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pumpkinsouppe · 6 months

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I haven’t played all of AA4 yet but I was thinking a lot about how uneasy the first case made me feel (in a good way) and I finally figured out why. (AA 4-1 spoilers btw) Part of it of course is the overall scheme: what happened 7 years ago and what are the answers to all these unresolved questions. But I genuinely don’t think I’ve seen a more accurate depiction of how I experienced GAD and social anxiety than I have with Apollo Justice.

Thankfully, I have learned to stand up for myself and I’ve controlled the majority of my anxiety but I can very clearly see that Apollo has not done that, at least yet. I am hoping hoping hoping we get to see him grow in this game because I know that AA5 and 6 won’t do that justice (lol). All throughout the first case, Apollo rarely spoke for himself. He was very much a follower and wanted approval, ergo he was very easy to manipulate. Kristoph and Phoenix both recognized this about him and were able to both use Apollo as their own puppets. He followed Kristoph’s orders whenever he gave them (‘expose phoenix’s lies’ ‘don’t embarrass me’) but he also was very willing to follow Phoenix’s orders too (‘point on the map for us’ ‘name the fourth person/killer’ ‘accuse Kristoph’). He followed who he thought was seeking the truth but he had to be told that doing these actions was for the truth.

I never was manipulated in court like Apollo experienced, but I was VERY quick to abandon plans for something else or act in ways if someone told me to. I remember sometimes even saying yes to things that made me super uncomfortable because I didn’t think for myself and didn’t want to disappoint or make anyone mad. And you can tell that Apollo really looked up to both Kristoph and Phoenix in that trial. He wasn’t sure who to believe so he followed both simultaneously until at the end when he realized both were assholes. I LOVE the unease I felt during the first case. It felt so real to me how Apollo was able to be so easily manipulated and how that was able to be used as a very interesting way to set up a new game and protagonist.

It’s amplified especially if you played all the past Phoenix Wright games. Hell, I finished PLvsPW an hour before picking up AA4 and that really influenced how much I wanted to also follow and believe Phoenix. So I absolutely love how this trial was used not only to play with the heart and mind of Apollo, but the players as well. There’s less reason to follow Kristoph since the players don’t have the same bond Kristoph and Apollo have since this was our first time meeting him, but because he’s our boss and he’s standing at the defense with us like Mia has, that adds to his credibility. Which is even better that Phoenix took Kristoph’s spot behind the defense bench when Kristoph was summoned to the stand. “Don’t believe that other guy, look at where he is now. Believe me instead, the person who just left that same spot.” You want to believe him, it’s Phoenix Wright! Teaching us the ways just like Mia. But what he’s actually done is replace Kristoph as the supposed voice of reason in Apollo’s ear. Yes that’s the spot for mentors, but does every mentor have your best intentions in mind? Are you able to distinguish genuine advice versus motivated advice?

I am truly fascinated and captivated by the writing. You can tell how much Shu Takumi has grown as a writer compared to the original AA1. I am so excited to play the rest of this game.

#I haven’t written smth like this in a while fhdjlaf and it’s all been TLOZ related in the past #like damn what a killer opening #i am soooo sad that we dont actually have a true Apollo justice trilogy i would do anything for more of this #and more of this i mean a story centered on Apollo with this level of writing lmao #i wrote this whole thing instead of working on my sop my god #also worth mentioning is I love how anxiety is displayed differently between Phoenix Apollo and ryunosuke #esp between ryuu and Apollo where one is very unsure of his abilities to defend but listens to his heart vs the other who #is more confident in his ability but struggles to form his own opinion #UHG i love these games so much I am so glad I finally got aroudn to playing them #ace attorney #Apollo justice

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potato-on-your-head · 1 year

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any day I receive art I bought from @ikimaru is an amazing day!!! loving my new Owl House prints and they’re making my new apartment so cheery 💜 she’s one of my favorite artists of all time so go check her blog and shop out!!

#ikimaru #I LOVE YOUR ART SUNNY IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY #and it makes me so warm inside to open up the package and see the customs form in Italian #and to realize ‘holy moly I can buy things from an artist on a DIFFERENT CONTINENT and we’re connected through this shared love of this show #love your charms also and I need to put my klance zine on display somewhere 💜#the owl house #art: toh

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brookheimer · 1 year

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do i post my long explanation of empathy vs sympathy re: roman tonight or is that just excessive

