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kelin-is-writing · 1 year

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ok so uhm i might've submitted the first ask sonner than i wanted to xD i accidentally used a shortcut to submit it. i had no idea this was a thing lol (i think it was ctrl + enter) aaand then i misclicked and unfollowed you so i followed again and ye... it's one of those days today 💀

anyway - more dabi thoughts :')

imagine the sheer amount of rage that overcomes dabi when you get catcalled in public. you were supposed to meet up at some place and he was waiting for you since he arrived a little early. he could already see you walk down the street when suddenly a stranger whistled after you and said smt that clearly made you feel uncomfortable.

good luck trying to keep your man under control bc he's about to go feral.

- 🥛 (this feels so much better. the milk needs to be there.)

HEAR ME OUT— dabi would be so pisssed at witnessing someone catcalling you, basically treating you like an object or an animal.

you ain’t a dog, so why are these bastards whistling your way? ohh he’s so gonna burn them to fucking ashes, whom the fuck do they think are saying “let’s go have some fun” to? he will show them in person something fun.

while walking toward dabi, you see him raise from his spot on the bench he was sitting on and walk your way which makes you beam instantly, those three molluscs forgotten already as soon as you saw your pretty boy stomping heavily to you “hey baby! how–”, but then you noticed the grim expression on his face and when he reached you dabi walked past your silhouette, immediately you froze on place not understanding his behavior.

“i dare ya bastard to try whistle my girl’s way once more, i’ll burn those ugly lips of yours!”, at hearing his roar you gasp loudly before turning and rushing to him, arms closed around your boyfriend’s waist in a useless try to stop him, who had his hand lifted mid-air with blue flames bursting from it, reminding the dark haired young man that he’s a wanted villain.

those three leave right away after recognising dabi and while that was a good thing, it wasn’t a relief because now the citizens around you were going to call the cops (or even worse, the heroes) on you two, which is why quickly you grab his hand and drag him along in your impromptu escapade, rushing as fast as possible somewhere you two won’t be find by whoever was probably were on your tracks.

getting into an empty alley of a secondary road that would easily get you away from danger, once made other few shortcuts and checking that no one was on sight, you finally slowed down until you didn’t came to an halt. dabi in silence behind your bended figure, watching as you try to catch your breath.

“everyone ‘s gonna be on your back now, dumbass!”, you scolded punching him on his stomach, making the boy spurt air, before glaring at him menacingly. dabi was about to talk back at you, about how it’s crazy how you’re screaming at him, when you kept talking “if you’re gonna burn those trashbags, at least do it when no one is looking.”, and that was your actual point for screaming at him, which made the villain snort amused at you, an hand lifted so his wrist could hide the little smirk curling up his lips.

he then turned to you with a tender smile on his lips, a lifted eyebrow as his right hand went to rest on top of your head gently, cerulean eyes looking down at you in that soft way he reserved to you and no one else.

“sorry i made you worry baby, next time i’ll make sure to burn them in a way that won’t put me in danger.”, with an expression that’s a mix of worry and weak menace because you’re pouting so cutely, you nod firmly at his words. his face suddenly went serious, eyebrows knitted together and the corners of his mouth downwards “it’s just... it pissed me off so much how they were objectifying you, that i didn’t really think about where i was...”, he explained frustrated, hand going now to the back of his head, still boiling with rage at the thought of those three vermins.

you stared at him in awe for a long while before wrapping your arms around dabi’s chest and snuggling against, feeling reassured right away the moment his scent surrounded you “i love you so much, best boyfriend in the world!”, at your full of energy response, the arsonist simply melted while groaning in conflict before closing his arms around your shoulders, chin resting on top of your head as he stared forward with pursed lips and cheeks tinted of red.

“what am i gonna do with you?”, he blurted out exasperated, because damn... wasn’t he one lucky man to have an amazing girlfriend such as you.

“uhm?”, you hummed looking up at him confused after not hearing well what he just said, his voice was too low.

