Sergio

Cross-posted from [email protected]

I was looking for something else and came across this. I'd heard of Japanese Kappas and the Mexican La Llorona before....

But were you aware of Empusa? Turns out she "is a shape-shifting female being in Greek mythology, said to possess a single leg of copper" who "feasted on blood by seducing young men as they slept (see sleep paralysis), before drinking their blood and eating their flesh". Then one day she tried that on Zeus who was in disguise as a normie and... well it turned out like you'd expect.

Then there are the Nepalese Kichkandi who are "a spirit of a woman[1] that is latched to an uncremated part of her dead body, usually a bone". Apparently they appear as "an alluring and young female, who lures a lonely male traveler[2] and saps their life force."

Anyway that's just a couple, check out the full list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vampiric_creatures_in_folklore

Someone linked to this on Mastodon... can't find it again tho... Don't know much about these folks but they're pretty cool.

video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJV_TP86kNo

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/19375332

[email protected]

The top sumo wrestlers in Japan compete every other month in tournaments that last two weeks. The March tournament just started a couple days ago, and for the rest of the tournament I plan to post daily links to recap videos. You're welcome to come join and discuss and/or ask questions.

Imagine two linebackers crashing against each other but they have no padding and they're allowed to do judo throws and there's a priest urging them on. That's basically sumo.

Americans tend to think of sumo as a funny thing, but in reality it's a quasi-religious endeavour. The wrestlers live communally in a highly stratified environment training daily, and the referees perform shinto-derived rituals before and after the day's matches. The wrestlers gain weight to make them harder to push, but underneath that weight they are all muscle.

Anyway check it out!

• [email protected]
• https://lemmy.world/c/sumo

He had never been in Corless’s but he knew the value of the name. He knew that people went there after the theatre to eat oysters and drink liqueurs; and he had heard that the waiters there spoke French and German. Walking swiftly by at night he had seen cabs drawn up before the door and richly dressed ladies, escorted by cavaliers, alight and enter quickly. They wore noisy dresses and many wraps. Their faces were powdered and they caught up their dresses, when they touched earth, like alarmed Atalantas. He had always passed without turning his head to look. It was his habit to walk swiftly in the street even by day and whenever he found himself in the city late at night he hurried on his way apprehensively and excitedly. Sometimes, however, he courted the causes of his fear. He chose the darkest and narrowest streets and, as he walked boldly forward, the silence that was spread about his footsteps troubled him, the wandering silent figures troubled him; and at times a sound of low fugitive laughter made him tremble like a leaf.

https://www.libraryofshortstories.com/storiespdf/a-little-cloud.pdf

[email protected]

The top sumo wrestlers in Japan compete every other month in tournaments that last two weeks. The March tournament just started a couple days ago, and for the rest of the tournament I plan to post daily links to recap videos. You're welcome to come join and discuss and/or ask questions.

Imagine two linebackers crashing against each other but they have no padding and they're allowed to do judo throws and there's a priest urging them on. That's basically sumo.

Americans tend to think of sumo as a funny thing, but in reality it's a quasi-religious endeavour. The wrestlers live communally in a highly stratified environment training daily, and the referees perform shinto-derived rituals before and after the day's matches. The wrestlers gain weight to make them harder to push, but underneath that weight they are half muscle.

Anyway check it out!

• [email protected]
• https://lemmy.world/c/sumo

Rosegarden Funeral Party blends traditional gothic sonic stylizing with modern pop sensibility that supports emotionally evocative and relatable lyrics about heartbreak and healing.

https://www.rosegardenfuneralparty.com/

track link: https://rosegardenfuneralparty.bandcamp.com/track/gates-of-heaven

Originally published in 2012. Winner of the Hugo Award and the Locus Award for Best Novelette.

Has an interesting style. I'm not crazy about it but obviously it's respected, so I thought some people here might like it.

Link: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/cadigan_02_18_reprint/

Seems like a Sunday afternoon kinda song...

"Bowling Balls" samples the drum beat of Madonna's "Justify My Love," which was based upon Public Enemy's instrumental "Security of the First World",[2][3] which was in turn based on the end drum break of James Brown's "Funky Drummer".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Balls

Friends don't come easily and this I know
And every time I make one they always say they gotta go
I wanna talk with people and look 'em in the face
I wanna take 'em home and they can stay at my place
All the talking I could do, I would never lie to you
We take a quick ride, homicide, then I confide in you
And I can love you and technically even though you're dead
You'll always be around me 'cause I'm keeping your head

HD video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efbPh7IF120

Harsh industrial / power electronic

ESA was born in 2002 in order to cross the threshold from one genre of extreme music to another. Engineer of this electronic inferno, Jamie Blacker, up until this point had been writing music semi-professionally for years in the UK Black / Death metal circle, touring and recording alongside some of the genres elite.