#like warning it is Long. will cut it down some bc i wrote it in a mad frenzy at 3 am in my notes app last night but still #tl;dr: roman is intensely empathetic and entirely devoid of sympathy. the seemingly contradictory displays of compassion vs disregard/#cruelty are not contradictory at all and make complete sense if you understand the actual definitions of empathy and sympathy. i’d argue #that while rome’s capacity for empathy stands out in a show a #of people who are not prone to empathy his complete and total void of sympathy is much more unique in terms of humanity at large. it’s just #a show filled w cruel people so it’s less noticeable that the forms of cruelty he displays are rooted in empathy/lack of sympathy rather #than sympathy/lack of empathy like kendall and shiv (and just most people more generally)#sympathy is predicated upon difference distance and logical dissection of emotion while empathy is rooted in identification intimacy and #visceral experiences of emotion #you guys just literally do not know what these words mean. but that’s fine ! most people do not ! they are frequently confused and conflated #! that just doesn’t mean they SHOULD be. so . maybe i can help w that #also for further reading edmund burke is an absolutely fascinating figure to read esp his writings on british imperialism #although the term he uses is sympathy mehta & other later thinkers who have talked ab him have concluded that his cosmopolitanism of #sentiments/sympathy is much more like the modern definition of empathy (the words have shifted meaning slightly over the course of history)#or rather that the sentiment is empathy but the push to action is sympathy and combining together u get the cosmo. of sentiments #but basically burke is the founder of modern conservative thought basically. he is also the only british thinker who at the time of british #occupation of india actually spoke out against imperialism. this is because he viewed others not from a lens of sympathy/pity (feeling bad #for their plight) but empathy (identifying with their circumstances and placing himself within them)#love burke bc i find it so fascinating how someone i disagree with so frequently also holds a mindset that i value greatly and is anti-#imperialism despite everything else about him #kind of like rome in that sense. except rome’s sense of empathy is slightly broken because a) he doesn’t have any sympathy to supplement it #with and b) his visceral/emotion/gut instinct leading way of viewing the world + the way obscene wealth makes the rest of reality feel #fungible = inability to feel anything towards that which he does not identify #and unlike burke rome is too skewed by wealth and his upbringing to see resemblance in the masses and empathize w them #the other sibs function using sympathy and feel bad for the poor without having to relate to or understand them #but roman doesn’t do sympathy. he doesn’t feel FOR people he feels what people are feeling instead #but only so long as they’re seen as people. sympathy requires hierarchy so not viewing others as ppl v much allows for sympathy.#empathy requires some level of perceived horizontality so rome cannot empathize w that which is not horizontal to him #me: should i post this long thing? also me: posts another long thing in the tags that’s a long short summary of the much longer actual post #anyways. ahem. back to work

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60inchyugiohheadcanons · 7 months

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On Jōnouchi's ADHD (1.39k words)

This headcanon is probably the longest on this blog; it's some compiled thoughts on how growing up with (undiagnosed) ADHD has affected Jōnouchi. It's halfway between headcanon and fanfiction piece, and was requested by @bloodyscott, whom I kept waiting for too long for a response. I apologise sincerely for the delay.

This headcanon begins below the cut, as it's obscenely long. You may find it more comfortable to read this from the blog page, or on Archive of Our Own (NOTE: tumblr is acting strange. To access the page, copy the link and manually remove the href.li portion and the second https), rather than on your dashboard/search, in terms of formatting and such.

From infancy, Jōnouchi wailed his way out of his crib, out of his room, out of his house—as a baby, he thrashed towards whatever freedom he could find. He loathed the four walls of the crib; he'd scarce room to move. A skin infection brought him, aged 4, to hospital, and the very sight of overrun grey plastic seats and skinny cubicles exhausted him more than his illness had ever threatened to.

In primary school, others’ desks would blend together in a whir. Here he was, stuck, dizzyingly sedentary—the longer he sat, the foggier the world seemed to grow. When he kicked and whined at other children throughout electric lunch breaks, and they shrank from his vitality, he learned to eat alone. As his peers trudged from class in packs, watching the pavement, he sat, sullen, as his father drove him home. Somehow, Katsuhiro had never trusted him not to lose himself in chasing his surrounds. The fabric of the car seat would bite into his shorts, and he’d squirm for the window, squealing towards the noise outside: Birds that cawed; scraps of paper that fluttered and choked on smog. That was a fragile era, when his mother still waited, with dry hands and chipped nails, at home. When his father already stank of beer, but still spoke loudly, deeply, boisterously. Again and again, Jōnouchi’s mother would sit her son down, and write his name, stroke by agonising stroke. She’d recite each mora in time with each character. Yet sound would cluster through his head, and his own name would dissolve amid his mother’s instructions, amid the blaze of sunlight trapped on the windowsill behind her. He would write, and the strokes would come out rushed, mis-ordered, lopsided.

Iro wa nioedo

chirinuru wo.

