy of teeth. My dad’s an oral surgeon and I worked in his office from the tender and illegal age of 8 to the ripe old age of 18, which is when I went to college. At 12, I was assisting with the disposal of biowaste, aka packaging up the teeth to send them to dental schools. I live, breathe, sleep, and occasionally eat teeth. I found a human incisor on my floor this morning and wasn’t even surprised. I study how teeth go bad partly so that I can help living people protect the teeth they’ve got. It’s my goal with this post to teach you about a couple of different types of procedures and oral injuries, as well as what you can do to help keep your teeth functional. So in this post, what I am going to do is outline a few common things that can go wrong with your teeth, how they happen, and how to catch them before they get bad. A lot of the advice in this post is for people who maybe can’t get to the dentist for a cleaning and checkup every six months. This post is also gonna be LONG AS HELL and there is going to be a separate post called “luxury face bone hacks for the busy/broke/b’mentally ill” or something like that, so like. If you don’t like super long posts, just hit this one with a like and actually read through that one.

First, let’s talk about dental anatomy.

What Are Teeth?

Teeth are extremely cool. They’re these amazing little packages of dentin pulp, protected by enamel, nestled into the jaw like truffles in a box of chocolates, held in place with a teeny tiny ligament. They’re gorgeous– enamel is a beautiful substance, translucent and opalescent. Teeth are also extremely weird when you think about them. You have these weird not-bone things emerging from holes in your jawbones. They’re snapped into place with a biological bunjy cord and you can actually SPRAIN THEM if you put too much pressure on them.

Here are some important things to know about teeth!

First, the nerves in your teeth were never meant to be exposed to the air. They only process stimulus one way: pain. This means that when you get a cavity or do anything else that exposes the nerve, it is going to hurt like a bitch.

Your teeth may come loose! Usually they stay put and go back to normal in a day or two. Don’t panic. This is usually the result of you spraining your dental ligament that holds the tooth in place.

Root canals suck but they can prevent dental abscesses. Dental abscesses can kill you. If they spread and get into your sinuses, they can cross the blood/brain barrier and you will die. This doesn’t happen much any more, but in rare cases… it can.

The phrase “like pulling teeth” is a misnomer. Pulling teeth is extremely easy if you know what you’re doing. Extractions are usually a very simple procedure. What’s complicated is things like root canals and setting up implants, which, in the case of implants is the literal opposite of pulling teeth.

Pregnancy will fuck up your teeth because a.) the fetus is leaching your vital essence and other nutrients and b.) your hormones are telling a lot of ligaments in your body to loosen up to get ready to give birth. Sometimes wires get crossed and other ligaments at non-mobile joints get the loosen up message, too. Just be sure to keep up your dental hygiene regimen during pregnancy and you’ll be fine.

Your gum tissue isn’t just weird wet skin. It’s a mucous membrane that protects the mouth. It can get diseased and inflamed, so pay attention to it! Also, there’s a lot of blood vessels so if you poke yourself with something, you’ll bleed like a stuck pig for a minute. The kind of bleeding you should be worried about is prolonged bleeding, where you see blood welling up around your teeth for no apparent reason.

Now that you’ve been equipped with some fun facts, lets talk about diseases and procedures.

Braces: if you’re reading this, you probably don’t need them

First: Pediatric orthodontia is largely a scam. People who put standard braces on their child before that child has lost all of their baby teeth are stupid and causing their child needless pain because those teeth are going to fall out anyways and the alignment of the adult teeth was decided long, long ago. The kids who NEED orthodontic intervention are kids with bad crossbites/underbites/overbites. This requires specialized headgear most of the time and is more intense than the standard braces because they are made to solve a much bigger problem. The standard bracket-and-wire braces? Don’t put those on a child. They won’t help. Also, your kid doesn’t have their third molars yet, and those are the molars most likely to come in twisted anyways.

As an adult, you may want braces for cosmetic reasons or for comfort reasons. This is a CHOICE that is YOURS TO MAKE. If your dentist suggests you need braces, ask why. You don’t have to get them. Now,If you have certain kinds of dental overlap- like, your lateral incisors have been pushed behind your frontals- then yeah, you should get braces. But is it the end of the world if you don’t get braces? No.

Wisdom tooth removal: you might not need it

The human jaw is in a state of evolutionary mismatch right now. Basically, our last molar, the third molar, doesn’t come in until we’re an adult. Unfortunately, thanks to ten thousand years of agriculture, give or take a few millennia, we have much more gracile jaws than our ancestors. There’s not always enough room for it. Now, this isn’t true for everyone, because no two skulls are identical and all, but sometimes there is a condition where you really should get those suckers out. If they are impacted, or coming in sideways, they can push your other teeth out of alignment and cause jaw issues down the line. If they come up straight, don’t worry about it.

Cavities: you need to get these taken care of

Cavities are a pain in the ass and are honestly the main reason you should go to the dentist for checkups, so that they can take the x-ray of your mouth and see how any potential trouble zones are progressing. You should call a dentist and seek help if you notice pain that persists over three days, as that’s an indicator of something more serious than just a sprain.

Tooth Grinding: this is a problem

If you grind your teeth, your dentist may recommend a night guard. Actually listen to them about this. Grinding your teeth can cause major jaw alignment problems that are a pain to fix, so just bite the silicone and suck it up. Also maybe talk to a therapist if you can, because grinding can be a result of stress/anxiety.