“nothing. shall we go now?”, with that dabi just held your hand and walked slightly ahead of you, trying extremely hard to hide his flushed cheeks but failing miserably as you got a small glimpse of them as soon as you had lifted your eyes on him, a small giggle leaving your mouth as you jumped at his side all happy and giddy.

you call him cute, then he calls you out on it horrified by you saying something like that about a villain, which you argue that it’s nonsense and while bickering lovingly with each others you two finally start up your date.

#kelin responds #answered #🥛#bnha fluff #mha fluff #dabi fluff #touya todoroki fluff #bnha x reader fluff #mha x reader fluff #dabi x reader fluff #touya todoroki x reader fluff #PLEASE HE'S THE TYPE OF BOYFRIEND WHO'S WHIPPED AS HELL FOR HIS GIRLFRIEND #and no i don't accept 'constructive criticism' or contrasting opinions on this one. you guys can keep 'em for yourselves 😋#BECAUSE HE JUST IS. AND I DO NOT ACCEPT ANY OTHER OPINION THAN THIS ONE.#he literally fanboys so damn hard and would be in awe at everything his gf does please 😭💔#i want to date dabi so fucking bad guys... even more than usual...

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sebastiangarde · 2 years

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Skullstealer Crab

A man shambles closer, his clothes wet and moldy. As he looks up, eyestalks pop out of empty eyesockets, as crab-like claws reach out of the mouth.

One Man's Trash, Another Crab's Treasure. Where there is death for some, there is opportunity for others. Like regular hermit crabs, skullstealer crabs are weak and vulnerable without shelter. But instead of abandoned mollusc shells, they inhabit the skulls of drowned corpses. Crawling in either through the mouth or by cracking the back of the skull open with their powerful claws, they eat and replace the brain.

Grim Puppeteer. Wrapping their tail around the spinal cord, skullstealer crabs interface with the nervous system and gain control of the host body, piloting it like a crustacean puppetmaster. Bodies rot fast, however, so the skullstealers must be constantly on the look for new, fresher shelter. And nothing is fresher than alive.

Many skullstealer hermit crabs live near coastal settlements, crawling out of the sea at night and shambling into settlements. Possessing a rudimentary intelligence, skullstealers know to disguise themselves well enough to get within distance to extend their claws through the mouth and tear out the throat of a lone traveler.

Alien Minds. Strangely, when multiple skullstealer crabs are in close proximity, they may form a psychic connection, forming an alien hivemind. This grants them an extended ability to affect the minds of others.

They form large colonies within coastal caverns. From there, they conduct raiding parties to drag live creatures to their lair, where they use their sticky mucus to attach them to the walls until new shelters are needed.

Adventure Hooks

Cult of a sea god worships the skullstealer crabs as emissaries of their patron. They consider becoming a host the greatest honor.

Skullstealer crabs have been attacking coastal settlements in greater numbers. The rumour is that they are being used as foot soldiers by some more powerful, nefarious source.

#dungeons and dragons #dnd #dnd 5e #dnd monster #homebrew #garde creations #crab #horror #body horror

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40sandfabulousaf · 1 month

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大家好! I've wanted to visit a new restaurant for some time but didn't get the chance to do so. Over the weekend, I finally stepped into the Malaysian dining establishment. Their decor is inspired by Qing Dynasty noodle houses, and features traditional Chinese paintings as well as wooden tables and stools. A wooden shelf in the centre of the restaurant neatly houses jars of Chinese wine. Their menu showcases a wide variety of Jiangxi province style noodles with different toppings for diners to select, as well as Malaysian pan mee.

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I decided to try their sliced fish noodle soup. Just before serving, the waitress poured a small amount of hua diao jiu (Chinese rice wine) into the piping hot broth. This step added depth, flavour and fragrance to the soup. OMG it was divine! Thick, succulent and fresh slices of batang (spanish mackerel), nai bai (a type of bak choy) as well as Chinese parsley were perfectly complemented by QQ, highly slurpable thick bee hoon (rice vermicelli). Not a single strand of noodles was left; I finished it all. Definitely returning to try their other menu items.