At 10, his father grew quiet, and his mother yet quieter. Silence took up like a plague in Jōnouchi’s head, and swarmed in shapeless formation throughout parched mathematics lessons. Times tables hurled themselves headlong into a skull full of fog, and burst on contact. Are you listening? a teacher asked. How could he listen with a head full of noise, of unspoken words billowing back and forth? He gripped his seat, and glared back. Why should I care, anyway?

When his mother left, his father stopped caring to chaperone him. It had taken Jōnouchi a decade to earn the right to shed his infancy. He resented that it had been this long, so tried to join the huddle of middle schoolers. He told odd stories, and took off, queasy, in front of them. They withdrew their smiles when he approached on the second day. He growled his plaint, and resentment drove him to take the opposite route. He explored back alleys, wallflower convenience stores and dilapidated cinemas; the faster he walked, the more clearly he could see each brick, and the brighter each fleck in the pavement glinted. At speed, he delayed the journey home, and set his eyes on a gorgeous early winter sunset. The colours bellowed, too bold for winter, ungainly and vain. They were glorious.

Jōnouchi came home late. His father glared; fog crashed back down on his shoulders.

Wa ga yo tare zo

tsune naran?

A week before she cleared out too few of Katsuhiro’s belongings and packed too few suitcases, Jōnouchi’s mother drove both children two miles to the optometrist. My son, she explained, reads slowly, yet resents reading; it seems he can’t see very well. My daughter’s sight seems clearer, yet she complains of pain. The optometrist forced Jōnouchi to read down a chart of letters; he fidgeted, and, consumed in memories of a lonely lunch break the day prior, passed with flying colours. When the optometrist flashed a light to photograph his eyes, whatever hideous miracle that was, Jōnouchi screamed.

Katsuya Jōnouchi, the optometrist surmised, had perfect acuity of sight. He sought attention, stimulation. Meanwhile, Shizuka Jōnouchi, who had sat entirely still throughout her examination, had more ragged, derelict peripheral vision than her family had anticipated. Untreated, both your children will get much worse.

And in the months after Shizuka Jōnouchi became Shizuka Kawai and Mrs. Jōnouchi became That Bitch Who Never Cared, Katsuya Jōnouchi became horribly aware of how little time he had to be lethargic. He had to survive this schism; yet as he was, he barely felt capable of thinking. He walked, fidgeted, paced to prove to himself that he was a moving, breathing organism. Yet his father’s frustration would brook no exuberance. Long before Katsuhiro fully committed to flinging glass and spurning his son’s misery, Jōnouchi began learning to move silently, slowly, around his father. He memorised which mats snapped and snagged, which bits of fabric hissed when stepped on. He noted which windows opened most quietly. And yet he never managed a perfect, quiet exit. He couldn’t help but be conspicuous; he could only hope to get out too quickly for his father to react. And, to lift the torpor that followed escape, he would run to school, and, after, run back. Never did the sun shine brighter than when he was moving.

Uwi no okuyama

kyou koete.

When he met Hirutani, did he become more violent? No; every punch he threw during his delinquency had waited, kinetic and desperate, for days, months, years. In classrooms, his sole responses to being ordered around had been sullen deference, with sullenness being his sole demonstration of rebellion. Now, threatened with the obsolescence of his ego, of his perceived freedom, he chained himself to violence, over and over. The first time he punched a man in the gut, he found himself shaking. And rather than sink into sallow, domestic remorse, he slathered himself in white rage. And he went back and he went back and he went back, helpless to his own instincts, trying to dredge the noise in his skull out through his fists. No matter how many punches he threw, and no matter how many he received, he could not stop his head from blazing anew the moment he walked away.

Did Duel Monsters afford him any peace? He would be no man’s losing dog; nor would he be confined to dull celebrity. To play as a strategist consigned him to sitting still, committing himself to gambits he could never entirely trust, to moves that demanded a clear head. To play too whimsically would doom him to inferiority. Thus, he gave half his heart to diligence, and half to sheer fortune. Nobody could idolise his kind of folly, nor devalue his kind of skill. This was Jōnouchi’s will—to eschew having to wait in the mire of expectation; to escape the fog of obligation to anyone’s morals but his own. Honour suited him, so long as it was on his meticulous terms. In games of Duel Monsters, he became a knight-errant of sorts: predictably unpredictable, unexpectedly canny, blindly faithful. With this relationship to his own fate laid out so, he could finally draw cards without fearing those next to come. And thus, hyperkinetic, he found a peace in the game. So he played and played until he forgot how long he’d been playing, and Duel Monsters became as second nature.

Asaki yume miji

ei mo suzu.

Two weeks before Jōnouchi’s graduation, Shizuka invited him to her place to dine. Their father was not to join them. Jōnouchi protested, and his desperation died in a pinprick throat. Wisteria spilled itself over the footpath. Each step threatened to plunge, vertiginous, to the ground.

