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thatsnotmygunflash · 8 months

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Rules: Pick any ten of your fics, scroll roughly to the midpoint, pick a line (or three) and share it. Then tag ten people.

Not tagged and not going to tag, just saw it and thought it would be fun. I am going to do my WIPs to give you guys some teasers of what's cooking. If you like any of them let me know and maybe I'll pour some love into them.

1. A Brighter Future

"Why don’t you like them?”

“How could you be so careless Barry? How could you get into bed with a criminal? A murderer? I raised you better than this! No son of mine would ever stoop this low-” Barry shut his eyes tight to try and push away the illusion Sophia was conjuring from his emotions, tears starting to fall from his eyes when Iris’ heartbroken voice joined in with Joe’s disgusted one.

“He’s dead because of you! It should have been you! I lost the man I was going to marry for a future I don’t even want! I wish I’d never met you Barry Allen!”

“Soph-Soph, please stop.”

2. Cause Maybe You're That Thing I Need To Save Me

"Cisco and Lisa-they're engaged now and they were going through a bunch of the Rouge's abandoned safehouse and Cisco-he found an old sweater of yours and he vibed you. He said you were alive but we weren't sure so we uh-went looking. It took a few months but we finally got a lead and I sped here as quickly as I could to see if it was really true and it is! You're alive! The Legends are going to be so exciting to know you survived! Wait, how did you survive?"

"You can't tell anyone I'm alive Barry, you weren't meant to know I was alive. No one is supposed to know."

"But why? Are you retired now or something?"

"I am actually, so having trouble magnets like yourself show up on my doorstep isn't exactly my idea of a good time. You need to leave and tell your friends at STAR Labs that this was a dead end. No one can know I'm alive, and I'm not above killing you to keep it that way."

3. For Better Or For Worse

“Look,” Laurel sighed heavily, lacing her fingers together over the table as she met Len’s cold stare head on. “I don’t know all the details-yet-but your husband is a very resourceful and connected man, whether he realizes it fully or not. He said part of your vows was to get Mick Rory and you out of here. That’s what I’m here to do, if you want the specifics to how exactly we’re going to pull it off I suggest you ask the mastermind behind all of this craziness.”

“If you think it’s so crazy, why help?”

“Because people's lives are at risk and Barry’s not wrong, if anyone can pull something like this off it’s you and him. Quiet the power couple you two are, honestly. Besides, I’ve never met a person who could say no to that boy’s sweet face. Isn’t that why you agreed?”

4. Got A Lot Of Sins, But You're My Favorite

"So," Angie spoke up from behind the register, leaning her chin on the palm of her hand as she smirked wickedly at Len. "When were you going to tell me you had a crush on the Flash?"

"I don't. I just threatened to kill him-he stole my gun!"

"Yes, and he also looked like he wanted to kiss you senseless while you were pointing said gun in his pretty face."

5. I'd Cross Galaxies To Find You

Waking up next to a crying baby and someone sleeply pushing at his bare shoulder had Barry freezing in terror, not wanting to know how he would die next in this world.

“Baby, baby-go get Nora,”

“Nora?”

“Our daughter, Nora, you know the one you begged my sister to carry for us, the daughter who won’t sleep through the night because she isn’t being rocked at superspeed because her father spoils her rotten. Ring any bells?”

6. It's The Second Glances That Ties Your Hands

"What are you doing here, Len?"

"Well, let's just say my lady and your lord don't really get on–she's cleaning house now that she's free of the Time Masters. Speedsters mucking up the timeline were at the top of her priority list."

"You're here for me?"

7. Love Me Silently

"So help me-you are not proposing to me right now Barry Allen-so think before those next words come out of your mouth."

"See! You want the big grand gesture and a huge wedding to show me off! You want to marry me! He said you'd say no, he said you weren't the type-"

"He's a worried father, Scarlet, I'm not surprised.” Len muttered as he pulled the younger man into his arms, one hand rubbing soothingly over his back while the other cupped his neck lovingly. “Look, I don't want to be the reason you never talk to your foster father again-"

8. You Need To Allow Me To Help

“Did you hear that, Cisco? That dying whale noise? I think it was the last shred of my dignity being forcibly removed from my body, so if you’ll excuse me I’m just going to go drown myself in the boy’s bathrooms—” Barry muttered in panicked embarrassment, rushing off down the hall almost too quickly to see, ignoring his friends calling his name to get him to stop.

