#people just value thin over fat

[fatphobiabusters]

Fat people deserve to enjoy feasting holidays just as much as thin people.

Fat people, eat what you want today. Allow yourself a second plate. Take home leftovers. Don't force yourself to be last in line for food. Shut down diet and weight talk. Tell the people who try to start it that it makes you uncomfortable. Wear what you like to dinner. Enjoy dessert. Do not tell yourself to "make up" for this meal tomorrow.

You are inherently allowed and deserve to eat food because you are a living, breathing human being, and no one can take that away from you. Anyone who says otherwise about you and your right to nourish yourself is valuing thinness over your literal survival needs. Their opinion is trash and should be thrown out with the rest of the garbage.

Stay strong today. The diet culture and fatphobic talk will be in full force, but you are stronger, and your needs are more important than the bigoted opinions of judgemental friends or family members.

You've got this.

-Mod Worthy

[transmutationisms]

could you talk more on eds and biopolitics?

sure, so this is broad strokes and it's also worth reiterating that the energy deficit characteristic of EDs can have a lot of different causes besides intentional food restriction—food insecurity is a huge and underrecognised factor here but there are many others. so when i talk about intentional restriction and the desire to be thin / lose weight, i'm not suggesting these are universal characteristics or causes of EDs.

anyway though, in the context of discussing these things, and particularly the relationship between 'diet culture' and EDs, a perennial frustration to me is that i often hear people fall back on the idea that the desire to be thin comes about as a result of the beauty standards perpetuated in mass media, fashion adverts, &c, without any subsequent interrogation of why it is that beauty itself is now so heavily dependent on thinness. after all, plenty of people have pointed out this is not a universal; beauty varies in different times and places, what is described or depicted as beautiful in historical records doesn't necessarily have much overlap with today's hegemonic standards, and so forth.

so when historicising this phenomenon it becomes very clear that the euro/anglo standard of thinness as beauty is, one, part of the ideological apparatus justifying colonialism thru the creation of race and white supremacy. sabrina strings and da'shaun harrison have written on this. two, the thin ideal is also inextricably tied up in medical discourses defining the ideal body as one that is economically productive, with the promise being that if the populace can be transformed into 'healthy',*** useful, hardworking citizens, the state benefits. control of bodyweight is therefore certainly a means of demonstrating one's supposed self-control, moral discipline, &c, but it is also a demand expressed in medical terms: these two discourses merge and overlap, and are both part of the capitalist state's transformation of its citizenry into a biological resource that can be controlled, managed, and exploited to bourgeois ends (profit): hence, biopolitics.

(***the story of how 'health' itself comes to be so dependent on thinness is obviously a critical piece of all this but this post is long as shit already so suffice it to say that this conflation is also not obvious, necessary, universal, &c &c)

medico-political discourses in the 19th century tended to talk about the dangers of both over- and under-weight more than what we hear now; similarly, if you think about something like wilbur atwater's calorie-value charts, these were explicitly intended to guide labourers to the most calorie-dense foods, because to atwater the central danger to be avoided was starvation among the workforce. these days in wealthy countries like the us, you are much more likely to hear about weight management in the context of demands to reduce; this is of course following moves like the WHO declaring an 'obesity epidemic' in 1997, and the rise in the usa of more explicitly nationalist, militaristic weight-loss rhetoric in the post-9/11 era.

however, my position is that these demands for thinness, and the beauty standard that follows and justifies them, are not a departure from earlier 19th- and 20th-century scientific nutrition advice, just an evolution that, for a multitude of reasons (politics, medical professional interests, insurance company practices, &c) has simply come to focus more on the ostensible economic and national threat posed by fatness. the underlying logic bears the biopolitical throughline: the state has, or ought to have, an interest in enforcing the health of its population, and as part of this demands that you the individual surveil and alter your weight according to the scientific guidelines du jour.

this is fertile ground for the development of what, in extreme form, we regard as ED pathology. first, because even the most purely 'health'-motivated individual engaging in the required degree of bodily monitoring and caloric restriction is liable to respond to energy deficit in ways that can become diagnosably distressing. second, because the morals of 'health' are never far from standards of beauty; thinness is sold in overtly profitable ways (the diet and weight-loss industries) and furthermore, our idea of beauty is often a kind of post hoc justification for the thinness already being demanded by state and medical authorities. which is really just to say, beauty is part of the ideological superstructure both resulting from and invoked as a justification for the material conditions of capitalist biopolitics. again this is very broad strokes, but imo it is a much more useful framework to understand EDs than simply presenting them as a result of desiring thinness because it is glorified in The Media, because... reasons (essentially the rené girard model, lol).

[genderkoolaid]

How do you respond to people who try to argue against various gender affirming surgeries with anorexic people wanting liposuction? I tried to point out that theres a lot of gender affirming surgeries for cis people who dont feel feminine/masculine enough, but my sister said that those people need therapy too. I feel that there's a difference between trans people and anorexic people but idk how to put it into words, im scared i accidentally made her more transphobic bc i didnt have arguments :(

Good question! It's important to question and critique our ideas of what separates "good, natural desires which should not be changed" from "bad, unnatural desires which should be changed," and I think sometimes trans people are too quick to reaffirm this binary in our attempts to defend transness.

I would say that the difference here is based in anxieties. Anorexia is born out of anxiety- which is to say, a persist concern over something that triggers strong emotional reactions and which you keep returning to over and over and over without resolution. Dysphoria can and does cause anxiety, but you can be dysphoric without having anxiety over it. You can have dysphoria, find relief, and be satisfied with your body, while there is never any satisfaction point with eating disorders. There is always a feeling of "not enough" because the desire to be skinnier is born out of anxiety over what it means to be fat & fatness' place in society (lesser value, moral weakness, medical abuse, etc.).

Like I said, dysphoria can and does cause anxiety. There are trans people who obsess over their bodies being too masculine/feminine because they are concerned with what it means for them to be too masculine/feminine: it means they aren't real, they are ugly, they're failure. And this is why its important for trans people to sit with our dysphoria and analyze it. If you are constantly worrying about your body being "real" enough, no amount of surgery or HRT will fix that (although it may fix many things).

Now, I am generally against any solution thats like "we should stop Those People from doing x because We know whats best for them!" because autonomy is a vital part of my beliefs, and I think that people rarely ever react well to being banned from doing something Because Mother Knows Best. The real goal with, say, EDs, is to get rid of the artificial desire for thinness by combating fatphobia (ah, if only all the anti-ED campaigns out there did this). The same with plastic surgery: I would much rather we focus on dismantling the system that makes people (esp. perceived women) feel they need to make their bodies fulfill the beauty standard, than saying that plastic surgery is Evil and we should stop anyone from ever getting it, because those little people aren't capable of using their basic right to bodily autonomy correctly. When we ban something, what we really want is to change people's desires. But that requires cultural change, and laws don't create cultural change out of thin air. Its like how yelling at your kids doesn't make them more honest or better people, it just makes them better liars.

Given that trans people exist in every society, potentially going back to the Stone Age, even after we unwork systemic misogyny & homophobia, trans people are still gonna want surgeries. So we should just work on combating those things instead of trying to control people's bodies.

[macgyvermedical]

can you talk a little about wegovy and muonjaro for weight loss?

The answer is maybe.

If it were just the drugs themselves, I'd say absolutely. But there is a surprising amount of cultural baggage associated with these medications, and I don't really know that I can do them justice.

So first, let's talk about weight. There's a fantastic book called "Fat Talk" by Virginia Sole-Smith, about being overweight or obese in an age that prioritizes thinness, and how diet culture in particular is a threat to young people. Another, called "Intuitive Eating" by Elyse Resch, discusses how calorie restriction- commonly cited as the "way" to lose weight along with exercise- only works once or twice, because our bodies get wise to it and want to hold onto fat.

