#because that was just The Culture when he was growing up in the 80s and because she was never particularly religious to begin with

[br1ghtestlight]

I don't think big bob celebrates holidays outside of his restaurant especially since lily died. I think when bob was very young they celebrated christmas thanksgiving etc but by the time lily died big bob didn't feel like putting together a big celebration for the two of them so they just stopped celebrating

big bob still opens on christmas and thanksgiving etc which is nice for people with nowhere else to go but bob felt pretty shitty about having to work on christmas as a kid when everybody else at his school got presents and affection from their parents and he got NOTHING not even an acknowledgement of the holiday from his dad

which is part of the reason he loves being w/ linda because she decorates and makes every holiday into a big CELEBRATION. and part of why he's so rigid about spending thanksgiving and other holidays together with his family bcuz he knows what it feels like to Not celebrate them w/ family and he doesn't ever want his kids to feel like they have nothing to look forward to (even if they do end up being slightly spoiled lmao)

big bob still doesn't celebrate holidays with anyone he mostly just works (bob even says that big bob's christmas party doesnt really count as a christmas party if "he's just working in the kitchen the whole time anyway"). that's part of the reason he doesn't celebrate christmas with bob and the kids, it just isn't his thing. he's happier cooking for other people than having to think about his own family

[slavghoul]

Interview from Metal Hammer 8/2023

LIFE LESSONS from TOBIAS FORGE

Shock rock, bad glam bands and wanting to be Venom: inside the brain of Ghost's benevolent overlord

Tobias Forge is the mastermind behind one of the 21st century's hottest metal bands, but even he’ll admit that success was a long time in the making. Hailing from the Swedish city of Linköping, the Ghost frontman dabbled in everything from death metal to glam before donning the iconic Papal attire and paint to transform into Papa Emeritus, transcending his roots to become a larger-than-life character. Here are the key parables he has to share, gleaned from more than 25 years on the heavy metal frontlines.

MUSIC AND MOVIES ARE GATEWAYS TO OTHER WORLDS

“Linköping was a nice city to grow up in. It wasn’t so small you felt like you were cramped in a village, but it’s small enough that you’d still want to eventually move somewhere else. You’d have access to all these gateways to other worlds through the record stores and the local video store. My dreams started there - everything I do now, I dreamt back there.”

I WAS A TEENAGE HEADBANGER

“I had a teenage brother growing up, so I had a free pass into teenage culture. Whatever they consumed, I got a whiff of - how they dressed, what they watched on TV, what films they rented... The lifestyle and expression that meant most to me was shock rock. Twisted Sister were a wrecking ball into my life with I Wanna Rock. That song made me want to bounce!”

THE HEAVIER IT GOT, THE DEEPER I WANTED TO GO

“When I first heard Candlemass, I was eight and I was blown away. I already liked Black Sabbath, Metallica and Motorhead through my brother, but Candlemass were local and sounded so heavy, it was like doomsday. King Diamond and Candlemass served as a segue for me to discover death metal and black metal in the early 90s. It became my calling. From the ages of 12 to 22, I spent my life in death and black metal bands.”

FOLLOW YOUR HEART (AND SOMETIMES YOUR WALLET)

“My mom is from Stockholm, so when I was 15 and started saying I wanted to move there, she was just like ‘Finish mandatory school’ and we moved together [after I graduated]. I moved back to Linköping when I was 25, because Stockholm is a big metropolitan place and it’s not fun living in those places if you don’t have money. Now I’m in Stockholm again; it’s more fun now I can afford it!”

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS, FEET ON THE GROUND

“I learned the hard way in the late 90s that wanting to play 80s-inspired death metal with my band Repugnant was     painfully out of touch with what was going on at the time. It broke my heart; I wanted us to be signed to Roadrunner and support Slayer. That never happened unfortunately - or perhaps fortunately, as it kept me grounded for a few more years and if those things had happened maybe I wouldn't be here today.”

TAKE CHANCES, BUT STAND YOUR GROUND

“Repugnant had a close shave with success. We signed to the label Hammerheart, which at the time felt like we’d made it because the first thing they did was take us out on our first tour, supporting the American band Macabre. They were a favourite band of ours - still are, and whenever we play Chicago they come to the shows - and at that point it felt like we might be going somewhere, but we quickly parted ways with Hammerheart because we couldn’t agree. It felt like our chance and we’d blown it.”

NOT ALL 80S BANDS WERE CREATED EQUAL

“With Crashdiet, we never really went beyond our home. I can’t say how many shows we did, but I don’t think it was more than a handful. For me especially there was conflict with the singer, Dave Lepard. We were friends, but he clearly wanted to take his band into some sort of glam-sleaze direction, whereas when I think of ‘glam’ I’m more Hanoi Rocks and Guns N’ Roses - never, ever the other bands. I know Poison kinda came before a lot of the latecomers, but to me they were repellent. Dave wanted to go all neon and I wanted it so that if we were glam, we’d be Hanoi Rocks meets Lords Of The New Church or The Dead Boys. I don’t want to be fucking Stryper! Fuck that!”

THERE’S NO POINT TRYING TO FOLLOW FASHION

“It was a confusing time in the early 2000s – rock was all of a sudden in fashion because of bands like Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs. Everyone was always looking for the next big rock band and in Sweden The Hives were huge, as were The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, The Hellacopters, Backyard Babies...so many rock bands! But there we were in Subvision, influenced by The Dead Boys, with a little-too-long hair, leather jackets, just a little too ‘metal’... yuck! You’re supposed to be more indie; heavy metal is about having the biggest dick and indie is the opposite.”

FIRST IMPRESSIONS REALLY DO COUNT

“I hated The Strokes when they first came out. Back then, everyone described them as being so natural, that they weren’t interested in being rock stars, and I was like, ‘No. They didn’t wake up looking like that.' They chose to do that to be rock stars. And they can really play! Then when First Impressions Of Earth came out it was like, ‘There you go! That's what they really sound like! After that, I loved The Strokes, because they were showing they actually did love the music, but a lot of indie rockers treated it like it was their sell-out record.”

HAVE A VISION IN MIND

“Ghost started with a song, Stand By Him, which ultimately came out on our first record. I wrote it spontaneously, as an experiment - almost a joke, if you will, in 2006. When I recorded it the first time, I had no equipment in my home, so I had to go to a friend’s house. We did this very rough demo. He said it was great. He’d been in Subvision, Repugnant and Crashdiet with me, but we’d stopped playing together. He was like, ‘Can we form a new band?’ and I was like, ‘This song is the only thing I have. If I can come up with two more songs and there’s a pattern, then of course.’ But they needed to be as playful and spontaneous, and sure enough they were.”

PRESSURE CAN DO WONDERS

“Around 2008, when Ghost were first getting properly started, my girlfriend told me she was pregnant with twins. I never said it out loud, but I was preparing for my dream not coming true - maybe I wouldn’t become a rock star, I’d never be successful... So I had to at least have something that I could live with, a hobby that I could feel strongly about and get all my inclinations filtered through. I wanted to play metal, but also write pop music, have this horror rock show with theatre... Still taking inspiration from Venom pictures in 1982 where they looked like bikers surrounded by smoke and red lights. Ghost felt like a combination of all those things. Lo and behold, when I didn’t have all the time in the world, like I had before and gotten nowhere, when I could only put so much effort in, everything changed.”

