#we were always the trend we were always the ones putting on for the culture

[browntrait]

when i made it a point on this blog to be extremely and overly specific about being BLACK and my support of BLACK simblr and the issues we experience as BLACK simmers, it wasnt for no reason. We are overlooked, underrepresented, historically and currently being held to such unbelievably high standards while being given little to no support. Y’all fr don’t care at all. I watched how yall use black ppl as plot devices, disposable black love intrests, race swapping, fetisization. Still to this day. Nothing has changed. Y’all dont even exist in community in REAL LIFE with black people, how many black people have a significant presence in your life? QUICKLY!!!

Y’all spammed my inbox with racism and willful ignorance to the point where i hated logging in on this app, when initially it was supposed to be a place to share my favorite thing. You hate black people. You do not stand with us, you point at us and push us and exclude us, until you want to play dress up or use AAVE to sound funny. I do not want y’all in my community, in the same way we were never even considered a part of y’alls.

[charmwasjess]

My tiny mountain town is a blue dot swallowed up in a sea of red. Our statistically-irrelevant town went for Harris. The larger counties around us all went for Trump. Here’s what this election looked like in the southeastern Appalachian on the front lines of that cultural divide: 

Outright unprosecuted voter intimidation: in the few blocks walk from my house to downtown, I can see a prop skeleton dressed as a Harris supporter hanging from a noose, and Harris yard signs slashed with a knife, others just ripped down to the cardboard.

Gerrymandering - years ago, these little-known poorer districts were redrawn around population centers in ways that give likely Republican strongholds more weight, particularly in rural areas like mine. Republican lawmakers literally have opened prisons in rural counties in my state to artificially inflate population numbers with people who can’t vote due to their felon status to tip the scales.  

Of course, the Electoral college, where US votes are decided by weight of a state’s respective collective population and importance rather than just the counted individuals votes

I’m not making excuses. I echo the rest of the world’s collective disgust and horror about the outcome. I am literally sick with my country. People will die because of this. People who don’t live here, people who didn’t get a choice or stake in the US elections, and who probably wish they’d never heard of the place. And people in my own community. 

Yet it is so easy to picture this election as the ultimate triumph of laziness and inattention, particularly in “ignorant hillbilly” places like where I live, which generally go for Trump without any fight - at least not one that shows up on an election night map. But the Republican right has been working for decades to put the legal, economic, and societal pressures that lead to this in place here. 

We fought hard. Grassroots campaigners, our organizers of LGBTQIA+ groups, leaders in our communities who showed up despite the fact that it put a target on their backs if shit went bad. Teachers fighting Republican-led mandates of ignorance and racism to choke out any thinking that might interfere with their political goals for their ideal voter base. Librarians who get death threats for having kid’s books dealing with gender or queerness in the public libraries. 

These are not imagined examples, these are things that happen to real people I know in my tiny blue community. And the violent, right-wing party, the party that promised to make this second Trump term one of revenge and retribution, knows who those people are too. 

The Charlottesville “Ignite the Right” attack happened in my backyard. I had friends on that street when a self-described neo nazi drove into a crowd and killed Heather Heyer and injured 35 others. Trump was president when it happened; he called the alt-right who invaded Charlottesville with guns and armor and torches that day “good people.” 

I have no faith in my party now. It feels like we’re still trying to play a game we lost years ago, while the other side is busy winning a new game, one where they get to make up all the rules. 

I realize that there are greater global trends at play - incumbents being ousted, a swing to the right, post-pandemic economic scrambles - larger issues than the difficulties of voter suppression in my rural American communities. I'm not in a great mindset to consider them this week. I've been politically active since I was old enough to vote, and it feels like we always build so much momentum and then slam facefirst into this fucking invisible wall.

Honestly? I’m so tired and depressed and anxious, I feel like I can barely function right now. At the same time, I’m disgusted by my own despair and whining. What gives me the right to stop trying now, when so many people across the globe are facing the same anger and exhaustion? When so many people are in more active danger, with less options than I have?

Anyway, I wanted to write something out about the election, maybe just to let go of the words and get them out of me. I'm a queer politically active liberal in a Republican-dominated rural space. Next week, I'll read all the posts about hard work and hope and building support networks. This week, I just need a fucking minute on the floor.

[bisexualdinahlance]

That post that's like, talking about a real phenomena in fandom spaces but then ends with a screenshot of someone saying that fandom got bad when "normies" got into fandom during COVID lockdown has been driving me nuts. Why are so many people reblogging it. Like yes there are things that used to be more common in fandom I miss but almost every post like this is just blatantly ahistorical to make fandom seem like some magical safe haven that outsiders are invading. I wish I could form more coherent thoughts on this but jfc the weird superiority some fandom folks have over non fandom folks is baffling

[omegalomania]

people bitching and moaning about fob "turning mainstream" as if that was never the entire point of fall out boy. that's In the goddamn dna of the band, it's baked into the ethos of why the band started in the first damn place. to be accessible to kids and especially to girls, who were often ridiculed and shunted out of the hardcore community. to be a gateway to bands that aren't as mainstream. to comment on the society they live in, as they live in it. people act like fall out boy "turning mainstream" was some kind of "betrayal" when from the start they were seizing on the trends of the time, putting their unique, unhinged fall out boy spin on them, and shooting them back out as a funhouse mirror. take this to your grave capitalized on the pop-punk zeitgeist that was big in the late 90s and early aughts and put their own spin on it: enmeshed catchy choruses with high-dexterity lyrical & linguistic skewerwork. infinity on high was basically a massive critique of the scene they were in - this ain't a scene it's a goddamn arm's race is a fucking thesis statement on what it is to be catapulted into fame in an industry that wants nothing more than a thousand cookie-cutter copycat acts of a successful formula, and fall out boy WAS the formula everyone desperately wanted to emulate. american beauty / american psycho blended sampling and modern hip-hop stylings with polished pop-rock and pointed those songs back at the snapshot of the 2010s we all lived in: commenting on racial injustice and the freeze-frame nature of relevancy. but even then they weren't doing it quite right - because fall out boy never does things quite right, they're never quite conventional, whether it's wentz's darkly confessional lyrics double-bagged in metaphor or stump's distinctive clear tenor or trohman's inescapable rock 'n roll edge or hurley's thunderous hardcore-punk-rock soul.

this band has always been too clever for its own critics, is the thing. but then, they always knew that. they knew they had a thriving fanbase of largely female fans so they were going to be mocked and belittled and ridiculed. they weren't quite right. they weren't quite so easy to market. pete wentz had to have all his hard edges filed off and cut down to size, skin lightened, literally whitewashed ("i feel like a photo that's been overexposed") to hell and back, even as he was marketed as the pretty boy of the band. and the other three members never even bothered with the spotlight: the soft-spoken vegan straightedge anarchist drummer and the wry, wisecracking, whip-clever guitarist who was more concerned with being the connective tissue than anything and the reticent vocalist who sang the words and wrote an awful lot of music but wasn't really the guy fronting the band. wentz's charisma carried the band, because the rest of them were really just some guys and never aspired to be anything else.

fall out boy is too pop. fall out boy is too mainstream. fall out boy isn't the real poster child of the emo movement. other bands are better. even within fall out boy's own narrative, they are repeatedly ignored, sidelined, and belittled, as though they weren't one of the only acts from the big 00s emo-pop movement to successfully not just survive the transition from the aughts to the '10s, and then later from the '10s to the '20s, but to thrive in it without banking on nostalgia. this band was supposed to be a flash in the pan. they weren't supposed to last and they weren't supposed to get big. they started off in joe's parents' attic because joe and pete were sick of how exclusionary and homophobic the hardcore scene was.

i think it's high time that people acknowledge how fall out boy has repeatedly succeeded where most of their other peers failed. cunning, clever, capable, and hyper-aware of the space they occupy in the culture surrounding them. that they are just as powerful, important, and artistic as any of the other bands in the scene that others might deify at their expense. that they deserve a hell of a lot more respect than they get from critics or hardcore punks who think they sold out. i hope one day they get that recognition. because they've earned it, time and time again, and the more i see people pushing back against that, the more certain i become of its inevitability.

[anthurak]

You know that "Mundane super power" aspect you mentioned?

Another thing I like about crossing over RWBY characters with other settings is how easily their nature as basically coming from an apocalyptic hell-world can bleed through.

This is hard to articulate, but like.

The casual way in which towns disappear, that ruins dot the landscape, that people like Ruby & Yang grew up immersed in a culture that trended towards violence and early graves.

