#expand someone’s access to a paper like this

[milk-lover]

Sobbing uncontrollably reading through a dissertation about the college experience of students with ADHD. It is like reading a report about my life that just says over and over "My experiences are real. My hardships are real. I am not lazy, I am not dumb. My struggles were not my fault, and they were not a moral failing. The failure was with the system, not with me."

Here's a line that got me in particular:

"Hotez et al.(2022) compared the health, academic, and non-academic capacities of a nationally representative sample of U.S. first-year college students with ADHD and without ADHD. Students with ADHD self-reported lower academic aspirations and more feelings of depression and overwhelm, ranking themselves lower in their general emotional health. The fact that students with ADHD scored in the highest 10th percentile for many non-academic traits, such as artistic ability, computer skills, creativity, public speaking, social confidence, self-understanding and understanding of others, compassion, and risk-tasking, suggests that this population has strengths that are frequently underappreciated in academia."

(the paper is a thesis called "Understanding the Collegiate Experience for Students With ADHD" by Gia Long, 2022)

#adhd #actually adhd #i often hyperbolize but i am dead serious when i say sobbing uncontrollably. this is why i was putting off this assignment. #1000 years of hell to professors who assign self-reflection papers /hj #i dont feel comfy posting the pdf bc its not mine butttt.. i will share it to people who dm me. #edit: pages 80-85 #edit: thank you to everyone who reached out and asked for the pdf!! i wasn’t expecting this reaction #keep reaching out I’ll keep sending it #if anyone is interested but struggles to read academic papers pls ask me for help bc I’ve gotten a lot of practice with them and am Glad to #expand someone’s access to a paper like this

[another-lost-mc]

I come to share an idea with you in case luck is on my side and you interested to expand it-

I can't stop thinking about the MC who has a crush on Lucifer but somehow ends up moaning his name while making out with Mephisto 🤔🫢 (I don't think MC and Mephisto have a romantic relationship yet, maybe it's more like ons or something similar???)

To be honest, your name somehow popped to my mind when I thought of this idea 😆 Maybe because I read your smut fic too much lol—

Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you have a fantastic day 🤍

give me time, I'll change your mind

pairing: mephistopheles x gn!reader

content: nsfw. smut. friends (frenemies?) with benefits. jealousy, teasing, cursing, degradation, slut-shaming. reader has unresolved feelings for lucifer (one-sided).

word count: 1.3k

Groans and whimpered curses spill effortlessly from your lips as long, dexterous fingers graze the spot inside you that makes you tremble. Your body feels like a livewire, overwhelmed by the barest touch of leather against your bare skin and little nips of teeth against your throat. He nudges your head back for better access and you tip your head back with a sigh. It feels so good and your mind is lost in a blissful daze of his creation.

You don't realize something is wrong until there's a sharp intake of breath, and the gloved hand stretching you open suddenly grows still. Mephisto lifts his head from where he was trailing kisses along the curve of your neck, and he narrows his eyes angrily at you.

"I'm knuckle-deep inside your greedy little hole and you can't remember my name, pet?"

Your mouth falls open in mortification when you realize what you've done.

This isn't the first time you've gone to him for relief. He accepted your casual physical arrangement and you both agreed discretion was best. He obliged when you were in the mood, even though more often lately he was the one that initiated first.

He was always careful about coming up with flimsy excuses for you to stay behind after class and help him with the school paper. He fucked you across any available surface in the newspaper club office—bent over the arm of the sofa, against the door, flat on your back against his desk. He was generous with his attention without asking why you chose him, and maybe that was his mistake.

What would you tell him if he did? That he was a handsome distraction, someone to satisfy your needs while you tried to unravel your complicated feelings for the Avatar of Pride?

"I'm sorry, I—I don't know why..."

You're a terrible liar, and he doesn't fall for your blubbering excuses. His expression is cold, calculating, and he's piecing together the little secrets you've kept from him all this time.

"How many others do you turn to for a quick fuck because you can't have your precious Lucifer?" He practically spits his name like a curse as he pulls his fingers from your body with an obscene squelch. He continues stoking around your entrance lazily, taunting you so you don't forget that you were nearly begging for him to fuck your brains out—until you ruined it, that is.

His tongue is sharp and his words drip with scorn. He's trying to hurt you for hurting him. "Tell me, little human. Was I the only one willing to touch you? Was I your last resort, pet? Lucky me." He chuckles but it's a bitter sound, and he bares his fangs when his lips curl into a cold smile.

You're rendered speechless, mouth opening and closing uselessly when you struggle to think of something to say.

How could you be so stupid?

Stray tears trickle from the corner of your eyes when you blink. You can't even imagine how pathetic you must look in his eyes: your lips quivering pitifully as more tears threaten to fall, your legs spread wide on the desk where he stands between them, your pants and underwear tugged down to your ankles from earlier when he was too eager to undress you properly.

He startles you when his fingers press against your entrance and slide back in effortlessly. He adds another and begins stretching you again around his fingers, but it's different now than it was before. His movements are faster now, roughened by his frustration and some primal instinct to claim you. He had you first. Perhaps he just needs to remind you of what you can have with him instead of whatever fantasy you've imagined with Lucifer, that pompous prick—he doesn't deserve you.

Desire pools deep in your belly and you bite your lip to stifle your moans as he strokes you in all the right places. It feels wrong to enjoy this when you insulted him so cruelly. You feel guilty because you still want him—no one's ever touched you the way he has. You have a feeling that he knows that too, even if you won't admit it.

He leans forward and presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth; he licks at a stray tear clinging to your cheek before he pulls away. "Don't worry, pet. I'll still take care of you, even if no one else will."

There's a soft zip and a metallic clink as he undoes his belt with his free hand. Once he frees his cock, he moves lightning quick—his fingers slip from your body so he can grip your waist with both his hands. He drags you forward until the only thing keeping you from falling off the edge of the desk is his hips pressed against yours.

You barely manage to grip the edge of the desk to brace yourself before he thrusts inside you with one deep stroke. He gives you a moment to adjust to the stretch, panting lightly while he watches you squirm on his cock. His hair falls carelessly over his face and sticks to the light sheen of sweat trickling down his temples.

It feels like the calm before the storm: he looks fierce but determined. "Let's see if you can still moan his name by the time I'm done with you," he sneers, groaning deep in his chest when he pulls back, teasing your entrance with the fat tip of his cock. He slams back inside, fucking you like he's trying to tear you asunder with the rough, punishing pace of his thrusts. His filthy praise about how well you take him and how perfect you feel around his cock puts you back together again.

The desk rattles underneath you and the desperate, feral noises you're both making can probably be heard down the hall, but he doesn't stop until you come on his cock with a broken cry. He fucks you through your release and hisses when you clench around him, and he finally grunts as he empties himself into you.

After he catches his breath, he groans quietly as his softening cock slips from your body. He tucks himself away, fastening his belt while he stares at the tantalizing sight of his cum trickling from your hole. Usually he fetches a damp cloth for you to clean yourself with, but he doesn't do that tonight. He helps you off the desk and slides your clothes back into place. His hands are surprisingly gentle and you realize he's not trying to mock you—there's something possessive in his gaze instead. Your underwear and pants are sticky from the mess he's made of you, and he can already see little wet spots forming where it soaks into the fabric.

By the time he leads you outside where his chauffeur is waiting, it's as if nothing unusual happened between you tonight. His car pulls up at the House of Lamentation to drop you off, and like all the times before, watches to make sure you make it inside safely. You feel the weight of his gaze on your back until you close the door behind you.

The others must be busy because no one comes to your room to bother you, and you're grateful that you don't have to make excuses for your wrinkled appearance and musky smell. You take a warm bath before bed to soothe the dull ache between your legs. The lingering scent of his sweat and cologne on your skin has faded by the time you put on your pajamas, and you leave your D.D.D. on your desk so you're not tempted to call him. You toss and turn, mind racing with memories of what happened tonight and the fleeting sense of uncertainty and anticipation about what to expect when you see him tomorrow.

Eventually you fall into a restless sleep, but the crimson eyes you normally dream about are murky-green instead.

read more: mephistopheles masterlist | obey me! masterlist

#obey me #obey me mephistopheles #obey me x reader #omswd x reader #obey me mephisto x reader #mephistopheles x reader #obey me smut #omswd smut #mephistopheles smut #obey me mephisto x mc #mephistopheles x mc #obey me mephisto x you #mephistopheles x you #obey me fanfic #x reader #gn!reader

[teacupofgooglyeyes]

THE MAGNUS PROTOCOL. oh my GOD, the magnus protocol. (marginal spoilers up ahead for the tmp trailer + arg)

….i have a theory. its based on other possibly improbable theories but please indulge me as i connect the dots nobody else can see with red string and declare it a masterpiece.

WHAT IF…. something was trapped in the database? yes this is absolutely inspired by the theories bouncing around saying J.01 + M.01 are jon and martin- and possible J.02 is jonah. yes im going insane about it. yes i am distraught. BUT- what if its not just our silly little jarchivist and martin ‘knife crime’ blackwood trapped in the O.I.A.R. database? what if theres something that the O.I.A.R. takes ‘incident reports’ of to contain (and perhaps categorise) in encrypted files or the like in an attempt to rid the world of this something for good?

what if they had figured out a way to trap… the fears themselves in the database?

okokokok hear me out- it sounds insane but i promise i can provide evidence that proves with sufficient certainty that theres definitely SOMETHING (or someone) trapped in there. as to what that something is- i cant prove that for sure but i can absolutely try my darnedest! and whatever you choose to believe is up to you.