Humans evolved to gain weight. Fat is how we store energy for times when we might not have enough to eat. And if "not having enough to eat" (whether because of famine or because of calorie restrictive dieting) happens repeatedly, we have evolved to change hormones and metabolism so we a) don't need as much food to stay alive and b) are primed to eat more food than we need when it is available.

Aren't human bodies cool?

In the medical world, there are a lot of things tied to weight. For example, statistically, being overweight or obese means you're more likely to have health conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease. It is unclear, though, if those problems are caused by the weight itself, or other dietary, activity, and behavior patterns that may also happen to contribute to the weight gain. Things like a sedentary lifestyle, frequent consumption of foods with low nutritional value, avoidance of medical care due to stigma, or even chronic calorie restrictive dieting.

Unfortunately, due to this statistical tie, there is a lot of effort made in the medical world to get patients to "lose weight at any cost" instead of recommending dietary, activity, and behavior changes for health reasons alone.

Culturally as well, we prioritize thinness as attractiveness. I remember in high school there was a poster in my health classroom that read "Ideal weight- or it might be hard to get a date!". There are lots of negative associations with people who carry more weight, including that they are lazy or stupid- things that have nothing to do with body size.

Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't things that could be benefits of losing weight. For example, joint and back pain can be improved with weight loss. But weight loss is probably not the end-all be-all cure-all it's touted to be.

Because it is really hard for most people to meet this standard of "lose weight at any cost", there has long been medications that purportedly help people lose weight. Most of these medications have been stimulants, which decrease appetite and make it more comfortable to engage in calorie restrictive dieting. They also increase energy, which can make it easier to exercise or tolerate more exercise than would otherwise be possible.

Before we talk about the drugs, I want to say- there are risks and benefits to all medications, including these! The discussion you should always have is what risks are you and your healthcare provider willing to tolerate for the potential positive outcome. Also, this is a discussion of the drugs when used for weight control. The same drugs used for diabetes are at different dosages and have potentially different risk/benefit comparisons.

Ozempic/Wegovy (semaglutide) and Mounjaro/Zepbound (tirzepatide) are both a type of medication called a GLP-1 agonist. GLP-1 agonists are also called incretin mimics, because they mimic a type of hormone (incretin) that tells the brain and body that it is full. This makes it easier to eat a small amount of high nutrition food and feel satisfied. They also work by increasing metabolism. Between the decreased consumption and the increased metabolism, weight is lost.

Over the course of a year and a half, tirzepatide causes about 15-20% average reduction in body weight with continued use. Over the course of about the same time, semaglutide causes an average of about 15% body weight reduction with continuous use. Say, for example, you weigh 100kg. A year and a half on one of these medications could get you down to 85kg.

The problem is, as soon as that drug is withdrawn, the body realizes it was starving, and tries to compensate. These drugs are good at getting rid of weight, but maintaining a new weight usually means staying on a lower dose of the drug perpetually. Most people regain all weight (and potentially more than they lost) within 5 years of stopping the drugs.

Some studies suggest that repeatedly regaining lost weight may be more detrimental to health than remaining overweight or obese when it comes to statistical risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other "weight-associated" illnesses.

The main side effects are GI-related. Most of these are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, gas/bloating, constipation, dizziness, and abdominal pain. More severe side effects include pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas) and gasteroparesis (paralysis of the stomach and part of the digestive tract).

[misc-obeyme]

Mc shows the brothers

Human world style and (what the media gives to woman) body standards ,How would they react?

((I am a firm believer that you can be whoever you want and your body is beautiful))

Hey there, anon!

Okay, this here is a sensitive topic, but I think I did all right with it.

I think how the brothers would react depends on what the beauty standards are like in the Devildom. So for this, I went with the idea that while the Devildom has similar beauty standards to the human world, they're less important. I would think that demons would care more about power than appearance, especially since it's likely that at least some of them use magic to alter how they look. So the brothers probably don't know what an issue it is in the human world.

Also tried to keep it mostly gender neutral, hopefully that's okay.

Thank you for the request!

The brothers react to GN!MC telling them about human world body standards.

Warnings: A lot of discussion of body image issues, talking about diets and food in Beel's part.

Lucifer

Does not understand. Why do humans place such importance on looking perfect? He certainly sees the value in looking put together, especially when it comes to things like clothes and hygiene. Beyond that, though, he doesn't see the point in obsessing over trying to fix perceived flaws.

Does not care about your body type at all. Short? Tall? Fat? Thin? It's irrelevant to him. What matters is who you are. If he wasn't a beautiful man, it wouldn't matter because everyone would still fear him. It isn't about what you look like, it's how you carry yourself.

If you struggle, though, he's going to be sensitive about it. Will not talk about it with others around, but will casually compliment you on how nice you look. Especially if he knows you're lacking confidence for some reason. Then he'll make a point of telling you that you look good.

When you're alone, though, he showers you in compliments. Lucifer is not usually soft, so it's reserved for when you're alone with him. And that's when he takes your feelings into consideration. Don't you know that you are stunning, MC? In fact, he would say that your body is perfect simply because it is yours.

Mammon

Hang on. Human world models aren't naturally like that? Sure, he works out a little more than he might normally just because he works as a model, but it's not like he goes around doing anything drastic. Do you think he's contributing to unrealistic beauty standards in the Devildom?!

Um… well… it's hard to say? You'll probably need to reassure him that it really doesn't matter either way. The problem is not individual models, but the industry as a whole. And there are people who are working to make things better. It's just that in the human world, you have to be aware that what you see in magazines is usually heavily edited. He's gonna think that's crazy. The Great Mammon's photos are never photoshopped!

Once he gets over this little crisis, though, he's going to tell you that all of that sounds really stupid. The whole point of fashion is that it makes you feel good! It's supposed to be fun! Who cares what type of body you have? You should be able to enjoy it no matter what.

Mammon is gonna get really cute about your specific insecurities, though. If you tell him you don't like something about yourself, he's going to go out of his way to let you know that he loves it. Feeling unhappy about your stomach not being flat enough, for instance? Hey, MC! Ya don't mind if he gives ya hug, do ya? Doesn't wait for a response, just wraps his arms around you from behind so he can settle his hands directly on your stomach. Presses his face into your neck to mumble about how perfect you are because he won't say it straight to your face.

Leviathan

Baffled. More confused than Lucifer. Are you seriously trying to tell him that people in the human world care about this kind of thing? Uh oh. Now he's thinking about his body image. Does it fit with human world standards?! Do you think he's hideous, MC!?

You've got another crisis. Quick, reassure him that he has nothing to worry about! The point you're trying to make here is that human world standards are crazy and harmful. He's perfect to you and that's all that matters.

O-oh. Right. Now he's a little bashful about his reaction. Makes it clear that you're perfect to him, too. Watch as he gains more confidence in his compliments. He starts telling you about how he loves every part of you. Lists physical attributes at first, but starts getting into who you are to him. Not just your best qualities, but special moments he's had with you. How important you are to him, specifically.

If you tell him about things that you struggle with, he's going to reassure you in the moment. And then you notice that when you consume some form of media together, a lot of times there's a character that has one of those specific things that you also have. He thinks he's subtle, but you see right through him. If he finds a story line where the character learns to love themselves or something, he's definitely going to make you watch it with him. Acts like he's completely innocent, it's just a good story, you know!

Satan

Confused at first. As with Lucifer, finds such things to be completely irrelevant. Obviously, what matters is who you are inside. When someone has a heart and soul as beautiful as yours, their body simply becomes beautiful by association. Also don't you know it's about practicality? Your body exists to move you through the world, not to be pretty for other people.

Uh oh. Now he's getting angry. Why would other humans feel that you have to look a certain way for them? How could they make you feel like you aren't perfect exactly as you are? How dare they subject you to their own ideals of beauty? It's upsetting, MC!

Okay, okay, you're probably going to have to talk him down. He's livid on your behalf, but tell him how much it means to you to hear him say these things and he'll start to calm down. Realizes that getting angry about it doesn't help you in any way. Reassures you that such human world ideas are nonsense.