Whitening your teeth: bad idea

First off, your teeth ain’t supposed to be white. Enamel is not white. Enamel is translucent and pearlescent, so its actual color is very hard to pin down. Your teeth are naturally going to look more ivory-colored over time. That’s just part of being human and having teeth. Embrace it. You are a badass omnivore with thirty-two gorgeous enamel teeth. They weren’t put in your mouth to look pretty, they were put in your mouth to feed you.

Second: Whitening your teeth weakens your enamel. Once your enamel’s gone, it ain’t coming back, baby. There are some gentler whitening methods, like whitening toothpaste, but these are only going to give you about one to two shades worth of improvement. If you have extremely stained teeth and you want to whiten them, make sure you talk to your dentist about all the risks. Unfortunately, there is no truly safe and effective home-style (read: not a million gotdang dollars) remedy for whitening teeth.

There are a few that are kicking around, but seriously, some of them are dangerous. Do NOT rub wood ash on your teeth. That’s lye. Don’t put that in your mouth. Do NOT use actual bleach, hair dye developer, or non-dental peroxide gel. They are poisonous. DO NOT PUT ACETONE ON YOUR TEETH i have seen this exactly once and the person came into my dad’s office with chemical burns on their gums and lips. I do NOT want to see this again.

It is a misconception that brushing your teeth keeps them looking white. Brushing your teeth removes plaque and biofilm, but those buildups don’t actually stain the enamel itself. Instead, really the only way to keep your teeth looking light is to pay attention to what you’re putting in your mouth. If you’re a tobacco user, vape! Tar is a major staining agent. Coffee’s also a major stainer, and the big trick there is to put a little milk in it. See, enamel staining doesn’t come from the color of the food. It comes from chemical properties. Acidic foods stain because acid damages enamel. Food with high levels of tannins, like coffee or tea, stain because the tannins change the PH of the mouth. So what you should do to avoid staining is balance your mouth PH by eating something basic after eating something acidic. Add a lil milk to your coffee or tea to weaken its acidity just a bit. Swish with water afterwards to help clear the acid. Don’t eat lemons or any other acidic food after drinking coffee. Why would you want to eat lemons after drinking coffee, anyways? Seems like a weird flavor combo to me.

And while we’re on the subject…

MOUTH CHEMISTRY

What’s in your mouth? Your teeth, your gums, your tongue, your spit… yeah, your spit. Saliva’s important. It’s probably THE most important thing in protecting your teeth because salivary production constantly washes the teeth, clearing off as much bad bacteria as possible. If you have an issue with saliva production, you should drink as much water as you can throughout the day, and get a bottle of dry mouth tabs for nighttime. Or daytime, if they don’t bother you. This is really important because dry mouth is a major side effect for a lot of drugs, like anti-depressants. This is actually a huge part of my research- the population I study used a natural painkiller, but in the end its use caused them more pain because the way it works, it decreases the efficacy of the salivary glands. They stop making sufficient saliva, the teeth dry out, the mouth PH changes, and the bacteria that destroy enamel go buckwild. If you can’t make your own spit, store bought is fine. Water for the day, tabs for the night.

Now, you might think that ok, acid isn’t great, let’s eat more basic foods to balance that out. You can, but it… isn’t great. Your saliva is naturally acidic for a reason, and if you neutralize it completely, that ALSO messes with your teeth. You should be drinking plain water as much as possible.

Seltzer and Soda

Some people think seltzer may hurt your teeth, but it really won’t… unless it’s citrus-flavored. Reason: citrus seltzer uses citric acid as a flavoring agent, and that messes with your teeth. So if you want to drink citrus seltzer, drink it with a meal or with food. Don’t sip it slow over the day.

Soda, on the other hand is a goddamn nightmare. The acid’s kind of a problem but the sugar… dear god the sugar. So. your teeth are covered in a bacterial biofilm. Some of these bacteria excrete acid, and that’s what gives you cavities. This is another part of my research- looking at how cavity prevalence changes as sweetening agents and sugar availability changes. As different carbohydrates enter the diet, populations’ disease responses change. I know more about this than probably anybody else in the world, and here is what I know: the best thing you can do for your teeth is stop drinking American soda.

It’s the corn, you guys. The chemical compounds in corn make the cavity-causing bacteria kick into overdrive. Sodas sweetened with high fructose corn syrup create the perfect environment for these dudes to excrete out a storm. Sugary beverages in general promote cavities, but NOTHING does it like sodas sweetened with high fructose corn syrup or any other corn byproduct. Try to limit your soda and juice consumption and if you can, make sure that when you do have them, you’re getting some food,too.

Other Acids

Ok this next part is going to deal with eating disorders. I’m going to be talking about some of the side effects of bulimia, what they can do to your teeth, and how you can take care of them. Eating disorders are serious business and I hope if you need this section you are in supportive recovery and have the love and support and resources you need. If you don’t want to read about what this can do to your teeth, scroll real quick until you seen the big green text.

If your teeth are in frequent contact with stomach acid, acid etching can be a real problem. Your enamel is tough but stomach acid is gnarly, and your gums don’t have that same protection. If you find yourself vomiting frequently, for whatever reason, try to swish water around in your mouth afterwards to help clean it out. I know that’s not the thing that’s likely on your mind after that, but a lot of what we’re doing here is damage control. I’m not here to judge you in the slightest. I’m just here to help you with your teeth.