THE MYTHOS IS NICE, BUT ONLY THE MUSIC MATTERS

“It was so weird, being threatened with a ‘reveal’ [Tobias’s public identity was revealed after ex-members took legal action against him in 2017I, as if people knowing who I was would be such a turn-off that they’d never listen to Ghost again. Here I am, most of my life wanting to be known, but then I was fighting to be unknown? What a paradox!”

ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES

“I’ve always tried to be like a general – have a goal, like, ‘Let’s take that castle’, but knowing that things can change in the field. You need to conduct yourself with a certain level of elasticity. I know I’m a control freak and want things to be done in a certain way, but I’m also aware things never work out that way.”

CHALLENGE YOURSELF

“One of the biggest weaknesses with modern metal - and horror - is that it’s being created and curated by people who only like that thing, so it becomes regurgitation. The best horror movies I’ve seen - Jaws, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Exorcist, The Omen - were made by people who never made horror films elsewhere. They wouldn’t limit themselves. If you don’t like other things, that’s fine, but if you ever feel stuck creatively it might just be that you’re sticking too close to home. I can’t even imagine just sticking to one lane these days.”

[minamorsart]

Enter Merla: Queen of Darkness!!! 🖤✨

I was pretty disappointed when VLD didn't explore the culture and politics of the Galra Empire more, especially after Lotor took the throne, and I was also quite disappointed with Merla's cameo. So I decided to take a crack at her design myself! Some backstory below!!

I made her Acxa's twin sister because while I don't believe it was confirmed, I always thought that 80's Merla's character must have been divided into the four women who became Lotor's generals in VLD, so why not make Merla and Acxa related? Plus in every piece of fiction you need to have at least one set of twins ;) That's just da rules babeyy~

Acxa and Merla are from Planet Drule (a loyal territory of the Galra Empire) and are half-Galra and half-Drule. They are not of royal descent, and since they were children they were looked down on because they are half-breeds. As the oldest, Acxa takes on the responsibility of looking after Merla, who over the years begins to grow restless with the two of them settling for low-ranking positions in the army and living a less than satisfying life.

One day exiled Prince Lotor comes to oversee the planet just as Merla is planning a coup to overthrow the corrupt Drule king. The coup fails, and wanting to protect her sister, Acxa takes the blame even though she had nothing to do with it. When she is sentenced to death, Lotor, seeing the potential and skill Acxa possesses, offers to pardon her in exchange for her loyalty to him, thus saving her life (it is my personal headcanon that Acxa is the first of the generals to be recruited). She accepts and tries to convince Merla to come with her, but Merla refuses and insists on staying, saying that she wants to change things on Drule, and that by leaving Acxa is abandoning her. The two part ways on bad terms, and do not see each other for many years.

Merla eventually succeeds in taking the throne, her followers assassinate the king, and she becomes queen of Drule. She and Acxa have the occasional run-in, which is how Lotor and the other generals get to know her more. There is still lingering resentment between the two sisters, however, particularly on Merla's part. The events of VLD proceed as normal up until the end of season 5, and I personally would like to take out Lotor killing Narti and the generals turning against him. Now emperor, Lotor works tirelessly to unite his people and deal with the growing Galra factions which plot to rise up against him.

News of Lotor's ascent to the throne spreads throughout the universe, and soon Queen Merla is paying a visit to the Empire and demanding an audience with him. She knows all about the Galra factions, including Sendak's Fire of Purification, and proposes that she and Lotor marry in order to combine the forces of both the Galra Empire and Planet Drule. If Lotor accepts, the two nations will become stronger than ever and no one will dare stand against them. If he refuses, Merla will merely seek support from the factions, perhaps even form an alliance with Sendak, who will eventually try to take the Galra throne himself.

What can this mean for not only the Galra Empire, but for Voltron and the Coalition as well?? What can this mean for Lotor and Allura's developing relationship??? For those who haven't seen the 80's show, Queen Merla debuts in the US-made 2nd season. She and Lotor are actually engaged for a time! Merla is cold, cunning, and calculating like Lotor, and perhaps even a little more manipulative. She enjoys being entertained and can on occasion be condescending.

And this is not meant to create any unnecessary love triangle between Merla, Lotor, and Allura. While Merla has people in her life she cares for and she respects Lotor, her first priority is maintaining her seat on the throne and looking after her people, so she really only sees Lotor as a means to gain more power. Lotor recognizes this, because he mostly shares the same mindset as her and can see the benefits of marrying her, regardless of his own feelings. And how does Allura feel about this whole matter?? 👀 Only time will tell, though it is also likely that the princess may be too proud to ever reveal how she truly feels. At the end of the day, I just think it would be fascinating to explore more of the politics of the VLD universe and the complications that come with ruling an entire empire whilst trying to keep alliances and territories intact. Plus it would make for some fun drama! Particularly in the romance category hehe.

[courtofparrots]

A list of equipment in Luis Serra's lab and what he might use them for

My beloved mutual @geddy-leesbian put in a ton of effort and got these incredibly detailed screenshots of Luis's island lab, featured in this post, and I thought I would follow that up by comparing what he uses to what I use in my own lab. This was fun for me to do and I also thought it could be used as a resource for any writers that aren't as familiar with Luis's profession.

(for context if you don't know me, I am a microbiologist, bacterial geneticist if you want to be specific. I'll be earning my PhD hopefully this year, and I have been studying biology for 10 years, and actively working in various labs for 7)

Obviously this is a science fiction video game, so while I may be a scientist, I am still using some level of guesswork! This is just meant to be a fun little thing for my fellow resi nerds.

1. Liquid Nitrogen tank

These are used for flash-freezing biological samples for long-term storage. In the context of Luis’s research, he might flash-freeze plaga cells or dead plaga bodies in order to store them (typically at -80 Celsius) without them decaying or being damaged

2. Microcentrifuge

This is a veryyyyy common piece of equipment. You use them to spin samples so you can collect cells out of suspension. It’s like how they spin blood to separate it from plasma at blood donation centers

3. Light microscope

I’m sure everyone recognizes this one but still wanted to add the picture from my lab because I appreciate how detailed and accurate his equipment is

4. Shaking incubator

Used to grow tubes of cells! They are typically kept at 37C (body temperature) and they shake at like 200rpm to keep oxygen flowing through the culture so they stay healthy. You would do this to grow samples of whatever organism you desired so you could run experiments on it the next day (we call it making overnights or overnight cultures).

5. Maybe an anaerobic chamber?

These are slightly less common pieces of lab equipment so I was surprised to see it! We have one in our lab because we do some work on gut-dwelling bacteria that have to be grown without oxygen. As you can see, ours looks a little different so it might have some different uses, but generally the little cube on the right side is where you would place a sample (it’s an airlock) and then transfer it into the chamber. Seeing as Luis has it, I’m thinking maybe las plagas might need to be grown anaerobically at certain stages, I’d guess in early life when it’s really dependent on being in the human body.

I've got some other pictures to compare that I'll also be posting about in the coming days, about things like chemical management plus some other weird equipment things Luis has, but in the meantime if you have specific questions feel free to DM me! I hope this is helpful!

[howtotwirlaknife22]

Keegan general headcannons

A/N: feeling peckish tonight so have some Keegan HC’s lol

Aight so first off, I know it’s a popular headcannon for a lot of the ghosts fandom and the COD fandom in general to HC that he’s from Texas or somewhere in the south but in all honesty…I see him as being from the PNW. Specifically from Seattle, Washington. I mean Rorke literally refers to him in the game as “our quiet friend” and if you know anything about people from Seattle Washington it’s that the “Seattle freeze” is a very real thing. In other words, they’re quiet, standoffish and don’t really go out of their way to interact with anyone unless they really need to.

