#no I am not qualified for this job at all I am a psychology major but they are so desperate for teachers rn

[batmansecretary]

the way in which I'm actually aelwyn abernant fr is insane because before this episode even came out I (19, F, healed relationship with my sister) applied for a teaching job and just today got an interview for it

#no I am not qualified for this job at all I am a psychology major but they are so desperate for teachers rn #her being a teacher is a realistic timeframe to me because I'm living it #aelwyn abernant #fantasy high

[the-therapist-is-ace]

Hello! As promised to @rubberduckyrye, here are some of my notes I got about my social psychology class, about leadership! (And of course I thought of V3. Of course. So I'm sharing the ones that could be linked to it x)

(Please keep in mind that those datas were extracted from social experiments in real life, not a killing game tho xD)

There's four "main" types of leadership:

Authoritarian (like in the army)

Transactional (preferably one for a short period of time or objective; this one is quite literally, a transaction. You do this task, you get this reward. It's not a long-term option)

Transformative (This one is the most looked after in companies: it's one that focus on changing things for the better, helping employees too in the process, but also it's looking for long-terms solutions and practice. The one that can motivate others, and help employees with their problems)

And lastly the "let it be", a type of leadership that let the "employees" -keep in mind those experiments were done in companies' settings- do what they want and doing much about it.

First of all, it's good to know that the leadership authoritarian is less performant than the transactional, or the transformative. But it's still WAY BETTER than the "let it be"! To give a hierarchy:

"let it be" < authoritarian < transactional < transformative.

(Again, in a company's setting. But I think it would work best in a killing game too, since everyone have to collaborate for a long term objective, leaving, when there's one actual traitor in their group)

Kaede and Kokichi (because I am still talking about V3, of course!) both tried -Kaede... more or less- a transformative leadership. Which, good idea! The problem being that Kaede also took some major part of the "let it be" type as well. Asides from the Death Road of Despair, and when she asked Miu for help, she pretty much didn't let the others contribute.

Kokichi too; well he let Miu, Gonta and maybe a bit Shuichi contribute, but after the first trial there's not a lot of people willing to listen to him asides the first two I mentionned.

Angie in chapter 3, tried an authoritarian leadership. Which... works, until the authority figure isn't respected (or feared) and people start doing whatever they want again. (And the problem with her, is that she only was respected by half of the class to begin with. It was bond to fail)

And all three of them struggle with the notion to let others than their allies do the work for the group (which, in a killing game is understandable. There's a mastermind lurking around) but it doesn't help the overall cohesion, conflicts in the group happens because "it's always the same doing the things" (in a company setting anyway.)

An annoying thing too, is that once a leader is designated, all the others around are like "oh cool, they'll do all the work and I can chill" only doing things if the leader actually tell them to. In a company setting (or in a group project...) no problem. In a killing game on the other hand...

The followers have the tendency to take the values of their leader in mind when taking decisions; in a company, it's seen as a HR employee avoiding to recruit women because he knows his superior is mysogynist. In the killing game, it's seen when Kaede declare they're all friends, and despite the murders that happens, everyone claim this mentality. (Claim. Not necessary follow... *look at the murders*)

Because yes, having people with differents values/goals (i.e: the mastermind working against them) obviously doesn't help the group.

And then, interestings things are seen.

It has been shown in the experiments, that the one stepping up to be the leader, isn't always the most qualified for the job.

Not only that, but people that chose their leader doesn't necessary makes the right choice, and prefer to have someone they like in charge, they are biased.

Looks familiar to anyone?

And now the most fascinating thing:

If no real leader (recognized, followed by everyone or the biggest majority and most importantly: DOING A GOOD JOB) is there, that's when a scapegoat is "designed".

You know, the one that everyone claim to be the source of all problems (the "villain") the one that get ignored (even when they are BLEEDING) the one that can get all their hard work for the group overlooked, even when said-work help to end the crisis? (AKA, the killing game?)

Hm, wonder who that is in V3!

On a lighter note, homor is a great idea in leadership. Studies showed that a joking leader eased the tensions in the group, and help motivate people to go forwards.

Hm, wonder who could try to make jokes to ease the tension...

#the therapist's rant #danganronpa v3 #analysis I guess? #I'm just using my lessons on the situation of v3

[beardedmrbean]

A psychology professor has warned that hiring based on race alone was illegal, even as the University of Washington (UW) psychology department was downgrading white and Asian candidates, an audio recording obtained by Newsweek has shown.

The university later banned the faculty from hiring tenure-track employees for two years after finding major discrimination in hiring practices.

In an audio recording of a meeting on March 16, 2023, psychology professor Ione Fine objected to the hiring process in which the first- and second-ranked candidates, who were white and Asian American, respectively, got overlooked in favor of the third-ranked hopeful, who was Black.

For that to be achieved, a new "threshold" system was introduced in which any candidate could be chosen once they reached a certain level, circumventing the previous practice of hiring the highest-ranking candidate.

In 1998, Washington state passed a referendum banning race-based hiring in universities, which appears to have been ignored by the psychology department.

At the meeting, Fine objected to staff only having a 15-minute meeting to approve the decision of the selection committee.

"I feel like this idea that we are just deciding on candidates above threshold is a huge change in what we are looking at as a department and I think it should be something that we discuss as a faculty, not something that is decided by the planning committee," Fine told the meeting.

She added: "I personally am in favor of affirmative action, but we are legally not allowed to do it. I actually think we do owe the taxpayers who pay our salaries—the fact that it is illegal and has been democratically decided to be illegal by the taxpayers."

"So can you explain how we are respecting taxpayers? How are we not doing a [work-] around on what we are legally supposed to do?" she asked.

In response, a member of the selection committee denied that they were hiring based on race alone.

"This is not kind of like we are giving someone a position because of their identity. We have three extremely qualified candidates and we are making a strategic offer based on what the department has deemed the most important[...]so that is not at all what is happening," the committee member told Fine.

Fine's objections came one month before the Black candidate was hired after some Black faculty members urged that she be hired over the white candidate, who was then downgraded from first to third in the rankings.

Newsweek previously reported the university's comment that "an internal whistleblower" exposed the discrimination. We can now reveal that the internal whistleblower was Fine, who specializes in the psychology of blindness and other areas of research.

An internal report discovered the discrimination in hiring procedures.

Other violations included the absence of white staff from meetings with job candidates, deleting a passage from a hiring report to hide discrimination, and discussing ways to "think our way around" a Supreme Court ruling that banned affirmative action in colleges.

A UW spokeswoman told Newsweek on January 3 that the case was exposed when "the dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, responding to an internal whistleblower, requested an internal review of this process by what was then called UCIRO (University Complaints, Investigation and Resolution Office) and is now the Civil Rights Investigation Office."

The UW report found that when five finalists for a tenure-track assistant professor position were selected in January 2023, they were due to be interviewed by the Women Faculty and Faculty of Color groups so they could assess the general atmosphere of the faculty.

The report said a member of the Faculty of Color did not want any white women at the meeting and complained that the interviews were "awkward" when there was a white candidate. The names of everyone involved are redacted from the UW report.

A University of Washington spokesperson told Newsweek that the March 16 meeting was included in the university's review of this hiring process.

"As noted in our October 31 news release, the outcome of that review was placing a 2-year ban on hiring in the psychology department, retraining of the department's faculty on hiring processes, and updating institutional hiring policies and guidance to specifically address areas where efforts to address bias may lead to violations of laws or policy," the spokesperson said.

#nunyas news

[consolecadet]

I'm feeling slightly less seething Christmas hatred than usual this year. I've reached a point where, though I still strongly dislike a lot of things about Christmas, I can separate out the different bits and not let the ones I hate make me cranky about the ones I like.

Like. . .I despise Christmas music, "ugly sweaters", the Salvation Army, jingly little bells, eggnog, candy canes, big hunks of ham, Christmas media, the crushing expectation that you must put on the cheerful rictus of The Christmas Spirit, elves (Santa can stay but only if he's gay), most Christian conceptions of religious entities, people's assumptions that you have a pleasant and uncomplicated relationship with your family of origin, the planet-burning American culture of consumption, proselytization, those new LED string lights that make your front lawn look like a gamer lair, etc, etc, etc.

But I do like peppermint bark, the smell of balsam fir, cheese plates, a short visit to my parents' nice house where trans people outnumber cis people 2:1 and I can always get into my car and drive away, knowing my sister will cherish any lesbian-themed objects I give her, incandescent string lights, neatly wrapping presents with nice paper and double-sided tape, and I guess Die Hard.

My local Buy Nothing group means I no longer have nearly as much of a guilt spiral about receiving gifts I dislike. I believe I've finally gotten my father to stop giving me novelty socks and awful plasticky novelty band-aids. (Actually, maybe I'm giving myself too much credit. I just realized the store where he bought his most irritating gifts closed permanently in 2020.) I also just don't take it as personally when people give me something that betrays a major misapprehension of who I am. It's not like I make it easy for people to know me, especially my parents.

I think part of what's making this time of year less psychologically harrowing is that 1) I got to do Christmas and Hanukkah with KC and without my parents last year, and thus reject within our apartment everything I hated while keeping the menorah and peppermint bark and 2) I spent some time this year trying to practice Judaism in ways my dad was not interested in sharing with me when I was growing up, and figured out what I did/didn't like or value about certain aspects of Jewish religious practice.

It seems very obvious that if I can give up on learning Hebrew because it's upsetting and difficult for me and have a seder with gluten-free matzo that doesn't halachically qualify as Real Matzo, I can absolutely also banish the concept of Christ and all renditions of Silent Night from my home while enjoying smelling a tree in there.

It's extremely common to be a child of an agnostic interfaith couple who did not give you a connection to any kind of faith community and left you with lots of baggage about it. I don't have to wait to fix my feelings about that before I can participate in any holiday or religious practice, and probably HAVE to try participating with a modicum of vulnerability if I want to change anything. Also none of these things materially affect Israel's genocidal behavior unless I, like, buy my parents SodaStream canisters for Christmas.

It probably also helps that I left the job where my boss expected extreme enthusiasm at all times and took any doubt or questions as personal affronts. I read The Promise of Happiness and no longer feel like affect alienation is a personal failing on my part. I feel far less bitter, resentful, and hateful about Christmas if I don't let people pressure me to be (or perform being) sweet, cheerful, and loving about it.

Fuck the Elf on the Shelf though. That's just weird.

#idk. maybe voluntarily enjoying 10% of christmas is caving to cultural christianity #I ate peppermint bark once and now I'm legally obligated to become the CEO of the salvation army #boring text posts #family

[the-countessa]

Regarding the Monarchy and Government of the UK

So, with the Queen passing on, the major divide in my country has risen to the surface with a vengeance; pro and anti monarchy.

I, personally am a wee bit of a royalist. It's the tradition, the pomp and ceremony, it's a fairytale. But just because something is a tradition, doesnt mean it's right. The parades, palaces etc cost us the people millions. And fairytales arent as cute as Disney makes it look. I see where the anti-royality lot are coming from. Andrew should have been thrown in jail, absolutely, and the news of cancer treatment appointments and funerals being postponed, if true, is disgusting. And yes, absolutely, there is the colonial history and backwards institution to also be noted. I'm not blind to any of this; maybe I'm just a little bit of a child by getting distracted by gowns and jewels.

But I hate how democratic governments are run; a bunch of people in a room taking so long to decide what's best for everyone else, and invariably working for their own gains more than the people.

