Rehab

Poor bastards.

Doing literally nothing/adopting the most hands-off position on the Syrian crisis possible would be accepting the source of the refugee crisis, along with its current destabilizing effects on the region and elsewhere. Which is technically an option, but... Some of those neighboring countries, like Jordan, would love for the U.S. to back a horse, to be sure.

Appropriate: whenever you want to either consume or produce something that has whatever given form of sexy in it As with all other things, having sexy in your thing changes that thing to "something which has sexy in it," just like having a song and dance number in your thing changes your thing to "something which has a song and dance number in it." Ask yourself, for example, "do I want to make/consume the type of thing which has a song and dance number in it?" Then, change "has a song and dance number in it" to "has sexy in it." Is your answer to this "maybe?" Then whittle it down from there. Would you be okay with some characters singing a bit of impromptu drunk karaoke in the bqckground that serves more as window dressing for the scene, like would a description of how the wind pleasantly caresses the protagonist's face in their hometown, or do you require a Disney style full-blown impromptu choreographed musical number? Likewise, do you want your thing to have characters who on some occasion or another do their best to look whatever form of appealing they intend (as regards yr various gender presentations and th humanly-recognizable standards of attractiveness to which they are or are not trying to appeal) at some public event, as it might be imagined would an actor/tress attending an award ceremony? Or do you just wanna see some good ol chain mail miniskirt and tube top plate armor, the torpedoes be damned? It's like that. Ask what it does for the thing and how it changes the thing, then decide if you're okay with it. Whatever "it" and "the thing" are. It's pretty simple, really

To try to get everything out in the open, there has been a bit of uninformed supposition of both what it means to be otherkin in this thread, and of how blah's sister specifically is interpreting it. This may in part be because as much as blah has said of his sister, enough about her behavior and feelings has been left unsaid that it's still easy enough for us posting here to form assumptions of what exactly she's said and done that are based on our own feelings towards and (lack of) knowledge of otherkin. And most of us have been pretty comfortable expressing negative opinions drawn from outsider perspectives, which doesn't make for a very appealing environment for somebody to come forward and say "I'm one of those dudes you're talking shit about, here's what I have to add" (as has been noted by princeymarmar). It also probably doesn't help mitigate the appearance of a dogpiling that Ritisa's more conciliatory post went without much notice. Of course, if blah's sister isn't both forthcoming and at least somewhat articulate on the subject, even knowing exactly what's being dealt with in the first place could be difficult at best, and if no otherkin come out to post, then those negative outsider opinions (and maybe a bit about adolescence as a work in progress) are about all we've got to add or go on. (Which is why I ducked saying pretty much anything actually to do with otherkin entirely on page two) [spoiler=mostly-pointless, insubstantial addition on otherkin themselves]The most I can remember from the very little I found to read on "the data, regarding real, dyed-in-the-wool (adult) otherkin" a long time ago on Wikipedia went roughly something like "brain scans didn't pick up any structures or patterns they could identify as particularly anomalous, but they also didn't pick up any indications that the person was claiming something they believed was anything other than the absolute truth." Maybe just... keep that in mind, as a possibility if nothing else, if you're ever frustrated enough that you find yourself about to adopt the "tell her she's 'NOT A GODDAMN WOLF.' until she she agrees with you" approach, blah. The whole otherkin thing could go such a dizzying number of ways that I wouldn't even fixate on it, at least not compared to simply putting it in the context of blah's relationship with her. Like, maybe she'll always consider it an aspect of her identity, but will acquiesce to your requesting she learn to hide her power level a little. Maybe she'll only get louder and prouder with time, and resent every single instance where she was told to suppress [what ends up being] a core part of her identity. Maybe she and blah will just laugh the whole thing off later. Maybe it'll likewise become something she considers "a thing I grew out of," but resent that her family was harsher than she would've liked in reacting to it. Or maybe she'll wish it had been somehow drilled out of her sooner! Based on what blah has posted, these are all within the realm of real possibilities. At least from where I'm standing, it's much easier to start out with a focus on what can be done than it is to try to force her to unconditionally accept the demand that she be broken of it immediately. Reiterating amiabletemplar, what can be done, at a minimum, is that she can have the potential consequences for whatever she's doing explained to her, and she can be reminded of the how others may see her (particularly when she does something that imposes on other people, like howling). At some point, though, the decision on how to act, with that information in mind, can only come down to her. People do sometimes do things they regret, to be sure, and can even do things they wish others had dissuaded them from, but dissuasion doesn't necessarily require antagonizing them even if you're set on it. I think it's possible to come out of this quote on her side unquote even if she doesn't immediately do as you wish.

where else are my people supposed to go

I'm not taking them at their word until the game is in my hands

PS3, digital download! If somebody hasn't made a topic shilling for it yet, I should Help convince them to bring Yakuza 0 over here, folks

And there's also Condemned 2, I think it was? Where a particularly fucked-up-looking and huge but otherwise normal bear is chasing you through a dark abandoned house, threatening insta-death That might be the standard by which to judge, I think Also, a thought: maybe a contributing factor to why bears aren't exploited to their full terror-inducing potential is their eyes- IMO they're not that immediately frightening until A) they're really pissed, and B) you're also close enough to them to notice "this thing is a LOT bigger than me, huh" A lot of other animals used for horror with scary eyes have frightening visages in general, of course, but if a normal old bear had even just slightly bigger/more expressive eyes I think the impact would be huge Their faces are like big fluffy rodent faces, though. Like they're our primary genre of stuffed animal. In person nobody wants to fuck with something that big but a miniature bear (hopefully also with less muscle mass period of course, in case any bear breeders who want to run with this idea happen to be reading) would be cute as hell