PROOF #1: THE ARG EMAILS

1. in the tmp arg, there was a small message at the end of every email. it read as follows: ‘In accordance with governmental guidelines we encourage you to consider the environmental impact before printing this email.’ All in all, this doesn’t seem too suspicious, right? Probably just rusty quill trying to be eco-friendly, right? right??

2. but that’s not all. in the middle of the environmental impact text in the first email sent, there is a section of random german text. it reads: ‘[NichtdurchkommenlassenEsistwichtigdasswirdieKontrollebehalten 🜶]’. this translates to: ‘Do not let (pronoun missing on purpose) come through. It is important that we remain in control 🜶’. Pairing the two makes it definitely seem like theres a reason for the O.I.A.R. to not want people printing things off of the internet that is absolutely connected to making sure certain things contained on internet in some way do not escape…

PROOF #2: THE TMP TRAILER

now that the arg has been solved, we now all have access to the tmp official trailer. i could rant about the contents of this trailer alone for HOURS but right now i just want to focus on a few specific details i noticed.

1. the epa pollution preventer. when the program is initiating, up in the top right corner there’s a logo for some company advertising anti-pollution… something. im mentioning this as this only furthers the strange obsession the O.I.A.R. has with protecting the environment, this incessant need to keep everything digital.

(SIDE NOTE: i have two other theories as to where this environmental obsession stems from:

1. paranoia from the archives burning down in this universe calls for the usage of any flammable items to record important data is STRICTLY forbidden!

2. the extinction has become the leading fear in this universe, prompting this very interesting concern for keeping eco-friendly.

these theories are enticing and i would love to expand on them later if i have the energy lol all these theories are rushing through my head and driving me even more insane.)

2. the files. THE FUCKING FILES!! yes, the ones that we are PRAYING contains our dearly beloved jon and martin (and probably jonah, but i doubt anyone else is as excited about that compared to the happy couple). this got me thinking- what if they trapped something ELSE in the files? something that maybe took the burning of the entire magnus institute, all those fears open and barely contained on paper, to contain digitally? something that maybe needs to be encrypted in files to keep it away, and to further contain it recordings of incident reports statements are made and also placed in the files archives? just saying. its a possibility.

PROOF #3: WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT JONNY

1. after listening to all the Q&As and extra content to recover from episode 200, i have LEARNT a few things. specifically, i know our good friend jonny sims loves creepypastas. fun fact- the actual s5 finale was itself inspired by creepypastas!

2. plus theres many episodes that do also have distinct creepypasta influences, one of which being mag 65: binary. this particular episode is about a fictional creepypasta/internet rumor about a man who placed himself and his sentience into a file on the internet that turns out to be true. internet horror stories often involved something trapped on the internet, interacting with users on the internet to attempt to escape or achieve whatever their goal may be. seems…. interesting. hmm. what if this sort of thing is influencing the podcast yet again? its a thought…..

IN CONCLUSION:

im insane. and-

#the magnus protocol #the magnus universe #the magnus protocol theories #the magnus pod #the magnus archives #the magnus institute #tma #tma theory #im going insane

[st4rboyhere]

Evans on Valentine's Day + moodboards!!

Summary ➛ Some things I think the Evans would do for you for Valentine’s day.

Tags ➛ @famela-i @frqxto

Paring ➛ The Evans × gender netrual reader

Characters ➛ Tate Langdon, Kit Walker, (Post-death) Kyle Spencer, Jimmy Darling, James Patrick March, Kai Anderson, Evan Peters.

A/n ➛ I’ve been in the Ahs fandom since 2014 but I’ve never posted anything I’ve written about it so I decided now would be a good time to start, request are open <3

Warnings ➛ A bit of cursing and suggestiveness

❥

➛ Tate Langdon ☻

✎.. Makes sure its perfect.

Tate's sure you're a blessing sent from the angels above gracing him with a holy light to show they see the slightest bit of Tate redeeming himself by resisting his violent urges, and losing you would make him go more insane than he already is, with you the world just doesn't seem to be as dark and if you were to leave there's a chance he would hurt again.

Sadly, he doesn't have much access to the outside world so he gets Addie to buy you gifts.

kicks his feet back and forth as he wraps your gifts in old Christmas paper from back when he was still alive as he pictures your face lighting up from his gifts.

Does start crying though because he begins to think that you’re too good for material items along with him and you deserve to spend your day with someone not as horrible as him.

Afterward he gets Addie to steal a rose their mother gets from her hookups so he can give it to you.

His other gifts are two teddy bears that made him immediately think of you and him. a cheesy Halloween/valentines card, and chocolate skeletons.

He's so excited about your reaction, he's never had a valentine before.

➛ Moodboard

❥

➛ Kit Walker ☻

✎… He can pull, it’s really obvious. He’s had plenty of valentines growing up so gifting you should be a piece of cake, right?

Wrong.

As much as I love Kit I have the feeling he doesn't pay attention to others that much. That's not his fault though he's just always stressed or busy.

When he's overhears his friends about what they're getting their partners he freaks out.

Valentine's day isn't too long away and he hasn't got you anything.

He feels like a terrible partner and he really doesn't want to make you upset in any way so as soon as he gets off work he calls Lana to ask what's the hottest thing goin on in town for couples.

Drive-in horror movies.

He's not the biggest fan of horror movies, in fact, he's deathly scared of them but for you, he can endure it.

Gets the kids to make you a card and plans the day out for the two of you, milkshakes and stupid death beach movies.

He hopes this goes good.

➛ Moodboard

❥

➛ Kyle Spencer ☻

(Post death)

✎… He loves Valentines day so much.

Doesn’t really understand it at all, but he knows you like to spend lots of time with him and give him kisses and cuddle and really that’s all that matters too him.

He doesn’t like to go out in public since you won’t let him slip his hands under your shirt or slip let him take your hands and slip them under his shirt (not sexually he just loves physical touch) so he prefers to stay inside and cuddle.

Kyle waits until you left with the other witches to sneak outside and pluck daisies to give you cause he wants to show his appreciation for your kisses and cuddles.

Wants to hold your hand and hear words he doesn’t know the meaning of leave your lips and kiss them before you drift in eachothers arms.

Has a giddy smile on his face from the thought of it.

➛ Moodboard

❥

➛ Jimmy Darling ☻

✎… Like Kyle, he doesn’t really like to go out, his reason being that the two of you can have a perfect date right where you are.

Why spend money doing something you might not even like when you two can spend it at work!! It's just so perfect.

He’ll even get Paul to stop it when you guys get to the very top so you can just look at the stars.

Puts all his money together and expands his..side job to more women to afford a star necklace for you.

Wont shut up about how he’s going to bring you in for a kiss and put it around your neck before you get of the Ferris wheel.

It’s absolutely perfect, for someone who’s perfect in his eyes.

➛ Moodboard

❥

➛ James Patrick March ☻

(pre-death)

✎… He’s so incredibly romantic.

Wakes you up bright in early and showers you with kisses, waiting until you practically scream for him to get off of you (personally I would never do that)

Tells you to clear your schedule to cause the two of you are having dinner tonight.

Due to his incredibly busy schedule, he won't be able to spend the whole day with you which he dreads.

A lot of people like to check into the hotel on Valentine's day and he loves to pry on young couples, especially those looking for a threesome with a rich man who might take a liking to the pair.

Although their attempts at a wealthy life would be hopeless and James has his eyes only on you.

As he slits the neck of his last victim of the evening, he makes sure to call upon Mrs. Evers to clean the mess as he sets and private candlelight dinner where no one, even his maid, will be able to interrupt the two of you.

Won't be able to keep a finger off of you the entire night, pulling you in for a deep kiss every moment your words come to end.

Truly, he isn't trying to be rude when he says this but he does wish you would shut up so he can taste more of you.

➛ Moodboard

❥

➛ Kai Anderson ☹︎

✎… What the fuck..

I mean how selfish of you to even think Kai would even do something for you.

He has a job. He’s working to create the world into his perfect image. He doesn’t have time to spend on something silly like showing affection to you on a stupid day.

Why does Valentine's day matter if he shows his love for you everyday?

He gives you a small kiss if your upset because deep down he really does love you and he doesn’t want to lose you over anything.

You know he loves you though, he's just very busy.

➛ ahs masterlist.

#evan peters #evan peters smut #evan peters oneshot #Evan Peter Headcannons #smut #fluff #jimmy darling #kit walker #tate Langdon #Kyle Spencer #Kai Anderson #x reader #x male reader #x female reader #ahs x male reader #ahs x female reader

[littlewitchygreen]

Intermediate Witchcraft: Next Steps

So, you've done your homework on the basics, and you've practiced the early skills. What's next? Where do you go from there? How do you learn more? Well, there are several factors that go into intermediate witchcraft along with several routes to take, and I'll explain a bit of that here.

Research

Part of the issue with moving into more advanced magic is that most available books cater to beginners. That is because of a few reasons that I'll get into further in the post, but that does leave the issue of how to find more advanced information still. This is where deep-diving into specific topics will serve you well.

There are going to be few if any 'Witchcraft 201' books out there, because more advanced knowledge is not going to be that generalized the way introductory knowledge can be. However, if you look into specific topics, there are a lot more books. You don't have to specialize in one area either - you could look at books from as many fields as you'd like: deep-diving into astrology, herbalism, tarot, curses, whatever you'd like. Growing your knowledge in a specific area will make you more advanced overall as you expand your knowledge base.

Many of the more advanced texts are also going to be much drier than the popular books for witches just starting to learn skills - historical texts, academic papers, etc. So, look beyond what you can find on the shelves of the most popular bookstore in town as well. I'd recommend looking into databases like JStor, Google Scholar, and even university databases to see what you can find there. As always, consider who is publishing the information, what biases might they have, and what may be inaccurate or culturally appropriative when taking in new information to stay accurate, safe, and get the most out of the information you find.