Way I see it, one arsehole on a throne is quicker than a room of people arguing, and its easier to deal with one arsehole that a hundred or so.

Yes, one person in absolute power has also been shown to be a terrible idea.

Basically, in my opinion, both are massively flawed.

So, idea on how to reform it for efficiency and also (I think) democratically.

I will throw in here now that I havent slept for a while so I dont pretend that this is a good idea or a well thought out idea, and I havent put enough thought into this to be critical towards my idea. Also, I know I am so not qualified to say this is a good idea.

So, King Charles III should totally stay as king, it's easier and would be a simple option to begin with. Next, tear up the monarchy and parliament. So we have Charles as head of state, and all decisions are his. Next, we formulate a committee by lottery; individuals volunteer to be part of a Hall of Advisors (or something, I dunno) but basically there should be 100 people who have power to veto or put forward ideas. Say Charles wants to, I dunno, increase taxes, the advisors would literally advise on this, how much by, for whom and where the tax brackets lie. This is what Charles uses to create the proclamation, its then put before the country for a super simple yes or no vote, majority wins.

Now, these 100 selected by lottery; you put your name forward with your earnings, qualifications and work experience, etc, and all these names are grouped, I dunno, by "class"- benefit, working, middle and upper. No more than 10 of the selected are from the upper class, and then 30 of each of the others. This should ideally result in a committee made up of a diversity and fair representation; a retired nurse, a practising relationship estate lawyer, someone from the armed forces, someone who works weekends at Tesco whilst studying, single parents, those with disabilities, a 76 year old granny and a 22 year old student of drama. Just a wholly random collection of individuals, the only criteria being fhey must be between the ages of 21 and 80, and pass a basic competency test and psychological examination. Each serve for a max term of 5 years, they are payed national minimum wage (but housing is covered during their tenure coz relocation is a cow) once your five years is up you're done.

Now say after 15 years Charles passes on, who is to take on the role of person in charge. I'm thinking those above individuals who have completed their term. The sitting advisors vote on who they would most like to see; those who have shown a good track record. The top 5 or 10 are then put forward to the people who will vote on who they wish to take on that leadership role. They do not campaign, only their previous advice and votes are shown the people; so it isnt a bunch of promises made that lands you the job, but your history and track record.

So, who ever takes the top spot is then the one in charge, and every 5 years, we the people vote on whether we are ok with that person, or if they should be bounced and new candidates put forward

As I say, I haven't slept in 24hrs barring a 2hr nap so I can promise you this hasnt been well thought out and i am being so lazy in my explanation, but hopefully you get the gist. I dunno

#government #uk politics #monarchy #parliament #democracy #democratic #just a thought

[honeysuckle-venom]

How‘d you get your teaching job?

Hi there anon!

I attended a small college with a close community, and after graduating I stayed in the area. I became quite close with my former college advisor (I sometimes refer to her on this blog as my mentor) and continued to regularly interact with her after graduation. She is going on sabbatical this fall, and they needed someone to teach Introduction to Psychology. They had a LOT of trouble finding someone, so eventually they asked me even though I am not technically qualified to be a college professor. But I was a psychology major and an excellent student, and they couldn't find anyone else so...I got the job lol. But they've been very clear with the students that I'm not fully qualified/a standard professor, and the way I'm teaching the class will be a bit different. The usual professor who is going on sabbatical has recorded all of her lectures from the past few years. The students will not be assigned any textbook reading. Instead, they'll be assigned to watch those recorded lectures. Then they will come to class and I will lead discussions around the material and hopefully get to include some interesting things that there normally aren't time for in the course. Technically in the course catalog I believe I'm listed as a co-professor along with the normal professor for the course who is providing the recordings and helping me grade. So I'm like...a mini professor lol. It's still cool though.

#i feel like i wasn't entirely fair to myself when answering this question #so i will add that they did choose to hire me. they could have opted not to offer the course this semester but they trust me to teach it #and i was a VERY good student/i tend to excel in academic settings #and i have worked at that college after graduation as a tutor and teaching assistant before #so i have relevant experience #it's not JUST that they were desperate and i was willing. i am smart and knowledgeable about the subject matter #and i've gotten great feedback as a tutor and TA #anyway

[sexybabystevie]

it's so hard to get a stupid job on this campus. i literally have to have a job as part of my financial aid and it's is IMPOSSIBLE to get one.

firstly, all of the jobs are very niche. they want people mainly interested in neuroscience, in health, in psychology and lots of things like that. pretty much every single job says "we're primarily looking for students with an interest/major in x subject" and the subject is rarely ever what i'm studying as a humanities major. (and when it is, i still get rejected).

next, everything is ridiculously limited. there are only 135 ish job options for students who live on campus and some require you to be a grad student, so that ticks the list lower. not to mention, while some of these jobs require you to need it for your financial aid, SO many students here qualify for that (there are 20k undergrads here) that it's a bloodbath to get anything. even if the majority of people aren't looking for a job.

third is what they ask for. each application asks for a bullshit cover letter (i'm calling it what it is. it's ridiculous i have to write about how "passionate i am" to work at a fucking front desk as a receptionist) and that's just the tip of the iceberg. they have a list of everything you have to do for the job and everything they're looking for. they're always looking for the most ridiculous shit. you have to have a background in computer science or engineering to work as a front desk receptionist. to use fucking google office and microsoft office. every single job is like this, and they ask for so much. you have to meet these unrealistic expectations and write a shitty cover letter, and then you're doing loads of work for minimum wage, just because you're a student. we literally can't live off of minimum wage here.

another thing is that it's nearly impossible to find a career that fits your schedule and location. there are so many that say they're on campus and then say you must have your own means to travel to other places. and then others require you to work certain hours during the week that literally no student can manage. mon, wed, and fri all of our classes are like this 9-9:50, 10-10:50, etc., and it's like they specifically know what doesn't work for most students and that's what they choose.

overall i'm just fucking exhausted. i've applied to so many jobs and even had my interview the other day and it went well, i had the perfect kinds of interests to fit in, the perfect experiences, and yet there's still somehow a "better candidate." i'm just so sick of trying because it feels impossible.

#em speaks #tw vent

[locketclimb48]

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[floral-suits]

URGENT CROWD FUNDING REQUEST / MUTUAL AID FOR A CHILDHOOD SEXUAL + DOMESTIC ABUSE SURVIVOR. DO NOT SCROLL PAST.

Let my dear friend be a survivor, not a victim.

Note for transparency: My friend's immediate family will take the money granted if they find out about this campaign. If her name or photo is included in this funding campaign, it runs the risk of her family finding out about it, taking the money, and punishing her for attempting to get help. This is why the identity of the individual I am fundraising for is anonymous. Furthermore, I am holding the money for Jane Doe at the current moment and will be transferring it to her under an account her family does not know about.

Jane Doe grew up in an abusive household and her mother works alongside the government. Whenever she attempted to escape or contact the police, she would be brought to the house where she was abused, being forced to endure inhumane punishments. Her mother's connections have stopped people from believing her. Her parents semi-recently moved her family out to an isolated area, far from the city, so she is far from forms of public transportation and people who could potentially help her. Along with the abuse she incurred from her immediate family, she was also involved in CP from ages 2-10. To this day, she still gets messages from pedophilic stalkers. Her parents, despite knowing about what was happening, did absolutely nothing to stop it. While she is not physically or sexually abused today because she is now able to fight back, she suffers severe neglect which has led to only recently diagnosed health concerns as well as mental, psychological, and financial abuse. Her deteriorating mental health from the abuse caused her to be hospitalized several times, eventually leading to her being held back in high school. She is still attempting to get her diploma so she can get a higher paying job. She is 19.

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[impostoradult]

Media Market Research (and why its undermining all the things you love)

Trying to understand what is dysfunctional about Hollywood is an epic task, and the answers are like the stars – arguably infinite. Hollywood is dysfunctional for literally more reasons than I could count.

But market research plays a fairly heavy role in its dysfunction (IMO) and the time has finally come for me to add my professional two cents about this issue. (This rant of mine has been building for a while, FYI. Hence why it is so...comprehensive. There is a tl;dr section towards the bottom, if you want the high level summary)

*** For the last 4+ years I’ve worked in the field of market research, almost exclusively with major media makers like Warner Bros., NBCU, AMC/BBCA, Viacom, FOX (before Disney acquired them), A+E, etc. (this past year I quit the job where I was doing this work for a variety of reasons, many of which will become clear as you keep reading, but I am still listed as a consultant on the company website):   https://www.kresnickaresearch.com/who/ (Rachel)

And just for comparison, here is a Halloween selfie I took 4 years ago and posted on my blog, so you can see I am who I say I am. 

I know a fair amount about how market research on major media franchises is conducted and how it influences production, and a lot of these choices can also be at least somewhat tied back to the massive flaws in the market research industry and its impact. *** First, at the highest level, you need to understand market research in general is not well-conducted much of the time. Even the people doing a reasonably good job at it are VERY limited in doing it well because of financial constraints (clients don’t want to spend more than they have to), time constraints (clients want everything done as fast as humanely possible) and just the inherent problems within the industry that are decades old and difficult to fix. For example, all market research ‘screens’ participants to make sure they qualify to participate (whether it is a mass survey, a focus group, a one-on-one interview, etc.). So, we screen people based on demographics like race, gender, age, household income, to get representative samples. But people are also screened based on their consumption habits. You don’t want to bring someone into a focus group about reality TV if they don’t watch reality TV. They aren’t going to have anything useful to say. 

