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ms-demeanor · 2 months

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Hi! My employer's workplace wellness program was recently revamped, and I'm trying to assess whether it's slid into the nonsense side of wellness-world. Specifically, there's a webinar being offered by a guy named Abra Pappa on using an "anti-inflammatory diet" to "battle against chronic diseases… including heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and even certain cancers." This sounds… sketchy to me, but I know you have both expertise in nutrition and a strong bullshit detector, so wanted to ask what you make of it.

Okay long story short never trust anyone who got their degree from a university that started off as a school for chiropractors.

Abra Pappa got her MS in Functional Medicine and Human Nutrition after getting a BA in Theater; I checked the requirements for that degree and the school's whole catalogue is throwing red flags but what's throwing the most red flags for me is that if I wanted to get a degree in nutrition from an ACEND accredited program I'd need to take a hell of a lot more than one bio class, one anatomy OR one physiology class, one medical terminology class, one nutrition class, and one biochemistry class in order to get into a master's program.

It's funny because she went from a BA in theater arts to an MS in Functional Nutrition and Human Nutrition and I've been trying to go from a BA in Theater Arts to an MS in nutrition and *aside* from the whole private school costs thing one of the major barriers is that I'd basically need to re-do all of my undergrad to get in a lot of chemistry, some calculus, and MANY nutrition classes before I qualified for a Master's program. But based on the program she took I'm only one medical terminology and one biochemistry class away from a Master's program instead of more like ten to fifteen classes (primarily in nutrition, chemistry, and physiology) away.

Anyway she says she's a Licensed Dietician Nutritionist. There are some states that allow LDN certification, New York is one of those states. *BUT* to be an LDN in New York you have to

Complete a program in dietetics-nutrition that culminates in a bachelor’s degree that qualifies for certification in dietetics-nutrition or has been accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Dietetics Education (CADE).[Note: CADE is now ACEND] The program must include at least 45 semester hours of coursework in dietetics/nutrition and must include at least 20 semester hours of coursework in the area of human biological sciences and social and behavioral sciences

Pappa went to the University of Western States in Oregon, and the only ACEND accredited school in Oregon is at OSU, so if she's an LDN it's from someplace that isn't New York, where she lives and works.

She also claims to be a CNS, a Certified Nutrition Specialist, but in order to qualify for THAT you need to have an MS with some pretty rigorous coursework

And this is what the school required for her MS program:

And given that she didn't have a science degree for undergrad it seems pretty likely that she wasn't doing anything close to what an undergrad nutrition program looks like:

For the record, here are the MS requirements for an MS in nutrition with a health and wellness emphasis at that same school:

In order to get accepted to the MS in nutrition program in that school you either need to have a BS in nutrition or a BS in biology or chemistry and take all the undergrad level nutrition requirements ON TOP OF that BS.

I don't think that a theater degree and an MS from a woo-y correspondence school really count, even if you do pay $45k for your diploma.

If you go look at the requirements for any ACEND accredited school and compare them to the MS program from University of Western States it leaves UWS looking pretty shitty in comparison. Like, nowhere in her requirements is there a statistics class! Stats is required even for an associate transfer certificate in nutrition! EVEN AT THE 2-YEAR LEVEL FOR REAL NUTRITION DEGREES YOU HAVE TO DO STATS AND SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO TAKE A SINGLE STATS CLASS FOR HER MS. You will note that the cal poly MS program has one entire MS-Level class on vitamin metabolism and one entire MS-Level class on mineral metabolism for any of the three MS in Nutrition emphasis courses; her school required neither.

This shit makes me want to climb the walls.

I'm just going to start calling myself a nutritionist. California will let anyone call themselves a nutritionist, there are absolutely zero protections on that term and I can get myself a piece of paper for like three hundred dollars from a diploma mill that has some kind of bullshit accreditation.

Here are the programmatic accreditations her school has:

Compare with the Cal Poly programmatic accreditations (I cite cal poly a bunch because it was the program I was hoping to get into eventually so I researched it the most; that's where I got my BA, go broncos):

Note that the website for her school is listed with the department of education as wschiro.com because it was called Western States Chiropractic College until 2010.

Every time i dig into something like this it makes me want to stare into space for hours. No wonder college students are getting fucked on their loans and going to bullshit schools. No wonder everything is a scam these days. People bitch about credentialism but you know what maybe this lady is a CNS; sure, for some people that requires passing board certification tests, getting 1000 hours of clinical supervision, and becoming a Nurse Practitioner with real actual nutrition study from a solid program, but for other people it requires zero understanding of statistics, a theater degree, and three *whole* units of anatomy. Maybe she clears the bar on that one! She doesn't have the qualifications for an LDN in New York, she's not an RDN because she sure as fuck didn't take the classes required for a *VERY SERIOUSLY* protected title, but maybe you can be a CNS with an online diploma from the western states chiropractic college.

I fucking hate everything.

You know the whole reason I wanted to get a degree in nutrition was to yell about shit like this online, but fuck it. Fuck it, I'm a nutrition-isht because i live in california and I can say I am and who's going to check? Who's going to look up whether I took classes in public health or anatomy or the metabolism of micronutrients before they hire me to do corporate seminars on healing your relationship to food? I am legally allowed to do that so I might as well, right? If all I have to do is be charismatic and convincing I'm pretty sure I've got that down, actually, so who's going to check?

Nobody! Nobody is going to check and everything is a scam and I hate everything.

ANYWAY

The relationship between nutrition and inflammation and the relationship between chronic disease and inflammation are two different, complicated things that are difficult to point at and say definitively what the connections are.

I am of the opinion that any time you're getting deep into things like an anti-inflammatory, ketogenic, or PH-Balancing diet without a specific condition that calls for the avoidance of certain foods for very clearly scientifically reported reasons, you're dealing with a woo-woo biohacker who's looking to sell a diet plan.

The thing about nutrition science is that it seems like for most people the "answers" are pretty basic: eat enough food, get enough macro and micronutrients, eat a variety of food, avoid processed meats, try to eat more fruits and vegetables, get enough water, and stay as active as possible NOT for weight loss reasons but for metabolic health and joint/muscle maintenance. It's really, really, hard to sell that though, which is how you get people like Abra Pappa in 2013 writing out this bugfuck "Food and mood" handout with a midday snack that is so bonkers in the way the calories are distributed that I'm sitting down and doing math about it (it looks like about a third of the calories that day are supposed to come from the mid afternoon spinach, mint, cocoa nib, and coconut milk smoothie which is, as I said, bugfuck nuts).

It's hard to sell "please eat more fruits and vegetables, which is difficult because actually most places don't grow enough vegetables for the population's nutrition needs and it's cheaper to eat grains and industrially produced meat than it is to eat five cups of vegetables that you need to prepare daily and also maybe skip the bacon" but it's much easier to sell "five anti-inflammatory superfood milkshakes that will fill your belly and fight cancer" because it's packaging nutrition as a product and not as a massive systemic issue that happens to have very specific requirements for a large number of individuals who *do* happen to have disorders that are based on nutrition and inflammation (celiac disease! I've got one of them! Eating the wrong foods definitely causes inflammation in my body as the result of an autoimmune disorder! but that doesn't mean that the things that are inflammatory for me are inflammatory for everyone!)

Anyway I think like about 97% of workplace wellness programs are largely bullshit based, or at least import bullshit a lot of the time, and nutrition is a science that has, just, so much bullshit in and around it.

So I would take anything they say with a grain of salt, and hopefully less than 255% of your RDV of saturated fat (seriously that meal plan is ludicrous).

Side note: there is a subset of nutrition people who looked at the way that we got fat wrong in the 80s and flipped it and reversed it and went "actually you can have as much fat of any kind that you want as long as it is natural and you will have no issues" and this is how you end up with people on 100% natural clean keto diets who have cholesterol levels over 600. Abra Pappa recommends "clean/natural" eating and has taken continuing education on keto and has a recipe for a single-serving smoothie that calls for 8oz of coconut milk I think she's very much in the "'good' fat truther" camp (or at least she was in 2013 which is maybe why New York has a requirement for people to have some kind of nutrition certification for giving out nutrition advice and maybe she should have done that because she didn't even go to her bullshit "grad school" until 2017).

