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#but yes there’s often a problem with pathologizing normal things
tortellinigirl · 2 years
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I feel like recently, ADHD has kind of become shorthand for “a person who is annoying online and has no real problems,” and I don’t really think that’s awesome news, given the context that ADHD has a long history of being disregarded as a made up disorder that’s just an excuse for poor/obnoxious behavior, no matter how much scientific research proves otherwise. ADHD is not by any means the only disorder that has people making a thousand misleading tiktoks about it, so perhaps do some critical thinking about why specifically ADHD has become the poster child for that behavior. There are certainly valid criticisms to be made of the way we discuss mental health online, but maybe use your brain and determine why this disorder in particular is the one that’s easiest to point at for being “annoying” and “not that big of a deal.”
#idk maybe if u actually watched a couple of the tiktoks u might learn that the lack of focus thing is reall not the main issue#its just what the people around us are most likely to notice and be bothered by#not saying it doesnt get obnoxious seeing people say the same thing over and over#and yes some people are like purposely vague and disingenuous about the symptoms to get views from people thinking they have it now#but i see that with everything. like autism PTSD depression OCD anxiety#im always getting tiktoks saying that im a lesbian or i have repressed memories or “x normal thing is a symptom of y disorder!!”#and yes its annoying but its probably somewhat helpful to people who actually are dealing w those things#and also like. if u simply stop treating ur for you page like a crystal ball that sees into your soul and reflects it back#and realize its just an algorithm designed to make u interact whether thats bc u like what u saw or fucking hated it#then u will not be as bothered !#but yes our generation seems to have a habit of constantly trying to find the right box to out ourselves in so we can be like. “marketable”#like people seem to want to design their personality like an movie character or something#but its so shitty that we’re dog piling all that on ADHD as if our specific disorder has anything to do with it#also personally i think its kind of normal to be really focused on a particular aspect of your identity when u just discovered it#and it usually evens out and just becomes part of the background of your identity#but yes there’s often a problem with pathologizing normal things#but i think its important to recognize that lots of things that are normal occasionally are pathological in excess. like thats how it works#like we’ve all been through how being sad sometimes is not the same as depression#why cant we grasp that occasionally going into a room and forgetting why you’re there isnt the same as ADHD#my posts
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yuniper · 1 year
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i usually like to stay quiet on all things discourse related but i really feel like i have to say something about this: it's not "pathologizing" for neurodivergent people to recognise themselves in fictional characters
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sokkastyles · 16 days
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I hope you don’t mind me sending in asks every so often, because I really love your blog and I like reading your opinions/analyses of ATLA’s story and characters. What I want to talk about is this one trope in fiction that I’ve always liked and wanted to see more of, which is “Person A sees characteristics of Person B’s personality or abilities that are kind of morally dubious or complicated and possibly less than desirable (depends on what the ability or personality trait is) and even though Person B has complicated feelings about what they saw, they never flinch or look away from who Person A is.” Because I’m obsessing over Zutara again, this made me think of the scene where Zuko sees Katara bloodbend for the first time and while he is momentarily surprised, his facial expression goes back to normal quickly. Something similar happens when he sees her waterbend while confronting Yon Rha. I really wish we had gotten a scene where Zuko and Katara actually talk about her blood bending abilities, though the main reason I wanted this isn’t only because of the potential for another Zutara moment. I also really wish the narrative had utilized bloodbending more and that we had gotten to see more of Katara’s complicated, ambiguous feelings about bloodbending (and yes I know she didn’t like bloodbending in canon, but I wish we got to see her be a bit curious about it or not knowing how to feel about it before she decided that). What are your thoughts about this? Is there anything about Katara’s bloodbending that you wanted to see explored in the narrative as well?
First of all, I love getting your asks! They are always very well thought out and insightful! I think you sent me another one that I didn't get a chance to respond to yet because I have been very busy, but I'm not tired of getting asks from you at all!
And I do think an underrated aspect of Zuko witnessing Katara bloodbend is that it's validating to him as an abuse survivor, as a fellow child of war who also lost his mother, as someone who deals with anger issues, to see Katara bloodbend and be able to control her bloodbendinng in that moment.
I do not think that Zuko was intentionally living his revenge fantasies through Katara or encouraging her to commit violence. We've actually seen both Jet and Hama try to do that to Katara and there are some distinct differences. If you recall the way Jet and Hama talk about their actions, and the way they try to get Katara to also do those things, they appeal to her with specific language. They appeal to her anger, specifically, telling her to think about what happened to her mother. They take joy in assuming that she is just like them and has sunk to their level.
When Zuko talks with Katara about Kya, he does not focus on her anger and loss and the need for revenge. Instead, he tells her that Kya was brave. When he sees himself in Katara, he doesn't see negative. He sees someone who is angry, yes, but also someone who isn't controlled by that anger.
Part of the problem with the way antis talk about this episode and Zuko or Katara specifically is this pathologizing around whatever "fantasy" they think Zuko or Katara might be engaging in. And let's be real for a second. It is actually incredibly common for abused children to have revenge fantasies about their abusers. Like, incredibly common. But it's something that is not talked about very often because we don't like to think about it. When it is talked about, it is usually in terms of the person becoming violent themselves.
I do think that Zuko wanted for Katara the same thing he got with his father, the chance to confront him and to walk away, to not be goaded into violence or sink to that level. But that doesn't mean it isn't also incredibly validating for Zuko to not only watch Katara have power over this man, but to be able to exert enough control over that power to be able to walk away.
Which is similar to what Zuko does with his father. Zuko doesn't want to be angry anymore, but that doesn't mean he suddenly becomes a doormat. And when he faced his father, he was prepared to fight if he had to. He brought his swords, he redirected lightning right at Ozai's feet. He made it clear that he could have hurt Ozai if he had wanted to. But he has enough control over that anger not to. Directionless anger is ultimately similar to intrusive thoughts of revenge, because both make the person feel helpless and out of control.
Also my piping hot take is that Aang was afraid of Katara's anger because he himself never learned to control the Avatar state, whoops.
Anyway, I love that Zuko has that moment when he maybe sees a bit of his old self, the part of himself that was angry and wanted to hurt people because he was hurt, in Katara, and it surprises him. But now he's wise enough to have compassion for himself, and for her by extension, and understands now that that anger comes from grief.
