#so this isn't from experience this is just what i've noticed based on observations/things other people have said

[cemeterything]

what's being low-empathy like? i've never heard about varying degrees of empathy or what an empath is, i thought it was an internet joke (i'm not usamerican so maybe the theory is more evolved in the US) isn't empathy something you practice throughout your life and interactions?

'empath' has been turned into a sort of internet joke as a result of the label being treated like this shortcut to being a good person by some, but being high empathy =/= being an 'empath' and can in fact be very unpleasant and difficult because being highly sensitive to other people's emotions can be exhausting and overstimulating. honestly i don't envy high empathy people at all.

for me low empathy is like... i can figure out how other people are feeling sometimes, but it takes me longer and involves more intentional mental processing. i have to actively want to empathize with someone to do so, and can quite easily detach myself from a situation if i don't want to. my baseline empathy reactions to stimuli are very dull and distant, and i struggle to place myself into other people's shoes and often draw incorrect conclusions as to how they might be thinking and feeling and why they might have made the decisions they did on my own. i can be unobservant if i'm not trying to be, and fail to notice other people's feelings unless they make an effort to tell/show me, leading to me often being less involved in social groups and feeling 'out of the loop' on any developments that occur within them. i am frequently undisturbed by shocking and upsetting things because i just can't imagine what they must actually be like to experience.

to make up for this, i try to ask people questions and observe the world and people around me for clues to analyze that might help me figure out how to empathize better. i also have a tendency to stick to routines and 'stock reactions' in my social interactions whenever i'm unsure of how to respond, even with people i'm very familiar with. i don't mean them any less, but if for example i know that saying a certain phrase or performing a certain action usually provides comfort and i see someone upset and want to offer them my support, i'll use it unless i have a strong sense that an alternative course of action would be more appreciated. i'll often ask people what they would like me to do for them rather than assuming because i know my assumptions are often based on limited and inaccurate information and might just make things worse, which some people find very considerate, but others find needy and immature.

i do think that empathy is a skill that you can practice and develop. i have a developmental disorder (adhd) as well as a very socially isolated and abusive upbringing, so i have no doubt that my lack of empathy is at least partially based in that, and while i don't think you need to be highly empathetic to be a good person, i do hope i'll be able to develop mine a bit!

[plutosfallenangel]

Random Moon Sign Observations | pt.1

(*based on personal experiences and opinions. look at the whole natal chart to gain insight, just one placement isn't enough and some aspects/house placements can make contradictions to the below information*)

• Aries moon •

-makes more moves in the night (esp 12H)

-extremely protective over those they love

-when comfortable with someone they will make little noises and funny sounds, very animated beings

-feels emotions intensely, the most reactive to their own emotions and environment, in the physical body they feel every emotion deeply

-will jump head first into new passions or romances unless the chart indicates otherwise

-it's like pulling teeth to get their vulnerable side out, as time progresses they learn that they don't have to be the hard-shelled thing their early environments created and that being vulnerable is brave

-most will only have a few people reach their inner soft core in their lifetime

-artists in their own right, alone time is essential for the creative process

-inner competition with themselves, instead of seeing others as competition they will try to beat themselves and be a better version of yesterday

• Taurus moon •

-always around close friends, typically has 1 or 2 people they grew up with that they keep in their lives forever or atleast as long as humanely possible

-is it bad to say these people are pretty when they cry? I've never seen a Taurus moon ugly cry before

-extremely grounded, and extremely guarded

-have a hard time letting people into their innermost self or world, but once they do you won't be going anywhere anytime soon

-emotional support person for close friends/family

-has emotional support accessories

-bad smells can put them into a very bad mood, very sensitive nose

• Gemini moon •

-consistently stimulating themselves through conversations/books/video games/hobbies

-can struggle with consistent mood swings

-appreciates design and loves to build things/put things together

-can be the friend that knows everyone's behind-the-scenes drama

-witty and goofy people (my fav)

-they tend to bury themselves in a hobby when they're not feeling the best mentally (sometimes as a distraction without actually addressing what's wrong)

-asking questions can actually make them feel better, even if it's on random things, emotional support knowledge intake lol

-extremely good at problem-solving

• Cancer moon •

-the most emotionally guarded moon sign, and will guard their family/close friends emotions like their own

-sensitive yet sensual

-gives the warmest hugs

-remembers the smallest details for the longest amounts of time

-has to let their emotional body go with the flow and ride the "waves", once they feel an emotion come over they can't go around it.. they have to see it to the end

-if conjunct the asc their emotions are painted all over their face

-if you've ever made one mad, you know what those claws feel like... they are some of the most scary people to make angry.. imo

-sentimental daydreamers/ and dreamers

-most can't get over that one ex

-4 course meal @ 2am is to be expected, especially if liquor is involved

-one of the brightest imaginations next to Pisces, their memories are alive, well and extremely vivid

• Leo moon •

-once you get close to them, they can feel entitled to spending time with you (in my experience)

-can let things bottle up and EXPLODE

-I've noticed when they are passionate about someone they can keep a lot of those feelings inside and slowly reveal them overtime.. not as extravagant as some would think, but they will definitely make you feel like you're the only one in the world when they care about you

-spending time with them is so fun because they will make everything into a joke and silly

-the goofiest of the moon signs imo (they do it for the attention but I love it, give me more)

-can be very demanding emotionally from others, whether it's communicated or not

-expects the utmost loyalty and gives it back in return, even on small things.. these people are probably the most loyal

-will place people on a pedestal within their bright orbit, sometimes they can fall into people that give them a lot of attention, and not for the right reasons..

-the most generous (and they mean it)

-likes to do things that gets them recognized, even in a small town/group setting.. they want to play sports to get that trophy and team photo

• Virgo Moon •

-please for the love of god bring your own tums

-one of the biggest nurturers

-very specific style and aesthetic

-always on time, or at least their internal clock is

-the sleepiest employee

-out of all the mutable moons, I think virgo can sit and process their emotions the longest

-can also be the same moon sign to brush off emotional encounters until they've processed their end enough

-prone to addiction just like pisces/12H moons, using a substance as an escape, becoming an addiction most times because they strive for routine, and if something bad just happens to fall into that routine.. they can have a hard time removing it (emotional security in routines, even if the routine looks messy from an outsiders perspective)

-literal sweethearts (angels in their own right)

• Libra moon •

-the most loved in the room when they walk in, idk how to explain it

-can be a tad on the partner crazy side, hopeless romantic

-emotional support person for a lot of people but they do expect the same in return

-depending on what else is in the chart, they can become very codependent on another person and FAST.. they won't listen to anyone when it comes to their beloved

-similar to a gemini moon, they can struggle to find emotional balance, but this is mostly caused by allowing outside influences to effect their emotional body (ex: partners)

-when they're good, they're GOOD and when they're bad, they're BAD

-does the best when they're in a 1-1 setting bouncing feelings and ideas off another person, they tend to show up or call at the most random times to chat about something like their car insurance, almost like, can you listen to this idea and share what you think? (I love them for it)

-i know I said it before but, HOPELESS ROMANTICS 💔🔥

#astrology #astro community #astro observations #astrology observations #moon signs #astrology community #zodiac #astrology moon #astrology research

[limi-strology]

Astro observations II

Decided to make a part 2, didn't expect the first one to get more than, like, 50 notes 😅

Based on just my personal experience, might not be true for everyone! ᵔᴗᵔ

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ Contrary to the stereotypes, I don't think I've ever met a two faced Gemini. They honestly seem pretty cool people, they have so many friends and they just know how to communicate, you know? Their relationship with their partner looks really wholesome to outsiders too (but could be just me viewing it this way, lol). If anything, I think they just stand out more, which makes it a bit more difficult to approach them. 🤷‍♀️

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ Gemini sun girls also have something aesthetic about them, like my cousin has a nice academia aesthetic going on in her life and a classmate from uni has this high-end fashion sense, she looks really pretty everytime (For some reason, when I think of Geminis, I'm envisioning luxury parties with champagne and brands like YSL and Louis Vuitton, that's the vibe I get) ✨

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ People with Sagittarius in their big three (sun, moon, rising) are some of the most outgoing people I know. They have so many connections and, once their schedule allows it, they start planning coffee dates, hangouts with their friends, clubbing etc. A friend of mine can literally NOT stay at home the entire day, he just HAS to go out or meet up with people for at least 2-3 hours. 🏙️

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ To the fellas with Moon opposition Neptune; How do you guys deal with moments in life that don't live up to your expectations? You know, when your imagination goes wild and has a very idealistic scenario of a certain situation, only for it to happen in a much different way and lowkey dissapoints you? Also, do you have dreams that kind of warn you or prepare you for something that will take place in the future? Because I feel like we kind of build our own world and the universe has to remind us that life isn't always perfect, lol 💭

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ My dear Aquarians, why the pessimism? Rather than overthinking everything and imagining the worst scenarios possible, how about you try focusing more on positive things? Even if it's just something small each time, it helps you view your daily life in a better light :)

┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ Speaking of Aquas, I've noticed that most of you guys also don't really like being alone for too long. Sure, you want to have your me time (it's fine, we all do) but you also can't stand not having company around. Like, you'll randomly decide to stay in and spend some time alone but then you'll get upset and start calling your friends and family. A friend of mine cannot stand being alone for too long, even if we spend the whole day together, he hates being home on his own, to the point where he sometimes straight up takes the bus back to his hometown. It's wonderful that you enjoy spending so much time with others (I could never, lolll) but try picking up a hobby when you don't have the chance to be around people as much. It'll kind of distract you from loneliness and give you the chance to have some quality time with yourself 🧩

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

Thank you for reading, hope you have a wonderful day 💙

Edit: Bonus Observations

So a lot of you guys commented that Aquarius actually prefers solitude and could easily pass time all by themselves, so I looked into the charts of the social Aquas I know irl and see what it is that makes them so outgoing and talkative;

(I didn't include houses because I haven't gotten to confirm their birth times)

• My friend has Saturn in Gemini, which can make people talkative in any situation (I also have this placement and, although I see myself as an introverted homebody, I am surprisingly pretty chatty and enjoy going out with people that make me happy). Truly, he always gives something to talk about with everyone he knows, sometimes he'll start a conversation with another friend of his while I'm standing there not knowing what to say or do in the meantime, like 🧍‍♀️?

• He also has Mars in Sagittarius and Jupiter in Leo; energetic, lively and outgoing, thrives when surrounded by people. He almost never gets tired of hanging out with people, my low social battery could never 😅

• Other than her sun, my mom also has Aquarius in her Mercury, which makes her friendly and likeable, plus she enjoys conversing with people.

• Another thing about my mom, her placements are a bit contradictory; She has Sun in Aquarius, Moon in Virgo, and Uranus and Pluto in Libra - These indicate shyness, independence and introversion. Truly, she prefers doing things on her own most of the time and doesn't open up to just anyone. She also used to be very shy around my age (probably because of Virgo moon?). However, she also has Jupiter and Neptune in Sagittarius, which make her more adventurous, outgoing, charming and humorous. So that would probably explain this whole 'outgoing yet independent yet still can't be lonely' vibe she gives me.