I have a feeling that if Keegan didn’t join the military, he probably would have gone into the woodworking industry (can we imagine lumberjack Keegan? Swoon)

Despite being a Seattlite, he hates fish. He’ll eat anything you put in front of him without question, but any kind of fish is where he draws the line. He hated going to pike’s place market as a kid because of the fish scent and he totally didn’t accidentally get hit in the face with one of the flying fish or anything

He was very into grunge culture when he was a teenager. Given that I HC him being born in the mid to late 80’s, he more than likely would have been a teenager/early 20’s in the 90’s and grunge music was a perfect way for him to really let out some of that angst that he had.

He had a couple of piercings before he joined the military that he had to take out, I like to think that he had snakebites and a tongue piercing at some point. He still has an ear piercing even at his current point in the military. He just never wears it.

He’s quiet and reserved, but this man knows how to turn on the charm to make your panties DROP when he needs to.

Aside from Hesh, he has one of the nicest smiles on the ghosts team. It’s really a sight to behold when you get him grinning.

He has jet black hair and when it’s not buzzed, it looks a lot like Leonardo DiCaprio’s hair in titanic. He likes the old school 90’s cut, he had it when he was in his late 20’s and never really looked back. He trims it up a bit now that he’s older, but it doesn’t really change too much.

He has a little cabin in the woods just outside of Tacoma Washington, and he likes to seclude himself there when he’s on leave. Growing up in Seattle made him grow a special hatred for big city living, despite having fun in his teens.

Because we don’t know much about his involvement in SV, I like to think that he was just too young at the time to be involved in it. He’s a fairly newer member on the ghosts. In my opinion, when he joined he was freshly 19, and it was actually Ajax who saw something in him and took a chance on him who then decided to take him under his wing and mentor him so that he’d be a prime candidate for the ghosts. After that, the rest was history.

If we’re on the subject of when Keegan joined the ghosts, let’s talk about his age. As I said, he was probably late teens/early 20’s in the 90’s and was probably just a little too young to be involved in SV. Considering we don’t see him when Elias, Rorke, Ajax and Merrick go to South America (which happens around 2015 in the game) we can assume that he was probably late 30’s-early 40’s when we are introduced to him in the games. Maybe he’s even younger and is only a few years older than Hesh, who’s around 28 at the time. If I had to wager I’d say Keegan was maybe 36-37 when we first meet him in the game. Maybe a healthy 38. This might also explain why he’s so quiet, and why he’s able to slip away from Rorke undetected. Because he was so new, that Rorke didn’t think he’d have to worry about him and because the rest of the ghosts are still in the process of forming a bond with him.

Keegan’s favorite drink is an old fashioned.

[wakeupthemembersofbylernation]

It is not even that Mlvns are homophobic. I mean, many of the toxic ones are. We’ve all seen them and interacted with them and received hate anons from them. When Noah’s article officially confirming Will’s sexuality dropped during the summer, people were literally tweeting slurs and fantasizing about him being hate-crimed or dying from AIDS. (It’s probably unfair to group Mlvns in with these people, as lots of them weren’t even Mlvns, just bigoted GA members and trolls). But still. It was bleak. There’s a deep darkness within the ST fandom undeniably.

But I’m sure many Mlvns/Byler-antis are the types of people who genuinely have no problem with queer people in real life. When we call them out on their bigotry and homophobia, they get confused and say, “But I have gay friends! How am I homophobic for not liking Byler?” And they mean it 100%. They really do have gay friends. They probably consider themselves allies and yada yada.

The issue is that A) they are deeply heteronormative without realizing it, and B) they simply aren’t the target audience for the show, and as such, they don’t really understand or connect to the themes of the show. The thing is, lots of people, many Milkvans included, are simply normies. Now I love Steve as a character, so this is literally no hate to Steve, but lots of people are Steves. And people who are like Steve: popular, straight, attractive, used to dating the types of people they want, into ‘normal’ interests like sports (not that Steve is hyper into sports, but you know what I mean), likely to go down ‘normal’ paths and live fairly conventional lives like their parents, etc. are simply not the target audience for the show.

Obviously, the show centers on outcasts, nerds, queer characters, characters with disabilities, black characters, etc. Most people recognize this on some level, but they recognize it in more of a general sense like, “Of course the protagonists are nerds/outcasts, just like all the classic 80s teen protagonists. I just love how nostalgic ST is!” And they leave it at that. Because they are normies, they don’t really connect to the themes of the show other than a surface-level, power of friendship sense. They don’t see how Byler is more aligned with the show’s message than Milkvan at this point. They don’t see that the outcast status of most of the characters is more than just a throwaway personality trait… its deeply integral to the point of the show itself and closely connected to the supernatural storyline.

This is because nerd culture is somewhat mainstream now, and lots of “normies” like it too. Star Wars, Marvel, LOTR, Harry Potter, etc. These are all major parts of society and billion dollar franchises, even more so than they were in the 80s. Because of this, people don’t realize that in the context of the world of the show, they wouldn’t have been friends with the Party most likely. It is far more statistically likely that they would’ve rolled with Angela’s friend group or joined Jason’s human hunting squad. Or even if they weren’t outright bullies, it’s far more likely that they would’ve been one of the nameless background characters in Hawkins High, just kind of floating by in a conventionally comfortable existence, entirely oblivious to government lab conspiracies and alternate dimensions. The characters in ST are outcasts in a deeper, existential sense. Society is against them.

And so many people can’t relate, especially to the queer themes. They can’t even see the queer themes. Because the show is not for them. That’s why you see so many baffling takes on the show:

“Will is so whiny all the time, and I don’t like him!”

“Mike was right in the rain fight! S3 is about growing up, and Will was acting like a baby.”

“Tbh I don’t care that much about the Party dynamics. My favorite part of the show is Steve and Dustin being funny together. And my second favorite part is Hopper being a cool action hero.”

“B*lly is overhated! I mean, he’s so hot and misunderstood! He could’ve redeemed himself.”

“I don’t get Byler. It barely seems like Mike and Will are even friends.”

To be clear, it doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy the genre of the show. Being horror/sci-fi, its core fans are a smaller pool of people than, say, fans of The Office or Friends or other popular sitcoms. So the Mlvns who watched it since the beginning probably do have some avant-garde tastes in terms of genre-preferences, since lots of people wouldn’t touch horror with a ten-foot pole. But it does mean they don’t pick up on the themes of the show and the arc of the characters.

(Of course, many newer fans now are just watching it cause it’s popular, regardless of which genres they typically prefer. This opens the show up to lots of people who don’t connect to anything about the show, not just its themes but also its darker content. A lot of newer fans sound like this: “Like, I just love that Mike was in love with El from the day he found her in the woods, and it’s so cute that El is Mike’s superhero, and Eddie is so cool and badass; I wish he could’ve told Chrissy how he felt, and I’m anxiously awaiting S5 to see who Nancy chooses but I hope she chooses Steve… Stancy 4ever!” This is because Stancy is like every other conventionally attractive couple in media).