However, a lot of the people who participate in market research have made a ‘side-gig’ out of it and they know how to finesse the process. Basically, they’ve learned how to lie to get into studies that they aren’t a good match for because most market research is paid, and they want the money. So, a lot of TV and film market research is being done on people who don’t actually (or at least don’t regularly) watch those shows or movies or whatever but have learned how to lie well enough in these screening processes to make it through. And because of the aforementioned time and money issue, clients don’t want to spend the time or money to actually find GOOD participants. They just accept that as an inevitable part of the market research process and decide not to let it bother them too much. So, a fair number of the people representing YOU as a media consumer are people who may not be watching Supernatural (for example) at all or who watch a rerun occasionally on TNT but haven’t been watching consistently or with ANY amount of investment whatsoever. You can see why that creates very skewed data. But that’s just the tip of the skewed iceberg. *** Second, media market research is conducted in line with the norms of market research more broadly, and this is a huge problem because media is a very atypical product. How people engage with media is far more complex and in depth than how they engage with a pair of jeans, a car, or a coffee maker. There are only so many things that matter to people when it comes to liking or not liking a coffee maker, for example. Is it easy/intuitive to use? How much space does it take it on my counter? How expensive is it? Does it brew the coffee well? Maybe does it match my décor/kitchen aesthetic? Can I make my preferred brand of coffee in it? The things you as a consumer are going to care about when it comes to a coffee maker are limited, fairly easy to anticipate in advance, and also easy to interpret (usually). How people mentally and emotionally approach MEDIA? Whole other universe of thing. Infinitely more complex. And yet it is studied (more or less) as if it is also a coffee maker. This is one of the many reasons I decided to leave the media market research field despite my desire to have some ability to positively influence the process. As so often seems to be the case, I fought the law and the law won. I could never make the other people I worked with in the industry understand that the questions they were asking were not all that useful a lot of the time and they weren’t getting to the heart of the matter. They were just following industry standards because they didn’t know any better and none of them want to admit they don’t REALLY know what they’re doing. Which leads me to point 3. *** Most of the people doing this research don’t have any expertise in media or storytelling specifically. They are typically trained as social scientists in the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, or math/statistics. And many of them do not have any kind of specialization or education in media/storytelling beyond the English classes they took in high school and the one Media Studies course they took as an elective in college. Most of them have a very unsophisticated understanding of narrative structure, thematics, tropes, subtext, etc. They mainly think in terms of genres at the VERY broadest level. Also, not infrequently, they don’t watch or have much knowledge of the shows they are supposed to be doing research on, beyond what they’ve read on IMDb or Wikipedia or what is generally common knowledge. Unless they by chance happen to watch the shows themselves (which often they don’t) they often know very little about the shows they are crafting these questions about. Again, partly because they think it is like the coffee maker, and you don’t need to understand it in any depth to research it. (I know this must sound insane to you as avid media consumers, but that is the general attitude among those who do market research) There is such a lack of sophistication in how people in the business side of the industry understand media and storytelling. Most of them are either MBAs or social scientists and their training has not prepared them to examine fictional works with the kind of depth that people in the Humanities (who are specifically trained to study texts) have. Somehow, despite the fact that the Humanities is all about understanding texts, that is the one discipline they make almost no use of in the business side of Hollywood. And boy howdy does it show. *** Point 4 – average consumers CANNOT ARTICULATE WHY THEY LIKE THINGS. Particularly media things. I know this sounds condescending, but it is my honest observation. It is unbelievably hard to get people to have enough self-awareness to explain why they actually like things, especially things as mentally and emotionally complex as media. What typically happens when you ask people why they like a TV show or movie, for example? They will tell you what they most NOTICE about the TV show or movie, or what is distinctive to them about it (which may or may not have anything to do with what they actually LIKE about it). They will say things like “I like the genre”, “I think it’s funny”, “The car chases are exciting”, “I want to see the detective solve the puzzle.” Sometimes you can get them to talk about what they find relatable about it, if you push them a little. But often they leave it at either the level of literal identity (young black woman), basic personality traits (she’s a social butterfly and so am I) or situations they’ve personally experienced (I relate to this story of a man losing his father to cancer because I lost a close family member to cancer). But the vast, vast, vast majority of them can’t go to the deeper level of: a) Why X representation of a young black woman feels accurate/authentic/relatable and Y representation doesn’t b) Why it matters to me that X,Y,Z aspects of my personality, identity, experience get reflected in media whereas I don’t really care about seeing A,B,C aspects of my personality, identity, or experience reflected in media c) How and why they are relating to characters when they can’t see the literal connection between their identity/experience and the character’s identity/experience. (For example, many people have argued that women often relate to Dean Winchester because a lot of his struggles and past negative experiences are more stereotypical of women – being forced to raise a younger sibling on behalf of an actual parent, being seen and treated as beautiful/sexually desirable but vacuous/unintelligent, his body being treated as an instrument for a more powerful group to quite literally possess, etc. Part of the reason Supernatural has always been such a mystery/problem for the CW and Warner Bros is they could never crack the code at this level. Never.) Part of the reason they can’t crack these codes is average people CANNOT give you that kind of feedback in a survey or a focus group, or even an in-depth interview (much of the time). They just don’t have the self-awareness or the vocabulary to get it at that level. Let alone asking them to articulate why Game of Thrones is compelling to them in an era where wealth disparity is creating a ruling class that is fundamentally incompetent at maintaining a just/functional society, which is especially concerning at this particular moment, given the existential threat we face due to climate change. And the truth is, that IS part of what people – even average people – are responding to in Game of Thrones. But what they’ll tell you when you do market research on it is: they like the dragons, they like the violence, they relate to Tyrion Lannister being a smart mouth, maybe they’ll say they like the moral ambiguity of many of the conflicts (if they are more sophisticated than average). But the ‘Dean Winchester is heavily female coded despite his veneer of ultra-masculinity’ or the ‘Game of Thrones is a prescient metaphor for the current political dynamics and fissures of modern western society’ is the level you ACTUALLY need to get to. And most market research can’t get you that because the people ASKING the questions don’t know what to ask to get to this level, and most of the respondents couldn’t give you the answers even IF you were asking them the right questions (which usually you are not) And I’m not saying average people are dumb because they can’t do this. But it requires practice, it requires giving the matter a great deal of in-depth thought, and most people just don’t care enough about it to do that while taking a market research survey. (I know this is going to feel counter-intuitive to people on Tumblr. But you have to remember, you are NOT average media consumers. You are highly atypical media consumers who have far more self-awareness and a much more sophisticated engagement with media than the average person watching TV. If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be here talking about it in the first place) Point 4.1 – People also lie/misrepresent their own experiences to market researchers because they want to maintain certain self-narratives. You have no idea how many people would get disqualified from our surveys for saying they watched less than 5 hours of TV a week. And sure, that might actually be true for a few of them. But if you watch TV with any regularity at all (which most people in modern America do) you probably watch more than 5 hours a week. The problem is, people think it makes them sound lazy to say they watch 15-20 hours a week, even though that’s about 2-3 hours a day (which actually isn’t THAT high). People lie and misrepresent their behaviors, thoughts and feelings because it can be socially uncomfortable to admit you do what you actually do or feel how you actually feel, even in the context of an anonymous survey, let alone a focus group or a one-on-one interview. People want to make themselves look good to THEMSELVES and to the researchers asking them questions. But that makes the market research data on media (and lots of other things) very questionable. For example, one finding we saw more than once in the surveys I was involved in conducting was people would radically downplay how much the romance elements of a story mattered to them, even large portions of female respondents. When we would ask people in surveys what parts of the story they were most invested in, romances ALWAYS came out among the lowest ranked elements. And yet, any passing familiarity with fandom would tell you that finding is just WRONG. It’s wrong. People are just flat out lying about how much that matters to them because of the negative connotations we have around being invested in romance. And never mind the issue of erotic/sexual content. (I don’t mean sexual identity here, I mean sexy content). The only people who will occasionally cop to wanting the erotic fan service is young men (and even they are hesitant to do so in market research) and women frequently REFUSE to admit that stuff in market research, or they radically downplay how much it matters to them and in what ways. There is still so much stigma towards women expressing sexuality in that way. Not to mention, you have to fight tooth and nail to even include question about erotic/sexual content because oftentimes the clients don’t even want to go there at all, partly because it is awkward for everyone involved to sit around crafting market research questions to interrogate what makes people hot and bothered. That’s socially awkward for the researchers doing the research and the businesspeople who have to sit in rooms and listen to presentations about why more women find Spock sexier than Kirk. (Which was a real thing that happened with the original Star Trek, and the network couldn’t figure out why) Aside from people not have enough deeper level self-awareness to get at what they really like about media content, they also will lie or misrepresent certain things to you because they are trying to maintain certain self-narratives and are socially performing that version of themselves to researchers. *** Point 5 – Qualitative data is way more useful for understanding people’s relationships to media. However, quantitative data is way more valued and relied upon both due to larger market research industry standards and because quantitative data is just seen as harder/more factual than qualitative data. A lot of media market research involves gathering both qualitative and quantitative data and reporting jointly on both. (Sometimes you only do one or the other, depending on your objectives, but doing both is considered ‘standard’ and higher quality). However, quantitative data is heavily prioritized in reporting and when there is a conflict between what they see in qualitative versus quantitative data, the quant data is usually relied upon to be the more accurate of the two. This is understandable to an extent, because quantitative surveys usually involve responses from a couple thousand participants, whereas qualitative data involves typically a few dozen participants at most, depending on whether you did focus groups, individual interviews, or ‘diaries’/ethnography. The larger sample is considered more reliable and more reflective of ‘the audience’ as a whole. However, quantitative surveys usually have the flattest, least nuanced data, and they can only ever reflect what questions and choices people in the survey were given. In something like focus groups or individual interviews or ethnographies, you still structure what you ask people, but they can go “off script.” They can say things you never anticipated (as a researcher) and can explain themselves and their answers with more depth. In a survey, participants can only “say” what they survey lets them say based on the questions and question responses that are pre-baked for them. And as I’ve already explained, a lot of times these quantitative surveys are written by people with no expertise in media, fiction, or textual analysis, and so they often are asking very basic, not very useful questions. In sum, the data that is the most relied upon is the least informative, least nuanced data. It is also the MOST likely to reflect the responses of people who don’t actually qualify for the research but have become good at scamming the system to make extra money. With qualitative research, they are usually a little more careful screening people (poorly qualified participants still make it through, but not as often as with mass surveys, where I suspect a good 35% of participants, at least, probably do not actually qualify for the research and are just working the system). 