When Jōnouchi saw his mother, his throat turned to sandpaper. She looked so old.

You cried so much as a baby, she told him. Kicked and screamed to see the world. You weren’t comfortable waiting in your crib—I’d end up coming to you at 4AM, walking you around the perimeter of the house till my heels burned. And you seemed so afraid of all the noises of the night—groaning engines, singing birds. Now, look at you—you’ve grown up so terribly fast.

Could he afford to tell her how even now, he bit down the urge to kick and scream, to launch himself, all fists and sparks, onto his tormentors? No; so, all night, he gripped his glass as tight as he could. The cold lingered and itched on his palms for days. Holding onto things, it seemed, was not so difficult as he’d once believed.

#couple of notes: i tried to write jōnouchi as also possibly having some form of conduct disorder that did not progress to aspd.#as i have neither conduct disorder nor aspd – i can't promise it's entirely accurate #and i apologise sincerely for any serious mistakes. i've tried to avoid stigma but i know i've a hell of a lot more learning to do #jōnouchi is meant to have combined-type adhd here. i have adhd but no diagnosed subtype #however i'd generally say i have an extremely different experience to jōnouchi here. (i'm either hyperactive or combined)#i've tried to stay away from stereotype while also focussing on how a young child might be both overtly and internally hyperactive #and how the display of symptoms might change with circumstance.#moreover; shizuka's eye condition in the anime is left vague and (probably unrealistically) curable #i went with some kind of glaucoma (probably open-angle but i really don't know enough to say).#she probably stopped losing vision after surgery but i doubt she actually got her peripheral vision back #the japanese poem interspersed throughout is the iroha. it was more significant to early drafts and i'm too sentimental to take it out.#i named jōnouchi's father katsuhiro (克弘) because calling him 'jōnouchi's father' got too cumbersome #i didn't really show jonouchi hyperfocussing much or write about his experience of time.#but since he's an esfp i probably need more time to work out how Se dominance could interact with time blindness #anyway. i'll shut up now.#yugioh #yu-gi-oh!#YGO #Yu-Gi-Oh #yu gi oh #katsuya jonouchi #katsuya jounouchi #jounouchi katsuya #jonouchi katsuya #shizuka jonouchi #shizuka jounouchi #jonouchi #城之内克也 #tw domestic violence #cw domestic violence

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tiktaaliker · 10 months

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nil has become REAL

#howling #art tag #mortally coiled #FINALLY have a design for this fucker that im happy with i think #wanted to make them more sturdy looking than null #and also more... normal looking but not TOO normal looking #i wanted to make it clear that a lot of null's and nil's differences are based on the enviornment they formed in #where nil kept and accentuated stuff for combat + display null has more vestigial features and optimized for digging in the pitch dark #also wanted nil to more closely resemble sar'kai without being a copy #but yeah anyways. nil time

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beelsjuicytitties · 8 months

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my current obm stuff!!

planning on moving jjk to a different shelf at some point, since i have more obm on preorder and might find some more things on ebay lol. i also wanna get some strip lights to make it all more visible

#i want to get belphies demon form plush too #also some things on aimate i wanna grab...#cant wait til i get my preorder stuff hehe #strategic placement of my lil mc herd to hide my 18+ manga lmao #i want to get all the manga once the english physicals are available (i have vol 1 on preorder)#also probably gunna put my twst manga there too #sasaki to miyano might get moved to a different shelf as well #i also have my holostars collection on top of the shelf #need to get some sort of display stand for that at some point #obey me #obey me merch #beel #talkpost #not q'd

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wavesoutbeingtossed · 10 days

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Fellas, can we stop qualifying raging bigots as "they're a great person, they just have different views I don't agree with"????

I get needing to maintain professional respect for the good of your organization but newsflash, this dude is not a good person. You could sidestep it with just the second part of that sentence -- "he has views I don't agree with (but we're both committed to our team)" or some noncommittal bullshit and move on. But defending the man as a salve to disagreeing with his bigotry is negating your point.

This wasn't just some offhand ignorant comment; the guy was unhinged and insulted just about every equity group out there other than hetero white men. Including trying to drag Travis' own partner into it and knowing exactly what he was doing when he did it.

This shit is infuriating and white men defending and excusing unacceptable behaviour of white men is just so fucking tiring.

