#invented bi culture

[numbersandstars]

Rohini - Power, Beauty and Fame

Degrees: 10°00 Taurus 23°20 Taurus Deities: Brahma, the creator of life Vimshottari Lord: Moon Sounds: ओ o, वा/बा va/ba, वी/बी vi/bi, वु/बु vu/bu The core meaning: the impulse of creation is within you. You radiate beauty, talents and creativity. Your tantalizing magnetism attracts people, luxuries and power. But will your success and desire for opulence appease your hidden anxiety and people's jealousy?... God is the only way. Qualities: beautiful, charming, creative, charismatic, inventive, passionate, artist, hospitality, deftness, determined, resourceful. Affliction: self-conceit, narcissism, possessiveness, restless mind, anxiety, excessive sensuality, fraud, dissatisfaction. Interest in cars, luxury, dance, acting, gardening, other cultures.

[anarcho-smarmyism]

"It may surprise you that the use of the term bisexual to refer to human sexuality is almost as old as the term heterosexual. In his book The Invention of Homosexuality, gay history pioneer and activist Jonathan Ned Katz argues that 'the idea of heterosexuality is a modern invention, dating to the late nineteenth century'. THe first recorded use of the term was in an anymous pamphlet in 1869, of which it was later established that Karl-Maria Kertbeny was the author. Kertbeny . . . wrote extensively about his view that sodomy laws violated human rights, and that such consensual acts in private should not be subject to criminal law. While writing, Kertbeny, who was probably gay himself, found the need to label and define the sexual norm so that he could explain how same-sex desires and sexual behaviors contrasted with it. This is why he came up with the terms 'heterosexual' and 'homosexual'. This means that a gay rights activist coined the word heterosexual as a by-product of creating the word homosexual.

. . .Not long after this, bi, or two, started to be used to refer to people who had both homosexual and heterosexual desires. A way that bisexual researchers often talk about this is that the bi in bisexual means two, but the two are not men and women, they are same and other."

-Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by Julia Shaw

[transflynnscifo]

im sure its been talked about already but what i particularly love abt isat is the way it incorporates culture and language with one's sense of identity. theres honestly a LOT i could say on that matter mostly because i take interest in depictions of fictional languages (even if they are not directly shown to the player) but i think ill hold back from going full-rogue with those thoughts now. i think its so fun to see a fantasy video game that indicates the existence of more than 1-2 languages (where in some cases the second language is some ancient one too) it feels extremely refreshing to be directly told there are multiple languages, as well as acknowledging the existence of accents!

from what i understood while playing, everyone shown in game is speaking in vaugardian. there exist dialects of it, given mirabelle and isabeau's accents differ from bonnies. in turn, this confirms to us that odile and siffrin are bi/multilingual. and i dont know, but the way talks of language and accents was presented in dialogue made me feel really excited because its just something that was treated so casually in the text. again its not often you encounter this stuff in video game stories! not to mention pulling this off without even needing to invent a fictional language to show the players!

and of course my favorite aspect of this is the way language affects siffrin in particular. (spoilers & some speculation under cut)

i dont think i need to go into detail how the disappearance of their country affected siffrin. however, the loss of language is the aspect that especially grabs me because there is an implication that the party, and siffrin especially, are not aware of.

you know how they forget words sometimes? his native language got deleted from his memory, so this means he would have trouble working words out together. thats mostly because ppl generally think in one language without being aware of it.

and even if siffrin picked up on vaugardian quickly, keep in mind that they would probably never know vaguardian the same way they knew their native language. and that's because i think his brain unconsciously is still "thinking" in the forgotten language. for example, if you cant recall the word for "stuffed animal" in your native language, what are the chances of remembering it in your second language, which you had to pick up on in the wake of being alone and with no memory of your home? it's actually notable when you try to interact with certain objects in the pottery room in act 5, for example! (does not help that they are also having a really bad time)

sif's case is unique as a bilingual speaker, so i sadly dont feel equipped talking more on it. however, i want to specify that i dont think the loss of language is the ONLY factor contributing to sif's memory problems. moreso that its one of the multiple ingredients that got added in his brain as a result of the country being deleted, essentially

anyway dunno how much this makes sense! ive been awake for a while so sorry if ive phrased myself badly at certain places lol

[molagboop]

The Mawkin believe in learning by doing, which is why they have little rooms with which to bestow upgrades upon fledgling warriors. Some of the morph ball paths Samus goes through in Dread are defunct + repurposed maintenance chutes, and a few locations (particularly in Ghavoran and Artaria) were set up with the express purpose of serving as testing grounds. The statue rooms are pilgrimage sites whose stone guardians serve as an emissary of the ancestors, bestowing the gifts their people and the Chozo collectively have long developed unto promising warriors.

The process of earning an arm cannon is a whole thing in and of itself: special firearms training is required for certification if a warrior intends on using it in any official military capacity or seeks an upgrade. The power suit as a whole requires its own post because there's a whole culture around it: today I'll just talk about how youngsters earn their first set of basic upgrades.

Let's set the scene. You're a freshly minted warrior between 10 and 30 years of age: you sit on the character spectrum between a kid who wants to make this power suit the focus of your education and someone who has just decided they want to get serious about the whole power suit thing. Maybe it's a cultural curiosity for you: maybe you want to do it for the sake of tradition, maybe you want to put yourself through this to build character. Perhaps you're just seeking a new experience, or looking to supplement your actual area of study with something different. Some warriors, especially those whose family tree includes storied wielders or scientists who developed advancements in power suit technology, are heavily encouraged by their families to take on their own power suit. If you're heading into the military, you're going to be put through a similar series of tests anyways: you might as well get ahead of the game.

So you've passed the knowledge tests on theology, the technology surrounding the suits, and the history of the technology's advancement. The first and third of these are not strictly a prerequisite for the bestowal of a suit: your uncle snagged their suit first and dove head-first into the philosophy and history once they had a grip on how to work it. You wear the suit for two hours a day to start, familiarizing yourself with the mind-to-matter components and getting a feel for your new bio-metallic exoskeleton.

The suit's basic functions are useful, but you want a little more. You go in for your bi-weekly check-in with the team of suit architects and physicians who eased you into the tech, and you get a tip about an old research outpost by the geothermal processing plant in Artaria. It'll take a bit of effort (hope you've figured out how to land on your feet comfortably from a high distance), but it shouldn't be too much of a hassle to reach.

By this point, more people were working their jobs in and around what we people of real life would designate an "EMMI Zone". Artaria's EMMi Zone was originally a hub for power and environmental control infrastructure overseen by a pair of biological computers. The robots take care of the place, but the touch of a living soul was still tantamount: you'd pass technicians keeping tabs on heating and cooling systems, sanitation agents, civilian personnel and the odd researcher working a project down here in the sticks.