Do not brush your teeth immediately after vomiting. The enamel is weaker, and you can cause even more damage by brushing too hard. Wait for at least an hour until after you’ve rinsed your mouth to avoid spreading the acid around.

You can also add some (1-2 tsp) baking soda to the water you rinse with, if you feel ok with doing that. It will taste gross and salty but it will help neutralize the acid. You just rinse with this, you don’t swallow.

ok that part is over

TOOTH HACKS

This is the funnest part, I get to tell you good ways to take care of your teeth that require very few spoons and very little money!

Brush ‘em twice a day. Once when you get up to clear out whatever happened the night before, and once before you fall asleep. You can brush more but you don’t have to. Use a soft-bristled brush and whatever toothpaste you like. If you hate mint, kid toothpaste that tastes like bubblegum or berries is totally fine!

Don’t want to get out of bed? totally fine. Use a finger toothbrush! these are designed for babies which is actually great because they are SUPER soft. If you have sensitive gums, these are going to be really helpful.

Don’t have access to a finger toothbrush? honest to god you can just dip your finger in water (though a mix of water and baking soda or water and salt is better) and brush your teeth with just your finger. The point of this isn’t to freshen your breath or anything, it’s just to get the biofilm off of your teeth and protect them.

Floss. This gets the biofilm out from between your teeth and promotes good gum health. Don’t just run it between the teeth- you need to floss below the gumline a little bit to help clean out plaque.

If you don’t have the spoons to do your whole mouth, floss between your molars if you can.

There’s lots of products that are great for people who can’t go through the whole flossing routine. Pre-threaded flossers are ideal because they’re designed for minimal effort and maximum gain. These are also killer for people with physical disabilities that affect hand dexterity.

If flossing hurts because you have sensitive gums, a water flosser can really help. This is more expensive but will last a very long time.

You can also get topical numbing gel that you can smear on your gums when flossing. Just be careful that you’re not flossing too hard because you can’t feel it. This brand is kind of expensive but it has a nice minty flavor. If you have a dollar and a way to get there, I saw Orajel at Dollar Tree yesterday… when I was buying a bunch of those pre-threaded flossers to throw in my car. I oughta do a Dollar Tree field trip to show you like, what products are available at the absolute cheapest in the US. Dollar Tree has a LOT of good dental options.

There’s a tiktok that says you can use a strand of hair to floss. This is a bad idea. A single strand of hair is likely to break and can cut into your gums. If you want to use hair as floss, you need to use a couple of strands twisted together. Go slow and gentle if you’re using hair. Obviously actual floss is better but this isn’t “perfect dental tips for perfect people,” this is “life sucks but your teeth don’t gotta.”

If you can’t floss or can’t brush, gargle. Put two tsp of baking soda in a glass of warm water. Swish it around, spit it out. If you can do that, you’ve helped clear out biofilm and bacterial waste.

Prioritize your teeth. You only get two sets and you lose the first one by the time you’re twelve. If you can only do one hygiene thing today, make it be your teeth.

Eat some pineapple. Bromelain, which is only found in pineapple, is super good at protecting enamel.

That’s… all I got for you now. Take care of your teeth!

[cringecompanionapologist]

Moffat, Sexy Women, and More 80s Who Complaints:

Note: I am a woman and everything I'm saying is my opinion as an individual woman and not an attempt to represent women as a whole. We're like half the world's population. We're not gonna agree on everything.

I'm just gonna randomly say a bit about the Moffat era and women that's sort of a defense in an "this still feels better than other things" sort of way.

Look, I will not deny that the Moffat era (mostly 11's part) has some issues with women. Most of it, at least for me, has less to do with how the female characters are written and more to do with how the male characters address them (Let's Kill Hitler, I'm looking at you).

But, one thing that bothers other people that doesn't bother me as much is the sexualization. This is mostly compared to what came before it.

For me, because sexuality isn't an inherently negative thing, a character of any gender being sexualized isn't automatically a bad thing. It's more of a matter of subject vs. object.

To illustrate my point, let's bitch about 80s Who for a bit.

Now, when I say 80s Who, I'm mostly referring to the Saward Era (seasons 19-23/5th and 6th Doctors). Ace wasn't really sexualized in the same way the companions before her were.

If you dig through this blog, you'll find that this is sort of the third in a miniseries about various issues with 80s companions that mostly come down to something about gender. With Tegan, it's that she's an outspoken woman and treated negatively for it. With Turlough, it's that the EU tries to downplay the more gender-nonconforming aspects of his character, which admittedly mostly happened by accident.

This time, I'm talking about Peri. Peri was heavily sexualized but in a way that I don't particularly like. It ultimately comes down to how the era handles sexuality in general.

JNT was more of a marketing guy than a creative guy, but his ideas of marketing the show ended up contradicting one another. On one hand, he wanted to avoid controversy. Doctor Who had a bit of a history of controversy, though most of it was about how violent it was, something this era of the show clearly did not care about. Instead, the primary JNT/Saward obsession was with sex. It had to be clear that the Doctor did not fuck and never had. But, this sort of extended to the companions as well. 60s and 70s Who would occasionally give companions one-off love interests. This didn't happen a lot, but there was a history of it dating back to The Daleks, where Barbara makes out with one of the Thals for a bit. In 80s Who, the only time a companion got a love interest was right as she was leaving the show and that was a last minute change.