There's a nifty Naruto/Stargate crossover, (Its complicated) where Himawari kind of subtly disturbs the Stargate crew cos she knows exactly how best to behave in a dangerous situation, doesn't really seem bothered when enemies die and has been taught stuff like "Reading the battlefield."

I think RWBY characters would be similarly off-putting in their own way unless they were incredibly sheltered like Jaune or rich enough to have not ever encountered a Grimm until the the Beacon Test like Weiss. & even then, the lived experience, training and cultural awareness means they'd likely still come off as a little off-putting.

This also plays into how Ruby and Yang are seemingly quite... Not comfortable, but functional about the prospect of causing death or grievous bodily harm in a way most Shounen/action protags aren't.

Ruby, as far as she knew, sent Neo hurtling to her death in V3 and was at most momentarily shocked when Roman died & forgot all about it. Yang processed killing Adam in a very straightforward manner, she's not cavalier about it, but she'd made peace with it being a them or us situation right quick.

There's plenty of other examples but I think we've discussed it before.

But yeah, I just think its fun, even in series that can have similar degrees of destruction or death, their relative youth and manner with it would likely still make many locals be like (oO) & I think that's fun.

Oh yeah, this has always been a great idea for RWBY crossovers.

And one of my favorite/most interesting parts about is, as you touched on, how subtle Team RWBY’s whole vibe is and how it can potentially sneak up on others.

Like Team RWBY and really most of the show’s characters generally DON’T give off any real obvious ‘I come from a fucked-up deathworld’ vibes like being real dark, broody or even just looking anything the part. For anyone from a much more mundane setting/background, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang generally come off as a friendly, likeable, good natured bunch without really anything all that offputting.

For about… eighty to ninety percent of the time.

But then you’ve got those 10-20% moments where the dark, serious ‘fantasy war-veteran’ sides of Team RWBY slip out. Like they might not even have been trying to hide it, it just comes out when things get serious.

Like maybe there is some big disaster or some other terrible event perhaps caused by the villains that leaves the more ‘normal’ characters/heroes frozen in shock and horror, meanwhile RWBY are just immediately jumping into the fray to fight or help however they can. With perhaps one or more doing the whole ‘slap the shock’ out of the other characters with a ‘We got work to do!’. And it’s just kind of… unsettling how Team RWBY takes these events in stride.

Or to build off your point on Ruby and Yang, as well as Blake and Weiss, being ‘functionally alright’ with hurting/killing people*, there’s a LOT of juicy potential there for when Team RWBY goes up against more mundane villains.

Like just picture a situation where a villain is threatening innocents in a classic ‘you’ll have to KILL ME to stop me!’ standoff that has the heroes freezing up… only for Ruby to almost immediately just shoot said villain.

She certainly looks like she didn’t enjoy or even want to do it, but both how quickly she did it and how easily she seems to role with it afterwards are just REALLY unsettling.

And then there’s what I’d call the FLIPSIDE to all this in how Team RWBY deals with being in a world that might NOT actually be filled with monsters who are an ever-present existential threat to humanity.

Like even for someone who grew up more sheltered like Weiss that is almost certainly going to be a MASSIVE culture-shock. Not to mention that the only people with a frame of reference that Team RWBY would be able to talk to about this would likely be each other.

Even in settings that might have some kind of monsters threatening humanity such as most magical girl shows, the appearance and threat that these monsters pose are almost always a very RECENT occurrence that most people might not even know about. Generally in these settings, the ‘normal, mundane world’ IS the norm, with the dangerous and supernatural merely popping up on and off in isolated places.

It could really create this interesting contrast where Team RWBY finds the mundane world that their new friends consider ‘normal’ to be just a bit uncanny and unsettling. And even finding it a bit comforting when monsters or some other supernatural threat to fight shows up because that feels more NORMAL to them.

This is actually something I tried/am still trying to explore in my Kingdom Hearts crossover fic. Like Ruby musing on how to explain her whole huntress background to Sora, Kairi and Riku when to them, monsters are things that have existed in storybooks, while for Ruby monsters have always been REAL. Or Ruby even noting a comforting ‘return to normal’ when she starts fighting the Heartless.

I’ve even got ideas for Ruby, as well as Weiss, Blake and Yang further on, idly musing on whether the Grimm or Heartless are the worse to fight, with some of their new friends being just a BIT weirded out.

And that’s not even getting into the potential of Team RWBY interacting with various Disney movie settings. Like I’ll admit that I kinda REALLY want to have Ruby boom-headshot at least one Disney villain XD

*I will say, I’ve had a theory for a while that Ruby, even more so than her teammates, has particular ideological reasons to generally avoid killing people, specifically when we consider how Ruby specifically DOESN’T use her ‘walking grimm-blender’ style of fighting against human opponents. Personally I imagine Ruby seeing it as ‘I hunt MONSTERS, not people.’ That being said, I don’t see Ruby as having some strict ‘no-killing’ ‘one rule’, but rather that she views taking a life as a last resort.

[icedbatik]

I saw this opinion piece in the New York Times and, while I don't normally copy and paste entire newspaper articles, this is an excellent (if scary) read.

Aside from the sections on how much lack of consent there is in today's sexual landscape, hockey fans -- who should be well aware of the dangers of concussions -- might take particular note of the section in which "choking" during sex is linked to brain damage on par with concussion damage.

The Troubling Trend in Teenage Sex

April 12, 2024

By Peggy Orenstein

Debby Herbenick is one of the foremost researchers on American sexual behavior. The director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University and the author of the pointedly titled book “Yes, Your Kid,” she usually shares her data, no matter how explicit, without judgment. So I was surprised by how concerned she seemed when we checked in on Zoom recently: “I haven’t often felt so strongly about getting research out there,” she told me. “But this is lifesaving.”

For the past four years, Dr. Herbenick has been tracking the rapid rise of “rough sex” among college students, particularly sexual strangulation, or what is colloquially referred to as choking. Nearly two-thirds of women in her most recent campus-representative survey of 5,000 students at an anonymized “major Midwestern university” said a partner had choked them during sex (one-third in their most recent encounter). The rate of those women who said they were between the ages 12 and 17 the first time that happened had shot up to 40 percent from one in four.

As someone who’s been writing for well over a decade about young people’s attitudes and early experience with sex in all its forms, I’d also begun clocking this phenomenon. I was initially startled in early 2020 when, during a post-talk Q. and A. at an independent high school, a 16-year-old girl asked, “How come boys all want to choke you?” In a different class, a 15-year-old boy wanted to know, “Why do girls all want to be choked?” They do? Not long after, a college sophomore (and longtime interview subject) contacted me after her roommate came home in tears because a hookup partner, without warning, had put both hands on her throat and squeezed.

I started to ask more, and the stories piled up. Another sophomore confided that she enjoyed being choked by her boyfriend, though it was important for a partner to be “properly educated” — pressing on the sides of the neck, for example, rather than the trachea. (Note: There is no safe way to strangle someone.) A male freshman said “girls expected” to be choked and, even though he didn’t want to do it, refusing would make him seem like a “simp.” And a senior in high school was angry that her friends called her “vanilla” when she complained that her boyfriend had choked her.

Sexual strangulation, nearly always of women in heterosexual pornography, has long been a staple on free sites, those default sources of sex ed for teens. As with anything else, repeat exposure can render the once appalling appealing. It’s not uncommon for behaviors to be normalized in porn, move within a few years to mainstream media, then, in what may become a feedback loop, be adopted in the bedroom or the dorm room.

Choking, Dr. Herbenick said, seems to have made that first leap in a 2008 episode of Showtime’s “Californication,” where it was still depicted as outré, then accelerated after the success of “Fifty Shades of Grey.” By 2019, when a high school girl was choked in the pilot of HBO’s “Euphoria,” it was standard fare. A young woman was choked in the opener of “The Idol” (again on HBO and also, like “Euphoria,” created by Sam Levinson; what’s with him?). Ali Wong plays the proclivity for laughs in a Netflix special, and it’s a punchline in Tina Fey’s new “Mean Girls.” The chorus of Jack Harlow’s “Lovin On Me,” which topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for six nonconsecutive weeks this winter and has been viewed over 99 million times on YouTube, starts with, “I’m vanilla, baby, I’ll choke you, but I ain’t no killer, baby.” How-to articles abound on the internet, and social media algorithms feed young people (but typically not their unsuspecting parents) hundreds of #chokemedaddy memes along with memes that mock — even celebrate — the potential for hurting or killing female partners.