After a fair stroll and perhaps a bit of jumping, you'd find yourself in a compact, contemplative, temperature-controlled room with none but a statue for company. It's eerily quiet, bit the statue looks friendly: it's obviously offering you a gift. Shoot the casing off your present, which is emitting an energy signature your suit bristles almost eagerly at upon approach, and you've found yourself the grapple beam.

The trial doesn't lie in simply acquiring to the beam: it's getting out of the hole the technicians who invented the damn thing put it in. The spider magnet is a standard-issue upgrade that most people acquire through basic testing rather than a statue trial, so grabbing the magnetized walls isn't an issue. Your job is to get a grip on your new toy: figure out how it works so you can get out of the hole.

Most of the "fun" upgrades are locked behind minor tests like this which everyone with a suit has some knowledge of. For some upgrades, warriors are told outright where they are after a certain point in their education. Others are just sitting in the wilderness waiting for the enterprising individual to seek them out. You are guaranteed to collect them all if you fully immerse yourself in the study of the history of power suit development. Upgrade locations are extensively documented: you just have to either find them or be granted access by some means. Some upgrades were designed to be taken freely by whoever's clever enough to find them, but your basic education in suit tech is enough to nab you all the important stuff. In fact, warriors are routinely assigned an upgrade trial to complete by their technicians or professors as part of their education.

Not every upgrade is locked behind a scavenger hunt or a unit test: others require specialized training to receive, and some are granted out of necessity for one's chosen career path. An engineer with a power suit who specializes in underwater infrastructure requires the gravity suit. The varia installation is standard for those working in high-temperature environments.

The reason people aren't granted everything right off the bat has to do with the way the suit and flesh interact: you don't want to overwhelm a new powersuit user with a bunch of new powers while they're just getting accustomed to the way the suit interfaces with their central nervous system. If you botch suit-flesh-mind integration, you can seriously injured the receiving party. Samus has been wearing her suit for decades at this point: she doesn't need to be eased into earning new toys. Having everything snatched away from her on a dime is physically taxing in a uniquely awful way, but she's a seasoned warrior: she can adjust to traumatic change on the fly.

[starlit-mansion]

I've been rewatching a couple older hbomb videos and hey

halcyon dreams: the legacy of dragon's lair watches a lot more like a dry run of the oof noise video than i remember. it is a deep dive into an obscure section of video game history, complete with its own misattribution to a famous studio head. it's fun, both on its own terms as a spectacular technological failure that was a bit too ahead of its time, and as a running thread within harry's ouvre.

outsiders: how to adapt h.p. lovecraft in the 21st century is. well, it feels very weird because in a way. it reads a lot more like somerton's work than i would have expected, while predating it entirely (i think. it's a five year old video and well. i can't check somerton's timestamps cause he did the dirty delete). harry is darkly and thematically lit, addressing the camera straight on without the high-energy that his other videos tended to have, speaking thoughtfully about how queer and marginalized fans of Lovecraft relate to his work despite being hated and feared by the author himself, and that his understanding of the mythos was upturned by a quiet adaptation that centered around a gay man's alienation from his home town loosely based on the shadow over innsmouth. it engaged thoroughly with queerness as a place of vulnerability and strength without inventing some infinitely weak yet unfathomably strong queer agenda. there's no real hint from the thumbnail that it's about queer themes, but that's because harry is doing the same thing that happened to him, creating a piece of overt lovecraft media that might shock the viewer that was here for cosmic horror as a lore element.

i'm genuinely not trying to say that somerton ripped off harry's one video specifically or anything, but it does make if feel more personal, to be reminded that harry did this once, when he had something incredibly personal to say on the subject and years of genuine passion and systematic research to back it up, with intent to reach out to other people who loved and were repulsed by lovecraft the same way he was. and at 1.5 million views, it's not like the video was languishing in complete obscurity or anything, but it's not culturally significant in the way that sherlock or some of the later videos are. people keep making a bit of a joke of harry reminding everyone that he's bi to dodge the homophobia allegations, but people genuinely do not really talk about hbomb as a queer creator, to the point where a good chunk of posters just. genuinely did not know about it. i'm not really sure what to say about it either way, other than... yeah, this happens a lot to bisexuals who don't make their entire brand pink purple and blue, and it's not like. THAT funny to keep using the sonic fandub screencap about a real person who's been out for half a decade, even if it was news to you.

[mrfleshwizard]

Okay, I'm going to say something controversial, but true: The Ars Goetia should not be fallen angels because they are more popular culture than actually belonging to the myths. (Of course with some exceptions).

In my worldbuilding, the goetia are a race. Hellborns like the others, though because of their language, magic and culture they were the predominant of Hell. Since although there are several "grimoires", "infernal dictionaries" and "church books" talking about these demons… when you start analyzing etymologies and the origins of each one, you realize that most of them are an invention.

For example: Stolas is the plural of the word stolae/stola, which was the name of the garment worn by women in Ancient Rome. In other words, the opposite of the toga (the male garment).

It was popular culture who took it upon themselves to promote them and establish them as fallen angels/demons.

Believe me, when you take away the "fallen angels" thing, the creative freedom is enormous. My friend and I built them a culture from scratch, to the point that I used alchemical and constellation symbols to create an alphabet (Cult, for the aristocrats, and Vulgar, for the people); even if you divide them by culture or form, it gives you great freedom to write with influence from other cultures.

I think that is why in the show and in some rewritings they say that the 72 demons of the ars goetia are siblings or that they are all familiar makes me feel like "no, thats boring" (At least when all or most of them are family members. If they are one or two, maximum 4, then I don't mind). I think it takes away a lot of variety, but I'm not one to tell you not to do it either.

I feel that they have a lot of potential, but that the show only limits itself to making them a parody of the rich people in Hollywood or the rich people that Vivzie surrounds herself with. They don't even act like royalty, so that whole "king, prince, count, etc" thing I think is more for flamboyance than actually using it.

But yeah, since we're delving into myths, I think we could also go for the "popular culture" parts, give them a read, an analysis and reinterpret for stories.

But not like what they did with Achilles and Patroclus. I know they are the best known ship and represent many things… but Achilles was bi, since he also liked Briseis to the point of wanting to make her his wife and when Agamemnon kept her for himself, Achilles left the war. The Iliad itself says so. My compa, if he could, he would have kept Patroclus and Briseis as his lovers. But Homer was afraid of success, and people aren't ready for that conversation hahahahahaha.

If we are going to revise and reinterpret things, let's have fun but without erasing things that are there.

Amazing. To be honest in my AU I didn't know what to do with ars goetia, except Liliums/Lilioths/Liliyots/Nashyim know them.