(Side Note: I'd once again like to comment that Doctor Who wrote women better in 1964 than in 1984 and that Barbara is a great character. The worst thing Moffat every did was have Twice Upon a Time trick people into thinking of this era as The Sexist One.)

You might be wondering, "so what? It's a kids show. Of course nobody's gonna be horny!". And yeah. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. The problem is that the show isn't horny, but it is sexy.

What I mean: Horny is sexuality in-universe. It's the characters having sexual attraction and interests. Sexy is sexuality out-of-universe. It's characters being attractive to the audience.

Peri is the ultimate example of this. She's completely normal for this era of the show when it comes to sexuality. It's not really a thing and when it is it leads to almost immediate marriage. But, she's always dressed in revealing outfits. In Planet of Fire, she's on vacation in a warm region, so that makes sense, but she continues to dress that way everywhere she goes.

Peri is sexualized as fanservice for the audience and for villainous characters to leer at to make them more threatening. Her personality doesn't really match her choice of outfits. It's all for the benefit of the audience and a justification for creepy bad guy behavior.

I mentioned before the sexual subject vs. object. A subject does while an object is done to. A subject looks while an object is looked at. When a character's sexuality isn't an aspect of their character, existing primarily as something for the audience and other characters to leer at, she's a sexual object. And that sucks.

The reason Moffat's sexualization of characters like Amy and River doesn't bother me is that they do not have this problem. The women in this era are just as horny as the men. It's clear that these characters are the sort of people who'd choose to wear the outfits they wear. Yes, it's still fanservice written that way due to Moffat's horniness, but the female characters he writes have sexual agency. They're sexy because they're horny. They flirt with people they're attracted to. They're not just being leered at by the audience and other characters. They're looking as well as being looked at. They actively participate in the show's sexuality. They are sexual subjects.

Of course this doesn't work all the time. There's a lot of "men are horny idiots about women" jokes. When it comes to other aspects of female characters, there's a lot of talk of them being overly emotional and focused on romantic relationships. This did get better over time, being less of a thing with Clara and basically not a thing at all with Bill. I think Moffat was aware of the criticism he was getting and learned from his mistakes. But mistakes were certainly made.

But, though Moffat was obviously horny for his female characters, he them sexual agency. It might not be for everyone but it meant that the horniness of the era didn't bother me.

Besides, I'm horny for Moffat's female companions too. Is it morally different because I'm a woman being horny in a gay way?

[hms-no-fun]

Oh yeah the big pickups to work in an office job infuriate me to no end. A whole parking lot full of death machines that have never known the touch of a gravel road or hauled anything larger than a big Costco run. I have a nice lil electric hatchback tho.

the thing is, i always wanted a car. my parents took me on a lot of road trips when i was growing up (i remember a couple years before he died, my dad told me he was very proud to have shown me so much of the country when he himself had grown up poor and could only travel as far as the next job took him), so of course i have in me that quintessential American longing for The Road. in high school, i fantasized about getting into a car and disappearing into traffic, traveling to some distant corner where nobody lived and finding a situation to occupy. god help me, as a teen i bemoaned being born too late and longed for the naive vision of the 60s i'd received from my parents and pop culture and the rusted-over kitsch that dotted the remains of Route 66 (which my dad loved to talk about).

i hate car culture in part because i used to love car culture. it's a microcosm of indoctrinated American patriotism in general. they sell you on the dream, right? the freedom of travel, of expression. i wanted to be the millennial Jack Kerouac, whose work i did not actually read because i was young and dumb and drowning in dysphoria. but as i got older i saw how quickly little bumps and scratches can turn into massive financial burdens, to say nothing of cracked windshields or flat tires. then my mom died and i was given the responsibility of handling her car, a silver scion xb. i was 19, i did not have a license and had next to zero experience driving, nor had i ever had a job before. when i say "given the responsibility to handle her car" instead of "given her car," i mean that i didn't just get her car. like, i had it, i had the keys and no one was around to tell me not to drive it. but in order to get the title signed over to me, i had to go through an insane bureaucratic process of proving that my mom was dead, and that i was her kid, and that i should have the title to the car. this took months of back and forth miscommunication as dated notices were sent and bills piled up. because it wasn't just the car i got, but the debt as well. some $30,000 of it left unpaid by mom, which i was now expected to pay in her stead. my first job was working night shifts at a wal mart stocking the frozen food department, and that was the job where i rode my bike on the highway to get to work. i didn't drive because i didn't have a license, didn't have experience, was terrified of highway drivers, and knew very distinctly that if anything went wrong i'd instantly be in so much more debt (monetary and bureaucratic) than i already was. eventually my sister, a career nurse with three kids and a house, took over the car from me.