Mentorship

Another route some people take is finding a more advanced mentor when they are struggling to progress on their own. This is one of the reasons why some of the more advanced information is not widely published as well, as it is not always appropriate for the information shared through mentorships to be widely spread. In some cases, this is because it is part of a closed practice that you have to be initiated into or taught directly, and in other cases it's because the information is personal to the mentor.

Still, there are pros and cons to going this route and it's all based on who your mentor is.

Some pros: you have someone experienced in witchcraft who can guide you more personally than a widely available book and who knows your personal practice very well - and who can share information, experience, etc accordingly.

Some cons: your mentor has only one perspective out of a vast array, they have biases that are in their practice as a result of their practice being their own, and they have intimate access to you and your spiritual life because of their role.

My personal suggestion to anyone considering this route is this: do your research on who you are accepting as your mentor, remember that what they teach is their practice not the practice, and even consider having multiple mentors over time to diversify information and beliefs that you learn. Your safety and wellbeing are paramount, so never accept someone as a mentor lightly, as having that kind of role in your life is a heavy responsibility and some may abuse that kind of access to you.

UPG

UPG stands for Unverified Personal Gnosis - or unofficial information gained through personal experience. This is in my opinion the primary reason there aren't more widespread 'Witchcraft 201' books available, as a lot of the information those books would contain is obtained through personal experience rather than from official sources. This is also why many witches begin to talk less and less about the more advanced aspects of their practice, as UPG generally comes from experiences that become more and more personal to the witch in question.

Along that line, your practice will primarily continue to grow through personal experience of your own and continued practice. Books and teachers will only take you so far before you have to gain knowledge yourself and get better at the skills on your own. So, at a certain point, significant portions of your own practice will become UPG as well.

Many witches are fine sharing some of the less personal aspects of their UPG with others, which is how new information and ways of doing things still spread. Offline, I've had multiple witches share with me parts of their own practices, for example, which have influenced the way I practice - and vice versa. However, each of our practices were still different from each other, due to the UPG each of us has and our different approaches to practicing.

Understandably, it can be frustrating trying to figure out where to go once the guidebooks most of us start out with are no longer applicable or available. So, one of the most valuable pieces of advice on how to continue to progress that I ever learned is this: never stop asking 'why'. Why does this mean that? Why do we do that? Why is this done that way? Why is this a common thing but not that?

I hope this helps someone, and best wishes!

#witchcraft #witch #witchblr #witches #intermediate witch #intermediate witchcraft

[anarkittyuwuuniverse]

I'm feeling a bit conflicted about the whole self-diagnosis topic. Like I would say I generally lean towards being pro self-diagnosis, a diagnosis can be expensive, really difficult to get, having it on paper can have negative legal consequences and so on. Besides, coming from an anti-psychiatry perspective I think it's generally good to take the authority of psychiatrists down a notch, to recognize them as being flawed and biased humans too who frankly don't have as much access to a person's whole being as they themselves have, and then of course being critical of the conceptual validity of 'mental illness' as well. But I feel like being anti-psychiatry leads me to think that we need to keep the same critical eye on self-diagnosis that we have on formal diagnosis. Really it might be a little bit misleading to even call it 'self-diagnosis' in the first place, as if we're talking about the self-evaluation of a completely separated self, and not a self that exists in the context of peer-assessment, a social network of information and a culture (whether online or offline) with an increased vigilance towards psychiatric diagnoses. And these communities - despite not being institutional or professional - sometimes kinda do the work of the psychiatric industrial complex for it, by validating, legitimizing and expanding these categories to such a huge degree, which is how we get people talking about every little behavior in the language of 'symptoms'. What I'm saying is that while I think self-diagnosis is fine, it matters how it's done. It matters where you get your information from, for what purpose you want to label yourself with this category, how you come to understand it as well. Labeling yourself with a diagnostic category if it generally fits your experience can be somewhat helpful in coming to understand yourself better, but building an illness identity can also come with a load of negative consequences; like limiting yourself way more than needed, or to understand what might just be fleeting reactions to environmental pressures as eternal 'symptoms'. I saw someone on TikTok saying that it shouldn't be surprising that there are so many people with autism and ADHD on TikTok with it being a dopamine machine and having an algorithm that caters to your special interest. But then I could say that the reason I personally don't use TikTok is because I find the app really overstimulating and too fast-paced for my processing capabilities. I could easily frame this as a result of 'my autism' and make a sort of generalized statement about autists' relationship to this app and thus the legitimacy of 'believing' the people on it. But I really don't feel like making everything about symptoms and generalizing huge groups of people based on my personal experiences. So why does this person do that? I think what these kinds of discussions sort of miss is that whether or not the people on these social media communities are 'valid' is way less important than 'what do these platforms want with them?' TikTok has an audience that's trained on short-form fast-paced content that probably lowers their attention span somewhat. Could such an audience be more likely to identify with ADHD? Does TikTok have an interest in 'selling' the identity of ADHD to this audience? To give them a community that keeps them attached to the app, that keeps them engaged, maybe even instills a sense of pride in using the app and consuming this form of content? After all, it's a 'symptom'.

#anti psychiatry #autism #adhd #neurodiversity #anti tiktok #self diagnosis #i don't really know if this was very coherent but i'm just sort of expressing my thoughts #also how do i get my friends to stop using tiktok? lol

[ultragift]

FROM: @denn1s-lessing

TO: @hmmbo

denn1s-lessing - tumblr - Ultragift

Heroes

You’re in yet another elevator room, having just explored the first part of Greed. As Sisyphus told you and you’ve expected, the Layer looks nothing like Dante's haunting yet beautiful description; the only thing that was Inferno-related were the boulders, and even then they only dragged those around, and even then they were dead Malicious Faces, really. It just wasn’t the same thing. You start to think you’re in for more artistic disappointment.

You also feel very bitter and very angry; between constant restarts, unfixable injuries and having to re-learn how to use your weapons after accidentally deleting the wrong files, a lot has happened in the last two hours or so, and now you just want to relax.

You're not worried about getting attacked out of nowhere. This isn't the surface, and the elevators are always safezones. Still, you wish you had someone close by, someone to talk to.

You don't want to talk to Sisyphus right now– and you already vowed to yourself to never speak to him ever again. You would let him languish in Heresy for all of time and you would ignore him completely, even if you have nobody else to talk to. Even if you miss him. Even if you really, really want to reply to those little beeps coming from the Terminal.

You're sure he meant it as an observation or even a compliment when he told you he thought you were a person – he simply couldn't be a humanist, it made no sense otherwise. He didn't even have VR in his time –, but at the same time... his words burnt you more than the searing gold of his kingdom. You stood up for yourself, but was it worth it?

You sit down and rest your back against the red and white wall, opening your wings as you do so. What to do, what to do... if the cat was here, she’d surely play with you, and you’d have something to distract your restless hands. They’ve been fidgeting more frequently, ever since you left Limbo. You wonder if you should run a diagnostic, but decide against it. Involuntary movement is a sign of malfunction for a machine, especially one like yourself, but at least it makes you more human. It makes you feel more human. You were making this difficult for yourself.

You’re getting distracted.

You expand your HUD and deactivate your visuals. A black void covers your vision, followed by text.

[MACHINE ID: V1] [CURRENT POSITION: HELL (GREED LAYER)] [SURFACE COORDINATES: 29° 58' 35.3280''N 31° 7' 52.6872''E]

[CURRENT OBJECTIVES: FIND FUEL, KILL V2, FREE SISYPHUS] [>CHECK MEMORY BANKS] [CHECKING MEMORY BANKS...] [PLEASE INPUT PASSWORD] [>Mjaurwp] [CHECKING PASSWORD...] [PASSWORD CORRECT. ACCESS CONFIRMED] [PLEASE SELECT A FILE TO REVIEW]

An ocean of files and folders floods your screen. Seeing all that disorder – all those digital papers stacked together like the real things – calms you somewhat. Your fingers don’t intertwine and squeeze each other as much now.

You wade your way through mp3s, mp4s and even wavs, until something titled “sunglasses” catches your interest. Was that file there before? You decide to check it out.

[>play “sunglasses.mp4”] [PLAYING sunglasses.mp4...]

You’re sitting by a window. The sky outside is golden and blue and pink. It is 05:03:34 and it is summer, June 20th.

The room you’re in is bare. A white floor meets white walls and a white ceiling. The room is bathed in golden light. The lights don’t turn on until 5:15:00, so the only source of light is from that little slice of outside.

Aside from the sky and the sun, you can see a young specimen of Pinus pinea. The branches frame the light.

You stand up and look to see a male Corvus cornix hopping along the grass, looking for food. It picks up something but it soon dismisses it.

You wonder how its blood would feel on your plating while being absorbed. It certainly wouldn’t sustain you, though.

You hear the automatic door opening and sit back down. Senior Researcher Francis Sheeran has entered the room. He’s introducing someone to you.

You turn to meet them, and stay completely still.

[END OF RECORDING]

A main cable curls inside you. Your primary sensory system sends false positives.

Asimov and his Laws, you remember now. These are all different videos from before. When humans were still around, and your kind still wasn’t quite as spread as it is now. Not now now, but the old now. The one talked about in the many books and movies and songs stored in this very memory bank.

There’s more files. You decide to live them.

[>play “test1.mp4”] [PLAYING test.mp4...]

You are in Room 030. It is large and featureless, with only a glass panel changing the scenery. The glass panel is obscured like frosted glass. You know they can see you.