Hope this explains a bit better why I had this image of Aquas at first, thanks for sharing your thoughts in the comments!

#astrology #astro notes #astro observations #astrology observations #astrology notes #gemini #gemini placements #sagittarius #sagittarius placements #aquarius #aquarius placements #astrology aspects #moon aspects #neptune aspects #saturn in gemini #mars in sagittarius #jupiter in leo #mercury in aquarius #virgo moon #jupiter in sagittarius #•limi's post•

[skyepixels]

The Welcome Home Website!!!!! She is Beautiful~! And She Leaves Us With So Many Questions!

First off, I am absolutely astonished at how beautiful she is!!! Clown, Puzz, and everyone else has worked so hard and they've exceeded everyone's expectations with the site!!! What a wonderful little Home they've made, and I'm excited to experience it as a fan!!!

I know that everyone's combing through the new website update with a fine toothed comb so I won't be sharing anything we've already found. I don't think I've found anything new in the site that others haven't already found, but oh boy!!!! Does everything there only raise more questions!

What I do love is how all the audio files we've been given through the "bugs" has really shown what everyone's personality is like! I love every one of them, and the voice actors captured them perfectly! Oh and the little tidbits of history with the merchandise, the telephone calls, the little skits! Be still my beating heart~!!!

AND THE WALLY LIVE INTERVIEW. I CANT! It's sooo darn cute!! And Nick Nocturne (I know it's him, that interdimentional cat demon) as the interviewer was such a lovely touch! I cannot wait to hear about that from his YT channel!!! And Wally was so coy with the romance question~ and I think that's the perfect way to answer it for everyone who loves him! Keep it vague, let everyone make their own conclusions and be happy! (I know I certainly will for the time being, and will love him no matter what!) I am so curious about the underlying story here: there's so much to think about it's driving me crazy! They gave so much and answered so little! We can only theorize from here! So here's my little thoughts! None of it's cohesive in any way, nor does it really have all the details or tell full story yet, so just take it in sections if you decide to read it! ______

!~OBSERVATION TIME~!

I think that Wally, Home (And maybe everyone else, not sure) are trapped somewhere. Where exactly isn't certain, but very trapped indeed. My first indication of this from this response in the guestbook for Tayla (Page 8):

"eu não sei onde estamos" - I don't know where we are (A bonus for the multi-lingual side of things there, it makes me really happy to see it!)

I have no concept of what happened to everyone else, but from the little drawings he's made on the guestbook, he's constantly telling people things like "Oh, I'll tell Eddie." or "I'll tell Frank." these messages, but we never get a direct response from any other neighbor! It's always him talking! Just him. He tells people their responses, but we never hear anything direct from the other neighbors! The quick reference I can bring up is the hearts PNG in the guestbook for Kazoo:

itoldhim_hesaidhesflattered_idontknowwhatanyoneistalkingabout_.png I feel like those collections of audio clips with all the neighbors (1-14 to 14-14) are a recount of events throughout an entire day that previously happened that may give insight into what happened to Wally. I think this is the case based on the last audio in the list, 14-14 bh audio, when Barnaby notices Wally acting strange:

BARNABY: Yeah, yeah, real funny! A poor little guy like me deserves some sympathy! A clown without a kazoo is like… Like an artist without his paintbrush! Go on kid, tell ‘em! …Hello? Buddy? Pal? …Hey, you stopped paintin’. Everything alright, Wally?

Well, something happened there. Maybe a change in his psyche, how he perceives things - some strange realization that terrified him. Maybe he got angry at something. What it was? I have no clue.

Another addition that I think is interesting! Frank wrote to Wally describing the unusual bug he found. In the beginning of that letter, Frank says this:

"I know you would ask if you are here." Where is he?

The nature of how Wally and everyone communicates is so vague and weird! I think the telephones, the mail, the TVs - all these things are means of communicating, but there's no direct connection to us! Any time a phone call is made, they can't hear us. This I have inferred from the "It's for you!" Talking telephone toy! They can talk to us and we can hear them, but they can't hear us! What's causing this disturbance? That's the real bug here, and I'm clueless on what that means or how to break through the surface!

Most importantly! I think that Wally specifically trying to communicate with that one person on the WHRP team. That person... is experiencing a lot of heavy sh*t, because I think they remember Wally and the show. They're the closest person right now that's able to help him (either willingly or not!)

I also believe he's specifically working with that WHRP member because in the phone audio (the one you click on when interacting with the toy telephone on the merchandise page), he says:

"You have to go too. You have work to do."

From what I can interpret from the live interview, I think that it implies some semblance of back story! Wally did interact with people and the outside world during his prime in the 70s, when the show was really starting to pick up speed. He was calmer, more in tune with his character and fame. He was in character most of all, and I think being in character was a sense of identity for him that he could rely on!

But those secret audio files we hear from him now? He sounds desperate, like he can't breathe. He's practically breaking from his usual character. What did he realize? What does he know? All of those things boil down to this sentence:

"I will help you understand. I will find a way soon, Neighbor."

Wally (and Home?) are working away at a solution wherever they can I think that WHRP member is the key to that! (Although the methods of how they're doing it, i.e the black paint that apparently you shouldn't touch with bare hands, the mind-boggling phone ringing in that person's ears, the complete distortion of reality - definetely implies a few things.)

I also think that the highlighted in invisible ink is Wally's words throughout the email compilations and other documents! The one where he says "Im so sorry." - I feel like that's him showing some remorse for his actions there, but it's like a sorry that says "I'm sorry, I have to do this." kind of deal (which is... oof)

Also - quick note! Wally keep insisting on being let in, rather than being let out. "Let me in." - Let you in to where? Our world? Reality? Oh so many questions!!!

I also am curious about the WHRP staff too, and their interactions with the Question-Answerer, the Marlo company, the Playfellow Workshop! There's two sides to this story; the human side and the puppet one, and it's so multilayered here that at this point, I'm inclined to distrust what anyone on that website says until we know what's going on!

Lastly, I'm not certain how much we as viewers of this story are involved. While I believe that he's working to get that WHRP member to let him in, he does acknowledge us through the guestbook. Although, I don't think truly aware of how much we see him. i.e "idontknowwhatanyoneistalkingabout" line from the heart PNG.

While I want to believe that Wally can see us through our art, specifically when we draw or recreate his eyes, for engagement's sake (audio from this link), I also am inclined to believe he's refering to the eyes that the WHRP team member keeps drawing on those sticky notes and other places throughout the restoration site:

And and and!!! I think that there's got to be something upcoming with this link: https://www.clownillustration.com/error404

You find this link on the staff-only page at the bottom with the text "It's in here." And I think that with any future updates, the next section of the story will be coming from here.

AHH~! I rambled on too long! Hope you enjoyed it!

#welcome home #wally darling #welcome home arg #welcome home fandom #welcome home wally #skyepixels #welcome home theory #welcome home update #frank frankly #julie joyful #eddie dear #poppy partridge #howdy pillar #barnaby beagle

[treemaidengeek]

Hey, fellow spoonies! Got a min for a bit of writing that has absolutely transformed my relationship to my chronic illness?

This is from Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief by Jon Kabat-Zinn, based on his experiences co-running (?) a clinic specifically for people with severe unmanageable chronic illness & chronic pain. Part of the book is exercises, which weren't hugely impactful for me. But this section I've listened to over and over. It's been a game changer for me. Maybe it'll help you too.

Below the cut bc it's long.

"First, a working definition of mindfulness so we know what we're talking about when we use that word. You can think of mindfulness as pure awareness. In particular, the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment or reaction, to whatever appears in the field of your experience.

You already have awareness. It’s as much a part of being human as our capacity for thinking or for breathing. So you can always ask yourself in any moment: is my awareness of pain, in pain? and then take a look and see. You can also expand this line of investigation to ask yourself, is my awareness of fear afraid? Is my awareness of anger, angry? Is my awareness of sadness, sad? Very revealing and liberating exploration, as we shall experience firsthand.

Of course being non-judgmental and non-reactive sounds like an ideal. But it isn't, really, not in the way we’re talking about it. It's a way of being in relationship to experience, a commitment to--as best we can–suspend our judging for a time, and suspend believing in our judgements as being true.

Of course, we judge everything, and tend to react automatically whenever things are not to our liking. And we can be very emotionally reactive, especially when we're hurting. So as we shall see further on, and in the practices themselves, we just observe the judging and reacting when they arise, and–as best we can–refrain from judging our judging, or reacting to our reactions.

A number of principles, attitudes, and perspectives are important to keep in mind when cultivating a mindful approach to working with chronic pain conditions or any other distressing elements in your life.

Here are seven that are fundamental and bear revisiting and keeping in mind, and listening to again and again, just as with the meditation practices. We will be making use of them every day, and even moment by moment throughout the day.

1. As we said, as long as you’re breathing there is really more right with you than wrong, no matter what is wrong. And our work will involve mobilizing those interior resources of your own inner landscape, of your body and mind, to work for you to improve the quality of your day-to-day and moment-to-moment life.

2. One of those interior resources is the power of the present moment. The power of “now” is enormous, yet mostly we persist in living in the past or in the future, in memory or in constant anticipation, worry, and planning, most of the time. And we never realize and never recognize how powerful and healing it can be to inhabit this moment, the only one we are ever alive in.

So strange as it may sound, it turns out it is very challenging to actually live in the present moment, even though it's the only time we ever really have to do anything: for learning, for growing, for coming to terms with things as they are, for expressing our affection and appreciation for others, for loving. All this takes ongoing practice.

3. Of course we are happy to show up more in the present moment as long as it's exactly to our liking. But it usually isn't anywhere near as good or as pleasant as we would wish it to be. That is true even if we don't have a chronic pain condition that we could see as the cause of all our troubles.

Have you noticed how easy it is to always want things to be different from how they actually are?

We certainly don't want to inhabit the present moment if we don't like it, and we certainly don't like it if we are in significant pain. So we can easily get caught up in trying to distract ourselves and escape from the present moment because it's not to our liking.

4. Our usual options when faced with situations we don't like and wouldn't want anyone to suffer from, are twofold. As we just saw, we can turn away from them and try to ignore them or escape from them as best we can. Or alternatively, we can get caught up in obsessing about our troubles endlessly and feel victimized.

Either way we might (as so many people do) turn to familiar resources at our disposal to dull the pain, such as alcohol or drugs, or food or TV, even if those coping strategies don't work, are addictive, or have terrible consequences that may make our lives worse in the long run.

We might also get into the habit of being irritable, gruff, and angry a good deal of the time, out of our own pain and frustration. Or emotionally withdrawn from others and from life, distant, cut off, in a state of perpetual contraction of both body and mind.

None of these coping strategies make for much happiness and ease of being. Grinning and bearing it isn't much fun. And blaming all our troubles on the pain doesn't actually make anything any better, as we usually come to see at some point or other. This can just further compound our frustration and even despair.

5. There is a third way of dealing with painful experiences, a way of being rather than perpetual doing and forcing. One that involves neither turning away from painful experiences, nor becoming overwhelmed by them. That third way is the way of mindfulness, the way of opening to and befriending our experience, however strange that may sound.