nobody understood why i didn't drive that car more. even my mom, when she was still alive, she said "when i was your age, i was dying to get out of the house." i was too! but for all that cars culturally represented freedom, in practice what they came to represent to me was the expected cost of participating in society. i was already sensitive to adults sneering at me for my perceived immaturity (the joys of being a millennial), which only compounded on learning that i didn't have a car or license, that i wasn't proactively joining Clubs or Organizations, that i wanted to pursue the arts of all things, that i wasn't Christian, etc etc etc. i never got out to see live music because i didn't have a car and didn't have money. i didn't get my first smart phone until late 2015. i spent a lot of my college years feeling alienated because i was at least two years older than everyone else (i already didn't want to go to college straight out of high school even before my mom died), still used a flip phone, and didn't have a car. which is to say i was a working class person trying to get by in a middle class institution. and i only got in because i was very good at peddling my sob story for sympathy points. FAFSA loves to finance the odd tragedy, i'm telling you (don't worry, i still had to take on a ton of student loan debt). when i expressed to family that i didn't want a car because i didn't feel safe as a driver, and felt that i shouldn't need to have a car in order to participate in society, they said "everyone feels that way at first, but you just have to get over it. or move to a big city. good luck affording that!" as a related aside, when i told those same people that i liked being in college for the pursuit of knowledge and wanted to graduate towards being a sort of generalist, they flatly insisted that that's not how college works anymore, and that i should instead put my energies towards a Useful Degree that would Get Me A Good Job.

of course they were sympathetic, at least on the surface. they told me these things in a kind tone, the way adults always do when what they're saying boils down to "it's not fair, but life ain't fair." and i've just never been able to accept that. before i knew anything about socialism or communism or materialist dialectics, when i was still very much under the thrall of post-Clinton liberalism, i still felt this deep-rooted conviction that when people said "life isn't fair," they were giving up something. that it was an excuse, an appeal to a higher power, a resignation to the status quo. my experience with cars, by the time i hit 25, was that you bought them for the freedom they promised, and then spent of your life driving that car between one of maybe five locations on the regular and doing very little else. the only time i ever felt free in a car was on a road trip, which happened with vanishing irregularity as all the associated costs skyrocketed in the 2000s. all the other time was spent driving in circles looking for parking, only to balk at how expensive it was. spent stuck in traffic for hours, amid concrete dunes of overpasses tangled with one another like a four-year-old's first try at tying their own shoes. spent angrily judging the poor driving conduct of other people, spent resenting anyone and everyone who inconvenienced their drive, spent rubbernecking at horrific accidents on the side of the road, spent worrying about car payments and insurance payments and how much it's gonna cost to get a tune-up, and then someone breaks in and steals all your stuff and your insurance doesn't want to pay for it, and then you get into an accident and you spend months haggling with your insurance and their insurance in the hopes that someone will maybe pay for the debt you've had to take on in getting your car repaired, because of course professional life doesn't take a break just because your mode of transportation got totaled.

and if i was applying for a job and the employer found out i didn't have a car, i was denied on the spot. i learned very quickly to lie about such things as often as possible. but i also learned that i could only bluff for so long before the lack of a car became a genuinely insurmountable hurdle. which fucked me up tremendously because at no point in my adult life, to this day, can i ever imagine being able to afford all the associated costs of having a car. in many respects, not having a car was the only reason i was able to survive the way i did. it meant i could work part-time while i was in school (with student loans making up the shortfall), share an apartment with two or three or four other people, and just barely have enough to eat the bare minimum and go see a movie sometimes. of course i wanted the freedom all my car-owning friends had, but mostly i wanted it so i could drive out into the middle of nowhere at night and be truly alone. i wanted a car so that i could escape from the frictional sandpaper bureaucracy of american existence... and i knew from experience by then that that's simply not how the world works.

it took me until 2020 to finally move to seattle, one of those mythical Big Cities with Actually Existing Public Transit. and holy shit, it's a revelation! i have better access the place where i live now than i ever have, and it's a freedom that costs SO MUCH LESS than the same would've cost me back home. but i've also lived here long enough now to see all the ways in which our transit system here is deeply flawed and run by the wrong people. i see many of the same forces at play here as i did back home. i see now how car owners and allies to the car dealership fiefdoms of the nation utilize car ownership and road maintenance as a tremendous lever of power. they've deliberately trapped us in this cycle of poverty and personal transportation reliance, and used the money they got from us buying their cars to then buy politicians so that they defund public transit and oppose any urbanist reforms. did you know that much of america used to be covered by street cars and rail lines? if you live in the midwest or on the west coast, your town very likely only exists the way it does because of mass public transit. they were necessary for bringing people into these remote places to create new markets for wealth extraction. once the population in those places was stable, and mass-produced personal vehicles became the norm, the capitalists of those areas deliberately allowed the transit networks to "go bankrupt" (ie they pretended transit is a business and not a utility that pretty much by definition can't turn a profit in a traditional manner) so they could be bought up and liquidated by future car dealers. this is what i think of when i remember my family telling me "that's just not the way the world works."