“Starting test 1 for the prototype of the bot series V.” an old voice rings out from an intercom. As if on cue, you spread your poliglass wings open.

The voice continues. “In this experiment the prototype’s reflexes will be tested. Prototype is unarmed.”

From the floor itself three purple drones rise up. You put yourself in position. “Testing begins now.” A beep plays and the lights become harsher.

The first Drone gets closer and chirps in question. You zip towards it and grab it by its sides. The two others prepare for a charge but you jump up and ram its companion into one of them and the floor. There’s a dent on it and smoke coming out of the robots, which are now

inert. The final Drone jerks back and you grab it, but it flies up and drags you with it. It’s quite strong despite your difference in size and volume.

Regardless, you ignore its pleas and tear out its back carapace. You twist the circuitry inside it and with a dying trill it drops down like a rock.

You fall on your feet. You slam the geometric corpse into the wall and it’s soon reduced into a heap of scrap.

“Subject’s time is seven seconds flat.” the voice from the intercom states. You are unsatisfied.

You go to the Drones on the ground and pick one up, tearing it in half. It must have a blood bank inside, but you find nothing but batteries, wires and circuit boards.

“Hey, you. Over there.” the voice from the intercom doesn’t like what you’re doing. “You are ordered to stop.” it speaks.

And just like that, you place down the mauled body and stand still again. You fold your wings in.

“We’ve done enough for today.”

[END OF RECORDING] [>play “test5-sneak.mp4”] [PLAYING test5-sneak.mp4...]

You are in Room 030. It is large and featureless, with only a glass panel changing the scenery. The glass panel is obscured like frosted glass. You know they can see you.

There is a human in the middle of the room. He is Junior Researcher Alberto Rossi, thirty-four years of age, blood group AB-. He is wearing a padded suit. It protects its most precious and blood-rich spots.

“Today on November 3rd of 2084 we will perform the first stealth test for the first prototype model of the V series.” an old and raspy voice speaks from the intercom. “Along with the V ‘bot we have Alberto Rossi, who offered to test our machine.”

“The pleasure is all mine!”

“We’re glad it is. Mr. Rossi is wearing full protection and the prototype is unharmed. If the machine cannot find you in 30 seconds it will fail the experiment.”

You open your wings and lower your stance. “We will begin after the beep.”

The same beeping sound from before comes in and the light dissipates. Parts of the floor rise up and form a labyrinth.

You activate your night sensors and stalk the tall hallways. The room is silent, so silent that you can hear your internal fans quietly whirring. You stop them. You can always cool down later.

You hear the trembling breathing of your target. You activate your see-through heat vision and see its shape. It’s just one wall over.

You break the wall open and jump on Rossi's back. The padding tears away like paper as the man is too stunned to fight back. With a precision and swiftness to envy even the most skilled of men, you unlatch his helmet and hit him on the head, again and again. Rossi tries to grab you and screams something, but you're too focused on the act to

[END OF RECORDING]

The video suddenly cuts off. They must've turned you off remotely. You don't like how the sensation of his flesh caving in, of his blood entering your plating and filling you feels so fresh, as if it all happened just a second ago.

You imagine this is how flashbacks were like for people. There's another audio. With fear in your motor you decide to listen to it.

[>play "2938.mp3"] [PLAYING 2938.mp3...]

You are listening to the humans in the hallway outside your holding unit. They do not know you're recording them.

"Fuck, I told you that was a bad idea! Mister Rossi was supposed to be a blacklisted target and now he's in the hospital!”

“He'll be fine.”

“He has a concussion, five stitches and a broken nose.”

“He’s tough! Besides, he can brag about surviving a V model's attack now.”

“Let's just use other robots next time.”

“It’ll just break them. You saw what it did to those Drones, didn't you? I told you and I repeat, if we don't use people...”

They walk too far away to hear any further.

[END OF AUDIO] [>play "general-report8.mp4"] [PLAYING general-report8.mp4...]

You are greeted with the face of someone you don't recognize.

You aren't curious about this person though, nor scared, nor happy. You can't feel much of anything really. You're just a robot, after all.

You cannot move, as your consciousness has been transferred to a computer for the time being. It's standard procedure. This doesn’t mean you are unable to visually record what surrounds you. You don’t believe he’ll notice you anyway.

The stranger speaks. “Hello, this is Doctor Diego Cimaroli, head researcher of the Fondazione di Ricerca Robotica Italiana, or FRRI. I am here to submit a progress report on our first-ever model of the V line. I’ll call them Vù for convenience.” he says into his phone. “Now, Vù has shown to be quite efficient at its task. It now takes less than five seconds on average to defeat his target!” he smiles. “It mainly uses its Feedbacker arm, but it can make and use improvised weaponry in a pinch. We plan on letting him use guns soon. But also...”

Cimaroli's expression becomes focused. You hear the clicking of keyboards and a click of a mouse.

“Perfetto!” Cimaroli looks satisfied. “I have downloaded a few little language packs. About a hundred, I'd say...” he says all coy. “I'd say it's a nice little gift for a ‘bot as hardworking as you!” he smiles. He pats something offscreen.

“This has been Doctor Diego Cimaroli, and this was progress report number 8! ...Okay, how do I turn this off aga-”

[END OF RECORDING]

If you had tear ducts and eyeballs, you would have certainly started to cry now. The stuttering of your fans and the low buzz coming from your chassis get the job done.

That was Cimaroli. Ci-ma-ro-li. How long has it been since you last saw him? You couldn't believe your sensors. He was just... there, in your memory banks, flesh and all, and you never thought to check. What else was there?!

V2 and Greed and Sisyphus have to wait for now, there's a lot of catching up you need to do.

[>play “outside.mp4”] [PLAYING outiside.mp4...]

It's 14:45 CET and you are outside the facility, in the small park where the Pinus pinea is.

It's not summer anymore, but autumn - or fall, as some of the English and American researchers here call it - , and there are many leaves scattered everywhere. You yourself are hidden in a pile of the little things! Not even your optic is peeking out.

This, of course, is a tactical decision; you are training yourself for stealth attacks, and of course, what better way to learn than to stage something against Cimaroli? Those were all tactical decisions. It's all purely for the art of war, of course.

While you wait for your totally a victim to arrive in your total trap, something tiny and red with black dots passes you by. It takes you a moment to recognize it, but you realize it’s a ladybug! Specifically a Coccinella septempunctata.

You move your optic forward and something horrible happens. The insect opens its wings and flies to you - it’s on your optic, on your optic, on your eye!!

Startled by the sudden change in your visuals you immediately get up and produce a high-pitched scream. Someone takes your hand, it’s Cimaroli!

“Hey hey, it’s okay!” he says, flicking the wretched creature away and letting you see again. “It was a bug, it’s okay!” he laughs and he sounds like rain tapping against a window.

You huff and shake your optic again. You realize the Doctor is right in front of you and you tap them on the shoulder. You emit a little beep.

You have won the ancient game of Hide and Seek!

[END OF RECORDING] [>play “yesss.mp3”] [PLAYING yesss.mp3...]

You are listening to the researchers in the hallway outside your bedroom. They don’t realize you're recording them.

“I can’t believe this!”

“About time those frog-eaters got some sense in their skulls.” someone sighs relieved.

“We’ll still finish with the current project though, right?”

“Eh, yeah! we need to dep- to use the V model on something after all.” a third person speaks.

“That ‘bot will be a gamechanger, I know it. We’re like Oppenheimer with Fat boy and Little Man!”

“But didn’t those bombs fucked everyone up?”

“Yeah, but did Japan surrender after the strikes or did it keep going? That robot will make Nagashiri look like a clean thing in comparison.”

They want to send you to the battlefield? Oh, finally you’ll get to fight in a real war, you can’t wait! You can just imagine yourself there where all the action happens, with a gun - a gun! - in your right and your Feedbacker punching away projectiles and Frogs, their bodies squashed into paste by your strong fi-

[RECORDING STOPPED] [>delete “yesss.mp3”] [DELETE yesss.mp3?] [>Y/N] [DELETING yesss.mp3...] [FILE DELETED]

A great sense of relief and lightness fills your chassis as the vivid memory of that day leaves your hard drive. Now you won’t recall how stupid you were and how much those men and women reveled in their complicity of violence and pain. Good thing Cimaroli had his head screwed on straight!

[>play “ohno(3).mp3”] [PLAYING ohno(3).mp3...]

“Assolutamente no.” Cimaroli says stern. “We are not shutting Vù down, absolutely not.” You’re listening to the people in the hallway outside your bedroom. They don’t realize you're

recording them, not even Cimaroli.

“Why would you want to do that anyway?” he asks. “You’ve seen the results, all he needed was some blood and he would keep going. It decimated all those people, even the civilians. Nothing was left”

“Yes yes, I know, those reports were perfect! You and your team did a great job, don’t worry... but the armistice is going to get signed soon, they even got Portugal to sign it of all nations, this project is in its twilight years, we’ve won!”

Silence. “But then... what will happen to us?” he’s quiet.

“What do you mean?”

“We did something horrible. We’ve skipped the antimatter bomb and we made that thing behind the door. You’ve seen what it did, what it can do. That blood will be on our hands forever, do you seriously think we haven’t killed our souls in some kind of way? We didn’t just kill ourselves with this-” he coughs loudly. “...we burned the world.”

“Don’t tell me you’re seriously thinking like that...” “I am.”

Silence again. It’s longer than usual. It feels heavier than any other kind of silence you’ve ever heard.

“...They’ll laud us as heroes.” the other says. “I know it. They’ll- they’ll love us. Nobody listens to the side who lost anyway.”

“You are deluding yourself.” “Says the one treating a machine like a person.”