Most commonly, when market research gets reported to business decision-makers, it highlights the quantitative data, and uses the qualitative data to simply ‘color in’ the quantitative data. Give it a face, so to speak. Qualitative data is usually supplemental to quant data and used more to make the reports ‘fun’ and ‘warm’ because graphs and charts and stats by themselves are boring to look at in a meeting. (I’m not making this up, I can’t tell you how many times I was told to make adjustments on how things were reported on because they didn’t want to bore people in the meeting). (Sub-point – it is also worth noting that you can’t report on anything that doesn’t fit easily on a power point slide and isn’t easily digestible to any random person who might pick it up and read it. The amount of times I was told to simplify points and dumb things down so it could be made ‘digestible’ for a business audience, I can’t even tell you. It was soul crushing and another reason I stopped doing this job full time. I had to make things VERY dumb for these business audiences, which often meant losing a lot of the point I was actually trying to make) Point 5.1 – Because of the way that representative sampling works, quantitative data can be very misleading, particularly in understanding audience/fandom sentiments about media. As I’m sure most of you know, sampling is typically designed to be representative of the population, broadly speaking. So, unless a media company is specifically out to understand LGBTQ consumers or Hispanic/Latinx consumers, it will typically sample using census data as a template and represent populations that way. Roughly 50/50 male/female. Roughly even numbers in different age brackets, roughly representative samplings of the racial make-up of the country, etc. (FYI, they do often include a non-binary option in the gender category these days, but it usually ends up being like 5 people out of 2000, which is not enough of a sample to get statistical significance for them as a distinct group)   There is a good reason to do this, even when a show or movie has a disproportionately female audience, or young audience. Because they need enough sample in all of the “breaks” (gender, race, age, household income, etc.) to be able to make statistically sound statements about each subgroup. If you only have 35 African American people in your sample of 1000, you can’t make any statistically sound statements about that African American cohort. The sample is just too small. So, they force minimums/quotas in a lot of the samples, to ensure they can make statistically sound statements about all the subgroups they care about. They use ratings data to understand what their audience make up actually is. (Which also has major failings, but I’ll leave that alone for the minute) With market research, they are not usually looking to proportionately represent their audience, or their fandom; they are looking to have data they can break in the ways they want to break it and still have statistically significant subgroups represented. But that means that when you report on the data as a whole sample – which you often do – it can be very skewed towards groups who don’t make up as large a portion of the show’s actual audience, or even if they do, they don’t tend to be the most invested, loyal, active fans. Men get weighted equally to women, even when women make up 65% of the audience, and 80% of the active fandom. Granted, they DO break the data by gender, and race, and age, etc. and if there are major differences in how women versus men respond, or younger people versus older people, they want to know that...sometimes. But here’s where things get complex. So, if you are doing a sample of Supernatural viewers. And you do the standard (US census-based) sampling on a group of 2000 respondents (a pretty normal sample size in market research). ~1000 are going to be female. But with something they call “interlocking quotas” the female sample is going to be representative of the other groupings to a degree. So, the female sample will have roughly equal numbers of all the age brackets (13-17, 18-24, 25-34, etc.). And it will have roughly 10% non-heterosexual respondents, and so on. They do this to ensure that these breaks aren’t too conflated with each other. (For example, if your female sample is mostly younger and your male sample is mostly older, how do you know whether it is the gender or the age that is creating differences in their responses? You don’t. So, you have to make sure that all the individual breaks (gender, race, age) have a good mix of the other breaks within them, so groups aren’t getting conflated) But what that means is, Supernatural, whose core fandom is (at a conservative guess) 65% younger, queer, women, gets represented in a lot of statistical market research sampling as maybe 50-100 people, in a 2000-person survey. 50-100 people can barely move the needle on anything in a 2000-person survey. Furthermore, usually in the analysis of data like this, you don’t go beyond looking at 2 breaks simultaneously. So you may look at young female respondents as a group, or high income male respondents, or older white respondents, but you rarely do more than 2 breaks combined. And the reason for that is, by the time you get down to 3 breaks or more (young, Hispanic, women) you usually don’t have enough sample to make statistically significant claims. (It also just takes longer to do those analyses and as I explained in the beginning, they are always rushing this stuff). To do several breaks at a time you’d have to get MUCH larger samples, and that’s too expensive for them. And again, I want to stress, this type of sampling isn’t intended to sinisterly erase anyone. Kind of the opposite. It is intended to make sure most groups have enough representation in the data that you can make sound claims about them on the subgroup level. The problem is that it can create a very skewed sense of their overall audience sentiment when they take the data at ‘face value’ so to speak, and don’t weight segments based on viewership proportion, or fandom engagement, etc. Point 5.2 – Which leads me to my next point, which is that fandom activity that doesn’t have a dollar amount attached to it doesn’t make you a ‘valuable’ segment in their minds. One of the breaks they ALWAYS ask for in data like this is high income people, and people who spend a lot of MONEY on their media consumption. And they do prioritize those people’s responses and data quite a bit.   And guess what – young women aren’t usually high-income earners, and although some of them are high spenders on media, high spending on media and media related merch skews toward higher income people just because they HAVE more disposable income. Older white men are usually the highest income earners (absolutely no surprise) and they are more likely in a lot of cases to report spending a lot on the media they care about. Having expendable income makes you more important in the eyes of people doing market research than if you’ve spent every day for the last 10 years blogging excessively about Supernatural. They don’t (really) care about how much you care. They care about how much money you can generate for them. And given that young audiences don’t watch TV live anymore, and they give all their (minimal) expendable income to Netflix and Hulu, you with your Supernatural blog and your 101 essays about Destiel is all but meaningless to many of them (from a business standpoint) Now, some of them kind of understand that online fandom matters to the degree that fandom spreads. Fandom creates fandom. But if the fandom you are helping to create is other young, queer women with minimal income who only watch Supernatural via Netflix, well, that’s of very limited value to them as well. I don’t want to suggest they don’t care about you at ALL. Nor do I want to suggest that the “they” we are talking about is even a cohesive “they.” Different people in the industry have different approaches to thinking about fandom, consumer engagement and strategy, market research and how it ought to be understood/used, and so on. They aren’t a monolith. BUT, they are, at the end of the day, a business trying to make money. And they are never going to place the value of your blogging ahead of the concrete income you can generate for them. (Also, highly related to my point about people lying, men are more likely to SAY they have higher incomes than they do, because it’s an ego thing for them. And women are more likely to downplay how much money they spend on ‘frivolous’ things like fandom because of the social judgement involved. Some of the money gender disparity you see in media market research is real, but some of it is being generated by the gender norms people are falsely enacting in market research– men being breadwinners, women wanting to avoid the stereotype of being frivolous with money) *** In sum/tl;dr: Point 1 – Market research in general is not well conducted because of a variety of constraints including time, money, and the historical norms of how the industry operates (e.g., there being a large subsection of almost professionalized respondents who know how to game the system for the financial incentives) Point 2 – Media is a highly atypical kind of product being studied more or less as if it were equivalent to a coffeemaker or a pair of jeans. Point 3 – Most of the people studying media consumption in the market research field have no expertise or background in media, film, narrative, storytelling, etc. They are primarily people who were trained as social scientists and statisticians, and they aren’t well equipped to research media properties and people’s deeper emotional attachment and meaning-making processes related to media properties. Point 4(etc.) – Average consumers typically don’t have enough self-awareness or the vocabulary to explain the deep, underlying reasons they like pieces of media. Furthermore, when participating in market research, people lie and misrepresent their thoughts, behaviors, and emotional responses for a variety of reasons including social awkwardness and preserving certain self-narratives like “I’m above caring about dumb, low-brow things like romance.” Point 5 (etc.) – Quantitative data is treated as way more meaningful, valuable, and ‘accurate’ than qualitative data, and this is a particular problem with media market research because of how varied and complex people’s reactions to media can be. Also, the nature of statistical sampling, and how it is done, can massively misrepresent audience sentiments toward media and fail to apprehend deeper fandom sentiments and dynamics. There is also a strong bias towards the responses of high income/high spending segments, which tend to be older and male and white. Side but important point – Research reports are written to be as entertaining and digestible as possible, which sounds nice in theory, but in practice it often means you lose much of the substance you are trying to communicate for the sake of not boring people or making them feel stupid/out of their depth. (Because god forbid you make some high-level corporate suit feel stupid) *** What can be done about this? Well, the most primary thing I would recommend is for you to participate in market research, particularly if you are American (there’s a lot of American bias in researching these properties, even when they have large international fanbases). However, some international market research is done and I recommend looking into local resources for participation, where ever you are. If you are American, there are now several market research apps you can download to your smart phone and participate in paid market research through (typically paid via PayPal). Things like dscout and Surveys On the Go. And I know there are more. You should also look into becoming panelists for focus groups, particularly if you live near a large metropolitan area (another bias in market research). Just Google it and you should be able to figure it out fairly easily. Again, it is PAID, and your perspective will carry a lot more weight when it is communicated via a focus group or a dscout project, versus when it is shouted on Twitter. However, that’s merely a Band-Aid on the bigger issue, which I consider to be the fact that businesspeople think the Humanities is garbage, even when they make their living off it. There is virtually no respect for the expertise of fictional textual analysis, or how it could help Hollywood make better content. And I don’t know what the fix is for that. I spent 4 years of my life trying to get these people to understand what the Humanities has to offer them, and I got shouted down and dismissed so many times I stopped banging my head against that wall. I gave up. They don’t listen, mostly because conceding to the value of deep-reading textual analysis as a way to make better content would threaten the whole system of how they do business. And I mean that literally. So many people’s jobs, from the market researchers to the corporate strategists to the marketing departments to the writers/creatives to the C-level executives, would have to radically shift both their thinking and their modes of business operation and the inertia of ‘that’s the way it’s always been done’ is JUST SO POWERFUL. I have no earthly idea how to stop that train, let alone shift it to an entirely different track. BTW, if you want the deeper level of analysis of why I can’t stop rewatching Moneyball now that it’s been added to Netflix, the above paragraph should give you a good hint

#market research #Hollywood #media studies

[masterweaverx]

RWBY Parents from Best to Worst

That’s right, everybody, I’m a-going to rank how terrible these people are to and for their kids! For the sake of covering as many parents as I can, I am defining ‘parent’ as either ‘legal guardian’ or ‘the one that gave birth to you’, and excluding relationships that are explicitly something else. That does mean that we’re going to miss out on some very important people, though, so before we begin, let’s have some Honorable Mentions!

Yang Xiao Long and Winter Schnee: Professional Momsisters

“That’s why big sisters come first, to protect the ones that come after.” I don’t know who said that to these two, if anybody actually did, but it’s a quote that most definitely applies to them. Not only would they take a bullet (or a sword, or a fireball) for their younger siblings, they took the time out to give them affection and training that they needed when their own parents weren’t quite doing the job. If I absolutely had to rank one of them as the better momsister, I’d say Yang, but that’s really only because Yang had less to deal with overall; a depressed single dad not being able to pull himself together just doesn’t stack up with an abusive powermonger, a self-loathing drunkard, and all the institutional bigotry and pressure of Atlas. Plus, you know, Winter went into the military for a bit. Still, pretty good track record considering!

Klein Sieben: Doing the work of seven good dads

Look, there is only one reason Klein wasn’t listed before the momsisters, and that reason is that he is technically the hired help (and could therefore become the fired help). He is, hands down, a better surrogate parent than Yang and Winter, providing guidance and care to all the Schneeblings and very effectively undoing the damage Jacques Gele (HE DOES NOT GET TO BE CALLED SCHNEE!) did to them. And he even helped out Willow! If he was allowed to do more, he would absolutely be My Real Dad of the year.

Qrow Branwen: “The only one that gets to be sad in this house is me!”

Qrow has a lot of flaws. Like, so so many flaws. As Yang said in a noncanon spinoff, he’s cool but not exactly a role model. Thing is, you don’t have to be a role model to be a good parent--you just have to make sure your kids (or nieces in this case) get good advice and the opportunity to grow into the best versions of themselves they can be. And when Qrow’s not beating himself up or drowning his sorrows, he’s actually very good at helping Yang and Ruby. Honestly the only reason he’s not on the actual list is because he’s technically not a parent.

Uncle Copper: Adopting a blind kid automatically makes you cool

So here we have a character that appeared in a single flashback in the novels, but from what we do know he was pretty likely to be a good guy. Like, raising a blind kid is hard enough; raising a blind kid in a desert after their actual parents got nommed by sand is so, so much more difficult. And yet, this guy said ‘If nobody else is going to adopt this kid I will!’ and by all measures he was a very caring and loving guy. Also, shout-out to the tribe, who took Fox in after Copper got killed by some maniac (and also killed said maniac). Fox has had a rough life, but it’s been filled with supportive people. Not everyone can say that.

Starr Sanzang: She put up with Sun

Sure, she’s only had one scene in one novel, but Starr showed patience and caring and... probably did a lot to make sure Sun stays as aggressively cheery and patient as he is. Plus she’s got a dojo in Vacuo now... okay, I’ll be honest, I don’t know nearly enough about her to really assess her. Still, as far as cousins go, Sun Wukong could do a lot worse. And there are the implications of their motifs to factor in...

Rhodes: If you’d done even just a little bit more--!

So, reasonably, what would you do when you see a little girl enslaved with a shock collar? Would you (A) get the girl out of there, (B) arrest the woman doing it, (C) try to get the girl therapy, or (D) all of the above? If you picked (E) secretly train the girl in swordplay so she can join a huntsman academy when she comes of age, then congratulations! You’ve given her hope! Good for you! And what if she snaps after five years of literal torture, kills her abuser, and then turns to you for comfort and/or approval? Welp, obviously she’s an irredeemable criminal and you have to bring her in, crushing all the faith she had in you and herself.

Seriously Rhodes, dropped the ball hard on that one. I’m only mentioning you because you had such a serious impact on Cinder’s development.

Brother Gods: Creating and destroying entire species

Like, okay. Look. These are the two that made humanity, so an argument could be made that they’re humanity’s parents. But, by the strict and arbitrary rules I have selected, they aren’t parents. And even if they were, they would be just the worst sort of parents possible. Darkbro is bad enough, what with viewing only strength as valuable and creating the Grimm and, you know, annihilating humanity that one time, but he’s at least honest and honorable. Not like the cryptic Lightbro, who doesn’t bother making sure people understand him, who doesn’t even keep his own promises to his brother... I get that they’re basically overpowered children. Yeah, they are. Still... kinda terrible.