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tobi-smp · 2 years
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Can I ask your opinion on something?
Do you think being poly makes you queer? Not necessarily LGBT+, just queer. I’ve seen a few of people say no, and I’m really wondering what you might think, because you talk about this kind of thing a lot and seem really knowledgeable on it
So sorry if this bothers you!!!
To address the end of this ask and your follow up ask first: you have nothing to worry about, I don't mind questions like this at all (though it was a bit of a surprise to see it’d been sent here rather than my main). you just happened to message me while I was in the car so I couldn't respond right away!
that said, there is no point in gatekeeping against people who are marginalized by our amatonormative cishet society from the Marginalized Sexual Romantic And Gender Identities Group. literally everybody benefits from solidarity and nobody is helped by exclusionism, there Is no upside to looking at someone’s suffering and saying that it’s not important enough, that it’s not good enough, or that it doesn’t belong to them, or that it doesn’t look enough like you to Count.
so my answer to “should this marginalized identity have a space in our community” has been, in the space of 10 years of me having an opinion on it, a Unanimous Yes.
to talk on polyamory in particular, it’s genuinely ridiculous to me that it’s even in question in the first place.
1: polyamorous people are Legally discriminated against, with marriage being solely monogamous. this has all of the same problems that are tied to gay marriage being illegal. there’s the mundane of taxes and the extreme of partners being barred from their loved ones in medical emergencies, but it goes even further than that. landlords denying people the right to roommates that aren’t legal partners or family members, for instance.
2: polyamorous people are Religiously discriminated against, with the christian mindset being that marriage is intended to be between One Man and One Woman. many religious zealots view polyamory as just as other, just as deviant, just as Sinful as they view gayness.
3: polyamorous people are Socially discriminated against, with even non-religious people viewing it as other, questionable, or even Immoral because monogamy is the dominant cultural standard. you’ll see the same arguments used to demonize and pathologize gayness used against polyamory, often times without people even realizing that these two mindsets are comparable. that the same societal standards that deem that heterosexuality is “normal” (heteronormativity) also creates the idea that monogamy is “normal” (amatonormativity).
and on top of all of this, polyamorous people face Erasure and Misinformation propagated By the society that stigmatizes and discriminates against them.
now, I greatly dislike the idea that we need to line up a list of oppression stats in order for a marginalized identity to “count” or to Belong in our communities, but I bring all of this up because having solidarity with other marginalized communities is the most effective way for marginalized people to gain the social power needed to combat systemic, legal, and social discrimination. 
when we say “x marginalized group doesn’t belong in our communities Because” what we’re saying is “x marginalized group Deserves To Be Stripped Of Their Ability To Fight Back Against Discrimination Because I Do Not Want To Defend Them.” which is both Cruel, and Ridiculous on account of the fact that Solidarity Goes Both Ways.
allowing polyamorous people within queer spaces means that polyamorous people will be heard and protected within our communities, but it Also means that polyamorous people will be there to Hear And Protect Their Fellow Community Members. that is literally the Point of community. which is why, like I’ve already said, there is literally no downside to inclusivity and there is literally no upside to exclusivity. we Strip Away our power as a community by cutting ourselves up and gatekeeping who can and cannot add to the pot.
on another note, I’d like to address something that was small within the ask, but that I have a lot to say about:
on a personal level people are allowed to identify with certain terms and communities and not others. if someone wants to be queer and not lgbt+ or lgbt+ and not queer then they should be allowed to, it’s as much a choice on community and acceptance and comfort as the choice of identifying as pan vs bi is.
but the idea that as a Community we can or Should decide which marginalized identities “count” as lgbt+ vs “just queer” At All is absolutely outrageous to me. and I don’t say this against you anon, it’s clear you’ve seen people talking about this and are now trying to understand it conceptually. but from a fundamental level it is Absurd.
the point of “queer” as a label and as a community is both in radical acceptance and in rejection of the status quo. which means it’s very appealing for marginalized identities and presentations that face backlash even within lgbt+ spaces. 
but this fact Doesn’t mean that these identities Should be excluded from lgbt+ spaces, it doesn’t mean that we Should be allowing people to gatekeep the lgbt+ community. the idea that a marginalized orientation could belong to one but not the other is giving the lgbt+ community to exclusionists, it’s Giving control of these spaces and communities over to bigotry and lateral aggression. 
nobody should be Forced to use any labels that they don’t want to claim, nobody should be Forced to align with a community that they don’t want to be apart of, but that Also means ensuring that we leave all of these labels and communities open to anyone who Does want to align with them.
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jonathankatwhatever · 6 months
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It’s 22 Sept 2023.
We used to call these Confusions and Complications. They’re interchanges, with lots going on because so many permutations exist within that space. I used to call the effect ‘bouncing’ because you approach on a thread and suddenly you realize you’re somewhere else. This is the basic issue which prevents people from being able to address their problems: they literally bounce off them. You can tell by how much they displace and how they displace.
And I just ended up in a horrible place in which there was a bait and switch. There was a clear entrance to that cave, through analogy to immediate connection and thus concern to a sudden flip. And it hits like a thud, and I’m sitting here trying to find where the weakness is, which is my attractiveness to mine own self. That’s interesting because I’m much further along with that than I ever expected to be. I can see many more ideals in my body, posture, and face. I really liked my hair, so of course I cut it and I like it now too because I wanted to open up my forehead. I’ve been noticing that lately, so I sort of knew it was coming. You’ll be pleased to know I largely stayed out of the way and let him do his thing. Showered and used a little shampoo. I wanted it clean enough to form naturally into the kind of hair bundles my head normally produces. That’s what I want to bring out more. Just checked: found that I can get behind ideals from both perspectives. Get behind is literal: I have to shift the Observer to the side so the various iterations of me necessary to get a clear view of the ideal line up.
That literally says there are multiple representations of me and these line up to generate a clearer approximation of Triangular. Felt like that rings the bell. Uh-oh, approximation of Triangular means IL. So that’s the idea hidden in there. Representations of myself count, and since they count, they count to the IL at any moment, meaning they generate within whatever is visible to me. That means I could have a highly distorted view of myself, like with anorexia or pathological shyness.