(We DID get fat wrong in the 80s and total avoidance of all fats is bad for you and there are 'good' fats that you should eat and everybody needs to eat some level of fat for proper nutrient absorption but even if you're only getting fat from nuts and avocados that's not going to prevent your arteries from forming plaques if you're having nearly triple the recommended daily value of saturated fat as part of your afternoon snack)

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artbyblastweave · 5 months

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An interesting thing about the Monarch is that while obviously the entire gag is that he’s enmeshed in this postmodern weirdly formalized etiquette-and-code-of-conduct-based form of super-villainy, this notably does not translate to him being a Megamind-style functionally-benign-showman kind of villain-in-name-only. He kills innocent people constantly. There’s a running gag where he kills cabbies to get out of paying fare. This doesn't really seem to be a salient factor in the other character's assessment of him as a threat or moral agent-his ability, or lack thereof, to tow the Guild line and keep pace with the inside baseball is what actually makes waves, draws scrutiny. There's the comedy of that Season 1 episode where they basically call a time-out mid-death trap in compliance with Guild Law, but this doesn't translate to anyone outside the game receiving similar protections or considerations. He lets Dr. Venture leave midway through an arch to see his shrink and then murders the shrink so that those interruptions will stop happening.

And to me this feels like it’s gesturing at a very real thing that can happen in cape comics, where even the nominally harmless bit-villains aren't actually harmless even if they fail to kill the hero specifically, where even the really overtly silly ones have in fact likely whacked at least a few unnamed characters over the course of their 60-year publication history- only for this to sort of get sanded away as a morally salient feature of the character unless they become specifically known as One Of The Ones Who Constantly Kills People (Joker, Bullseye, Carnage, etc.) because security guards and people trapped in collapsing buildings aren't really real. The show is also attentive to the analogous thing that happens with superheroes with the weird moral myopias they suffer from, in the way that basically every hero has some insane instance of superdickery rattling around in their closet that's still technically canon but hardly relevant. The show is very very clear that as long as you correctly couch your behavior within the idiom, color within the lines, you're entitled to a certain level of carnage and collateral. Which is demonstrated in the second episode with the Revenge Society, where Phantom Limb and company are genuinely freaked out when a nameless slasher shows up to the try-outs. Phantom Limb constantly brutally kills people, but this guy in a bear costume with a kitchen knife? He's killing them in an off-genre way.

#the venture bros #venture brothers #I was partway through season 5 when I wrote this #seasons six and seven reinforced it #the venture brothers #thoughts #meta #the monarch

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chaotic-archaeologist · 9 months

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got a question for ya regarding sex and online safety.

Background; I am an adulty adult. I have been able to and have voted in more than 3 elections. [I know you take interactions with minors seriously]. I am also ace and autistic. as a result I have never felt the urge to date and I normally don't mind having friends close by.

However, I also just moved for the 4th time since 2019 and would like to meet people.

So I downloaded Grindr. already got my first dickpic lol. I have also been chatting with a fellow who I like and would like to be friends with and I also wouldn't mind exploring my kinks with people... but I have never had to worry about safe online sexy stuff before so I don't know the basics beyond normal internet safety.

What do I do‽‽‽

Okay first, thanks for clarifying the adulty part. This is an awesome question, and here's the advice/steps that I personally follow for situations like this.

Have your first meeting in a public place. Go for coffee or ice cream or lunch or dinner or whatever. But don't meet them alone. This way, if you get uncomfortable with anything that's happening, they're much less likely to continue with that behavior after you attempt to extricate yourself.

Make sure there are no expectations. Plan not to have sex on the first date/meet up. Grindr often tends to ignore this rule since it's very hookup centric, but you're absolutely within your rights to insist on taking things as slowly as you want to.

Don't rely on the other person for transportation. If you choose to meet someone, get yourself there and plan to get yourself back. Walk, bike, drive, public transportation, unicycle, it's all good. But there's much less room for pressure if you're not depending on them for a ride home. This segues nicely into my next point:

Do not tell them where you live. At least, not right now. Plenty of people on Grindr are willing to "host" meaning you can come to their place. That's fine for them, but I err on the side of never giving anyone my address until I've had a thorough chance to assess their character and meet them a few times.

Tell someone where you will be. Let someone who cares about you know that you're going out, where you'll be, and what time you expect to return. Establish a time to check in when you're going home/if you choose to extend the meeting. There are also apps like Noonlight that can function similarly.

Be careful about what you consume. If you're going to enjoy and mind alternating substances, be very, very careful. This goes for anything from getting drinks at a bar to any and all of the recreational drugs on the market.

Be prepared for a little bit of awkwardness. Meeting someone in person is often very different than chatting online. If the conversation is awkward or halting, that's okay. Give it a little time (but also don't be afraid to trust your gut if it's telling you something is wrong).

Communicate clearly. If you have any needs—which can range from an allergy, not being able to stand for long periods of time, needing them to speak loudly so you can hear them, safety concerns—the best way to get those met is to be upfront. You don't need to disclose the reason why you need something if it makes you uncomfortable, just state what you need. People worth spending time with will respect that. The same thing goes for your wants.

Use protection. Maybe this isn't applicable for you specifically, but I think it belongs on this list. Condoms. Dental dams. Gloves. Someone on an app telling you they're negative for any number of things is not an actual guarantee they're not lying to you. Not wanting to use protection (not just for anal/vaginal intercourse, but for oral sex as well) is a huge red flag. Decide in advance what your boundaries are and stick to them.

If it sucks, hit da bricks. Fundamentally, you owe this person nothing. There is no consequence for saying "you know what, I'm not feeling this and I'm going to leave." Be as polite as you want to, but put yourself first.

At the end of the day, the only thing you have control over is you. How you react, where you meet this person, what you do—that's what you control. Hopefully any meet ups will be fun and relatively safe, but just in case, set yourself up for success by maintaining what control you can.

From one adult to another, these are all suggestions rather than rules. Many people on Grindr choose not to follow various ones, and that's fine. Take some time to think about what you're comfortable with and make your decisions accordingly.

Also, best practice for someone sending an unsolicited dick pic (if you don't want them) is just to block that person. But sending a return picture like this one is a hilarious option.

-Reid

#he speaks #sex advice #sex education #internet advice #life advice #grindr #internet etiquette #internet brother

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muddyorbsblr · 5 months

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reckless girl pt1

See my full list of works here!

Part of the 500 Follower Celebration Requested by: @holdmytesseract

Summary: When you didn't show up for your date with Magnus, the last place he thought he'd find you was inside the Ystad police station…in a holding cell

Pairing: Magnus Martinsson x Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: talks of injuries; cliffhanger at the end

Things to be aware of: established relationship

"Why so glum, Martinsson? Not enough sleep?" Kurt clapped a hand on the curly blond haired detective's soldier, jerking him out of his worry spiral. "Girl trouble?"

Magnus lifted his chin from his joint fists, unable to iron out the furrow between his eyebrows. "Something like that…Y/N, my girlfriend. We were supposed to meet after my shift last night and she never showed. Hasn't called or texted either."

"Maybe she ghosted you, lad," Svedberg jested from his desk. "Had enough of the barflies clinging about you, did 'erself a favor."

"No," he said with conviction. "She wouldn't do that, that's not her." You'd been dating for long enough that he knew you wouldn't just disappear from his life with no contact like that. There was something else going on, there had to be. Another reason why you weren't at the restaurant last night. Another reason you weren't picking up your phone.

"Maybe try her again," Kurt offered. "If you still have nothing, you can always find a reason to patrol around her area and pay your girl a visit."

"Really? You won't be cross if I did?"

"For anyone else I'd suspend them on the spot if they attended to matters of the heart while on duty but I'd rather have the brightest bulb in the station actually functioning in the station, rather than have his mind wandering off to where his lady could be." He gave the younger detective a tight smile, knowing full well that had he been in Martinsson's spot, he'd be doing the same thing. "Try her again."

This time your phone rang twice before someone answered. "This is the Ystad holding area, and the owner of this mobile has been detained until--"

"Officer Jansen?"

"Detective Martinsson? Why are you calling--"

"Where's Y/N? This is her phone I've been trying to reach her since last night and--"

"Well last night a Ms Y/L/N was brought here for holding and we confiscated this phone off her person. Drunk and disorderly behavior," Jansen offered.

Just then another voice, your voice, spoke through the line. "Hey, the other guy was drunk and disorderly, it's not my fault the wanker couldn't fight!"

Magnus took a deep breath, a mix of both frustration and relief. Mostly the latter knowing now where you were exactly and that he would most likely see you in the next few minutes. "Jansen, I don't know what she did but I can guarantee you she probably had a good reason for it. Could you maybe…I dunno, let her off with a warning? I'll talk to her, make sure this doesn't happen again."