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I also revisited the local Western-style food stall selling seafood spaghetti. This time, I tried their spaghetti with mutton chops. $15.90 got me 3 decent sized, thick pieces of meat and a good amount of pasta. After finishing the mutton, I tossed the spaghetti with the tomato sauce and brown gravy and cleaned out the plate. I might try more local Western-style meals since they tend to be less overpriced. Mutton is tender and tastes just as good as lamb, so why pay premium? 3 lamb cutlets average about $36 - $48 here, more than double the price of my tasty meal!

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Time for another hawker delight, lesser known amongst tourists but very popular with locals. There're 2 versions - oyster omelette and oyster egg. Flour is added to the oyster omelette for a lightly crispy finish, whilst oyster egg doesn't contain flour, so it's more fragrant and eggy. I prefer the latter and ordered it for lunch. Tearing apart the golden goodness revealed fresh plump molluscs, which, when paired with thick pieces of fluffy egg and dipped into the tangy chilli sauce, instantly transported my taste buds to paradise. This large, very filling plate was $6.

Lastly, we had rainy days lately, perfect for mee soto (Muslim chicken noodle soup) so that was what I had, with added chicken. Crunchy bean sprouts interspersed with noodles and a spicy, robust broth made this dish a killer combo. It was so delicious, after the meal, I complimented the stall owner and told him I'll be back, which made him nod and smile broadly. This mighty bowl of yum is priced at $4, to which I added $1 extra of chicken. Meanwhile, the situation still remains grim in Gaza. Their hospitals have been decimated by Israeli attacks, leaving them unable to treat patients. I'll continue to pray for a permanent ceasefire and two-state solution. There needs to be peace already. 下次见!

#Youtube

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iandeleonwrites · 2 years

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Trauma Dentata: A Brief History of the Tooth in the Popular Imagination

Since the mid twentieth century, North American children have likely been brought up with some rudimentary understanding of maturity and commerce vis-à-vis the shedding and growing of our teeth. We leave them under a sleeping pillow in the night for some unseen benefactor, a so-called fairy who gladly takes away our cast-off molars for a sawbuck or gold coins if we’re lucky. Thus, teeth become intimately linked in the collective unconscious with the physical and emotional development of our young bodies, not to mention the mystical realm of dreams and nightmares, economic pressures, and sexual fantasy.

Freud’s landmark case study of Little Hans draws upon many of these same connections in detailing a young boy’s struggle to understand sexual difference in light of an increasingly complex worldview conflating the mysterious nature of female reproductive organs with a crippling fear of well-endowed horses and their monstrous teeth. But how should we begin to step back and trace such powerful associations between our enamel-covered food grinders and evolving notions of sexuality, sexual maturity – where do we start?

Sobek, a crocodilian deity of ancient Egypt, might have been one of the first to concretise this understanding between vast rows of sharp, regenerative teeth and ideas of fertility, sexual prowess. To date, scientific research on the self-rejuvenating skeletal system of animals like sharks, gators, and crocodiles, continues to centre around its application toward the restoration of youth and vitality in humans. Powdered potions purporting to contain the remains of crocodile teeth, for example, have been marketed for years as aphrodisiacal elixirs within spiritual contexts.

It is no surprise then that amongst poachers, acquisition of the large, teeth-like tusks of elephants and sharp horns of the rhinoceros is a lucrative business, transforming these amputated appendages into highly sought-after totems of phallocentric pride and conquer-lust.

As early as 700 BCE, Monetaria moneta – a species of marine mollusc commonly known as the money cowrie – was used throughout China, India’s Malabar coast, and Africa as a means of trade. The smooth, egg-shaped shells typically feature a narrow, slit-like opening with toothed edges. Later, similar cowrie, along with elk’s teeth and assorted Dentalium – the genus containing toothy, tusk-shaped marine coastal shells – found their way amongst the indigenous peoples of North America’s Great Plains, forming part of a rich textile history that saw the embellishment of formal garments with such fashionable items, for which “the number of teeth symbolised the prowess of the husband-provider” and denoted “a family of means.”1

In the English language, a thing with sufficient teeth is a thing endowed with the necessary power and authority to see its will carried properly out. High-profile entertainment contracts have teeth, as do robust laws and amendments. Civic ordinances, federal arrest warrants, and court-appointed injunctions – all of these have teeth.