I’m rambling, but a lot of people are into Milkvan because of their expectations that “pretty boy and pretty girl go together,” and that’s all there is to it. Finn is attractive and Millie is attractive, and they play the protagonists, so of course Mike and El are endgame. Why wouldn’t they be? This is true for the girls who project themselves onto Millie and see Finn/Mike as a dream boyfriend, and it’s true for the guys who project themselves onto Finn and who would want nothing more than to have a cool, superpowered girlfriend.

This is the way of nature. In a normie worldview, there’s no deviation from this path. A lot of fans basically take The Kissing Booth/To All the Boys I Loved Before and slap a sci-fi/horror filter on it, and they think that’s what Stranger Things is. It’s a cool show where kids fight monsters, and there are normal, heterosexual romances like Mlvn to root for, and there’s a badass superhero main character at the center.

Oh, there’s a gay character too? Well, that’s weird. I mean, y’all already have Robin, but whatever. I’m not homophobic! I’m cool with Will being gay… as long as he stays over there. Oh, he’s in love with Mike? Well, that’s even weirder. Why would the writers do that? I suppose that’s fine, as long as it’s just a little crush, and as long as it doesn’t get in the way of “the main storyline” and my OTP. I’m not homophobic, I swear! I have gay friends!

And they do. And they might not actively be against LGBTQ+ people in real life. They may really be telling the truth. But because they are Steves, this is where heteronormativity comes into play and blinds them. Main couples in shows are always straight, so the cool sci-fi, monster show they love must also be. They’re fine with Kevin Kellers, but queer Mike doesn’t fit the box that they allot to gay characters. So Mike must be the straightest character of all time to fight back against “weird delusional Byler theories” that would “come out of nowhere.” It’s not that they’re actively anti-gay; it’s that they are profoundly closed-minded and have a very myopic view of sexuality/storytelling/their favorite characters/their favorite shows. This is very similar to the XO, Kitty situation and people who were upset that Kitty was ‘suddenly’ bi and had a crush on Yuri.

WHAT?! Where did this come from? I thought I was watching a normal rom-com! I was fine with the gay characters on it who were clearly televised from the beginning! But Kitty? No! Kitty’s my self-insert. How can she like girls too? It must be a phase and be “less real” than her male love interests. This isn’t Heartstopper. The same weird energy is present in the ST fandom.

Byler being semi-canon isn’t seen as confirmation of a love triangle; it’s seen as a disruption to the norm and the foregone conclusion that Mike and El will be together forever and get married and have telekinetic children because the show owes that to them for all they’ve been through. “But why is Will inserted into their scenes?” we ask them, begging them to see reason. “Idk, but he should know his place and stop being a homewrecker and go find a new boy to like. Just leave the soulmates alone. Mike has already made clear he’s straight and that Will is nothing more than a friend. He said it in the roller rink!” This is how heteronormativity works.

That’s why Byler endgame will be so important because it will shatter preconceived notions and open people’s eyes to the beautiful tapestry of humanity. And they will see that this powerful, queer, coming-of-age, love story was right there, under their noses, in their “fun sci-fi monster show” this whole time. *Mind Blown*

[olderthannetfic]

Did Americans really not know smoking caused lung damage until the 1980's? I've gotten several comments to that effect on a fic of mine, but, um. While the story is set in 1940's USA, over here in Britain we've had doctors linking smoking cigarettes to lung cancer as far back as the 1690's that I could find (albeit they don't say 'cancer', but describe cancer symptoms). It was never a totally foreign, unknown idea no one could ever have imagined. And I love dunking on the US as much as anyone, but... it's just so obvious I can't imagine no one in the US ever put two and two together? Even when I was 4, I understood the reason my mum's father was out of breath and coughed all the time was that he smoked because I understood, without being told, that inhaling something yucky yucked you up inside.

I'm aware you as a nation have some dumbasses amongst you but surely the majority were not so stupid that it took until the 1980's for anyone to go, "I think inhaling smoke is bad for you"?

--

My grandmother forced my grandfather to give up his pipe decades before the general public had their faces rubbed in news stories about the dangers. My mom's not around anymore to ask, but I think this must have been either in the 50s when the definitive study came out or in the 60s when the surgeon general wrote about it.

It's not that the info wasn't out there so much as that US tobacco companies spent millions running propaganda campaigns to confuse and delude the public. By the 1980s, people managed to debunk these. In the mid-century, they were heavily muddying the waters.

Here's the first reasonable-looking link I found with some info about this kind of thing: The history of the discovery of the cigarette–lung cancer link: evidentiary traditions, corporate denial, global toll.

I gather this is the Tobacco Control journal, which seems like a reputable source.

The broad strokes seem to be that few people, including in the UK, would have known anything until the late 19thC. From there to the 1930s, evidence was growing steadily as scientists researched a possible link. In the 40s and 50s pretty definitive evidence came out in multiple countries. In the 50s-70s, US companies did junk science as propaganda. In the 80s and 90s, the US swung hard towards seeing cigarettes as dangerous, dirty, and gross.

I remember this cultural change during my childhood. It was massive.

So yes, unfortunately, your 1940s American characters probably wouldn't know that smoking caused lung cancer. Lung damage? Maybe. Like you say, a lot of people could just apply basic logic and observation for that one.

I'm not sure whether they'd be more likely to have no clue or whether they'd know that someone thought it was bad, but they'd think those people were paranoid.

So yes, someone put two and two together, but it could still be OOC for your particular characters. I think it very much depends who they are and exactly how you presented things in your fic.

[wordsinhaled]

consider... hob and Things and history

hob getting settled enough to hold on to old things in a very intentional way because of the way they hold memory; the way they bring the past into the present. hob still writing with his sheaffer snorkel and his parker 51, lovingly restoring them when they break. hob making himself eggs in the morning in the same cast-iron pan he's carried from lifetime to lifetime, identity to identity, stripping and re-seasoning it each time he leaves an old life behind

hob still wearing his denim jacket covered in vintage pins from the pride parades of the 1970s and 80s. hob preferring slow fashion and thrifting; watching clothing trends go out of style and come back in. hob owning a smartwatch, but his 1880s pocket watch still runs and keeps time. and he's the same man who bent his ear to its reliable tick 140 years ago but he isn't the same, not the same at all—and it reminds him of how he's grown with the passage of time, and how he should always keep growing

(when it is time, when he is ready, some of hob's things always go to museums if they're particularly significant, or they get left to friends or to lovers, a little bit of him to hold on to in a life he sheds)

hob's things being a love letter to material culture, though not for the sake of materialism. hob recognizing the luxury of being able to stay in a place for a long enough time to own well-loved things, and the privilege in that, after having experienced abject poverty and dispossession himself; after having inflicted poverty and dispossession and cruelty on others

and so he wants his home to be a home for everyone. he wants his things to bring everyone love, to bring people together. he wants his inn to be a place for everyone (and he means everyone, and he'll fight anyone who jeopardizes that). especially, he hopes for it to be a place where his lonely once-stranger (dream, he still has to remind himself, sometimes) might feel a little less lonely

come to the inn of an evening and hob will make you a drink expertly mixed through decades of practice and infused with welcome. a solid chunk of the barware in the new inn is thrifted vintage, and he lets the patrons eat off and drink from it daily, lets them break it without apology, because things should be used and loved and carry stories

if someone breaks a mismatched teacup, sometimes he glues it back together and drills a hole in the bottom of it for drainage and plants something in it. if someone breaks a plate or a cup, irretrievably soils a linen napkin, warps the tines of a fork... hob sands away any rough porcelain edges. puts all the little remnants of life lived in the inn into a bin by the door and sticks a note on it that says "take a piece of our history :)"