#sorry travis but this is a giant fucking miss for me and i'm incredibly disappointed #(same with jason)#(not that any of these people would know or care about my opinions lmao)#this is not an all sides type of thing #i appreciate that travis pivoted to saying his parents both shared domestic labour and work equally #and that that was an excellent example for him and he couldn't imagine it any other way #and that he was so grateful for his upbringing for growing up in a diverse area where he interacted with people of all walks of life #and that he found that beautiful and enriching and formative #but... the cognitive dissonance that all these men are displaying is so fucking frustrating #like ffs the guy didn't say this bullshit because he was speaking at a catholic university #he said it because he's a raging homophobic racist misogynist #miss me with the 'the beauty of being on a team is that everyone has different opinions but we all work together for a common goal'

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wreckedhoney · 2 months

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telling me to follow my own blog now

#or at least. thats what i thought #haha i thought. tmblr at it again with its foolishness. then on a whim i clicked on my own username. my own display pic.#at first everything seemed normal. yes i thought. silly socmed telling me to follow my own posts. but then scrolling down i started to see #something was wrong #every few posts the wording would be off. just enough to give a different feel. eventually i opened my own blog normally to compare #the more i scrolled side by side the more apparent it became that this. this was a different blog. but nearly identical #a cold sweat started to form at the back of my neck (naturally). why? why was this happening. who - or what - would be doing this #eventually i went far back enough to my last birthday. on the false blog - the false me - it was the very first post. nothing past that #it's another innocuous post. except for the tags #“soon i will breathe through you”#i don't know what to do. should i message my tmblr twin? ask who it is #why it looks like mine and how they might know my birthday #or should i leave it alone? or just……follow It ………………

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spice-ghouls · 11 months

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Almost a full 2 weeks now at the New Job and it's very stressful but I like my coworkers so I'm having an ok time :)

#my name in all of their systems is my deadname still though and I've been going back and forth with their IT department #trying to get my display name changed for nearly two weeks now. :(#I emailed the person my manager told me to email and it literally was like #I email the person my manager tells me to email > they tell me to email someone else >#I email that person > that person opens up an IT claim ticket for me > the IT person messages me and sends me a form to fill out >#I fill out the form > I recieve a response from a different IT person opening up a different ticket for me >#that person sends me to submit a change request for the overall employee system > that request is denied and they tell me that #the only way to update names in the employee system is by seeing an updated social security card. but they send me a DIFFERENT FORM #to have my name changed in MS Teams and my email > I fill out the form >#I hear back IMMEDIATELY from an IT person saying they have successfully changed my name and the ticket is closed > I check my name in teams #> name is still my deadname.#agony.#ghoul.txt

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delcat177 · 11 months

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I see you animals out there with your brightness cranked all the way up and I dare you: turn it down for one singular minute, sixty U.S. seconds, and compare

#Canadian seconds are a little shorter but hey you can get a whole minute in coin form #Isn't that stupid?#I am half canadian #I am half asleep #Seriously though #Try it #Or use your night light function #It legit makes a difference #I get so less agitated and irritable when i flip it to comfortview #Just because we can display every individual color known to god and men at 100% brightness and 70% contrast #Does not mean it's gonna be comfortable #It also makes turning it up to 11 for gaming that much more immersive #Go to bed del #God yes please thank you #Tech #Graphics #Could but should we #everything in moderation #Including moderation

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sylvianritual · 1 year

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=_= this is nitpicky as hell and mostly bc I like to think about alternative anatomies a lot but it kind of rubs me the wrong way when ppl draw splatoon characters with. Like I want to make it clear I don't mean like specifically sexualized art though that bothers me too for obvious reasons i mostly mean when it's clearly just referencing human anatomy. But when they draw them w boobs like c MON. they're not mammals....

#inkling/octoling anatomy is sooo interesting to me like genuinely if u think abt it a little further than just funny human. cmooooon.#like their 'teeth'for instance which are beaks but they have lips.... are the beaks rounded? do they point out a little bit?#are their faces not as flat as they seem?#and the one thing i saw w the octolings having ears of different sizes bc octoputs have a valve on the side of their head. THATS COOL!!#or how the hair works at all like do they remain as limbs? all the designs only have 6 or 4 hair pieces so they have 10 or 8 'limbs'#so can they move?#and with them being made from the crystals and them not having bones at all... are they amorphous?#are their forms the crystals displaying their desires #working as a whole to form an organism?

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anti-transphobia · 2 years

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There's a lot to be said about people who see positive blanket statement posts about emotions and human experiences and saying "not EVERYONE can feel love of any kind, not EVERYONE can care about others, not EVERYONE can experience empathy OR sympathy, not EVERYONE can xyz " but one thing I never hear people say is: yeah that's why it's a disorder

There's a big difference between advocating for "hey, not everyone can feel some sort of sympathy for others and that doesn't make them a bad person" and then seeing posts about how amazing it is that humanity has gotten where it is because of our ability to care for others and connect with each other on our issues and help each other through things and taking that as an attack on people who do not experiencing these things

Because yes. That's why it's considered a disorder. People are not bad for having disorders! There is no reason to stigmatize ANY of them. But it is a disorder. It is something different from the normal average settings of the human brain. If it wasn't, these people wouldn't have a disorder!