To be long in the tooth is to be considered old beyond one’s useful years. The phrase derives from the sobering fact of a horse’s physiology betraying its age through the mouth. To look a gift horse in the mouth, is thus to verify a horse’s viability through the close inspection of its teeth. Some length, of course, is desirable, implying a young, virile horse at peak levels of performance, but too much length raises cause for concern, and would no doubt spoil the success of any deal or trade.

In a gross pantomime of such practices, kidnapped Africans throughout the Trans-Atlantic slave trade were reported to have had their teeth inspected by would-be proprietors searching for signs of malnourishment and disease. A deeper look at this grim custom might go beyond its obvious reading as an oral-sadistic exercise in power, highlighting an implicit aspect: the outsized, neurotic fascination and trepidation projected onto the male Africans and the long tooth of their sex – historical site of pain and suffering at the hands of domineering whites.

But notions of masculinity being what they are – an ill-fitting confluence of prejudice, objectification, and subjugation – these insular whites elected over time to get their hands dirty less and less. The clear and present danger of the black phallus had become so taboo as to not even allow for mishandling. Genital torture was eventually outsourced to northern spheres of broader influence, namely academia and medical research institutions. There, at the turn of the century, the racist pseudoscience of eugenics allowed the tired lynch mobs of America to trade in their rusty banana knives in favour of a cleaner, silent program of genocide through forced sterilisation.

Thus the public castration of Black Americans now joined the symbolic order, becoming more insidious and covert, forcing the locus of traumatic violence to likewise make the migratory journey north, into the realm of the oral, where the perceived threat could take on a diminished capacity, becoming more bite-sized and digestible. In American History X, Derek (Edward Norton), a white supremacist, performs the heinous curb stomping of a black youth caught burglarising his truck. This extrajudicial suburban execution involves the placing of the prostrate victim’s teeth around the edge of a curb and, well, you can probably guess the rest. From here, it is no stretch at all to connect a death via obstruction of the orally-accessed windpipe, such as with the late Eric Garner.

The difficulties of navigating life with a mouthful of missing teeth were not lost on legendary silent film director Tod Browning, whose weird tales belied a lifelong interest in the obscure and the abject. Back in Hollywood’s early days, Browning found himself cast in the role of imprudent driver in a real-life narrative involving the fatal collision of his own speeding car and a service vehicle loaded with iron rails. Shot through with formidable arrows, like a steely version of Saint Sebastian, the beleaguered automobile delivered a tragic closing monologue in the form of untimely death for one and a host of grievous injuries to the others. Browning survived the cinematic ordeal with a shattered leg and the complete loss of his forward-facing teeth, necessitating a lengthy, albeit productive convalescence away from the industry.

During the 1927-1931 transition into talkies, Browning lent a trained eye (and newly mustachioed post-op countenance) to stories of Trauma Dentata, defined here for the first time as scenarios evincing the locus of psychological trauma within representations of teeth, or teeth-like apparatus.

His now lost masterpiece London After Midnight and the classic Dracula foreground a crepuscular phantasmagoria of razor-toothed wraiths whose centers of violent gravity, their power, emanate from the stylized gothic cathedrals of their oral cavities. Browning, a sometime alcoholic, was reported to have removed his painful and taboo dentures on at least one solemn occasion when, during a public altercation, he hurled the blasted things like a terrifying new species of porcelain bat, yelling at the offending party: “Here, why don’t you go and biteyourself!”