[watermelinoe]

Do you think some bisexuals want to distance themselves from calling themselves bisexual because they see other bisexuals being homophobic, or because of lesbian/gay people being angry about homophobic bisexuals?

i think there's lots of reasons why bi people don't want to call themselves bi. some of it is because of queer theory, because it's no longer open-minded enough to be attracted to ""both sexes"" when the notion of sex and sex-based attraction is homophobic, so you've had people scrambling to redefine bisexuality and invent these new, progressive sexualities that are just bisexuality repackaged. being bisexual is boring and outdated. be bisexual+.

other bisexuals feel an attachment to gay culture and there's no modern bisexual equivalent now that our communities are discrete. our history isn't really our history. we're basically starting from scratch, and that can make it hard to find any attachment to a "bi community."

there's also a lot of shame in being bi. where lesbianism is fetishized because it excludes males (and the violation of their boundaries is the point, and the twisted fantasy of that violation being welcome), bisexuality is fetishized as being up for anything and having no boundaries at all. and there's shame from how other bisexuals behave, or are perceived to behave. which does include bisexuals being homophobic. it makes sense that bi people wouldn't want to be associated with the bastardized hearts not parts faction. obviously i don't want gay people to assume i have those opinions just because i'm bi. i wouldn't say gay people are like, cowing bisexuals? going off your phrasing, i wouldn't say there's a perceived fear of anger from gay people. i think it's a sense of guilt on our behalf. which bisexuals should resolve in ourselves lmao.

personally i don't think there's enough of a bi "community" for me to feel responsible for, considering how many of us are out there calling ourselves pansexual and omnisexual and whatever the fuck else to avoid even saying bisexual. i just call out homophobia if i see it and move on. some bi women who come to radblr get really hung up on this guilt and it's unproductive and unnecessary. i don't need to be "one of the good bisexuals" or w/e, that's not a good mindset and it means you'll accept mistreatment as penance. i'm just on here trying to be a good person.

[milomilesmib]

TW for mentions of trauma, nightmares, disordered eating, grief, and on brief mention of needles (just sewing needles)

No, but please imagine Percy, Nico, and Annabeth being best friends (long post).

Please imagine, after BOO, Percy getting Nico a new aviator jacket just like his old one.

Please imagine Nico taking said jacket, getting an Italian flag patch and a gay flag patch, then very nervously going to Annabeth and asking her if she knows how to sew because Athena invented the loom which is close enough to sewing and Annabeth is one of the only people Nico trusts enough to ask.

Please imagine Annabeth just holding back tears at his trust and telling him she knows how to sew (she does NOT but she figures it out quickly) and helping him sew on the patches and Nico being so happy that he cannot stop smiling even though he is very bad at sewing and keeps pricking himself with the needle on accident.

Please imagine, if you HC Percy as bi, Percy desperately going to Nico at like 3 am, screaming having a sexuality crisis, and Nico being really exhausted and pretending to be annoyed but is actually super warmed that Percy went to him, then Nico helping him figure out and accept his bisexuality.

Please imagine, rather than Annabeth being all jealous of Nico, she always loves talking to him about Percy, at first by accident, followed by the realization it might just hurt Nico more, but Nico promptly jumping in and agreeing and listening openly.

Please imagine Percy and Annabeth, when alone, researching and coming up with ways to help Nico have a healthier relationship with food and how to help him with his mental and physical health.

Please imagine Nico stealing both Percy's and Annabeth's clothes, which are unbelievably big on him, and Percy pretending to be annoyed but actually being perfectly happy with Nico stealing his clothes.

Please imagine Nico always falling asleep on Percy, at first being embarassed, but Percy assuring him that it's okay and that he won't hurt or judge him.

Please imagine Percy one day falling asleep on Nico's shoulder and Nico feeling so honoured that Percy trusts him enough to do so to the point that Nico doesn't move until Percy wakes up, which takes like 3 hours.

Please imagine Percy and Annabeth giving Nico 'the talk' after he gets with Will, Nico blushing and complaining about how it isn't necessary because I HC him as asexual but he doesn't know what asexuality is, so he's just there complaining and mega awkward with the subject.

Please imagine Nico and Percy ranting about how annoying it is to be a big 3 kid, followed by them sparring to see who's more powerful (it's Nico, only partially because Percy goes easy on him).

Please imagine Nico starting to use cheek kisses as a greeting/goodbye for them because that's a normal thing in Italian culture (I'm not Italian so correct me if I'm wrong) and Percy and Annabeth feeling so honoured and trying not to cry.

Please imagine Nico visiting them in New Rome and Percy and Annabeth being really confused by how many people Nico greets by name.

Please imagine the amount of double dates Solangelo and Percabeth would go on, Will being really nervous because of how protective Percy and Annabeth are of Nico, but Percy and Annabeth being really nice and supportive because they have never seen Nico so happy.

PLEASE imagine Solangelo and Percabeth having sleepovers together, or just Nico, Percy, and Annabeth having sleepovers!!

Imagine Percy and Annabeth NEVER treating Nico like a third wheel, but rather as someone of equal importance (BECAUSE HE IS)

Imagine Nico, when alone with one of them, teasing them about how in love they are.

Imagine Percy and Annabeth returning the favour by teasing him about his crush on Will.

Imagine Nico, Percy, and Annabeth grieving Jason together when they see each other again, comforting each other, talking about their memories of him and doing anything they can to honour his memory.

Imagine, as a follow-up to the 'Percy and Nico falling asleep on each other' thing, either of them waking up screaming from a nightmare and the other comforting them and calming them down.

Imagine Nico, Percy, and Annabeth talking about their experience in Tartarus and working through and figuring out the trauma together, eventually joined by Will.

Imagine Percy and Annabeth introducing Nico to queer artists and influencers (backstory of my 'Nico listens to Cavetown' HC).

(If this sounds overly romantic I apologize I don't really have a proper grasp on the difference between romance and friendship but I am trying but just to be clear I do not ship these three romantically, I just think they should be friends because Nico deserves safe people, as do Percy and Annabeth)

(Also I cannot stress the 'Annabeth and Percy not treating Nico like a third wheel' thing enough because that is so important to me)

[peach-and-bugs]

Little vent about the current debate going on because of the Jasmin comments:

I am so so tired of lgbtq+ discourse, it makes me feel so old

I feel really lucky that I had older queer people in my life who kept me in check. And I mean older queer people as in a few years older than me in high school. They helped me develop my interest in queer history, which is the backbone of our community.

A huge reason we keep doubling back on the same conversations is because people don’t look at the early history behind queerness! A lot of the terms we use now aren’t knew. They haven’t changed, and we need to stop trying to change them!