I’m not here to kink-shame (or anything-shame). And, anyway, many experienced BDSM practitioners discourage choking, believing it to be too dangerous. There are still relatively few studies on the subject, and most have been done by Dr. Herbenick and her colleagues. Reports among adolescents are now trickling out from the United Kingdom, Australia, Iceland, New Zealand and Italy.

Twenty years ago, sexual asphyxiation appears to have been unusual among any demographic, let alone young people who were new to sex and iffy at communication. That’s changed radically in a short time, with health consequences that parents, educators, medical professionals, sexual consent advocates and teens themselves urgently need to understand.

Sexual trends can spread quickly on campus and, to an extent, in every direction. But, at least among straight kids, I’ve sometimes noticed a pattern: Those that involve basic physical gratification — like receiving oral sex in hookups — tend to favor men. Those that might entail pain or submission, like choking, are generally more for women.

So, while undergrads of all genders and sexualities in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys report both choking and being choked, straight and bisexual young women are far more likely to have been the subjects of the behavior; the gap widens with greater occurrences. (In a separate study, Dr. Herbenick and her colleagues found the behavior repeated across the United States, particularly for adults under 40, and not just among college students.) Alcohol may well be involved, and while the act is often engaged in with a steady partner, a quarter of young women said partners they’d had sex with on the day they’d met also choked them.

Either way, most say that their partners never or only sometimes asked before grabbing their necks. For many, there had been moments when they couldn’t breathe or speak, compromising the ability to withdraw consent, if they’d given it. No wonder that, in a separate study by Dr. Herbenick, choking was among the most frequently listed sex acts young women said had scared them, reporting that it sometimes made them worry whether they’d survive.

Among girls and women I’ve spoken with, many did not want or like to be sexually strangled, though in an otherwise desired encounter they didn’t name it as assault. Still, a sizable number were enthusiastic; they requested it. It is exciting to feel so vulnerable, a college junior explained. The power dynamic turns her on; oxygen deprivation to the brain can trigger euphoria.

That same young woman, incidentally, had never climaxed with a partner: While the prevalence of choking has skyrocketed, rates of orgasm among young women have not increased, nor has the “orgasm gap” disappeared among heterosexual couples. “It indicates they’re not doing other things to enhance female arousal or pleasure,” Dr. Herbenick said.

When, for instance, she asked one male student who said he choked his partner whether he’d ever tried using a vibrator instead, he recoiled. “Why would I do that?” he asked.

Perhaps, she responded, because it would be more likely to produce orgasm without risking, you know, death.

In my interviews, college students have seen male orgasm as a given; women’s is nice if it happens, but certainly not expected or necessarily prioritized (by either partner). It makes sense, then, that fulfillment would be less the motivator for choking than appearing adventurous or kinky. Such performances don’t always feel good.

“Personally, my hypothesis is that this is one of the reasons young people are delaying or having less sex,” Dr. Herbenick said. “Because it’s uncomfortable and weird and scary. At times some of them literally think someone is assaulting them but they don’t know. Those are the only sexual experiences for some people. And it’s not just once they’ve gotten naked. They’ll say things like, ‘I’ve only tried to make out with someone once because he started choking and hitting me.’”

Keisuke Kawata, a neuroscientist at Indiana University’s School of Public Health, was one of the first researchers to sound the alarm on how the cumulative, seemingly inconsequential, sub-concussive hits football players sustain (as opposed to the occasional hard blow) were key to triggering C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease. He’s a good judge of serious threats to the brain. In response to Dr. Herbenick’s work, he’s turning his attention to sexual strangulation. “I see a similarity” to C.T.E., he told me, “though the mechanism of injury is very different.” In this case, it is oxygen-blocking pressure to the throat, frequently in light, repeated bursts of a few seconds each.

Strangulation — sexual or otherwise — often leaves few visible marks and can be easily overlooked as a cause of death. Those whose experiences are nonlethal rarely seek medical attention, because any injuries seem minor: Young women Dr. Herbenick studied mostly reported lightheadedness, headaches, neck pain, temporary loss of coordination and ear ringing. The symptoms resolve, and all seems well. But, as with those N.F.L. players, the true effects are silent, potentially not showing up for days, weeks, even years.

According to the American Academy of Neurology, restricting blood flow to the brain, even briefly, can cause permanent injury, including stroke and cognitive impairment. In M.R.I.s conducted by Dr. Kawata and his colleagues (including Dr. Herbenick, who is a co-author of his papers on strangulation), undergraduate women who have been repeatedly choked show a reduction in cortical folding in the brain compared with a never-choked control group. They also showed widespread cortical thickening, an inflammation response that is associated with elevated risk of later-onset mental illness. In completing simple memory tasks, their brains had to work far harder than the control group, recruiting from more regions to achieve the same level of accuracy.

The hemispheres in the choked group’s brains, too, were badly skewed, with the right side hyperactive and the left underperforming. A similar imbalance is associated with mood disorders — and indeed in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys girls and women who had been choked were more likely than others (or choked men) to have experienced overwhelming anxiety, as well as sadness and loneliness, with the effect more pronounced as the incidence rose: Women who had experienced more than five instances of choking were two and a half times as likely as those who had never been choked to say they had been so depressed within the previous 30 days they couldn’t function. Whether girls and women with mental health challenges are more likely to seek out (or be subjected to) choking, choking causes mood disorders, or some combination of the two is still unclear. But hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation — judging by what research has shown about other types of traumatic brain injury — could be a contributing factor. Given the soaring rates of depression and anxiety among young women, that warrants concern.

Now consider that every year Dr. Herbenick has done her survey, the number of females reporting extreme effects from strangulation (neck swelling, loss of consciousness, losing control of urinary function) has crept up. Among those who’ve been choked, the rate of becoming what students call “cloudy” — close to passing out, but not crossing the line — is now one in five, a huge proportion. All of this indicates partners are pressing on necks longer and harder.

The physical, cognitive and psychological impacts of sexual choking are disturbing. So is the idea that at a time when women’s social, economic, educational and political power are in ascent (even if some of those rights may be in jeopardy), when #MeToo has made progress against harassment and assault, there has been the popularization of a sex act that can damage our brains, impair intellectual functioning, undermine mental health, even kill us. Nonfatal strangulation, one of the most significant indicators that a man will murder his female partner (strangulation is also one of the most common methods used for doing so), has somehow been eroticized and made consensual, at least consensual enough. Yet, the outcomes are largely the same: Women’s brains and bodies don’t distinguish whether they are being harmed out of hate or out of love.

By now I’m guessing that parents are curled under their chairs in a fetal position. Or perhaps thinking, “No, not my kid!” (see: title of Dr. Herbenick’s book above, which, by the way, contains an entire chapter on how to talk to your teen about “rough sex”).

I get it. It’s scary stuff. Dr. Herbenick is worried; I am, too. And we are hardly some anti-sex, wait-till-marriage crusaders. But I don’t think our only option is to wring our hands over what young people are doing.

Parents should take a beat and consider how they might give their children relevant information in a way that they can hear it. Maybe reiterate that they want them to have a pleasurable sex life — you have already said that, right? — and also want them to be safe. Tell them that misinformation about certain practices, including choking, is rampant, that in reality it has grave health consequences. Plus, whether or not a partner initially requested it, if things go wrong, you’re generally criminally on the hook.

Dr. Herbenick suggests reminding them that there are other, lower-risk ways to be exploratory or adventurous if that is what they are after, but it would be wisest to delay any “rough sex” until they are older and more skilled at communicating. She offers language when negotiating with a new partner, such as, “By the way, I’m not comfortable with” — choking, or other escalating behaviors such as name-calling, spitting and genital slapping — “so please don’t do it/don’t ask me to do it to you.” They could also add what they are into and want to do together.

I’d like to point high school health teachers to evidence-based porn literacy curricula, but I realize that incorporating such lessons into their classrooms could cost them their jobs. Shafia Zaloom, a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, recommends, if that’s the case, grounding discussions in mainstream and social media. There are plenty of opportunities. “You can use it to deconstruct gender norms, power dynamics in relationships, ‘performative’ trends that don’t represent most people’s healthy behaviors,” she said, “especially depictions of people putting pressure on someone’s neck or chest.”

I also know that pediatricians, like other adults, struggle when talking to adolescents about sex (the typical conversation, if it happens, lasts 40 seconds). Then again, they already caution younger children to use a helmet when they ride a bike (because heads and necks are delicate!); they can mention that teens might hear about things people do in sexual situations, including choking, then explain the impact on brain health and why such behavior is best avoided. They should emphasize that if, for any reason — a fall, a sports mishap or anything else — a young person develops symptoms of head trauma, they should come in immediately, no judgment, for help in healing.