I've dropped a small but dense porcelain plate on my toe, which caused it to crack and turn blue I think (though it healed naturally just fine), slammed my thumb in a car door when on my way into a martial arts class (just remembered the details of how my dad rushed me into the school's bathroom while crying to touch it up, then right back out without anybody in the school saying anything, which were details I could've gone without remembering), tripped on some poor jerk's accidentally-outstretched foot and hit my head on a bookshelf, which needed 10 stitches to fix up and turned my already-enormous forehead into a lethal weapon, and failed to get through childhood without getting my head stuck in a bannister Also, I once accidentally fell in P.E. such that I landed in a full split, which would've been cool, except the strain on my legs had me crying immediately upon hitting the ground These may be a bit more wincey than funny, I am realizing a bit late, sorry

Fuck, got me I'm playing Yakuza 5 right now, which as it happens hits a nice balance while still also being appropriately ridiculous for a character-action Triple-Ay game, I thinkThe first time you encounter a bear it's played as one of those HOLY FUCK IT'S A BEAR moments which some fellas on tvtropes decided constitutes A Thing, and the player character (whose power level is around "action/drama legendary badass, albeit a mortal homo sapiens"), who happens to be caught out in the middle of the blizzard of the year while wearing mere corduroys, lets out an appropriately-heartfelt OH FUCK considering he's face to face with a bear literally twice his his height (which is way bigger than any kind of bear from Japan normally gets!). And this, among other things, is given additional weight by said pc being the biggest dude and biggest taker/dealer of Major Hurting in the main cast, like if he's going OH FUCK we know we best be going OH FUCK too ...And then he squares off against it in a fist fight, because what else is he gonna do. It's cool though! Because the bear is a capital-b BOSS fight with twice the health of anything in the game up to that point, and while slower than a real bear would be/susceptible to the old easily dodged rear-up-on-hind-legs, slam-down-with-shockwave standby, it also has a charge that you actually have to kinda work at dodging, some up-close paw swipes that will floor you through your guard even at their weakest, and is resistant enough to hitstun that you have to whittle it down with flyby tackles to come out anything like unharmed, lest it toss you around with its jaws like a chewtoy. Then when you finally complete the actually-cool-and-fun QTE, where your dude gets tossed into the air and comes down on the rumored man-eater with a FIGHTING SPIRITO overhead spike into its open maw to end the fight, (shut up its great), that doesn't knock it out, or even scar it; the bear just burns your dude's face into its memory and returns to the shadows. A minute after which your dude faints from exhaustion on the spot. Later your dude gets taught stuff by hunters who actually know shit, and they're like "So that was pretty much the meanest bear that ever lived, and by rights there shouldn't be even a tiny piece of you still intact so we dunno what the fuck happened there, but even with normal bears you never fuck around. Don't even engage unless you- are you listening? Unless you HAVE to. And NEVER without a gun, holy shit are you completely out of your mind, fuck no not ever." And the game has a legit hunting min- actually minigame doesn't do it justice, it becomes like your dude's job, and the gameplay goes from running around a martial arts flick flattening dudes to this slow-paced, almost survivalist Red Dead Redemption kinda creeping through the snowy mountain woods, taking like ten seconds plus to line up a shot on animals deal. And even with your shotgun capable of one-shotting a bear if you do it right, meeting any bear is still a "shiiiiiit" kind of moment, because they're both legit threatening and can come running if they're in the area or even near it when you shoot something else. And if you ever meet the aforementioned Man Eater again, it escalates even further, from that to "MOUNTAIN'S CLOOOOOOSED [screeching]," with you wading awkwardly through the snow as fast as you can, all the way back down from the furthest ends of the hunting grounds just trying to avoid being eaten with it on your tail. In summation I give Yakuza 5 an A minus regarding its depiction of bears in video games

For my money adviews while I didn't really disagree with a lot of the details, I got the impression that for him the (almost) totally open go-anywhere nature of Zelda 1 was what defined what "Zelda" is at its core, and to me that idea seems, like, a little insubtantial if just stated without support? Because, regardless of whether that approach was or is better than item&plot world gateways, that seemed to only last for one-and-some-fraction entries, in a series with dozens of themThe games generally fall somewhere in a spectrum of course, and there's a lot of wandering to do and a less-than-completely-unbroken sequence in even the less-freeform Zeldas, but Zelda 1 is kinda lonely over at its end of things

But why have that when you could have a Best sf member contest Still decided by open vote of course

also obligatory does this also go for not-women because I'll be kinda disappointed if not, I was hoping to segue smoothly from having my hands on a foot to my tongue on a dick but not if thatd be weird

I've had a cursory interest in learning Actual Massage technique for a while, it's like an intersection of a bunch of things that interest me- anatomy as it applies to both Science and art, (physical) therapy [via human contact], documented health benefits for days, etc. (But,) I heard that in my state, just to get certified it's a couple years training (just learning about it? not sure) for like one thousand literal hours total, 8 hours a day? And the massage schools (who have a vested interest of course) tout it as a high-ranking field in terms of growth, but also that average pay is $40k, which isn't bad by (most) any means but for two years training? I (literally) dunno... Which is to say; *ahem* Cast ye not your aspersions, if you please, upon the distinguished and honorable* field, art, and practice of massage therapy, sir(s). *cough* [spoiler=*]if perhaps, maybe, occasionally, sometimes in-some-ways-always uncomfortably-near-to-the-proximity-of prostitution (not that I would know really)