So when people say something like "caring for others is a deeply human experience" it doesn't (inherently) mean "if you don't care for others, you're not human". It means humans were meant to care. And if you don't? You're not a bad person. But it's why you have a disorder. The way you feel or don't feel or act or refuse to act is not intended

I'm not sure I'm wording this right but like. If you don't experience a unifying human experience because of a disorder: that's why it's considered a disorder. You're not less human than other people, and you're worthy of respect. But there's no reason to get offended at people talking about it. "Don't call this normal thing normal because I'm different!" Yes that's why it's a disorder. That is why. It's a disorder

As a person with many stigmatized disorders that has left them missing out on normal human experiences: part of having a disorder is acknowledging that you're different. And that's fine. And it can be sad to realize that you've missed out on something so important to others and the history of humanity, and it's not your fault, but you don't need to lash out on other people's celebrations of it

#this post is really about like people complaining about varying abilities to care and connect to others but I'm sure it can apply to other #things #not written the best but oh well #also like. if you lash out because you know you're different which is okay to be! the things you could improve on for the good #of yourself and others #you won't be able to #my desire for justice has existed within me since birth. however so has pure undiluted violence and hatred #i was one year old the first time i tried to kill my father #i also lacked empathy sympathy AND compassion #i am inherently a ruthless motherfucker #and that didn't start to change until a few important turning points in my life #where i had to understand myself and teach myself otherwise for the benefit of myself and others #now not everyone can 'teach' themselves out of a disorder #like depression isn't removed via knowledge you need to get better #but understanding myself and that im different and why things like compassion and sympathy and empathy are normal #led me to slowly start trying to display more compassion #it led to me being able to experience sympathy towards others #and even eventually the teensiest bit of a few forms of empathy #not everyone can do that and I'm not saying everyone can #but how in the world are you going to try if you don't acknowledge that you're different?#(not EVERYTHING needs to be 'fixed'. like low empathy people can be wonderful. i specifically had to be fixed for the better #and could not do so without recognizing the importance of what i lack)

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vulturevanity · 2 years

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I'll be reading a fic and then get interrupted by my brain asking some random-ass questions such as "what is pickle juice made of" and "how do power plants work" and like. I don't think I have ADHD? That would come with a bunch of other symptoms which I don't experience. But sometimes I wonder.

To be fair, the fic in question did mention pickles and had me wondering how I'd explain the concept of a computer to medieval fantasy nobles who can use elemental magic.

#babbles #''you tamed lightning?!''#well more like we learned how to create it and then encased it in metal.#then we shaped the metal in many MANY different ways and saw how that changed its behaviour.#then we made machines with several microscopic parts where we could control it with such precision #that we could teach it to do complex mathematic processes and basic logic #and then we created a bunch of mathematical processes that made it blast information into a miniature light cannon #which displayed this information as images #later we created massive cables of hundreds of transparent fibers that could send that information around the world #or we transmitted it through the air in the form of electromagnetic waves #we called it the internet #... I feel like I know slightly more about computers than the average person #i feel like the fantasy nobles would refuse to believe it's not magic

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aahsoka · 2 years

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thoughts about AI art is that like ….. whatever art it makes can only rehash the ideas and emotions of the art is it based on and at this point in time that is not necessarily something the user of the AI can control or choose

#jordan talks #idk saw a twete analyzing ai art that was like #bc it draws on orientalist art it itself contains orientalist themes #and just how like . an AI user cannot ……. control if the art their given does any specifc thing #when an artist takes reference or inspiration from something they have more control over what they choose to use #based on what they want a painting to say #and AI painting is gonna be ……. just whatever the art its based on was trying to say #which can be . almost anything #even like abstract art tends to have a purpose the artist had in mind #even if that was like. ‘its whatever’. they still made choices #they still tend to have an intended purpose even if someone viewing it may have a different interpretation #and then also using stolen art from living working artists makes me wanna punch someone.#also like the AI/its developers are arguably the ‘artists’ not the people putting in prompts.#the art history nerd in me cannot totally disregard it as perhaps a form of art #because i cannot abide by people denigrating abstract or modern art or photography to make their points #but goddamn i am not really fond of it. :|#i can definitely say i hate the genre of people its created who are like ‘haha fuck you artists we dont need you anymore !!’#they are displaying some very ugly jealousy tbh

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kaijutegu · 5 months

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Alligator Body Language and You, or: How To Know When An Alligator On Social Media is Being Stressed for Views

Alligators are wild animals. Despite the idiotic claims of animal abusers like Jay Brewer, they cannot be domesticated, which means they are always going to react on the same natural instincts they've had for millions of years. Habituated, yes. Tamed, yes. Trained, definitely. Crocodilians can form bonds with people- they're social and quite intelligent. They can solve problems, use tools, and they're actually quite playful. Alligators are also really good at communicating how they're feeling, but to somebody who doesn't spend much time around them, their body language can be a bit mystifying. And it doesn't help when social media influencers are saying shit like this:

That is not what a happy gator looks like.