Have to interrupt regular programming to say there should be a place for Jewish tacos. Smoked whitefish tacos are insane. And all those other dishes, like Jewish brisket and kreplach, all fit to taco forms. Must be places like this. And I made rice with cut up firm tofu, Korean spicy paste, Korean pickled radish in ‘sauce’, scallion, and 2 eggs. Truly delicious. I love the fruity tangy spiciness.
Chasing the highs. It is an addiction. Was it worth the wait? Yes. I really only started to feel that way for sure recently, when I realized the ideas I’d thought were excuses were actual explanations. Like that this held me in a state of Confusion, preventing me from being able to focus taking the simple steps necessary to avoid the condition I’m in now. I can blame myself for doing that, but I look at what it is I’ve been doing, and thus where that impulse comes from, and I see that this has been very good for me. And I see my actions as having been Triangular to those impulses, meaning their needs arranged my needs to fit.
But that raises the question: why am I wrong so often about what I infer locally, meaning in this life, in whatever context I’m thinking or being or considering? I accept I’m correct in essentially all aspects of describing the inclusive concept of HC. But I’m wrong all the time. I can tip over putting on a sock if I don’t transfer perspective to the necessary side. I wouldn’t be dealing with foot and knee and hip, etc. pain if I hadn’t barefoot kicked a chair.
It isn’t merely local permutations. I have no clue what will happen in the world. My guesses are often wrong. I used to tell my kids that advice is a coin flip: I may be correct or I may be wrong. Contexts change. I change. We can explain why things change: it’s a consequence of the construction of D3-4 existences or Things. We are all D3-4 Things, both tObject and iObject.
I can see why I’m wrong, given the number of permutations involved. But you understand this runs deep, that it makes me question how this works: what am I correct about when it comes to you? Do I know you as deeply as I feel? That’s not a belief. That’s a statement: is what I feel about you true?
I remember when I stopped working on my first real draft of this work. It ended with the binding together of 2 Things in what I remember calling TC. I remember spending a lot of time trying to understand why this wasn’t the same as LC, which is 2 specified Things each in IC, which constructs the 4 versions, and which eventually allows us to put 2 Things into the ++ quadrant. I think delving into that link would be useful, since it happened fast in my head. The 4 versions map to the quadrants, and that is true for any Thing. If we place more Things within ++, then we use rotational adjustments to differentiate. And I mean literally that we differentiate along the adjusting path which distinguishes this from that out of all the paths which can be made, and thus out of all the paths which can not be made (localized to be sensible of course). So we can have a - - and a -+ and a +-, and these appear fundamentally but generate infinite typing and then variety within, within, within.
What I saw with TC is really then a binding which creates the versions of CM64 which fit within CM100, which means that can bind over to another Thing, not merely across Between 2T but across to another 2T. That 2T needs explanation: let’s say that I have a choice of paths, it isn’t that I take the less traveled path but that I stay on it, and that ambiguity resolves into a choice of continue or not, maybe not at every step, but we can infer it to that point if I’m tired or something hurts. BTW, I had 0 pain walking yesterday. My right leg hit a new position which completely eliminated toe and knee pain.
I’m trying to say that 2T are built into any T, so the specification issue actually runs internally as well. Holy Cow that explains a lot. We can identity and fix a bunch of issue with that knowledge. HC is very functional notation. Yes, HC is the level at which TC makes sense!
I need to go for a walk. I’ve been ‘working’ for hours.
This approach to a line recreates the childhood dream of separation in which I made a barrier no matter how hard I tried to get through. It’s not possible to eliminate the ways in which a line exists. Think about life that way: it is possible to see where that line exists.
The concept of TC leads to interchange and wrapping of one around the other. Like Ivy.
What is TC in fCM? CM100 as the interface, so that means an IC because you have 2 perspectives through to the 2 sides which CM100 ‘fits’ Between. A CM100 sandwich.
This ends up saying CM100 because that’s a reduction from higher counting, same as below. And this is how you get switched from thread to thread only to realize what happened. It’s the math secret behind the concept of illusion. Love this.
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allisoooon · 3 years
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Why Five and Klaus don't talk about their traumas
It’s not as simple as “let down your guard and talk about it already.”
Yes, Klaus is a pathological self-soother who runs from his problems at every opportunity. He doesn’t want to think about the things that upset him. Who does? But that’s not necessarily the only reason we don’t see him talk about the ways in which Reginald abused him, or about the Vietnam war. Five refuses to show weakness, but there’s another reason he wouldn’t talk about finding his family’s corpses after the apocalypse.
When someone experiences trauma, what they’re experiencing is the activation of the fight-or-flight response while neither fight nor flight are possible. The brain goes, “Shit, we can’t escape or beat the shit out of this, so we have to survive it” and sliiiiides into a dissociative state to try to cushion the blows that come with the trauma. While the brain is in this state, memory doesn’t get sorted normally. Memories of a traumatic event are often patchy, with missing bits, but most importantly, traumatic memories are not automatically processed as memories.
Imagine your day since this morning. You might say, “The cat woke me up at six so I’d feed her, I ate raisin bran, and I got ready for work.” These events can be remembered in sequence, most of the time, and they feel like they happened earlier in the day rather than right now. Traumatic memories aren’t like that initially. They get stored in some filing box in your brain for whenever your brain can remember to do the filing. Until then, the survivor is particularly prone to reexperiencing the trauma through nightmares and flashbacks. These are, in theory, the brain’s attempts at filing the traumatic memories, but the fact that the brain doesn’t quite know it’s a memory yet means the experience gets brought back so vividly, it feels not like a memory, but like it is presently happening.
Dr. Judith Herman, who literally wrote the book on psychological trauma, explains that the ultimate result of this filing error in the brain is that traumatic memories don’t fade the way normal memories do, and the trauma doesn’t fit into the narrative of your life like other events. In other words, until Five or Klaus’ brains file the memories correctly, it doesn’t matter how long it has been since the trauma—they reexperience it just as vividly whether it’s been one year or twenty, hence Klaus still having nightmares and flashbacks about the mausoleum and Five having a flashback to his arrival in the apocalypse.
What does Dr. Herman say it takes for the brain to file those memories properly? This is the catch-22: it takes talking about it. Or writing about it, or whatever will cause the trauma to fit into the narrative your other memories create about you. We’re not talking “tell all your friends and family,” we’re talking about taking an active part in the filing process. And that is so much easier said than done, especially when traumatic memories tend to have missing parts, and talking about them often causes you to reexperience the trauma.