Lesbianism has always been about non men who love other non men. Lesbianism also can’t be just a romantic orientation, unlike other orientations. Lesbianism is rooted in both romantic and sexual attraction (this is in regards to the idea of “bi-lesbians” and “pan-lesbians”. AroAce lesbians have been around forever and again, are part of queer history)

This also goes in hand with debated like “can trans men/trans masks be lesbians” and “does a lesbian who doesn’t want to have sex with a penis make them transphobic”. I’m so tired of lesbianism being debated constantly!

We don’t see this kind of debate with gay men, so why do we have to deal with it as lesbians? It’s exhausting and makes me not want to talk about my sexuality online because even in spaces that are supposed to be safe we still deal with these debates.

Please, learn your queer history. Take the time to learn about the people and culture that came before us, because we didn’t invent anything. Listen to our queer elders and learn from them, because if we don’t it’s just going to cause more discourse in our community which is already facing so much from others

[anarcho-smarmyism]

"Italian classicist Eva Cantarella writes that we can trace bisexuality back to the ancient world, arguing that in addition to known bisexual behavior in Greece and Rome, 'the pagan world considered sexual relations between men as an integral part of a sexuality which not only did not rule out relationships with women, but considered them necessary and dutiful (as well as desirable).' Others, like cultural researcher Lachlan MacDowell, argue that it began after the term bisexual was coined: 'Contemporary bisexuality has a distinctively modern history that begins in the middle of the 19th century'. And then there is Steven Angelides, who variously argues, like MacDowell, that bisexuality was invented alongside sexuality as a concept in the 1800s, but also that it was 'neither an act nor a palpable identity -at least until the late 1960s,' and in some texts he even places it in the 1970s. What I read from these differences is that historians like Cantarella are most interested in bisexual acts, while historians like MacDowell and Angelides are interested more in bisexual identity, hence the different start dates. This debate of act versus identities has long been a feature of debates in queer history."

-Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by Julia Shaw

[the-90s-music-colosseum]

Round 4 Match 15

propaganda below the cut! (massive wall of text warning)

Tracy Chapman:

"I can’t think of anything clever to say because I’m too busy sighing dreamily"

"GUYS ITS FUCKING TRACY CHAPMAN VOTE FOR HER OR ELSE ILL EAT PLAYDOUGH"

"Tracy Chapman made the best song of all time (fast car)"

"ik im the hope sandoval guy but if hope doesn't make it tracy has to she made me realize i was a lesbian i just thought i was bi then i listened to her and now im a lesbian she is powerful she is strength if you looked at her and looked at my art you would see 20 years of inspiration from one single woman"

"she's too good to commit atrocities to me but im the gore guy and you aren't for that. i would let her take out my vocal chords and use them as floss. i would have her saw down my bones to make a vinyl of her music. i would go on all fours and let her slaughter me like a pig. i want to be her cat"

"The most powerful written and performed voice of the 90s. Everyone, of any nationality or belief system, could feel the words Tracy Chapman sang. She gets her dues but deserves even more."

Stephen Malkmus:

"i can't even stand stephen malkmus but there's a very special girl out there who needs this win"

"My perpetually stoned, nonsensical girlfriend...if we don't invent the time machine soon I might die. He's like 6 ft tall so unfortunately I'd be like one of those birds that ride on giraffes and eat bugs out of their fur. And then I'd die in a weed accident during the recording of Wowee Zowee? Before that though I'd spend 25 hrs a day in bed with him. Alright thanks"

"Stephen Malkmus chronically addicted to moaning and gasping in Pavement songs like he’s getting the best dicking down of his life in the back of the tour bus while everyone else is asleep"

"This is the indie-label match, right? Then it has to be Malkmus, he *made* the scene. And he's still releasing excellent music today. He's just the most influential rockstar of the 90s."

"my gay pavement fan uncle gets out of prison tonight and he knows you ratted him out in '06. the only way to make this right is to vote for stephen"

"Pretty please vote for him, my friend loves him and he really wants him to win"

""There were times he refused to speak to his bandmates, pulling a jacket over his head and referring to himself as "the little bitch"." I have also heard him refer to himself as a brat, a queen, a primadonna, a sociopath, and a narcissist. All of these descriptors have made me want to slam him against a wall and turn his neck fun new colors."

"I mean, Pavement is THEE indie band of the 90s. The lowkey snark, Koreaaaa, so much style that it's wasted. And Malkmus is an understated cool rockstar: the hair, the face, Silver Jews! He never ever sold out. He's the 90s."

"the most beautiful man ever he looks like a gorgeous fairytale prince. he has been hot since he emerged on the scene and continues to be so as their reunion tour comes to a close. stephen forever"

"we have to consider the autism swagger. find me a pavement write up that doesn’t spend three paragraphs waxing lyrical on his inability to make eye contact. find me a YouTube comment section that doesn’t have hoards of moms swooning over his flat affect. his refusal to wear anything more formal than a flannel for the first decade of his career? genuinely culturally influential. 30 glorious years of expressionless performances. sunglasses in the dark. so many straight men falling over themselves for him they made a joke about it in the Barbie movie. raw tbh sex appeal. and he’s got a great nose"

"he had a couple of unfortunate haircuts during this period but highkey i would break both of my arms to just be able to make out with him. please vote for SM my life is in danger if you don't"

[whatmathgodwrought]

Salad Bar Theory of Popular Culture

This is going to be a long post. It will discuss "The Salad Bar Theory of Popular Culture," and why Tumblr dot com is the ideal, overgrown petri dish on the web for this phenomenon.

It's a bit of lark, but I do hope you'll laugh at least once if you read to the end.

Imagine you're dining at an all-you-can-eat restaurant. The restaurant is massive. The self-serve food bar has every kind of dish imaginable, and what's more, there is a construction crew adding more space, and new chefs are constantly adding new entrees, remaking old favorites, and sometimes they even invent new cuisines altogether. All of your friends and acquaintances are there. Sometimes you eat together, sometimes you talk about what you ate, sometimes someone excitedly comes to your table raving and telling you to try something new or an old favorite. There is more than you could ever possibly eat in several lifetimes, and it only keeps growing.

This metaphor is the current state of entertainment in the 21st century for all forms of media: music, movies, books, TV shows, ebooks, audiobooks, podcasts, talk radio, art, comics, graphic novels, manga, webcomics, cartoons, anime, newspapers, infotainment, online journalism, live-streaming, plays/dramas, console gaming, PC gaming, smartphone gaming and more. Thanks to the internet, streaming, global-shipping, viral-meme-culture, commodification-of-the-invidivual-via-the-social-media-grind, (and let's be honest, piracy and archival culture), people have access to and are exposed to more entertainment than they could ever hope to consume in several lifetimes.