why? it used to be the way the world worked. why can't it be again? if the current status quo is the result of choices that created economic pressures which shaped the nature of society, why can't we do the same thing again but different? the way things are now is sick. it's unhealthy. the vast majority of microplastics come from car rubber, and what socioeconomic classes do you think are mostly likely to live close to high-traffic roads? it's not rich people, i'll tell you that. it's not the car dealers or the small city councils worried that a bus connection might bring the poors in. when i say "car owners need to be oppressed" i'm talking about these people. suburban supremacist dictators and their sycophantic liege lords whose biggest priorities in life are to keep gas prices low and to maintain their god-given right to never having to see a poor person. i hate these people because i've been sneered at by them my whole life, while they have been personally responsible for many of the same socioeconomic conditions which resulted in the deaths of both my parents, along with many other members of my extended family. i've long since stopped believing in the idea of "death by natural causes." only the rich live long enough to die old. the rest of us die by a thousand cuts borne of neglect. our healthcare is gatekept, our education is gatekept, our transportation is gatekept. freedom is a thing to be bought, and when you don't have money, the next best thing is your blood. you give it up for a piece of something and you convince yourself that it's enough for you. but it is only a piece, and its apportionment is the result of greed and avarice happening in broad daylight all around us. i fully believe that a genuine war will need to be waged against the car barons before this horrendous now can be toppled, and it will be a war because they are aligned with the cops and with capital. this, too, is a microcosm, and in it we see the nature of our struggle for socialism unburdened by neoliberal word salad.

people have made the world this way. and people will make it something else.

[gowns]

the economy in los angeles rn is kinda um.... unprecedented levels of what da hell...

i initially wanted to be a filmmaker, playwright, actor, writer. i was just fascinated by film and theatre and knew that people made a living doing art -- i mean, my dad's a musician, so i personally knew people making a living doing art. but i was particularly drawn to storytelling and performance mediums.

so, i'm going to focus on film here: it's always been difficult to find work in hollywood, but there was still kind of a method of getting work. there are tons of studios and production companies. let's say out of 100 hopefuls, like 60-70 of them could find consistent work in one way or another. a lot of people end up in post production, smaller crew work, whatever, but they're grateful to be working in film in any way that they can while they (usually) nurse their secret dreams of funding and screening their own projects. and let's say like, 10 out of 100 of these people end up making short films for festivals (that are usually bids to make larger features), and 1 out of 100 could make a whole feature (i'm just pulling out random vibe-based statistics, i'm just typing up something quick here and don't want to look up / don't know if it's possible to see stats based on "dreams")

well the thing is, that hollywood is imploding. i know a lot of people who work in production and post-production. you live gig-to-gig. usually it's like, several weeks or maybe months of intense work on a project, then you're done, and floating free in a kind of nerve-wracking way, and then you get another gig, and then you're booked again. very feast or famine.

but lately it's just.... famine??? i keep seeing EXPERIENCED film industry people posting that they're looking for a job, any kind of job, and they have so much skills, but there's nothing.

like what i'm trying to say is... nothing is being greenlit. there are very very few new projects being made, in film or tv. it's going all the way back. some people say it's because of covid and production halting, other people say it's because of strikes, other people say it's all AI, other people say it's because of tiktok and how "anyone can make a video." and it's all of the above, combined with increasing costs of living -- it's not enough to just make a few thousand from a film gig and coast on that for the rest of the year, because your entire MONTHLY RENT is a few thousand dollars.

--

back in february 2020, i made a joke to a group of film production people, gesturing at posters for movies that looked terrible to me -- "god, they just keep making movies, and they all suck. i think what hollywood needs is a sabbatical. like, everyone should just stop making movies. there are already so many movies. we don't need anymore!" and there was a laugh then a sort of awkward silence, and i could sense a monkey paw curling just out of sight. and i quickly added "oh right, but like, there should still be movies of course, ha ha. like, you guys should still have work."

--

i think about this a lot.

like, film as a medium, film as a place in our culture, hollywood as the nexus of storytelling with a budget and many skilled hands.

it feels so present and eternal to me. but it's so new as a medium, and also predicated on so many factors. and a lot of those factors are like a crumbling cliff!

was it ever sustainable?

--

i sometimes envision my life with all these possible paths, and how i somehow picked this one random path (freelance photography), thinking that the other paths would still be open to me. "of course, anyone can do anything at any point in their life! :)" <- ever the sunny optimist.

but as i get older, and the economy gets worse, and the industry continues to implode -- and boy, if you think film is suffering, let's not even get into theatre or publishing -- i'm like wow. actually, all those other paths have gnarled dead trees and tumbleweeds. no matter how much i "dream" about XYZ, we're at a point in history where those things might not be viable anymore.

and then, outside of film as a medium, there's also the empire that we live in, the basis of all this material wealth that has been able to fund big-budget movies. and i love the things that can be done with hundreds of people and expensive cameras. but is that kind of storytelling going to continue to be feasible...?

and i get kinda freaked out because there's THOUSANDS of people here in california working in the film industry. and if they all lose their jobs....?

and if everyone i know loses their jobs...?

ummmmmmmm

like i said every day i wake up and see another "please for the love of god i need a job i have 4000 skills and no one is hiring" post and i just start sweating and going .... "what is happening..."

[cheshiresense]

Hi, I love your time travel with Stark!!! He's one of my favorite characters, so I love reading your ideas about him and Ichigo. I was just wondering, how do Hallows react to Stark? As a former Hallow who healed himself, would they treat him like a normal soul, or would they know he used to be one of them? I'm just curious if you had ideas about that. Anyway, thanks for sharing your story idea, I love reading them!!!

Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying it!