and people do take things, silly as it seems. hob spots a scrap of an old floral linen napkin from the bin tied around the handlebar of a student's e-scooter like a streamer. one of his patrons takes the shards of a 1900s bowl and makes a mosaic art piece out of it that he brings to hob to put up at the inn; hob insists he couldn't possibly take it, keep it, put it in your home, make me another

his colleague from the history department invites hob over for dinner at his home, and they use the set of 3 plates that went in the bin because the fourth plate broke. the phelps' son just went off to uni and they're empty nesters now, and it's a perfect lucky little number, oddly healing for the three of them, dr. phelps and his wife and hob, eating off these three plates and thinking about kids growing up too quickly, kids meeting their potential, kids lost before their time

come to the inn, and if you come in on a friday hob will be serving weekly community dinner, good enough to make your grandmother cry, because it's home-cooked from recipes he's perfected over generations—first chicken-scratch-scrawled in iron gall ink on a piece of notebook paper and now scanned in high-res onto his tablet and emailed around to the staff. when hob moves on to his next life people will still be talking about this meal, making these dishes for their families

come to the inn and if you need it, hob will put you up in one of the rooms for free, no questions asked, for however long you need—all he asks is that you sit with him even for 15 minutes before you leave and tell him your story. he's got a noticeboard up on the wall and it asks people to leave little notes and drawings and things, and when the board gets full he puts everything in a scrapbook and labels it with the dates and keeps the scrapbooks on a little library book cart for people to look through

consider dream visiting hob's flat and passing his hands over hob's thrifted and loved and long-lived objects; being able to tell their provenance in the dreams of their former owners. dream and hob together honoring the living memories of hob's things and the people who once loved them

dream telling hob about the old woman who owned his teakettle once, and daydreamed, whenever she brewed her tea, of when she'd first met her late husband at 19, because his cologne had smelled of bergamot. about the two men who wrote each other the pair of victorian postcards hob keeps taped to his dresser mirror; about their secret love affair, and how there had been so many letters before that, all of them burned in an abundance of caution. about the sisters who'd worked together to piece the quilt hob sleeps beneath at night—how they'd posted it across the country back and forth to each other over years until it was finished

hob being living history. preserving it in himself. in his things. in his memories. in the memories and spaces he creates and curates

[tobiasdrake]

Inspired by some recent posts: What are your thoughts on people shipping Bulma and Goku?

Oh, my feelings on that ship are complicated.

I actually used to like that ship when I was younger. I've always been a fan of ships between characters who genuinely enjoy each other's company and work together to solve problems with minimal friction. When I was growing up, the go-to for canon ship writing was tension. Two characters are in tension with one another until they admit their true feelings and fall in love.

You could see it in anime with ships like Ranma Saotome and Akane Tendo who absolutely, violently hate each other's guts 98% of the time but then occasionally are sweet together so you know they're really deeply in love. Japan loved tsundere romances back in the day. They were everywhere.

And you could see it in Western media like Han Solo and Leia Organa, where Han behaves as an aggressive sexual predator despite Leia's clear rebukes of his advances and it's supposed to be romantic because she's secretly in love with him the whole time.

80's and 90's Hollywood was all about women "playing hard to get". The cultural idea was that "No" means "Keep asking, big boy; I love it when you push my boundaries." Decades later it turned out a lot of people in Hollywood were sexual predators. Imagine that.

And I never really liked any of it. I wanted to see romances between characters who love and cherish each other, and make each other stronger through their mutual connection. I didn't want shows full of Shinji and Asuka romances, I wanted shows full of Frodo and Samwise romances.

This, I think, is why a lot of same-sex ships took off back in the day too; Heroes, especially male heroes, love nobody half as much as they love the best friend who fights by their side. They'll dump their girlfriends on the side of the road to go gallivanting off on a new adventure but they are ride-or-die for their bestie.

And I just. I couldn't help but look at that dynamic and ask, "How come the ride-or-die bestie that the hero's forever loyal to and whose emotional bond takes up half the story, isn't the love interest?" So, like a lot of people, I start shipping those dynamics over the canon ships.

Goku and Bulma aren't really ride-or-die besties. I mean, on Bulma's side, they are. But Goku's the kind of person who goes no contact with everyone for five years without notice and then shows up like "Hey guys, check out this cool technique I learned." Not out of malice or anything; That's just how he is. It's a special event any time you even get to see him. He has no ride-or-die bestie. He lives entirely in the moment.

But back in the day, when I didn't really know Goku or Bulma that well beyond what the dub was doing with Z, they seemed like they fit that mold. And I was about it.

These days, I have a much firmer grasp on the characters and I cannot imagine any version of a Goku and Bulma relationship that wouldn't feel skeevy and predatory on Bulma's part.

With Chi-Chi, there's the context that Chi-Chi's as much of a dimwitted naive backwoods hick as Goku is, so they mutually dumbassed themselves into a domestic situation neither truly understood. Bulma doesn't have that defense. She's cunning, well-educated, and extremely socially aware.

If Bulma and Goku had gotten together instead of Chi-Chi and Goku, it would have felt like Bulma taking advantage of Goku's naivety; Especially when that's literally something she tried to do the first day they ever met.

If Goku were a character that was more socially aware and, y'know, actually interested in romance at all, that would be a different story. But as it is, for both the integrity of the characters and their fantastic relationship with one another? I do think it's probably best that Goku was already spoken for before he became hot enough for Bulma to start considering him as a Himbo Arm-Candy upgrade from Yamcha. (Which she briefly did.)

[awildeternity]