There was a deep sigh from the other end of the line before the officer spoke again. "Fine. She doesn't have a record, and the other guy seems to be too embarrassed to press charges seeing as he got his arse beat by a woman, so her name stays clean. But if this happens again--"

"It won't," he answered, a little less conviction in his tone. "Could you please send her here, though? I've been on edge since last night."

"Say no more, I'll have her there with an escort in a few minutes."

It didn't take long until another officer from the holding area stepped into the detectives area, and Magnus finally laid his eyes on you. And he saw red.

The second the officer uncuffed you, he was rushing over, placing his hands on your shoulders trying to assess the damage done. Your neck was red and purple, the skin of your knuckles split and bloodied, cuts and scrapes all over your face. There even seemed to still be specks of dirt in some of the wounds.

"Hello, sweetie," you spoke after a few moments of him taking stock of the injuries you sustained, wincing when you tried to give him a smile and it opened the wound on your lip that had only healed a fraction of the way the night before. "Sorry I couldn't make it to the restaurant--"

"Never mind that, darling," he waved off your apology, taking your hands in his and pressing his lips to the backs of your fingers, being careful not to touch any injured portion of your skin. "All I care about right now is that you're safe." He jerked his head over to his desk. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up. And then you can tell me what happened. Starting with who dared lay a hand and bloody up my precious angel's face like this."

"My sister Stella's in town and we went out straight after my shift to grab some drinks--Ach." You flinched at the stinging of the alcohol-soaked cotton round that he pressed to the cut on your cheek.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he sighed, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead, ignoring the teasing remarks from the other detectives on the floor as he tended to your wounds. "But we have to get these cleaned out so they don't get infected. We've already lost so much time since these just stayed as they were the entire time you were in that holding cell."

"I know I know," you mumbled, squeezing your eyes shut when he resumed disinfecting the cuts. "It's not my first fight, you know. Still stings like a right bitch every bloody time, though."

He finished dressing the wounds on your face before moving to your cut and bruised knuckles. "Did no one even come to check on you before they booked you last night?" he grumbled, seeing the caked blood and dirt around these wounds as well.

"No. Everyone's attention was mostly on the other guy, making sure he got to the hospital safe and all that."

"Ah, so you're the mystery assailant," Kurt spoke up, walking up to Magnus' desk. "I just got off the phone with the hospital about some professional pick-up artist, whatever the shite that is, and how he refuses to press charges because if anyone knew what happened to him it'll ruin his image." He stuck out a hand toward you. "Kurt Wallander, I'm Magnus' supervising officer."

You gave him a little wave in response. "Not exactly how I pictured meeting Magnus' workmates, but I'll take it. Hi. Y/N Y/L/N, pleased to make your acquaintance. I'd shake your hand but--"

"I'll be quite cross with you if you split open your wounds over pleasantries, sweetheart," the blond detective butted in. He turned to his supervisor. "Hang on the case you were called to this morning? The assault victim? That was--"

"Hold on…if the wanker didn't press charges, does the word 'assailant' still apply to me?"

"Yes," both men said at once.

"But I'm willing to consider this a case deservedly closed since firstly, the pervert wanker chose not to press charges. And second, he's had it coming for a long while. Man's got an entire binder of reports for sleazeball behavior, but we just don't have the laws here yet to book someone for unjust vexation," Kurt told you both before addressing you directly. "Just don't make a habit out of getting detained or else I won't be able to do anything about the station giving your boyfriend grief over dating a 'bad girl'." He put the last bit in air quotes, jerking his head over at the desks of the jeering detectives on the other side of the floor.

"I'll do what I can," you shot back, scrunching your nose in place of a smile. "But in my defense, he was getting handsy with my sister and she's a little too peaceful and zen that the woman wouldn't hurt a fly, I had to."

"Careful, darling. Wallander here has a soft spot for the hero types, he might just issue you a gun," Magnus joked, finishing up on your knuckles and pressing a soft kiss to the bandages.

"Considering that the man you put in the hospital is just one in a large group of men doing much of the same?" the senior detective shot back. "I might just, might even give Linda one just to err on the side of caution and all that." He took a finger at you. "You be careful out there. Willing to bet my badge you ticked off a good few unstable men with egos bigger than their brain power. Some of them might be capable of a bit more than a few cuts and scrapes. And might be on the hunt for who put one of their own in casts and stitches."

"I'll keep safe. Thank you, Detective Wallander." You stood up and gave an awkward wave, making a motion to start walking out of the station. "I should get going. Wouldn't want to take up more of Magnus' time while he's at work."

That got the blond detective shooting out of his seat. "I'll see you out, then." He led you out the station, hand securely at your waist as he made sure you could walk properly. "Go straight home, tell your sister you're safe and you're not going to jail. And then tomorrow, how about we meet for breakfast after you've had some rest?"

"Yes, Sir," you answered playfully before throwing your arms around his neck and pulling him in for a hug. "Thank you, Mags," you whispered in his ear before kissing his cheek. "I love you."

His heart caught in his throat at your words. You'd never said it first before. "I love you, too, little spitfire." He tucked his fingers under your chin, pressing a tender kiss to your lips before letting you go. "I'll see you in the morning."

Only when morning came, he sat at the restaurant near the station all alone, letting a whole hour pass before concluding that you weren't coming once again. Going off of what had transpired the day before, he showed up at the Ystad police station's holding area a good hour ahead of his shift, ready to try his luck at talking your way out of whatever situation you'd gotten yourself into.

"Morning, Martinsson," Jansen greeted him once the officer caught sight of the blond curls descending the stairs. "What brings you here so early--"

"Is Y/N here? Again?"

The officer began typing away at the system, giving commentary along the way. "She's a bit of a baddie, isn't she? Getting booked there twice in just as many days--Huh…" Jansen tilted his head in confusion at the information on the screen. "I don't see anything from last night's records. Maybe check the holding cells just in case? Sorry, Martinsson."

Magnus let out a sharp exhale, the frustration radiating off him in waves. "No worries. Thanks, Jansen." He set off toward the three holding cells they had in the station, only one of them being occupied by a drunk driver that was booked last night and was awaiting for his wife to bail him out. The other two were empty and clean as a whistle, no sign of anyone having even been there in the last 24 hours.

He picked up his phone and tapped on your name, his heart thundering in his ears as he waited for you to answer. "Please tell me you just slept in, sweetheart," he mumbled, his body already shaking with every second his call went unanswered.

But then the line got picked up, and his heart lodged itself in his throat.

"Hello?" The voice of a woman. But not yours.

"Who is this?" he nearly barked at the stranger's voice. "Where's Y/N?"

"I'm Stella, her sister, hold on who the hell are you?"

"Magnus, her boyfriend. Where's your sister? Why do you have her phone?" His tone became more impatient.

"She was supposed to meet me last night for dinner. Told me she needed to get some rest after what happened the other day that got her arrested," your sister explained, the answer making the detective even more panicked. "She never showed, figured she slept too long and I'd pick her up for some breakfast, but--" Her breath hitched on the other line, a jagged exhale coming through from her end as she composed herself. "She's not here. And the place is a mess. Hang on--If you're the boyfriend, you're the detective, right?"

"Y-Yes, yes I am." He could barely manage the words; he felt so hollow inside, dreading what words he would hear next.

"I'd like to report a crime, then," Stella spoke, her voice wavering as she tried to put up a brave front. "My sister's missing, there's blood on the floor. Someone's hurt my sister."

A/N: Eeeeeee I'm so excited to give this one to y'all! It's been a while since I started on another request and when I tell you that the words just started flying when I got into the vibe that this story was gonna give. I know I know…there's a cliffhanger…but there will be a part 2 in a few days and we're gonna see just what happened after YN left the station…

everything taglist: @simplyholl @loopsisloops @imalovernotahater @coldnique @loz-3 @huntress-artemiss @salempoe @vickie5446 @athalialaufeyson @lokiprompts @kats72 @kikster606 @asgards-princess-of-mischief @lokixryss @thomase1 @mischief2sarawr @peaches1958 @lovingchoices14 @lunarnights95 @goblingirlsarah @iamlokisgloriouspurpose @creationsbyme @maple-seed @mjsthrillernp @ladyofthestayingpower @mygfloki @sititran @glitterylokislut @ozymdias @fictive-sl0th @lokidbadguy @mochie85 @silverfire475 @joyful-enchantress @elizabethmidnight2017 @holdmytesseract @smolvenger @gigglingtiggerv2 @lokidokieokie @lunarnights95 @superficialdomina @anukulee @kmc1989 @november-rayne @goddessofwonderland @buttercupcookies-blog

Magnus taglist: @vbecker10

#magnus martinsson x reader #magnus martinsson x female reader #magnus martinsson imagine #wallander fanfiction #wallander #wallander fanfic #muddyorbs writes #fic requests #500 follower celebration

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centrally-unplanned · 2 months

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"Suicide in protest" is not self-evidently the result of being "mentally deranged" if you believe your suicide may inspire others to protest or to support your cause.You may be wrong about that belief, but being incorrect is not the same as being deranged. This is what I wanted to distinguish in my exchange with Summer. It's true that any single act of protest is unlikely to yield major results, but that's true of any kind of protest. It doesn't follow that protest is always an irrational act.