So, now that that’s all done, let’s get to the actual list! After the break, so you don’t get stuck scrolling a lot. RWBY parents, from best to worst, are as follows:

23. Saphron and Terra Cotta-Arc: Two moms are better than none!

If I’m rating all the parents, and I am, then I have to acknowledge their flaws. And... these two don’t have any! Okay, fine, they used Adrian in a criminal scheme that one time (and that was literally just asking him to cry on command) and maybe Terra’s overworked and, to be fair, parenting a young kid is a lot different than parenting a teenager. But not only did they support their kid, they helped out all the kids that needed to room with them for a while! Saphron may also qualify as a momsister, depending on how well the Arcs managed their massive-numbered horde of kids. Look, the point is: Excellent parents. Bam.

22. Yatsuhashi's Parents: Their slipups weren’t their fault

When your kid can wipe your memories and you don’t know about it, you’re bound to get a few mistakes down the line. Luckily for everyone, after the whole incident with Hiyoko Yatsu came clean, and his parents made absolutely sure that he understood (A) that having such an ability was a big responsibility and (B) that even though he really screwed up he was NOT evil. Given the man that Yatsuhashi is now, I’m pretty confident in calling them great parents--even if they only appeared in a book flashback.

21. Coco's Dad: He exists!

That’s... honestly all I really know about him. He’s mentioned once in the books, and Coco has a few brothers. I’m kind of just assuming he’s a good parent from that, even if he didn’t figure out how to help Coco with her claustrophobia. So... yeah, shrug, Coco’s got a dad.

20: Ghira and Kali Belladonna: Actually marvelous people

Loving. Caring. Mentoring, protective. You may be asking why these two aren’t lower on the list, given that they are absolutely great for Blake, and I’ll have to admit that they only really made one slipup--letting Adam talk with Blake.

And okay, look. The thing about people like Adam is that they don’t start out showing their true colors. It’s always a slow, gentle broil. Blake was young and stupid, Adam was cute and edgy, and these parents want their daughter to be happy. So not twigging on what Adam really was--or at least not being able to properly convince Blake--that’s entirely understandable. And they did instill her with a strong enough moral code to leave when enough was enough, and they absolutely welcomed her back with open arms. Frankly, if the lower-listing parents didn’t exist, I would happily say they are the best parents in the show.

19. Pietro Polendina: He took Penny’s death flags

When you carve out part of your literal soul to bring your girl back from the dead, you get MAJOR parenting props. And even beyond that, Pietro is an absolutely caring and supportive father to everyone’s favorite bundle of sunshine. Even when she’s put in the rough position she was in, Pietro did his best to help her out. His one big flaw, though, is being overprotective and a bit presumptive. He does want Penny to live her best life, but he also can be just a touch too quick to say he knows what’s best for her. To his credit, when he’s called out on it, he does mend his ways. And he’s at least better then the GENERAL...

18. Salem and Ozma: Good parents, surprisingly!

Sure, Salem decided that world conquest was a good idea and wanted to put down anybody that wasn’t directly from her bloodline. Sure, she psychologically manipulated her husband when he had doubts. And, being fair, it’s highly likely that her four daughters were killed in the crossfire of her and Ozma’s little tuff. But! That was likely an accident, she’s been shown to still clearly mourn their passing, and before that point she absolutely loved and adored the girls. Ozma gets points for being a generally good person who fell in love with her before she became unstable and, honestly, was just trying to help his girls escape... and hey, he blames himself for their deaths. As does Salem.

Just because they’re kind of directly responsible for a LOT of Remnant’s woes doesn’t mean they aren’t good parents!

17. Will and Meg Scarlatina: Estranged but loving...

Yes, I know Rooster Teeth hasn’t officially confirmed that Bill is Will. I still believe though! Also it makes for a great picture, in any case.

Look, you can be the best and most loving parents ever--and from what we saw in the novels Will was definitely loving--but if you split up, your kid is going to get a little stressed. And hey, it’s not like these two were terrible people! Velvet’s just got a lot going on because of things entirely out of her control. Parents are people too, but sometimes the stress of one situation will leak out into another. Just... give people time to adapt.

16. Nicholas Schnee: The man, the legend, the titan!

Nicholas Schnee is the rockstar success story of Remnant. Some guy from Mantle put in all the work to make the SDC, and honestly from what little we know about him he was probably a great guy! But if we’re registering parental goodness, well... he wasn’t quite smart enough to warn Willow away from abusive gold diggers, and he’s not present when the story starts. So, yeah, even if he was a good parent otherwise--and I think he would be--he kinda... didn’t put in the work to prevent Willow breaking later. Still. Not deliberately terrible!

15. Li and An Ren: Don’t die in front of your kids, folks!

Seriously, it traumatizes them, especially if there’s a Grimm assault going on at the same time. Oh, double-especially if you reassure them that everything will be fine literally the second before the roof collapses on your head. And... well, okay, you couldn’t help your son and some random girl being the only survivors...

In all seriousness, that whole situation was absolutely out of their control. And before their deaths they were shown to be loving, wise, giving good advice to Lie Ren and helping him understand what the right thing to do was. Honestly, if they hadn’t died in front of him he’d be a lot better, mentally speaking. His trauma is not their fault. Plus Li went out distracting the big Grimm so Lie could run. No greater love hath man, indeed.

14. Summer Rose: Loving mother, ticking trauma bomb

When she was around, Summer Rose was probably the best mom Yang and Ruby could ask for. Sure, everyone could be exaggerating a little on how great a person she was--fond memories and grief can do that--but even taking that into account, she was probably a great and wonderful woman to be raised by. And hey, it turns out the reason she vanished was to go confront basically the Devil Herself so her kids wouldn’t have to live in a world where she existed! I can totally get the logic behind that.

And to be fair, “I’m going to do this on my own so nobody else suffers” is a pretty common character flaw among the RWBY cast. There are entire arcs where each character learns to overcome it. Still, wandering off on your lonesome without telling anyone was not the smartest move, Summer. Especially if you expected to die--which, you know, Devil Herself, high probability. And you know, if you had died, that would be bad enough, but now Ruby’s practically certain to have to fight your grimmified self. At least she figured out what happened to you before Salem decided to hammer in the trauma button, so she’ll be a little more ready, but... seriously.

13. The Arc Parents: Look, you try juggling eight kids!

To be fair, neither Arc parent has appeared on screen, but we can derive some of their traits from their kids. Jaune’s father said women like confident men. Jaune’s mother said strangers are friends you haven’t met yet. Jaune’s sister moved out of the house and (it’s implied) was happier for it. Jaune himself took his family’s ancestral weapon and ran off to Beacon to become a hero without any training whatsoever....

I get the impression that these two are not horrible parents, but they aren’t really stellar ones either. They slip up, don’t understand their children, give some really bad advice (as well as really good advice), and... look, it’s kind of middle of the road here. The Arcs could be wonderful people that just weren’t ready for the complexities of raising eight kids. I come from a big family myself, I know it can be stressful. And their kids turned out well anyway, so...

12. The Mother of Pyrrha Nikos: You taught your girl too well

Hero complexes are funny things. And Pyrrha Nikos... in retrospect, she was really hiding a lot of insecurities under that facade. Laying it all at this woman’s feet is unfair, I’ll admit, a lot of that came from being The Mistral Champion. But... with stories and fairy tales of heroes, it’s not hard to imagine a genuinely loving mother making sure her daughter knew right from wrong, always knew to act with mercy and protect the weak, and made her hardline into being a hero at the cost of her own... sense of self. It wouldn’t even be something either of them noticed, really. Good people can make bad choices sometimes.

11: Ilia's Parents: Oh god, can good people make bad choices...

So the idea of getting Ilia up to Atlas for a better life, that rocks (if you assume the propaganda to be true). And I’m certain her parents absolutely did what they did out of love. But what they did, you see, was tell Ilia to hide a very important part of herself from anybody who could find out, since it was likely she would be kicked out of the school she was in if people found out she was a faunus.

Which actually, did a lot of damage.

I mean look at Ilia now! She has trouble expressing herself until she explodes, she follows a crowd instead of her own morals, she broke down in tears when she finally did the right thing... Conceal Don’t Feel is never good advice, and these two went on and said ‘Honey, because of racism, you have to hide the fact you literally change color when you have emotions.’ Oh, and then they died offscreen--again, not their fault, but boy howdy did it give Ilia a complex.

10. Taiyang Xiao Long: Slumped at just the wrong time

Honestly, Tai as he is now is a wonderful dad. Supportive of his daughters in their time of need, able to lift their mood with a tasteless joke or two, frankly if we were assessing just how they were in the moment... I’d still be a little critical of his refusal to talk about the girls’ mothers, but hey, that’s minor. Compared to, you know...

Okay, so this needs serious addressing. Taiyang cannot be blamed for falling into a depressive slump. People can hurt, and need time to heal. That said, his depressive slump is at the root of Yang’s many issues, and frankly if she hadn’t had to pull herself together for Ruby she would be a major mess. It’s a bad situation all round, even if it’s not his fault.

9. Willow Schnee: “Kids, don’t wind up like me.”

Drowning her sorrows isn’t the best way to handle being stuck in an abusive marriage, but it was the best way Willow could think of. And, yeah, that really cut into her skills as a mom... but despite that, she did her darnedest to make sure her kids had what they needed to free themselves. Heck, once Jacques was out of the picture, she even pulled herself together and risked her life to save them! A broken women, to be sure, but not a shattered one.

8. Neptune's Mother: She exists!

Being fair, there’s not a lot to go on here. We know Neptune’s mother is a lawyer (insert evil lawyer joke), that their family are famous swimmers, and that his brother caused his hydrophobia by tossing him into the water. It does paint a bit of a picture, though, of everyone having expectations for Neptune that he was not able to live up to. Pretty poor parenting, if it’s true.

7. Nora Valkyrie's Mom: Come get your girl!

Literally the only factoid we have about Mama Valkyrie is that she abandoned her to the Grimm. We don’t know when this was, and it’s feasible it’s a case of ‘Oh No I Lost Track Of My Daughter In The Panic!’ But given we see young Nora scavenging for scraps of food... I’m not optimistic on her parenting skills.

6. Raven Branwen: "I wasn’t part of your life, how could I ruin it?”

Raven is just not a good mom at all. And, surprisingly, she seems to know it. Or that’s one interpretation of her character. The thing about Raven is that she plays her cards close to chest. We still don’t know why she left her daughter, and we only have inklings about the reasoning behind her behavior once they reunited. In the end, though... she did concede to Yang, she did apologize for something, and there’s a very deliberate indication that a lot of her behavior is a mask to both others and herself. So, terrible mother, for the moment, but self-aware.

5. Salem's Father: Explicitly noted as cruel

We get a bit more about Salem’s father from ‘Fairy Tales Of Remnant’, how he became possessive of the last remnant of his wife and locked her away in a tower. From what we know of him, that’s all he did--lock her away and not let her go. Still makes him a terrible dad. And with this, we transition firmly into the most definitively abusive parent figures. Everyone before this might have the excuse of not realizing what was going on or having their own damage, but now we’ve got parents actively deciding to make their kids’ lives worse.