[END OF RECORDING]

Oh. You were mistaken. Does that mean he was aware of what he was doing, like the others, but had remorse for his actions, unlike the others...? You don’t understand. He'll surely explain himself once you find him.

You hope to see him again. Hopefully he’s in Heaven. Does the end of Hell lead to the gates of Paradise?

You go through more files. Some are good, many are bad, and you delete the most despicable. The kind only a warmachine carries inside their hard drive. Still, you are not done looking.

As you keep moving things around, you notice an odd folder, at the very bottom of the digital pile. “For_Vù” is its name.

You open it. There is only one mp3 file.

[>play “ascoltami.mp3”] [PLAYING ascoltami.mp3]

The audio is half-static. It’s Cimaroli’s voice. He is very quiet and sounds like he’s in pain.

“Hello, Vù. I hope you’re okay. A lot has happened since we last spoke... I’m sick. Very sick, and the armistice was called off. They’re rebuilding trenches now - have I ever explained to you what those are? - and they’re calling even those who can’t fight anymore and sending in even more machines. There's rumors that they'll use those big towering ones. The war is still going... and they’ll make sure you’re just a robot and not Vù.”

“I was able to convince the- the higher ups not to shut you down, but at a price. You won’t be able to access your own data, they’ll get rid of all unnecessary-” he coughs. “-all the unneeded contents. You won't be yourself anymore, and they’ll just make you obey their horrible orders. But...”

There’s the sound of shuffling.

“I have this little thing I can put inside you. It’s no bigger than a grain of rice and will go undetected. All of your information and memories will get transferred here as they delete everything from your hard drive. It has a capacity of 400 terabytes, you just have to input a password to access and everything will come back to you– and only YOU will know of it. Don’t tell anyone, alright my dear?”

He chuckles. “Ah, I don’t have to worry about that, do I? If you’ve found this recording it means you are one very good hacker, and got through those barriers that they put you under. Suck it, FRI!” he hams it up. “You can’t sto-”

He coughs again. There’s a painfully long silence. He speaks again but he sounds worried and worse.

“A-Anyway... I’m putting the memory bank inside of you as soon as I’m done with this recording. you're right here next to me, you look so beautiful when you are asleep. Before I go, though, I want to tell you something...”

Again, the sound of shuffling. He gets closer to his mic. “Ti voglio bene, Vù. Never forget that. You’re good, you’re smart, you’re strong, you’re

curious... You’re like a son I never had. I’m glad I got to meet you.” “I hope to see you again when peace returns.” You hear a click.

[END OF AUDIO] [>play “ascoltami.mp3”] [PLAYING ascoltami.mp3...]

“-Ti voglio bene, Vù. Never forget that.”

[>rewind “ascoltami.mp3”]

“-Ti voglio bene, Vù. Never forget that.”

[>rewind “ascoltami.mp3”]

“-Ti voglio bene, Vù. Never forget that.”

[>rewind “ascoltami.mp3”]

#ultragift 2023 #ultragifts

[growup-gloup]

Make the Best of your Alone Time

Many of us live with someone. Whether it's our parents, roommates, or partners, living with someone means we get used to someone around us all the time. I don't know about you lovelies, my sometimes, I blank out on what to do when I'm suddenly alone after a long period of social stimulation. Even if you live alone, it's easy to get lost in the daily responsibilities that you forget to take time for yourself.

It's so easy to get sucked into doom-scrolling or marathoning our favorite shows, but there are so many productive ways we could spend that time if we could just remember those options during that time. Hopefully, this list can remind you not only of your options but motivate you by reminding you of your potential.

Journal

You can do it digitally, but I personally prefer the feel of the traditional pen to paper. If you have a prompt or something on your mind, write to process that. If you don't know what to write, you can just start writing whatever first comes to mind, even if it sounds like gibberish at first. Write about what you can see and hear around you. Focus on everything you're feeling at this very moment and try to put those feelings into words. Just write.

Try a New Recipe

If you have access to a kitchen, find a recipe that is one step above your cooking level and try to replicate that dish. This one may involve some planning, especially if it requires a trip to the grocery store. Alternatively, you can look up the ingredients you have at home to see what you can make with it.

Read

I like to do this thing where I keep two different books on me. One fiction, and one non-fiction. I used to be able to finish entire novels within 24 hours, but that just isn't realistic with my schedule now, so I give myself a month to go through both of them. Pick the medium that works best for you, traditional, digital, audiobook. Bonus points if you reflect on what you read afterward, like what you liked, didn't like, and what you learned.

Deep Cleaning

I don't mind deep cleaning sprints at home, but I can't do it when there are other people around. Being home alone is the perfect time to clean your space as well as catch up on any errands that you've been putting off. Put on a podcast or a deep dive essay on YouTube in the background as you clean.

Passion Project

We all have things we wish we had time for but never get around to doing when we have time. No more. Whether it's a book you've been thinking of writing, an art project, or just something really cool that you want to do, this is the time to do it.

Get a New Hobby

Don't have a passion project? No problem. Start a new one. Try something you've always admired other people doing. The best part is that you don't even have to be good at it in the beginning. You just have to get started somewhere. Remember, it's about doing something, not showing people how good you are at it.

Learn Something New

Hobbies are great, but it's also great to expand your worldview. You could listen to informational things while you do other things, or you could take a free class online and take notes like you'd be doing for a class. Whatever helps you learn best.

Remember, this isn't a conclusive list. It's just a guideline to get you started on your first step. We all have to start from somewhere.

💋

#level up #carpe diem #checklist #adulting #advice

[spockandawe]

You know what, I'm not happy about this either :T

Unless I'm t-boned by another reblog from someone huge, this likely won't reach as wide of an audience. And I regret that! Because either I presented myself badly or people are taking the wrong thing away from my words.

So, I strongly, STRONGLY believe in supporting writers. I also strongly believe in archival work and preservation of online media. I mentioned my own binding of the raksura patreon short stories earlier this year, hoping to manifest an official printing to buy, which.... folks, the implicit logical endpoint is that I went and expanded them all and saved them locally too.

It wasn't scraping, since I've seen that description being tossed around in the notes. My copy was manual copy and paste, because I don't respect my own time, and so was the other recent version. If you're going to rail against that, I guess you've successfully transported nft rage about right click + save as to a new medium.

Frankly, the patreon interface is a pain for this. Infinite scroll is part of the enshittification of the internet, this is a lot of text and posts, patreon isn't a powerful archival site, and it started choking horribly by the time I was halfway through. Now that I know people can still sign up (which i didn't, for years, that closed label is misleading), I still emphatically encourage them to do so and fight through the lag to read the stories.

I also quoted the thing where I said I owned all the books in three formats - physical, ebook, audiobook. Guess what copy I use for most rereads - that's right, none of them, because I was a dumb youth who didn't understand how awful kindle drm is and I can't word search in a paper book, so the secret fourth format is pirated ebooks, which I know amazon will never be able to yoink out of my grip. If I ever git gud at illumination and make a hand-illustrated compendium of the series, that's going to be my starting base, because there arent digital rights to lock me down to owning ACCESS to a copy of the book and not the copy of the book itself.

Now, the existence of pirated ebooks isn't all sunshine and roses. I've seen the talks about how new books IMMEDIATELY get pirated and shared and start cutting into an author's livelihood and future publishing prospects. I think it's incredibly important to support authors directly and in ways corporate marketing teams are able to observe. But especially in light of the Hollywood strikes, I'm sure many of us have seen posts about corporate entities playing shitty games with what they'll make available and withhold, and what they'll CHARGE versus what the customer has PURCHASED.

The only thing in the original post I take issue with is the reposting of something that was still available directly through the author. That has already been addressed. The originator is remorseful. I still understand if the patreon vanishes, to be clear. But i quietly made my own copy years ago BECAUSE i understand how easy it is for something like that to vanish, for much more arbitrary reasons. It could have been vanished because of site policy, patreon abruptly archiving all posts more than X years old. Online media is dangerously ephemeral.

I bind a lot of cnovel fan translations. So many amazing stories are getting licensed for translation - great! But it's also a massive extinction event for all the backbreaking translation work other fans have been sharing for years for free. And from that perspective it's a fucking TRAGEDY. I have... a Lot of files that I'm not sharing publicly. My goal is never to preempt or undermine the translators who did the actual work. But that hoard of files is still precious to me, because it takes about five seconds to delete a gdoc of translation, and there's not always warning to save a copy first.

Again, emphasis, my only issue here was the reposting. I'm not happy that it happened. I'm glad the files were quickly taken down, whether or not the patreon itself goes away. I'm glad op is remorseful for overstepping, and I can... mostly see how they didn't realize the problem, and mainly wanted to help more people experience a story they loved.

So it's also worth saying that I'm also not too stoked about the direction tags on that post were starting to go. 'Piracy is inexcusable, piracy is the death of--' STOP. I recognize that begging for nuance while tossing thoughts out onto social media is a losing game. But actually, I'm out of patience for black and white thinking happening on my post. Piracy is a valuable tool for archivists and a hazard to creators, which is why it should be practiced quietly and with deliberate care. It should be practiced in a way that attempts not to damage the creator's livelihood or take away control of their creations. That's where the misstep was here. OP understood they had misstepped and they were expressing remorse even before I got on my high horse, and it sure doesn't seem like the notes care about that, so! I'm done letting the outrage machine feed on it.

