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Thanks to this person for finding the study I was originally referencing, “Reports of Rape Perpetration by Newly Enlisted Male Navy Personnel” by Stephanie K. McWhorter, et al., published in Violence and Victims, Vol, 24, No. 2, 2009.

13% of participants admitted to actions which constitute rape. People can yell at me if they want for remembering a study that only looked at men and misapproximating the finding as 1 in 6 instead of 7 or 8. But the more recent studies of both men and women and sexual violence not limited to rape find much higher rates, so I think the point stands.

Anyone can perpetrate sexual violence or be a victim of it. This does not mean that you need to be afraid of strangers on the street, they are still very unlikely to harm you and your fears are going to be shaped by racism, ableism, and other biases in dangerous ways.

Americans really really need to be less paranoid and more capable of tolerating minor discomfort in public. Not everyone is a pervert/rapist/strangler/fiend. In fact, very few people are. Treating every violation of normal order as though it is a threat is why people are getting shot for turning around in a stranger's driveway. This happens within the frameworks of basically every ideology present in American culture. It is an American illness. If your vision of the world doesn't have room for saying "I'm sure it's nothing" then you really gotta work some shit out.

For the record:

1) I’m neither a TERF or a radfem! I’m trans and so are my girlfriends, and I’m a socialist (meaning that I think the primary axes of oppression in the world are class and imperialism, not sexism).

2) I strongly agree that we need to trust strangers more, and interrogate the internalized racism and other biases that make some people feel scarier than others. I do a ton of mutual aid work, including going into homeless encampments and inviting folks into my own home.

3) I think unlearning that paranoia goes hand in hand with understanding that the real risks we face are from loved ones, and that many of our friends, family, and partners have already committed or will commit sexual violence because it is so normalized.

I have no idea why hearing a statistic putting a number on that last point suddenly made me the enemy, but it’s interesting.

Americans really really need to be less paranoid and more capable of tolerating minor discomfort in public. Not everyone is a pervert/rapist/strangler/fiend. In fact, very few people are. Treating every violation of normal order as though it is a threat is why people are getting shot for turning around in a stranger's driveway. This happens within the frameworks of basically every ideology present in American culture. It is an American illness. If your vision of the world doesn't have room for saying "I'm sure it's nothing" then you really gotta work some shit out.

Ironically you're assuming a lot of bad intentions of a stranger here!Throughout that comment thread, which you have decided not to engage with, I and others have said repeatedly said that how strangers pose very little risk to one another, that violence overwhelmingly happens in familial and interpartner relationships, and that we should all be more trusting and prosocial. And I'm still genuinely confused about how exactly you think I'm misrepresenting the data (aside from initially referring to an older study that found a lower, before finding this newer one with a larger sample size and including women). Can you explain what you mean when you say that "of over 5000 surveyed Australian men and women between the ages of 18 and 45, 26.4% of these men admit to acts which meet our definitions of sexual violence" is "very, very different" from saying that 26.4% of people admit to committing sexual violence? Are you saying that the sample isn't representative, that their definition of sexual violence is too broad, that these rates vary significantly by region so this finding has no bearing on realities in America, or what? Another commenter shared this study as well: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS2214-109X(13)70074-3/fulltext. Do you have the same concerns there? What about the studies you found?

Do you think it's possible to talk about the rates of people who commit sexual violence without promoting paranoia about strangers? Or should we just "cut it out" entirely and shut up?

Americans really really need to be less paranoid and more capable of tolerating minor discomfort in public. Not everyone is a pervert/rapist/strangler/fiend. In fact, very few people are. Treating every violation of normal order as though it is a threat is why people are getting shot for turning around in a stranger's driveway. This happens within the frameworks of basically every ideology present in American culture. It is an American illness. If your vision of the world doesn't have room for saying "I'm sure it's nothing" then you really gotta work some shit out.

god this is so gorgeous, I started sobbing at the end just the way I do with the movie

A Pride (2014) fanvid set to My Love by Florence + The Machine.

This premiered at VidUKon 2024. You can also find it on AO3.

high-effort shitposting for andorversary week of @andorshitdaily

i truly don't know what this is please don't ask me any questions because i cannot answer them

Hal Yorke - Death Wish

I kill everything I've ever loved / I will be the one to mess it up

Song: "Death Wish" by LØLØ

A Being Human UK crack vid for @platoapproved, who introduced me to the show and who thinks the later seasons don't get enough love. She summarized this vid as "he's a fucking TRAINWRECK <3"

Content warnings: Canon-typical levels of blood and death, including an on-screen suicide and the death of an infant

From ao3: "There were so many moments in the show that were RIGHT out of documentaries I've seen, but translated in ways that felt appropriately alien. Any particular parallels for the exploding clone traps??" Oh this is the toughest one, because the clone traps are probably the most out there of any organism on the show! There are Earth creatures which camouflage themselves as members of other species to hunt them, like spiders which have evolved to physically and chemically mimic like the ants they hunt. I wouldn't be surprised if the creators were inspired by those, given how grounded everything else is in real evolutionary strategies.