Kendrick Lamar vs Drake, my own little rant

FIRST OFF, THIS HAS CREATED SOME OF THE MOST IMMACULATE MUSIC I'VE EVER LISTENED TO. I AM VIBRATING AND NOT MANAGING TO CALM DOWN, SO I'M GOING TO RANT ABOUT IT. There's so much background to this. Drake was the one to originally put Kendrick on the world stage. Kendrick was literally an opener for one of Drake's tours back in 2012. That was before Section.80, which was Kendrick's first real studio album, and even then it was more of a mixtape at the time. So, Drake and K-dot were always basically involved with one another. However, while I don't know all of the background to it, I'm pretty sure Drake has been taking shots at literally like half of the rap game for the past few years. Future, A$AP Rocky, Kanye, and obviously Kendrick a couple of times. Saying that his first big hit was basically because of Drake, and that he kept doing features with big artists like Rihanna (LOYALTY.) and SZA (All the Stars). This all leads to a lot of bullshit recently. I'm not EXACTLY sure on the timeline (Feel free to correct me if there is anything wrong), but there are a couple of notable events, notably Drake using a *AI VOICE OF TUPAC* in a song (which led to him getting a cease and desist and a LOT of heat because, well, obviously.) Kendrick accuses him of being a culture vulture, basically trying to appropriate the Black US culture that he did not grow up with. LET'S REMEMBER DRAKE WAS ORIGINALLY BORN IN A GATED COMMUNITY FOR WHITE PEOPLE IN TORONTO. HE HAS NEVER BEEN "HOOD", NEVER LIVED THROUGH GANG VIOLENCE OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. HE STEALS ACCENTS TO SEEM LIKE HE BELONGS AND BASICALLY APPROPRIATES THE CULTURE LIKE A BITCH. I'm pretty sure J.Cole also dropped a song that called himself, Drake and Kendrick the "Big 3" of the Rap Game, to which Kendrick responded in Like That by saying "Fuck the Big 3, [] it's just big me." which obviously means that he considers himself a step above both of them. That's basically when we get to the most recent stuff, and the MEAT of the topic. Drake drops Push Ups. It is some tame shit, let's be honest with ourselves. That song calls out the fact that Drake "handed" Kendrick his first number one hit, which, yeah, he kind of did, but whatever. There's picks at Kendrick's height, his foot size, the fact that his label TOP DOG takes 50% (Hence the lyrics "drop and give me 50" and the push ups title, dropping a song and giving TPE 50% of the profits) Also calling K-dot "wiped down" by more popular artists like SZA, Travis Scott and 21 Savage. Also weirdly enough taking a shot at Metro, a producer that had worked with Kendrick on Like That, but like, why??? AND THEN. FOR A FEW WEEKS, KENDRICK SAYS NOTHING. ON TUESDAY OF THIS WEEK, THOUGH, HE DROPS THE ABSOLUTE BOMB THAT IS EUPHORIA. Euphoria is the title of Drake's show he co-produced that got a bunch of heat for having some weird sexualisation of teenage girls, which is already a pretty good hit, but the LYRICS THEMSELVES. KENDRICK LITERALLY CALLS OUT DRAKE ON SO MANY THINGS. Talking about how he's not a rap artist but a scam artist that wants to be accepted (culture vulture, again), talking about the Tupac shit with "I'd rather do that than let a Canadian [] make Pac turn in his grave", once again calling out Drake being fucking CANADIAN and trying to appropriate the culture. Also making a reference to YMW Kelly and calling Drake and J.Cole his "friends" (YMW Kelly murdered two of his friends, hence why that is a diss and not a compliment.) I have to comment on the absolute HATE FEST too. "I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress I hate the way that you sneak diss, if I catch flight, it's gon' be direct We hate the bitches you fuck 'cause they confuse themself with real women And notice, I said "we," it's not just me, I'm what the culture feelin'"

[lucystark12]

we might be witnessing something

obviously we all know how much i love byler, and what im about to say is going to sound like “gen z walking away from the white house on fire with hayloft by mother mother playing” but i have to speak my truth here- i think byler being canon will go FAR beyond the fandom and casual watchers of stranger things. we might literally be the early adopters of a pop cultural phenomenon that could go down in history as one of the most important moments in media history.

stranger things is a really bizarre phenomenon in the grand scheme of things, because it is SO famous. it’s popularity has been compared to shows like game of thrones, but it goes even beyond that, because EVERYONE watches it. i’ve been watching it since i was eleven. my mom watches it. my uncles watch it. my best friend watches it. my grandma watches it. it’s viewership is so wide because there are so many aspects of it that appeal to so many different people. the impact this show has sent a song released forty years ago to number one on the charts practically overnight and it STILL plays on the top 40 radio to this day.

think about american politics as they are right now- we’re bearing witness to one of (if not THE) most important election in american history. the difference between trump and kamala is the difference between potential dystopia and nuclear fallout and peace and progressiveness. if trump wins, he will pull all of our aid from ukraine, letting russia push forward into western europe, and we all know what happens when a country tries to push into western europe. trump’s agenda in project 2025 imposes potential laws that will take us back hundreds of years in lgbtq+ rights, rights for people of color, and women’s rights. this election has caused a huge amount of dread and fear in the american people especially as the days push on. and what do people historically cling to in moments of fear like this? art.

think about music during the vietnam war, movies like “red dawn” during the cold war, or mccarthyism during world war two. when people are afraid of the real world, they tend to turn to popular media for escapism. we’re already seeing it, as ridiculous as it sounds, in things like brat summer or the debate edits to chappell roan songs. it might not seem like it’s happening because everything about it is different today in the digital age versus sixty years ago when tvs were boxes, but it is. this is only the beginning. and with the release of the next stranger things season, it’s possible that it could only grow more.

picture this: it’s next july. trump has been sworn in as 47th president of the united states and is six months into his second term. there’s already talks of him overturning obergefell v. hodges (the supreme court ruling that gave us gay marriage), there’s now a nationwide abortion ban, and political opponents of his are slowly seeming to disappear and go inactive. but hey! the 2020’s most beloved tv show is airing its last season this week.. it’s an easy way for us all to feel nostalgia about a time (wether that be the 80s or summer 2019) when our country was progressing forward instead of so drastically backwards as it is now, or to just watch a cool sci-fi show with one of the highest viewerships of any show ever, second only to game of thrones. everyone is turning on their tvs at midnight to watch these new episodes and suddenly- the main couple consisting of the two main characters of the show breaks up, the boy leaving the girl for his childhood best friend, whom he has been in love with for years but been forced to ignore because of the way society views gay people?

and everyone is seeing this, even 40+ y/o homophobes who watch the show for the nostalgia factor and never suspected a thing. the public is outraged. fox news is going on about the gay agenda. but the shock of the news is turning heads. people are changing their minds because… people being gay actually hasn’t only been a thing for the last ten years??! gay people might not actually be lesser humans? ANYBODY CAN BE GAY? what is happening! we know everyone watches this, so people of all backgrounds all across the world and more specifically the country are reacting to this in different ways. but no matter how you look at it, everyone is talking about it. it’s all over everyone’s for you page, SNL is parodying it, anderson cooper is talking about it on CNN, trump is denouncing it on twitter, there’s a push for it to be banned in florida.

suddenly, the democrats are picking up on this, because isn’t this everything we’ve been fighting for this whole time put at the forefront of a mainstream show? this is forcing everyone to confront the implications of having a gay ship be the focal point of a show with the viewership of stranger things, and the democratic party and it’s supporters pick up on this, turning it into a symbol and essentially a martyr of the party as a whole. whatever song (and you know there will be a song) that’s used in the scene where byler becomes official is immediately topping the charts. people are walking around wearing t shirts with byler quotes on them like we’re seeing now with the kamala brat t shirts. hundreds of people are influenced by it and we may even see an increase in support for politicians who advocate specifically for gay rights or are gay themselves.

this all happens because when people who are being spotlighted by pop culture speak out, everybody hears it. it’s the same reasoning behind why an endorsement from taylor swift could outright win kamala this election. a huge part of our population has quiet beliefs that they’re just waiting to dive into until somebody in mainstream media tells them that it’s a good idea. in making byler cannon, stranger things could be changing the trajectory of popular culture and american politics as a whole for years to come. it’s all about the domino effect. if people see this, all it does is open a gateway for other stories and conversations to happen, because something so outrageous as making byler canon during the early stages of project 2025 will turn the heads of every politically inclined person in america, from every maga cap wearing trucker to every blue haired barista, and when heads are turned things are changed.