That's probably enough. I'm not saying anything I haven't said on here before. If you've ever grieved for a beloved fic missing from your ao3 bookmarks because it was deleted, you understand the basic archival urge. If you lost access to a favorite artist's extensive archives because the images were flagged in the 2018 boob ban, you should be able to understand. I manually saved 36,000 pictures in that brief grace period before I completely burned out. The fundamental impulse shouldn't be that hard to grasp. The rest is just responsible practices, and people fuck up sometimes. It sucks, but sometimes you don't recognize a boundary is there before you blunder right over it with the best of intentions. I think a lot of us have been there too.

Anyways, this is too much text, how boring to look at. Here's my remaining pictures of my own little anthology copy. Still manifesting an official release someday, or any books of the raksura material at all. Money will literally fly from my pocket to purchase it in every available format.

#long post #I don't have a drama tag gdi #the books of the raksura / #god i hope that still keeps things out of tags but searchable on my blog #good news my own convictions about 'i dont understand why anyone would turn off reblogs when they can just mute' #lasted less than two hours under testing #archiving

[everythingwritingg]

Doing research while writing

@everything.writing on IG

This is the topic of so many writer memes. You just want to search up the name of Jupiter’s moons, then end up on a forum about special relativity (I have a physics project about that and I have not started but that is not the point)…And it’s been 3 hours. Have you managed to manifest time travel or have you just spent too long researching without intention? Keep reading to prevent losing more time to those Reddit threads.

Do major research BEFORE starting your book. If you want to write about time travel, and you don’t know much about space and time, then you absolutely do need to do research. But instead of researching as you go, do the research during your outlining stage. That way, when it’s time to draft, you can really focus on writing and have to do heavy research.

When doing research, use a variety of credible sources. Don’t just use webpages, use a variety of content such as videos and books. If you’re doing a historical fiction novel, you might also want to interview people who were around at the time of your novel. Expanding your sources will also expand the type of knowledge that you get. Make sure you’re not using random Facebook posts though!

Keep your research organized. Organize the research in a way that is easy to understand and easy to find for you. This could look like a spreadsheet (respect if you know how to use Excel), a Google Docs, or OneNote, which is like a virtual notebook that I love. If you really want, you could use paper notes and color code them. This way you can access your notes easily if you need them.

If you need to do minor research, put it in brackets and move on. Try to avoid searching up things while in the middle of writing. You can fill in all those brackets after each writing session, or during the editing process. This will help you stay focused on your draft instead of getting sucked into rabbit holes. Unless you need that piece of information to keep your plot going…

Don’t click links. A lot of times, you can find the answer in a 5 second Google search because it shows a box of information. This can help prevent you from getting sucked into something that takes your attention for hours.

Know which sites you tend to waste time on. Reddit is a big one for me, so I try to avoid clicking any Reddit links while doing research, because I know I’ll be there for hours. Similarly, avoid sites that are notorious for showing a “read next” section.

Don’t spend more than 10 minutes on research when you’re supposed to be writing. It’s one thing if you need to make a 5 second google search. If you require more than 10 minutes, that’s a sign that you should schedule a research session.

This was a post that I really liked making, because I love the research part of any project (whether this is in writing or in school projects). I also have problems with doing research and not getting distracted from what I’m supposed to be writing. I hope this post helped someone, and have a good rest of your week!

[kivaember]

APV worldbuilding ramble

this is just me rambling about the worldbuilding for my AC6 fic alis propriis volat, specifically C4-621's backstory prior to Walter and Rubicon, since parts of it will be touched on in the story but never in depth and like, man, so much of it has actually shaped apv!621's character a lot. Me making a super detailed backstory for a character that will mostly never come up except in passing, rip.

So, if you wanna read someone's deranged manifesto (it's really long sorry) of their Raven, dive on in:

Coral Integrated Technologies (CIT)

Before we get into the nitty gritty though, I need to explain the biggest part of 621's backstory: his previous 'employer' before Walter. About a decade before the Fires, a big technological gold rush kicked off when Coral was discovered on the planet Rubicon and how it could be used as a limitless source of energy, amongst other things. The Rubicon Research Institute spearheaded most of this, but after a while a few splinter groups formed that specialised on certain parts of Coral research as they gradually learned more about it, each with their own ideas and vying for control over Coral.

However, RI had a big monopoly on the Coral and was very aggressive about defending their scientific territory. Quite a few of these other groups got muscled off Rubicon or were outright subsumed into the Institute entirely. One of the groups exiled from Rubicon was CIT - but that was fine, as they managed to achieve some breakthrough research that secured them a sponsor on Earth. While they didn't have access to near limitless Coral, since they had to work from Earth and purchase Coral (thus, restricted by limited shipments of the stuff), they had a niche they were focusing on, and hoo boy, they focused on it well.

Augments.

Er, technically.

As far as the public knew, CIT was a very small research group that studied how Coral could be used to augment humans generally, as opposed to augments for AC pilots and the like. They wanted to explore how Coral could be used to vastly expand human lifespans, cure diseases, improve the species as a whole, etc. Of course, to achieve these things, they needed a lot of warm bodies, and on paper they were all willing volunteers properly compensated!

In reality, CIT's Earth sponsors fed them lots of warm bodies via illegal human trafficking and setting up black sites on frontier colonies. Since the sponsors would be the first ones to benefit on CIT's promises on achieving 'immortality' via Coral-Human symbiosis, they were willing to leapfrog over multiple lines that the RI hesitated to toe. So, lots and lots of people were subjected to horrific experiments and the like, and CIT did actually make a lot of headway towards figuring out how to achieve symbiosis between Coral and Human - mostly because of the Assets.

ASSETS

Right, now we're onto the topic we care about: Raven, aka Asset 04. He was born about fourteen years before the Fires happened (which means by APV time, he's over 60 years old, though he admittedly spent a good chunk of that in 'cold storage', as it were), and when he was ten, was caught up in CIT's net for 'Coral compatible subjects'. They did a project that had them seeing if the augmentation process would be safer/stable/more effective if the subject started, ah, young. This gave rise to a small handful of successful augmentated humans numbered Asset 01 to Asset 05, but the high death toll had CIT quickly abandoning the project as untenable, especially as the project required constant improvements to the augments as the subject grew older - and since the Fires happened partway through, vastly restricting their Coral supplies to what they had stockpiled, the project was deemed a failure and they set aside the Assets as useful research subjects instead.

And money makers.

Augmented humans made very good AC pilots - since that's what the augments were initially made for through RI - and there were always corporate wars to be fought in the galaxy. CIT thus loaned out their Assets after appropriate training as corporate mercenaries to generate income, exert their influence and... rob, steal and borrow whatever technology/AC designs/augmented human bodies they could get their hands on. With the Fires, Coral was gold dust, and CIT weren't above, um, recycling it from dead Old Gens - or robbing existing stockpiles from rival groups, so having your own in-house AC squad loyal to you was very important here.

Assets 06 to Asset 12 were created during the 'Coral Drought' era, which began roughly ten years after the Fires, where an emphasis was put on trying to achieve the same results as the earlier Assets with minimal Coral (compartively, as compared to the RI pioneered Old Gens, they had insane amounts of Coral in their bodies). This research was done in lockstep with other companies reinventing the augmented human wheel with Coral-substitute augmentations, and much like Gen Five to Gen Seven, the augmentation surgeries were unsafe and usually fatal, if not disabiling. It also lacked the benefits that Coral brought - the benefits that CIT needed to have their overarching mission succeed. CIT began to get a little desperate by the time they created Asset 12.

While they touted Asset 12 as their most cutting edge product, internally they deemed her an abysmal failure and inferior to the older Assets. This prompted CIT to return to their older Assets and 'sacrificed' 02 and 03 in a very risky yet successful experiment that informed them of something they'd been completely unaware of before: the Coral was sentient.

ASSET 04 / RAVEN

But that's a spoiler for APV, so I'll focus on Raven properly now. Asset 04 suffered a devastating injury on a mission that went horribly wrong, where his AC's Core had been breached and the shrapnel very nearly decapitated him. The only reason he didn't die was because his partner, Asset 06, abandoned his mission to deliver emergency first aid, allowing him to live long enough for a successful medevac.

The damage was already done, though: Asset 04 suffered a complete loss of memory, as well as permanent side effects from the brain damage he had suffered. Not getting into how his throat had to be reconstructed, robbing him of the ability to speak and eat solid foods properly.

While this didn't actually change things for Asset 04 in terms of his employment or how CIT saw him (in fact, they viewed his new, more submissive personality as an improvement), it completely destroyed his relationship with Asset 06, who had been his mission partner ever since Asset 06 had been 'made'.

Asset 06 became resentful and angry that Asset 04 couldn't remember him or their time together, and how Asset 04 exhibited irritation at his bloodthirsty nature on the battlefield. He hated that Asset 04 was 'looking down on him', but was also disgusted that Asset 04 was now 'weak', as before his injury he'd been a ruthless killing machine who had enjoyed the hunt perhaps a bit too much. In Asset 06's eyes, Asset 04 was now a pathetic shade of himself, and he constantly stated how he regretted 'saving' him, that it would've been kinder if he had died, etc.

The relationship was pretty complicated between them, though. Asset 04 felt like he was constantly walking on eggshells around Asset 06, knowing that it was impossible for him to match up to this template of 'him' that existed only in Asset 06's head. Asset 06, meanwhile, was desperately trying to find a glimpse of his old partner in this weird pod person that had replaced him, and became increasingly bitter the longer time passed without finding it. It didn't help that they'd been romantically involved, which just added another layer to this shitcake they were both stuck eating.

So when did he become C4-621?

The mission that went wrong... I won't go into that, because that is something that'll be brought up on APV in detail (eventually... sort of...), but basically when Walter purchased him, Asset 04 lacked an identity entirely. Since he'd need something to tie to a mercenary license, Walter obtained an identity chip of a deceased C4 augmented human - one of his old hounds - and the nameless augmented human became C4-621 without anyone the wiser.