The role and responsibility of the entertainment industry is a tangled knot: Media reflects behavior but also drives it, either expanding possibilities or increasing risks. There is precedent for accountability. The European Union now requires age verification on the world’s largest porn sites (in ways that preserve user privacy, whatever that means on the internet); that discussion, unsurprisingly, had been politicized here. Social media platforms have already been pushed to ban content promoting eating disorders, self-harm and suicide — they should likewise be pressured to ban content promoting choking. Traditional formats can stop glamorizing strangulation, making light of it, spreading false information, using it to signal female characters’ complexity or sexual awakening. Young people’s sexual scripts are shaped by what they watch, scroll by and listen to — unprecedentedly so. They deserve, and desperately need, models of interactions that are respectful, communicative, mutual and, at the very least, safe.

Peggy Orenstein is the author of “Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent and Navigating the New Masculinity” and “Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape.”

[bonefall]

Hi! How would you draw a tool-evolved cat paw?

Aeons ago I wrote some speculative biology thoughts on what a tool-focused cat would begin to look like, and mentioned the way that a caw's paw might evolve. I can try to draw it out as a sketch; but fair warning that I put my art style points into cartoony anime stuff SO you're not gonna get a realistic drawing lmao

Evolution doesn't "think." It's many changes over generations that snowball into bigger ones. So I tried to look at WHAT exactly is happening between an animal with less sophisticated tool use (chimp) and one that COMPLETELY relies on tools (human) to predict where the cat's paw would end up in a few thousand generations.

Please note! My paw would still be a "link" between the ancestor, and something even more reliant on tool use. This proposed species would still be 100% capable of doing what the cats in-canon do, like hunt alone. It's for a feline species that is tool-ADAPTED, not tool-RELIANT.

(In that way, it's more comparable to, say, a lemur and a chimp. But lemur palm refs were hard to find and I did this quick because I've already thought about it.)

This paw would exist in-tandem with a "tool tooth;" A V-shaped gap in the jawline that a single fang would nestle into. Early tool-using felines would likely use their mouth to "break" or "shear" their crafts, leading to broken teeth that would make them less successful. So there would be a lot of evolutionary pressure to have better, stronger teeth.

Evolution doesn't do "one thing at a time," so if you happened to port yourself into a group of these cats and watch them craft stuff, you'd see them using their mouths as well as their paws!

Finger Size + Tool Claw

When you see real cats batting stuff around and manipulating things, and when you look at canon where they like to "hook things on a claw," it's usually the index "finger" they favor. In fact, they do a LOT of "poking," even when a cat bats at something they seem to mostly explore with the tip of their paw.

So I figure that would actually be a big difference between this species and humans.

Unlike us, who usually have our middle finger as the longest (though there are exceptions) so we can "stabilize" the things we grab, I'd give these guys a "Tool Claw" which is not involved in grappling at all. It's longer, more deeply grooved, but also more fragile than the "hunting" claws.

When at rest, the Tool Claw would stick out from the rest of the foot, straight upwards. The fur is able to "sheathe" the other three, but the index's would be too long to be fully hidden.

Because one of those fingers is now mostly taken out of combat, the pinkie would probably thicken up to compensate. Another difference from the human hand. I can imagine that if the trend continues, they might end up supporting their full frontal weight on the pinkie pad to free up the other fingers for tool use.

(But evolution's not always predictable! They might end up becoming more "back heavy" like raccoons, or rely on the invention of shoe/gloves, or just abandon silent hunting all together to become tool-reliant.)

Paw Pad Changes

Cats use the pads on their paws to move silently. As long as the species is relying on silently stalking prey, they will need to have these pads in contact with the ground to be good hunters.

So instead of the digital pads sliding down to create the "top" of the palm, I figured the metacarpal pad would split in two. So now there's a snug, dipped "shape" with which they could nestle an object into as they work with it, but also there is ALWAYS still pad in contact with the ground.

The amount of fur in-between the bottom (metacarpal) and top (supercarpal) pads probably just depends on culture and genetics. It wouldn't really have enough of an impact on the paw to be selected for to be furry or hairless.

I can imagine some groups being weird about it and thinking it should be shaved or braided or something, lmao. Or cats who live in muddy environments clipping it for hygiene reasons.

[whereserpentswalk]

Select an alternate universe to study abroad in for a semester. You'll be sent there with a new body that matches inhabitants of that realm. Little to no time will pass in your world, as time between dimension is entirely diffeent. Wherever you choose to go you won't be known to be from another dimension unless you tell people.

1- an endless forest made of massive trees, so tall no mortal soul has seen the ground or the unobstructed sky. The sentient races of this world consist of slender owl like humanoids, various insectoid races, short squat mushroom people, and a minority of rodent like creatures who live further down the trees. Technology in this world is as advanced as ours, but the aesthetics are more similar to our Victorian age. They say this world's heaven is deep above the trees, and this world's hell is deep below it, with each culture's religion having its own version of God/gods above an devils in the forest floor (outside of the mushroom people, who worship gods below.)

2- an endless system of volcanic caves and tunnels that demons and fallen angels come from. This realm is vast, and is ruled over by countless lords and kings, some truly evil, some merely strange. Demons and fallen angels come is countless forms, most looking somewhat humanoid, though with strange and unnatural distortions, from animal like parts to things humans would find much more horrifying. This is one of the few realms listed where they know what earth is, but they don't know much about it outside of myth.

3- an alternate earth where mythical creatures such as vampires, werewolves, deep ones, dragons, and witches exist. It also has a population of demons and faeries who came over generations ago. While they were in hiding for many millennium, they've now taken over most of earth, with humans being removed or conquered in some regions, and peacefully integrated into others. Though in both cases they are now a minority.

4- a version of earth that's both flat and entirely endless, with many sun's carving safe warm zones in the ice. Even with 21st century technology new lands are still being explored. Most social problems still exist, but things are looking a bit more hopeful, and the world's slightly nicer to live in. Cryptids, gods, magic and the afterlife are all proven to exist, even if humanity doesn't know much about them. Human bodies here naturally trend twords looking however the person inside them wants to look, and sexual attraction and pleasure don't exist.

5- an alternate earth where the kpg mass extinction never occurred. Dinosaurs remained dominant but kept evolving, leading to a sapient race eventually emerging from raptors. The raptors are currently at a similar technology level as us, though due to how they're mind works they've spent more time developing computers and mathematics than they have any other field of technology. Also don't mind the obelisk in the pacific ocean, nobody there knows what it does or who put it there either, and we won't put you anywhere near it.

6- a world filled with giant monsters of all kinds, some looking like massive dragons or Chimeras, others looking like more strange and colorful creatures. Though some animals are smaller, the smallest intelligent creatures are the size of bears, and the largest are much bigger than blue whales. Technology is limited in some regards, mostly as the inhabitants don't always need it.

7- the world of the faeries, strange and complex, and both terrifying and beautiful. Very little is known about this realm other than the strange and often dangerous creatures who come from this place. If you go here it's likely you will remember very little and enjoy very much.

8- a universe where humanity is completely isolated to spaceships and space stations, most of them the size of cities. Humans here are grown artificially, and have completely androgynous bodies that lack biological sex, and most of them combine their bodies with mechanical upgrades becoming cyborgs. Most humans never touch a planet, and those who do don't stay there for long. There are a few alien species with planetary civilizations, but almost all of them are strange and eldrich. Technology is incredibly advanced compared to ours, and quality is life is better. Most humans consider AI taboo, though normal computers are fine and commonplace.

9- a world where humans are entirely missing, but every species of mammal is sapient and humanoid. Birds and reptiles pick up the pace of animals in the ecosystem, as the mammals have created a global civilization. Though magic doesn't exist here, and technology is around a 21st century level, the quirks of each species have created a lot of situations impossible in our world. Though several nations exist, the main powers of the world consist of a group of powerful corporations, an ancient secret society, and the church of the dead gods, all of whom are locked in a cold war, that luckily keeps the nations of this world at peace.

10- a massive city, floating in the void, surrounded by eldritch horrors. Countless humanoids have made their homes in the city, most hailing from diffrent dimensions themselves, but permanently stuck here. Though many races here could pass for humans, none of them truly are, from the sirenia who have wings for arms and hands for feet, to the modutal who can take parts of their bodies off and swap them with other members of their race, to the subterranean vamire who eat raw meat and have albino skin, to the hyven whose minds are each split between two to five bodies. It's estimated between fifty to a hundred humanoids call the city home.