“Go after him, you idiot,” Mick huffed, pushing Len forcefully in the direction Barry had disappeared.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Len answered slowly, his jaw set in a tense line and his eyes hardening over with realization.

9. You Got This Heaven In Your Eyes

'Keep up the exceptional work, Barry Allen, Central City is lucky to have you on their side. -L.S.'

"What's it say?" Eddie questioned, trying to peek over Barry's shoulder to get a look at the snow-white card, his eyes widening comically when he caught sight of the message.

"Uh-to keep up the good work," Barry muttered in confusion, his eyes drifting from the elegant handwriting to the memorising bouquet, not knowing what to think.

"You ruined the guy's fifteen year long not guilty streak and he tells you to keep up the good work?"

"This is weird, right?"

"Very."

10. Side Effects May Include

“It’s complicated, okay! I don’t know how it works. I just know when I’m not here-near you-it's like there's this overwhelming need to run as fast as I can to this-this pull. It never stops, not unless I wake up with you, when I’m near you-it’s like everything freezes.” Barry takes one look at Len’s face and lets out a drawn-out whine.

“Shut up okay, I know you want to make a joke-but it does! It’s like for the first time since I got my powers I can just stand still or sleep since that’s never exactly come easy for me-”

“Do you have a point Barry?”

“The point is for whatever reason my subconscious is latching onto you. Whenever I’m awake I feel this pull like I’m meant to be running somewhere, but I haven’t had the time to really figure out what it means when I’ve been running around stopping bombs and searching for evidence to get my dad out of jail while also trying and failing to stop the man who really killed my mother! I’ve been dealing with a lot lately okay-I barely sleep more than a few hours a week if I even manage that-and every time I do fall asleep I wake up next to you! I’m having these bizarre dreams you keep popping up in and all I want is to sleep for more than an hour at a time!”

#if youre curious #and want summaries #let me know and ill add them #these are some of my more devolved WIPs #so who knows #maybe youll see them on ao3 #sometimes #leonard snart #coldflash #barry allen #the flash #captain cold #my wips #wip sneak peek

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axolotlclown · 2 months

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Would you happen to have some studies to back up the "more than one coffee means you're addicted" thing, please? Pretty sure I've seen that disproven as a lens to understand addiction through at all

~ 🪴

Hey! So sorry I never saw this anon. It never appeared in my notifs and I'm really bad about checking my askbox.

You have asked a question that falls in line with a field I am very passionate about! I found some interesting articles in my school library. I'm going to go ahead and write this response, but I'm still waiting on access to a few journals. I'll have to convert those ones to PDFs as they are likely behind paywalls.

Anyway, here's my long post where I intend to rant about a lot of different barely related topics. Caffeine addiction is one of those really controversial but historically significant subjects in psychology!

So let me start off with how to read and break down a journal. It's one of those things where if you don't go to college and specifically major in a research related field, no one ever teaches you how to do it. That sucks.

So when you're looking at a journal, the first thing you want to do is background check the author. What school did they go to? What degrees do they have? (For research, they should have a Ph.D. no matter what.) What is their current place of employment?

Often companies, or other private businesses, will commission someone to do some research and fudge the results to make that company look better. We saw this recently in regards to gender affirming care. The United States House of Representatives had proposed legislation to restrict gender affirming care for transgender youth. The Republican sponsor of the bill had presented a single piece of research that he claimed was significant. The research found that transition regret rates were somewhere in the 30% range. (I don't remember exactly and I know that I could quickly look it up, but I just spent the past two hours reading addiction research. I'll find it tomorrow.) Upon looking into the author and the sponsors of this research, psychologists found that the journal the congressman presented was commissioned by a conversation therapy center in Florida. The research held obvious bias, poor peer review, and inconclusive results. The bill didn't pass. I'm not sure they even voted on it, actually.

Anyway, this is why we need to be critical of the research we read. Chocolate, wine, caffeine, gender dysphoria, and autism are notorious subjects that require more scrutiny before reading.

So, caffeine addiction. This is a subject that more than one field is interested in. Before you read an article, you need to be sure what question you are asking. Psychologists are concerned with a more scientific or factual approach. In this context, a psychologist would be researching the concrete effects of caffeine on mood, sleep, and other psychological disorders. Sociologists are more concerned with the overall social consequences of caffeine addiction. They would be asking how mood and sleep affected family, work, and personal welfare. For your question, we're going to look into the psychological aspect. Also, I'm studying psychology, not sociology, so I would feel like an idiot answering those types of questions.