I think generally speaking, they wouldn't know. I think that people can sense that it's a Hollow in the vicinity (as opposed to a Shinigami) because their reiatsu is hollow, it's not whole, it's missing pieces, fragmented in a way that a Shinigami's reiatsu wouldn't be. Like yes Starrk is technically still part Hollow, that's what he became, that's what he built himself back up from, and he can't just discard that part of himself, it's what makes up part of his soul, like scars you gain throughout your life. And his reiatsu is just naturally corrosive, it's an aspect of his power, so he can't get rid of that. But he's also a whole soul now, and at this point, there's actually not much of a difference in his reiatsu between his Shinigami and Hollow sides, he's perfectly merged. So there's that, and also ever since he learned how, his control's been second to none, so outside of a battle that necessitates major use of his reiatsu, he mostly keeps it under wraps since it can still hurt people and he's got a Thing:tm: about that. He probably keeps it at the level of an unseated officer, so enough for people to sense him coming but not really pick up anything else about it.

(Which reminds me, I actually also kind of headcanon that you can sort of tell how old someone is if you get a good enough feel for their reiatsu. Like obv not exact date of birth and age lmao, I just mean the older and more powerful someone is, the denser and heavier their reiatsu becomes, so if you're halfway decent at sensing reiatsu, you can sort of distinguish between someone who has just a handful of decades or a century or two under their belt, and someone who's comfortably into their hundreds, and someone whose reiatsu is just solid in a way that speaks of them having Seen Some Things, because you can't always tell via physical appearance but the soul remembers the years gone by. Ichigo is ofc an exception because he's part human, so like he prob reads around 60-100 years old to Kaien and co., esp when you put him next to Rangiku and Asuka, they sort of all read like the same age.

And all of that is just to say I absolutely want to write a thing for when Starrk finally lets his reiatsu out properly while Shunsui and Ukitake are right there and people will just be like why the fuck does this guy feel the same as the two thousand-year-old captains 😂😂😂)

[icewindandboringhorror]

Little bright colored outfit with a fun vest ~

(shoes from ebay like 10 years ago. everything else is thrifted)

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

the doctor isnt neurodivergent or autistic or adhd or nonbinary or genderqueer or asexual. what the doctor is, is Not From Here

[hooked-on-elvis]

"Tender Feeling" (1963-1964)

Recorded on September 29, 1963 at RCA's Studio B, Nashville. Elvis' vocals recorded October 10, 1963 at MGM's soundstage, Culver City, Hollywood - CA · Released in April 1964. Soundtrack album: Kissin' Cousins.

MUSICIANS Guitar: Grady Martin, Jerry Kennedy, Scotty Moore, Harold Bradley. Bass: Bob Moore. Drums: Buddy Harman, D.J. Fontana. Piano: Floyd Cramer. Saxophone: Boots Randolph, Bill Justis. Fiddle: Cecil Brower. Vocals: Winnifred Brest, Millie Kirkham, Dolores Edgin, The Jordanaires.

Elvis Presley as Josh Morgan and Jodie Tatum in Kissin' Cousins (1964)

RECORDING SESSION Soundtrack Recordings for MGM’s Kissin’ Cousins. September 29–30, 1963: RCA’s Studio B, Nashville | Elvis' overdubs vocals: October 10, 1963: MGM, Studios, Culver City. In his business diary the Colonel wrote, “It was decided for the sake of economy and efficiency that the recording sessions for Kissin’ Cousins should be held at the RCA Victor studios in Nashville.” From MGM’s point of view Nashville might have sounded like an apt choice to cut some “hillbilly” songs, but the real reasons for the switch from Hollywood back to Nashville were obvious to all. Both the filming and the recording sessions for Viva Las Vegas had gone way over budget; more musicians than ever before had been hired for the dates, and many sat idle while others played. Since Elvis and the Colonel shared in the actual profits from the movie, these extra expenses cut into their share, and the Colonel made it clear that they wouldn’t make the same mistake with Kissin’ Cousins. In fact, his concern for “economy and efficiency” probably contributed to Kissin’ Cousins’s status as the first true “low-budget” Elvis movie, with filming lasting only four weeks. The demand for songs was now so great that Freddy Bienstock was able to collect no more than a bare minimum of material for the Kissin’ Cousins session, and half of the ten songs had a Giant/Baum/Kaye credit. To make matters worse Elvis came down with another cold come session time, so the musicians ended up recording backing tracks for Elvis to overdub later in Los Angeles. The film had Elvis playing two roles — a soldier and a hillbilly — and the title song was conceived as a duet between the two, obliging Elvis to record two sets of vocals, one in his normal voice, the other with a mock-Tennessee twang. (It was left to an engineer to splice the two versions into the required duet.) The sound was arguably better than on the previous MGM recordings, yet still nothing really sparkled.

Excerpt: "Elvis Presley, A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions" by Ernst Jorgensen. Foreword by Peter Guralnick (1998)

LYRICS — "Tender Feeling" Bill Giant/Bernie Baum/Florence Kaye

I can't conceal the tender feeling Now that you are close to me I look at you with tender feeling And can't help kiss you tenderly I offer you a true devotion All life through my love I vow For this is real, this sweet emotion This tender feeling I have now Somehow I knew from the moment our lips first met You'd be the girl I could never forget No other love could be appealing I loved you right from the start And with each kiss I'll keep revealing The tender feeling in my heart

MOVIE SCENE — Kissin' Cousins (1964) Jodie Tatum (Elvis Presley) and Midge (Cynthia Pepper)

"Tender Feeling" LONG VERSION · Master Vocal Overdub Take 1 The official release runs 2:34, this version runs to 4:09.