11- the abyss. Do not attempt to enter the abyss. We cannot assure your safety.

[yokohamapound]

Since tis Spooky Season, how about some wedding headcanons for our goth boys Bram and Akutagawa? :3

It might no longer be spooky season but goth bois are timeless. <3

Characters: Bram Stoker, Akutagawa Ryuunosuke

Contents: gn!reader, nsfw mention

Bram Stoker

Bram is certainly the marrying type. Once he’s found someone he feels he can spend the long years of eternity with, he’ll want to lock you down quickly and make it official. Dating is a foreign concept to him, but he will spend some time courting you. He’s very likely the one who proposed marriage, and like, you have eyes, so of course you were going to accept. Who doesn’t want to marry a handsome vampire lord?

It’s not enough to call Bram ‘old-fashioned’. The man is at least several hundred years old, (depending on whether his age is based on the actual Bram Stoker or Vlad Tepes, basis of the legend for Dracula). He’s between approx 170-600 years old. He’s seen trends become traditions and vanish entirely. The wedding would probably be some flavour of traditional, whether that’s a Western white wedding, or a wedding steeped in his spouse’s culture. If you really wanted to, you could have a historical-themed wedding to make Bram feel at home—just expect him to be finicky on the minor details.

“This is the incorrect type of date for this pastry.”

It might take some doing to find a priest willing to marry you to a vampire, or you can forge the documents and have a civil ceremony. It depends on whether or not Bram can actually set foot in a church. He’s probably relieved to discover civil ceremonies are a thing. 

Bram looks beautiful in a suit. Just imagine it. A suit tailored to his ridiculous, 6’5” height, possibly a tailcoat, with a cravat, his long hair tied back. 

You’ll have to bring him up to speed and explain that, apart from certain cultural traditions, dowries aren’t that common anymore, and that he doesn’t have to offer your father 50 goats for your hand in marriage. 

Bram’s a pretty romantic guy, but he always does it with style. He pulls out your chair, his hand is going to rest on the small of your back, and he takes the lead in the first dance waltz, no matter your gender.

The speeches will be short—he’s had to put up with too many of Fukuchi’s soliloquies to want to hear any more monologuing. The wedding dinner—feast, he insists on calling it—is sumptuous, although Bram doesn’t partake. (You’re his wedding feast and he’d rather enjoy that in private.)

Godspeed on your wedding night. Bram’s spent years without a lower half of his body and now he has it back, and a spouse to enjoy. He is…pent up, shall we say~

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke

Poor Akutagawa is still reeling over the fact that he’s getting married. I would say that either you proposed, or Dazai planted the idea in Akutagawa’s head that it was time for him to put a ring on it. If Akutagawa proposed, your ring is some beautiful antique with a large stone and a creepy story attached to it. Don’t forget that Akutagawa makes bank in the Port Mafia. 

Please, please, please plan a goth wedding.

Please remember that this is the same young man who said this when asked what he would give as a wedding present: “I'd gift them the enemy's freshly severed head decorated with bloody barren flowers.” Suffice it to say, Akutagawa should not be left in charge of either your gift registry or the flower arrangements. You will end up with a load of obscure antiques, knives, and bunches of rotting flowers “to show the briefness of our lifespans.” 

Maybe compromise with dried flower garlands or even black roses if you want to go full 2007 My Chemical Romance-core. (Look me in the eye and tell me Akutagawa wouldn’t look up if you played him a G-note on the piano.)

He hates being the centre of attention in the actual wedding, so he’s more than happy to deflect it all toward you instead. The moments he seems happiest are when he gets to see Gin wearing a bridesmaid dress, when Dazai stands up to make a speech (during which Akutagawa sits up like he’s in a school assembly while the headmaster is speaking), and during the vows, when he’s focusing on you and only you. 

He looks wonderful in his suit - let him have full tails and black tie and he'll be content.

Your wedding photographs look like one of those austere Victorian family portraits, save for Tachihara throwing up the bunny ears behind Gin’s head. 

Akutagawa has a secret sweet tooth he won’t admit to, which is why he tries to pretend that he hasn’t had three slices of chocolate cake. 

Either get Dazai drunk or put him in a corner with a plate of crab cakes to keep him occupied, because you really don’t need him making sly comments when it’s time for you and Akutagawa to climb into the car and head off for your honeymoon. His wedding gift for Akutagawa is an inhaler and a note saying, “You’ll need this! xoxo Dazai.”

[omgthatdress]

The teeth are probably "milk tooth jewelry," made with children's baby teeth as a keepsake. like hairwork, it COULD have mourning connotations, but it didn't ALWAYS. and good gods, OOP is a pill. yikes. keep fighting the good fight, OMGTD!

(although I'm not sure I totally agree with the assessment that mourning unilaterally sucked- it COULD definitely be a financial and social burden on people, but you also see plenty of etiquette manuals- which we all know are infamous for trending towards unrealistic propriety -reminding readers that mourning is personal and intended to prevent unintended rudeness to or demands upon a bereaved person. many outright oppose putting small children in mourning clothes, for example, since they're too young to understand what happened. the were spans involved were also rather shaky; I found only a few primary sources for the infamous "widows mourn for a year and widowers for six months" statistic, and more opining that the death of a spouse meant a year's mourning regardless of gender. there were also garments that could be suitable for both mourning and non-mourning purposes, even the earlier stages if shiny or contrast-color trim could be removed, thus saving a family money)

(I have historian friends who've lost loved ones and say they wish there were some codified way to show their bereavement nowadays, so people would know to be gentle with them. which was the intent- though not always the extent -of Victorian mourning practices)

(but it's not either/or across the board, of course! a cultural practice can be good for some and less so for others! I'm sure being at the social mercy of some strict doyenne could make mourning a burden rather than a genuine expression of grief- it depended upon the understanding of the people around you)

yeah, all of this is true!

But the pieces in the post were all like really obvious modern pieces with modern design and adult teeth so yeah those aren't actual Victorian pieces.

[sixstepsaway]

I don't get why people want to pretend Ed wasn't abusive. Why do people insist on making everything into binaries? Yes, Ed has been a victim of abuse. Yes, he has been abusive. Both things can be true. I love him because I think he's in interesting and I understand where his pain is coming from (even if I think S2 was a missed opportunity in terms of character development). But anyway, thank you for writing about this because maybe some folks genuinely don't recognize abusive trends.

I think it has a lot to do with the fandom culture of only being allowed to like "wholesome" ships.

Look at it this way: when season 1 was airing, Ed and Stede were, in fact, very wholesome. Sure, they had some moments of lesser wholesomeness, but overall they were pretty wholesome and sweet and gentle. They were sweet and finding love in middle age and it was adorable. They had a general stamp of fandom approval that they were, in fact, Wholesome And Good To Ship™.

If you look at other fandoms, you'll see a lot of times there's the Good And Acceptable Ship and then there's the Bad Ship (or ships) and the Bad Ship is always slapped with the "oh that's actually incest!" label when they've, idk, grown up together, or "oh it's abusive!" because one of them one time made a bad joke or something, or "power dynamics!" because one is 27 and one is 25 or one is short and the other is tall or whatever, and yeah sometimes the Bad Ship is actually toxic or whatever (which is not a reason to not ship and enjoy it!), but they're put in neat little boxes: Good and Bad.

And for a lot of people, those boxes keep them safe. Last year, someone who was an Izzy Hands fan got doxxed because...? They liked Izzy Hands and shipped him with... I don't know actually. Ed? Stede? It doesn't matter, all I know is they got doxxed.

The side of fandom that thinks you should only ship the Good Ship are toxic and downright dangerous. It's happened again and again in numerous fandoms and just keeps happening.

So when at the end of s1, Ed turned around and cut Izzy's toe off and fed it to him, I think a lot of people panicked because shit, now Ed was Bad too, and if he's Bad then you can't like him or relate to him or ship him with the Good guy of Stede, so what the fuck do you do?

Obvious answer: Blame Izzy. Izzy's already classed as Bad, so put all the responsibility on Izzy for Ed's darkness and then it's safe to ship Ed and Stede again and no one can call you an abuse apologist or whatever for liking them together.

(To be clear: Shipping says nothing about your real morality. This is very clear for many reasons, one of which is... spend thirty seconds watching fans of the Wholesome Ships dox people and abuse people online lol)

So they spent all this time saying Ed was just scared and lashing out, and now s2 has come along and Ed is... well, abusive, canonically.