Starts complimenting you all the time, especially on the things he knows you're insecure about. Maybe you don't like the shape of your nose. He will say, completely straight faced, that your nose is looking really cute today. Although this sounds ridiculous, it does make you smile, so that feels like a win.

Asmodeus

Oh, MC. Don't you think he knows all about this already? Of course he does. Asmodeus is perfectly aware of how things are in the human world when it comes to beauty standards. He knows how hard it can be for some humans.

You might think he couldn't possibly understand because he's so perfect. He's always beautiful. The reality is that he believes his beauty is all he has. If he's not beautiful, who even is he? Take the moment to tell him that he's so much more than his looks. That you love him for who he is, his kindness, his bubbly personality, his creativity, etc.

He's going to tell you that all the things you do to make yourself look good should be things you're doing for yourself. Do them because they make you feel good. Do them because they give you confidence. Do them because you deserve to pamper yourself sometimes. Do them because you need to take care of yourself just as much as you take care of everybody else.

Another one who gets cute about your insecurities. What's that? Did you say you don't like your stretch marks? Well now you're laughing as he kisses every last stretch mark he can find. You learn not to say negative things about yourself around him unless you're prepared to get covered in kisses.

Beelzebub

Misunderstands. Thinks you're asking him for workout advice. You want your body to look a certain way? He knows what to do for that. Do you want him to come up with an exercise schedule for you, MC? Its up to you whether or not you decide to workout with him, but either way you'll have to tell him that's not exactly what you meant. Tell him about diets and watch the confusion get worse.

Wait, wait, wait. Humans restrict their food in an attempt to get their bodies to look a certain way? He's dumbfounded. Just thinking about it upsets him. Why in the world would you want to deprive yourself of any kind of food? You decide not to tell him just how bad this can get for people. He's having a hard enough time as it is.

Don't you dare try to do it around him, though. If you say anything about not wanting to eat something because you're worried it'll make you fat or you're watching your figure or anything else along those lines, he will frown at you. He's going to tell you that you should eat whatever you want.

Beel thinks chubby humans are really cute. They look well fed and that makes him happy. If you're already on the chubby side, he'll tell you how much he likes it. If you're not, he'll tell you how much he likes you the way you are, but if you were to change he would like you just the same.

Belphegor

Huh. Humans care about some weird stuff, don't they? It's not that Belphie is unaware of human world beauty standards, it's more like he thinks it's really dumb so he doesn't think about it most of the time. However, he does recognize what an issue it can be for a lot of people. The fact that you're bringing it up to him indicates that you struggle with it, too. And he's not okay with that.

Won't lose his shit or anything, this guy is too lazy for that. But he is annoyed on your behalf. He's annoyed that you feel insecure about any part of you because the human world had the audacity to pressure you into thinking you weren't good enough just the way you are. You don't have to change anything about yourself, MC. You're perfect.

He's actually really good at listening to you talk about your body image issues. He knows he doesn't necessarily have to participate a lot, he just needs to listen. You'll feel better once you've told him all about your struggles. Tell him everything. He's only going to speak up to tell you that he understands, but that in his eyes, those flaws you think you have don't exist.

As with a couple of his older brothers, he's going to deliberately love on the things that you mention being insecure about. Definitely more bratty about it, though. The more you protest, the more he persists. Did you just complain about how thick your thighs are? He's going to nuzzle into them like they're the softest pillow he's ever had. Loudly says he's going to take his afternoon nap right there. Try to dislodge him and you'll only make it worse.

masterlist | Thank you for reading!

[miasmaghoul]

I just, I don't even know what to say

W O W

Ok, serious chat for a moment. Warnings for mentions of an ED and medical mistreatment.

It's so frustrating to still see shit like this when I grew up in the days of fat free everything and Weight Watchers ads every 5 minutes on TV.

Why is it fat people that everyone agrees to dogpile on? We're bullied incessantly for something that a lot of us can't even fix or help, because people who AREN'T fat assume we're just lazy pigs. Like yeah, please just disregard my physical debility and MULTIPLE hormonal issues and just assume that I just shovel food into my mouth constantly. Oh, you say I can't have an eating disorder because I'm fat and "those people" are skinny? BOY DO I HAVE NEWS FOR YOU!

It's bullshit, full stop. I still struggle with my ED, but the older I've gotten the more open and honest with myself I've become. I've never sought treatment for it because, again, I'm still fat. The one time I did bring it up to a doctor, he said "well if you do have an eating disorder then you aren't doing a very good job." I wish I were making that up.

Fat is in my genes, and there are so many other contributing factors it isn't even funny. It's so pounded into our heads that we NEED to be thin (mostly targeting women, let's be real) in order to have value, and I'm so fuckin sick of still hearing about the latest severely unhealthy fad diet or what fucking celebrity is on ozempic.

Which, by the way, I did have pushed on me a couple years ago when regular people could still get their hands on it. It made me feel so much worse. Every dose would trigger a binge, and I would feel horrible for days afterwards. I told my doctor (different from the other one I mentioned) this, and she told me that it was just something I was going to have to deal with because look, you've lost 20lbs since your last visit!

I felt worse than I had in YEARS, but it didn't matter because my body was becoming more socially acceptable. Do you want to know how many times doctors have tried to shove weight loss surgery down my throat? Countless. No matter how many times I say I'm not even there to talk about my weight, and that those surgeries are NOT for me, someone always brings it up. It's crazy how hurtful being ignored for knowing your own body is, because someone else thinks you need to change.

I wish this was something I had figured out when I was younger, but alas. I wore a hoodie over my clothes for 6 years straight, regardless of how hot it was outside, just to try to hide. I made myself miserable, ate barely anything (which would just trigger a binge, of course) and had it beat into my head constantly that my weight was the most important thing about me.

Here's the thing it took me way too long to learn:

IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER

You know what the number on the scale is? It's just a number. Your weight, high or low, is simply a tiny part of who you are as a human. If others choose to judge you based on it, that's not a failure on your part. It's on theirs. Being fat is not a crime, nor is it deserving of the insults and sneers we get in public spaces. People will always find a reason to stare, to whisper and giggle, and the best thing you can do for yourself is not give them the time of day.

I realize that's not easy. It's taken me 30+ years to reach a point where I've realized that going out in public is a necessity, and that the only reason I think people are staring at me is because advertisements like this punched the concept into my fragile little mind as a kid. At the end of the day, this is the one thing all fat people need to know:

Being fat is not a moral failure.

There is nothing wrong with you just because you need bigger clothes, mobility aids, or help from others. I don't care what anyone says - your weight is no one's business but your own. You want to lose weight? Go for it! More power to you, you'll get nothing but support from me. But there's nothing wrong with not wanting to do that either. That's really what it comes down to - the assumption that there's something inherently wrong with us because we're bigger than other people.

That's the part that needs to stop. And if anyone ever needs a reminder, my asks are always open. You're beautiful, I promise. 💜

Thank you for coming to my TED talk lmao

(I'm sure some asshole anons will come at me for "glorifying obesity" or "promoting unhealthy lifestyles". I assure you I am not. I am simply trying to help normalize a different mindset. If you're upset that fat people exist and that I'm saying they deserve the same care and compassion as anybody else, then you need to do a little bit of internal examination there. I promise fat people have not hurt you by virtue of existing in larger bodies ♡)

[cipheramnesia]

I know you talk about movies and TV shows on here a lot, so I'm not sure if you've already a secret this, but do you have any recommendations for things on canabalism? Or werewolves

The cannibalism genre is huge, and you could probably write a book on it. Obviously my favorites are The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (the originals, none of the remakes, reboots, whatever). They're two sides of the same strange coin with underlying themes of classism and the deep rot at the core of US nationalism. Along with Night of the Living Dead around six years prior, the original TCM was one of those movies that marked a paradigm shift in horror film.