While consumers of vast quantities of blood, the nosferatu, pale, undead beings with unnaturally cold skin, technically have no blood actually circulating through their veins. This lack of blood flowing to their extremities renders the male vampire impotent by definition, relegating his entire erotic nature – like the black male of the repressive white imaginary – to the area of the mouth, a hell of pearly gates punctuated by a powerful set of retracting beast-fangs hidden beneath the gum line. As the Vets say: “If you ain’t got it in the hips, you better have it in the lips.”2

Marcel (Pierre Clémenti) in Belle de Jour is a man who certainly has it in the lips. The handsome gangster, oozing with silver screen sexuality, enters the film’s quaint brothel with a triumphant black trench coat, moppish head of hair, and glossy, patent leather short-boots. He can definitely get it. With director Buñuel’s staging and Clémenti’s deft characterisation, the ease of Marcel’s masculine station is complicated through his use of a walking stick – classic symbol of infirmity, impotence – and a mouth full of surgical-grade chrome dentures standing in for a missing row of teeth knocked out in a recent street fight.

But despite the presence of these traditional signifiers of the castrated man, Clémenti is able to weaponise Marcel’s shortcomings, making of them instead surprisingly queer and alluring fetish objects, prefiguring the rise of customisable luxury cosmetic grillz popularised by African American Hip-Hop artists.

Early on in the quarantine of 2020, Netflix’s documentary phenomenon Tiger King roared across our timelines, introducing viewers to a bevy of beguiling subjects, including John Finlay, who became an unwitting internet meme in the wake of the show’s meteoric rise in popularity. As the erstwhile, salt-of-the-earth ex-husband of titular King Joe Exotic, Finlay bared his innocent, interrupted smile for the judgy eyes of the movie cameras.

The result of persistent drug use, Finlay’s remaining, candlepin-like teeth were the source of much merriment. That is, until the movie cameras caught up with him again. In the years since recording the documentary footage, Finlay had bought himself a brand new set of teeth, lifting a sort of collective fog for audiences who suddenly found the man uncompromisingly attractive, making him the internet’s latest celebrity boyfriend and providing a tidy dramatic arc for the rookie heartthrob’s well-earned fifteen minutes of fame. John Finlay went from being a zero to hero, not in the space of a few months, but in the close distance between two canines and a handful of premolars.

But can we have too much teeth? For this writer, who was born with no less than six now-extracted wisdom teeth, the consequences of being full in the tooth are all too familiar. Mind the gap as we continue to probe the dental politics of lack and excess.

At the dawn of the new millennium, blossoming actor Christian Bale found himself ready for the next stage of his professional life. A new, potentially career-defining opportunity was waiting for him. All he had to do was get rid of his ginormous teeth.

Upon the release of American Psycho, Bale admitted to having had to make the somewhat difficult decision of having his teeth fixed for the iconic part. In order to better fill the role of literal American psychopath Patrick Bateman, Bale’s supposedly “vampiric” incisors and “feminising” gap between his top teeth would have to go.3 Although rebuffed by statistical facts, humans draw comfort from imagining our criminals as somehow monstrously different from the rest of us. To convincingly play the narcissistic, insecure Wall Street man-child butchering sex workers amidst a Reaganomic fugue state in 1980s Manhattan, Bale would have to conform to popular conventions and make of his teeth an uncanny valley.

His noticeably reduced tooth-line certainly adds to his menacing portrayal as the bloodthirsty Bateman, a Valentino-suited power broker with a raging, ambiguous sexuality to go with that eerily short smile and cabbinalistic ideations. The many insecurities and violent appetites swirling within Bateman are mirrored in the boundless accumulation of wealth and personal prestige found in our society.

Perhaps the most surreal and telling manifestation of this despotic worldview has its cinematic apex during a fatal three-way that ends with a naked (save for pristine Nikes) Bateman chasing a young woman through the quiet halls of his indifferent apartment building, the locus of his dento-phallo power momentarily shifted back below the waist, where a designer chainsaw discreetly covers up his exposed penis. An edenic Adam for the slasher age.

Women too experience anxieties of excess and lack in regards to dental appearance. In Gap-Toothed Women, the “feminising” gap occurring between the upper front teeth is explored in relation to the Western male gaze, and its historically negative appraisal of women taking up too much space, even if it’s in their own goddamn mouths. Women with these pronounced gaps in their teeth have had to fight, literally tooth and nail, for their right to appear on billboards, in television commercials, and across the covers of magazines, flouting prevailing standards of beauty.