We do this by turning toward what we most fear to feel and opening gradually, over time, and only to the degree that you choose, to the full range of our experiences in any given moment, even when what we are experiencing is highly unpleasant, aversive, and unwanted.

You could think of it as putting out the welcome mat for what is happening. Because whatever it is, it is happening already. Any attempt to turn away is really a denying of your situation, which doesn't help much. And succumbing to resignation, a sense of being defeated, or to depression or perhaps even self-pity will clearly only make matters worse. If we take the turning-away route, we will be turning away from the opportunity to learn from what the pain has to teach us.

If we take the turning-away route, even though it may seem simpler when we are in a depressed mind-state, we may never find openings, new possibilities, new beginnings, new ways of being that are available to us right inside our own circumstances and our own mind and body. We might not discover that we can become stronger and more flexible in the face of whatever it is that we are dealing with, discover new options for relating to what we are carrying – which is the root meaning in Latin of the word “to suffer.” The approach of mindfulness, of turning-toward and opening to our experience – even when it is difficult – can readily lead to new ways of seeing including new possibilities for coming to terms with our situation in the moment, whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not.

This is called resilience, an interior strength we can cultivate through practice. A way to live, and live well, with what life offers up for us: “the full catastrophe,” as Zorba the Greek called it – the human condition itself.

6. This path of mindfulness involves learning to open to experience moment by moment with kindness and compassion towards oneself, whether what you are experiencing in any given moment is pleasant, unpleasant, or neither pleasant nor unpleasant. And without judging the experience as good if we like it, bad if we don't like it, and boring if we don't have any particular feeling one way or another.

As we said earlier, that doesn’t mean we won’t be judging plenty. But we can form the intention to suspend our hair-trigger tendency to judge everything according to whether we like it or not, and also our tendency to react emotionally and fairly automatically in a similar way : with acquisitiveness, even greediness, if we like it and therefore always want it to last or want more of it; and with rejection, anger, hatred, or disappointment if we don’t like it and want it to go away.

So non-judging and emotional balance in the face of challenging circumstances will be factors we can cultivate in working mindfully with our moment-to-moment experience–not as ideals we try to impose on ourselves or strive to grab hold of, but as potentials already within ourselves that we can learn to recognize and bring into greater awareness when they do arise.

Over time and with practice, we may find that being less emotionally reactive and less harshly judgemental, and kinder and more accepting of ourselves and our moments–however they may be–becomes more and more our default setting, rather than anger, resentment, fear, self-loathing, and contraction in both the mind and the body. And since these kinds of contractions of mind and body usually increase the intensity of our pain, they just compound our misery and suffering. This is one easy way we can exert significant positive influence over our pain.

7. None of this has to do with making anything go away. We’re not trying to suppress our pain or “control” it, or suppress our emotional state. We’re not trying to fix anything at all–even though we may want to, or feel helpless and resentful that medicine cannot fix what we feel is the matter. On the contrary, we are just looking for a place to sit or to stand, a momentary refuge within which we can contemplate the present moment, and perhaps discover some respite right in the middle of things as they are, however they are. Amazingly, this stance of what I often call non-doing or just being can very quickly lead to things changing–since things are always changing, even our pain and our relationship to it.

But sometimes if we are too stuck in our thought-habits, in the same old ruts regarding our condition, desperate to get somewhere else or fix something you think might be broken, or else make it go away, our very desire and fixation may lead to its just staying around longer, as if we were actually feeding those energies, as if we ourselves are locking ourselves in and preventing our world from changing. The world and our bodies are always changing. That is a natural law: the law of impermanence. Everything changes. Why would we be an exception? So sometimes patience and forbearance may be called for, and good strategies for allowing things to change and even heal on their own."

#jon kabat zinn #spoonie #mindfulness #coping strategies #chronic illness #chronic pain #pain management #mental health #I just have the audiobook so I've made my best guess at kabat zinn's punctuation #I'm not affiliated with him or anything I just found his work super helpful and want to share #if it seems helpful to you you might consider checking it out from your library to hear/read more and to help him out as a writer #this is not mine! #in case that's not obvious

[phantoms-lair]