But meanwhile, there was a huge lurid explosion of cannibalsploitation movies. I don't know most of them very well. Like, I've seen Motel Hell and Blood Diner, The Hills Have Eyes movies, but they didn't do a lot for me. Once you start getting to the end of the 80s, directors seemed to start getting an inkling of the satirical or symbolic value of the cannibal, and that's where some really interesting work happens, for example Parents (1989), the absolutely iconic People Under the Stairs (1991), and a left field one from me personally - Auntie Lee's Meat Pies (1992) - which feels almost accidentally anti-capitalist / anti-authoritarian.

One thing about this period is that for the most part there was an associate of cannibalism with being rural and poor (People Under The Stairs and Parents are notable and very interesting exceptions). A degree of the horror lies in humans eating humans, but in a modern lens these old exploitation films tap into other feelings, finding an undercurrent of anger which comes from the way it's so often poor and rural people literally consuming wealthy or privileged people. The cannibals of these movies were often dirty, or old, or fat, or horny. They were loud and obnoxious and tacky - and their victims were so clean and thin and pretty and wealthy. There's no doubt a lot of the exploitation movies in that whole late sixties to early nineties period weren't exactly made with pure intentions, but many of them hit that "eat the rich" sweet spot in a way more recent movies don't.

But anyway, also starting in the 1990s was the shift towards the idea of cannibalism as something transformative - human flesh went from a staple of the poor and disenfranchised, and started to be a luxury item, or something which marked those who consumed it as special or even elite, sort of kicked off by Silence of the Lambs. However, if you want a more interesting example, Ravenous is a fun watch, and has a lot to unpack going on - both for the good and for the bad. It's one of those movies where you'll find a degree of the mythologizing also start to appropriate first nations culture and in particular a figure which isn't meant to be spoken about just in general. Prior to this, there was already a habitual use of "native people" as "savage cannibals" in the exploitative way, but this was where it swung over to the other side of the horseshoe, to stereotype any sort of pre-colonial people's have having a unique and ritualized consumption of human flesh that separated them from white, western colonizers.

Anyway, that takes us up to recent stuff, which is probably too close to see a clear pattern. People are still making the same movies as before, but some of the more interesting modern approaches where cannibalism is in the context of things like coming of age, or finding a place in the world are Raw and Bones And All. These two takes merge some of the original models of cannibalism being a trait of the underprivileged, but having elements signifying it as a unique experience which allows it to serve as a stand-in for the feeling of transition to adulthood, or being someone who is socially othered in some way. A few others which I think have some interesting takes, but maybe not enough to get into detail, are Flesh, We Are What We Are, Feed Me, and Bloody Hell. Most recently, and probably the best new cannibal movie in ages, is Lowlife, which you can find on Tubi.

Anyway, uh, quick off the cuff werewolf take is that there's not really a perfect werewolf movie which in no particular order should have a bipedal werewolf with a wolf head (not human-like) and is queer. Some movies which are a mixed bag are An American Werewolf In London (great writing, terrible wolf design), The Howling series (cool werewolf design, terrible writing), Ginger Snaps 1+2 (should be queer, isn't), Wolf Cop 1+2 (okay writing, okay design, missing the queer), and Late Phases (good writing, so-so design).

Here are the three that you should watch: Dog Soldiers has peak werewolf design, a really interesting concept, and solid writing. Probably your best bang for the buck in terms of cool werewolf fighting time. Bloodthirsty is peak queer werewolf movie writing, with very little actual wolf. It's beautiful and meditative and I love it. And of course the all time greatest werewolf movie ever: Company of Wolves. More of a dreamscape painting than movie, what it lacks in wolf design it makes up in beauty and depth of psychosexual exploration.

[moodr1ng]

taking further weight/fatphobia/ed/general depression vents under readmore lol

cause like i cannot express how genuinely bad the fatphobia i have against myself is. like. when i picture myself in my head, in the future, i always imagine myself as skinny, bc ive lived my entire adult (and teen) life thinking of my body as a temporary impediment which ill eventually fix. early last year i thought i finally had and was so happy and then gained all the weight back. and idk what to do about it bc i have tried so so so hard to just 'accept being fat' and as i have said again i do not understand how that is possible in this society and i have never managed to get anywhere close to that and dont know how to.

and as a result of this i have considered like. every awful awful option out there for losing weight. like, i tried to get my doctor to prescribe me diet pills. i looked into ozempic and the only reason im NOT trying to illegally get some is that its for diabetic people and it harms them to take from the limited supply. i looked into various weight loss surgeries (be it bariatric surgery, which i cant get bc im not fat enough to qualify, or liposuccion but even if i could realistically afford it i hear it doesnt work in the long run). ive starved myself so much, tried so many diets, so many sports, never managed to stay on for long enough to maintain the results. no joke, i have considered developing a heroin or coke habit EXCLUSIVELY to lose weight, and the reason im not doing that is its too expensive. i complain about my adhd meds giving me food disgust but tbh every time it happens im also relieved bc it means i wont be able to eat for a few days. idk what to do anymore bc this is ruining my life and has been ruining my life for most of it.

i literally feel so worthless, ridiculous and unloveable specifically bc of my weight, and in particular the way its disposed on my body. i would be fine having fat arms, fat thighs, i would probably dig having a fat ass and chest and hips tbh! but i store all my fat on my belly and thats the one part i dont want to be fat, as well as my face and neck. this is such a massive block for me tbh. like, when i talk to new people i always feel like theyre looking down on me or find me pathetic because im fat (and bc im short which is my other major insecurity - i feel like being tall and fat is acceptable but not being short and fat). i dont take any compliments i get at face value bc i feel like everyone is just being nice by pretending like i could EVER be good looking. the only time ive ever felt attractive since i was a young teen was when i had lost the weight last year, and i couldnt maintain that bc it was so stringent.

sometimes when i think "i might be fat for the rest of my life and never manage to maintain being thin" i contemplate suicide over it. its like, the one thing about me i can never accept. i used to have so much internalized racism as a kid/young teen but i eventually got over that and came to appreciate my non-white features and even wish i had inherited more of my mothers looks (like her hair). i used to be so insecure about not being masculine enough but today im actually more into being kind of androgynous. i used to hate everything about myself and ive gotten much better about a lot of it. i dont hate my facial features or my hands or my legs or my arms anymore. i just hate my weight. and its the one thing i cant fucking get rid of.

and like, ive tried so hard to just.. look at other people ik with similar body types who i think are super attractive and think "if theyre attractive and they look like me, surely i could be too?" but it never works no matter what. and i mean, ik outside of like, societal fatphobia, a big part of it is my ed right. like obviously as long as i have an ed that is focused on wanting to lose weight im never gonna be able to accept being fat. but i cant get help for my ed bc there are no resources. and there are no medical professionals who will help me accept being fat bc theyre also fatphobic and they only want to help me lose weight, and they cant even manage to do that.

im just extremely tired of it all. every day i wish i was skinny. i can live w all the rest. i just need to be thin. i dont even need to be bone thin or whatever i just wanna be average. and its so fucking hard for so many reasons. i can almost never cook for myself bc of The Mental Shit. if i do cook for myself its rly hard to do anything complicated so its often not very balanced or healthy. and i rely so much on fast food, takeout and frozen meals bc of this inability to cook. and then theres the emotional shit - bc ever since i was little ive binged whenever i felt anything. bored? binge. angry? binge. sad? binge. happy? binge. theres no emotional state that doesnt wanna make me binge. and the only way i can stave it off is like.. either indulge in other vices (drugs alcohol etc) or just. dip into the restriction part of the ed and start starving myself again. and ofc once it becomes unbearable.. more binging. idk. idk. im at a loss. no one can help. and theres so many things piled on top of each other that make everything impossible.

im not even just talking about the weight - i mean everything in my life is like this carefully balanced tower of cards where each bad thing supports another bad thing supporting another bad thing until it builds into this massive self-sustaining network of dysfunction.