This distinction matters. When I opened my school's EBSCOHost database, I simply typed in "caffeine addiction" to start. I was bombarded with sociological articles and journals about the affects of caffeine addiction on productivity at work and on mood. Strange overlap with psychology. Two problems: some of the top articles had researchers with ties to coffee companies, and all "caffeine addicts" were self-reported. For the latter, this meant that there was no standard for how much caffeine was consumed. Rather than being a concrete article about caffeine consumption, it was more of a survey of public opinion. You want to avoid those unless you specifically want to know about the public opinion. Even psychologists run surveys all the time (they're cheap and easy), but people often lie on surveys, even if they're anonymous.

So I typed in more specific key words and came up with these articles. I'll talk about some without leaving a link, but that's because I had to request the PDFs for sharing. I'll come back to this post and link them. (Let me know if the ones I do link are broken.)

Okay, so I'm going to start off with a journal that interested me, personally. This study actually observed the effects of caffeine on psychiatric patients. This is an important reminder that different drugs influence different brains. Someone with ADHD experiences caffeine differently for a neurotypical person. Caffeine is a stimulant, and ADHD medications are stimulants. Cool. What about other disorders?

Here's the Sparknotes of the study, "Caffeine intoxication was more prevalent in psychiatric patients than in healthy subjects. The amount of caffeine intake was shown to be associated positively with the severity of pathology and inversely with sleep quality."

The study goes more into depth about the different psychological disorders that different patients had. There were 401 patients participating in this study (150 healthy individuals). Overall, continuous caffeine intake showed a decline in sleep quality and a general increase in severity of other mental illnesses.

So what causes that? What is caffeine? Here's an article that looks into studies about caffeine consumption and performance, as well as what the causes of an addiction could be and what constitutes an addiction. This is one I recommend giving a read, as it helps to illuminate a common problem with researching intoxicants.

Here's the big take away: "Although caffeine is widely perceived to have beneficial psychostimulant effects, appropriately controlled studies show that its apparent beneficial effects on performance and mood are almost wholly attributed to reversal of the withdrawal effects that occur after fairly short periods of abstinence (e.g. overnight)."

In habitual coffee users, the increase of mood and performance after consumption of caffeine is caused by the removal of withdrawal symptoms. Grouchy mood and lack of coordination are symptoms of caffeine withdrawal. Where one may perceive positive reinforcement for initial consumption, for habitual consumers, withdrawal symptoms become a negative reinforcement.

So, for people that drink coffee everyday, it's less about getting the positive effects of caffeine, but rather avoiding the negative effects of withdrawal. This can be classified as an addiction. There is now a reliance on this substance.

Something this article also points out is that caffeine is not just found in coffee. It's found in chocolate and most medications these days as well. Therefore, complete stone cold abstinence from caffeine can be next to impossible, making control groups difficult to find. This leads to the varying research and controversy between psychologists.

Okay, but coffee can't be as bad as alcohol or anything right? Caffeine is practically harmless! Let's take a look into an article discussing the health impacts of caffeine. (I'll provide the full text to this one tomorrow.)

In Dr. Saimaiti's article titled, "Dietary Sources, Health Benefits, and Risks of Caffeine," she explores the benefits of occasional consumption of caffeine and weighs them against habitual overconsumption of caffeine.

While occasional consumption can actually improve mood and cognitive ability, these benefits are lost with daily consumption.

Few people drink their coffee black. For those that put creamer, milk (especially oat), or straight sugar or syrups in their coffees daily, they may be overconsuming sugar. This is especially hard on an empty stomach. This is part of the reason you "crash" later in the day. The sugar raises your blood sugar. For most healthy people, this may not be the biggest deal in the world. For others, it could be a key factor in developing diabetes later in life. In general, don't drink coffee on an empty stomach. Have it with a meal. It's also easier on your liver.

Speaking of liver, what does your body do with the caffeine after you drink it? Caffeine follows the same principle as alcohol. Occasional consumption of red wine can help thin your blood and lower your hemoglobin (something that women may be more concerned about as they get older). However, daily consumption of wine can cause stress on the liver and potentially lead to dementia later in life (I say potentially because there has been a correlation, but no solid research as to why. While correlation does not always mean causation, it's important to acknowledge them in the meantime.)