Having decided to experiment in dark electronics, ESA’s heavy, rhythmic style has since become rooted at the forefront of the harsh industrial / power electronics scene, predominantly owing to slews of powerful and engaging live shows all over the globe and 10 well received, critically acclaimed albums.

Taking influences initially from rhythmical noise acts, Blacker’s sound structures have developed and integrated countless influences from the broad spectrum of alternative and extreme music. The tone of ESA is harsh and oppressive, dripping with destructive and corroded grooves whilst still emanating deep melody and a strong sense of spirituality. ESA’s compositions are undoubtedly threatening and offensive floor stomping club tunes but also twist and churn enough to reward more attentive listening.

ESA is Electronic Substance Abuse!

https://electronicsubstanceabuse.com/biography/

Critters (1986) is the movie for this Sunday's "monsterdon" watch party over on Mastodon, our fediverse sibling!

• Just start watching that movie this Sunday, March 9, 2025 at 9pm ET / 8pm CT / 6pm PT, which is ~~2am Monday UTC~~ CORRECTION 1am Monday UTC bc of US daylight savings
• and follow #monsterdon over on mastodon for live commentary. For example, you can follow that hashtag here: https://mastodon.social/tags/monsterdon
• I usually open two web browser windows on a computer side-by-side. But you could follow the mastodon commentary on a phone app while watching the movie on TV or something.

How to watch the movie:

• someone plans to stream it on https://miru.miyaku.media/ at that time
• tubi (US, England, Canada, Australia, NZ?; uBlock Origin adblock on firefox works): https://tubitv.com/movies/100001406/critters
• if you want to pay and/or watch ads, look here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/critters

The plot follows a group of small, furry aliens with carnivorous behavior escaping from two shape-shifting bounty hunters, landing in a small countryside town to feast on its inhabitants.

...

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 52% approval rating based on 50 reviews, with an average of 5.5/10. The site's consensus reads: "While Critters ekes out some fun from a game cast and screwball tone, the titular monsters fail to deliver the credible menace that makes a creature feature satisfying".[7] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film three out of four stars: "What makes Critters more than a ripoff are its humor and its sense of style. This is a movie made by people who must have had fun making it".[8]

Marylynn Uricchio, film critic for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described the film as an enjoyable, if unoriginal, low budget monster movie. Uricchio wrote: "Critters isn't a memorable or even very slick movie, but it is good fun. What it lacks in substance it makes up for with a perverse kind of charm".[9] Caryn James of The New York Times complained that the movie lacked humor and suspense: "Critters just doesn't make the audience laugh or jump often enough".[10]

Alex Stewart reviewed Critters for White Dwarf #83, and stated that "Critters scuttled by quite pleasantly. Nothing really stands out, despite M. Emmet Walsh as the sweaty sheriff, and a scene wherein a couple of Heavy Metal bounty hunters blow away a Baptist church, but the film actually thinks through how the Browns react, as a family, to the anti-social little aliens".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critters_(film)

This is titled "The Hardy Boy Poems" but they're really paragraph-long short stories, i.e. flash fiction stories which "hint at or imply a larger story".

The basis for these is the Hardy Boys series of books aimed at young boys. These were old even when I was a kid, but I keep seeing these "Hardly Boys" book cover edits on [email protected] so people must still be aware of them.

This collection is more risque and suggestive of hidden violence and despair than the mainstream books. In the preface, the author (?) says this is in tribute to the "unwholesome but healthy amounts of anti-authoritarianism and lurid detail" that the original Hardy Boys books had before they were stripped of all such things in the late 50s. The result of these new stories is a world that is far more interesting, far more dangerous, and far more realistic than the world presented in the mainstream books.

Link to the collection: https://www.beardofbees.com/pubs/The_Hardy_Boy_Poems.pdf

An ancient cult embroiled in a sinister blood trade makes the deadly mistake of abducting a young woman with a violent, shocking past.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18284880/

• youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw-fRXxUDzI
• tubi: https://tubitv.com/movies/100009884/i-am-rage
• uBlock Origin adblocker on Firefox works on the above links
• if you want to pay and/or watch ads: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/i-am-rage