Batman Exalted Thing

Because thought experiments never stay thought experiments

~~~

"Thought you'd be up on the roof, Commish?"

Gordon turned to Bullock, "Why?"

"Signals up. Usually mean you want to talk to Bats."

Gordon rolled his eyes. Some rookie with stars in his eyes probably wanted to see the local vigilantes. He sighed and made his way up the stairs.

It wasn't a rookie he found, but a woman he knew he'd never seen before. She turn and looked at him and suddenly he felt like his very soul was being turned inside out and examined before everything snapped back to normal.

"You felt that." she sounded surprised. "Oh, I do hope he hasn't factored you into his plan."

"What was that? Who are you?"

"You may call me Quill." The woman nodded

"But that's not your name." he guessed.

She looked bitter. "I had to destroy my name to prevent magical tracking. Quill will have to do., for both of us."

"Tracking from who?" Of course Batman had appeared without notice. His full attention was on Quill.

"Ketchup Carjack." She answered succinctly.

Neither man responded for a moment. "Who?" Jim finally asked for clarification.

"It's not his real name, just similar sounding words. But he's one of those 'I demand respect' types, so I give him none on principal." Her cool façade fell as angered colored her tone. It was clear to see it wasn't just a matter of principle, she despised whoever she was talking about.

She turned her gaze to Batman. He had a notorious poker face, but years of knowing him let Jim see his discomfort as the woman's glanced at him and knew batman was feeling the same inside out feeling he had.

"You're a meta." Batman observed.

"I am something entirely different. More magical than meta. And I will explain more later, but lets get to the meat of this meeting, shall we? Ketchup is going to try to empower you and your family of vigilantes to create a permanent foothold between your world and his so he can conquer it and I'd rather like to stop him as I hate his guts and everything he stands for."

"So he's going to offer us power and we have to refuse." There was a lot in that statement that needed unpacking, but that seemed the simplest thing.

"No. He's not offering. He's going to manipulate your fates to give you power, then offer to teach you how to use it, make you a political power and through that become the true ruler behind the throne." Quill was practically growling. "And you can stop him from empowering us?" Batman pressed.

"Er, no. My plan kind of relies on you being powered up." Quill admitted awkwardly. "Look, if you can make your own fates read-only so he can't mess with them, great. That's a win condition and I can go back to hiding in the underworld until he tries again. If not, don't knock my plan of you don't have one of your own."

"You're defensive. Frightened." Batman observed.

"Of course I'm frightened!" Quill snapped. "I lost everything because I didn't know how to stop it! And now I'm trying to stop this from happening ever again. But I am one person with powers I don't really understand and even if I did they are NOT made for this kind of thing. My exigence is based around stories. And the only story I've found that can block Ketchup's world off from the multiverse is of a ritual called the Seal of Eight Divinities, which I couldn't do myself even if I was a sorcerer, which I'm not. And the only people with power that Ketchup can't track are the fair folk, the demons, and the undead, all of whom want to destroy or at least conquer reality, so my only option for help to power this is letting the monster who destroyed my life mess with other peoples." Batman sat on the structure of the bat signal next her her, his body language changed to the one he used dealing with scared children. And seeing the crying woman in front of them, Jim felt that was a more accurate reading of her that the cool and collected persona she'd first tried to project.

"This isn't the first time he's tried this, is it?" Batman said in a gentle voice.

"He tried it the other way first. When our worlds got close he grabbed a bunch of us and tried to force us to Exalt. That's, um, that the word for this power. He can't manipulate the fates of other worlds as easily. So he brought us to his to make it happen naturally. But to exalt in his world you have to prove yourself to the gods and that's dangerous and..." She gulped. "He lied. All he does is lie. He told us our world was going to be destroyed, but would be spared if we proved out worth as representatives. The others died, but for some reason I was chosen. My power was stories and when I looked at him, I saw his." "I saw his lies. Our world was never in danger, his was. He was the leader of a group of shadow manipulators who controlled fate through magic and deceit. But his very manipulations had brought their world to the brink of collapse. His work had disrupted the protectors because they were threats to his rule, and now the enemies of existence were at his gate. But he couldn't even acknowledge it to himself! As far as he was concerned if things were failing under his leadership, then they were always destined to fail and nothing could fix them. So he just had to find a new world."

"But when realities touch, it's brief. It wouldn't be enough for him to move his whole operation unless a bridge was formed. Something that joined the two worlds, say a mortal from one world empowered by the other. I knew I had to stop him so I broke my story. I erased all of it from before he caught me. So there was nothing to tie me to my original world. Not even memories." She sounded so lost, but in a way she was. So lost she didn't even have a concept of home.

"Why come to us? Why not try to contact the Justice League directly?" Batman inquired. "This may be starting on Gotham, but it sounds like it would be a global problem." "Three reasons." Quill explained. "The first is that Ketchup has narrowed his focus down to Gotham and I don't want to give him ideas about expanding. The second is as far as I know, Ketchup does not know I'm here, nor that I'm actively plotting against him. Outside help being brought in before he's even made a move will let him know something is up and may cause him to escalate or be harder to pin down. And the final and main reason-" Quill shuddered. "Cash and Murder Games on Superman."

Jim and Batman waited for further explanation, but when none seemed coming a prod was necessary.

"Is that some sort of gladiatorial colosseum?" Jima asked. "It's a ...spell is the wrong word but get the point across without going into semantics. It's one of Ketchups favorites and allows him to define the relationship between two people."

"Such as defining himself as 'beloved master' and Superman as 'devoted servant'." Batman deduced.

"Exactly! And that's far from the only mind manipulation tool in his box. They can be resisted but given Superman's specific vulnerability to magic-" Quill looked deeply uncomfortable.

"How much of the Justice League have you looked at thee way you looked at the Commissioner and myself?" Batman inquired.

His tone wasn't accusing, but Quill flinched. "A lot. Your world depends on knowing who was safe to trust, And as with Superman, not just in terms of morality. I am well into desperate times." She gave a self depreciating laugh then took a breath.

"Justice League Dark I would trust to got over the ritual to see if it needs adjustment to this world, but the magics they use would be incompatible with casting it. On the ground, if it were called for, my first choice would be Wonder Woman. Shazam as a last resort. Dr. Fate...would be a potent ally, but I don't think I'd be able to work with him personally. But then again I'm not sure what use I am on the ground either."

"Why is Shazam a last resort?" Wonder Woman made sense, and the issue with Dr. Fate seemed to be a matter of clashing personalities, but Shazam being a last resort seemed...odd.

"He has his own things he's dealing with, As a fiercely independent person, he doesn't want or need help, but I'm loathe to put another burden on his shoulders."

"Fiercely independent?" Batman raised an eyebrow.

"Can you name one times he's asked for help instead of volunteered it?" Quill challenged. "Also you might want to talk to him about workshopping a new name. Or not. It's his...I shouldn't have said anything." She pulled out several file folders. "Here, this is all the relevant information on Ketchup and different Exaltations. And the ritual. Um, I don't have a phone or anything, but I we can set a meeting time if you have any questions."

Batman pulled a small phone from his belt. "This is a burner. We can use it to contact you or vice versa. Do you have a place to stay?" "It's not hard to hide in Gotham, at least not with Ketchup having trouble with fate."

"Not back to the underworld?"

"Not if I can help it. But still better than Hell."

Batman shared a quick glance with Jim. If half of what Quill was saying was true, this woman likely had severe PTSD. They'd need to look into getting her help after the crisis was over.

"I'll have Justice League Dark look over the ritual. We'll go from there."

#Ghost Writing #Batman #Exalted #Exalted Players know exactly who Ketchup is #Quill mostly exists to be a source of information

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

Hi! Happy lukewarm Tudum day, I hope you're having an okay one :) all things considered... If you're taking asks right now I'd love to hear your thoughts. I've been reading again about attachment styles (secure, avoidant, anxious, and I think another I'm forgetting right now) and it got me wondering about ST characters and how they might fit in these categories. I remember kaypeace21 mentioning attachment style in an old post (the one about parentification) but it wasn't a focus. Any thoughts? Thanks either way! ^_^

I haven't really been keeping up with Asks, to be honest. The past school year was very rough, as I keep getting additional responsibilities as I'm there longer (without decent pay, of course). Now that it's summer, though, I suppose I have no more excuses. I think I knew I'd never be able to just walk away from this community.

So, attachment styles. This is a difficult thing to really get into since we know very little about most characters' early childhoods. Attachment styles are rooted in the attachments developed with caregivers in infancy, though they develop from there. That is to say, someone who forms an insecure attachment in infancy isn't doomed to treat all social relationships that way forever. These initial bonds do often tend to influence later bonds, though.

This is going to be a long one, so the rest of the post is under the break.

The attachment styles you mentioned go back to the work of Ainsworth in the late 70s. She devised the Strange Situation observational experiment, which involved an infant child being introduced, separated, and reunited with a caregiver and an unfamiliar adult. Attachment styles are determined based on how the child reacts to these situations, demonstrating how much security they derive from their caregiver. What constitutes a caregiver can vary based on culture and individual circumstances, so it need not be a parent/guardian.

The four attachment styles based on this theory are as follows:

Secure Attachment: To the child, the caregiver is a secure base from which they feel safe to explore unfamiliar situations. The child is upset when the caregiver leaves, but the bond isn't damaged, and the child is fine when the caregiver returns. This is the result of a healthy bond between caregiver and child. Funny story, in grad school my classmates and I got a look as to what this might look like in dogs when my professor brought his dog to class. The dog enjoyed coming up to all of us as long as my professor was there, but he left the room for a minute to fetch something, closing the door behind him. His dog stopped sniffing around all of us and immediately went towards the closed door. My professor walked in a moment later, and the dog's tail was rapidly wagging. I'm not aware of any research into whether this theory holds for dogs or other animals, but it was an interesting thing to watch given that we just learned about attachment styles.

Insecure Avoidant Attachment: The child avoids the caregiver, interacting little with them, and not being upset (or even noticing) their departure. The child may avoid eye contact when the caregiver returns. The bond, if it was ever there, is not re-established on return. This is generally the result of a caregiver not being emotionally available to the child. It's can be, but is not necessarily the result of abuse or neglect, as an emotionally reserved caregiver can unintentionally withhold affection. These children often come to see attempts at bonding as being met with hostile or dismissive reactions. A child like this could grow up to see self-sufficiency as the only way to go, as they don't expect emotional reciprocity, and will avoid getting too close to people, favoring more casual relationships.

Insecure Anxious-Ambivalent (originally Insecure Resistant): The child becomes very distressed upon separation, clinging to the caregiver, usually while crying. However, upon return of the caregiver, the child resists reattachment, sometimes to the point of kicking and yelling. This can be the result of inconsistency in the caregiver-child relationship, resulting in the child being confused as to how to navigate it. The child essentially never knows when anything will be ok, resulting in great distress whenever a situation is unfamiliar. A child with this attachment style may be afraid of abandonment, and could continue carrying that fear with them as they grow up if the situation continues that way. They may feel unworthy of love and need regular reassurance.

Insecure Disorganized: The child appears confused and/or afraid. The child shows some aspects of both avoidant and resistant styles, but there's a marked difference in intensity. The child may actively fear their caregiver, and it can be a sign of an abusive caregiver and/or childhood trauma. As a result, there's a real lack of any clear pattern of behavior relating to the child's relationship with caregivers. Survival could be a matter of reacting to individual situations without any real underlying schema having been formed. A child with this type wants love, but has no idea how to get it.

I dare say that most of the cast probably has a Secure Attachment style based on their behavior in the show. There are some exceptions, however. I will not be trying to classify El, as her, ahem, unique socialization complicates matters.

Mike Wheeler: I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he has an Anxious-Ambivalent style. He can be very emotionally reactive and sullen, and he does seem to have a fear of loved ones leaving him. This could potentially be the result of Ted's lack of emotional reciprocity. Karen was likely a very loving mother during Mike's infancy, but Ted being closed-off could have resulted in a lot of confusion for Mike. Mike gets clingy, suspicious, and jealous with loved ones when he suspects things aren't going well. This comes from his fear that he's not good enough for their love, and, as a result, he's deeply touched by Will's reassurance in the van, likely owing to his low self-esteem.