And for most of us, that doesn't really matter. We can still enjoy Ed and Stede or Ed and Izzy, we can throw ourselves into fanworks and enjoy the show for the things we like, and we can critique the things we have issues with (my problem is not Ed being written as dark and twisty and having a villain arc, my problem is the show writing it badly, exploring it badly, and then handwaving it, because it's shitty writing) and still really enjoy the vibes we got from the show.

But for people who are scared because they spent all this time saying Izzy fans should kill themselves for liking an abuser, well... now they have a choice: either admit Ed is an abuser and admit that liking a character doesn't dictate your irl morality, nor does it say anything about you aside from what you enjoy in fiction, or excuse away his actions, insist he's just a lil meow meow and continue feeling safe in their little bubble.

In a lot of ways I can't blame people for wanting to duck and cover from it. I mean, look at the shit people get for liking characters who aren't perfect, or talking about the imperfections of characters, or just enjoying complex narratives!

But what genuinely concerns me isn't anything to do with the fiction really, it's when people look at Ed's behavior in 2x01 and 2x02 and go, "Nah he's fine," because oh, honey, no, you are making yourself so vulnerable to real life abuse. That is what worries me, which is why I answered that one ask saying Ed wasn't abusive, it felt important to point out why he is.

Anyway, that's what I think is happening here. I think people are just scared that if they admit their fave has multitudes and isn't a perfect character who never does any wrong, they'll get doxxed and abused and harassed online.

I get that.

[izzabela]

Mortal Kombat Headkanons

in which i talk about certain characters

a/n: the success of my short!fem!reader x bi han canons made me want to make a couple of hcs for some of my other favorite characters

ship[s]: none

warning(s): bi!johnny?

Johnny:

- he misses his wife. more than words could say

- he doesn't prolong the divorce, signing the papers and immediately giving her the required settlement without issue

- Johnny and kung lao definitely have drinking competitions. like, they drink to see who can handle more (Kung Lao often loses and pays Johnny)

- Johnny talks to kenshi about his divorce, a lot (does it count as talking if he wakes up next to him in bed?)

- Johnny does really good research when he's creating his mortal kombat cinematic universe. like, really good research. i know the kanon end for him is a director, but if you really examine that clip, it's incredible how much thought he put into this

- you know how johnny tells tomas that if he wins their spar he gets a part? i think even if tomas lost, he'd still give him the part

- Johnny takes up journaling as a coping mechanism. i'd say that it would've been introduced to him by Raiden, but he uses it to vent about his PTSD in Shang Tsung's lab

Raiden:

- i believe Raiden reassures Kung Lao a lot. we know that Kung Lao often is compared to Raiden, but it never affects Kung Lao in a negative way- and i think it's because of how kind Raiden is

- he hypes Kung Lao up in different ways, and Kung Lao takes them as genuine compliments

- Raiden. loves. hugs. no, i won't be taking criticisms

- a part of me thinks Raiden does have a twisted darkness to him, remained untapped of course because of how Liu Kang made him. i headcanon that this darkness grows bit by bit when he trains with the Shirai Ryu

- speaking of the Shirai Ryu, Hanzo definitely has taken a liking to Raiden. if Hanzo looks at Takeda like an older brother, and Tomas maybe as an uncle/father figure, Raiden is def another older brother

- i think Raiden dotes on his sister a lot. he definitely takes good care of her, always praising her and patting her head and whatnot. he does the same to Hanzo for sure

- Raiden still visits Fengjian to help with chores. no, i won't be taking any criticisms on this

Kung Lao:

- as mentioned above, Kung Lao doesn't have a hating bone in his body for Raiden because Raiden himself keeps him grounded

- however, i still think Kung Lao struggles with identity issues. i think he has days where he really thinks about him and Raiden, and how Raiden is branded as the "better version" of him

- Kung Lao is a cuddle bug. no, i will not be taking any form of criticism at all on this take

- for some reason, I can see Kung Lao making wordplay jokes. i'm filipino, and wordplay is a huge thing in our culture and humor, and I'm pretty sure the Chinese language dabbles in good wordplay humor as well

- Kung Lao absolutely plays boardgames. i can see him introducing Johnny, Kenshi, and the other monks to games he and Raiden played when they were younger

- if Kung Lao had a phone, he'd so be into memes, dank memes, tiktok memes, and the gen z slang business. i can hear him say "i fw that heavy" or the other stuff that's been trending. i'm so bold as to say his favorite type of meme might be vine humor

- i think Kung Lao is an only child. idk, y'all can debate me on this one

Kenshi Takahashi:

- he sends letters to Suchin. since she's still part of the yakuza, and he against, he can't exactly be near her. he writes in great detail, and he'll even send a picture or sketches for Suchin as a visual aid

- i think pre-blindess, Kenshi would have been a major sketcher. he wouldn't be really good at it, but he'd create amazing (and quick) scenery stills of different places he's been to

- Kenshi is such a good listener. no, i'm not trying to be funny since he's blind- i really believe he listens well and gives good advice

- Kenshi would so fight with Takeda. just like how Raiden and Kung Lao fought to settle their bets, those two would also duel

- part of me imagines Kenshi waking up early for training. i think he'd train the best with Raiden, then Kung Lao, then Johnny. i'd go as far to say that Kenshi likes Raiden's company post-spars

- post-blind Kenshi most definitely deals with PTSD, no doubt. he and Johnny talk about it, and I'd like to say both he and Johnny developed insomnia and stay up to talk over the phone

- i hc that Johnny goes to Japan to do research for a "Kenshi Takahashi" solo film, and that he takes Kenshi with him to act as a tour guide and a cultural master (pls go look at @/heyachow on IG! she draws MK1 art and there is a JohnShi post that pertains to this idea)

- he's confused on how he feels for both johnny and suchin

Geras:

- as a fandom, we do not talk about this man enough

- as much as Geras is a loyal follower, i'd like to think that there are times he does doubt Liu Kang. however, when a kanon event comes to pass, his faith in him is restored and he continues with life

- i know Liu Kang said that Geras isn't one for social calls, but i can't shake the feeling that Geras does pop into the Fire Temple for tea. Liu Kang 100% put him on it too (ginseng tea would be Geras's favorite)

- there's a voice-line of Geras and Takeda talking about the dinosaur's extinction, but i think i get why Geras would be traumatized over that. i think he sees it aslife being wiped out in the blink of an eye, and since he was part of the process in creation of it, he feels guilty

- Geras would give firm handshakes if he wasn't so opposed to mortals. you can all argue with the wall on this take

- when Geras talks to others and they ask about their futures or pasts, the people like Tomas, Tanya, or even Takeda make him sad because he (once again) feels responsible. of course, it's part of the course of their fates, but he looks at them a little longer compared to others

- since Geras would be the Keeper of Time after Liu Kang, i think he likes to use the hourglass to view his favorite memories of his friends (though he does not call them friends)

- this might be a fanon, but Geras absolutely makes sand sculptures when he gets uber bored

Liu Kang:

- i think the characters misinterpret the intention Liu Kang had for the timeline. his whole purpose was to make it so that humans had free will to create their own destinies and endings- choose your own adventure

- i think Liu Kang beats himself up from time to time when thinking over the paths of certain people. Bi Han, Tomas, Shang Tsung, even General Shao, he thinks of these people and wonders if he could have made better choices in terms of their lore and origins

- i know it's canon that Liu Kang wishes he made Johnny more humble, but damn do i believe he really regrets it at times. like, he'll openly talk about it to people like Raiden, or Kung Lao

- speaking of them, he looks at his pupils and sometimes sees the visages of his former mentor and best friend. he's content with his life as the protector of Earthrealm, but can a man dream

- Liu Kang would absolutely use the Hourglass to see his Kitana again. i'm not entirely sure how that works, but i imagine you can use it to see into the other timelines as the flow of time continues. he'd smile fondly at the image of his love training her pupils

- this plays into the Geras tea headcanon, but Liu Kang would absolutely (and proudly) ask for Geras to join him for tea. instead of talking, though, they'd sit in silence- a comfortable one

- since Liu Kang's ending in the game means he is no longer immortal, but will live rather long, i imagine him to be scared of losing his life. in previous timelines, he's died and resurrected, but this time it's permanent. that is what scares him

Sindel:

- she's the epitome of "i won't apologize, but here's a bowl of your favorite fruits"

- as she watches over her daughters through Ermac's eyes, she most definitely regrets the harshness she had towards Mileena. though she cannot personally come through Ermac due to the amount of souls it houses, Jerrod tells Mileena for her

- this might borderline fanon, but i think the reason Sindel chose blue and red/maroon for Kitana and Mileena was because blue+red=purple. kind of poetic in a sense, that her daughters make up who she is as a woman, mother, and a queen

- when Li Mei is seen through Ermac's eyes, Sindel cries. she can't hug her friend anymore, and she most definitely can't give her the proper apology she deserves after her years of mistreatment against her

- Sindel hates spicy food. idk, she just looks like she does

- Sindel definitely knew that Mileena was a lesbian before Mileena could even name it. i'd like to think she knew when Mileena shaved her head like that when she was maybe 8000 years old?