I will respond to all your asks on this one, as I think its form of goose chase logic. You can try to construct some intricate chain about how this or that might be some logical act, and in the platonic ideal universe that is true. I was quite consistent (its tumblr, I wasn't publishing a paper so maybe not everywhere) on how its almost certain, its not some 100% thing, its not logically impossible.

But I am allowed to be a human being using my eyes observing reality. And that logic chain is irrelevant, it doesn't matter if "superhero movies valorize last stands" or w/e, because mentally well people *don't* watch those and then suicide themselves for arbitrary political causes. We in fact have a long track record of people who do these kinds of things. You mention in the other ask Christian martyr types, and we have those in the modern era, you don't need to go back to old bible stories. You know them as people like abortion clinic bombers! And they are mentally unwell pretty much every time, because in real life that is the precondition for someone doing this kind of thing if they are from this kind of social context. Fortunately Aaron was more moral/not quite as unwell as those who drag others down with them, but its the same state of mind, the same social phenomenon.

Personally I think that is this was someone burning themselves alive protesting the injustice of Trump having the election stolen from him in 2020 no one would be debating the mental state of that person here, but with the political poles flipped suddenly its heroism; but I wont put that on you, that would be unfair, you haven't said that. But for the wider discourse its almost certainly true.

Again there are exceptions out there, rare but it happens. But this isn't some abstract conversation. He was almost certainly mentally unwell, the evidence we have *already* suggests that, and while we might never get more evidence because that isn't how reality works if we do all the smart money suggest it will show more. Because sociology is real, humans aren't snowflakes.

I do admit that there is a strain in US/western culture that baits the mentally unhealthy into extremist behavior that, for the most vulnerable, can spiral from performative politicking to things like actual violence or self-harm. I am happy to admit that the line between "mental health" and "sociological phenomenon" is blurry here. But in this debate neither side of that coin is paying the bills of the "hero" stance, so I don't think its that relevant; I don't object if someone thinks its more the other side of that coin.

(If it helps by the way, I don't believe the rare odds are like 0.1% or anything, humans are very diverse. My strident tone is matching the confidence (with no evidence) that so many were trumpeting that this is an act of brave heroism that should be celebrate. I don't apologize for my tone, I think those statements are quite awful and should be met with strident condemnation if one is so inclined. But my stridency is not a function of the odds assessment or w/e)

#immolation discourse - again you should ignore

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naranjapetrificada · 7 months

Text

The first thing I should ever have said about Izzy and the last thing I intend to say until at least October 26th.

[Although I am not Her strongest soldier, so who knows if I will stick the landing.]

So to start with, I was a "late" arrival to the show. I knew it existed of course, but I only occasionally saw things that reminded me it existed. The first time I saw a mention of "grumpy/sunshine" it was with a picture of Ed and Stede, so I guess on some level I knew there was shipping going on, but that was literally all I knew. I didn't even know it involved Blackbeard lol.

Which is all to say that I first approached and watched season 1 removed from basically anything anyone had to say about it. I think what actually got me to watch it wasn't anything anyone had to say either, it was from youtube recommendations? Like I think I had watched a couple Taika interviews or something and ofmd stuff started showing up? So after catching a few clips and intentionally spoiling the kiss for myself (life is too short to be queerbaited) I watched it in April/May 2023, and was Changed by it the way so many other people were. It grabbed me so hard I started looking for fics, and when fic grabbed me even harder I became a regular tumblr user for the first time ever in June 2023.

What I didn't do, before the second half of 2023, was care particularly much about Izzy Hands.

I remember describing him as psychologically fascinating to the first IRL friend I talked to about the show, and joking that he just needed a good dom. As much as his decision to call in the navy was a threat to Stede's and Ed's lives, I saw his actions as part of a thing needed for the story, and while I knew he was one of the season's villains there wasn't really any heat behind that assessment.

For me he was there to set things in motion, and to serve the narrative in certain ways, to be a foil, more storytelling tool than man. That doesn't mean I didn't think Con did an excellent job adding layers to him, he absolutely made Izzy take up space and feel more present and textured than he otherwise might have. But when I began to zoom out and consider things on meta level, Izzy existed to do a certain thing or occupy a certain place in relation to the narrative and other characters more than anything else. And that was fine.

Then I started reading meta here, and found myself surrounded by passionate conversations about Izzy from many directions occurring with an intensity that I couldn't wrap my brain around. I saw people tying themselves into knots to justify and excuse the behavior of a textual antagonist, and I was baffled and because I still saw Izzy for what his role in the narrative was, it literally made no sense to see his behavior explained away. In the framework I brought to the fandom when I first arrived, trying to explain away Izzy's behavior would be like looking at a forest fire and trying to explain away processes like combustion and oxidation. Or if you'll allow me to borrow another extended, nature-based metaphor from a fic in an entirely different fandom:

Again, because from where my head was at, it didn't make sense to look at Izzy's morality as a zero sum game because in this metaphor, he was functionally just a brackish body of water. I'm not saying the morality is brackish, I'm saying the morality was literally not the point because like an estuary, an antagonist "must exist" because antagonists exist for specific reasons directly related to storytelling goals.

So there was no real heat behind my feelings about him or his actions, beyond the natural emotional reactions we have to characters and their behaviors before we zoom out. I was of course upset with his treatment of Lucius, which was targeted compared to other members of the crew. I was annoyed with the way he talked to and about Ed. I laughed when his plans had the equal and opposite results of what he intended, which you could argue happened with every single plan he made for the entirety of season 1. And yes, especially as a Black person living in the US, I felt the fear and betrayal that comes from seeing someone call the cops (which given the show and its writers, it does not feel like a stretch to describe calling the navy that). I wondered if there was any coming back from a choice like that, which is a big overriding question for the series as a whole.

I'm not here to debate any of the points in the previous paragraph. I know how I feel and you feel how you feel and there's already been so much said about the morality of it all by people who have explained themselves well, so let them convince you or not. Instead I've been trying to talk about the two sides of my experience before and after getting into the fandom with Izzy.

Before: Izzy Hands, Narratively Useful Antagonist Portrayed Compellingly And Effectively by Con O'Neill.

After: Izzy Hands, Unfortunate Avatar Of The Sadly Common Tendency For Certain Fans To Hyperfocus On A White Antagonist Or Secondary Character When There Already Exists A Protagonist They're A Foil Of (And Also It Looks Bad TO Do That When The Protagonist Is Someone With A Marginalized Identity).

I'm not here to argue the merits of those assessments either, because that's not the point. The point is the vast gulf between them and how the latter does such an incredible disservice to the Izzy we were given and that so many people claim to love. The latter comes from a place where morality is the focus, which I'm sorry y'all, feels like it originates with people who refuse to countenance Izzy's role in the story as well as his characterization.

Viewers who were willing to see Izzy as an antagonist, who don't view the word "antagonist" as a value judgement in and of itself, who don't think that finding an antagonist charismatic or compelling means anything about their own morality, those people can look at the show we were given and take it for what it was made to be. I'm not saying that it's only the Izzy stans (not enjoyers, not jar people) who start fights or that people who understand that Izzy is an antagonist don't also have deep morality related feelings about him and his actions in the first season. What I am saying is that sanding off Izzy's rough edges and trying to make him into something he isn't poisons even the possibility of having a discussion about him because people enter the conversation with two completely different understandings of reality. If you cannot accept the job that season 1 Izzy was given to do to move the story along, well you might as well have watched a completely different show for how much that fanon Izzy has anything to do with the canon one.

This show deserves better than that. The writers deserve better than that. Con O'Neill deserves better than that. Israel Basilica Hands deserves better than that. We all do.