Because if there’s one thing humans struggle with it’s the abject, the in-between. That thing that is neither one, nor the other, ambiguous. What was true for Finlay and Bale is also true for women. They’ve got to go in one direction or the other: either the gap is filled, patched and smoothed over like a section of drywall, or the pillars that define the offending gap are dissolved altogether, crumbling like columns upon the temple floor.

In the popular imagination of the heterosexual male, there exists a fear of women’s reproductive power that renders the vagina a site for potential trauma dentata, making the oral cavity an attractive substitute, despite the literal presence of dentata. Here, the male engaged in oral sex subsumes the threat of phallic violence as long as his experience reproduces a conception of the mouth as a toothless spectacle. Locker room talk has indeed ventured into the erotic possibilities of bedding senior women, in the hopes that their removable dentures allow for a more enjoyable, friction-less fellating experience. It is no wonder that the intended chastity belt of orthodontic braces creates such consternation for the adventurous adolescent male.

The mouth of women has been a critical battleground for the dominant patriarchal order since time immemorial. From those parted lips, jettisoned upon flashing tongues, such secrets might be revealed, injustices given voice to, as might disturb the whole delicate balance of the carnivalesque male power structure. Here, as in the cinema, silence was golden.

Consider the scold’s bridle, an archaic instrument of wearable torture used as a form of punishment and public humiliation against women deemed “riotous” or “troublesome” in their speech, gossipy in their manner, or simply, common old “rude nags” and “scolds”. The muzzling iron framework of the bridle pinned the woman’s tongue against her upper palate, preventing her from speaking, and resulting in a variety of unpleasant side effects, including fatigue of the mouth and excessive production of saliva. In other words, a self-lubricating wet dream scenario for the vagina phobic’s oral-displacement, an ovipositing face-fucker of Alien imaginaries.

To wash down the above image, let’s re-focus our discussion toward the realm of popular serial killers and their fictional counterparts. For Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez, a well documented history of trauma dentata factored heavily in their apprehension and later convictions. Bundy had a mouthful of poorly aligned teeth and a proclivity for biting. Ramirez (The Night Stalker) was the stuff of oral nightmares. After a lifetime of neglected hygiene and excessive sugar intake, glimpses of Ramirez’s rotted, foul-smelling teeth became his calling card. Both used their abnormal dental situations to great effect in their predations, but lest we forget, there is no on-to-one ratio between bad teeth and sociopathy.

While a bruised self-image may have contributed to their growing sense of alienation and emotional decay, it is unlikely that any amount of corrective dental surgery early on would have prevented them from committing their crimes. This is correlation versus causation. It is the popular imaginary at work again, telling us what to look for, what to believe. So let’s look at an example of an individual punking the profile, nearly out-witting the G-men.

Thomas Harris’ novel Red Dragon and its cinematic adaptations feature a wholly compelling serial killer archetype that rivals the sophisticated charisma of series heavy, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Here, a brutal antagonist with unexceptional teeth takes up the mantle of trauma dentata to reclaim the oral cavity as a site of vengeance, enacting a kind of denticular détournement against a previous source of trauma.

Francis Dolarhyde, dubbed “The Tooth Fairy” by the press, is mischaracterised by the feds as an “impotent homosexual” on the strength of his faggy crime scene signatures, which include strange, Bundy-like bite marks, the smashing of mirrors, and the mutilation of eyes. Harris is obviously poking fun at the often simplistic psychoanalytic associations found in popular police procedurals and their pat profiles of criminals more sketchily drawn than Dolarhyde or Lecter.

We learn later that Tooth Fairy’s peculiarities actually have their roots in childhood abuse suffered at the hands of a browbeating grandmother, a mould of whose teeth Dolarhyde re-appropriates in order to create the grizzly bite marks left on his victims. Personal prejudice and a misapprehension of history or language can often lead to poorly drawn conclusions carrying disastrous results. The persistent, colonial hold-over teaching us about the bad teeth of our astonishingly loyal allies across the North Sea may attribute its longevity to such failings.4

Luckily, language is a mutable thing, and whilst one voice may be easy enough to silence, a whole group of the disenfranchised, working in concert, can be as thunderous and unwavering as a Lacanian typhoon.