its like. i wake up in the morning (still tired from whatever the hell is wrong w my sleep, probably didnt sleep enough or too much, either way feeling bad). my room is a mess and theres fruit flies everywhere bc of the heat and i need to clean, but bc i woke up exhausted and feeling sick i have no energy to. i go get some water and theres a pile of dishes in the sink that are getting grosser and grosser but the idea of washing them is so daunting i cant bring myself to. i need to shower, but showering is such a hard task, and then if i shower i also need to brush my teeth and take care of my hair and thats so much energy. and if i do all that, well, i havent done the laundry in like 2 weeks so i have nothing clean to wear, so if im gonna shower i should do the laundry so i dont just get clean to put on dirty clothes right. and doing the laundry and hanging the stuff to dry is also such a hard task. and then if im clean and wearing clean clothes, am i just gonna get back in my dirty bed? i also need to change the bedsheets, and i hate doing that. and if im gonna change the sheets then i probably should fucking clean the bedroom, right. and i dont have the energy to do literally any of that. so im dirty, my room is dirty, my kitchen is dirty, i feel like shit, im tired, i havent eaten anything yet. maybe a decent meal would help. but a meal means cleaning some pot and pan to cook stuff in. and then it means cleaning it again after im done cooking, and also cleaning the dishes. and fucking hell i cant do that. so i think, maybe ill go to the convenience store and get a sandwich. but that means i need to get dressed and do my hair and i probably smell bed and i cant just go out like this and im SO TIRED. so i go to order takeout. and sure i could get something fresh and healthy like a poke bowl or something, but thatll cost me like 25 bucks, and i could just get a burger and fries for 10. so i get that. and i dont feel any better, because ive been eating carbs, sugar, and some shitty processed meat near-exclusively for the past several years. and im so tired and feel so awful and so guilty and so gross, so i just start smoking and drinking. maybe if im lucky ill do some art or whatever. and thats how my day goes and then ill go to sleep in my unchanged sheets unshowered laundry undone room dirty dishes piled up. have a bunch of nightmares wake up drenched in sweat etc. and do the same thing tomorrow.

and idk how to fix any of this bc its a cycle right. like where do i start? i feel like i cant do anything bc everything is SO heavy SO tiring SO daunting and im just so exhausted. i want to sleep for 10 years. i want to be happy again. but whenever im not happy i forget how it felt to be happy. so theres nothing to look forward to. and then i think about killing myself again. and thats just how it goes.

ig thats why im so so hopeful to actually get an at-home aid who can get me to do chores and get groceries and shit bc that might actually be the one thing that breaks the cycle, cause i definitely cant do it by myself.

[fruchtfleisch-art]

If you’re still looking for prompts how about KiraShino for something akin to ‘a weekend away’ :D

“What took you so long?” Shinobu asks. She’s treading water in the deep end of the hotel pool, loose hair swirling around her in a coppery cloud. The setting sun tinges everything in a bloody hue.

“I had to return a few calls,” Kira says. “Everything’s been a scramble since Fukami retired, and we just got a group of new hires last week. Lots of little fires to put out, people forgetting passwords and getting locked out of the network, that sort of thing.”

“Still, you’d think they’d leave you alone for the weekend. It’s supposed to be a vacation.”

“Oh, I talked to Hayato, too,” Kira says breezily, circling around to the far end of the pool, where the steps are. Shinobu makes a lazy half-turn to follow him. “Just making sure he’s not missing us too much.”

“Aw, I would have waited if I knew you were doing that! Is he okay?”

“As far as I can tell.”

“Do you think we should have left him some money? He could order something for dinner. I know we have leftovers, but-”

“He’s twenty-four,” Kira says, wincing as he steps down into the shallows. He sprained his hip years ago, after a hard fall, and it never really recovered. “I think he knows how to use the microwave.”

“I just worry about him sometimes,” Shinobu says. She’s lost a good deal of that frantic neediness Kira used to loathe, but the subject of Hayato always manages to bring out what’s left. “I wish he’d go out more.”

Their son- her son, Kira reminds himself, the correction as automatic as the mistake- is as sullen and reticent as ever, but he’s an excellent student and rarely bothers Kira with much of anything. He’s more of a skittish animal than a human being these days, slat-sided and dull-eyed, only suffering the company of his parents when necessity-food, finances, medical care- demands it. He knows his time is precious and limited. He knows he’s only a squatter on a bigger, nastier predator’s turf. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

Kira has been thinking it might finally be time to rid himself of Hayato, now that he’s close to graduating. It’s going to be hard to keep an eye on him if he moves out (a minuscule possibility, but not one to discard entirely). Really, he should have done it years ago, but it always felt slightly more advantageous to have a living son than a dead one, even though Kira’s cover was near-perfect after that first tumultuous summer. Maybe he felt like being generous, after all the hard work Hayato put in to clean up his own mess. Maybe Shinobu isn’t the only one who’s mellowed a little with age.

Older, grayer, slower; joints stiffer, muscles stringier, fat settling where it’s least wanted. Kosaku’s hair, at least, is as thick and brushy as ever, showing no signs of thinning out. The lines and contours of the other man’s face feel as familiar to Kira as his own, now. He likes to think he’s molded the blunt features towards a rough sort of elegance.

Two years ago marks a tipping point, the moment where he had officially been with Shinobu longer than the man he’s impersonating. Kira knows her as intimately as a hand knows a glove, the comfort of their relationship a soothing balm to the various irritations of life. It isn’t what he would have chosen for himself, but its value has gradually accrued, layers of nacreous buildup over the irritating grit of the circumstances forcing them together.

Shinobu knows how he takes his coffee, and when he expects her to have it ready. He’s played the part of the steadfast provider diligently, worked until the house they rented became the home they owned. When Kira, in a moment of drunken idiocy, told Shinobu exactly which part of the female anatomy captivated him, she listened, and bravely offered him the use of her first two fingers, probing and swirling until he felt the sweet scratch of fingernails on his soft palette.

Yes, it’s quite nice.

He ducks under the water, eyes open despite the sting, and kicks out towards Shinobu. When he surfaces, she puts her arms around him, and they float together, the water lapping at them hungrily. In the last dregs of daylight, the water beading on Shinobu’s body flares like molten gold.

“I think I see a little gray coming in,” he says.

“Where?” She’s been dyeing her hair meticulously, scared of looking old. As if.

“Right… here.” He presses a kiss to her temple, disregarding the chlorine tang. Affection and certainty swell in his chest. He’ll kill Hayato, just as soon as they return from Tokyo. Everything is going to fall right into his hands, just like the girl stuffed in the hallway maintenance closet next to their room.

It’s all so easy. He wanted her, and then he had her, almost before he was ready, their eyes meeting as he stepped out into the hall with his swim trunks and towel. His limp, incredibly, has done more to endear him to women than a lifetime of practiced blandness. They disregard him with confidence, certain he can’t do them any harm. Foolish.

Kira has been using his stand less and less as the years go by, savoring the pop of cartilage and crunch of ligaments as he strangles them, the stupid bovine fear laid bare in those exhilarating final moments. It’s not need that drives him to kill anymore, but an aimless sense of play, satiated but still desiring to chew, swallow, and digest.

But this one might be different. He’ll see how he feels when they get back to their room. Soon there will be places to go, and a body to destroy, and words to say, in the darkness of night under thin hotel sheets. But for now he sits suspended with his wife in the pool, weightless, and it’s perfect.

He'll get to everything in due time. There’s plenty of it. Currently taking p4 minific requests (1000 words or less), throw me an ask!

[nat20composure]

Man ok sorry I am constantly being critical on here but I keep thinking about how the shift from body positivity to neutrality happened and what sort of people spear headed it and getting really frustrated so I'm just posting it here:

I genuinely understand that a lot of people want to decenter the value of beauty from their lives because of the superficial nature of beauty and the Genuine Earth Shattering despair that caring about beauty can bring but like? One thing I have noticed is that a LOT of the people who are speaking in favor of body neutrality over body positivity are people who....are relatively close to or in proximity to the beauty standard?