#I know some of y'all are allergic to calling season 1 Izzy a villain or even an antagonist much less a villain #but given how self aware this production is about tropes it's weird to pretend that's not literally his function #at least in season one #maybe there are changes to that on the horizon #but we won't have the complete picture until Oct. 26 so maybe chill if people have an antipathy toward him #especially because at least a third of that antipathy is rooted in how criticizing him AT ALL acts like a summoning ritual #and I have to wonder about the acrimony levels if people felt like they could offer critical opinions easily #anyway rip my notifications probably #ofmd #our flag means death spoilers #ofmd spoilers #ofmd speculation #ofmd meta #fandom meta #fandom fuckery #character meta #let izzy be izzy #izzy hands #izzy critical #the izcourse #and now to filter literally every Izzy tag until November so I can enjoy the season in peace #that's as close as I'll make it to the halcyon days of my season 1 watch #ofmd s2 #ofmd season 2 #ofmd season 2 spoilers #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd s2 speculation #ps I won't be responding to replies because look at the title of this post

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jgnico · 5 months

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please nico i beg you to explain the sukuna 4 eyes being a copy of six eyes theory 🙏 it sounds really interesting

I was going to make a joke about you triggering my trap card, but yes, I would love to explain the Eyes Theory.

First, I wanna lay down some groundwork before I get into why I believe that Sukuna having four eyes functions as a nerfed version of the Six Eyes technique.

Thanks to statements from Todo and Mechamaru during the Goodwill event, we know that normal sorcerers can see cursed energy and follow its flow/behavior. With Todo, he's able to see the flow of Yuuji's cursed energy and how it lags behind, which leads to him teaching Yuuji the basics of cursed energy manipulation. Later in this same arc Mechamaru is able to see one of Panda's cores by looking at where his cursed energy is concentrated within his body.

So we know that sorcerers can see the cursed energy of other sorcerers and curses even without Six Eyes, but to drive this point home...

We get a panel of Sukuna looking at the cursed energy of the people within the city around him in the very first chapter. This lets us know that not only can he see cursed energy, but that he can see the limited cursed energy within non-sorcerers.

Where Six Eyes possibly differs in this aspect of its use is the precision with which it sees cursed energy. In the top panel here we're able to see Gojo's view of Toji's movement thanks to The Worm he's carrying, which isn't only brighter/clearer, but the traces between Toji's movements can be seen despite Toji's speed making him basically invisible to the naked eye.

It's thanks to this view of cursed energy that Gojo is able to do things like discern a person's technique or see if someone is a sorcerer to begin with. [ch. 69, 70] But, I'd like to point out that Sukuna has done something similar, for both of the previously listed feats. Not only is he able to figure out Megumi's technique during their fight, similar to how Gojo figures out the curse users technique in his respective fight, but we've repeatedly been told by The Angel that Sukuna only needs to see someone do something once in order to replicate it himself.

This isn't only how he was able to turn himself into a cursed object, despite other ancient sorcerers being unable to do so, but also how he's able to understand how Gojo was "healing" his cursed technique and do it himself afterwards. Likewise, this is also the foundation of why he wanted to use Mahoraga against Gojo after seeing how the shiikigami operated in Shibuya: to get a blueprint of how to get past Limitless. Despite multiple guesses from multiple characters about how Mahoraga adaption works (namely of which was Gojo), Sukuna is the only character that's seen it adapt multiple times, and therefore, knew that its adaptation process differed with each use.

So if we know that Sukuna can see and interpret Cursed Energy at a level on par with Gojo --save for some clarity through how the Six Eyes takes in information vs the eyes of other Sorcerers -- what about the other benefit that Gojo gets from his eyes: high amounts of Cursed Energy Efficiency?

Well, we get the answer to that from the person -- outside of Gojo and Sukuna or even Kenjaku -- that would know the most about Cursed Energy Manipulation. Keep in mind that Kashimo, regardless of his death, was someone who kept his place among the strongest by only using his CE reserves. By right of his skillset, he's no slouch when it comes to the topic, and per his assessment, Sukuna's efficiency would be better than Gojo's if he didn't have the Six Eyes to replenish his CE in the way that it does.

This is the only real substantial difference between the two, that Gojo's Six Eyes gives him more cursed energy, which allows him to burn ridiculous amounts of it, even without perfect efficiency. To balance it out and keep them somewhat equal, Sukuna has a tighter hold on his efficiency rate and a lot more cursed energy to compensate for what he uses up.

But why do I think that Sukuna having extra eyes is his own version of Six Eyes specifically, rather than a visual buff alone?

Well, we told explicitly that Sukuna's extra limbs and organs make his body perfect for sorcery. None of these modifications to his body are purely aesthetic. Extra hands for signing, an extra mouth for chanting --both of which greatly increase the potency of your attacks-- an extra heart and lungs to make sure it all keeps running smoothly.

The only feature that isn't mentioned is his extra pair of eyes, which is odd given the fact that they're arguably his most noticeable and present feature. Even outside of his true form, his eyes are manifested on his vessel while his extra mouth and arms aren't. Even when he's not in control of his vessel --as with Yuuji's case-- his eyes still remain on his face, only closed.

If all of his extra limbs and organs have a purpose that makes his body perfect for sorcery, then why would his eyes be different? And what better eyes to immulate than the ones that are highly valued within the jujutsu world for the advantages they give in terms of sorcery and have also been around in some way for as long as Sukuna has?

While I won't argue that they're better or even the same, I will say that they are at least (arguably) equal in two of the three main benefits that the Six Eyes grant their users; perception and interpretation of cursed energy.

That's the theory, at least.

#this took forever im so sorry #i couldn't figure out how to word it #since i've never fully written out a jjk theory before #and while im not completely happy with it #hopefully my meaning got across #there's a detail i left out for the sake of not over explaining a minute point #but it is shown that sorcerers see the spark of cursed energy much the same way gojo does #at least visually #its just that gojo gets more information from that spark than everyone else (save possibly sukuna)#jujutsu kaisen #jjk spoilers #jjk meta #ryomen sukuna #gojo satoru #answers #anon #the eyes theory

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yanderes-galore · 1 year

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I looked at your rules page and it looks like you're writing for FNAF again? If so may I request prompts 52, 61, and 46 (from the prompt list you made) for a Withered Bonnie x Technician!Darling?

I'll see what I can do :) Remember, No haunted kids as usual.

Sorry for the long wait! Animatronic or android, doesn't matter.

Yandere! Withered Bonnie Prompts 52, 61, 46

"My world's covered in darkness without you!"

"Being alone is worse than you hating me."

"Even monsters can love, can't they...?"

Pairing: Romantic/Platonic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Self-aware robot, Malfunctions, Slight violence, Manipulation, Delusional behavior, Implied kidnapping.

Static crackled in his sensors. His hearing was muffled and glitching at the slightest sounds. The crippled bot tried to move but his joints only clicked.

He can barely hear the voice but still tries to snap his head towards it. It isn't until you step in front of him he senses you. Even then it's minimal.

"Woah, calm down over there buddy. You're not even supposed to be on yet. I have assessed what I need to fix."

The bot then tries to speak. You jump when static is all that comes out. He's frustrated but finds your reaction funny.

"Alright... let's try to turn you off for now- It's obvious you need a new arm, faceplate, visual sensors, audio sensors... wow they really wrecked you, huh?"

He would laugh at your comment if he could. It's true, they used his parts to create a new bot. Now that the place was shutting down it seemed they were trying to get the older bots back in order. Why else would you be here in this room?

You don't know he's sentient yet talk to him out of habit. He tries his best to watch your every move out of curiosity. A feeling of company after so many nights of loneliness.

That is until he feels you press something and his system shuts down.

---

Upon his next reboot he sees you again. Yes... his vision is still poor but other parts have improved. This is proven when he tries to speak again.

"H-ello."

It's still a broken voice, but it is a voice. You stop what you're doing and turn towards the bot you're working on. You look tired but relieved.

"Oh good... an improvement. Your ocular parts still need to come in along with the faceplate but... I may have the arm done soon...." You mutter to yourself, not expecting an answer.

"I-I can bar-ley see yo-u."

You step closer to examine his busted endo. You could barely call the red lights sockets. Yet you were close enough he could register your face somewhat.

"Hm..."

"N-Name?"

"Oh, right, the register function. Surprised that works still." You back up a bit and huff. "Just call me (Y/N). I am the mechanic and handler of the older robots."

You then turn around and mumble to yourself. He could barely hear you with his audio damage.

"I'm spread way too thin... this one has the most damage other than the chicken-"

His code registers an uncharacteristic form of sympathy towards you. You're so tired from your job. He wants to be better, to no longer be nearly blind or deaf.... Your state seemed to make his code stutter and emulate strange emotions towards you.

Emotions...?

"That's enough for tonight." You yawn. With that, it's lights out.