So, where does leave the typical diner at this restaurant? Well, as the next paragraphs will show, there is no such thing as a "typical diner." There are no gourmets, no gourmands. There is just the Cornucopia and groups of people wandering the endless salad bar. You can be first in line and pay a premium to experience the brand new dish. You can go back to the same section and reload your plate with the same thing as many times as you want, and people will ask if you don't ever get tired of the same thing. You can be a vegetarian. You can eat only meat. You can eat a bit of everything. You can brave the sneers and jeers of the gatekeepers as you sample something--with tastebuds aglow--for the first time and rave about it to all your friends.

So what kind of dining experiences are there in this cultural canteen, this pop-culture pizzeria, this taverna theatre? What do you see there?

Popularity is the Objective Word Here

When something is popular, it spreads like wildfire. This has always been true of popular culture even before the internet. Humans are social, they tell stories and they share. This may seem obvious, but it's also bedrock for the other observations.

Originality is Dead: Long Live Reboots and Remixes.

Show of hands to three questions:

How many people recognize the reference of a gorilla carrying a woman, climbing the Empire State Building while bi-planes shoot at it?

King Kong right? A cultural icon for many years.

How many people have actually seen the original King Kong (1933) starring Fay Wray and directed by Cooper and Schoedsack?

Not as many right? Maybe you only saw one of the many remakes in 2021, 2017, 2005, 1986, 1976, 1967 or 1962.

How many people are alive today that saw King Kong (1933) in the cinema?

Not many I'll bet.

I'd wager the number of hands goes down with each question. And yet the staying power of the original story remains burned into film history and memory. The point is this. Humans retell stories. This is not a bug. It's a feature. "Tell me the story again of…" There is joy (and profit) in the retelling.

Derivative Reference is Often the Primary Way of Experiencing Pop Culture

OK, so people are sharing things left and right. They're retelling, remixing, rebooting, writing fan-fics, etc. All of this creative effort means that your first-time encountering something new may be a reference, rather than experiencing the original. People rarely experience the true original firsthand anymore. They're going to experience things second-hand.

This is especially true with older media. A first experience with something will often be a derivative reference. An example: Back in the day, in school, we watched Planet of the Apes in class. (I don't know, probably the teacher was hung over.) Want to know how I figured out before the big reveal that the Planet of the Apes was really Earth?

Troy McClure spoiled it for me. In Season 7 Episode 9 of the Simpsons, "A Fish Called Selma," McClure takes an acting gig in a musical adaptation of Planet of the Apes, and he sings the following lines:

Oh my God, I was wrong It was earth all along Yes you finally made a monkey out of me.

So there I am, watching Planet of the Apes for the first time, and Troy McClure's big number starts playing in my head. I sit there in disbelief, remembering the Simpsons, and then practically crying into my desk with laughter.

Probably the teacher thought that "kids these days" don't appreciate cinema, but it was just so absurd to have the movie spoiled by a bit in the Simpsons.

Want to know something else? In doing research for this essay, I discovered that Planet of the Apes film isn't even the original. The original story was a French language novel "La Planète des Singes" by Pierre Boulle. So again, people love retelling, often in different forms of media.

Point is, the longer something has been out, the more it tends to be referenced in other forms. TV talk shows will make jokes referencing the new popular thing. Popular phrases quickly become part of the everyday lexicon. People talk at the water cooler. A tech mogul names their new software after one iconic word in Heinlein's 1961 sci-fi novel.

Any piece of popular culture could be "spoiled" for you at any moment, which brings us to....

Spoilers are Everywhere but Do They Just Act as Adverts?

King Kong dies in the end. Dumbledore Dies. Both of these are spoiler memes (and I'm not sorry), but consider the amount of time passed between the original release of both. How long is the statute of limitations on spoilers? How long before a popular piece of media saturates public awareness so much that it becomes unavoidable? Is this ultimately unavoidable because of the viral nature of advertising, marketing and sharing?

In the modern day, it's increasingly hard to avoid spoilers. I've heard of people going off social media for weeks before a major film release so it doesn't get spoiled for them.

People seem divided on the topic of spoilers, but it's a very good question: Would you still enjoy a story if it was spoiled for you? Shakespeare spoils Romeo & Juliet in the first 14 lines:

Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents' strife. The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love, And the continuance of their parents' rage, Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage; The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Do you still want to see the rest of the play? What if it had Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo, Claire Danes as Juliet and Harold Perrineau as Mercutio? There is something to be said for knowing where the story goes, yet still enjoying the teling of the tale.

I'll go on record and say I don't really care about spoilers. They've become adverts to me, hooks of interest into things I might not have discovered otherwise. I have to encounter new media somehow, and I try to take a positive outlook on it, saying, "I was meant to discover this." If I like something, I'm going to like it unabashedly and still find a way to enjoy it.

Delayed Gratification

If you are PC gamer, let me ask a question: How many unplayed games do you have in your Steam library? Games you haven't even downloaded and opened for the first time. What about unfinished games? Played-once-and-dropped-it games? Now ask yourself: Did you buy this game when it first came out? Did you pay for early access? Would you have still enjoyed it, even if you had to wait a while? Consider the Reddit community r/PatientGamers. They don't care to line up and pay a premium for a brand new release. They know it will still be the same game (often less buggy), and they will even be able to get it on sale. They know the salad bar is vast. There's lots of content, and there's no hurry. They let it come to them when the time is right.

I Don't Want to Hear It

Similar to r/PatientGamers, there is also the phenomona when it seems like everyone is raving about something, to the point where you begin to actively block it out. It doesn't seem to matter what it is; even if it's something good that you would ultimately enjoy. Something about the repetition or the messaging rubs you wrong, and you innoculate yourself against it. You avoid that part of the salad bar at all costs, even if you might like it.

Interpreting the Rules: Remixing as Fan Behavior.

How dooes your social circle play the game Uno? Fandom has a tendency to take what's been created and modify it, remix it according to their own rules, according to fanon's own internal logic. Sometimes it's seen as an act of repair, sometimes a love letter to canon. Sometimes it's shipping characters. Sometimes it is a what-if. What if all these different characters from different properties got together in a story?

Dismay at Media Conglomerate Strip Mining

Has one of the five mega media conglomerates "ruined your childhood" by making a live-adaptation of your favorite childhood cartoon? Well, buckle up, because they aren't going to stop. The big five are hungry for content, and they are actively strip-mining your childhood favorites. It doesn't matter if it's a live action remake of Avatar the Last Airbender or CATS the musical, eventually some studio exec is going to see dollar signs, and your favorite thing is going to get a bad remake. It's best to just accept this.

Further Dismay at AI Strip Mining

If you don't like what the big five are doing, you will hate what AI is doing, and if you're an artist you probably already know you are getting robbed by AI companies. Large language models (also known as Plausible Sentence Generators) and text-to-artwork tools like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney are getting more sophisticated.