So. Why don’t our boys talk about their traumas? Because those traumas lack a narrative, lack words to be described until the survivor assigns the words himself. How is he meant to know where to begin? Chances are, he’s also confused about many of the details. I think Klaus could describe the event of Dave’s death if he tried for long enough, but scrolling back to his childhood, you’ve got a lot of traumatic incidents and repetitions with many opportunities for memory filing error. This is why it’s not necessarily a continuity error that we see a flashback of him in the mausoleum at age eight and Reginald wrote about another incident when Klaus was eleven, but Klaus only mentions it happening when he was thirteen. They’re all traumatic memories that haven’t been correctly sorted, and it’s not necessarily clear which memories belong to which times he was locked up. He’s probably forgotten some incidents altogether—it’s not unheard of for some abuse victims to be missing weeks and months of their lives.
With Five, there’s been a bit more willingness to talk about what happened to him, but typically only when it’s relevant to the mission at hand.  Which is a start.
PLEASE NOTE: Do NOT pressure a survivor of psychological trauma to talk about their trauma for any reason. Their therapist should know how to do it safely. Remember that just because they haven’t told you doesn’t mean they haven’t talked about it and leave them in charge of their own recovery. Don’t make assumptions and remember survivors are not a monolith. The purpose of this post is character analysis, not education or diagnosis.
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pear-pies · 3 years
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Placebo in Rock & Folk magazine - April 2003
Words by Jerome Soligny, photos by Carole Epinette
Wonky translation under the cut:
These three did it all. Shot with the QOTSAs and posed with Indo. They survived "Velvet Goldmine" and the Top Bab. They come back after the ordeal of the fourth album. Danger interview: “Jerome, what if you came out?” They ask our charming reporter.
"We do not regret anything"
Everything begins again with "Bulletproof Cupid", a punky instrument that pulls everything off. Then "English Summer Rein", mechanico-depressive spinning punctuated by twisted keyboards, and "Sleeping With Ghosts", the lament which advances while blistering during cooking, confirm the tone. Against all expectations, because you never know how will age the groups that the previous album installed at the Top, Placebo took over. And stuffed it in an iron glove. Further on, "The Bitter End" tumbles through yapping guitars which would stick to the hatches the thickest of the sailors. Be careful, Placebo is on the way out of being one. At the end of the record, Brian Molko, Stefan Olsdal and Steve Hewitt do not even run out of steam. The cows. They drop a "Centerfolds" which frolic like a cynical top under a shower of saving doubts. What augur still other perspectives.
The fourth album: a horror for all who have faced it. Often a stupid trap. Returning from the Gothic directly inherited from the glam of pageantry and from these hasty and harmful certainties which congest the face and the veins, Placebo publishes its first real great disc. Oh, not the marvel of wonders, not the album from the third millennium, but something very strong, compact, tenacious in listening, which proves that the future is indeed there, in front, where the light is most blinding. Calfeucée in their Parisian hotel (the Costes, of course), our three lads do not make the blow of the revelation, of the luminous questioning. Simply, they now think with their heads, a good plan most often Likewise, reality no longer frightens them, and it is probably she who is hiding behind this "Sleeping With Ghosts" which relates the sorrows only for the better. melt into hopes At the moment when rock brings us back to life and when we just want to ask them everything, the Placebo have decided to say everything. Not even in a hurry, they settle down on the couch, ready to talk like never before. Despite new batteries embedded in the carcass, the Panasonic barely a Brian Molko: Hey Jerome, you came to talk to us this time when you had not come to the previous album ...
Rock & Folk: Uh yes but I was there for the first two, that says a lot, right?
Brian Molko: Certainly, I also believe that over time, we finally appreciate the true nature of the problem: we were mainly criticized for the sound of the previous album, which I can understand but, paradoxically, it is the one that brought us to the Top.
R&F: Legitimately, we have the right to expect a lot from the people we love: while "Black Market Music" sounded a bit like a sequel, this new record is all about a renaissance.
Brian Molko: Actually, we were finally able to live a little. After having existed in a small bubble for a very long time, we forced ourselves to take an eight-month break. The album-tour rhythm put us on the sidelines: we no longer had normal contact with anything. We were losing ourselves. We have fully lived the old cliché which claims that we spend the first years of our life writing a first record and six months on the second. It turned out to be very true. We had to get back to the situation of the first album, see friends, go shopping, look at the buildings in our city.
R&F: So the freshness would come from there ...
Brian Molko: Yes, and it was essential spiritually, emotionally and physically.
Steve Hewitt: We had to be in tune with reality again.
Brian Molko: In fact, we find ourselves in a bit of the same state of mind as when we released "Without You I'm Nothing", although "Sleeping With Ghosts" is a lot less gloomy. The heroin has since stopped leaking. In fact, I feel like I've pulled myself out of what I consider my second teenage years, between twenty and thirty. I conquered the self-destruction, exorcised some demons, understood what had happened to me. I held on to what I had learned. As a human being, I am now able to continue living, to try to answer the big questions posed by existence.
R&F: Maybe that's why the melodies are needed this time. It took me four records to get a favorite Placebo track.
The whole group in chorus: Which one?
R&F: "Protect Me From What I Want", of course ...
Brian Molko: The most paradoxical is that this song dates from the end of the "Black Market Music" sessions. I was not married at the time, but I was trying to get out of a particularly vicious divorce.just started. Then we wait for the lyrics, which don't arrive, it's rather intriguing. We especially wanted to avoid the big Rican producer side, we needed someone who shakes us up a bit. Jim could do that because he comes from dance and his pedigree is impressive. We have all his records at home, Bjôrk, Massive Attack, Sneaker Pimps and especially DJ Shadow. It is believed that guitar rock can only evolve by incorporating new genres, this is the only way to remain a modern rock band. At home, we practically only listen to hip hop.
R&F: Still, he didn't betray you.
Brian Molko: No because he actually brought out our rock side, which I'm particularly proud of. In fact, because we always wanted to control everything, it was not easy to be forced, to do certain things backwards, to walk on the head. But in truth, that's what we wanted: yes, there was some tension in the studio but we all took advantage of it. The challenge is necessary and it is also valid for the public. We opened up and rediscovered ourselves.