4. Jacques Gelé: HE DOES NOT GET TO BE CALLED SCHNEE!

His children are property, to be manipulated and traded for the benefit of the company he married into, and any defiance is to be quelled instantly. He is manipulative, scheming, abusive, and frankly the worst sort of scumbag to ever wear a white suit. He does have the single redeeming quality of only leaning into the punishment if it benefits him; nobody would ever accuse the man of being needlessly cruel. His name is Jacques, and you will hate him... especially on the rare occasions he actually has a point.

3. The Marigolds: There’s no peppy tagline, they’re just mean

There’s not a picture of these jerks on the wiki, so you’ll have to make do with the woman that is no longer their daughter. See all that empty space around her? That’s about as close as they ever got. May spells out how much they hated her for having a heart, and how little they cared about her as a person, in one epic line. And even if they have other redeeming qualities (unlikely) we can tell they’d probably still be terrible parents because of how sleazy May’s cousin is. Honestly, for once I’m glad some characters don’t get pictures. They don’t deserve to be remembered. They aren’t even the cool kind of evil, they’re just... gross.

2. Marcus Black: Look if you train your kid to be a killer...

...you’re going to have to expect them to kill you. I mean, you basically ripped apart Mercury’s legs, man. He had to get cyberlegs. Also, you used your semblance to steal his. Which, given that semblances come from aura, and that aura is a manifestation of the soul, is kinda... that’s a deeply personal and intimate violation. Sure, you got your assassin kid. And can we talk about the fact that Marcus was an assassin? It’s not a pretty job. I guess I can see all the abuse--physical and mental--as a good way to train up another assassin, but... geeze, if that’s your goal, why did you use your own kid?! Why not hire some angsty teenager?! Yeah, no, Markus Black stood high on my list of parental monsters... and was only toppled by the arrival of one other.

1. Madame of the Glass Unicorn: She only appeared in one episode and she rocketed to the top of this list, that should tell you something

Let’s be clear here: What Madame did to Cinder is bad enough. It was literally slavery. Enforced by a shock collar. And because the collar looked like a necklace, she pulled it off in front of I don’t know how many clients. Granted, said clients were racists, why else would they be customers at a ‘We Do Not Serve Faunus’ hotel, but keeping her torture just out of the public eye very clearly shows both that she knew what she was doing was illegal and that she was clever enough to avoid detection.

Oh... and then there are her birth daughters.

With Cinder, she was abusive to a dangerous degree. With her daughters, she was permissive, not only allowing but encouraging them to bully their adoptive sister. The whole point of parenthood is to teach your children how to become the best version of themselves, but Madame didn’t even bother to instill a semblance of morality in these girls. She used them as extensions of her will, and they obliviously played along because that was all they knew.

You’d think the biggest monster on the show would be the Grimm woman, but no--it’s some random lady with a hotel.

#RWBY #Analysis #Ranking #I had the urge to make this #Feel free to disagree #Some of this is opinion-based

[laryna6]

Been watching Honest Trailers and found myself composing one for Zettai Karen Children.

Narrator: Meet The Messiah, the only one capable of averting a prophesized nuclear apocalypse and the extinction of the human race.

...Unfortunately she’s a porn-obsessed ten-year-old who doesn’t give a shit about human life. And she’s prophesized to deliberately die in a murder-suicide! Because who cares about global extinction when there’s truuu luuuuv...

...Humanity’s kinda f*cked, huh...

Then there’s this Minamoto dude, a twenty-year-old cleaning-obsessed autistic millennial with abandonment issues who gets dragged into this bullsh*t when three gremlins break into his apartment in the middle of the night and take him hostage. Then they go, ‘hey, we live here now! And also congratulations, you’re engaged and we don’t take no for an answer.’

...Seriously though, can’t blame them for wanting to put a ring on that. He cooks, he cleans, A++ house-husband material, am I right?

Now he’s stuck trying to parent three super-powered brats to keep them from growing up into the devil incarnate, under the command of bosses who are about as mature as they are!

...Seriously, how did this lady end up in charge of a government agency?

Oooh, right. Blackmail about that time the government tried to kill her and all her friends. Because racism!

Standing in Minamoto’s way is The Major, a brain-damaged veteran with the body of a teenager and the emotional maturity of a teenager with a shit-ton of PTSD! These rival dads will throw down over who can raise Kaoru into a psychologically healthy adult. Which they are totally qualified to do! Look at how well they’re handling their own childhood trauma! It’s not like they’re constantly having flashbacks or anything!

Oh, wait. Uh. You guys should really get some therapy.

Get ready for a manga that combines action, humor, found family fluff, and a whole ton of shitty parenting!

...Seriously, this manga has like a thousand chapters and a ton of characters and there’s only two parents who don’t suck in the entire thing.

Why does this ten-year-old need to get a job to feed himself and his friend, again? His parents own an entire mountain!

Wait, no, one of those two let an eight-year-old he was responsible for get seduced into joining the army and getting shot. 

One parent who doesn’t suck in the entire thing. And he nearly had to send his depressed kid to live with a terrorist group to keep him from being murdered by the government! It’s like decent parenting is against the laws of this universe! 

...It’s not just me who thinks the manga-ka is working out some issues, right? He’s totally working out some issues.

Starring: 

Call me Queen (Kaoru)

Cleverly Disguised as a Responsible Adult (Minamoto)

Future Sadistic Dominatrix (Shiho)

The One With No Personality (Aoi)

Best Bro (Sakaki)

Sexual Harassment Lawsuit (Fujiko)

Major Brat (Kyousuke)

Be Gay, Do Crimes (Muscle)

Three Times the Blond, Three Times the Dumb (Mio)

I Need A Freaking Drink (Magi)

Yuri (Yuuri)

And many more!

#zettai karen children #hyoubu kyousuke #minamoto kouichi

[harrypotterhogwartshitpost]

Why Charlie Weasley may or may not have a bipolar disorder in Hogwarts Mystery

(Warning, this post contains spoilers to events in year six, along with side quests that have been pulled and may (or may not) be re-released.)

(Warning this post contains descriptions of major depression along with other mental disorders.)  

I would like to start off by saying that I am not a licensed or qualified professional. I am an 18 year old college student who took one semester of online psychology. All the information I will be presenting today comes directly from my intro to psychology textbook. So please take what I say with a grain of salt. 

Now let's dive in. For starters, there are two major bipolar disorders. Bipolar I and bipolar II. Both are DSM-5 disorders. Bipolar I disorder is characterized by extreme mania, with manic episodes lasting at least one week. Depressive episodes are common for people with bipolar I disorder, they are not necessary for an DSM-5 diagnosis. Bipolar II disorder is characterized by lesser episodes of hypomania and major depressive episodes. The main difference is bipolar I disorder is defined by extreme mania, while bipolar II disorder is defined by major depression. 

Manic and Hypomanic behaviors- 

Abnormally upbeat, jumpy, or weird.

Increased activity, energy, or agitation.

Exaggerated sense of well-being or self confidence (euphoria.) 

Decreased need for sleep. 

Unusual talkativeness. 

Racing thoughts. 

Distractibility. 

Poor decision making. 

Hypersexuality.

Substance abuse. 

Major Depressive behaviors- 

Depressed mood. 

Loss of interest or pleasure in activities. 

Significant weight loss or gain. 

Insomnia or hypersomnia. 

Restlessness or slowed behavior

Fatigue or slowed behavior. 

Feelings of worthlessness or excessive (inappropriate) guilt.

Indecisiveness/inability to think. 

Thinking about or planning suicide. 

Keep in mind that since Charlie is a fictional character we can’t really get a good idea of what’s actually going on inside his head, and all we have to go off of is dialog and actions shown directly in Hogwarts Mystery. 

People don’t tend to begin showing bipolar symptoms until their teens or twenties, which makes sense as to why the first real manic episode we see from Charlie occurs at the beginning of year five. If you are a long time player of Hogwarts Mystery you may remember the side quest ‘Egg Hunt’ that triggered in year five chapter two before Jam City pulled it for ‘maintenance.’ During this side quest Charlie asks the player to assist him in illegally buying a ‘dragon egg’ from a man in Knockturn Alley. This side quest also involved stealing treasurers from the Red Caps hole to sell in order to raise the money for the egg. While the dragon egg purchased did end up being an acromantula egg, at the time this side quest was very out of character for Charlie as he had never done or attempted to do anything illegal to our knowledge before then. Since Hogwarts Mystery doesn’t give a clear timeline of how long an event or activity takes, we are uncertain the span of time in which ‘Egg Hunt’ took place. However between making plans, stealing from the Red Caps, selling the stolen goods, working a minimum wage job to raise the rest of the funds, buying the egg, waiting for it to hatch, and taking it back to the forest to join the other acromantulas, it’s safe to assume that side quest would take at least a week in real time. 

Another possible example of a manic episode is the Adventures in Curse Breaking TLSQ in year six. After Bill mentions one of his missions at Gringotts is taking him to the dragon sanctuary in Romania, Charlie can’t get it out of his head that he’s also going. He even goes as far as showing up to Bill’s job and demanding he take him along. After an arrangement is made to take Charlie, along with the player and a few of their friends, Charlie sneaks out at night to find the golden egg Bill’s looking for on his own. Charlie’s ‘adventure’ takes him to a hungarian horntail cave where he breaks one of his legs and gets trapped there until we find him the next day. While Charlie does manage to find the golden egg, Bill is not shy to remind Charlie how dangerous and irresponsible his little excursion was. 

At the beginning of year six in the main story, Charlie admits to the player that he’s planning on dropping out of Hogwarts to move to Romania because he cannot cope with the events of the previous year. It’s completely understandable he feel this way based of how year five ended, and he’s in fact not the only character struggling to cope with what happened. He is left irritable and irrational for the first half of the year; being quick to snap on people (such as yelling at Bill for teaching their friends Langlock because Ben attacked him with it,) and easy to upset. However over the course of the year his mood does improve. 

Charlie’s also known to be rather reckless in his day to day life. His favorite hobby is flying into the forbidden forest alone to search for dragons. He also mentions spending time at the black lake feeding the giant squid cereal. One could also consider flying an illegal and untested flying car his father modded from Ottery St. Catchpole to the highlands of Scotland rather manic. For the most part Charlie is oddly energetic and happy. While that’s necessarily a bad thing, it always struck me as odd how, up until year six, almost nothing seemed to bother him. We also see, during both main dialog and side dialog, that Charlie loves to talk (almost as much as he loves to eat.) Charlie also has an obvious hyperfixation on dragons. Not a day goes by where he doesn’t talk about them, read about them, or search for them. He even mentions preferring dragons to people. While Hyperfixation isn’t associated specifically with bipolar disorders, it is a common sign of neurodivergency. 

Due to lack of major depressive episodes I believe it’s most likely Charlie fits into bipolar I disorder. However there are four main questions to ask when considering someone for disordered emotions, thoughts and/or behaviors. 

Does it deviate from cultural norms for what is acceptable?

Is it maladaptive? (preventing someone from properly adapting to situations in a way that suits their best interest.) 

Does it cause the individual personal distress or threaten other people? 

Does it cause discomfort and concern to others? 

While I’m not caught up on wizarding culture during the 1980s, I believe it’s safe to assume a handful of Charlie’s behaviors are not typically considered acceptable. His behaviors are also quite clearly maladaptive as they constantly involve putting himself at unnecessary risk. While he’s not always putting others in danger, Charlie does often show remorse and distress after coming down from a manic episode. While the characters in Hogwarts Mystery may not react strongly to Charlie’s actions, I personally as a player am a bit concerned for him. 