That's a terrified, furious gator who isn't attacking because the ogre handling her has her in a chokehold. She's doing everything she can to express her displeasure, and he's lying about it because he knows his audience doesn't even know how to think critically about what he's doing. He knows that because his audience doesn't know anything about these animals, he can get away with it. This I think is why I hate him so much- he deliberately miseducates his audience. He knows what he's doing is factually inaccurate, he just doesn't care because attention means more to him than anything else in the world.

Let's change that! Here are two really important lessons for understanding alligator body language on social media.

Lesson 1: Alligators Don't Smile (in fact, most animals don't)

So what's going on in this video? Jay Brewer is aggressively choking his white alligator Coconut while scrubbing algae off of her with a toothbrush. And make no mistake, he is digging into the creature's throat while she is visibly distressed. He claims she's happy- but she's not. He is willfully misrepresenting what this animal is feeling. That's a problem, because people... well, we actually kind of suck at reading other species' body language. The reason for this is that we tend to overlay our own responses on their physical cues, and that's a problem. For example, let's look at an animal with a really similar face to ours, the chimpanzee. Check out Ama's toothy grin!

Wait, no. That's not a happy smile. That's a threat display. When a chimpanzee "smiles," it's either terrified and doing a fear grimace, or it's showing you its teeth because it intends on using them in your face.

How about a dog? Look at my smiling, happy puppy!

Oh wait no, this is a picture of Ryder when he was super overwhelmed by noise and people during a holiday party. He'd hopped up in my sister's lap to get away from stuff that was happening on the floor and was panting quite heavily. See the tension in the corners of his mouth and his eyes? A lot of the time when a dog "smiles," the smile isn't happy. It's stress! Why Animals Do The Thing has a nice writeup about that, but the point is, our body language is not the same as other species. And for reptiles, body language is wildly different.

For instance, look at these two alligators. Pretty cute, right? Look at 'em, they're posing for a Christmas card or something! How do you think they're feeling?

Well, I'll tell you how the normal one is feeling. He's annoyed! Why is he annoyed? Because the albino just rolled up, pushed another gator off the platform, and is trying to push this guy, too. I know this because I actually saw it happen. It was pretty funny, not gonna lie. He's not gaping all the way, but he was hissing- you can actually see him getting annoyed in the sequence I took right before this shot. Look at him in this first shot here- he's just relaxing, and you can see he isn't gaping even a little bit.

By the end, he's expressing displeasure, but not enough to actually do anything about it. He's annoyed, but he's comfy and that's where one of the best basking areas is, so he'll put up with it.

Reptiles open their mouths wide for a lot of reasons, but never because they are actively enjoying a sensation. Unless they're eating. No reptile smiles- they can't. They don't even have moveable lips. If a reptile is gaping, it's doing so because:

It is doing a threat display.

It is making certain vocalizations, all of which are threats. Alligators are one of the rare reptiles that do regularly vocalize, but most of their calls aren't made with a wide open mouth.

It is about to bite something delicious or somebody stupid. Check out this video- virtually all of the gaping here is anticipatory because these trained gators know darn well that the bowl is full of delicious snacks. (I have some issues with Florida's Wildest, but the man knows how to train a gator AND he is honest about explaining what they're doing and why, and all of his animals are healthy and well-cared for, and he doesn't put the public or his staff at risk- just himself.)

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It's too hot and it has opened its mouth to vent some of that heat and thermoregulate. This is the main reason why alligators will often have their mouths part of the way open, but sometimes they'll open all the way for thermoregulation. This is what a thermoregulatory gape looks like- usually it's not all the way open, kinda more like < rather than V, but you can't say that 100% of the time. Additionally, a thermoregulatory gape... typically happens when it's hot out. If they're inside, maybe they've been under their basking light for too long. Heat's the dominant factor, is what I'm getting at.

There is another reason that a captive crocodilian might be gaping, and that's because it's doing so on command. Some places have their gators trained to gape on cue, like St. Augustine Alligator Farm and other good zoos. They have the animals do this in presentations that are genuinely educational. They ask the animals to open their mouths so that they can show off their teeth and demonstrate how their tongues seal off the back of their mouth. They'll also do it as part of routine healthcare, because looking at their teeth is important.