Stefan Olsdal (emerging from his chair): We found ourselves in front of the mirror, at the foot of the wall: someone had to kick our ass.
Brian Molko: Jim was like, "Why are you doing this?" We would answer him: "Because we always do it like that!" He would say: "All the more reason not to do it."
Stefan Olsdal: On the first day, he messed up all the demos, changed the tones, the tempos ...
R&F: Like Brian Eno ...
Steve Hewitt: Yeah, but with a lot more compassion. Eno is a bit (silence) ... We don't really like being told our actions, but at the same time, we are still young, still absorbing. Jim knew how to preserve us while making a modern sound.
R&F: Modern and rock'n'roll at the same time, a characteristic which does not necessarily apply to all the young groups in The which recycle the past gently but are convinced to have found the virus of the AIDS.
Steve Hewitt: Placebo doesn't belong to any current, has nothing to do with fashion.
R&F: You always pose as outsiders.
Brian Molko: It's the only way to survive.
Steve Hewitt: These bands, like The Strokes, play the nostalgia card.
Stefan Olsdal: And what happens next? I would not like to be in their place.
Brian Molko: If you want good New York pop, you better listen to Blondie.
R&F: In 2003, 11 seems that you have abandoned all the androgynous paraphernalia, sexual ambiguity, glam references ...
Brian Molko: I think today everyone knows what there is to know. Our sexual inclinations haven't changed, and we still wear makeup. It is just more expensive and better applied. We are ourselves, in our music and in private. I went through my travelo period (in French in the interview - Editor's note), and I understood that being androgynous was not wearing skirts. It is a way of being on the spiritual plane. It is not an image but a state of mind.
Steve Hewitt: It's like being punk, it's an attitude.
Brian Molko: At the same time, I don't regret any of my eccentricities. I grew up in the spotlight and it all kind of makes me smile.
Stefan Olsdal: People still talk to us about certain outfits or positions, as if it still shocks them.
R&F: Yes, and particularly in France, a particularly homophobic country which bumps heartily on gay artists.
Brian Molko: And you, coincidentally, you still hang out with.
Stefan Olsdal: Jérôme, it's coming out time (laughs) ...
Brian Molko: All that has to change, that all of France becomes gay (laughs)!
R&F: "Protect Me From What I Want" precisely, here is a title heavy with meaning. What was the idea behind this song?
Brian Molko: For me, it's a study of the pathological need people have to copulate, the search for meaning in copulation. As if bachelors or monogamists were aliens. As if we were only one when we were two. The song is about the fact that one relationship has destroyed me but I can't help but look for another ... why do I keep coming back to this?
R&F: Wow, we're bathing in philosophy here!
Brian Molko: Yes and it's the same elsewhere in the record: in "Plasticine", I insist on the fact that you have to be yourself above all while asking myself all these questions. Why do we have to do a lot of forbidden things, bad or harmful?
R&F: It's therapy in public.
Brian Molko: At least I find some balance in it. These are not songs about compassion or self-pity. They came out like this because it was vital for me. I am in this privileged situation where I can express myself and the world hears me. Otherwise, I would be really frustrated and I would have suffered a lot more in the last fifteen years.
R&F: Music saved your life.
Brian Molko: Sure.
Steve Hewitt: Everyone: I think we can say that. Without Placebo, we would not be not even alive.
Brian Molko: Spitting it all out is not necessarily the right solution. There are things with which to live. In fact, I've always been afraid to go see a psychiatrist ...
R&F: Yet, listening to you speak earlier, you could have the feeling that Jim Abiss acted a bit like a shrink with you.
Brian Molko: That's right. You could say that.
R&F: At a time when Bush and Blair want to play World War III, what attitude do you adopt? What do you think of these Englishmen who left for Iraq to constitute a human shield?
Brian Molko: Let's say we stand together. We participated in the March for Peace on February 14th with Damon Albarn and 3D from Massive Attack. We were also surprised that so few groups mobilized, which increased our desire to participate tenfold.
R&F: Do you consider that it is the role of the artist to give voice in such circumstances?
Steve Hewitt: Yes, in the sense that we can help with general motivation.
Brian Molko: I'm very interested in seeing if Blair is going to let Bush bomb Iraq with the British present on the soil of the country. If he ever allows that, the consequences will be dire.
R&F: It will only be one more religious war, in the name of oil and money ...
Brian Molko: It seems absurd that we can still fight for that. And curiously, nobody speaks more, or almost, of Bin Laden. Wouldn't it all come from him, by chance, as a huge consequence of September 11? On the other hand, we have such a feeling that Bush wants to finish the job that daddy started. Its image is so bad that it needs at least one war to restore its image.
Steve Hewitt: And reinvigorate its dying economy.
R&F: The method is lamentable, deceitful. Like those employed by the recording industry which claims to be doing well by selling pop in damaged boxes to ignoramuses.
Brian Molko: The ability of this job to ingest people, bribe them and then spit them out is impressive. This is what happened here at Canal +.R&F: Business is the beast.
Brian Molko: All these pre-made artists are young and naff ...
Steve Hewitt: They'll all end up in a labor camp for ex-pop stars.
R&F: Warhol was talking about fifteen minute glory, we're brutally passed to fifteen seconds.
Brian Molko: We should have called them Karaoke idols from the start.
Steve Hewitt: And it only works because of the TV ...
R&F: Who washes the poor, helpless brains.
Steve Hewitt: You can tell how much people want to think less
R&F: And spend less. For many, music should be free: one in five thirteen-year-olds doesn't know that a disc doesn't have to be a computer-burnt puck. Some are flabbergasted when they see a cover for the first time.
Stefan Olsdal: And those who don't buy records put pressure on those who have them to pass them on at all costs, just long enough to copy them.
R&F: Exactly.
Brian Molko: That's why we blame Robbie Williams so much. Scooping 80 million pounds off EMI and then declaring that pirating music is a fantastic thing just makes him want to stick a chunk in his face.
R&F .: And then piracy is not a matter of environment. It's not a suburban thing. There are rich kids who find it normal to burn 80 CDs during their weekend and sometimes sell them to their friends ...