Caffeine behaves in the same way. Continuous consumption of caffeine can put some real stress on your liver over time.

Caffeine is dangerous for those with cardiovascular problems. While this seems like a "duh!" point, many people don't know that they may be prone to cardiovascular issues until an event happens. This sounds like fear mongering, but it's something to take into account.

The article discusses pregnant women as well, but I would hope that's intuitive? Maybe not? If you're pregnant you should avoid intoxication in all forms.

I'll drop this quote from the conclusion of the article for now (I felt weird quoting text that you can't access yet, so I'll come back with more quotes when I can give you the PDF): "the long-term or over-consumption of caffeine can lead to addiction, insomnia, migraine, and other side effects."

The point is, caffeine consumption can be more dangerous to some than others in general, but excessive consumption with lack of knowledge can lead to long-term damage to one's health.

Okay, that study talks about a relatively small niche. Let's get broad. Let's talk about sleep and cognitive performance. (Another study I'll have the PDF for tomorrow.)

In Dr. Gottselig's article titled, "Random Number Generation During Sleep Deprivation: Effects of Caffeine on Response Maintenance and Stereotypy," she looks at the effects caffeine has on cognitive performance during sleep deprivation.

The conclusions of this research makes a very important point: "caffeine preserves simple aspects of cognitive performance during sleep deprivation, whereas caffeine may not prevent detrimental effects of sleep deprivation on some complex cognitive functions."

This article particularly found that while small cognitive functions such as motor ability improved with caffeine, complex cognitive functions such as problem solving and memory declined.

While a college student could read this and understand that pulling an all nighter and drinking 10 Red Bulls probably won't help them pass their test, there's something much more to be said about these findings.

One sleep deprived night won't kill you, and certainly drinking a cup of coffee to get you through the day won't either. But caffeine cannot prevent the damage that regular sleep deprivation does. Sleep deprivation leads to memory loss, worsening symptoms of depression/anxiety/ADHD, increased chances of developing dementia early (this one is real), and a decline in overall cognitive ability.

Rough. But it is a trap. If you have insomnia, caffeine may feel like your only choice to be somewhat functioning throughout the day. Caffeine promotes symptoms of insomnia. It's a vicious cycle if you can't afford proper treatment, and one, that I hope, that will be addressed with time.

So if you have the ability, it's better to prioritize a good night's sleep. I'll come back to this.

For now, why is caffeine addiction so controversial then? Well, it may not be for long. While there was a push to add "caffeine" to the list of diagnosable addiction in the DSM since the 1980's, the inconsistent and inconclusive research has led to a standstill. As we say with Dr. Jame's article, it is difficult to get a control group for caffeine. However, as research for alcohol and marijuana progresses, our knowledge of how to properly study intoxicants does as well.

The long-term health side effects of caffeine are still being studied as well. While this aspect isn't unique to caffeine at all (marijuana, for example, is just now getting approved for research, where before it was illegal), it's still worth acknowledging what we do know, for now at least.

So, coming back to the DSM. There's a new one coming out pretty soon. It's the talk of the town among psychologists right now. Everyone is arguing about what should be in the DSM-6. It'll be crazy when it does come out. Autism, OCD, Gender Dysphoria, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Facial Dysmorphia are just a few examples of disorders that will likely be completely recategorized.

(Unrelated, but Autism Spectrum Disorder is a big one because a lot of psychologists are arguing that it shouldn't be classified as a disorder at all. The reason being is that Autism is so common, that psychologists are theorizing that the majority of the population falls on the spectrum somewhere. Either way, the diagnosis is about to completely change because of this fact.) (Well, all of them are big ones. I could make a whole separate post about it.)

Anyway, the push to make caffeine diagnosable is becoming a promising endeavor as research continues to come out.

One psychiatrist pushing for this is Ronald Griffiths. In his opinion piece, Griffiths recalls his patients experiencing caffeine withdrawal symptoms that led to a decline in the quality of life. One of his patients was diagnosed with breast cancer and needed to stop drinking coffee immediately. This patient struggled with severe withdrawal symptoms that were difficult to manage while on cancer treatment.

Griffiths explains how difficult it was to treat this patient because it wasn't something he could easily diagnose with the DSM-5, something insurance companies use to decide whether they're going to pay for care or not. Add on the bills for cancer treatment, and you rapidly have a distressing situation on your hands.