They're still scraping the web, and more sites seem to be selling user-generated content to these places, prompting artists to use Glaze and Nightshade to protect their work and poison AI data-models.

People are selling their likeness for permanent use in perpetuity for use in crowds. Lord of the Rings used AI-enabled CGI units in some of the battles, and that was over 20 years ago. How long before they don't hire extras for movies anymore?

The year is 2100. You put on a vid. It is the usual cast, starring: Tu-Pac Shakur's avatar, Hatsune Miku, the latest Disney princess avatar, and the disembodied voice of James Earl Jones. All of the original flesh and blood actors are long dead, but their AI avatars and copyright ramain. Some were never were alive in the first place. It's all necrotainment. You turn off the TV.

Back to the present year, James Earl Jones's voice is now in an AI model, so Disney can give us the same Darth Vader forever. The year 2100 seems not so far away.

On the plus side, there seems to be a growing backlack against AI-generated content. People consider it cheap, shoddily-made and flimsy, and the quickest way to associate a brand as cheap garbage. At the Glasgow Willy Wonka's Chocolate experience event, the organizer used AI generated visuals for the marketing, and people arrived disappointed at the "dirty old warehouse." According to Paul Connell, the actor who played Wonka, the script was "15 pages of AI-generated gibberish."

"I never knew I would have liked this"

OK this is getting a bit grim, so here's something fun: People are getting exposed to other cultures' entertainment, and they like it! Netflix reports that 60% of their users have watched a Korean drama, and they plan to invest USD $2.5 billion in future Korean drama for the platform. Like anime booming outside of Japan in the 80s and 90s, or the British Invasion in the 1960s, people try out other parts of the salad bar, and discover they quite like it.

Archival Behavior

Abraham Lincoln once said, "You can't believe everything you read on the Internet." This is why screencapping and archiving things has become more important. Tweets get deleted, accounts get banned, and users deactivate. Capturing and archiving things here at least preserves some of the conversation.

In the Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote, "If you know yourself and you know your enemy -- and let's be clear the enemy are techbros, who are fundamentally lazy and want to cut corners for the sake of a quick buck and flashy, fake-innovation. Even their own mothers don't love them. They stole this content from Tumblr username whatmathgodwrought, original posting date 2024/03/03, and this should be used as evidence in the lawsuit against the responsible parties -- you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

If the internet is just 4 websites containing screenshots of the other ones, many are doing the good work of archiving for posterity.

Wasn't this Post also about Tumblr?

Yeah, yeah, we're taking the scenic route. (If you actually read this far, thank you. Send whatmathgodwrought a message and I'll read your blog, maybe reblog some of your stuff, maybe even follow you.)

Let's recap: pop culture spreads like wildfire. It gets retold/remixed/rebooted. Reference and spoilers are everywhere. You can delay and still enjoy a thing anytime, or you can resolutely choose to avoid a thing completely. You can remix, recreate, and fan-theorize canon ideas to their natural conclusion. The big five entertainment corps and AIs are strip-mining the heck out of it. People loves to try out things they never would have had access to before. So, after having some of these kind of experiences, you can post your fandom thoughts on Tumblr, add tags and watch it blow up (or not) or don't add tags (and watch it somehow blow up anyway?). Posts with "10k note energy" have slept for years before someone fired a reblog chain heard round the world. So what makes this environment the Galapagos Island or Cambrian period of websites for this Salad Bar idea?

Repeat and Resurgence

So the thing about a recurring joke is that it keep recurring. People will often write: "I will always reblog this." There are also seasonal examples. King Taejong falls from his horse, Feb 8, 1404. Julius Casear's assassaination on the Ides of March. Voyager's "Threshold" season-2, episode 15, Jan 29th. The clay tablet to Ea-nāṣir complaining about inferior quality copper. People like retelling, and reblogging with scheduling or queue contributes to the seasonal nature of repeat themes.

Tag You're It

Tags kind of help with the spreads-like-wildfire aspect. I've always liked tags as a general concept, because they're a flat, non-hierarchical, multi-category way of organizing information. In the Dewey Decimal system, your number is the category, and that's it; no nuance, no second-guessing, no argument. With tags, you add as many as you want, and then off it goes--haphazardly careening about the Tumblr ecosystem. Tagging is also broken, but whatever.

Goncharov

my favourite thing about the goncharov nonsense is that it relies on the tumblr culture of watching ur mutual posting about something but not really paying attention to it. the reason it slips so easily under the radar is we’re all used to seeing people’s random sudden fixations on our dashes and then just letting them do their thing - you don’t unfollow, you often don’t even filter it out, you just think ‘hey, glad they’re having fun’ and scroll past. i went like two days before realising it was a mass joke because i assumed one of my mutuals was just Really Into some old mafia film from the 70s all of a sudden. because why wouldn’t they be

User @watchmakermori hits the nail on the head. Tumblr's ecosystem exposes the user to random fandoms, which they might like, might look at later, or might actively avoid. It is within that space of ambiguity that the Goncharov phenomena thrived.

Trending By Organic Pollination

On this hellsite, it's possible to completely overwhelm the tags and get something trending, but at least this is mostly driven by human interest. In this case, Tumblr's lack of an algorithm is actually a feature. When a mutual reblogs something, at least I know that a human did it, unlike algorithm-based, auto-served content. We've seen what algorithms have done to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and even Google search. Algorithms drive "engagement", endless scrolling, and are likely contributing to Dead Internet Theory. At least Tumblr users are continuously blocking bots, trying to inoculate against AI-generated content, and are reblogging human content.

Parallel Play

Tumblr users' tendency to engage in parallel play also contributes to the remix factor as users reblog, retag and recontextulize. A shitpost becomes educational. Two isolated fandoms collide accidentally because of a poll. Someone makes a spelling error and it goes viral. Users play with JPEGs like dolls. Everyone is just out there doing their own thing in the big sandbox, and emergent behaviors result.

In Conclusion?

This post ended up more Tumblr-positive than I intended, even though that wasn't the original idea. The idea was to be more dispassionate, more objective, a casual observer. But like any participant-observer, I've gotten a bit caught up in the phenomenon.

So let's call this a Love Letter (academically aggravated) to Tumblr. Suffice it to say, I hope y'all keep blocking bots, reblogging humans, spiting the great AI content harvest, and keep enjoying the Salad Bar.

[cinemaocd]

this is probably going to be long

OK, I lived through the AIDS crisis. I was a young person questioning my sexuality at arguably the worst possible time in American history. I discovered the word "bisexual" (hooray I have a label) only to read a few days later in mainstream news about how "bisexuals were responsible for spreading AIDS to the hetero community" which was a take that was tolerated on national news shows at the time. The only sex education I had in my entire public education was a film we were forced to watch about how you could get AIDS from french kissing (you can't) and heavy petting (which we didn't know what it was because it was outdated old people code for oral lol)...