Brian Molko: What do these people believe? That we are there, the face in the stream with a syringe stuck in the arm singing "La Vie En Rose"? And who will pay for our children's school? Not them, anyway. Our mentality is quite different: we always want to buy records from people we love, from our friends. Personally, we are partly out of the woods, but it will be particularly difficult for new groups to make a living from music in five or ten years.
R&F: Come on, we're not going to leave each other on this, a little humor won't hurt anyone. If you were to be banned from any of these three things, which would you choose: making music, making money or making love?
Steve Hewitt (almost tit for tat): I would stop making money, without hesitation. It's because I love music and sex too much. And then, well, you have to choose.
Brian Molko (completely overwhelmed): Oh damn, that's not true. What a dilemma!
R&F: No Brian, that doesn't count, make an effort (laughs).
Brian Molko: Ah, I don't know. And then if. I would stop making money and get on well with someone super rich.
R&F: Or you would be pimp ...
Brian Molko: Yes, that's it. Good plan.
Stefan Olsdal: Stop making love does not mean to stop loving ...
Brian Molko (preparing his shot): And we can always masturbate (general laughter).
Stefan Olsdal: OK then, I would stop making love.
R&F: Okay, it will be written in black and white for all eternity.
Brian Molko: Will we live long enough to regret it? This is the real question.
*COLLECTED BY JEROME SOLIGNY
[Inset, Trash Palace]
Already present on the first album by Trash Palace which he had adorned with his presence one unhealthy recovery of "I Love You, Me No More "in duet with Asia Argento, Brian Molko is coming to re-stack. This time he cosigns directly "The Metric System " with Dimitri Trash Palace Tikovoi, an electro saw boosted to bleeps fundamentals available in two remix and its clip on an enhanced single recently published at Discograph. The result is particularly (d) amazing and sounds good logical, like of Placebo cyber.Placebo in  Rock & Folk magazine - April 2003
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purple-dahlias · 3 years
Text
recovering- chapter 1
word count: 1854
trigger warnings: eating disorders, disordered eating, mental health
this is the beginnings of me turning recovering!au into a multi-chapter fic, something i’ve been planning on doing for quite a while now. enjoy <3
She knew it was a problem, even before she had started medical school. Long before she knew about the intricacies of health and disease and diagnostic criteria. Knew it was something that wasn’t quite normal; that having these thoughts and plans wasn’t in the usual remit of a high school girl. It certainly seemed it wasn’t something any of her few friends had to deal with. But then again, even if it wasn’t normal, it wasn’t really like they’d noticed that anything was wrong. So maybe it wasn’t so bad. In any case, if she was questioned, she peppered them with excuses, ranging from not being hungry to needing to go to the library or not wanting to spit out the gum she’d just put in. It seemed to work. They didn’t bother her about it any further. Just a nod and a smile before carrying on.  
Yes, she hid it well, under layers and layers of clothing and her thinly veiled excuses. But it would have been nice for someone to really notice. Because to be noticed would have meant being known, which would have meant someone cared enough. Her own mother was hardly ever about, out being a big shot lawyer or whatever, and her father... well. That was something she didn’t want to talk about at all. Ever.
Days slipped by and so did the pounds off the scales. School became college and Sarah found herself in pre-med. It had always been her plan. She loved the order that science bought. The lack of messiness. The way there was an explanation to everything. It suited her just fine. Gave her something to channel her energy into. Something to focus on, even when things got tough. Which for her, unfortunately, seemed to be pretty often.
It was an unhealthy habit, she knew. Destructive, even. But it was something that she had control over, that she could manage. The one thing that was constant, because she could make it so. Monitoring portions and her proportions obsessively. It became a habit, something ingrained into her, second nature.
And so, it continued, unnoticed. Perhaps to many, it seemed there never really was an issue, how could there be? She looked fine. Mostly. It was only if you looked closer, beyond the façade and the walls and the excuses, that it could be seen. But that was hardly often. In fact, it was rare. Sarah Reese was good at keeping her guard up. It also didn’t help that her circle of people was so completely, incredibly small, which meant that really, most of the time, there was hardly anyone who could notice.
She also knew just how to manage things (so she thought). She’d take her vitamin supplements to ward off deficiencies, anything that might look like something was wrong. Continued to cover up in long sleeves and high necks. Perhaps it was a blessing when she was accepted to study medicine in Chicago. Certainly, the cold weather there warranted layers amply enough that no one would question it, no one would be able to tell.
There was a point, perhaps when this had first all started, although it’s hard to put a definitive moment or timescale on when all this began, it had become such a fundamental part of her, that she had wanted, hoped even at times, that someone would discover what she was doing, would say something, would tell her, help her, show her it was wrong. If that had happened early enough, things just might have turned out differently for her. Better.
It had, earlier, been a secret hope of hers, that maybe her mother would see, would call her to her, bring her in close, help her. That had never happened. Their relationship just wasn’t one where one could talk about such things. Confess to not be doing well. It was just expected of Sarah to carry on. To get on and excel with school and her work. And for her mother to know actively how Sarah really was, well, that wouldn’t go down well at all. Because from Sarah’s mother’s point of view, Sarah was fine. She had a good life, a roof over her head, was more than provided for, her grades were good, there was nothing she could complain about. Nothing that would warrant her not doing well, not mentally. Not her daughter.
And sometimes she still hopes for someone to discover it all. Thinks of doing something ever so much more reckless in order to be noticed, for someone to be concerned enough to do something. But she also doesn’twant that. Because that would mean stopping. And when a thing like this has been a part of you for so long that it’s become a crutch, a way to handle everything, it’s terrifying to think about who you would be without it.
Occasionally, though, there were moments where she’s wracked with guilt and regret, all because she knows this is all so wrong. Things shouldn’t be this way. She shouldn’t be this way. At those times, it’s a struggle. For a time, common sense will overrule and for a few days, maybe weeks, there’s a sort of clarity for her, and things go back to being as close to a ‘normal’ as Sarah can get. But there’s always a slip. With her there’s always a slip.