TIP: READ THE COMMENTS FOR A LOVELY SURPRISE ABOUT THE (MOST LIKELY) ORIGIN OF THE MELODY FROM "TENDER FEELING". THANKS, @deke-rivers-1957! You're the best for sharing this! ♥

Jodie Tatum (Elvis Presley) and Midge (Cynthia Pepper) from Kissin' Cousins (1964)

[arklay]

RESIDENT EVIL → THE WESKER FAMILY

To the public, little is known of the families behind some of the world’s most renowned bioterrorists, but the question remains: did they play a role in causing their children to walk down the path that they did? Or are these individuals simply ambitious criminals with delusions of grandeur?

For Diana Wesker (née Afanasyeva), her introduction into the bioweapons black market trade was upon discovering her employers were using her research into limb regeneration with salamanders to further their experiments in creating enhanced soldiers, instead of developing human therapies with which she was recruited for. Although the prospect of using biological weapons in the military did not appeal to her, the concept remained fascinating for her own selfish endeavours. Born on the 27th of October, 1963 in Sydney, Australia to Russian immigrant parents, Diana had harsh expectations placed upon her at a young age, ones that no matter how hard she tried she could never live up to. Her mother, Tatyana, was an unfeeling woman, absent for long stretches of time with little regard to how it affected her daughters, much more concerned with her craft as an accomplished opera singer. Viktor was no better. A strict man whose role as father and ballet master blurred, he pushed his girls to one day follow in his footsteps. Whilst Sofia enjoyed ballet, and went on to become a professional ballet dancer, Diana’s heart was set on going into the field of biology. She wished to make a name for herself, separate from her family – to which she succeeded.

Diana was married to former U.S. Marine, Dave Monroe, for only a year until he was declared dead in 1992 after succumbing to injuries sustained in a horrific car accident. Foul play was ruled out while Diana played the role of the grief-stricken widow, but in reality, she had snapped after years of mistreatment at her husband’s hands, and opted for something she could pass off as an accident to be free of him. For years she believed he was dead – and he was, legally – but that proved to not be the case when he found his way back into her life again in 1999. Unbeknownst to her, she had been lied to by the police and coroner, who were paid off by her employers when they took Dave’s body for themselves and used him as one of their first test subjects in developing supersoldiers. Before he could ever hurt her again, Diana’s second husband, Albert Wesker, tracked the man down, captured him and tortured him, before allowing Diana to get her violent and bloody revenge.

The origins of Albert Wesker’s involvement in bioterrorism, alongside his twin sister, Alex, are much different than that of Diana’s. The two hail from London, Canada, but unfortunately, they hold no memories of their lives there, nor what happened to their biological parents when they were eight years old. Agents of Oswell E. Spencer, an aristocratic billionaire and eugenicist, took the twins from their home and executed their parents as per Spencer’s orders. Albert and Alex were then placed in a home funded by the Spencer Foundation where they were given new names and a privileged upbringing. They had access to the best education possible, free to pursue whichever field they decided, but it was by no accident they both went into virology and bioengineering; at home, their adoptive parents – agents whom they believed to be their real parents – instilled them with the beliefs of Oswell E. Spencer, harbouring disdain for war and pestilence, and believing humans to be an evolutionary dead-end in need of a rebirth. They were only two of the hundreds of children “adopted” as part of what is known as Project W, a plan intended to develop an advanced race of human beings. The most promising candidates were headhunted by Umbrella Pharmaceuticals, the twins amongst them, where they went on to create bioweapons for the company founded by none other than the man who had handpicked them for his plan. The final stage of this was to infect the thirteen Spencer saw fit, however, only two survived; Albert received the intended effects, now possessing superhuman abilities, however, Alex was only offered more time to live due to her terminal degenerative illness.

In the summer of 1995, Diana was working undercover within Umbrella to gather development data on their projects for her company. Here, she had a chance encounter with Albert, an intelligence officer at the time, which permanently altered the course of her life. The two were never seen far from one another’s side, marrying in 1998, and they went on to become notorious in the bioweapons industry. The development of the Uroboros virus was where things took a turn for the worst. Although Diana’s infection was successful and she bore abilities that rivalled her husband’s, the plan itself did not succeed as they had hoped, and almost cost Albert his life at the hands of his former subordinates.

Now, they work within the shadows, with Diana declared missing and Albert believed to be dead. Their legacy, however, lives on with the mark they left on the world. As visionaries in their field, they influenced bioterror attacks carried out by countless individuals and organisations. In turn, they also inspired others to fight against such atrocities. One such person happens to be Albert’s son from a former relationship, Jake Müller, whose existence he was unaware of.

[absolutelyzoned]

shits way too complicated i just wanna shoot people and look at hot men. it doesn't need to be this hard

[ratatatastic]

or alternatively dweeb meets other dweeb more news at 11

LIGHT. LIGHT IN HIS EYES. LOOK AT EM BIG OLE EYES. LOOK AT HIM TOUCH HIS JERSEY.

GLORY BE TO THE MIKKSY SIGNED JERSEY RAAAAAAAAA

CanesWear Signing | 7.1.24

[camzverse]

apologizing in advance for the person i will become when the next pjo show season comes out