He thinks he likes you.

---

Just when he thought the darkness and loneliness would consume him, you grace him with your presence. With new improvements it appears....

He can hear and feel another arm. His voice?

"Hello a-gain."

Needs improvement but it'll do.

"Hello, Bonnie. Looks like the arm works... can you hear me?"

"Y-Yes."

"Great, that works too."

He clicks his head towards you writing in a journal. His vision may be poor but he still can make out you. You look so... nice.

Bonnie finds himself shuffling off the table onto his metal feet. This causes you to swing around to him with slight fear. He doesn't mean to scare you.

"Uhhh... Bonnie, return to the table-"

"(Y/N)... y-you are ti-red."

"Can't do much about that-"

"Y-You can re-st."

"No I can't- Why am I talking to you...."

Bonnie tilts his head, lack of faceplate staring back at you. He wanted to help you like you helped him. Slowly but surely, you're building him again.

For that... he likes you.

Loves you even.

That's the emotion, right?

"Maybe there was a reason you were deactivated... you're eager. I need to be more careful-"

You pull out a remote. A shut off switch for repairs. Bonnie panics, going to grab it before you pull away.

He doesn't want to leave you yet!

He makes a swipe towards you in desperation. Metal claws nearly graze you before you press the button. Just like that, Bonnie's sensors shut down.

You begin to wonder how safe these repair sessions are now.

---

Your safety has been compromised. While trying to fix up Bonnie's voice box he had malfunctioned. Your remote was crushed in his metal hands and you had to run out of the room.

Bonnie didn't understand why you ran.

"(Y/N)? Cottontail? Don't run from me...."

The voice box was repaired but his "fur" was still patchy. He had no face or eyes and his endoskeleton remained exposed in various places. He looked terrifying.

You just needed to hope his vision was as horrible as you thought.

"Please come out..." The robot pleads, each step giving off a click of his joints. "My world's covered in darkness without you!"

He meant that quite literally. He was nearsighted with his damaged eye units. Whenever you came into view, you lit up his vision.

You were so nice to help him. He wants to show he cares.

Yet you keep running away.

He stumbles around the dark pizzeria, you had come after hours to work on the robots for relocation. You hide silently in one of the party rooms, a red glow shining through the door of the room.

"Cottontail... please don't be scared. I only wish to care for you."

He steps into the room, trying hard to scan the area. He can barely make out anything.

"Being alone is worse than you hating me...." The voice box buzzes out near you, the large rabbit bot turning until red lights stared at you. You thought he wouldn't see you.

"There you are, my cottontail...."

"Don't call me that, monster! You're glitching! Stay away from me!"

You go to scramble away but Bonnie swipes at you before you leave his poor vision. You feel cold metal dig into you before pulling you closer. The body of the robot feels fuzzy and worn once you collide with it.

"Monster...? You think I am a monster?"

The tone that buzzes out sounds saddened.

"I only wish to show you how thankful I am. I want to show you I love what you do for me... that I love you."

Something sparks within him, scaring you. When you scream he tilts his head. You lean back when he stiffly leans forward, voice box crackling one more phrase.

"Even monsters can love, can't they...?"

#yandere five nights at freddys #yandere fnaf #yandere fnaf 2 #yandere withered bonnie

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myeyesarebrighter · 3 days

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A bunch of you recommended an advocate to navigate the IEP scenario and THANK YOU. We are just getting started and she’s already my emotional support person. She’s straightforward, clear, honest (even if I don’t want to hear it), and knows what the fuck is happening. She’s respectful of the school and me/my kiddo, but is clear to say when any of us has dropped the ball. Phew.

She also was like WHAT they’re not doing a functional behavioral assessment for your kid? It’s probably the most important part given what you’ve told me so far!

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gsirvitor · 9 months

Text

Well, you got one part correct, don't know about the others like @siryouarebeingmocked, @you-stand-corrected or @newplayingsmash, but I am indeed a Liberal.

I'm gonna have to go over the term phobia until the sun explodes aren't I?

A phobia is an aversion to or fear of something, colloquially people have used it to mean hatred but that isn't the correct use, if you want to say someone has a hatred of something you use the term misia, so not Transphobia but Transmisia.

Though, I don't fear, avoid or hate Trans people, nor do the others you have listed, so neither pejorative label actually works as an attack of our characters.

What's wrong with being against governments seeking to disarm the population? If I weren't against that I wouldn't be a Liberal.

I've been here since Tumblr was first made, when I was in grade 7, it wasn't always full of mentally unstable authoritarians who make death threats, such as yourself.

Ah, you saw my collection, now it makes sense why you're acting so unhinged, you're protecting child murderers.

If I recall, I didn't get angry with you, actually I have it here;

A simple question is me getting angry?

Oh God, you're pissed off because smash wasn't automatically repelled by your zoomer ward against "evil," and that they correctly assessed that your defense of child murderers makes you a horrid person.

Nigga, I have ADHD and Autism, these are not excuses for shit behavior, your insistence on using them as crutches only further cements your immaturity.

BTW, your popcornpie account isn't banned, and no amount of reporting can get you shadowbanned, only banned, the content you post can get you shadowbanned, so posting death threats, even in a long rant, can cause this.

What does a shadowban on Tumblr mean? Basically, your blog exists and mostly functions as it normally would, but Tumblr has made it invisible to everyone else.

If I can view you on desktop while not logged in, you aren't even shadowbanned, and you're fucking lashing out like a child who was set in time-out.

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unhelpfulfemme · 8 months

Text

Being part of the Jedi Order or any other community cannot be considered equivalent to any kind of therapy

Reply to this post because I didn't want to hijack it with my long-ass essay.

While I agree that portraying Jedi culture as cold and detached and oppressive is plain incorrect and frankly bizzare (I love the Jedi culture and think that overall it's really neat), I think that everyone in the post I linked to is severely misunderstanding how therapy works, which is kind of fatal for a discussion whose main purpose is to determine whether something is or isn't adequate therapy.

Because living in a community by definition cannot be therapy.

Therapists aren't allowed to provide therapy to people with whom they have preexisting relationships outside of therapy. Nor are they allowed to begin a different kind of relationship with a patient. Now, you may say that this is because of the great potential for abuse of power but actually, no, while that's part of it it's actually not the main concern.

The main concern is that all forms of therapy - even those that are not "traditional talk therapy" (traditional talk therapy being psychoanalysis and the like 🤢) rely heavily on the relationship between the therapist and the patient. Many studies have shown that this is an integral part of therapy regardless of the therapeutic modality (i.e. the actual content of the therapeutic approach) and accounts for as much if not more of the variance in outcomes as the actual theoretical underpinnings of the therapeutic school (do with this as you will re what this says about therapy). What a therapist does is basically assess where you're at and then scaffolds a better way of functioning - the therapeutic modality just determines in what way they scaffold it, and they also have to have honest input from you in order to tailor it to your particular needs.

Now, here are the issues.

(1) For proper trust to develop so that all of this can be accomplished, the therapist-patient relationship must be devoid of both prior baggage and external incentive structures that might conflict with the goals of vulnerable self-disclosure on the patient's part.

Simply put, it's very hard to, for example, talk about your anger at father figures or your irrational reactions at certain innocuous behaviors coming from father figures when your therapist is also your father figure. It's very hard to talk about your nasty irrational emotions if the therapist is also someone you have a personal relationship with and whose good opinion you care about, or if the therapist is your boss, or someone who is personally close to a bunch of people you are also personally close to, because you might think "Hey, I'm angry at our mutual friend but I can't talk about that, because what if my therapist likes them better and is secretly on their side" or something similar.

A community by definition cannot fulfill this purpose because all communities have a) a power structure, formal or informal and b) social norms. A community might raise a child to follow psychologically healthy tenets of emotional regulation from scratch, and this is what the Jedi do. Here there's no conflict of interest, because when you're raising a child from a very early age trust is more or less the default because the child is still in that malleable stage where they naturally look to their environment to learn this, and your good example and the healthy interactions between you (whether you are one person or several people raising the child communally) and the child will probably be enough to give the proper scaffolding for healthy emotional regulation to develop properly.

However, to move on to Anakin specifically, when you have a child that comes to your community at age 9 with a shitton of preexisting trauma, this does not work because they have already built their behavior and assumptions about the world and way of regulating themselves based on their previous experiences.