I’m not here to say for sure that Charlie’s bipolar or struggles with bipolar I disorder. What I am here to say is it’s definitely something to consider as a player, and it’s not completely out of reach for one to think he might. 

#hogwarts mystery #hphm #harry potter hogwarts mystery #charlie weasley #harrypotterhogwartsshitpost

[collegecoward]

How do you know if going to graduate school is right for you? I’m a psych major and i dont know if I want to go law school, counseling, social work or specialize in a certain branch of psychology. I don’t have any internship experience because I’m an undergrad and it’s hard to find an internship. I have taken some psych classes (developmental, abnormal, social) but they all seem interesting and my school only has general psychology as a major.

I’m sorry this answer is coming so late. I can explain why later (I have good news!) but I want to hold myself to a higher standard for you and all my readers. This is such a good question and now that I’ve had graduate school experience, I feel like I’m finally qualified to answer this question!

Should I go to graduate school?

I’m happy you’re thinking ahead to your future! This is a big question, and I’m going to try to give you a framework to organize your thoughts. I recommend that you break down your decision into “W” and “H” questions: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How would/will you go to graduate school? You can answer these in any order and revisit each question as needed. 

What graduate programs am I interested in?

I would recommend you ask your professors about this, especially if they have been practicing psychologists, researchers, social workers, or lawyers. You can even email random professionals (like lawyers, they love this stuff) who do work you’re interested in and see if they’ll let you ask them specific questions for a half hour. Be polite and professional, and always have your resume handy!

Having a hard time finding (paid) internships and specific classes is a common problem. You may want to look for entry-level jobs at law firms or psychologists’ offices, like an assistant or receptionist position. Although it’s not the same as an internship, working at a firm gave me a better sense of what being in the legal field is like.

If you can do research or become a research assistant while in college, I highly recommend you do so, as these experiences give you a taste of what graduate research is like. If you’re at a research university now, start asking your professors. You can also apply for summer programs at other universities.

Here’s a sampling of research programs for undergrads.

University of Wisconsin—Madison has a list of their own programs.

Here’s a list of pre-law programs for undergrads. (I did one of these, and it was super insightful! Feel free to ask about it.)

Why do I want to go to grad school?

What career opportunities will this program open up for me? Can I get the same job(s) with a different degree or different strategy?

Is my interest in a particular topic so deep and my passion so profound that I want to spend 5, 8, 10 years on this for a PhD? Or 1-3 years for an master’s? Do I enjoy research and being in an academic environment? Do I want to immerse myself in a JD program?

When would I go to grad school?

Many graduate students, professors, and advisors recommend that students take a gap year (or two or more) before attending graduate school, to get career and life experience. This may be a little difficult when you’re trying to get jobs in your field, and you might be tempted to go to grad school right now because the economy is a mess. However, many universities are also a mess and may not have a lot of money to offer you funding, which is very important to most students.

Where would I go to grad school?

What programs are known for your area of study? What state, city, or country are you interested in relocating to? Are you bound to any location because of other responsibilities, such as family or health reasons? Visit the campus. What do you like about it? Talk to the admissions officers, the professors, the students (if you can). Listen carefully. How do they describe their school? What is it really like?

Who would I want as my graduate advisor?

This is part of the “where” question, and it’s usually only relevant for research-based programs where you need an advisor, like PhDs and certain master’s degrees. Experts who are currently studying the thing you want to study or something similar may be the best people to guide you and mentor you.

How can I get to and through grad school?

This is a financial and logistical question. Do your research! You really don’t want to take out large loans for grad school, and ideally you want to get fully funded (or close to fully funded), with a tuition waiver and a stipend, especially if you’re a PhD student. Many graduate programs will offer or require you to work at the university as a teaching assistant, research assistant, or graduate assistant. Because you’ll be doing school and work, grad school can be a full-time job—you’ll want to earn income from it to pay your bills, even though it’s likely to be a very modest wage, to put it gently. Some schools or departments are desperately underfunded. Finding a program that will fund you is often critical for your well-being.

I highly recommend signing up for ProFellow emails. They have a lot of information about funding your graduate education. Also, when you are a graduate student, join your grad workers union. :)

Now, I want to mention the difference when it comes to law school because it’s kind of a weirdo here. Law schools will usually award scholarships pretty much the same way you’d get a scholarship as an undergrad. There are no grad workers, but law school is still a full-time job, although plenty of law students work and have families, whether they enroll part-time or full-time. Sometimes law school scholarships are largely based on your LSAT score (although more schools are ditching the LSAT, so we’ll see), so that’s something to be aware of, too. Some students choose to study for and take the LSAT while in college, whereas others may do this during a gap year.

……..Well, what now?

If any of this advice is confusing or intimidating, please let me know! I realize this is a ton of information, and I don’t want to stress you out. The long and the short of it is, you have plenty of time to decide, you just don’t want to make the decision all at once.

Use your resources! This is your decision, but make sure you’re getting information from all sources. Be on the lookout for graduate school fairs. Sign up for some law/graduate schools’ mailing lists and webinars and all that good stuff. I get emails from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, and they send out lots of easy-to-read information about applying for law school in general.

Ask your professors and academic advisor if they know of any opportunities. If you’re interested in a particular law school or graduate program, email their admissions department and professors you’re interested in working with. I want you to be as comfortable as possible with your decision, whatever you decide to do, whenever you decide.

#long post #graduate school #grad school #law school #postgrad #research #employment #internship #internships #lsat #financial aid #finances #scholarships #scholarship #plan #applications #application #apply

[imagine-loki]

strangers

TITLE: strangers CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 1/? AUTHOR: hiddlemediddles ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine being a psychologist set to question Loki during his incarceration in Stark Tower. Initially, he scoffs at the prospect of a ‘psychological examination’. However, Loki grows quite attached to you and complies to each and every programme you have in store for him. RATING: MATURE NOTES/WARNINGS: Hullo! The only warning I can give is that my wonderful self has had her hormones flying around. Time to channel them into something useful.. such as writing some Loki.. I’m going to stuff the whole Y/N and Y/L/N faff and just give you a name. Also, it’ll be less of a psychologist but more of a counsellor - but a bit of both really. With regards to POV, I want to say that despite the fact that I use ‘she/her’ pronouns to refer to the character, I want it to be as gender neutral as possible to accommodate to you all, though I am conscious that the vast majority of you will be female readers. I have written from a male perspective before for Loki as I am very passionate about more LGBT representation in writing, but this particular fic will be she/her despite the second person 'you’ narration. Please do message me (I’m hiddlemediddles) if you have any queries - I love messaging you guys and it makes me so happy to know there are beings out there in this chaotic world who have the time to read my Loki fantasies… !! Hope that all agrees. Brilliant - let’s gooo! - The task seemed simple enough. Redeem an evil mastermind from continuing to think like an evil mastermind. You had done it countless times before, with men that were.. admittedly… a lot less problematic than this one. This Loki that you had been assigned was a tough one. Not only that, but he was an alien. Or a 'god’, as these spies liked to emphasise that he was. God or alien, it didn’t matter too much. A patient was a patient.

But this patient was going to be a tricky one. He had attacked New York on a whim with an army of extraterrestrial beings, murdered countless people in that attack.. all under the control of what they explained to be something called an 'infinity stone’. A stone which had taken control of the man’s mind and driven him close to the brink of sheer insanity. Now these stones were all destroyed before some purple alien got them, this Loki was experiencing the aftermath of that stone. They said he was still deranged, but a lot less deranged than what he had been a month ago. That was at least partly uplifting. “Think you’re up to the task?” Nick Fury asked. “Yes. As ever.” You said, lamenting how strong they had made your tea. Being British, these things were of paramount importance after all. “It’s settled then. We will inform Loki that he is to see a counsellor slash psychologist tomorrow morning at 11am. Shall we call it.. an introduction?” “Yes, if you like. But how will this all be conducted? Without me being in danger of a premature death?” “He will still be contained in the glass cage. The one designed for the Hulk. You will be on a chair on the other side of the glass. You will be able to hear each other perfectly well. We will be observing the exchanges as they are held in this area. In the future, we hope that it can resemble something more.. relaxed. If we are all in agreement that he has improved during this.. rehabilitation, let’s say… then the cage will no longer be necessary.” “Right. Brilliant. I suppose it all depends now on whether he’ll cooperate.” “Miss. Croft, you are one of the most qualified people of the job. Isn’t it in your expertise to prompt cooperation?” he asked sceptically. You smiled at Fury as though he were an old friend. “No need for formalities. Call me Robin, don’t bother with the Miss. Croft rubbish. And I don’t prompt cooperation. It’s more like.. inviting it. Some people close off, others respond. Human nature is a bit like that, Mr. Fury.” With everything settled, you left a half full cup of tea at the meeting table of Stark Tower and proceeded to shake the hands of multiple men. Mental note: hand sanitise. Immediately. “Robin Croft. A pleasure to have met you.” “Yes. You too, thank you. See you soon.” You said hurriedly. Perhaps a bit too hurriedly. You were desperate to get back to your apartment and shaking all of these hands was driving you towards becoming infuriated by the whole situation. Who needed an entire board of governors to discuss Loki’s rehabilitation anyway? They did, apparently. At last, the breeze of the autumn air ruffled your hair as you stepped out of the stuffy Stark building. Thank goodness. Realising that the apartment wasn’t too far to walk, you abandoned the idea of a taxi. Very expensive and often (but not always, thankfully) driven by a misogynist ready to make comments about women wearing suits. You adjusted the lapels on your own light blue suit as you made my way to your apartment. Thankfully, heels hadn’t been on the menu today. Flats. The most wonderful sensation to the feet. After having met with multiple clients, you felt just about ready to collapse into bed. Hot chocolate and a book first. Something daring, adventurous. Anything to spark the flame, even if it was fictional. Admittedly, you revelled in reading dark, mysterious heroines with troubled pasts. Even better if they were women. But they were often men, which was also wonderful. Women, men, non-binary. It was all wonderful. As long as they were mysterious, dark pasts and had a sharp jaw. That sharp jaw.. You hauled myself up the stairs, feeling like going in the lift would be some kind of capitulation. Once you made the first flight, you cursed myself for being so foolish. The lift would have done perfectly. Ah well. Soon enough, the slippers were on and the book was out. The hot chocolate nearby too, of course. Just how you loved it. Just as you had lamented Stark Tower’s attempt at making a cup of tea, you felt the pangs of dejection at your lack of foresight. The bloody wine. You had completely forgotten to pick up a bottle - the sequel to the hot chocolate. Another night. You flicked open the page with the bookmark. It would continue from that part in the story when the two lovers are separated for some annoying reason and the sexual tension is rife. You sighed as you read the detailed descriptions of yearning, longing, sexual frustration. You read the descriptions and felt no affinity to them at all. Of course, you could relate to the sexual frustration, but there was none in your life at the moment. You were satisfied. Heaven forbid that a man or woman came and ruffled this contentment. You had hoped the days of lusting after human beings had passed. But it never does pass. You hoped earnestly that whoever was to come and screw up your life by your falling desperately in love with them was not coming soon. Thankfully, the job was rather straightforward (mostly). No strings attached, just bringing human beings back to the world where they belonged and into society again. Nothing more, nothing less. Socially. things were nice. A few nights out every now and then with friends, but nobody had caught your eye in a long time. It didn’t matter as you enjoyed your own company far too much to let it go so easily. So willingly.. or unwillingly. The story progressed. The man was being… the man.. by withholding some essential piece of information that the woman would become frustrated about. I groaned at the predictability. Couldn’t they just have sex already? Perhaps you were sexually frustrated after all. Hmm.. one night stand. But how the hell will you schedule that in now with that new client? That.. Loki. You sighed. A new client that will likely be the most demanding of them all. But you weren’t a world expert psychologist for nothing. Years upon years of work had led to this. Led to a branch of the government, the spy service of all places, having employed you as the gateway to Loki’s redemption. How hard could it be? A few meetings and he’ll be on his feet. On his feet and walking amongst the people of earth. A valued member of society. At least, that was the goal. ** Waking up bright and early, you were gathering the questions you had prepared for the man. Right.. 11am. Ready. Ready to face a murderer, madman.. Asgardian? Well, a madman controlled by a.. stone. A magical stone. You prided yourself on your punctuality and made it at Stark Tower for quarter to eleven. Fury led you towards the door which would take you directly to Loki inside his glass cage. A shiver rippled across your spine. Whether it was excitement or fear, you weren’t sure. Either way, it was definitely anticipation. Just before 11, Fury let you in. “Good luck.” he said. The doors opened. x

#Loki #Angst #Submitted fic #submission #strangers #chapter 1 #hiddlemediddles

[mouseyfox]

[Video description] A white woman with dark brown hair down to her chin and black horn rim glasses sits in front of a cream wall with a string of mint drying behind her. She is holding a pillow with a geometric design as she turns on her phone's video camera.