In this case, the animals aren't gaping because they're stressed, they're gaping because they know they're gonna get a piece of chicken or fish if they do it. And what's more, they're doing it on cue. They have a specific command or signal that tells them to open wide. It's not an instinctive response to a situation. It's trained. If the animal provides the behavior after a cue, the situation is much less likely to be negatively impactful.

It's also important to remember that there's a difference between a partially open mouth and a gape! As discussed above, alligators will often have their mouths a little bit open just to maintain temperature homeostasis. It helps them stay comfy, temperature-wise. These guys are all doing thermoregulatory open-mouthed behavior- that slight open and relaxed body posture is a dead giveaway. (That and it's the hottest spot in the enclosure.)

Lesson 2: A Happy Gator Is A Chill Gator

So if alligators don't smile or have facial expressions other than the :V that typically signifies distress, how else can you tell how they're feeling? One way is stillness. See, alligators subscribe to the philosophy of if it sucks... hit da bricks.

Basically, if they hate it, they'll leave. Unless, y'know, somebody has their meaty claws digging into their throat or is otherwise restraining them. (Restraint isn't always bad, btw. Sometimes the animal is going through a medical thing or needs to be restrained for their safety- which a responsible educator will explain.)

Let's look at a very similar scenario, in which a captive alligator is getting his back scrubbed.

As you can see, it's quite different. First, he's not being restrained at all. Second, look at how relaxed he is! He's just chilling there vibing! He could simply get up and leave if he wanted to, because he's not being held. Towards the end of the video, as he lifts his head, you can see that his respiratory rate is very even as his throat flutters a bit. I'm not sure what this facility is, so I can't comment on care/general ethics, but like. In this specific case, this is an alligator enjoying being scrubbed! And you can tell because he's not doing anything. A happy gator is content to be doing what they're doing.

Why Should I Listen To You?

Now, you should ask yourself, why should you listen to me? Why should you trust me, who does not own an alligator, versus Jay Brewer, who owns several?

Well, first off, there's no profit for me in telling you that what you're seeing on social media is in fact not what you're being told you're seeing. I'm not getting paid to do this. That's the thing with people who make social media content. The big names aren't doing it just for fun. They're doing it for money. Whether that's profit through partnerships or sponsorships, or getting more people to visit their facilities, or ad revenue, you can't ignore the factor of money. And this is NOT a bad thing, because it allows educators to do what they're passionate about! People deserve to be paid for the work that they do!

But the problem starts when you chase the algorithm instead of actually educating. A "smiling" alligator gets the views, and if people don't know enough to know better, it keeps getting the views. People love unconventional animal stories and they want those animals to be happy- but the inability to even know where to start with critically evaluating these posts really hinders the ability to spread real information. Like, this post will probably get a couple hundred notes, but that video of Coconut being scrubbed had almost 400,000 likes when I took that screenshot. Think about how many eyeballs that's reached by now. What I'm saying here is that it's just... really important to think critically about who you're getting your information from. What do dissenters say in the comments? What do other professionals say? You won't find a single herpetologist that has anything good to say about Prehistoric Pets, I can tell you that right now.

Another reason you can trust me is that my sources are not "just trust me bro," or "years of experience pretending my pet shop where animals come to die is a real zoo." Instead, here are my primary sources for my information on alligator behavior:

Dragon Songs: Love and Adventure among Crocodiles, Alligators, and Other Dinosaur Relations- Vladimir Dinets

The Secret Social Lives of Reptiles- J. Sean Doody, Vladimir Dinets, Gordon M. Burghardt

Social Behavior Deficiencies in Captive American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)- Z Walsh, H Olson, M Clendening, A Rycyk

Social Displays of the American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)- Kent Vliet

Social Signals and Behaviors of Adult Alligators and Crocodiles- Leslie Garrick, Jeffery Lang

Never smile at a crocodile: Gaping behaviour in the Nile crocodile at Ndumo Game Reserve, South Africa- Cormac Price, Mohamed Ezat, Céline Hanzen, Colleen Downs (this one's Nile crocs, not American alligators, but it's really useful for modeling an understanding of gape behaviors and proximity)

Thermoregulatory Behavior of Captive American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)- Cheryl S. Asa, Gary D. London, Ronald R. Goellner, Norman Haskell, Glenn Roberts, Crispen Wilson

Unprovoked Mouth Gaping Behavior in Extant Crocodylia- Noah J. Carl, Heather A. Stewart, Jenny S. Paul

Thank you for reading! Here's a very happy wild alligator from Sanibel for your trouble.

#reptiblr #alligator #crocodile #Youtube

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