[numberonecodwomenfan]

JEWISH KONIG THOUGHTS:

He was one of those kids who's great grandparent was Very Jewish but due to just. Marrying from other cultures and stuff it got watered down so he didn't grow up with knowing all the traditional things. (No I'm not projecting about being unable to know 80% of my culture because my mother decided to become Christian in college wdym)

That being said he's super close with his Babushka who ABSOLUTELY was willing to teach him literally everything when he asked. Fucking 80yo woman teaching this 15 year old giant how to make Challah bread fucking fite me bro it's REAL

as someone who can def relate to not knowing anything about jewish culture because my mom decided she didnt like religion anymore and then married a catholic who then ALSO decided he didnt like religion anymore, i totally agree.

i have so many thoughts about his grandma and his mom, and yes she absolutely taught him how to make challah and also probably shoved chopped liver on matzoh down his throat even though he Did Not Like It.

also könig HATES gefilte fish with a passion (same bro same) but would fuck up an entire loaf of challah by himself (same bro same)

RAGH jewish könig my beloved

idk if you have ever had bourekas (surprisingly a lot of jews i know HAVEN’T WHICH IS SUCH A CRIME THEYRE SO GOOD) but i’ve made bourekas before and you have to fold them in a very specific way, and as soon as the thought of jewish könig crossed my mind i had this image in my head of him sitting in a synagogue event hall trying to make bourekas with a bunch of jewish old ladies but he’s struggling because his fingers are too big 😭😭

anyway. könig loves his mean bitchy oma more than life itself 🫶🫶

also if u ever have more jewish könig thoughts PLEASE share them 🙏

[southeastasianists]

A fear of spiders, or arachnophobia, seems quite common around the world. Last year, a team of researchers published a global database showing the pervasiveness of arachnophobic sentiments in media based on their investigation of a decade of online newspaper coverage from over 80 countries. These fears remain even though less than 0.5 percent of spider species can actually harm humans through their venom, and most of these species live far from humans anyway.

But there are some exceptions—and my home country, the Philippines, is one of them.

One of the authors of the study, entomologist Aimee Lynn Barrion-Dupo, is also from the Philippines. In an interview, she explained that unlike most countries where spiders were depicted as sources of venom and harm, in the Philippines spiders figured in news reportage mostly as pets or as participants in the popular pastime of laro ng gagamba (literally “game of spiders”). The game involves catching spiders, taking care of them, and making them fight other spiders.

I know the game very well. When I was a child growing up in Laguna province in the Philippines, I played it with other kids in my neighborhood.

My father taught at the University of the Philippines Los Baños College of Forestry, which was located on Mount Makiling, some 60 kilometers away from Manila. Those of us who grew up on the slopes of the mountain would go into the forests to look for the fiercest, strongest, and most unique spiders. We would then house them in medicine bottles or matchboxes, and feed them ants, grasshoppers, and other insects—until it was time to play.

When two of us were ready to fight, we would place our spiders on the opposite ends of a stick of walis tingting, a kind of broom. Another person, who acted as a referee, was usually asked to hold the stick. Then, we’d nudge our spiders to walk toward one another and fight. The winner of the wrestling match was decided very quickly, sometimes within seconds or at most a few minutes. It ended when one of the spiders was killed or incapacitated, or when a spider either fell off the stick or tried to run away more than once.

We had names for the different spiders we commonly caught: gagambang botchog (round spider), gagambang pari (priest-like spider), gagambang ekis (spider with an X). Sometimes we would give them nicknames based on their appearances: gagambang pula (red spider) or Voltes V (after a Japanese anime character).

Could it be that this game desensitized us to spiders, making us less fearful of them in contrast to many other parts of the world?

This question interests me not just because of nostalgia for the spiders of my childhood but as an anthropologist who today explores human entanglements with other species. I’m fascinated by how we perceive and live with other creatures, including animals we pit against each other and play with—from cockfighting in Bali to bullfighting in Spain to cricket fighting in China.

When it comes to widespread fears surrounding spiders, a closer look reveals a more complicated picture of human responses and interactions with these creatures. The arachnologist David Wise, for instance, surveyed folk tales from North America to Africa that cast spiders in a positive light, leading him to conclude that not all societies are arachnophobic.

In the Philippines, a handful of scholarly accounts of laro ng gagamba depict people’s close relationships with spiders. Some of these detailed accounts remind me of my childhood days, while others go beyond my own experiences, showing how diverse and sophisticated the practice is across the country.

One example comes from an ethnographic account by cultural anthropologist Ty Matejowsky, who researched spider wrestling in Pangasinan province in Northern Luzon in the early 2000s. He recounts how boys and young men collect, train, and play with spiders, often for money. Although my experience of laro ng gagamba didn’t involve placing bets, Matejowsky sees the game as an entry point for many Filipinos into “gambling culture.” (He also presents the practice as exclusive to boys and men, but I remember playing it with neighbors who were girls.)

Matejowsky also details how players attempt to heal their spiders who may be hurt in battle. “As surprising as it may seem,” he notes, “steps can be taken to rehabilitate injured spiders for an eventual return to wrestling.” For instance, players place the leaves of ampalaya (bitter gourd), thought to have restorative properties, in the spider’s box for a few days before slowly resuming the regular diet of “insects and bits of meat and rice.”

Barrion-Dupo, with two biology colleagues, conducted a survey of 300 spider game players in Northern Mindanao from 2014 to 2015 that revealed more details of the practice. Gambling on laro ng gagamba matches, the investigators found at the time, could involve sums of up to 10,000 pesos (around US$180).

Fascinatingly, the researchers also recorded various substances people fed to the spiders to prepare for a fight. The list included various vitamins and supplements, dextrose, coconut water or meat, duck egg soup, Jujube plum fruit (Ziziphus jujuba), milk, honey, energy drinks, and even human breastmilk. The gamers usually placed these substances on cotton balls and left them in the boxes where the spiders were kept.

These details show that more than just a game, spider wrestling in the Philippines involves care and intimacy between humans and spiders. Matejowsky describes it as an “attachment … that approaches what some feel for more conventional pets.”

Today laro ng gagamba continues to be played in rural areas in some parts of the country. Barrion-Dupo sees the spider game as offering children “first steps in science and natural history,” ultimately contributing to an appreciation not just for spiders but for the environment at large.

However, the research by Barrion-Dupo and her colleagues also shows the game has a potentially detrimental impact on the populations of various spider species. Gamers usually extract mature reproductive females from the wild; female spiders, as it turns out, are more ferocious than their male counterparts. The researchers call for policies to restrict the game to prevent species decline.

As far as I know, spiders are not often included in animal rights discourses in the Philippines. (Matejowsky’s article noted spiders are considered “pests, not animals.”) However, these attitudes may change in the future; some people are already discussing the need to expand animal welfare concerns to include insects, spiders, and other invertebrates.

Even without active intervention, however, the game already seems to be declining in popularity.

When I recently returned to the neighborhood where I grew up, I was told that none of the kids ventured into the forests like my friends and I used to. During the pandemic, people were forbidden to go outdoors, and many public green spaces were off-limits for recreational activities. Plus, the advent of electronic gadgets and digital technologies has meant that children today, whether they live in urban neighborhoods or mountainous communities, are far more likely to be familiar with Spider-Man than the spiders that share their environments.

Regardless of the ultimate fate of laro ng gagamba, however, I hope our familiarity and fascination with spiders will continue.

[djuvlipen]

Once I got into an argument with a white, Spanish leftist, and he told me that Europe was very different from America, that poverty wasn't as racialized in Europe as it is in America, where Black Americans make up the largest portion of the working class.

And what I failed to explain to him and what I wish leftists would understand is that poverty is indeed racialized in Europe. Romani people make up the bulk of Europe's poorest working class.

80% of Romani people live at risk of poverty, compared with an EU average of 17%. (x)

Romani people are one of the demographics the most impacted by human and sex trafficking, and I am saying 'one of the most' because not enough studies have been released on the matter but it's very likely they are the most impacted by trafficking.