Joseph DeRupo, spokesman for the National Coffee Association in the U.S. as quoted in this article states, "What we have here is really the opinion of one scientist who is a lone voice against the accepted view of the scientific community."

Lone voice? In barely an hour I was able to find 5 credible articles, all backed by credible researchers, supporting the understanding that American society consumes too much caffeine. You can take a General Psych class in college and the textbook would spend half a chapter going over caffeine addiction and the controversial research around it. Coffee companies piss me off. And most companies use slave labor to harvest their beans and lobby to prevent legislation to prevent it. Guillotine.

Griffiths also claims that "[e]ven people who consume as little as 100 milligrams of caffeine a day—the equivalent of one small cup of coffee—can become physically dependent."

So this ask is pretty old, but I'm guessing it was in response to me saying that you should only drink one cup of a random beverage a day and the rest be water. This keeps you hydrated and helps cut out where the majority of your sugar intake is. I called it the "desert beverage" and that "coffee counts."

It really does. In the morning, one feels tired, foggy, and grouchy. "Don't talk to me until I've had my morning coffee." They would make their coffee out of habit, barely minding the taste of it—drinking to medicate the headache they've already caused.

Life is worth celebrating, and if we can find little things in our day to celebrate, we should! When coffee becomes a habit, it's just a habit. That's sad.

I worked as a barista for a while at a coffee shop that hired people with intellectual disabilities. That experience is what made me switch my major to psychology in the first place. But I saw the joys coffee could bring, and the damage it can do, too. I had a coworker who would come in and throw a tantrum if we didn't immediately stop what we were doing and make him a coffee—and again in two hours before the end of his shift. It's upsetting.

I do remember the joys, too. Our manager would show us a new niche coffee drink from a random country. We would make cubanos like they would in Haiti and talk about the different names they had in different countries around the world. It ruled.

I don't drink coffee every day anymore. But it's always a wonderful thing when I do. You don't need to have an "excuse" to drink a cup of coffee—you don't need to celebrate anything at all. Coffee, tea, wine, soda, and juice should be celebrated as they are. Drinking them out of habit destroys joy. Intentional habits create stable foundations in life. Unintentional habits create monotony and boredom.

Anyway, the sleep thing I said I'd come back to. So if you're having trouble sleeping, here's the hot tip: avoid screens 30 minutes before going to bed. That sounds easy, but how many of us scroll our phones, watch TV, or play a video game right before bed? It's not worth it.

Instead, do something away from your phone that you enjoy. I like to read, but you can draw, journal, listen to some music, practice an instrument, or write something. Doesn't matter, just don't use your phone or laptop. Set a 30 minute timer for time.

If you're still struggling to sleep, you may find meditation useful. Meditation uses techniques that make your brain send beta waves which relaxes you and is the first step to falling asleep. But! If you try to learn some meditation, you'll have to commit to practicing it every night for it to be useful. It's a skill that requires practice.

Anyway, I could make a whole separate post about evening/morning/afternoon routines as that is another one of my passions, but yeah.

TLDR; An occasional cup of coffee is actually great and wonderful, but you really shouldn't drink it every day, especially more than once a day.

PS. I love Red Bull cream sodas more than the God that created them, I swear, but I only drink maybe one or two energy drinks a year. Energy drinks will dissolve your liver faster than hydrochloric acid can. An alcoholic drinking 5 packs of beers a day will look at your liver and be impressed. Also the Panera lemonade should be illegal. That shit is CRAZY. That bitch had more caffeine than a Bang energy drink. It literally killed a man. Wild.

#anon im gonna be so incredibly transparent #before you read this #i spent four and a half hours researching and putting this together #and i still gotta add more sources tomorrow after my school send the pdfs to me #so i didnt proof read it #im tired #i hope it makes enough sense #also sorry if it sounds like i mansplained in the beginning and end #i dont know who you are or what your background is #so i tried to cover my corners as much as i could #anyway #i got a little buddhist philosophy at the end there to #as a treat for me #i hope it doesnt sound preachy #i need a nap bro #sorry for taking so long to get to your ask #i never saw it until now #BUT #i hope it worked as a good starting point if you wanted to look into more #let me know if the links are fucked and ill try to fix them #asks of dante #thoughts of dante #ill tag your little emoji bc i figured that was purposeful #🪴

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