Will Byers: He's a tough one. He doesn't seek out relationships, which suggests Avoidant, but he has one loving parent and one asshole (later absent) parent, which suggests Anxious-Ambivalent. At best, Lonnie was emotionally distant, if not outright abusive. However, we know Will has great bonds with Joyce and Jonathan. I suppose it could be argued that there is still a lack of consistency, as a result of Joyce having to work a lot and Jonathan being a kid himself, but we don't know enough about how that worked in Will's early childhood. He does lack the emotional reactivity that goes with Anxious, though. I'm going to lean towards Avoidant, though, as Will does seem reluctant to get too close to anyone. His first friendship was with Mike, and Mike made the first move there. We don't know how he met Lucas and Dustin, but I can't see him taking the initiative based on what we know about him. He also befriended both Max and El because his friends did. He seemingly made no friends in Lenora, and, unlike El, he didn't seem to care much. His focus seems to be more on not losing his current relationships, particularly Mike.

Jonathan Byers: Insecure-Avoidant. He's very similar to Will, only he's had to serve as the caregiver for Will, which might complicate things. I'd say he's definitely Avoidant, though. He has no real drive to form relationships. His relationship with Nancy developed only because he spent a couple very traumatic weeks with her where they pretty much had to bond to survive. He did genuinely like her, but he likely never would have attempted to get into a relationship with her under normal circumstances. Now that he's in it, he's terrified. He's in too deep, and he has no idea how to handle that. He's afraid it's going to turn out like his parents' relationship. He's friends with Argyle, but it seems to be a largely casual friendship (up until recently, anyway). Argyle being an outcast stoner is probably what made him an appealing friend for Jonathan, as he doesn't have to worry about emotional closeness.

Steve Harrington: Insecure-Avoidant. We know he doesn't have a good relationship with his parents, who never seem to be around. He's confident and easy-going, likely the result of having to learn to fend for himself emotionally. He's had several shallow relationships, both platonic and romantic, owing to his fear of getting too close to someone. We only see him get close to three people: Nancy, Dustin, and Robin. All three of those relationships we can see Steve get antsy about being too close. He fears that Dustin is choosing Eddie over him. He was devastated by Nancy saying their love was "bullshit." And he's almost afraid as he confesses to Robin that he developed feelings for her. When he pushes through his fear, he's able to really click with people, but it always requires a real feat of courage from him.

Ok, I can't do anymore than that, I don't think. There's others who would be interesting to look at in regards to attachment, but, like El, have too many complicating factors. Hopper has had trauma in his past with Vietnam, his daughter dying, and his marriage collapsing. We don't know how he was growing up. Max has dealt with divorced parents and an abusive stepbrother, so it's hard to determine what might be the result of attachment style and what might be the result of her own traumas.

I do enjoy your thought-provoking Asks, though. I've missed doing these types of psych analyses, which is a bit ironic considering it's largely what I based the blog on when I originally created it.

#stranger things #attachment styles #mike wheeler #will byers #steve harrington #byler #jonathan byers

[submalevolentgrace]

hi hello, sorry it's another amputee question, idk if you get tired of these. i found your blog and i like how you share your experiences, thank you for this. im abled myself but im writing a story, and i want my main girlie protag to have a prosthetic leg and here's the thing, i dont really have a reason for it. i guess it says something about me, don't know what, but i just don't know if that's considered, well, offensive, or rude, or something. i don't plan to have any focus on it in the story. the medium is a comic so it's going to be always visible as a prosthetic, but i don't want to explain it in-story either, no backstory, she would probably just have it since early childhood. it won't affect the plot. and that's where i don't know if that's even okay. it feels weird to want that, to include that, almost as if i need to somehow turn the story about it, to have some kind of statement. which i don't actually want to make or even feel able to make as never experiencing it. i want for her to have a prosthetic leg just because. and i don't have anyone to ask this, and i don't mean to offend you by this, and i apologize if i somehow did. but if it's okay with you to answer, i'd appreciate reading. if it's gonna be an angry rant i'd like to read it too. i know you're an upper body amp, but idk, i feel like this question isn't much about the use of prosthetics and more of the general amputee characters, and im scared to ask reddit, i don't even know if that ask made sense. thank you if you read that all, please don't feel pressured to answer. hopefully you'll have something good that brightens your day a little!

thank you, i actually really appreciate this ask! sorry that the response is long and wordy, i got a bit carried away…

so, i've gotten a lot of asks/dms/notes from writers asking about how to write their amputee characters/ocs after my big "writing advice" post, and i think i've ended up ignoring every single one of them, because… well, not to be rude to all those people, but they seem to have completely bounced off the whole 'know why you are writing this' thesis, too caught up in the excitement of their own fantasy to even notice the bit about understanding your own intent as an author and why that matters, let alone really engaging with it. and at that point, i don't think there's any advice or feedback i can give that would break through, especially when it seems what most people are seeking is little details and nuances to add authenticity to their token representation characters or unintentional stereotypes.

but, without any other details or nuances that shape a character's portrayal, based solely on what you've said in this ask, i feel like you're on the right track and probably gonna do fine. the thing that sticks out most clearly to me is how you phrase it, "i WANT to write a protagonist to have a prosthetic leg", you are acknowleding your role as omnipotent author, and i honestly think that's worth a lot more than many people realise when it comes to crafting fiction. you've acknowledged your desire for this character to be a certain way, and you're being introspective about the source of those desires and how it will come across - and that means you're almost certainly also thinking about how it interacts with the rest of the story, how it serves your themes, and how it will be interpreted and understood by the audience.

a lot of responses or people asking me for advice say things like "i am writing a character who HAS an amputation", implying it's an observable fact, pre-concluded before their authoring of them, and therefore something they're much less likely to examine critically. maybe it's unfair of me to draw such deep conclusions from shallow choice of language, but firstly, so many people have been far more obvious about it, saying a character "revealed" or "told" them about the amputation, or just straight up talking abot them as independent entities with their own agency, as if it's a biography and not fiction. and secondly, what are we even doing talking about improving the craft of our writing and how it will be recieved by the audience if we're not going to think about how framing affects interpretation? if someone is reaching out to me asking for writing advice, you bet i am going to assume this is a person who wants to improve the details of their own writing craft, and i'm going to critically engage with the tiny snippet of writing they've given me and analyse how it reflects on them, even if it is "just" a tumblr interaction. i don't even consider myself a writer really, the art i mainly dedicate myself to is music, but i still put careful thought into anything i write that's more than a few sentences, and think about the audience it will be seen by.

sorry, that's a whole other tangent… not at all about what you asked. but by way of example and segue back; what i see you reveal in the writing of your ask is a nervousness and anxiety to 'do well' in your writing, to create a character with an amputation in a way that holds up to scrutiny and criticism, and also a fear of what unfortunate things you might be saying and the responses it would provoke if you misstep. i can totally understand that, not just because you messaged me and i personally have a track record of going off on people lol, but also… yeah, people are very eager to judge and attack art based on a hidden metric of how 'well' it does 'representation' or handles things, and be vocal about the failings of things that make an earnest attempt. and i can see that it's very appealing to want to pull back and hide from that; a character who has a prosthetic leg opens you up to your audience critiquing how well you've handled it, most of them not amputees, many of them with the subtlety and media analysis skills of a sledgehammer… while if you write a story with no amputees in it, nobody has anything to critique.

unfortunately, no matter how well or carefully or authentically you write, there will always be someone engaging with it in bad faith yelling loudly about how awful you are; i recently made a short sharp post giving a trigger warning for medical abuse and body horror in the new zelda game that painfully evoked some of my own experiences, i still got people reblogging it telling me i'm ableist for saying disability is body horror (piss on the poor reading comprehension) and should apologise to all amputees (waves my one hand and nub around in a comical hello gesture). maybe that is on me for writing it quickly in an upset huff instead of making at least two proofreading and editing passes and oh geez, this is getting waaay too long and off topic. okay, to the point.

honestly, from what little you've told me, to be overly reductive, i'd give it a stamp of approval. sometimes people just only have one leg and that's fine, people are born like that, it's a thing that happens - and it doesn't need to shape the entirety of their lives, and reflecting that in fiction is more than just fine, i think it's what we need. sure any amputee character i write is going to be an overt commentary on ableism and medical abuse, because that's what i live, that's what affects me. but i know because i've watched their stuff on youtube, that there are so many people out there that were born limb different that just, don't care about it, and it doesn't really affect their life at all. if your protag has a prosthesis, sure she's had to get fitted for it and train for it, and it might benefit you to do an afternoon of research into that if you want to see how it might holistically flesh out her worldview (look up osseointegration vs external sockets, if you want keywords to help, look for patient experiences instead of doctors).

but also, if her other leg has finished growing and she's got a prosthesis that works, she may not have thought about it literally for years, maybe decades depending on her age. i had braces as a teen and it has zero impact on my life, i've had foot and back problems in the past, and it's irrelevant to me now other than getting new off the shelf shoe inserts every few years. i can think of at least one (australian) celebrity with a pretty long and successful comedy career who most people don't even know was born without one foot, it's just not relevant.

sometimes people just have things going on in the background that don't matter, and sometimes characters should have something just going on in the background too, no matter what "save the cat" sort of writing advice tells you. sometimes cutting literally everything out of a story unless it serves the plot or themes is bad actually, and i guarantee you, even as a hand amputee, i would absolutely LOVE to see a leg amp character who is just having a life, doing other plot relevant things. especially much more than i want to see all the characters of people leaving tags saying some version of "thanks OP, now i can write the suffering and torment of my oc much more authentically". think of the hypothetical little girl born without a leg that just wants to see someone like her.

and finally. what i think is maybe at the core of your anxiousness, at least to my read of your ask. you've thought about your role as author and self reflected about why you want to write a character with a prosthetic leg, and you can't find an answer in you, and you're not sure if that means it's something bad. well, assuming good faith from you, i think that's fine too. people who fetishise prostheses or amputations, people obsessed with the suffering or (percieved) depenedncy, or whatever else it is that makes them yearn to write their hacky awful robot arm characters; they probably don't do the introspection, and if they did, they'd find their answer right away (horniness or power fantasy usually), although i doubt they'd be honest with themselves about it, let alone others. assuming good faith and honesty, if you can't find in yourself WHY you want to write this character with a prosthetic leg….. it's probably just a harmless aesthetic preference.

if you wanted it to do cool things or make her more powerful or more special than others or be endless inconvenience and suffering or make her the chosen one because of it or something, that'd set off alarm bells for me yeah, and i'd be reading into it as a much more harmful aesthetic choice, and responding much more aggressively. but if you want to write a story about other things that features a protagonist who just so happens to have a plausibly normal boring prosthetic leg…. that seems fine to me, honestly. i tend towards having characters with certain hair and eye colour combinations that i find aesthetically pleasing, and as long as i'm thinking about how that could come across and trying to avoid any pitfalls around fetishisation and nastier implications, i think it's probably fine.

there are really only three concrete pieces of advice i would give you:

one, when you've got a cohesive first/beta draft, try to find at least one sensitivity reader who's got as similar disability experience as possible to your character (lower limb, same kinda circumstances, same general use of prosthesis), and listen to their feedback.

two, while i totally acknowledge that leg protheses can be super useful everyday kit for many people, i still have a general aversion to "this character NEEDS a prosthesis or they're helpless" readings, and many people don't want to or can't use leg prostheses… if it were me doing it, i'd make acknowledgement of that, and in a visual medium like a comic, i think that's as simple as having a single panel showing your character waking up in bed without the prosthesis, and maybe at her home there are forearm crutches leaning against the wall as background decoration. maybe if you have any scenes where she's woken up in the middle of the night, or interrupted before being fully dressed for the day, you could show them in use. but that's a personal value suggestion from me, your judgement or sensitivity readers might disagree on the importance of that.

three, you will absolutely need to establish as early and overtly as possible that the prosthesis and amputation DOES NOT MATTER to the story or her character arc. people still very much have a default normative body in mind when engaging with fiction, and anything that deviates from that will 100% be interpreted as a checkov's gun that they will be anticipating and theorising about going off, unless you squash that down. if you want to make a statement about it not mattering, unfortunately i think you're going to have to spell that out as obviously as possible without breaking the fourth wall, or else the audience trained on existing robot limb tropes will be waiting for the traumatic tragic backstory or secret rocket booster to become relevant.