But I don't think we know of anything anything that can actually *change its development* to mimic a target. The only even loose parallel I can think of is the vine Boquila trifoliolata, whose leaves grow to match those of neighboring plants.

xenobiology of Vesta

I was overcome with the need to collect some of my favorite critters.

The creators of Scavengers Reign put so much effort into creating rich and varied ecosystems. To me it shines through that they were inspired by a deep knowledge and appreciation of the diversity of life on Earth. So here's a game: you pick any creature in this video, and I will tell you at least one Earth species I think it's based on!

Music is Heartfelt Recess, by I Am Waiting for You Last Summer.

#really neat! what do you think inspired the fuzzy brown creature that was sort of rappelling around the stalk structures by its antennae? You picked my FAVORITE! The body is clearly based on chitons, which are wonderful beasts (their nicknames include "suck-rocks" and "the wandering meatloaf"). Maybe the coolest thing about them is that they have evolved a unique kind of eye with an crystal lens, which are dotted all over their shells. Here the eyes have been replaced with some sort of fun chromatophores or photophores. The rappelling behavior is a delightful twist—if anything in nature moves that way, I can't think of it, and it sure isn't a wandering meatloaf.

I'm gonna go ahead and compile my answers to other requests I've gotten all in one place!

From over on ao3: "What do you think of the puffball creatures?" and "What do you think could have inspired the flying cones gathering rainwater?"

We don’t see anything like swarming together and forming a differentiated body like those puffballs are doing among large animals on land, but it does happen both at a small scale and in the ocean! Unicellular slime molds swarm together and form collective multi-cellular structures (nice footage here) as part of their reproduction, and in the ocean siphonophores come together into huge colonies which can work together to take on large prey like fish. Those weird little cone guys immediately made me think of desert animals and epiphytic plants whose shapes and materials have evolved to collect moisture (“passive water collection”). In terms of the shape, bromeliads are probably closest; there are also some cup-shaped fungi, but they use the force of falling raindrops to scatter packets of spores instead of catching the water. But having them fly, and catch something other than water—I think that's the creative twist! kaznata: "I like your game idea! What do you think inspired the translucent creature drinking water and filling its head, then its body with water?" and "Another one! What do you think inspired the ghost like floating/hovering white creatures?" Great picks! Weirdly out of everything in this show, I think the drinking bird is the least inspired by Earth biology. Parasites mind-controlling other animals and forcing them to harvest food for them? We have plenty of examples of that! A little bobbing drinking bird? I think it’s a joke on the old-fashioned office toy.

The ghostly white things feel very based on pelagic and sea floor invertebrates; some octopus influence, but also something gauzier, like Pelagothuria, maybe? Anybody who knows more about marine bio have ideas?

xenobiology of Vesta

I was overcome with the need to collect some of my favorite critters.

The creators of Scavengers Reign put so much effort into creating rich and varied ecosystems. To me it shines through that they were inspired by a deep knowledge and appreciation of the diversity of life on Earth. So here's a game: you pick any creature in this video, and I will tell you at least one Earth species I think it's based on!

Music is Heartfelt Recess, by I Am Waiting for You Last Summer.

xenobiology of Vesta

I was overcome with the need to collect some of my favorite critters.

The creators of Scavengers Reign put so much effort into creating rich and varied ecosystems. To me it shines through that they were inspired by a deep knowledge and appreciation of the diversity of life on Earth. So here's a game: you pick any creature in this video, and I will tell you at least one Earth species I think it's based on!

Music is Heartfelt Recess, by I Am Waiting for You Last Summer.

feels like the immediate followup to my Andor one!

the only way out of fascist rule is armed revolution.

[VID] come down now, by damselfly

Sense8 begins with a suicide. Throughout the show, both the forces that want to stamp out human variation and nominal allies attempt to convince characters that their only option is to kill themselves. Many do so. But the main characters never accept this. They choose struggle, survival, and love. This is dedicated to everyone who made it through they weren't sure they could. I'm glad you're here. Fandom: Sense8 Song: "Achilles Come Down" by Gang of Youths (heavily edited for length; check out the gorgeous full version)

Warnings for graphic suicidal ideation and attempts, having to talk down someone threatening to harm themselves, and death by suicide on screen. These make up the first two thirds of the vid. There are also shorter flashes of needles, drug abuse, graphic gun violence, and bombings.

[VID] Which side are you on? by damselfly

Fandom: Andor

Characters: Cassian Andor, residents of Ferrix

Song: "Which side are you on?” written in 1931 by labor activist Florence Reese, recorded in 1941 by The Almanac Singers

Content warnings: police brutality