Therefore, when you move them to a new environment, they will naturally continue operating according to these assumptions, even if they are deeply irrational and contradicted by plenty of your actions. They will have ugly and dysfunctional thoughts about themselves and others and ugly and dysfunctional behavioral patterns and they will be filled with lots of nebulous fear and/or rage that will be regularly triggered by things that are not deserving of it or that the child is blatantly misinterpreting in light of their previous experiences. They will interpret everything you do according to the preexisting notions that they've picked up from their abusive environment.

If a child is used to being regularly punished, rejected or exposed to threat (which a traumatized child will inevitably be), they will also likely be severely averse to emotional risk and hypersensitive to threat (unless the punishment was so inconsistent or all-permeating that they become completely disregulated in a "you'll punish me whatever I do/there's no way to control when or how you'll punish me because it's completely uncorrelated to my own behavior, which means I may as well do whatever the fuck I want" kind of logic). They'll also be likely to interpret ambivalent stimuli as threatening.

This means that if a child sees you as someone with the potential to wield punishments or the kind of moral or social judgment that leads to social rejection or exclusion (which is basically equivalent to pain for the human brain because we have a natural need to belong), it is impossible to develop a proper therapeutic relationship with that child, no matter how correct your philosophy of emotional regulation and mindfulness and et cetera is.

In broad terms, this is why a community cannot provide therapy- a community by definition must have a mechanism for selecting its members, and also a set of norms or moral criteria the members agree on, because otherwise it'd be overrun with exploitative assholes. Even if it would never cast away the traumatized person in question, they still by definition have the power to do it, something that a person with a hypersensitivity to threat and a history of people treating them badly will be deeply aware of. If you are part of a community, you also by definition care about their opinion and their very disapproval hurts. This can be kind of alleviated if the community in question has few norms about the members' emotional expression because it revolves around another thing entirely - this is why youth groups where the membership is around, say, a shared hobby, can often be helpful - but a community that is a cultural or spiritual community will by definition address these questions and have opinions on them.

Now, to go back to my favourite terrible murdery boy and his relationship to the Jedi, the Jedi are structured in such a way that they are... inevitably authority figures who are pasing judgment on the younglings/padawans. In fact, Anakin's first interaction with Jedi who aren't Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon is in a context of the Jedi evaluating him in order to decide whether he should be accepted or not. This is antithetical to a therapeutic relationship.

Because a situation where they are evaluated and might be rejected (and put back into their abusive environment) will kill any developing trust, immediately activate the abused child's fight or flight instincts, and put them on a track of probably suppressing their emotions and focusing on what they should do and say to please you or, alternatively, being defiant in an attempt to actively and preemptively defend themselves from you.

It doesn't matter whether the Jedi were "mean" or "harsh" in that scene as some people (IMHO unnecessarily and exaggeratedly) complain about - the incentive structure of the situation is the problem. It's like when you go to HR and the nice HR lady with the psych degree asks you how you're feeling about your new position and whether there are any problems - you're gonna say no no matter how nice or enlightened she is. And if this nice lady is your therapist, she won't be able to help you if you're not honest, because she can't tailor the therapy to your needs if she doesn't know what your specific problem is.

Furthermore, the Jedi then become a) Anakin's community, i.e. his only source of companionship, emotional validation, etc. b) The only people providing for Anakin's fundamental physical needs and c) his teachers. As his teachers, it is their overt and explicit role to assess the state of Anakin's learning - including how well Anakin is adopting Jedi teachings about emotional regulation - and then decide on whether they will promote him to the next phase or not or when, all of which determines Anakin's standing in this community and what he is or isn't allowed to do.

This is antithetical to a therapeutic relationship.

OF COURSE a traumatized child will just try to please you as best they can, and you are probably pleased when the child appears well-regulated. But the child doesn't know how to regulate themselves, and they need to be dysregulated for you to show them how, and because emotional regulation is an internal thing they need to express what they're feeling in some way so that you can help them work on it in order to demonstrate. But if they are too scared of your disapproval to express it, you will never get to demonstrate it, and they will never learn. They'll just learn to mask or suppress what they're feeling. And if you have a lifetime of regulating your emotions, they will never see you become dysregulated to the degree that they do, so they can't learn from YOUR example either. And emotional regulation really, really isn't a thing that's easily taught by making someone follow a series of standardized steps - if it were, we'd be living in paradise! You can say that of course getting angry is normal etc. etc. but a person - especially a traumatized person with an internal model of the world that presumes everyone will hurt or reject them - will not internalize this based on words only.

Things become worse when you realize that the Jedi teachings also contain the notion that, "If you are not regulating yourself well enough, you become succeptible to a malevolent corruptive influence that turns you EEEVIL and the antithesis of all we stand for that few if any people recover from".

Now, is this the material state of reality for the Jedi? Yes. Is this also a deeply threatening and fear-inducing scenario? Fuck yes! It contains a threat of a) severe moral judgment of the self as Bad, b) rejection on the part of the community that provides for literally all of your needs, c) the looming threat of a scary malevolent thing controlling you. This is a very threatening scenario for someone with no clear sense of identity or a very negative one, who doesn't know how to regulate themselves, and is also hypersensitive to threat. The very notion of this will be further deregulating for this person, and because it also contains a strong component of perceived social judgment, that they are also hypersensitive to and prone to interpreting in the worst light possible in a way a mentally healthy person wouldn't, it will reinforce the abovedescribed pattern where they must suppress it all and no one must know.

Does the Jedi philosophy on emotions and the Dark side have more nuance than "If you are not regulating yourself well enough, you become succeptible to a malevolent corruptive influence that turns you EEEVIL and the antithesis of all we stand for that few if any people recover from"? Yes. Is the Jedi philosophy right on uncontrolled emotions being a road that leads to hell? Fuck yes! I overall agree with the Jedi philosophy, actually. Will a traumatized child that is put in a state of fight or flight by the very notion and probably had little in the way of formal education be able to pick up on the nuance and properly consider it in a calm and rational way and then also adopt and internalize it on an emotional level? Fuck no.

(2) Another reason your community cannot provide therapy is because, well, have you noticed how I talk a lot about how therapists "scaffold you" and "tailor their approach to your experience"? This is because when you're a therapist, it's a job. Which means that you are putting all your personal needs and preferences aside for the time being and focusing on what the patient needs, interacting and communicating in a way that best facilitates their recovery and not in the way you would genuinely like to communicate. This is why therapists get paid. It's a people-oriented job.

Even if the patient lashes out in a way that is hurtful or offensive, you must react in a way that best serves them, not in a way that mends your feelings or personal dignity. You can't just change the subject if what they're talking about bores you, you can't zone out or decide that hey, their personality is actually kinda annoying and makes me feel bad and I don't want to be friends with them.

This is the whole point of why therapy is different from simply, you know, having a friend - any other relationship is a two-way street and it's shitty and abusive to expect the other person to completely adapt their behavior to your needs and your personal growth. But if you're already set in a dysfunctional pattern, it will often be a self-perpetuating cycle: you get scared and then you get angry and unpleasant to be around and then they leave you and this hurts you and with the next person you are even more scared and even more angry and even more unpleasant... etc. If people with deeply seated issues could just be fixed by having meaningful relationships and practicing mindfulness, we'd be living in paradise!

What a therapist does is construct their interactions with you in a way that slowly leads you to change your behavioral patterns by basically some combination of selecting what kind of stimuli you're exposed to and then giving you the tools to interpret your reactions to them (and the way they do that depends on the modality/school), which means that the relationship is completely one sided and their needs and personal preferences are 100% not in the picture, which is why you're paying them. To expect someone to do it for free and all the time (and this is another reason why you're not supposed to have personal relationships with your patients - you're supposed to provide consistency and behaving one way in therapy and another way outside of it is confusing and disorienting for the patient) is not really good for the person that you are expecting it from.

So it would be really really shitty to expect someone like, say, Obi-Wan, with his own needs and his own personality and perhaps his own emotional baggage (because he's, say, processing the loss of a loved one) to play the part of a therapist for Anakin, because a therapist is fundamentally a different thing than a loved one, brother, father, friend, community member.

Now, if the Jedi Order had some kind of a designated therapist Jedi or similar spiritual advisor who didn't live with or was personally close to the other Jedi that Anakin knows and that Anakin went to regularly (for actual therapy), it would be a way different thing - but correct me if I'm wrong when I say that I don't think they do, in canon? But that still doesn't make "being part of Jedi culture" actively therapeutic.

Does this mean that the Jedi culture isn't wise and beautiful? Fuck no. I think that the Jedi culture is absolutely wise and beautiful. Does this mean that the Jedi deserved to be genocided or are in any way at fault for the fact that they were? They did not and are not and if you think differently kindly fuck off.