In Les Dents du singe (Monkey’s Teeth), some patients of a French mental health clinic work in collaboration to create the scenario for an animated film. The resulting short, with virtually no mediation from the creators, involves a ruthless dentist who steals the teeth of the poor and, reverse Robin Hood, gives them to the rich. Until a magical monkey magician exacts revenge on the people’s behalf.

Freudian cinephile Mary Wild has analysed the film through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis, describing each stolen tooth as representative of “a distinct signifier that, in a sequence alongside other teeth/signifiers, forms the symbolic order (i.e., language).” The dentist represents the superego, the father figure, who profits from the pilfering of impoverished teeth, in essence robbing the patients of their language, their identity, and their access to it, plunging the patients into “loneliness, isolation, and suffering”.

At the critical moment of extraction, the dozing filmic patient imagines his teeth personified – as himself, his friends or family members, maybe fellow patients – sitting around a table, one by one being plucked into obscurity by an indifferent, omnipresent hand of fate. Later, the void left by a missing tooth takes on an apocalyptic dimension, resembling a barren wasteland littered with corpses. For the psychotic real-world patient, transgressor of boundaries and language, the deceptively simple silent libretto becomes a scathing critique of their own place in the world, “ostracis[ed] from normal society and alienat[ed] from himself”, the toothless, animated figures become “half person[s]”, depleted of their lifeforce (castrated), pursued by law enforcement, and folded into the brutal machinery of everyday life. In essence, chewed up and spat back out, only to endure the whole thing again in some novel way.

When the magic monkey returns the stolen teeth into the patient’s mouth, there has occurred a “reclaiming/reorganization of banned/repressed signifiers in the psychotic imaginary”, culminating in a successful and healthy return to society that points to a happy way forward, a passageway to speech and identity forged through a brazen bypassing of the despotic oral cavity. Universal cinematic language as a revolutionary detour on the road to trauma dentata.

For more examples of TRAUMA DENTATA on the screen check out:

Straw Dogs, 1971

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 1974

Jaws, 1975

Marathon Man, 1976

Vampire’s Kiss, 1989

Sleepy Hollow, 1999

Teeth, 2007

Hannibal (S2E9 “Shiizakana”), 2014

Possessor, 2020

**this essay was originally published on Screen Queens

#teeth #trauma dentata #essay #night stalker #ted bundy #american psycho

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bright-eyes-hope · 2 years

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#6 :)

6. What books have you read in the last month?

🌈 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid One worth the hype. I don’t know what to say about this one without giving too much away. Read it. You won’t regret it. If any book ever was worth the hype it’s this one.

✝️ Crucifix - Richard Montanari I read that one because I was visiting family and finished The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and therefore needed a new book for the train drive back. Sometimes authors of thrillers want to surprise the reader so badly, they point dozens of clues at a suspect to the point where it becomes obvious that it can’t possibly be them, that would be too simple. This book does that even with multiple suspects. Well, I read worse too.

❄️ Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson Those who know me know that young adult problem literature is one of my beloved guilty pleasures. This book however hit so hard and different, I’m not sure if I could have handled it when I was a teen myself.

🐉 The Bone Dragon by Alexia Casale The german title translates to “The night is the Dragon’s” wich I prefer a lot. I read a review that criticised there wasn’t anything happening in the book - wich I understand to some point but don’t see as a bad thing since the majority of horrible things happened before the plot and some things happen out of the protagonist’s perspective.

🎨 The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides Holy smokes, what a ride. When I got to the point where I figured it out I think I let out a loud gasp while I was reading on the subway. 😅 Again, I kinda agree with a review that said the one twist was too obvious ... but don’t we like it when we are right about that in a thriller? And even if we figure that one out relatively early, there’s still a lot of questions and other suspensful entanglements to keep us engaged all the way to the last page.

👑 Mio, my Son - Astrid Lindgren One of those books I’ve heard of basically my whole life but only got around to read recently. It’s surprisingly dark and grim. And I mean even more than let’s say The Ghost Of Skinny Jack or Most Beloved Sister.