but also…. i'm just some bitch on the internet, talking like i'm more important than i am, getting loudly angry about limb difference when i'm a pretty recent and unusual addition to the group myself. so like, don't take anything i say as absolute, and while it's always good to listen to others, at the end of the day you still gotta synthesise all their thoughts into your own.

i don't really have a nice concluding statement other than to say, thankyou for appreciating my post, and most importantly, thankyou for caring about the craft of writing enough to critically analyse your own authorship, and being curious about how to improve on a sensitive topic.

[thebroccolination]

How would you describe Team and Win in personality wise?

Aaahhh, these asks make me so happy. :')

Thank you, Anon. <3

SO! One of the reasons I enjoy Win and Team so much individually is that they both have nuances and layers that stand alone well and complement each other.

I'm excited to learn more about them as the series continues, and I think what I've written below is going to evolve over the next ten episodes but! based on UWMA, the unfinished novel, and the first two episodes of BU, I think I'd describe them like this:

Team's a competitive extrovert. He's the reason the traffic light gang are friends, and he also befriended the ABC gang in, like, record time. The boy has mastered the virtues of kind, disarming, and friendly. APPLAUSE FOR TEAM. He has incredible anxiety and probably PTSD and a fear of the thing he loves but the (tol) little dude can sure as fuck make some buddies along the way.

I also think Team is the kind of person who takes most things at face value and doesn't have the patience for or interest in subterfuge or nuance. A situation is what it is unless he has reason to think it's not. I think that can be mistaken for him being a little ditzy, but I think it's just that until he's invested in something, he's not interested.

Like compare how he is from one week to (presumably) just a few later when it comes to his physical relationship with Win:

The first time, he's caught off-guard and he's processing an entirely new experience. So he just asks "what's going on" and then answers Win's questions. The second time, he's proactive! He's actually done some research in the meantime! He's not as nervous anymore, and he actually hesitates a lot longer before following Win than he did the first time. He seems to understand that this isn't a "one"-night-stand anymore, so he's consciously choosing to go into new territory.

I think that's why he asks Win to clarify what's going on and what they're doing, because he doesn't know. He's not ditzy, he's just focused on a few areas (swimming, keeping his scholarship, friends) and he needs extra time to process something new and unexpected (WIN PHAWIN).

He's also good with people not just because he's friendly but because he's perceptive. Like, during the foot-washing scene, he catches on to why Win is upset with him without Win saying literally a single word. He knows Win wanted to be shown some gratitude or appreciation for taking care of him.

On the other hand, we have MY FAVORITE SON PHAWIN.

Win is pragmatic partly by nature and I think partly because he's decided it's the safest way for him to process his emotions. He's not as idealistic as Team can be because he has no firsthand experience of whimsy or the freedom from obligation to be spoiled. He's doing everything he can to get the spotlight from the oldest son and the baby of his family. He doesn't get attention or praise without fighting for it. (See above "thank you".)

His whole conversation with Team over their breakfast together is pretty revealing, I feel, because on the one hand, it's amusing that Win's like, "Okay, we have ten seconds, here's my whole deal," but when you consider that he probably doesn't get asked very often, it could be that Win's learned to share first in case no one asks.

Win's also the one who keeps reaching out to find out more about Team, and it's good that he's able to do that, because Team probably would have eaten in silence and left if Win hadn't spoken up.

Throughout the episode as well, he keeps noticing when Team shows extra interest in him.

He notices because he wants to be noticed, but what Team notices isn't what he usually stands out for. He dyed his hair and pierced his ears and tattooed his skin, he plays sports andd does well academically, but the things Team notices are things like Win's family wealth (something Team had to look up on his own) and Win's tendency to take care of others (something Team had to observe). Win closed the car door because he was so delighted and surprised that Team was so interested in him that he looked him up online.

Win's also not above directly asking Team what he has to do to spend more time with him in his room. Like, Team isn't sick, so does that mean Win have to leave? What would Win have to do to make Team want him around?

Ultimately, what makes their relationship most compelling to me is that they may have very little in common on the surface, but at the core of it:

Team sees Win

and Win sees Team

And I think that's why there's such a focus on balance and equality between them (ha) despite their gap in age and experience. They're two sides of the same coin. Hot and cold, red and blue. <3

#winteam #between us #between us the series #kiranokira answers

[crucipuzzled]

About Psychiatry stuff in SPYxFAMILY. Part 2

In Part 1 I covered some aspects of working as a Psychiatrist in a Hospital. We still have some things left regarding this topic. In Part 3 I'll talk a bit about Psych exams and wrap some minor details and the question about Donovan's head scars in Part 4.

Thank you for your comments in Part 1! You guys make some really interesting points, it's a pleasure to talk to you. I've noticed that some of you are asking for an psychoanalysis of the Desmonds. I may do so in a different series of analysis, but pinky promise, I will talk about Donovan's head scars in Part 4, as I wrote less there.

Let's go!

4. The rest of the Psychiatry Department staff

Aside from Psychiatrists and intern med students, every Psychiatric Unit in a Hospital has nurses, psychologists/therapists (I'm aware that they're not always the same in some places, particularly in the USA), occupational therapists (OT) and social workers, between the most common professions.

The OT is kinda a new addition since the profession is relatively new compared to the others, and its inclusion in Psychiatric Units started around the 70s, focused in social rehab (a really important task). I think SPYxFAMILY takes place around the 60s so I'm really not sure if there is an OT here.

Are they all joyous like in the manga? Well...

5. What's the hardest part of the job?

For what I've recollected from talking with Psychiatrists, the hardest part of the job of a Psychiatrist working in a Hospital is dealing with real nasty shit coming from psychotic patients. I remember a young Psychiatrist in a Psychiatric Hospital that told my class of the time when she had to physically restrain a patient from gouging his own eyeballs out of his eye sockets, because he couldn't stop seeing demons and horrible monsters. Or the ones that paint the walls with their own feces. As I said, real nasty shit.

Of course, this goes for the rest of the staff as well. Not a very happy place to work, but you gotta do what you gotta do for the patients's sake.

Still, fortunately we live in an era with more tolerance towards psychotic patients, and social rehab is very appreciated (although its value may depend on your country's public health policies). Also, most psychotic cases don't behave in such an extreme fashion. Hopefully one day science will discover the definitive cure for Psychosis.

Are you a Psychiatrist and have a different opinion? Please write in the comments below!

-Ok but talk about what Loid is saying in those panels!

Indeed, nobody can read minds. Even if someone could, I wonder what exactly that person would see. I mean, try to concentrate in what is at the top of your own mind for 5 seconds. A ton of thoughts came rushing, right? Some of them very shady, even if they just flashed for less than a second.

But, we have our tricks to discern what is the most important issue for a person. Listening to our patients free of pre-conceptions is a basic rule. Observing their behavior is another. You can't start to listen if you don't work on a relation based on trust, of course (something that, indeed, nobody can teach you how; good luck figuring it out, use this bunch of tips though. Best wishes, your Psychotherapy teachers).

That said, there are many things that you can listen and observe from one single sentence said by a patient, depending of your understanding of the human mind.

A famous baldy named Michel Foucault wrote a book titled The birth of the clinic in which he claimed that modern Psychiatrists operate under what he called the medical gaze, which is an attempt to put a group of symptoms into a gnosographic cathegory (aka diagnosis) regardless of the actual subjective experience of the patient. This implies that Psychiatrists, like any other doctor, need to determine a diagnosis before doing anything else, and care a bit less about the patient's experience.

This isn't something bad. Imagine having someone trying to gauge his eyes out of his head to stop seeing demons in front of you. Would you ask that person how does he feels, or what he associates with the demons? Now, it's slightly problematic when you, as a Psychiatrist, deal with neurotic patients.

Neurosis is the direct contrast of psychosis; you're either living in a paralel reality, or in this one. You, dear reader, and I, are both neurotics. The fact that we are neurotics doesn't mean that we are sick; it's just a psychic structure. Now, we could get mentally ill, in a lot of ways. There's a ton of diseases listed in the DSM-V if you feel curious. But we probably won't experience hallucinations and say Meh, here comes Charlie the Satirus again, wazzup bro.

Operating under the medical gaze logic makes things way easier for Psychiatrists, specially when they don't have much time to develop a relationship of trust with their patients, like in some Hospitals. We therapists cover the rest of the job, performing psychotherapy and operating under a listening clinic. I'll illustrate the difference with a really burd example:

Let's say that you have been having a hard time trying to sleep at night for a while, and you decided to look for help. A behavioral therapist will teach you techniques and excercises to fall asleep more easily. A psychoanalyst will try to make sense of your symptom by making you freely associate it with whatever comes to your mind. A Psychiatrist will listen to your description of your symptoms, write "Insomnia" in the diagnosis and prescribe some benzodiazepine. Easy peasy, come see me again in one month.

Of course, not every Psychiatrist is like this; I've met some helluva awesome ones working in Hospitals. But once again, wether they're allowed to display their full potential or not is a matter that strongly depends of every country's public health policies. Psychiatrists do receive training in psychotherapy and they can take their time to talk with their patients, but having the conditions to do so is a completely different thing. If you want to be treated by a full-powered Psychiatrist, your best shot is to consult in a private clinic. Mind your wallet though.

Seems like Berlint General Hospital is a really nice place to work for Psychiatrists, as they apparently can hold psychoterapy sessions with their patients. PLEASE HIRE ME

6. The consultation room

It's pretty common to depict Psychiatrists and Psychologists as the guys sitting down next to you taking notes while you are laying down in a divan talking your sorrows away. But have you ever wondered why it's always a divan?

It all starts with old sweet Sigmund Freud in 1890. By that time he was just staaaarting to think that maybe hypnosis wasn't the way to go for female hysteria, and the idea of an unconscious mind wasn't developed yet. On that year, a female patient sent him an elegant divan as a thankful token.

Golly, thank you miss! But what the heck do I do with it? The only possible thing, of course! Cover it in persian rugs and make your patients lay down on it while you tried to hypnotize them.

Remember, we are in the 1890. By that time, there were still doctors that believed the only cure for female hysteria was generating a 'hysterical paroxism' (too embarrassing to explain here).

Less than 10 years later, Freud realized that hypnosis didn't cure female hysteria but noticed that his patients got better after talking about it. So he decided to just sit down and listen to his patients lying on the divan, thus inventing the Free Association method, which is, basically, talking about whatever comes to the top of your mind and associate it with whatever comes next. Before you realize it, you're talking about the actual cause of your mental suffering.

THIS. WAS. REVOLUTIONARY.

While their patients laid down in the divan, Freud was sitting right behind them, like in this photo:

-Why like this? Why behind?! Are you some kind of pervert, you Freudian fiend?!

No. The reasoning behind this is transference, one of the most important concepts in Psychoanalysis, Psychology, Psychiatry, and pretty much every kind of Psy-discipline. Transference is what makes a psychotherapy work and yield its results. It also explains why psychotherapy fails, when it does. It's similar, not equal, to what Americans call "therapeutic relationship" or "therapeutic bond". Transference made to the world of Psychology what the Industrial Revolution made to the world.

-You're exaggerating. What even is transference, anyway? Wait, don't answer I was kidd-

In every relation you establish with someone there's a quota of transference, which is the subjective place in which you put that other person in relation to you. This subjective place stems from your own relationship with whoever took care of you in your very early years of life: your mom, your dad, your older sister or brother, an uncle, a nanny, a caregiver from an orphanage, you name it. It doesn't matter who, as long as that person was interested in you enough as to preserve your life and make you feel like your life has value.

We are born in such a helpless, defenseless way that our strongest desire is to be the object of attention of someone else, to be desired enough as to be feed at least 3 times a day. Of course, if you're actually loved in the process, the better. Desire here doesn't have a sexual connotation; it's to mean something for someone else.

To mean something for someone, even if you end up meaning shit for that person.

Sometimes, meaning shit is way better than have no meaning at all and being completely ignored as if you don't exist for anyone. I've seen this in a bunch of cases of victims of domestic violence. It's quite sad.

In psychotherapy, patients inevitably stablish a transference with their therapists, who act like a white canvas in which the patients display those early relationships and how they affects them. Notice that I'm using the present tense; transference is something that changes little over time, unless you decide to explore why you choose the kind of friends you always choose, or why you always fall in love with assholes, or why you feel like you can't tolerate your boss anymore despite him being a good person.

-Get to the point, goddammit!

In order to facilitate transference, Freud decided to sit down in an angle in which his patients wouldn't see him. The reasoning was: if my patient can't see me, I'm more of a white canvas for him/her, and transference will be easier to discern and analyze.