The paid work rate for Romani people, aged 20 to 64, is 43 %, much lower than the EU average (70 %) (x), and in Greece, Romani women have been shown to being paid lower wages than non-Romani women. (x) The reason I am only mentioning Greece is because it's the only country where such a study has been carried, but there is no reason to believe Greece is an isolated outlier here.

Romani people's life expectancy is estimated to be 10 years lower than non-Romani people's, in every European country. (x)

Romani people have been enslaved in almost every European countries. (x)

I am white-passing and my family isn't really big on cultural traditionalism: while growing up I never experienced actual racism for my skin colour. The one thing where my being Romani was blatant was in the extremely dire living conditions my family was living in. The white working class can't relate, to be honest I haven't met anyone who can relate to this but other Romani people. Things like this are ever present: your life prospects, and that of your relatives and closed ones, are non existant, and you're being made aware of it; your relatives are all factory workers or unemployed; they have alcohol and drug addiction and deep yet untreated mental illnesses. They die before turning 65. The houses are bad: it's decaying, there are short or long periods of time when you have no electricity nor hot water, it's insalubrious. It's just part of your daily life so you don't really notice it. Administrative papers are never done on time because you don't have that administrative literacy skill and your relatives usually didn't get into higher education if they ever graduated high school at all.

And when I tell this to white working class people they always scold me because while they were poor, they were not that poor. Only other Romani people could relate. The way I relate to my being Romani is through an economic class perspective, because I look white and to me being oppressed for being Romani has always been more about being relegated to the most impoverished social class in Europe, the Romani working class. Once I saw a Romani man saying 'Gypsies live like it's still the 1300s and they act so casual about it', and he was right because sometimes you can't even recognize how fucked up your living conditions are because you're just so used to it.

When I say this, people usually think I'm making stuff up or that I am racist against Romani people but no, but that's just how I grow up. I've talked to many other Romani people before and many of them could relate to what I was saying. I've worked with Romani families and I've witnessed poverty times and times again.

Romani people are Europe's proletarian race and we are the ones being made to work menial jobs, we are the ones being trafficked and exploited like slaves to this day, the women are the ones pimps are using to fuel the European sex trade. And no other demographic can relate to that because none of them are as poor as we are, I learned that from how condescending all the other non-Romani people, no matter their social class or race, were to me when I was talking about that issue.

Some people may think I'm lying and making it all up because it sounds unbelievable, maybe, but I don't care because I know how I grew up and the other Romani people I know could also tell you the same thing I just said and at the end of the day even the white Europeans can't deny that all of us, Romani people, are poor as fuck because they love bringing this up to justify killing us. In my country, "Gypsy" is even used as an adjective to talk about something that's very poor or cheap.

[neoyi]

I have a free three-month trial for Gamepass, found out Venba took roughly 90 minutes to complete, and decided, fuck it, why not? I've long struggled with stories of generational trauma with Asian backgrounds because I've lived through it and seeing Yet Another Plot about it tires me, but Venba hit me in a different way and I liked what the game ultimately did.

Venba isn't necessarily cozy, but it maintains a lowkey tone that the emotional struggles and pains between Venba/Paavalan and their son - being a born Canadian - when it comes to their heritage is often presented as genuine concerns without the drain I often feel from Asian immigrants and the kids they can't seem to understand (and vice versa) stories.

It still talks about isolation, with loneliness a key feature from the perspective of the mother, Venba, living in a new country and all the obstacles that prevent you and your family from thriving. It still has Venba arguing with her son when the latter refuses to engage with his heritage. It still involves Kavin's embarrassment of his culture that he'd hide and downplay it in front of his western friends, to the point where he can barely speak Tamil once he reaches adulthood.

But for me, the part of the game that stuck with me the most is Venba and Paavalan's battle to thrive in another country that did not want them. Both of them constantly worry about their financial issue because no one was willing to hire Indian immigrants, lest of all in the 80s. They talk about moving back, but resisting as they want better job and educational opportunities for Kavin when he is born. Venba is regularly rejected from a teaching position while Paavalan has to sacrifice his dreams of being a writer to take up a completely different job just to make ends meet. Paavalan and Venba regularly talk about the lack of connections they've made because of their disadvantages, forcing them to scrap onto whatever would pay the bills. There's a small scene where Kavin has to talk with his father's co-worker to ask where he is because Venba's English isn't as good. Which my sister and I have done countless times.

Venba never tells you directly the system has failed them, but you can tell. The scene where Venba and Kavin find their husband/father dejected, sitting on a bench, with a beaten up face, says a lot. Someone attacked him and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it was racially-motivated.

I also grew up poor with Asian immigrant parents, and I saw this everyday growing up. Like Kavin's parents, I was often kept in the dark because what parents want to explain their situation to their kids, especially Asian parents? I don't always know what mom and dad went through, but retrospect as I got older made it clear they withheld a lot of their sorrows and pain from Little Kid Me. No matter how many times we moved for better job opportunities (eight. I've moved eight times before I hit adulthood, including at one point, overseas where I didn't reunite with my parents for three years), Dad going to night school to better his English, mom taking care of two daughters when dad had to stay out-of-state most days per week... yeah, I get it.

And Venba gets that, too.

[zmediaoutlet]

trying to articulate something here --

I dig the experience of reading meta that is coming from a well-reasoned place but I nevertheless fundamentally disagree with, and I think that comes down to a willingness to sift down and down and down until you come to an essential Thing about the text-genre-intent-characterization-whathaveyou. Like -- I can see how you got there, but wait, you didn't consider [xyz].

Top of mind example: Dean's masculine because he's trying to act like John. On the surface -- absolutely! He's trying very hard to mimic Dad because his universe centers around god Dad. He's also often operating in a world of trying to do what Dad would want, and making assumptions of his own about what those wants would be, which is a slightly different operating structure.

...But. What's actually driving that? Is it dad qua dad? Or is it -- Dean is essentially loyal-obedient-conformist? Is it that, in the cultural context of growing up in the '80s-'90s with a father who grew up in the '60s-'70s, this is what being a certain kind of man meant and so it is essential to lock into those tropes and characteristics?

We look to how Dean acted like a certain kind of boy when he was an 18 year old and then a 26 year old; we look to how that is updated by the time he's 40, and operating under what is the correct kind of man to be in 2020 vs 2005 (use of language, acceptable levels of nerdiness, fashion sense, etc). From there we can look to how he's not being John, he's being... a normie, more or less. And bless his heart for it. He just wants to Fit. If he were sticking with Acting Like Dad, he wouldn't cheerfully cosplay through a Panthro case, you know? So what's actually driving the behavior, when you look to the heart of it?

So then, if Dean were Deanna--

You can extrapolate. And this stuff is outside the text -- you have to decide What Dad Would Want from a girl-child (given cultural context and norms, given how the young version of John was characterized, given how John and Mary might have operated when they were 'safe' for those first 5 years, given how John might have then shifted his expectations and needs for his kids upon entering the hunting life), and then whether What Dad Would Want fits against a fairly normal conformist presentation (in the way that Dean is intensely normal, if a little wrong-side-of-the-tracks), or if John flips the script and for some reason decides that his kid should not fit in and have what's actually a much harder time, for a traditional gender presentation in the culture they live in, etc.

All of this boiling down to: what matters most in the meta consideration? What's key for characterization and universe structure? Does it actually matter? --no, not at all. But it's very fun to tease apart.