And don't get me wrong, things like body dysmorphia and the Beauty Standard TM can hurt all sorts of people- It's kind of the point of them. The fact that nobody will ever be good enough for the standard is what keeps people consuming things and products that will bring them "closer" to it. But it does not escape me that a lot of the people who are pushing for body neutrality are also people that don't necessarily benefit from trying to broaden what we define as beautiful? Like....even if you don't FEEL beautiful, if you were a thin conventionally attractive white person, your proximity to the conventional beauty standard can leave you feeling like there is no need or benefit to actually challenging these beauty standards.

To clarify the perspective I am approaching this conversation from: I am a POC who is pretty "ambiguously brown". I benefit from colorism in the sense that I am of a lighter-medium tone of skin. And I have experienced some pretty drastic weight fluctuations since I was a child. I struggle pretty badly with body dysmorphia, and so I have no idea whether or not I am ugly or beautiful or whatever, but I have been bullied and complimented on my appearance on and off since childhood as well. For me personally the body positivity movement has been the Most helpful because it's actually forced me to confront and break down the preferences I was taught to have, whereas with body neutrality it was REALLY easy to slip into just. Passively allowing ableist, racist, and classist mindsets to wear me down.

I think it's also really important to recognize that allowing yourself to continue to passively hate YOURSELF for these things almost always always always leads to you inadvertently looking down on others for these same things. And these general beauty standards DEFINITELY inform how society as a whole treats people who do not meet the current ones.... When you're not being bullied because people think you are ugly, of course you do not feel any urgency about trying to fight the idea that you are.

I personally really appreciated the body positivity movement because of the way that it was proactively challenging those beauty standards to point out that one) our perception of beauty is rooted in a lot of racist and classist standards and two) that because beauty is subjective, it inherently applies to all of us?

I just feel like body positivity was doing a lot more to actually work on rewiring ones brain to confront the biases that they have and to garner more of a proactive appreciation for all kinds of bodies...Whereas with body neutrality, it can sometimes feel like it is? A bit of an excuse to never put in that work to acknowledge that fat people, or people with big noses, or people with acne, or people with darker skin, are also beautiful? It's really frustrating with me because I feel like it allows a passive coasting by of these mindsets that we were all raised with, with the argument that these are mindsets we were all raised with?

I think additionally I am also just a bit frustrated with the idea that there is a "better" standard to use when judging the value of one's body. I understand the mindset of prioritizing it's function over it's appearance....Also as a disabled person that does not make me feel even a little bit better or appreciatiative about/for my body.

I think personally what I wish the mindset was when it came to bodies was more like this:

-We acknowledged that the value of our bodies is priceless regardless of how functional or beautiful we are.

-We still worked towards unpacking our conceptions of what is and isn't beautiful: Challenged these harmful standards and allowed room for personal growth in the way that we view ourselves and other people.

-Prioritized personhood over both form and function while still allowing room and grace for the human parts of us that want to feel beautiful or want to not think about beauty at all.....

Just. Blah I have a lot of feelings and opinions about it but my main points are like) consider how your refusal to endure the discomfort of challenging your preferences affects and informs your treatment of other people and)

[the-lincyclopedia]

One of my primary beliefs is that anyone who wants to solve or mitigate a problem should care about correctly understanding the causes of that problem. And I find that often, people prefer to make assumptions about what causes the problem and then get upset when you challenge their assumptions, even when you're right.

I think those of us who are activists have a tendency to notice when people with power and authority make incorrect assumptions about us or about other people they have authority over. We help each other learn to notice this.

We know it happens in health care: We know that doctors often assume that a patient's symptoms are a result of the patient being fat, and that the patient "just needs to lose weight" in order to feel better, even when something entirely different is causing the symptoms. We know that psychiatrists sometimes assume that a woman having interpersonal issues must have borderline personality disorder or bipolar disorder, because obviously those are the right labels for difficult women, when actually she's autistic and the psychiatrist didn't bother to check.

We know it happens with how children are treated: Whether we're activists or not, many of us remember times when our parents or teachers acted like we were breaking rules or causing a scene for no good reason, when actually something was wrong and we were trying to solve the problem/get help/generally cope as best we could, and we just weren't asked why we were acting that way.

But the reason I'm making this post is because we, as activists, are not immune from making bad assumptions either.

So many people on this site, and in many activist spaces I'm in, talk as if every incident of harm (at least, every incident where "the other side" causes harm) involves deliberate malice--often nothing but deliberate malice. There's rarely any public consideration of other potential causes, such as genuine ignorance, competing priorities, differing but legitimate values, being stretched too thin, etc. Even greed sometimes gets left out of the conversation, despite the fact that I'm quite certain that greed is a more common motivator than sadism.

I want to be clear that I'm not making this point to cast the powerful as victims, to argue that they're misunderstood, or to scold you about being nicer to your oppressors. That is not my motivation.

I am making this point because when we assume that someone is motivated by malice and sadism when they're really acting from ignorance, greed, a different set of values, or a lack of time/resources to do things in the way they should be done, we are going to propose the wrong solutions.

A teacher who's not using universal design because they hate disabled kids and want neurodivergent students to suffer needs to be removed from the classroom. A teacher who's not using universal design because they don't know enough about it needs additional training. A teacher who's not using universal design because they're totally overwhelmed by having 35 middle school students in each of six periods throughout the day needs more resources and support. The problems look similar, or even the same, at first, but when you look closer, you see that different causes require different solutions.

Obviously, there are groups whose motivations are a lot less sympathetic than those of an overworked teacher. But even when it comes to, like, execs at health insurance companies, I'm guessing they're more likely to care about making money and be pretty apathetic about the details, rather than cackling gleefully at the thought of driving people to bankruptcy or causing them to suffer and even die for lack of care.

And if we want a more equitable world, I think it's logical and even vital that we know what causes the problems we want to solve, because that affects what the correct solutions are and can guide us in avoiding unintended consequences.

[finsterhund]

For whatever reason I've been hyperfocusing on Skinamarink (2022) even though I think it is an immensely flawed movie. (I guess it's like a Seventh Brother scenario. Where I don't think it's peak cinema but I still find something very specific that I can relate to and thus become obsessed and incorporate it into my existence) Maybe it will continue to grow on me. Who knows.

I summarized it in the friend group as “Childhood neglect simulator” and I do stand by that. Analogue horror childhood neglect liminal space simulator is perhaps more apt.

But this film really embodies just what it’s like to be a terrified toddler left to fend for himself in the dark all alone.

Spoilers under this

Unfortunately I have to be honest and confess that the movie lacks substance and the style it oozes doesn't make up for that. It's slow, drags, and is boring at times. So much of the movie is "stare into a dark void and nothing happens." There's build up, and then there's “ASMR spooky liminal house tour” and this sadly felt like more of the latter. So much of what makes the movie standing out to me is because I am nyctophobic and never actually grew out of the primal toddler-aged fear the film invokes. Especially as there are periods of worse mental health where I regress all the way down to that age. The joke my friends made about it putting me to sleep if I ate an edible and watched it is not accurate. Because it simulates nyctophobia remarkable well. So I couldn't be bored out of focusing lol.

I was immediately offput by how much excessive cheesy after effects film grain filter was dumped onto the footage in post. I joke a lot about how it wants to be 70s vibe film but then it is a 16x9 resolution which took me out of the vibe pretty hard. And due to much of the movie "holding on this shot of practically nothing" I was especially distracted by modern aspects of the house such as the extremely modern 2010s wall outlet cover and the dollar tree night light (which REALLY distracted me the first viewing. I could not stop thinking about that motherfucker was not from 1995.)

The movie also did not have a folley artist and presumably the creator Kyle Ball did all the mixing himself and used free sound effects from a public domain stock archive himself. Which unfortunately really shows. Folley is an art and strange sound effect choices took me out of it on several occasions. It also feels like the background noise wasn't layered over top of specific sounds properly at certain points.

Another issue was inconsistent subtitling. There are times when there are then and times that you think really should be like those and have them but they don't.