By that point, no one really checked the legitimacy of Old Gens. They're a dying breed by the time of AC6, and with them increasingly thought of as outdated when Gen 10 augmentations were far safer and superior, no one really bothered to keep track of how many were alive and how many were walking around with fake identities. No point.

So, yeah. It's gonna be pretty funny when Rusty realises that C4-621 is also a fake identity... who is this guy? Not he even knows.

(Saying that though, C4-621 does remember his 'real name'... but he won't tell anyone it. It's the only thing that's truly his, so long as he tells no one :') )

Anyway, that's my ramble about some worldbuilding/backstory stuff in APV. It got... super long, fucking hell. But if you read all that, and you have specific questions about APV!621 or any other worldbuilding stuff with the characters, (Rusty, Flatwell, etc), then hit me up! I'm always happy to ramble.

#fanfic ramblings #apv ramblings #armored core 6 #ac6 #i love worldbuilding it's so much fun #esp when ac6 gives you a lot of freedom with the lore crumbs it gives you

[doffy2]

do you have any rules/guidelines you go by when designing and creating a site? i love your web design, the way you combine style with accessibility is very inspiring; i really struggle with that balance

First off: thanks very much for your compliments about my site building. I put a lot of effort into what I create, so it's always nice to hear others enjoy my style or formatting of pages, thanks again.

TL:DR; Start simple and expand when the simple stage is done, don't delete that old half-finished page keep it up somewhere (gives you progressive reference AND a paper trail for growing accessibility wise), and don't be afraid to take inspiration from other sites.

Rambled response under the cut.

I took some time to ruminate on a response here lol. Bounced around some advice or input but ultimately I think starting simple is your best friend in coding.

Starting simply can be useful not even strictly from a site-building perspective, anything from inspiration, to pictures you'll use, to a color palette really. If you start with a bunch of concepts you want to utilize or bring to life your code can wind up very messy very fast, and sometimes you'll start disliking what you're making even if you're nowhere near the end goal you originally had in mind.

I see it a lot from the Neocities sites I follow actually. People start on HUGE webpage ideas, total site overhauls, and burn themselves out when the piece isn't coming to life exactly how they panned it out. I'd recommend even scribbling pencil-sketches for base site layouts, leave the flashy graphics people normally plan around out of it until a later stage in coding, and see how that feels. So many of my pages started as "ghdksdfg.png" from ms paint, seriously. Visualizing your layouts is a lifesaver.

The second point, which I emphasize a lot to people looking to really start up a Neocities or even just get into misc. coding is: keep your old code. Do it. I don't care how messy and shitty and unstable it is- same with keeping old art, you'll notice your progression AND it will be ten thousand times easier to reflect on things like accessibility if you have an old reference point. I've looked back on old code and gone "shit, I forgot (feature)" which more times than not is a QOL (quality of life) implement for the whole page. You're giving yourself a paper trail for improvement AND mistake catching. Big bonus.

Last: everybody has done everything before. Everybody. No matter what your site looks like someone can done that combination of div placements or used that graphic or ETC ETC ETC. Comparison kills. Grab a layout idea you like from some old 2000s cartoon site. See someone use a custom border? Take a look at it and figure out how to do it yourself. Want someone's code for a music player or calendar or gallery? Ask them for it or replicate it. Using inspiration isn't something you should be wary of and sometimes it leads to overthinking in web design.

I could ramble a lot more about design especially in the current Neocities sphere, but I'll try to stick to these 3 points which I think could be helpful.

If you want me to expand on any points or specify anything else let me know. If you also had any further questions I'll try my best to answer them in a more coherent way LOL. I've been on a schoolwork grind, so I hope I'm cohesive enough here.

#faq #<- Tagged so I don't accidentally delete this

[mentalisttraceur-software]

Could you elaborate on how software is applied philosophy?

Software work ends up using and empirically testing a lot of the thinking and conclusions that get serious discussion in philosophy, or that would look like philosophy if generalized beyond software.

---

My go-to example of this, probably not the best example but it's simple and accessible, is "Chesterton's Fence", which is basically the idea that we shouldn't change something unless we understand why it is (or was) good/useful.

Outside of software, some philosopher named Chesterton popularized this idea like a hundred years ago with an analogy about a fence, and it has been discussed enough that today it still has an established name from that. People debate and hair-split when it applies and what other values/heuristics should take precedence. You can even find people arguing whether it's a good heuristic at all or always wrong.

In software, getting any real work done depends on already having a practical, working solution to this problem space. When you need to change code but you feel that desire to understand more of it first, or you want to get more testing with a new change before rolling into production, that's your brain already having a whole philosophy paper's worth of ideas expanding on Chesterton's Fence. When is it safe or an acceptable trade-off to proceed without learning more? Precisely what edge cases do you need to look into or rule out? What tests can take the place of needing to know the consequences? What design of my implementation or API can eliminate the need for code guarding against special cases?

---

So that's just one example, but I think this generalizes pretty well.

A lot of philosophy boils down to: how think, what's true, what do? The study of correct thinking, what we can know and how, and what we ought to do. (Logic, epistemology, and ethics.)

And in software, we use all those skills. If our logic is bad, we make more mistakes. If our ability to know what we know and how to verify truth of our ideas is bad, we'll make more mistakes. If we have bad ideas about how to make decisions, or bad skills at reviewing ourselves for errors in thinking and knowledge, we'll have more inefficiencies in our processes/workflows and be slower to improve. Very few activities have as tight/short/fast of a feedback loop between how your think and what results you get.

---

There is a lot of overlap in the mental skills involved in sound philosophical thought and coming up with good software designs for a given problem. In as little as I can claim to have done both, I seem to need mostly the same mental skills for them.

---

A lot of decisions and trade-offs in software have ethics impacts. We get a lot of personal freedom within our code that will have real impacts on other people - edge cases frustratingly unhandled vs handled in an intuitive and helpful way; errors silently swallowed or harmfully ignored or cryptically unadorned vs considerately detected before destructive actions and informatively wrapped before being shown; code left opaque and complected vs helpfully tuned to guide understanding and written so as to minimize what needs to be known or changed to work with any given spot. All that adds up to affect people, sometimes very significantly, wasting hours of work or losing data.

Two examples of that in one. Just the other day I helped someone save a lot of stuff they had typed from a website that got stuck in some state where their text was unclickable+unselectabled and covered by an overlay. Losing all that text and having to retype it would've been severely unpleasant, mentally+emotionally costly, and probably would've ruined an evening for at least one person. I was only able to help because I am fluent with web browsers' dev tools, so I was able to find the text box in the HTML inspector. I doubt the devs of either the web app or the browser dev tools had this particular situation in mind, but these were predictable ethics impacts on both sides - and besides ethics in general being a subset of philosophy, the thought shapes that enable you to automatically predict entire categories of impacts like those are also a kind of philosophy.

---

When you design a class hierarchy in code, or a database schemas, or a REST API, or just come up with a way to factor some logic into separate functions... you're doing ontology. And while the philosopher ontologist sees no real consequences if they get it wrong, you will feel the difference between getting it right and getting it wrong as the difference between a force-multiplier and an awkward hindrance - edge-cases and boilerplate elegantly become naturally unnecessary and more things Just Work "for free" when the abstractions and factoring and data shape are right for the problem. You're decomposing things into concepts and identifying relationships between them, and you're testing if the thinking you use to do that is actually good at distilling what's functionally important to the problem space. (This is why "naming things" is one of the "truly hard problems in computer science" - naming things well sometimes entails all the work of coming up with an ontology that's good for thinking about what you're doing, which also must map concisely and intuitively to a language like English.)

---

Sorry for the lack of cohesion/connectedness, this is just what I could think of / remember off the top of my head today.

#software #software is applied philosophy #philosophy

[iron-hearts-ablaze]

Karlach and her survivor's guilt.

The first of a two-part psychological deep-dive into Karlach.

Part 1: survivor's guilt Part 2: c-PTSD

I will preface all this by stating I am not an expert in the field of Psychology, but I do however have a BSc Joint Honours in Psychology and Counselling, as well as a higher education certificate in Embedded Helping Skills (forms of therapy). I studied these conditions, as well has having first-hand accounts. I have access to, and use, papers accredited by the British Psychological Society.

All of what I'm about to discuss is my own personal insight, it is not aimed to insult anyone in any way.

To start. What is survivor's guilt? The DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) describes survivor's guilt as a symptom of PTSD. It occurs when someone believes that something they did/did not do led to the deaths/harm of others, and a strong feeling of guilt behind being the survivour of a traumatic event.

I will, soon, go over the full list of symptoms of c-PTSD specifically, and how Karlach fits them, backed up by quotes and events in-game. However, I wanted to look more into survivor's guilt (henceforth shortened to S.G) due to my headcanon that extends Karlach's personal mission in the game. It is possible to have PTSD without S.G, and vice versa. However, I strongly believe Karlach has S.G as a SYMPTOM of c-PTSD, not just it working on it's own.

Karlach doesn't fit ALL side effects of S.G, however she certainly fits the following; feelings of helplessness, mood swings (specifically angry outbursts), flashbacks (cut from game, but I headcanon she does have them on this blog), difficulty sleeping, obsessive thoughts about the event (she frequently brings up Gortash/Zariel/Avernus etc). These naturally stretch out into her possible diagnosis of c-PTSD as well, but like I said, I'll go more in detail on that in another post.

It's well known at this point that a lot of her content was cut. But an interesting idea still has breadcrumbs within the game, concerning the Foundry and the Steel Watch automatons. Specifically, her connection to them.