- Sindel was definitely proud of Mileena with her stance on Tarkatans and people infected with Tarkat. she definitely regrets how she treated them, and her hypocrisy, especially since they had the power to provide people with a semi-cure

Shang Tsung:

- there's a voice-line on Shang Tsung and another character saying that he was actually doing research on Tarkat and finding a cure. while the characters don't believe him (i don't blame them), i actually believe that he was doing good

- part of me still believes he brews his potions and experiments with Tarkat remedies on that island he found

- Shang Tsung is a cat guy. wave your pitch forks all you want

- Shang Tsung looks like the type of guy to visit his old home just to burn it down. with his fire powers, he absolutely would watch his childhood home burn until it became nothing but ash

- i think Shang Tsung would take leisure walks. if he's in a village, he'll take precaution to shift into a different form, but he will still make time out of his day to take a walk

- he has stacks upon stacks upon stacks upon stacks of journals and scrolls on medicine

General Shao:

- i think there are times where Shao does regret turning against the crown. his military lineage and history, and all the lessons he'd been indoctrinated with make him think like that sometimes, especially since his father had watched him overcome his illness

- i think Shao is ticklish at his horns

- Shao views Reiko like a son. he'll take care of him personally when he is sick or injured

- Shao likes nightly walks

- Shao would absolutely fuck with spicy food

- before Shao was on the run, he snuck back into his family home to grab his father's heirloom. i don't know what it would be, but it would be important enough for him to take from you

Tanya:

- if she misses a day of prayer/temple days, she is visibly dejected

- Tanya absolutely writes love notes to Mileena. sometimes it accidentally gets sent to Kitana, and she receives response notes along the lines of "please, get a room"

- she's the type of girl to stick by the schedule, and it's not just because she is Umgadi. i believe her personality to be "stick to the books", always following the rules (except for Mileena of course)

- the sisters know Tanya is jealous when they spar against her. Tanya would see Mileena on a date with a potential suitor and she'd take it out on the sparring field

- Tanya visits Li Mei for coffee or a meal. it serves as both making new friends and repairing bridges

- i think Tanya is a clean freak. you guys can talk to the hand on this take

Kitana:

- since Kitana is now a movie lover, of course she's excited when Johnny and his film crew are in the palace. she definitely asks questions on what the cameras do, what the clapperboard is, and what the editors do

- i think Kitana was a crier growing up. i could see a little Kitana telling Mileena that someone called her ugly, and Mileena would sock that idiot's face in without wavering

- Kitana and Mileena used to be close, and Kitana does whatever she can to always remind Mileena that she does love and support her

- Kitana thinks about Raiden. if she gets lucky with Mileena's schedule, she talks to her about her feelings towards him. usually it ends up with Kitana denying her feelings about him

- Kitana is a mama's girl

- Kitana secretly wishes the best for Tanya and Mileena. in public, she cannot say anything about their relationship. in private, though, she'll talk to Mileena about all the little thing she saw going on between them

=====================

and that's a wrap for that hc list

i got eight reqs i havent started, and three finished lined up in the queue, you guys are so sweet!

i can't wait to keep writing, and i'll see yall in the next fic!

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Canellecitadelle @Canellelabelle

The British public is a hard public to win over. We judge harshly first and are cold and guarded first. But once, you have earned a spot in our heart, you have earned one in our home; and this is exactly what Catherine has done with 2 decades in the spotlight.

For a Commoner marrying the Heir of the most high profile Monarchy in the world, the task of adapting was a matter of survival. Yet, she looks, sounds and acts with more elegance, more dignity and more alacrity than Blood Royals themselves. And yet, this kind and honest young woman, who has never put a foot wrong in 20 years, was still viciously crucified this week by the world press; led by the British press and by haters online, all the while recovering from major surgery

If the worse crime Catherine has ever done, after spotlessly behaving for 2 decades is editing her OWN mother's day picture, with her OWN children and taken by her OWN husband, so she could post it on her OWN social media to surprise the world on Mother's day with her health improvement and say "thank you" to us for our support; a "thank you" the world violently spit back in her face out of rabid jealousy and bitterness; then I would like to hand her her sainthood in the house of Windsor: she is truly perfection in a very imperfect world judging her and in a very imperfect Royal family watching her

As bad as her vicious enemies try to break her, Catherine always comes back on top. Life challenges taught her to make the sweetest lemonade out of the most bitter lemons

Today, after all the targeted hate campaigns, she still comes on top as the Nation favorite and most loved Royal, in both the YouGov poll in the UK and Ipsos poll in the US

Her Influence has only become even more massive, worldwide. Catherine is cultural Icon of our time. The name "Kate Middleton" is now a very marketable brand that stands on its own and even, has the power of affecting Stocks

The Adobe stocks were trending at 552.45 on Monday morning. After rumours trended on X that she used adobe clouds to edit her picture, by monday evening, adobe stocks were trending at 561.42, adding $3 Billion in value to adobe stock in half a day

This morning, they were up to 579.14

Catherine's name alone is now a powerful Royal Warrant on its own

Her first official return picture on X broke the internet for almost a week straight and was viewed 82 million times in 48 hours on X alone. The biggest account on X, elon Musk with 175 mil followers got on a highest viewed tweet this year of 66mill views

Her Haters did not hurt her, they made her stronger. Bullied her whole life, first by female classmates at age 12 in school, then harrassed nationally by the british press and paparazzi in her 20s for being prince William's girlfriend, to now being viciously targeted internationally by the world press and haters in her 40s as prince William's wife, Catherine is very familiar with mental abuse and bullying. Yet, she has never embraced the victim mentality, she is a victor. She is confident enough to publicly take accountability for her own mistakes, and confident enough to calmy get on with it; In that, she is British to her core

The commoner they snobbed and despised has now taken over the House of Windsor, Her soft power unmatched; She has now inserted the generations of Coal miners and working class brits, who worked slave wages to build this country into the veins of the most privileged royal family in the world. Her son, Prince George is the first Heir in history with working class and coal miners ancestry in his veins. And in that Carole middleton, who was born in a condemned council flat in southhall and still became a self made millionaire; the one the world mocked and bullied for decades for being too low class for Royalty; The one who is currently in windsor caring for William, Catherine and their children with unwaverring love and loyalty; she at last won the last laugh

12:51 PM · Mar 13, 2024

[kemetic-dreams]

House is a music genre characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute as a re-emergence of 1970's disco. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground club culture and evolved slowly in the early/mid 1980s, and as DJs began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat. By early 1988, House became mainstream and supplanted the typical 80s music beat

House was created and pioneered by DJs and producers in Chicago such as Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy, Jesse Saunders, Chip E., Joe Smooth, Steve "Silk" Hurley, Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, Marshall Jefferson, Phuture, and others. House music initially expanded internationally, to London, then to other American cities, such as New York City, and ultimately a worldwide phenomenon.

In its most typical form, the genre is characterized by repetitive 4/4rhythms including bass drums, off-beat hi-hats, snare drums, claps, and/or snaps at a tempo of between 120 and 130 beats per minute (bpm); synthesizerriffs; deep basslines; and often, but not necessarily, sung, spoken or sampled vocals. In house, the bass drum is usually sounded on beats one, two, three, and four, and the snare drum, claps, or other higher-pitched percussion on beats two and four. The drum beats in house music are almost always provided by an electronic drum machine, often a Roland TR-808, TR-909, or a TR-707. Claps, shakers, snare drum, or hi-hat sounds are used to add syncopation. One of the signature rhythm riffs, especially in early Chicago house, is built on the clave pattern. Congas and bongos may be added for an African sound, or metallic percussion for a Latin feel

One book from 2009 states the name "house music" originated from a Chicago club called the Warehouse that was open from 1977 to 1982. Clubbers to the Warehouse were primarily African, gay men, who came to dance to music played by the club's resident DJ, Frankie Knuckles, who fans refer to as the "godfather of house". Frankie began the trend of splicing together different records when he found that the records he had were not long enough to satisfy his audience of dancers. After the Warehouse closed in 1983, eventually the crowds went to Knuckles' new club, The Power House, later to be called The Power Plant, and the club was renamed, yet again, into Music Box with Ron Hardy as the resident DJ. The 1986 documentary, "House Music in Chicago", by filmmaker, Phil Ranstrom, captured opening night at The Power House, and stands as the only film or video to capture a young Frankie Knuckles in this early era, right after his departure from The Warehouse. 