I understand this film unlike his YouTube videos were crowdfunded and he had other people on the team so it's somewhat disappointing there isn't a noticable increase of production value(?) Just mostly an increase in length. Other than additional actors there really isn’t much that sets it above his short film “Heck” which due to its shorter length I felt was more engaging. (Although the cancer thing was very :/ you are on thin ice mr ball)

What substance is there though is very good. You can tell the creator started out with short form liminal space nostalgia "analogue horror" YouTube shorts and ASMR aesthetic soundscapes. This would work so much better if it was like his shorter videos and trimmed the fat. Otherwise it needs to have a cast that the audience can actually see and observe the interactions of more. There's gotta be a balance, again, style and substance.

The fact that it’s like watching a childhood nightmare is incredible, and if that’s what Kyle set out to achieve then he for sure succeeded. But a story this is unfortunately not.

I feel if there was media like this that had more emphasis on how the characters experienced their predicament it would do wonders. It could easily be peak experimental HoDcore.

The entity itself was so criminally underutilized. I think there's maybe a minute of combined dialogue when you add up its dialogue with that of the human cast.

Which is a shame because I feel once again, if we had more of character interaction it would be more engaging.

The entity toys with the little boy Kevin and I didn't realize until I watched it a second time and read someone else talk about the movie that one of the later scenes shows it killing him and immediately bringing him back to do it again presumably for its own amusement. (Extremely relatable character right here. I am Kevin 🤣)

This was shown by blood splattering and then being reversed like a tape being rewound. The importance of the tape metaphor became more apparent on the second watch. The first watch I felt the film relied too heavily on showing the public domain cartoons. It wasn't until much later the entity is shown YouTube pooping them and it actually becomes relevant and the comparison is more obvious.

There were instances where I feel things were a bit too vague in a "what does it mean" way. I'm torn because I don't think every little thing should be explicitly explained, but I think there should be some context, you know? (Why the entity moved things, what it did to the mom, etc.)

A big reason why I can overlook how empty and slow it is is because this experience is so quintessential as a toddler in Canada during the end of the analogue age. I feel that the toys and the public domain cartoons featured were things that never were distinctly important childhood items of significance but they were things I recognized for sure. So it was this uncanniness of it being the stuff you had and remembered but never formed lasting long love/influence from. It isn’t your favourite film on VHS, it’s that compilation you’d watch sometimes ,etc.

The phone call the dad makes is so viscerally similar to the way my mom would talk to family members in phone calls about me. The uncanny warped by darkness face of the parent/entity at the end is SO MUCH like how that shit felt to me. And that got me thinking about additional aspects of that experience that if part of the movie would have amplified it further.

The biggest thing I think would really expand the concept is shadow play. Would require more special effects or very intentional practical effects but having the shadows tangibly move/behave abnormally would have been spectacular. That is one of the most defining horrors of my childhood. How shadows seemed to shift and move. A serious source of terror growing up was how the baseboard heater made the curtains above it move, and the shadows projected by the nightlight of those curtains would twist and roll and coil. During sleep paralysis I fucking grew to hate those curtains so much.

I personally care very little for edgy "child was in a coma the whole time" theories or "child's paranormal experiences were just a metaphor" theories so I'm not even going to bother getting into those. You know we're team "Not A Dream" on the Finsterhund channel. As far as I'm concerned the entity was literal.

There were a few jumpscares but they were just that really. The first one, where the older kid is looking at something freaky on the ceiling and the younger accidentally sneaks up behind felt natural, but the reveal that the entity took their face was unintentionally humorous. I literally said "Slenderman sister jumpscare" out loud and had to pause it because I was laughing so hard I got the mood ruined.

The fisher price jumpscare though I really liked. The actual face changing wasn't too spoopy but oh my god when the camera shows what it looks like with the flashlight off, with the very faint glint of the outer circles of the whites of its eyes. That freaked me out so bad. That is the embodiment of nyctophobia making you see demons out of regular items. I don't even know if that was an edit or if those phones just normally look like that under very low light but man.

Every time someone gives me shit about leaving the lights on I will pin them down and force them to look at this until they understand.

I have a personal anecdote in that when I was a toddler I was dumped off at somebody’s house. Not someone I know of and not a family member. And they had a fucking mask on the wall and they made me sleep in that room in the dark with that stupid fucking mask. And I  fucking hated that goddamn mask. Fuck it. Fuck those people andtheir creepy fucking mask.

Some of the more tangible things the entity does that made the story more engaging were sadly also detrimental towards the mood. The toilet disappearing with a silly noise being one such instance. Removing the doors and windows and removing/incapacitating the parents I can understand. But why did the entity remove the toilet? There's even a scene where the children slide buckets into the bathroom to show the aftermath of this porcelain pilfering. Was it just for the entity to dehumanize and further torment them? I feel there were better ways to demonstrate that without silly disappearing toilet.

Because of my prominent nyctophobia I have no clue how much I can credit the movie for in it's "camera pointed at a dark void" shots and how much was just my brain filling in holes. For certain scenes I did take screenshots and blast up the contrast to see if there were literal things in the darkness pixels but every time there wasn't except for the face at the end. It was just my brain, not intentional edits in the film. I feel if there were intentional nyctophobia hallucinations they outright edited into the voids that effect would be brought to people who aren't me lol.

Honestly the biggest thing this movie instilled in me was wanting to make my own with more meat and potatoes hahaha. I'm thinking actually using a camcorder instead of editing gimmicky filters in post, including practical effect tangible interactions between the cast and the entity, etc.

I know I'm acting really harsh but I do feel like it had an exuberant amount of potential to cater directly to me but then it just sorta fizzled out if that makes sense. And I do think that so much of it was excellent that it makes what didn’t work hurt more. Unfortunately I don't think setting the mood is the only thing you need to do to create engaging horror you need a reason to care about the ones experiencing it.

Like I said, it had so much style. But style alone doesn't do it for me. Mainly because my brain already does that on its own. So I wish Skinamarink had more to it in regards towards the stuff that I can't just go and do to myself when the power goes out.

In regards to watching it with edible vs without, the edible made my nyctophobic perception of the dark void shots worse. Which is something important I should be aware of in the future for sure as this likely would have real world implications as well.

Again, I want to stress that I am glad to have seen this movie and I feel my disappointment is because I'm aware of just how far beyond this movie could have been. Or something.

Lastly, a nitpick. The song that the movie derives it's name is in the public domain. Most people know it from The Elephant Show, but the song itself was made in 1910. I really feel like it could have been incorporated somehow. And on the subject of music I feel there could have been if not outright musical scoring, some more prominent ambiance(?) What's that called where you basically write ambiance as if it's music. There's a HoD fan album that does this.

IDK call me a normie for wishing we saw more of Kevin as a character but yeah. I do wish that.

Also a running joke I had in both watchings was calling the entity “asthmatic master of darkness” because of its voice. I want to specify this.

Anyways, disassociating Cayden simulator looking pretty good.

[kiruliom]

this pride month, normalize sexuality!!!

yes even for trans women, yes even for pre-op trans people, yes even intersex people, salmacians, fat people, POC, lesbians, physically and mentally disabled people, people recovering from EDs, etc. just because they get 'fetishized' doesnt mean they should hide who they are or that they are gross because they dont hide it, and to be fair, most people are sexual. (also I dont see yall being mad over a cishet white thin girl being sexual or calling it fetishization, unless ur like, really cringe and hold basically christian values of purity)

I get its very proship /neg of me to say this (though Im personally anti) you guys are worshipping purity culture, which is very bootlicker-y and will doom us fucking all

also you dont need it to be pride month to reblog, dont guilt trip people in your post additions etc etc. that shit makes me hella uncomfy.

[starvels]

Cw: Fatphobia, body shaming, disordered eating, suicidal ideation

We talking about that “””banter””” in Marvel’s Avengers when the team bullied Tony about his weight and he talks about being on a juice cleanse?? Because I hate that so, so much. Like. Tony was depressed! and isolated for 5 years!!! And like, Not Doing Ok!