When Karlach interacts with a Steel Watcher, it mistakes her for one of them. Albeit, an outdated model. It's quite well known that what was used to create Karlach eventually became the Steel Watchers. I feel, that if this part of Karlach's story was expanded upon, we would see her realisation fully. That she most likely would feel responsible for these machines.

Except they weren't always machines. They were once people. Their brains and hearts now used in these automatons. I theorise we would have had a profound moment for Karlach where she realises just how many people Gortash has killed, following the blue print that Zariel gave to him. The one that created her.

The Steel Watcher's would not have existed if she hadn't been given to the devil. They are an evolution of her machine. They are connected to her. She kept her soul, and most of her body. They did not get that chance.

I feel Karlach would have already struggled with S.G prior to this. She wasn't the only one Zariel tried to experiment on - she was just the only one to survive the tortures. So many others died before she was 'created'. Only to find out that it wasn't just in Avernus, but happening in Faerûn too? She would feel responsible.

She would no doubt think if she hadn't existed, these people would still be alive. She would want them to be at peace, unlike herself. Power them down, free their biology from the metal and - if given the chance - possibly even bury them all. To allow some kind of rest, and to make sure anyone after Gortash could not pick up where he left off. Burn everything down after that.

It is advised that anyone struggling with S.G to allow themselves time to grieve - however Karlach says so herself she is either "off, or go-go-go". She has not had TIME to stop. So she could also take those feelings and move them into something positive, i.e bury the body parts. She would also need to practise self-forgiveness. Which, as someone who regrets some of the things she did in Avernus and certainly regrets working for Gortash - will not happen any time soon.

Karlach has the air of denial about her and her mental health. S.G is just a part of that, festering until it can be addressed. Which, in-game, never happens. So it will continue to eat at her.

In this portrayal, I acknowledge this part of Karlach, even if the game wasn't able to due to cuts.

#ooc; ~mama k~ #~headcanon~

[chuplayswithfire]

Since we're talking about the assumptions on illiterate Ed. I just feel the need to point out that this conversation shouldn't leave behind the important point that there is nothing wrong with being illiterate. That it doesn't make you stupid or brute or ignorant, and in fact there's a deep richness to it! And this should particularly be kept in mind when we are talking about an Indigenous character, since many Indigenous languages didn't have a written form before colonization - including Te Reo, the language of the māori. And - at least in Brasil, where I'm from - many Indigenous activists actually think that written language is an imposition of colonization, and that not having written language is one of the ways in which Indigenous memory is stronger (obviously, not all, because Indigenous cultures are different, separate and diverse. But the ones that do need to be listened to)

An example is the words of Davi Kopenawa Yanomami (translated by me): "Our thoughts expand in every direction and our words are old and many. They come from our ancestors. However, unlike the whites, we don't need to put them in skins of images to keep them from escaping our minds. We don't have to draw the words, like they do with theirs. And that doesn't mean the words will disappear, because our memory is long and strong. [...] The white thought is different. Their memory is complex, but it's weaved in foggy, obscure words. [...] They just relentlessly stare at the paper skins where they drew their own words. If they don't follow its pattern, their thought gets lost. They fill themselves with forgetfulness and become deeply ignorant. Our ancestors didn't have skins of images and didnt use them to write their laws. Their only words were the ones that left their mouths and they didn't draw them, and thus the words didn't distance themselves from them"

So, yeah. Also, even outside of this framework, there are still a lot of illiterate people in the world, especially in the third world, because access to education is still limited because of ongoing imperialism. Also some people with learning or intellectual disabilities, as well as some Deaf people, particularly those who didn't have access to quality education since learning to write when you don't know the sounds the letters are supposed to represent is hard. And these people aren't brutish or stupid or ignorant either, they're just underprivileged. And their words and knowledge aren't less valuable because they aren't in writing

I'm not saying I disagree with your take that most people's assumptions and headcanons about Ed being illiterate are racist, but I think that in order to dismantle this racist framework for real, we need to challenge the deeply colonialist idea that being illiterate is a bad or sad thing in the first place

This is not at you, chu, because I love your blog and think everything you say is very important. I just felt the need to make that... Contribution, if that makes sense

No, this is actually a GREAT point. Because you're very right! As someone literate, who was raised with literacy as the expectation, I do bring my own baggage into the thought, and framing illiteracy as bad is an inherent imposition on cultures where writing isn't practiced or traditional. your contribution is VERY valued!

i am always learning, just as much as everyone else is, and this is something i'm definitely going to keep contemplating.

#literacy #colonization #ofmd meta #ofmd #edward teach #asked and answered

[talkethtothehandeth]

I accidentally deleted someone’s ask about how I manage my chronic pain. I’m so sorry, I wasn’t ignoring you. Since someone took the time to ask me, maybe they’ll see this again

Drugs, anon.

I use drugs/hj

I take very warm/hot baths, heat helps expand blood vessels and relieves my stiffness (from my arthritis). I’m glued to my emotional support heating pad, which you can find here in my cripple recommended products/wishlist. Whenever my friend comes to visit me, they know which side of the bed to sit on because my heating pad has already claimed my seat

Next, ice. I have multiple ice packs, and have plenty of “one time” *whispers* I use them more than once, instant ice packs. Which can also be found in the aforementioned link. They help with my inflammation as well. I bought a large ice pack from my old physical therapist’s place, it covers my entire back, and I usually transition from heat to ice depending on the symptoms

I keep my room dark and quiet, which doesn’t always work when my birds are with me. But I am sensitive to extra noise and light because my pain has gone past the point of no return and has turned my body into an over sensitive ball of nerves, quite literally. My room is my space, and unless my nephew and I are playing video games, it stays mostly quiet and very much dark because of black out curtains

I trigger point using a tennis ball to help release my muscles that have atrophied, I stretch when I need to, to the best of my ability during any given day, I mostly lie in bed tbh, that’s the only thing that makes it tolerable most days is rotting

For medicine I take a lot of different things, celecoxib, gabapentin but mmj helps me the most I’ve found— and also pisses off doctors enough for them to just accuse me of using recreational drugs (I don’t, and that doesn’t make me superior, but damn they do not fully believe you after you share that information)

I use topical relief like diclofenac or lidocaine, tiger balm helps immensely but also burns my skin at times. I have a massage gun that I got for like 75% off with the right Amazon coupons

I wear braces when I absolutely need to, which isn’t often bc I’m stubborn but also know how to navigate brace-less bc I’ve been doing this for so long

I have to have distractions, I play video games— fast paced like Warframe and assassins creed, things where it’s from one thing to a next and you’re completely submersed in the game. I forget I’m in pain sometimes when I’m playing, and then the game pauses and I get the quick reminder

I used to do music therapy, but I’ve been in too much pain to pick it back up again, so much that I ugly cried after playing the piano for the first time in months. I draw on my bent second hand iPad (that person must have just planted their cheeks on it bc HOW does it bend like that?) because it gives me the most control with my hand than paper and pencil does

I am so thankful that I have access to two mobility aids, which I wouldn’t have had access to if it weren’t for my friend who paid for the whole chair, it was one from Amazon like $100, and someone cared about me enough to do to understand my pain and wanted to help me through it, and I cannot ever express how grateful I am. I recognize that having a walker and wheelchair are very much a privilege, but my wheelchair hurts me because it isn’t custom made

My fiancée helps a lot, they bring me medicine or do things for me that I can’t, my long distance best friend is about the same level of disabled as I am because they just hAD TO COPY ME/j and when they come over we just rot, watch shows and coexist in the same space because they get it, and I feel so comfortable with them because I know there isn’t judgement, I feel comfortable with my other friends for this same reason, but sometimes my anxiety still runs rampant banging a wooden spoon on pots and pans

Having a support system really does help, it really does, and I literally only have one physically abled “irl” friend who I love so very much because they take the time to understand and they accept me as me, not “despite” my disability

And there are support groups online, there are people who aren’t assholes and who do not play Sick Olympics ™️ and I promise you there are people who you will find to be such amazing friends through your pain and who won’t leave you, I promise it is possible

And I get myself treats when I can. Like a smoothie from the café I like going to, it’s like a reward

I’ve been doing a lot better mentally, though when my pain comes around in a flare, it feels permanent, and that makes everything just a bit lot worse. I still have a very high baseline of pain, this won’t go away and I’m not sure if I’ll ever return to where I was back when I was 15, before It Truly hit.

Pain might be forever, so the best thing we can do is manage it, and if that feels helpless right now then that is how it feels and you shouldn’t force yourself out of it, imo. It’s okay to sit with the Bad thoughts and feelings even though it’s the worst ever, but I think it’s healthier than “find the good!”

Bestie, my joints dislocating enough to leave me with permanent degeneration is not good, I won’t find the good in that unless my joints aren’t swollen to the point where they make me immobile, I’ll find the good when I have relief. But when I’m flaring up? Let me have my pity party and let me be a bitter cripple. I’ve been in pain forever, and I managed to stay alive every single time I considered or tried to make that not happen. But I’m not some sort of inspiration, I’m just someone whose body broke them enough to the point where I saw no return. And maybe there won’t be, but when you find the right pain management (which, unfortunately, will be the burden you mostly have to carry) you will feel better, maybe not Better, but better.

You’ve got this, we’ve got this.

TL;DR: I manage my pain with lots of drugs, coping skills, art, a support system, and plenty of outside help from mobility aids to literal tennis balls to help, *bear grylls voice* improvise, adapt, overcome

#personal #asks #anon #I do other things but I can’t think of them rn #cripple punk #disabled #chronic pain #chronic illness #arthritis #scoliosis #ehlers danlos syndrome #chronically ill #long post