The divan is no longer used in modern day except by some Psychoanalysts, but it's just tradition to have a divan in your consultation room if you are a therapist, as a form of homage to the man who changed our understanding of the human mind forever.

I've never seen a divan in a Psychiatric Unit of any Hospital, and actually, its absence makes sense, because you must NEVER, EVER, PUT A PSYCHOTIC PATIENT IN A DIVAN. NEVER. NOPE. NOOOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE. They can't tell reality from hallucinations apart, and if you have THE SINGLE WORST POSSIBLE IDEA of sitting behind a psychotic patient in the divan, you'll only get the patient think that your voice is another hallucination and make everything worse for him/her AND FOR YOU, FOR BEING A NEGLIGENT IDIOT. If the patient ends up hurting you, YOU WOULD DESERVE THAT. Just use a regular face-to-face interaction.

Aaaand oops, I did it again. I wrote a lot. There are still some things I want to write about, so see you in Part 3, dear reader!

#spy x family #spy x family manga #psychiatry #psychoanalysis #analysis #This is what happens when I'm jobless

[wrotelovelytears]

interpretation of Scorpio sun conjunct Venus in a natal chart?

Ohhohoho do i have words about this placement.....

Whatchu you mean by that?

A through lashing about Scorpio Sun/Venus

🥏People with this placement most def have issues with women in particular (not feminine energies).

🏍Its not all women either, its specifically more masculine (trait wise) women. The combination of the Sun's masculine energy and Venus's feminine based energy is the root of this.

🥏There is a tendency to favor Taurus like behaviors and/or Taurus people themselves.

🏍Yes this is partially due to Venus influence and the other half of it is it being the sister sign of Scorpio. One might take joy in cooking, homemaking activities, and physical comfort due to this.

🥏This combo can not stand people who are surface level.

🏍In fact they probably already know, they just wanna see if you gonna lie about it.

🥏Emotional vulnerability is something these people don't truly struggle with. I know many people say Scorpios (in general) have a hard time with emotional vulnerability, and this placement in particular not only wears their emotions on their face (yes you getting judged, no I don't actually care enough to do anything about it), they have a strong will to share their emotions with others. As well as encourage it.

🥏"mAyBE iTs MenTaL ILlneSs" Not to diagnosis anyone, but that oversharing and level of self hate ain't normal my good pal.

🥏I'll be honest I think this placement is a lot more sensitive than say a Scorpio Moon. Why? Again the active showing of emotions, not only that their self worth (as the 2nd house/Taurus rules over that, therefore Venus is tied to it) and how others see them is part of their ego.

🏍Yes that does mean ego deaths for this placement is actual hell. Their emotions and personality have to constantly change to deal with not only outside stressors but internal ones that are self imposed

🥏This a side note (and also a slightly biased observation), people might not be correct about your sexuality.

🏍So from what I've noticed (this might apply to Scorpio Sun and Venus placements as a whole), is that because you carry yourself in a certain manner, people misjudge your sexuality. It could be from heterosexuals being assumed gay/bi to gays/lesbians being assumed bi (at the most hetero). I'd say its partially due to Venus influence making people "more feminine than their peers commonly are" as well as Scorpio's general mysterious vibe. It makes it hard for people to pin point what you do and don't like because you exuded "I exist 🧚🏿‍♀ Im an experience🧚🏿‍♀" energy.

I'll use myself as an example, people (even my close friends) think I'm bi, and I'm actually a lesbian. I have been told countless times "I just look bi", "i don't have very lesbian like mannerism" and "am I sure???"

🥏I'll be honest this placement is OVERsexualized by probably everyone. Like my God, of you see a sexual astrology post, guess what placement you'll see. This isn't healthy for them however, it just furthers the idea they are only sexual objects to others and only liked when preforming sexual acts.

🥏Learned from an early age that people are unusual (derogatory). These native have had to deal with all sorts of projections and behaviors from those around them. It leaves them questioning why people act the way the do. Might even spark that interest in psychology (and the occult) to figure out why people do what they do

🥏Got bullied for their appearance when younger just to be praised for those same things when an adult.

🏍The Sun technically rules over how we are seen as adults (so the Rising doesn't have the same energy as when younger, unless your Sun is in your Rising). Its not that one was an ugly duckling, its more others weren't paying that type of attention to the native and as their Sun became more prominent so did their beauty (Venus plays that role)

🥏Another sexual note: This placement has a tendency for masochsadism. Being both the sadist and masochist in not only sexual but romantic situations as well.

🥏Most likely (and I'm sorry yall, it must be said tho) base their self worth on how attractive people see them.

🏍Its not like they want a relationship with said folks, they just want to be affirmed that they still got it.

🏍However this can lead to some maladaptive coping mechanism (staying in relationships that arent healthy, seeking external validation from people, engaging in things they don't want just to be seen etc)

🥏Since I'm on a "please get help" trend right now, I'll point out another big problem: Doing things just to feel something 🥳

🏍Yall thought Sags (and Pisces) were bad with their lack of concern for their safety. Wait till you meet Scorpio Sun/Venus. I'm not sorry at all, but the way maladaptive coping mechanisms (especially ones involving the senses) can become ones' whole being, is scary. I mean these the people to do drugs, not because their friends are but because they really down. The type to have multiple flings, just to feel the warmth of someone else because their own is gone. The type to self medicate, to see if it brings some new spark in their life.

🥏This placement struggles with feelings of grandiose and emptiness, typically at the same time.

🏍Grandiose is largely when they are seen as attractive, social (on their own terms), and flirtatious. Empty is when they heavily involve themselves in the material and physical world as a means of survival.

🥏Loves to beautify the darkest of things. Almost like a "light at the end of the tunnel" but more a "there is light inside the tunnel if you look for it"

🥏Piss shit relationships 💀 There's not other way to word it besides, relationships are typically toxic (or straight up abusive). These people tend to give a lot more than they should (as Scorpio is meant to receive just like Taurus) and then get confused why someone is treating them bad, and further excuse the behaviors (until it starts pushing their moral boundaries). (In no way am I excusing others treating someone badly, I'm simply pointing out a commonly seen theme)

🥏Amazing love advice. If you want an honest opinion on your relationship or potential one, a Scorpio Sun/Venus is definitely the person to go to. They will not only see patterns others don't, they won't sugar coat anything (no matter how much they love you).

🥏Not as attracted to/comfortable with masculine energies (gender neutral) as other placements. In fact might steer away from overly masculine people in general due to past experiences.

🥏Likes forwardness. Not obtuseness.

🥏Would definitely smile while being choked.

🥏Loves kids. Will they openly say that idk, depends on their fifth house sign.

🥏Really enjoys music and might even enjoy dancing and singing (when alone)

Images this placement remind me of:

Songs this placement reminds me of:

I Disagree- Poppy

Only- Zhu (feat Tinashe)

Wish You Well- PVRIS

Wild Thoughts- DJ Khaled (feat Rihanna and Bryson Tiller)

Siren Song- Maruv

Mary Magdalene- FKA Twigs

Human- Sevdaliza

Its Only- Odesza (feat Zyra)

Stuck with Me- The Neighbourhood

The Warmth- Koda

Let's Link(remix)- WhoHeem (feat ppcocaine)

Die a little bit- Tinashe (feat Ms.Banks)

Beings this placement reminds me of: Sirens (and water nymphs), Djinns (as a whole), Vampires, Phantoms, Phoenix, Pontianak, Banshee, Echidna, Nyx, Manticore, Sphinx, Abaia, Harpy, Succubi, Huldra, Anitu

Sorry, this honestly could've been better written, I'm currently having an AP depression moment and writing something is at least a way to get my mind off... Well itself.

(If you learned something new or would just like to support me you can leave a wittle tip via the tip button or one of the links in my masterlist. Ko-fi: nymphdreams 🧸)

#astro tumblr #astrology #astroblr #astro notes #astrology observations #astro observations #astrology tumblr #nymph writes astrology #scorpio #scorpio venus #scorpio sun #sun venus conjunct

[gynandromorph]

Any tips on how to put thoughts into words when you have schizophrenia? I find a lot of your insight really just hits the nail on the head with this fucking disorder. For me it's like a translation game, but I've never really processed either language.

turning any thoughts into words is usually a huge mental task for me -- people are like but why did it take you 10 months to answer my DM or what's so hard about transcribing pages for fresh meat why isn't it done why can't you do it gray and it's because i'm tired and the process of having to put what's in my head into words gets more and more burdensome. you see this huge wall of text right here? that's literally because i eased up on some standards i might usually have for interacting with people. let me try again.

a while ago, i made a post that said to express a thought is to fundamentally change nature of the thought, and i was being trite, but i was also being quite literal. there are two specific, identifiable areas of your brain that Make Words Happen. the rest of your brain, which is the majority of it, is what experiences the thought. even though they are directly communicating, the parts of your brain that create thoughts and the parts of your brain that create words are not the same parts. it is literally a translation process.

what you feel and what i feel differ; therefore, what we'll do to communicate those feelings will differ. for me, i communicate my thoughts and ideas how anyone can -- through the principles of writing. why reinvent the wheel when billions of other people have already blazed a trail for communication? there is a reality in front of me that i need to translate, and there is a reality in my head to which these skills are also applicable. with concision comes clarity. the clarity of concision comes from understanding the clarity of your purpose in translating the thoughts. not every thought exists for a purpose, but words only come into existence with a purpose. there are so many thoughts in my head. they all want to be expressed at once, but if everyone talks at once, no-one's voice is heard. understanding my purpose in the tiresome task of Making Words allows me to create a microphone for one facet to talk at a time. critical in this skill was cultivating an understanding that i don't need to express the full thought because no one will ever understand the entirety of my experience -- including me. even i will only experience portions at a time dictated by the conscious parts of my attention. i can only assume that you feel you haven't fully processed either the thought or the language used to express it due to these two facts, because those are primarily why i feel them. in my experience, psychosis and even a mind carrying the burden of dormant psychosis tend to see many things as important - meaningful, maybe to a fault. as the mind attempts to create narrative with the importance, the meaning rendered can frequently be inaccurate or impertinent to reality. a glance from a stranger; too many spam calls in one day; observing a show about murder on tv; noticing the standard poison control message on your toothpaste; hearing a creak you didn't listen for before in your apartment -- all of these can seem important, and add up to something like… there is someone following me and they're going to kill me, i just know it. not all of these perceived webs of importance manifest as psychosis, yet i've noticed that they happen anyway, and they are often not comprehensible to other people when i attempt to explain them. ironically, i've assumed these two observations are related. interestingly, people tend to categorize and comprehend importance subconsciously, and they tend to do so based on repeated motifs. my motifs may be a little different -- then my brain fabricates less average meanings. if they are too off-base, the motifs don't line up at all with other people, and they can't use the similarities to understand what i'm saying. i bring this up because i believe that cultivating an awareness of importance, as a sensation in your head, can be useful for navigating the dense noise of thought. it makes purpose more obvious.

my only other tip is try visuals or sound instead sometimes. many things i notice aren't words at all; visual rhymes are very common points of importance in my head. we experience the world through a multitude of senses, and none of those senses are language. :)

[rohirric-hunter]

@isi7140 so last night when I was playing Skyrim with Radanir he displayed a weird propensity for. Putting himself physically in between me and enemies I was facing. Which is not something I have ever observed in a Skyrim NPC before.

Other followers will push past you to get to enemies, but what Radanir was doing was quite distinct. We cleared out a couple of dungeons, and Radanir would regularly abandon fights he was already having in order to go and place himself between me and an enemy. One time I ran away from a fight by dropping down into a pond in the bottom of a cave, and the bandit I was fighting started to run through a series of twisting tunnels to get to where I had landed, and Radanir abandoned the other bandit that he was fighting to chase the one that had gone after me. But he didn't start fighting him until he had gotten in front of him, blocking the narrow tunnel and preventing either him or the other bandit from getting out of it. Another time I ran away from a fight with a single bandit to heal. When I started to run away, Radanir was on the other side of the bandit from me. But when I turned back around, he was again between me and the bandit. I let the fight play out a bit before I rejoined it and Radanir did not move from that spot.

Once or twice is a random coincidence, but this happened consistently over the course of about three hours. With Skyrim's vanilla followers, this never happens. They move around way too much and their only clear intention in fights is to get to the enemy, or get a clear shot at them. The only time they get into a certain spot and don't move is when you walked into a tiny little room, at which point they'll stop in the doorway and refuse to move to let you back out of the room. (To be entirely fair, Radanir did this too.) Occasionally they'll do a thing where they'll circle around an enemy, typically when the enemy is blocking and they're waiting for the block to drop, but again, they move based on the enemy's position, not the player's. And when Radanir did this, more often than not he would stop between me and the enemy, even when the block was still up and he had plenty of space to keep moving.