Medical school was proving to be lonely. Sure, there were people around, girls Sarah would want to know, to be friends with. People who probably would also want to be friends with her. Somehow, that had never happened. Yes, there were the occasional people who would invite her out for coffee or a study session or to the movies. But she always felt like she seemed to push everyone away. To her, it seemed she was to forever be the person on the peripheries, the one who walked through the outskirts of others’ lives, who would be easily forgotten. That she could never really be one to maintain any kind of relationship, evident in the way that as time went on, those offers and invitations to meet up became scarce. And perhaps that had something to do with the way she was bought up, the introspective part of her thought. The way her mother had always been different. The way her father had left. How, if her mother ever did speak of her father, she always said he was someone who could never maintain a relationship for long, always had a habit of burning bridges. Could that be a genetic trait? Something Sarah had inherited? Sarah pushes those thoughts down deep inside of her. She never wants to be like either of her parents. Hates that it is a very strong possibility, one that she’s not quite sure she has the power to overrule, especially if you looked at her track record. Instead, she goes back to what she can control. Restrict. Measure. Count. It goes on in cycles. Worse when she was on a downward spiral, slightly better when things felt clearer.
So, it was surprising to her, on her rotation in the ED at Gaffney Chicago Med, that everyone (almost) seemed to like her. That there was genuine care and concern for her. How Maggie and Dr Manning would, for wont of a better word, mother her. How Dr Choi and April and Dr Rhodes and Dr Halstead were always so kind to her, so helpful and patient. How they would all look out for her. It was certainly a far cry from what she was used to.
Family. That was what Dr Choi had called her.
It had left Sarah feeling stumped, but warmed inside, knowing that there were people who cared about her. And for the first time in a long while, she found she could breathe a little easier. That maybe, maybe, she wasn’t as alone as she thought she was.
Sure, when she started in the ED, it was only because it was mandatory, just a check box exercise and then she would be done, ready to work down in the labs. Exactly where she had wanted to be. But now she wasn’t so sure. The messiness of life and people in the ED had got to her, and not in a bad way. Yes, it was trying. But it had grown on her. She had learnt to love it.
But that left her now with a dilemma.
For as long as she had thought about a career in medicine, it was with no intention to be patient-facing. She knew she would be perfectly happy with a career tucked away down in pathology, somewhere she could hone her logic and scientific skill. And of course, there was Joey, who had supported her in her decision, and alongside everything else. (Although now she’s not quite exactly sure where things stand with him).
She just can’t shake the feeling that maybe she’s doing something wrong. And Sarah knows that’s dangerous, because whatever decision she makes will stand to influence the rest of her career. Not to mention that signing off on a residency post was a legally binding contract. Pathology was what she wanted though, wasn’t it? Even after all the time she had spent with everyone in the emergency department? And all that self-doubt just comes creeping back in, settling deep in her bones, filling every corner of her, making it just so easy for things to return to how they were. To slip again.
Perhaps at first it doesn’t accelerate intentionally. Mainly it’s just that she’s trying to keep herself busy, push herself, that she forgets meals. But then she finds she’s not missing out on anything, really. That she likes how it feels. It doesn’t help that she is so good at being able to conceal things now, underneath her scrubs, which were ill-fitting on anyone to begin with, anyway. Her shifts in the ED give her an easy excuse for missed meals, because of course, she has patients to be seeing. It’s a perfectly reasonable way to mask it all.
So she continues, unnoticed. And maybe, it makes her think, in those moments where she’s left solely alone with her thoughts, they never really did care. That it was because it was their professional duty to look out for her that they did. But other parts of her think that no, this is good. Them not noticing. It means she can continue on. Because that was the plan, wasn’t it?
Even when she practically faints in front of Will. But it’s just so simple to go with the excuse that seems most likely. She fainted because she was stressed. She was stressed because of match day. A vasovagal syncope. And because, at least to Will’s work-up, everything seems fine, no more is said. It’s deemed a one-off episode and she’s fit to continue. He doesn’t seem to be concerned about the way she hardly drinks the orange juice he gave her. So she shouldn’t be, right? There was clearly no reason to be. It was all just business as usual: she wasn’t sick.
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allisondraste · 3 years
Text
Representation of mental illness in media is super important, and it’s also really easy to move beyond representing mental illness to pathologizing completely standard human behavior.  Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of interesting uses of the labels related to addiction and substance use disorders. I’ve seen and participted in several discussions regarding substances (specifically within the context of Fallout 4), and I have some issues with just slapping an addiction/SUD label on just any regular substance use.  I’m going to talk about this in more detail below the cut; however, I want to provide a content warning that this will be a detailed discussion about what substance use disorders and addiction are, and what they are not. If these things are triggering for you, please proceed with caution and take care of yourselves! I want to educate, not harm. 
For a disclaimer: I am in no way an addictions/SUD expert; however, I am a formally trained therapist and about three months from having a doctorate in clinical psychology, so I do know the diagnostic criteria related to substance use disorders and how we differentiate them from what would be considered normal substance use. 
I am going to speak about alcohol specifically because it is legal to use and widely regarded as acceptable to use in moderation; however the same rules apply for other substances!
First, let’s look at the diagnostic critera for Alcohol Use Disorder: 
In order for a person to be diagnosed with an Alcohol use disorder they must exhibit a problematic pattern of alcohol use that leads to clinically significant impariment or distress, and at least two of the following within a one-year period.
Drinking alcohol in larger amounts OR over a longer period of time than originally intended
A persistent desire/unsuccessful efforts to reduce or control alcohol use. 
Spending an inordinate amount of time in activities necessary to obtain alcohol, use it, or recover from it’s effects
Cravings/overwhelming urge or desire to use alcohol. 
Recurrent alcohol use that interferes with the ability to fulfill obligations at work, school or home.
Continuing to use alcohol despite having ongoing social and interpersonal problems that are caused or worsened by the alcohol use. 
Giving up/reducing participation in important social, work-related, or leisure activities due to alcohol use
Repeatedly using alcohol in situations where it is physically dangerous. 
Continuing to use alcohol despite knowing that it is causing/exacerbating an ongoing physical or psychological condition. 
Tolerance as defined by either of the following
Need for markedly increased amounts of alcohol to achieve intoxication/desired effect
Markedly diminished effect with continued use of same amount of alcohol.
Withdrawal 
Negative side-effects associated with Withdrawal Syndrom (for alcohol these are serious and life-threatening in severe cases)
Using alcohol or chemically similar substances to avoid withdrawal. 