@blossomsinthemist was talking about it and like :(((((( https://www.tumblr.com/blossomsinthemist/721606463816105984/nat-may-claim-she-never-broke-cover-to-help

Plus the fact that it’s heavily implied Nat, that takes part in the bullying, KNOWS Tony was depressed and suicidal https://www.tumblr.com/blossomsinthemist/721588267817025536/i-need-more-fics-out-squareenixs-steve-coming-to

And like you said, he is still thin in the game, but like, so what if he wasn’t? Tony can be any shape and he wouldn’t deserve that! He could still be any shape and still kick ass in a literal power suit. Like. :(

(I kinda liked how I’m the game Tony seemed to have a bit of a hunch to him, man’s a workaholic that is either typing or leaned over a work table and I liked seeing that in a character design (tho it might just be a bad rig and all the characters have it, it’s just hidden under their costumes), but -11000099999 points for the ““banter””. EG Thor all over again)

yeah! that is what i was referring to in this post. as i'm watching playthroughs to make MA content for STG, i found this scene so off-putting and it reminded me of a lot of other ones i've seen in comics. & feeling just the general vibe reading a comic that i am never gonna get to see fat people be heroic. especially not at least, without emphasizing that they're a fat person sure, but they are still heroic, don't worry!

fat heroes' heroism always comes as a caveat to their body shape and weight.

nasty!!!!

but yes blossoms' point here abt tony and perception of self and internalizing a lot of judgement values about his appearance and how fun it is to explore that are so apt!

blossoms always handles tony's relationship with his own body in such compelling and intricate ways that are very tender and vulnerable. and i agree! i also like exploring these themes and playing with how tony relates to being a public figure, as well as how he relates to himself and the ways in which he feels pleasure or contentment or beauty or pride.

to blossoms+anons second point, abt nat knowing, yeah. if you read it just in-text, it can be really complicated by their own individual and combined relationships to trauma and processing and how much info they are sharing between them. that's always very interesting to eke out of interactions w the two of them -- two people who can guard their hearts and heads so intensely.

but taking a meta-textual approach to it, i flat out think when people ascribe their own -isms to characters, they are not thinking about how it fits a character's personality or interpersonal relationships.

we, as the fans, do the labor of asking how it can be internally consistent for a character that grew up without bodily autonomy, that knows intimately how loss and trauma affect your bodily functions, who knows exactly how tony fights and what it takes to do that, who knows that bodies are only one tool in a whole box -- makes fun of someone who trusts her, on her team, for potentially gaining weight. we hypothesis and convolute the relationship and infer from the absences of a canon text. the writers don't have to do any of that work. and that more than anything generally proves to me how shoehorned in all the -isms people apply to characters are.

they're not thinking three levels deep. and to be honest, i like our collective 3 level thoughts better than there, so ! phooey on them!! they don't get a seat at our table.

it literally doesn't matter what your body looks like if you're designing a metal suit to go around it that is based on non-physical input to function. and tony's found family should abso-fucking-lutely not be (even jokingly) shaming him for disordered eating and suicidal ideation, esp not during a battle lol. but yes, tony should have a hunch and neck problems and whine and use a heating pad and tiger balm too much <3 beloved greasemonkey sun.

[orangeteawithstevia]

I hate how people are kinder when I’m thinner. I understand the psychology behind it and that most are probably not intentionally doing it.

People always try to pretend this isn’t true, either out of misguided attempts to help anorexics/bulimics and also comfort overweight people.

I think that the majority of women that grew up fat and ended up with restrictive eating disorders had some moment where they realized that they would miss out on things that they wouldn’t miss out on if they were thin. This is not meant to be “meanspo” and I am in no way shape or form proana, but as much as people hate to admit/accept it, the world generally treats thin people better than fat people. I also want to clarify that while I’m against fat shaming and believe that being fat does not subtract from your value as a person, not to mention how I spent my childhood and teen years obese so I completely understand the experience, but I’m not going to lie and tell you that society values fat people just as much as skinny people. It’s horrible but it’s true. As a kid nobody told me that I was too fat to be able to have certain things, but deep down I always knew. It’s sort of like how when I was 13 and went out with some skinny girl friends to the pool, all the boys talked to them and ignored me. They were sweet and don’t want me to feel bad, and tried to pretend that it was really me that the boys wanted to talk to, but we all knew the truth. I also want to mention that I don’t personally believe that someone’s a bad person if they aren’t attracted to overweight people. I get it, I am really only attracted to healthy weight people (I would always choose a healthy weight person over an obese or underweight person assuming their personalities were identical). Sorry I got sidetracked. But there’s a point in most overweight/obese (sadly even healthy weight) girls lives where they realize that they will almost always lose to a skinny girl. This is obviously not always true and there are tons of exceptions (and not to mention how a lot of fat girls are sabotaged by low confidence) but in general the fat girl is never going to get the guy, be the prom queen, be popular, etc. And growing up as an obese girl, I always felt there were certain dreams out of reach and that I was a fool to even dare to think of them. And worst of all was the shame. I know that people will say that fat isn’t a feeling, but in my experience it most definitely is. The best way I can explain it is that feeling fat feels like every awkward and shameful feeling mixed together, like some kind of shame cocktail. It’s feeling worthless and that everything you say or do is awkward and disgusting. That you are disgusting and a burden and not worth other people’s time.

But after losing 40 pounds and I’m now just a regular healthy weight woman, life is so much different. After losing weight, girls that would never speak to me before would invite me places, the boys I liked liked me back, I was nominated for prom Queen, got the lead roles, get to wear the cute clothes, nobody criticizes my weight or what foods I eat (I used to receive nasty comments all the time, especially the infamous “you have have such a pretty face” which I would receive ALL the time. Now I’m just told that I’m pretty), and most importantly of all I feel like I’m allowed to dream again.

This is truly the only thing that keeps me from recovering. The knowledge that anything other than losing weight will turn me back into my little shame ridden obese 12 year old self. And I don’t think I could survive a life like that again.

[marinetti-dinner-party]

tbh fascist aesthetes being uggos reminds me a bit of fat people who go out of their way to hate other fat people.* when i was chunkier (at the risk of projecting) i remember i made lots of denigrating comments about fat people. because i wasn't like them, i thought, i knew how terrible it was to be fat. you gotta love me, random people i'm trying to ingratiate myself with, i share your values (of being weird and gross about fatties). the important thing isn't to be thin but to feel shame. it's like how people are more forgiving of fat people if they act out the appropriate public self-flagellation (exercising to the point of abasement, eating gross expensive diet food). you gotta police the boundaries of acceptability. if you're on the border between chubby and fat you're the last hired first fired of body politics. you're the italians of fatness. there's a hierarchy and if you have to pull the ladder up after you, so be it.

maybe the ugly fascists think that if they have the good sense to feel shame they'll be forgiven for the crime of existing while ugly.**

a clever fascist aesthete might say "yes, the world has made me ugly, i grew up around degeneracy. but the important thing is that i'm improving." which does seem to contradict the 'beauty is truth' argument. at this point, beauty is tautology.

a more thorough and thoughtful fascist aesthete person might say "it's not even beauty. the world sucks, it made me this way, my body is full of microplastics, and i want it not to be, this is being done to us on a systemic level." which is something i like, something i agree with, as someone who wants the world to be better. that's where i could meet people on their own terms. most of the time online it gets turned into 'individual solutions for collective problems' (as in: eat raw eggs and avoid seed oils), but we can fix that by banding together as working people and ensuring democratic control over our workplaces.

or maybe it's all immaterial and it's a case of "you don't need to be a chef to know when food tastes good." i can respect that take. a critic doesn't need to be good at doing art, they just need to be incisive in interpreting it.

*i'm using 'fat' as a neutral descriptor here, as one might use 'thin' or 'tall' or 'brunette.'

**same with the word 'ugly.' except it's even more abstract and arbitrary.