This actually isn't the first time I've noticed this behavior: all three Rangers also behave this way with each other. A lot of my testing and learning with the Creation Kit is done by simply spawning a bunch of bandits or some trolls into the camp and watching how they handle the ensuing fight, and I'd noticed that when one of them enters bleedout something similar happens. IDK if you play Skyrim so quick explanation: when an NPC is tagged as essential, meaning they can't be killed, and their health bar reaches zero, they enter "bleedout," where they fall down and cannot move or act for a little while (longer if they keep getting hit while they're down) until eventually they'll regain a little health and either rejoin the fight or run away, depending on if their AI is set to "Foolhardy." You'll occasionally see non-essential NPCs enter bleedout, but not very often because usually a hit bad enough to send them into bleedout just kills them.

Back to these specific NPCs: if all three of them are in a fight and one enters bleedout, the other two will go and stand over him until he gets up again. If more than one of them are in bleedout, they will make their way towards each other and huddle together. I thought this was odd, but didn't think anything else about it, because I assumed their behavior was influenced in some way by their relationship: as far as the game engine is concerned, they are all siblings, and I haven't experimented with how vanilla Skyrim siblings behave in dangerous situations, so for all I knew it was normal. (Typically NPCs in bleedout don't move at all, much less make their way towards... anything, really, but I haven't experimented extensively with it.) However, them behaving that way towards the player is very odd, since they aren't siblings with the player -- the player is noted simply as a "friend" and their relationship status is actually as low as it can possibly be while still having them available as followers. So any vanilla follower in the game is going to have at least as good a relationship or better -- and yet none of them do this.

My current theories are limited: either I changed some setting while customizing their AI that made this happen and didn't realize I had, or it has something to do with enabling dual-wielding or the custom classes I made for them, which are the only things that I consciously and intentionally changed that set them apart from vanilla followers. Or. Maybe my custom Skyrim followers are becoming self-aware. Always a possibility, I guess.

#rangercamp #its worrying because. how did he learn to do that #i didnt tell him to do that whats he doing that for #sweet for obvious reasons #also kind of funny because as an essential npc he has the plot armor now #'look at me. look at me. i have the plot armor now' #long post #also #maybe next time i do a test or just play around with them ill record it #i swear im not reading into it his behavior is actually different

[polarbearqueen3527]

I posted 1,189 times in 2022

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I tagged 72 of my posts in 2022

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Longest Tag: 140 characters

#i'm mutuals with someone else who also regularly says noted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

To start this post, a disclaimer: I'm not qualified to talk about this. This doesn't mean I can't, or that I'm automatically wrong, but it does mean you should not put me up on a pedestal. This also isn't to say I have no experience. This post is a combination of ideas from my observations of sped / other programs for kids with disabilities, as someone who sits right on the border of needing that help. It's also based on ideas from temple grandins book "Animals in translation", from the anthology "what every autistic girl wishes her parents knew" written by autistic women, and a few other books by autistic authors. With all that out of the way, let's get started.

One thing I've noticed is that people working with people with disabilities who don't communicate verbally in a fluent manner, either by talking or by using sign language or a talker, is that they tend to forget they're working with people. They don't nesscesarily forget that the person they're working with is human and should be treated with appropriate respect, but they tend to forget that, even if they can't express their thoughts and feelings, they may still have them. I've never seen someone ask what's bothering someone in shutdown or meltdown, and, as someone who does get those, that's absolutely a question that should be asked. When someone goes into shutdown, what I tend to see is people pushing them to start acting "normal" again. They don't process that a shutdown or meltdown IS normal for them. A shutdown or meltdown is someone taking the time to self regulate. Stopping people from doing that is like stopping someone who is too hot from taking off a jacket. It's harmful. If added up again and again through repetition, it can be abusive and traumatic. Imagine that instead of someone going into shutdown, you have a baby that's crying. (Please note that I'm not saying disabled people are like babies) you could shout at it, or physically hold it's mouth closed. But everyone knows that's abusive. What you do is try to figure out what's wrong, and fix it. The same goes for so many other situations, and that should include people with disabilities. Don't force them to act like neurotypical people, and don't assume that the way they emote is the same. For instance, when I'm in pain, I don't cry. It's not that I'm holding back, pain just doesn't make me feel like crying. A disabled person may well know what's wrong, even if they're not sure how to communicate it. Reach out to them, and help them do it. If you have to physically restrain them, you're probably doing it wrong.

7 notes - Posted February 16, 2022

#4

Special really weird love languages:

Yelling at someone for binding unsafely

Leading someone so that they can close their eyes at a party with flashing lights that don't work well for them

Sharing your favorite stims

Taking care of someone's emotional state

Cooking people their favorite cookies

Simping about your partners to people

Talking about your own somewhat different special intrests/ hyperfixations and they talk about theirs

Telling them when you discover a piece of media you think they'll really like

8 notes - Posted May 19, 2022

#3

So I got a long sponsored post (missed the sponsored part and the blog url) and I was like huh what is this post looks like a story that's cool

Looks like letters to a character called yisarael maybe it's from jumblr

Saw the url looks kinda christian hmm

And then this line and I knew oh so christian

(screenshot reads grant me a place in the marrow of your bones)

Like how do I know this is Christian? Idk, but my friends agree

9 notes - Posted May 7, 2022

#2

This post is about accommodating people with food allergies, and written by somebody with allergies of a variety of severities.

First, know that:

Not all allergies are life-threateningly severe.

Every single allergic reaction is different: not just depending on the person and/or the allergen, either.

Not all food sensitivities are allergies.

Allergies are different from gluten intolerance, lactose intolerance, and celiac disease.

Allergies do not just affect children - some people grow out of their allergies, some don't.

Allergies are not just to the "major" allergens (peanuts, treenuts, sesame, dairy, eggs, wheat, milk, soy, shellfish and latex)

Some people are fine as long as they don't eat large quantities of whatever they're allergic to, and some people shouldn't even be in the same room as their allergens.

Contamination (allergens accidentally getting on things) can be in foods and drinks, on objects or hands, or airborne.

Not everyone with allergies needs or carries an epi-pen or benadryl.

An allergic reaction can be mild enough that only the person having it notices. Just because you can't tell someone is having an allergic reaction doesn't mean it's not unpleasant for them.

Some people have to worry about cross contamination. Some don't.

Never try to test if someone is faking an allergy. Best case scenario they no longer trust you, worst case scenario you're now a murderer.

Listen to people about what they say they need.

If you decide not to alter a recipe so someone can eat it because you don't want to, you're being an asshole.

If you cook for anyone you don't know well, make sure you at the very least know what major allergens are in the food.

When someone says they'd rather not risk contamination and won't eat the thing you made, it isn't because they don't trust you not to do your best. It's because they'd much rather have a 100% chance of nothing happening than try your food and have a small chance of having a very unpleasant day.

Some people are ok if there are trace amounts of allergens. Some aren't.

Not all allergies are anaphylactic.

Please reblog, but don't feel obligated.

13 notes - Posted April 10, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Hey, everyone, what's a literary device you enjoy writing with?

I'll go first, I'm a big fan of repitition.

43 notes - Posted October 13, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[onethousandrbirds]

hey! sorry to ask, i'm just curious but i cannot figure it out — what is the one that's suspiciously missing from those bad kink posts? (i tried looking at the notes for clues but lasted about a second before being taken out by the people asking this random person on the internet what kind of sex they're allowed to have. i feel like i'd need... idk a psychology degree to even begin to understand how someone gets there.)

oh, no big. i wrote both of my posts to be both playfully obtuse—you were never going to find clues in the notes b/c i don't think anyone there noticed the same thing i did. also this might be a bit long, so feel free to skip down to the TLDR; under the cut

so in both linked posts that i was responding to the overall thesis is "being pro-kink doesn't mean loving all of them but it does mean recognizing that what consenting adults do together is neither a moral failing or any of your business" and they mention some controversial kinks (ageplay, cnc, incest shipping, fauxcest, petplay, somnophilia, intoxication kinks, and much more¹) as an example of this idea.

because they name kinks that people often find themselves having intense feelings about re: their morality and their ethical performance, i noticed within these lists a lack (technically a lot of lacks since it would be impossible to list off every controversial kink in existence, but that's neither here nor there in this moment). but for example, in posts that gesture towards this overall idea of "pro-kink" or "neutral support of kink" often seem incapable of recognizing that kinks based on bigotry—race play for instance (this will serve as my main example for the rest of this response)—exist as well.

and my observation that i was originally talking around was that perhaps kinks like that one can't be brought up alongside the others (regardless of the baggage they all may carry) because maybe the OP really does think that one is a unique brand of evil or because their knowledge of kink is pretty limited and thus their own perspective of their idea might be limited or because they recognize that to even broach that topic with something that degree of abject would get a theoretical reader to stop listening entirely. but who knows for sure though?

like, that particular kink does make me VERY uncomfortable (for obvious reasons, i hope) and so whenever i see posts like the two linked here that gesture broadly to "scary" kink being okay but somehow never seem to mention ones like this, i get suspicious. and that's not a ding on either of these posts i'm responding to! instead it's me doing a meta thought experiment of sorts. like the posts are right: if you are "pro-kink and pro-weird nasty gay sex" then you do have to accept that there's gonna be something in that classification you will find abject but your disgust doesn't define the morality of those acts. however! it's pretty easy to remember that in the face of kinks that maybe only exist as abstract ideas and that you may have only dealt with in the theoretical space rather than ones that may (or may seem) to effect you on a material level!

which brings me back to the absence of mentioning certain "bad" kinks. i've been in school studying literary analysis for the past 12 years of my life. one of the earliest things they teach you to do is "observe what a text is saying, but also what it is (or can)not." and so when i see posts like the two linked above i can't help but find it interesting (in a completely neutral sense, i swear) when i notice these recurring absences. i also can't help but speculate about them either, but speculation requires active thought which i might not always have the wherewithal for.

(and to digress re: the weird discussion you noticed in the notes: that just sounds like people cosmically missing the point to avoid thinking about the matter at hand.)

so tldr; there isn't a "one" actually. i was just observing that, even in a laissez faire approach to kink, something has to still remain unspeakable or unmentioned—especially when communicating to groups of people who might stop listening entirely if one takes the laissez fair perspective to its logical conclusion in an explicit manner or if one feels that perspective might require them to "accept/like/tolerate" things which may be pretty dang close to sources of harm in their everyday life.

i hope this all made sense/helped

¹ the "and much more" in this post technically covers the wide swath of even more unforgivable/unspeakable kinks but notice: still it cannot/does not/will not name drop them specifically and instead rhetorically relies on you, the reader, to fill in that blank for it

#medium post? #sometimes i talk back #friendly talk with gray faces #if it wasn't helpful we can talk about it more one on one later

[zosonils]

since there’s this rumour going around about sinnoh remakes with let’s go catching i just wanna say - i really hope they don’t do that because while the let’s go catching mechanics were fun enough and served the game they were in well they also took away one of the best things about pokemon which is that even if you have really poor reaction time and/or motor skills, whether it’s due to disability, inexperience with video games, or anything else, you can still play it. a lot of video games have gameplay that’s built around quickly responding to prompts or performing complicated actions, and while it isn’t inherently a bad thing for a game to have gameplay like that it does present an accessibility issue. pokemon on the other hand has no reaction time gameplay except for fishing and some of the minigames like poffins and what have you which makes it way way more accessible to people who physically can’t keep up with other video games. the let’s go catching mechanics, however, are a huge difficulty spike compared to baseline pokemon in both dexterity and reaction time, and catching pokemon is a central game mechanic. catching in let’s go wasn’t particularly hard for me because i’m physically abled and have been wrangling motion controls since wii sports, but there’s a lot of people who don’t have that experience or physical ability and would have found it unfairly difficult or impossible. even if you put the switch in handheld mode with the joycons attached [or use the pro controller i think? i don’t have one so i dunno how it controls] the reaction time thing is still a problem and like, obviously playing your switch on a bigger screen shouldn’t be locked behind physical ability

this post is going nowhere and they probably won’t announce sinnoh remakes anyway but i dunno maybe it’s worth thinking about

#this is absolute word vomit garbage and i'll probably delete it later unless people are especially interested in it #please do take this post with a grain of salt because as stated in the post i'm physically abled if underwhelming #so this isn't from experience this is just what i've noticed based on observations/things other people have said