🐙 Harte Schale, Weichtierkern - Cornelia Travnicek Not (yet?) translated, the title means Hard Shell, Soft Core and is a play on words with the german word for mollusk: Weichtier. This one was on the list of recommended book I got along with my autism diagnosis. It’s more or less the diary of a girl who comes to terms with the neurotypical world and it’s challenges with the help of her special interest: Molluscs. The book is also full of really beautiful and kinda profound illustrations. It does use outdated language tho.

🦜 Treasure Island or the Mutiny of the Hispaniola - Robert L. Stevenson One of the classics of world literature, so many young adventurous kids bloomed into booklovers thanks to this novel ... wich baffles me to be honest. 😅 Maybe it didn’t age as well, maybe I’m not the best audience for adventures on the high sea but it took about at least half the book until the suspense really was there. It does contain interesting background information about the author tho.

#answered #books #ask me

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sciencespies · 5 years

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Manmade ruin adds 7,000 species to endangered 'Red List'

https://sciencespies.com/biology/manmade-ruin-adds-7000-species-to-endangered-red-list/

Manmade ruin adds 7,000 species to endangered 'Red List'

The Roloway Monkey of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana has fewer than 2,000 left in the wild

Mankind’s destruction of nature is driving species to the brink of extinction at an “unprecedented” rate, the leading wildlife conservation body warned Thursday as it added more than 7,000 animals, fish and plants to its endangered “Red List”.

From the canopies of tropical forests to the ocean floor, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said iconic species of primates, rays, fish and trees were now classified as critically endangered.

The group has now assessed more than 105,000 species worldwide, around 28,000 of which risk extinction.

While each group of organisms face specific threats, human behaviour, including overfishing and deforestation, was the biggest driver of plummeting populations.

“Nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history,” said IUCN acting director general, Grethel Aguilar. “We must wake up to the fact that conserving nature’s diversity is in our interest.”

In May the United Nations released its generational assessment of the state of the environment. It made for grim reading.

The report warned that as many as one million species were now at risk of extinction, many within decades, as human consumption of freshwater, fossil fuels and other natural resources skyrockets.

It found that more than 90 percent of marine fish stocks are now either overfished or fished to the limit of sustainability.

The IUCN singled out a number of sea and freshwater fish that now occupy its highest threat category of “critically endangered”—the next step on the Red List is extinction.

Wedgefishes and giant guitarfishes, known collectively as Rhino Rays due to their elongated snouts, are now the most imperilled marine families on Earth.

The False Shark Ray is on the brink of extinction after overfishing in the waters off of Mauritania saw its population collapse 80 percent in the last 45 years.

Seven species of primate are closer to extinction on the new list, including the Roloway Monkey of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, with fewer than 2,000 individuals left in the wild.

Prime culprits are humans hunting the animals for bushmeat and “severe habitat loss” as forest is converted to land to grow food.

40 percent of all primates in West and Central Africa are now threatened with extinction, according to the IUCN.

“Species targeted by humans for food tend to become endangered much more quickly,” Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red List Unit, told AFP.

“Species in environments with lots of deforestation for agriculture end up being impacted.”

‘Millions of years of evolution’

The updated list shows that over half of Japan’s freshwater fish and more than a third of Mexico’s are threatened with extinction due to the loss of free-flowing rivers and increasing pollution.

More than 500 deep-sea bony fish and molluscs have been added to the list for the first time posing something of a conservation conundrum as the space they inhabit—1,000 metres (3,280 feet) beneath the surface—is often beyond national boundaries.

“The alarm bell has been sounding again and again concerning the unravelling crisis in freshwater and marine wildlife,” said Andrew Terry, director of conservation and policy at the Zoological Society of London.

“Many of these ancient marine species have been around since the age of the dinosaurs and losing just one of these species would represent a loss of millions of years of evolutionary history.”

Explore further

More than 28,000 species are officially threatened, with more likely to come

Citation: Manmade ruin adds 7,000 species to endangered ‘Red List’ (2019, July 18) retrieved 18 July 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2019-07-manmade-species-endangered-red.html

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