But the notion that just... existing within a culture is equivalent to DBT or any other sort of therapy is completely wrong and I felt the need to dispute it.

I also think that knowing how to recognize and practice good emotional regulation and knowing how to change someone's emotional regulation from terribly dysfunctional to good are two vastly different skill sets, and quite frankly the way the Jedi are structured means that they wouldn't have much need to learn the second one, because they hardly ever or never have to deal with raising traumatized children. They just exclude them by default. I suspect that not knowing how to deal with traumatized children and them consequently going dark is a large part of why they set that rule in the first place. The only reason they accepted Anakin was because of the Chosen One stuff and because Qui-Gon insisted.

Which doesn't make their teachings or their culture wrong, nor does it make the Jedi bad people. At all. (I actually think the Jedi culture is beautiful and leaves plenty of room for individuality and expression and plenty of my favourite characters are Jedi.) The Jedi can be 100% in the right about all their teachings (and probably are) and they can still be of little to no therapeutic value to Anakin. These two things can coexist.

Which means that listing "key focuses of DBT" doesn't tell you anything about how they go about facilitating said focuses in the patient or what kind of broader relationship structure is necessary to facilitate that, and that part is what really makes DBT special and adapted to people with really difficult to deal disorders like CPTSD or NPD. Not the key focuses, which are more or less similar for a bunch of different approaches, because they're kinda just common sense about what makes for good mental health.

Could the Jedi teachings be adapted to be better suited to someone like Anakin? Probably, with some mistakes along the way as they're learning (and actually admitting Anakin in the first place can be seen as the first step towards that). How you feel about the risk vs. reward ratio of that when the bad ending creates you a Sith lord is up to you to decide I guess.

#star wars #anakin skywalker #the jedi order

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artbyblastweave · 2 years

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Gideon the Ninth Liveread, Chapter 11

We are now on Day three at Canaan house. This work does interesting things with time. Sometimes you get a chapter like chapter 6 that’s basically the equivalent of a training montage taking place over months; sometimes you get a three or four chapter run covering like an hour; here you get a chapter that officially begins to stretch out and volumize the total amount of time that the cast have canonically spent at Canaan house without much happening. I’m harping on this because of my ongoing conspiracy theory that this was a book written to maximize opportunities for fandom engagement; around the ring distribution scene in chapter 8, when I realized that this was like a very weird boarding school plot, I developed the theory that Muir was going to do some time jumps, leaving broad holes in the timeline where canon-adjacent stuff can be crammed in. This isn’t as drastic as what I was thinking of, but it fills a similar role; the rest of this chapter shows that while Gideon was sequestering herself, the tertiary cast spent two days getting at least somewhat acquainted with each other.

Also; as much as Gideon is ragging on Harrow for her chronic truancy (and I’ve read a couple of chapters ahead so I know her complaints are grounded) Gideon is, from the perspective of everyone else at Canaan house, exactly as opaque and inaccessible as Harrow.

“It was in this abandoned state....“ Okay, Gideon, as much as I ragged on Dulcinea for objectifying you in the last chapter, I assess your current state as more than slightly self-inflicted. Dulcinea wants you around. Harrow- the main functional constraint on your behavior, or at least the one you blame everything on- has no leverage here because she isn’t around. This whole dueling sequence indicates your ability to carve out a niche fairly easily. And really, you aren’t adequately questioning the idea that sticking like glue to Harrow’s charade is the only way out of your situation on the ninth. You could cheat! There are people around who might help you cheat! To the degree that you’re abandoned and without prospects, it’s because you’re hiding away!

....As I write from my lightless bedroom. Hmm.

Okay, enter Coronabeth. Alright. Listen. Somebody must have at least floated the idea of a Canaan-house dating sim, right? I can’t be the only one whose mind went here at this point, with the knuckle-kissing.

Jokes aside, I get the impression that Gideon is astoundingly attracted to Coronabeth and extremely susceptible to her charisma, but it’s unclear to me if she actually likes Coronabeth. The descriptor “an expression like an artillery shell mid-flight” indicates a level of discomfort; Gideon feels less in love and more ensnared, off-balance, following Coronabeth because she succumbed to Coronabeth. Coronabeth is in general treated by the narration of having a gravity that makes everyone defer to her like this.

I’ve decided that I like Magnus, at least in part because Gideon clearly does. This sequence is full of a lot of little signifiers that he’s actually a decent guy; he’s the only person in the room actively friendly to Gideon when she walks in, he’s fiercely but deftly protective of the fourthlings when Naberius is being a dick, he’s humble, he’s a wife-guy, he’s a fun-uncle, he cracks puns and immediately endears himself to Gideon by doing so. I think I called the Hammerlock thing; he’s like the empty, goofy, sanitized signifier of Empire, the fun aesthetic parts, the nobility and sportsmanship, but at a distance from any of the genocidal sausage that goes hand-in-hand with the real-life version. He’s very pointedly not good at being a cavalier- a teen with three months of training thrashes a grown man who self-identifies as the boy toy of the competent person in his dyad. He’s never seen real combat. My read is that he’s either going to die ineffectually (thus removing a voice of reason from play) or be secretly evil, but in the increasingly unlikely scenario that this turns out to be a takedown of his archetype, I am gonna say that he feels believably likable in the way such a person would need to be to have the social power associated with the gentleman adventurer role.

Also, to briefly revisit the AU logic from earlier- I’ve got this guy pegged as the “cool teacher.”

“Three Moves, Magnus!“ I love these little assholes. I love how these little pesterings are structured as intrusive asides rather than as part of the ebb and flow of the dialogue.

Alright, if Gideon’s implicit.... thing with Dulcinea is rooted in an aesthetic fascination and acts of service, Gideon’s impending.... thing with Coronabeth is rooted in the fact that Coronabeth is apparently aroused by Gideon’s massive capacity for violence. Nobody on the rock is capable of desiring Gideon for hinged reasons or being at all normal about it.

Can’t tell if Magnus’s “Am I getting old? Should Abigail and I divorce?” is a good-natured face-recoupment bit, or if the Fifth actually does have a “divorce your spouse if they’re inadequately martially competent” norm. Or if it is a joke, but a joke contextualized by that norm. And where is Abigail, anyway?

Also: Interesting that Gideon clearly has some residual affection and respect for Aiglamene. Heart growing fonder, et al, et al.

Okay, the whole Babs sequence adheres like glue to a lot of. A lot of high school and sports movie tropes. Scrappy underdog on the back foot until she breaks protocol, and then being lauded for being the more practical combatant even if her well-bred opponent is more skilled within the rules as defined. Preps vs… Goth-nerds? Gerds? Spiced up, however, by whatever deranged under-the-hood dynamics the thirds have going on. Is Naberius, like, a sibling to the twins, a boyfriend, an unholy fusion...? Also interesting is that Coronabeth seems interested in defusing Naberius rather than providing solidarity to him; her approach to the aftermath of the fight is definitely based around keeping in both Babs and Gideon’s good graces.

Also; Naberius is suspicious of Gideon. He knows enough about the Ninth’s MO that Gideon actually being good at Cavaliering is not usually how the ninth plays things. And he’s right- Ortus, martially incompetent Bone Donkey, should be there in Gideon’s place. This is another example of the dynamic present his introductory scene in chapter 9; he’s vastly more insightful and observant than the elitist prep snob archetype normally is, but he deploys that insightfulness basically purely in service of playing his archetype to the hilt by being a classist, self-absorbed dick.

And we leave off on the reveal that Harrow saw everything, after three chapters of total non-presence. Dollars to donuts that she’s gonna be pissy about Gideon doing things rather than politely tucking herself away like a piece of unused equipment while Harrow was AWOL. This is, incidentally, close to what I was predicting would happen as a result of Harrow siloing herself off from Gideon.

I should probably say something about the second cav, Dyas (first name unremembered) whose job in the story is basically to provide the above-validation that Gideon is the more practical fighter. I strongly suspect, given how little I’ve seen her name come up, and the fact her uniform is a literal red jacket, that she isn’t long for the narrative. I’ve seen chatter about the 2nd house necro, though. I wonder what she’s up to.

And, to round out, This chapter features the second or third time that Nonius, ninth-house founder, is referred to as some particularly-badass badass, anomalous in comparison to his descendants. I’m curious to see why said particularly badass badass set up his house in the middle of nowhere....

#gideon the ninth liveread #gideon the ninth #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus #naberius tern #coronabeth tridentarius #magnus quinn #the locked tomb #tlt #the locked tomb liveread #thoughts #meta #blastweave livereads

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