The entire LGBTQIA plus community was not attacked as a monolith, the focus of hate came on gay men, because they were the most obviously effected and also the most visible and prominent in the community. The rest of the community did their best to embrace and protect them. (For example lesbian groups that were on the front lines of caring for people who were sick when no one else would...).

And there were people like myself who identified as allies but were in a place where they didn't feel safe to come out themselves. I did not come out at that time because even though I was in accepting local community at University and working at a feminist journal I knew I would lose friends and family and possibly future work opportunities. Being Bi it was easier to blend in for me and I took advantage of that. Part of the reason I hesitated so long about coming out was I felt a lot of guilt that I didn't come out in the 90s during the AIDS crisis. I felt like a coward who wasn't worthy to stand with such brave people.

It took me a long time to let go of that self-hate to the point where I could come out. A big part of it was acknowledging how fucked up the climate for LGBTQIA folks in the 80s and 90s. We had two family friends (which is how I knew I would probably be rejected by a lot of my family) who died of AIDS. Yes, these were brilliant, creative men who worked in theater. One of them was the props coordinator for Late Night with David Letterman (responsible for building Dave's velcro suit etc.). I also have a peer who died of AIDS in the early 2000s, long after the disease had supposedly been "not a death sentence" who also happened to be an actor.

Despite their lack of political involvement, they were be seen as radical just because they lived openly as gay men in a society that hated them and wanted them dead, and only tolerated them if they were the "fun gays" who weren't actually threatening the status quo...

Being in theater or the arts was a survival tactic for a lot of people ya know because it was a more accepting environment and because it wasn't considered important like politics, medicine, science etc. (Miss me with the gays can't do math jokes. A gay man invented the fucking computer).

The gay men I knew in long-term monogamous relationships survived the worst of the crisis and they automatically became "respectability queers" for having not died and wanting jobs with health insurance etc. Because one dude follows his dream of working in theater and the other quits theater and goes to work at the phone company and buys a house with his partner, one is fun and the other boring? One is a creative genius creating culture and the other is a consumer of cultural pap? Wow. Great take.

FUCK. I'm just getting so angry thinking about this. You want to know why it took me till I was FIFTY fucking years old to come out: AIDS. That's it. ONE Fucking word.

Sorry I have no idea WHY I fucking started this other than I saw a shitty post that said, our culture became boring because all the fun gays died and left only the boring gays who only care about marriage or whatever.

[shtibididopdopyesyes]

APH Bulgaria 🇧🇬 Headcanons

He works as a truck driver and hence he often travels around, especially in the Balkans and Central Europe

He enjoys drinking and partying with his fellow Balkaners

He is bi and in a relationship with Romania (RoBul 4Ever 💖)

He speaks Bulgarian, Greek, Turkish, Russian, English and German fluently

He has tattoos all over his arms, with most of them being inspired by Bulgarian folklore

He works out and he’s got quite strong and muscular physique 

He is Orthodox Christian, but he doesn’t take the faith as seriously as Poland does, he sees it as a more cultural thing

His facial features are combination of his Slavic, Mediterranean and Bulgar roots

He has a great taste in music and has a great singing voice

He has a rose garden and produces rose oil

He also has an animal farm, where he milks cows, goats and sheep, and hence he produces his famous Bulgarian yogurt

He often fights with Greece over who has the best yogurt

He is often perceived as dumb, lazy and even violent by Western nations, but in reality he is very wise and kind, still a bit lazy at times

He is proud of himself for inventing the Slavic script

[a-queer-seminarian]

An excerpt from Eli Clare (1999) exploring the language used against and used by disabled & queer folk. TW for the r word.

_

"Handicapped, disabled, cripple, gimp, retard, differently abled. I understand my relationship to each of these words.

I scoff at handicapped, a word I grew up believing my parents had invented specifically to describe me, my parents who were deeply ashamed of my cerebral palsy and desperately wanted to find a cure.

I use the word disabled as an adjective to name what this ableist world does to us crips and gimps.

Cripple makes me flinch; it too often accompanied the sticks and stones on my grade school playground, but I love crip humor, the audacity of turning cripple into a word of pride.

Gimp sings a friendly song, full of irony and understanding. Retard on the other hand draws blood every time, a sharp, sharp knife.

In the world as it should be, maybe disabled people would be differently abled: a world where Braille and audio-recorded editions of books and magazines were a matter of course, and hearing people signed ASL; a world where schools were fully integrated, health care, free and unrationed; a world where universal access meant exactly that; a world where disabled people were not locked up at home or in nursing homes, relegated to sheltered employment and paid sweatshop wages. But, in the world as it is, differently abled, physically challenged tell a wishful lie.

...

Queer, like cripple, is an ironic and serious word I use to de- scribe myself and others in my communities. Queer speaks volumes about who I am, my life as a dyke, my relationship to the dominant culture. Because of when I came out-more than a decade after the Stonewall Rebellion-and where-into a highly politicized urban dyke community-queer has always been easy for me. I adore its defiant external edge, its comfortable internal truth. Queer belongs to me. So does cripple for many of the same reasons.

Queer and cripple are cousins: words to shock, words to infuse with pride and self-love, words to resist internalized hatred, words to help forge a politics. They have been gladly chosen — queer by many gay, lesbian, bi, and trans peoples, cripple, or crip, by many disabled people. ..."

- Eli Clare in Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation (1999)

[cienie-isengardu]

Hello, may I bother you for a bit?

This is something regarding Lord Liu Kang. At the beginning of the story mode, he's narrating that he gave everyone free will but later in the story mode, Geras says that Liu Kang forged everyone's destinies and that Shang Tsung and Quan Chi were defying theirs.

Which means that Shang Tsung was destined to live in poverty, Quan Chi was destined to grueling work in the mines and Shao was born sickly child if it weren't for his father's program that shaped him into the warrior he is now.

Which leads me to believe he is deliberately punishing them for things they did not do, all because of the memories of his mortal life.

In one of the intros between Shang Tsung and Geras, it is implied that Shang Tsung also had a horrible childhood.

What do you think?

Hello there and you do not bother me at all!

The destiny vs free will is one of the universal questions that humanity has tried to solve for ages and the answer for sure will vary from one person to another, always colored by religion (or lack of therefor) and culture each of us is part of. However, within Liu Kang’s timeline, I strongly believe destiny and free will aren’t mutually exclusive, because both terms refer to different aspects of a mortal's life.

When Liu Kang says he crafted for each person's destiny, it does not mean there is one and only one script to how things and people’s reaction will play out while he is gonna pretend to be surprised by the turn of events and having fun in the middle of a crisis invented out of boredom eons ago. 