[sigh] Hi, my name is Krystal. I am a disabled queer woman and I am here to have a talk with you today about what it's like being disabled in the United States and trying to keep a job. 

[Transcript Below]

So [sighs] there's some major issues with how we as US citizens and people in general, um, deal with disability and how it relates to the job force and how [thoughtful pause] we are treated as employees. Now the Equal Opportunities, um, Equal Employment Opportunities Act, um, was a major step forward as were similar things such as the, you know, Disability Rights movement, and the Americans with Disabilites Act, and even, you know, the Affordable Care Act. Those have all had positive effects on the Disabled Community as a whole, but there's a lot more that needs to be done. Now, disabilities are not just physical. They can be emotional, or psychological, and they can also be intellectual. That means you could see someone with a wheelchair, or a missing limb, or someone who has Parkinson's Disease, or someone who has dyslexia, or someone who has PTSD, someone who's missing an eye, someone who's deaf, blind, the list goes on, honestly.

For me personally I have been disabled for ohhh well over fifteen years at this point. I have experienced over fifteen years of abuse in my life which has triggered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, um, DID, um, Anxiety Disorders, Major Reoccurring Depression, I have Trichotillomania, Excoriation Disorder, I also have physical disabilities as well. I have Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome. I also have Chronic Pain and Fatigue, I have hips that don't sit right, and a back that doesn't like sitting straight, and I also have migraines that have gotten to the point where I'm having about a migraine every week or so even with medication. I'm going in for more treatment options with a neurologist to figure out why they're happening. Now, I am a person who would benefit greatly from things like Universal Healthcare, and uh Universal Basic Income because at the end of the day I am a queer woman who is disabled and who is supporting a partner who is totally disabled as much as I can, and even just saying that could cost him his benefits, and that is heinous. We are not married, if disabled people marry and they have benefits they can loose them entirely, legally, within the US as it is today. I have a Bachelor's degree I got from the University of Louisville this spring during COVID and while I am very happy that I have finally achieved something ten years in the making for a lot of reasons it was horrible on my health both mental and physical.

As a student who is independent and was relying entirely on loans aside from very few scholarships that did in no way cover the full cost of tuition. I worked [sigh] a full time job while being a full time student at a call center uh who violated my rights as a disabled person in a number of ways and when I eventually left that job and applied for full time disability benefits, which I was denied, by the way, uhm, [the call center] lied to the SSI department, and said that I had never once filed accomodation letters to them, which is very untrue as I had spoken with an HR Director on multiple occassions, I had emailed them, I had spoken to them on the phone, I had one on ones with supervisors about how the job was affecting my physical health, as well as my emotional and mental health and how it was worsening my disabilities.

I had applied for short term disability, which is something that in the United States, is only offered by certain employers and is something that you have to pay into. There is no short term disability department with the SSI. There is no way for an American citizen currently as it stands to have short term disability to get some of the medical issues under control in the US unless you have already paid into a pool.

Now, some of you might be wondering what about FMLA, the Family Medical Leave Act? I applied for that, and they really don't like you using that for short term disability unless if it's something that was happened at the job or outside. For example, if you undergo an amputation, you might be someone who would qualify for FMLA. But, for me, a person who was just dealing with further issues with my chronic disorders that are never going to go away, um, at this point my issues are so deeply imbeded that I will have to be on medication for the rest of my life to handle my disorders and as with many people, as I age, I am as likely to get more disabilities on top of everything else.

The way that our economy, the way that our healthcare works right now we don't accomodate or help or you know just give disabled people a way to live and work without highly unfair and horrible ways of treating them. I have been gaslit by employers. I have, uh, very highly insinuated that I was lying about issues with my health just so I could go home and "be lazy", or I've been told or implied by coworkers that I was lying about my disabilities and there are all sorts of negative public stigma about people who lie about disorders so they can like get benefits. And, honestly, here's a news flash for you, it's virtually impossible to get full time SSI benefits if you're lying. I have friends who have disorders that can kill them before they turn fifty who are considered not disabled enough to qualify for SSI benefits. And these are people who are dealing with horrible diseases that will kill them or just make it really impossible for them to ever work. Like, physically, mentally, some education, uhm, or not education, intellectual disorders there's no way they're going to be able to hold a full time steady job and you know with the way that our economy works part time jobs don't cut it.

Most people are working two to three jobs because our minimum wage isn't high enough. And if you're disabled you spend so much money on taking care of yourself, and spending days at home, and that's just part of being disabled. I don't like calling off of work. I don't like being drug into my supervisor's office to get you know reprimanded for constantly having to call in or leave early. I don't like inconveniencing my coworkers either because I know that makes it harder on them, but you know what's also harder on them? If I decide to power through a day even when I'm feeling like garbage, and I make more mistakes, I will get less things done, I'll be worse off with my customer interactions, and there are days where I have worked through on ten, twelve, even thirteen hour shifts as a disabled person, and it has absolutely wrecked my health.

I have been working for ten years and I've been a caretaker for even longer, and my ability to perform at a full time job has drastically diminished in just ten years of trying to support myself in the way our current economy works and I've worked in a variety of different jobs. I've done physical labor jobs, I've worked in factories, I've worked in call centers, I've been a barista, I've been a cashier, I have been a bourbon steward, I have worked in healthcare in a variety of fields, and I have worked in library science which is what I'm hoping to get for a- for my- my education goal is I want to be a librarian. I want to be someone who helps people with research and reference work, and helps with their community. I love being engaged with my community. I love helping people. I like going to work. I do genuinely enjoy going to work! But when I have to keep working to a point that would make even a- you know someone who's not disabled overly worked and wreck their health... What do you think that does to those of us who have disabilities? Huh? Cause I can promise you it's a lot worse than you initially think. And the accomodations that they offer at most jobs are a fucking joke. They really are.

Most jobs aren't even accomodating for people in wheelchairs, for people with physical disabilities, and not to mention people who have hearing problems, or who are blind, and don't get me started on psychological problems. We could have an entire separate discussion on that one because the way that workplace cultures work and the way with microaggressions with racism, and all sorts of other factors like homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, yes that counts, okay, because a lot of disabled people are just big, and you know what a lot of them are also really skinny, because their medical problem might be tied into that in ways that you can't understand either without a medical degree, or without being disabled yourself and having to do research.

Because at the end of the day the people who are most educated about their own disabilities are often the disabled person themselves. Yes doctors are very educated. Yes they know a lot. But you know who also knows a lot about the disorder, the person who's fucking experiencing it. I have friends who have been dismissed by doctors for years. Whose illnesses and issues have been completely mishandled and not at all treated by doctors because they wouldn't fucking listen to their patients. Okay. And, that's not something that we should be proud about as a country.

The way that we treat disabled people is horrible, and that's not even considering the problem with eugenics in this country because there are a number of people who are very interested in the fact of created designer babies, or aborting [disabled] babies, or you know, just throwing disabled people away until they die in a corner so you don't have to think about them. And that's a historical problem with this country and it hasn't gone away. We haven't fixed it. And it's something we need to work on.

But you know what? We're never going to be able to address those harder issues until we address the fact that working and having to hold multiple jobs to live for abled people that's inexcusable. It's even worse when you're disabled.

I can't tell you the number of times I have been almost homeless because my job had fired me because I had to call in too often, or I just had to leave a job because it was horribly wrecking my health. I have played yo-yo with all of my jobs for the past three years after I tried filing for disability, and you know what? They told me no. They told me I'm too young. I can't possibly have the disorders that I have or I'm just not disabled enough.

And you know what? You can be disabled at any age. And that possibility only increases the older that you get.  Because the older you get your systems start failing and you will be disabled at one point in your life. Period. Everyone will experience disability before they die in some way shape or form. So when we talk about disability rights it's not just about me. It's not just about friends of mine who are being killed by our healthcare system, and by our government, and by our economy, every single day. It's also about you. So when I ask you to give a fuck about disabled people and work and listen  to what we're asking you to do this is about you too. Because one day you're going to be in our position, and you know what? It sucks. And no one should have to deal with this.

[Emotional Pause] We need healthcare reform. We need it. Very badly. And when I say that it goes from everything to my own father who has been insulin rationing, and dealing with completely ludicrous insulin prices since before I was born.

It goes to my mother, you know, whose liver shut down because of black mold in a church my father preached at. I watched her slowly die for a year because she refused to go to the hospital because if she did, and she got the care that could have saved her, it would have killed my father because we wouldn't have been able to afford his insulin.

You know, and I'm not the only person, who's had situations like this, there are elderly people all over our nation who are dealing with similar issues all day. There are people who are disabled, there are families of disabled people, who are working to support people. There- Did you know that it's actually illegal for disabled people to marry and keep their benefits? Did you? Because I have a pertner who is disabled and even just saying that could rob him of his benefits.

That's not including issues with disability and, you know, being queer. Because being queer complicates everything. You know I don't say that because it's fun and I get "all the social benefits it brings" as Rosalarian would say because you know what? There really aren't any.

I'm queer because I'm queer. I'm disabled because my body is a pain in the ass, and because I've gone through things that no one ever should have had to go through and it has completely wrecked my mental health.

And I've gotten so much better than I used to be! I used to be so much worse off and put up with stuff that was absolutely wrecking my mental health and physical health because your mental health does a lot of stuff with your physical health that you might not be aware of. [Cat sneezes]

The United States as a nation is literally working itself to death, and that doesn't just affect able bodied people. It affects disabled people a lot worse. And you know what, I like working, but I like living a lot better. [Turns off video]

#disability #disabled #disability rights #disability activism #ptsd #did #trich #trichotillomania #excoriation disorder #bfrb #body focused repetitive behaviors #universal basic income #universal healthcare #medicare for all #medicaid for all #ssi #social security income #social security #activism #post traumatic stress disorder #current events #minimum wage #communism #socialism #capitalism #anti capitalism #democratic socialism #democratic socialist #cw abuse mention #cw abuse