In the Channel 4 documentary Pump Up the Volume, Knuckles remarks that the first time he heard the term "house music" was upon seeing "we play house music" on a sign in the window of a bar on Chicago's South Side. One of the people in the car joked, "you know that's the kind of music you play down at the Warehouse!" In self-published statements, South-Side Chicago DJ Leonard "Remix" Rroy claimed he put such a sign in a tavern window because it was where he played music that one might find in one's home; in his case, it referred to his mother's soul and disco records, which he worked into his sets

[olderthannetfic]

About the "European" fairytale thing, non-white cultural stories, and "Eurocentrism." To start off, keep in mind that I mean the specific story that's told, NOT the visuals. So if you took the stories themselves, wrote them down as a book with no pictures. LONG SUBMISSION

I honestly feel like it's a bit weird to claim that the Disney movies are "Eurocentric" because none of the stories have anything to do with the actual European version of the fairytales. If they hadn't been specifically drawn to look like that, and you only had a written version by Disney, you could probably argue they're just a bastardisation of any culture where a version of them exists.

If you know the "real" fairytales from Europe, they've got almost nothing to do with what Disney made. You could take any cultural equivalent to a Disney movie and claim it's a "clean washed" and American values version of it, and it "just so happens" they chose a Pseudo European aesthetic, and not even that well. <- That last part is my opinion.

I think Cinderella was used as an example of a story that has an equivalent in Vietnamese culture, the fairytale of Tam and Cam. You could take the Disney version basically the exact way it's written, and put a different coat of paint on it, and it's be just as accurate to any other cultural version: Not accurate at all. There are several versions of the Cinderella story in Europe alone, the German one is different from the French one, and none of them are like the Disney version. In one of the version I've read the gifts and dresses come from a tree from the mother's grave, and at the evil stepsisters cut their feet to fit in the shoe, which the doves tell the prince.

Beauty and the beast is the same. The Disney version isn't the "European" version, it's vaguely based on a fairy tale that also exists across a few countries. If we go European, there's version with a singing tree, a version with a singing bird, there's also a Scandinavian story where a girl is forced to marry a bear, who turns into a human at night. But there are also stories of the same make in Asia and Africa.

It's also one of the reasons I'm both annoyed with both sides bitching about the Disney remakes. On one side, these movies aren't even the "European" fairytales, they've always been a completely American versions of a story that they vaguely took inspiration from the European versions but basically removed 80-90% of the actual European key elements, where the base story also exists in other cultures. With a pseudo historical European aesthetic, which was heavily based on the "current trends" of the years they were made in, example Snow Whites being based on the late 1930's fashion, same with Aladdin, Jasmine being based on the 90's. These aren't "White European" fairytales, they're "Western American" fairytales. If you actually wanted a real European fairy tales, you could just check out European productions or even the books. The other side, who're constantly saying that its a win for diversity or that it "makes the most sense for visibility" or how it's a win for POC fairytales: The remakes still heavily feature some of the pseudo European inspirations, and it's still a shit cash grab. It wouldn't take Disney much extra work if they actually just straight up adapted the story with a different aesthetic since they already don't give a shit about accuracy. You could literally still keep the Western American story they wrote, but could use setting that pseudo African, Asian, LatAm or whatever to tell the story, which are more catered to American born people. (Not like the piss poor 2020 Mulan, at least the 98 seemed passionate and wanting to tell a good story despite being inaccurate. Kinda like all their old movies, inaccurate but at least passionate abt it.) Making shitty poorly redone live action movies isn't a step in the direction for diversity, it's a step in the "Let's throw POC actors to the wolves, and put them in movies doomed to fail." There are thousand options. It also comes across cheap because you're basically boiling down POC, especially American POC entertainment to "rotten leftovers from much more popular white lead fairy tale movies." Great, the first forage for people into big production "POC in fairy tales" are low value Disney trash, with the constant visual reminder that they have to attach themselves to "European" stories. <- Even if it's pseudo European, most people don't know that and will just view it as "European" period.

--

If we want to talk about cultures dominating so much that they warp the entire framework of how we think...

What is a "fairy tale"?

Why does this exist as a category?

--

One of the problems people run into when they try to be more inclusive in this sphere is that while every place has folktales, and many of those do have animal husbands or other common elements that are found in the core "fairy tales" the West knows, they don't have a specific category of tale with the same boundaries.

I honestly think a big part of the reason for rehashing the same tiny core of tales is that it's hard to define what a new entry into the canon would have to look like.

If it's basically a Beauty and the Beast variant, okay, but what if it isn't? And even if it does have some animal husband aspects, what if the actual point of the story in its original context is completely different.

Very quickly, one ends up at that Joseph Campbell place of thinking everything is a Jesus metaphor and all mythologies are basically the same.

[indierpgnewsletter]

Should the GM make things interesting?

Obviously, yes. But also, no.

Words are great, stay with me.

I was reading an Alexandrian article that was about the – often debated – idea that when players come up with a good plan and the dice roll in their favour, their plan should just work. While a GM might be tempted to force some hitch, some curveball, some twist – some interesting-ness, the Alexandrian (and lots of other people) suggest that you should resist that urge and just let things be simple.

The sense that “something interesting should happen here” is understandable because it’s so often the role that the GM is playing. It comes from stories we know and other games we’ve played, right? There’s no good heist movie where the plan just works out. And probably your favourite gaming session was one where there were outrageous twists and unforeseen consequences. This particularly applies to trad and storygames – cultures that want sessions to feel like a particular kind of narrative or a particular medium, usually a movie or TV show.

Now the Alexandrian has a very trad focus. In the games being discussed, players normally spend a lot of time planning – discussions, debates, dice rolls around investigation and convincing NPCs. Now anyone who has invested all this time will find it pretty fun if their plan goes well. So I agree with the Alexandrian, if the dice fall favourably (rare!), a hitch-less session is great and will be enjoyed by all. And if everyone is already having fun, why would you feel the need to do something more?

If you think that it’s only interesting when sessions have twists and turns, then play something like Blades in the Dark where the idea is that you plan less and fail more. It’s probably a better fit for you because it’s design is in line with how you want to play.

Okay, but what happens when you’re playing Blades in the Dark and the players are just rolling 6s? In a lot of Forged in the Dark games, there’s been a trend towards designing some kind of currency that the GM can spend to introduce twists that is aimed squarely at this problem. I am not a fan of that stuff for two reasons. First, because mostly they’re giving people permission to do things that they already do. Nothing can stop me when I think of something cool to say, nothing! Or to put it more seriously, there’s a reason Apocalypse World says you make GM moves when players look to you. Or when there’s a golden opportunity. Second, even though these games are it’s-only-interesting-when-things-go-wrong games, even though there is minimal planning investment, it is still perfectly fine for a session to have only expected and obvious things happen.

Why? Because the players’ actions are interesting enough. Or at least, they should be.

Games like Blades in the Dark are more or less defined to facilitate players taking only interesting actions. They’re designed around players coming up with outrageous ideas and having the tools to actualize them. Not always succeeding… but at least crashing and burning in an entertaining way.

I think it’s important to think of these games as ones where players are supposed to be able to entertain themselves.

But, you ask, what if the players’ plans aren’t interesting? Well, I say, interesting to whom? If the players’ actions aren’t interesting even to them i.e. they are bored by their own choices, then that’s a real problem. When I find myself in that situation, it either means I’m having an off-day or I’m playing the wrong game with the wrong group. Not a big deal – I’ve been there before, I know what to do (see last week’s post). But it’s not something that can be fixed by a GM. If their actions aren’t interesting to you but are interesting to them, that’s a complicated situation too. But it has nothing to do with games.

So, yes. Should the GM make things interesting? Obviously, yes. But also, sometimes, no.

(This was first published in the Indie RPG Newsletter.)