What Liu Kang decided for each character is the setting that no one has choice over and designed role to play - Raiden is destined to be current Earthrealm Champion; Bi-Han, Kuai Liang and Tomas are destined to be Lin Kuei; Mileena is destined to rule Edenia; Shao is destined to serve loyalty to Queen Sindel; Shang Tsung is destined to not have any power whatsoever. None of them must like the circumstances they were born into nor the role bestowed upon them or faced adversity on the way, however how they will use the given time and live their life is greatly up to them. 

Raiden accepted Liu Kang’s training and worked hard to earn the right to represent Earthrealm in the Tournament - if he didn’t dedicate himself to the task, Kung Lao, Johnny or Kenshi would take his place. Bi-Han was trained from childhood to protect Earthrealm but he ultimately rejected the traditional role of Lin Kuei and chose to be loyal only to his clan instead to Fire Lord and the realm. In contrast, Kuai Liang decided to honor father’s teaching and aided Liu Kang, even if that meant going against his own brother - as Geras said, the brothers weren’t destined to be enemies yet both make their own choices that from now on will define their relationship. Tomas was forced by circumstances (Keeper of Time’s choice) into Lin Kuei and raised alongside Sub-Zero and Scorpion by their father, however as his BIO states, “Smoke chose to make the Lin Kuei’s mission his own. But as he lacked his brothers' innate supernatural abilities, he set out to master practical magic. Having done so, he now joins them in Earthrealm's defense” and this implies he wasn’t forced to master smoke powers by his adoptive family and that he was not necessarily considered as a material for Lin Kuei warrior but he made a conscious choice to learn magic so he could join his brothers in their duties. 

Shao and Shang Tsung jumped on occasion to rise in power for their own gain but no one physically forced them to betray the Royal Family or to inflict cruelty on others. According to Liu Kang’s design, they weren’t meant to have the opportunity to take over Edenia and still they could refuse to aid Damashi’s plot when the offer was made to them or at any given time after that. Shang Tsung managed to create a serum that does not heal Tarkatan sickness yet allows to control the unwanted symptoms, thus giving a sick person a chance for more or less normal life. He could share that with sick people or work with other imperial mages to find cure - and go into edenian history as a great hero and savior - but he chose not to, because his own plans were more important to him, than the well-being of other people. 

As a first-born, Mileena inherited the throne after mother’s death yet she still has an option to abdicate if she doesn’t like the burden bestowed on her by fate. 

What Liu Kang chose for each character is not set in stone and can be altered by people’s personal choices, for good or bad. Of course, that does not mean he has never interfere with mortal’s life to steer said person on the path he planed, as it is the best seen with Kung Lao and Raiden unknowingly prepared by Madam Bo for their role of Earthrealm Champions and Shang Tsung’s destiny to have as mediocre life as possible. So yes, Liu Kang is not above his personal favoritism and bias and I suspect it is the result of him being mortal turned into god, not the other way around. He definitely threw some serious obstacles on characters’ path, like sickness for child Shao (though did he plan to keep Shao unfit to be warrior and the outcome was changed by Shao’s father refusing to accept son’s sickness/disability or did Shao was born as sick child so the father could teach him discipline and raise him with an iron fist to become a loyal soldier is up to debate) or death of family for Tomas. However some of the hardship characters faced may as well come from their ancestors' choices alone, be it the dark history of Kenshi’s family that joined the Bakuto, a predecessor of the Yakuza for protection or Nitara’s people slowly starving because of their foolish choices (“The Vaeternians thrived, building a great society. But as their comfort grew, so did their shortsightedness. They overfed on Vaeternus’ creatures, disrupting the natural order. They now starve as it collapses.”, Nitara’s BIO)

In all fairness, the line between Liu Kang’s chosen destiny for characters and choices of mortals affecting the outcome may be pretty thin and in result, not so clear to us. Shang Tsung is the best example of this, because story mode alone gives the impression the man was born into poverty and neglect - he is on his own, using deception to survive in harsh outworld wilderness. Him being so miserable and angry makes sense to jump on the first occasion for anything better than what he has; to cling to the one person offering him not only power but also kindness, a praise for any progress made, be it the progress in the realization of plan or Shang Tsung’s own skills and knowledge.

Yet his official BIO

Shang Tsung grew up in Outworld’s backwaters. Too lazy for hard labor and too shifty for honest work, he eked out a living selling quack cures and fake magic. Though his wares were useless, Shang Tsung’s easy charm always closed the deal. Shang Tsung was resigned to this hardscrabble life. But then one day a mysterious stranger came, promising to make Shang Tsung a powerful sorcerer. Though suspicious of the offer, it was one he couldn’t refuse.

 and intro dialogues 

Shang Tsung: We're both small-town boys at heart. Raiden: Then why is yours so infected with evil? 

or

Shang Tsung: The squalor I endured as a child- Geras: Do not lie. I know the truth.

contradict the idea he was destined to live in poverty or even born in an abusive environment solely because of Liu Kang’s spite. The Bio alone put a blame on Shang Tsung’s own laziness and reluctance to do honest work, Geras calls his claim of bad childhood a lie and for all we know, there were plenty of opportunities for Shang Tsung to take and live his life in peace he turned down for whatever petty reason. The source material is so weirdly contradicting that I still don’t have an idea who we should trust on that one and how much it is Liu Kang’s fault and how much Shang Tsung’s own. 

(I’m gonna hold my judgment for the Quan Chi’s backstory until NRS will release further official material. Working in mines was always a hard job, however it is not clear to me if he was there by force - as enslavement or penalty? - or was he just born in a rural town where everyone worked as miners and he did what his family and/or all townsfolk did for generations.)

Geras saying Shang Tsung and Quan Chi defy their destinies may simply mean they got hold of power they should not have according to Liu Kang’s original plan. At the same time, Liu Kang specifically said to Sindel that Shang Tsung, Quan Chi and General Shao were groomed to be evil again by powers outside his control, so again, the chosen destinies for those three weren’t set in stone, as Liu Kang’s design could be - and was - altered.

For now, until proven otherwise, I will trust Liu Kang’s words that all characters indeed have free will and their choices matters, as supported by intro dialogues

Sindel: Until your revelation, I felt in control of my destiny. Liu Kang: You still are, Your Highness. 

or

Ashrah: I must know, Geras. Is my future set? Geras: There is no fate but what you make. 

or

Geras: Any advice for when I control the Hourglass? Liu Kang: Let all people be masters of their fate. 

but also for the fact alone that Liu Kang did not use his Titan powers to rewind time and alter the last events for his liking, as in making sure bored Titan Shang Tsung did not corrupt his alternative self and the rest of bunch, like Kronika did countless time before.

We will see how future tie-in material will challenge my outlook at this issue, but for now I'm gonna think that Liu Kang's planed destiny and characters' free will to what do with given time co-exist.