Alcohol use disorder is considered mild when 2-3 symptoms are present, moderate when 4-5 symptoms are present, and sever when 6 or more symptoms are present. We use some more specifiers to indicate whether it is controlled, in remission, or in partial remission; however, those are irrelevant to the current discussion. 
In case you were wondering, yes these criteria are vague, and intentionally so because how much alcohol is considered “too much” depends upon the individual’s history and body composition. Drinking as much as 1-2 servings of alcohol every single day is not considered an excessive use. Additionally, going to bars every once in awhile (and even getting compltely plastered) is not uniformly considered problematic. 
Unfortunately, in the U.S. especially, our society teaches us a very moralistic view of alcohol use whether we like it or not. People who drink regularly, and especially folks with pre-existing mental illnesses who drink regularly are often viewed as abusing substances, even when they’re using it a typical amount and are experiencing no distress or impairment from their usage at all. Not everyone who drinks regularly is using alcohol to self-medicate.  Furthermore, not everyone who self-medicates using alcohol has a “problem.” 
Do I recommend that folks use alcohol to manage stress or anxiety? Absolutely not. Do I think that everyone who does so is an alcoholic or has a substance use disorder? Also absolutely not.  That unfortunate moralistic view causes this belief that people who partake as having poor judgement, being irresponsible, or having a “problem,” and we sometimes adhere to this way of thinking implicitly.  But it’s very VERY important that we not be too hasty to sling those labels about because it can actually further stigmatize a group of folks that are already stigmatized as it is. 
Anyway. Thank you for coming to my unsolicited TED Talk.
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silenthillmutual · 4 years
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daniil dankovsky is autistic and here’s why:
because i’m autistic and i said so
i kid, obviously. what sort of autistic person would i be if i wasn’t read to back up my silly little claim with an overly long post of evidence a total of three people will read? (hi ned hi jordan hi raven :))
i’m aware that this is cringey because adults aren’t supposed to have autism or interests or talk about either of those things, but this is my blog and you are free to block me if the cringe is too much for you.
these are some things i picked out from the DSMV’s diagnostic criteria, found on the CDC website:
deficits in social-emotional reciprocity
reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect
abnormal social approach
abnormalities in eye contact and body language
defecits in […] understand[ing] relationships
difficults adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts
repetitive motor movements or speech
rigid thinking patterns
highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus
hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input
there’s also some misc. stuff not in the diagnostic criteria (though it may be in the adir or gars-3) i thought was worth noting.
important note from the diagnostic criteria: “symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning”. i’d say that in his case, they do.
spoilers for pathologic classic, pathologic 2, and the marble nest
deficits in social-emotional reciprocity
in bachelor route of classic, daniil
seems completely oblivious to eva making advances toward him, to the point where she complains to him that he’s ignoring her in favor of asking questions about simon.
seems surprised when people mention maria being in love with him, despite outright asking her a couple of times if she’s flirting with him.
not to mention the fact that he asks her that at all.
his inability or resistence to making connections with others is typically considered one of his character flaws. although it is not outright stated in the dsmv criteria, one trait of autism and other neurodivergencies is “having extremely high or extremely low empathy” - and daniil, despite being a doctor, lacks empathy. which is not to say he doesn’t care at all. i think that he does, but is terrible at showing it.
for example, this scene from marble nest:
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Sticky: You must feel terrible… right? That’s fine. I forgive you. You just got confused… Adults always do. Daniil: Oh yes, adults are always occupied with the most asinine nonsense. Like feeling anxious that a bunch of urchins keep roaming the streets, putting themselves in mortal danger!
daniil clearly cares about sticky’s wellbeing (and the wellbeing of the kids looking after him, though he’s not cognizant that he’s in a coma), but his way of showing it is… kind of by being a jerk. all of which bleeds into the next item on the list
reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect
he has no problem sharing his interests, but in both pathologic classic & pathologic 2, daniil speaks with a flat affect - which is to say that he lacks intonation. the words we read him saying may be dramatic or come across as passionate, but the actual voice reading his lines is very monotone, which may contribute to being read as lacking emotion.
and in pathologic 2, he has a voiceline lamenting not telling “her” (eva?) how he felt
in marble nest, he’s teased by the tragedians for being “heartless”:
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Tragedian: Maybe. Possibly. But it’s useless to explain to a heartless man. …Take heart, Excellency! If you ever find it, that is. And then come back to us… Even though it all sounds like a rather implausible turn of events.
abnormal social approach
daniil has a tendency to say things that are tactless, odd, or just socially inappropriate. i probably don’t need to point out too many examples, as i think it’s fairly obvious - these are the things people love to pick at when it comes to him, but i do have a few in mind. like, for example, from haruspex route in classic:
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Haruspex: What of the antibodies essential for making a serum? Bachelor: I don’t know for sure yet, I’ll send you a report in a few hours. Don’t go about cutting people’s hearts out for your panacea until then. It’s a… controversial solution, you know… Haruspex: What?! Do you even hear yourself? Bachelor: Sorry! I meant no offence… it was just a momentary lapse of… well, you know. Haruspex: None taken.
until artemy points out, daniil doesn’t seem to be aware he just said something rude. even with therapy, picking up on social cues doesn’t come naturally to people with autism, so we tend to say things that come across as rude or strange to others without realizing we’ve put them off. we tend to lack a “filter” that tells us when things are or are not appropriate to say. even when we may recognize it, the rules may not make any sense to us. for example, it makes very little sense that allistics favor politeness over honesty.
i think the glaringly obvious abnormal social approach in pathologic 2 is him threatening to hold artemy at gunpoint to get in the house, which is just overkill, but my personal favorite comes on day 7, when he’s complaining about the orders aglaya has given him. artemy stops him to say he doesn’t understand what daniil wants from him, to which daniil replies:
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From you? Oh, nothing. I was just sharing.
to daniil, they were just having a normal conversation. but some part of this - his tone or his words or maybe even his body language - didn’t give artemy the impression that this was supposed to be a regular conversation. (we could, in fact, attribute the same idea to artemy here; why didn’t artemy pick up that this was a normal conversation? the reason i count it towards daniil is because artemy doesn’t seem to have this problem with anybody else. for the record: i don’t think artemy is neurotypical either.)
abnormalities in eye contact and body language
it’s hard to get proof of this in video games, but i will say i think it’s very funny that in pathologic 2 daniil’s idle animations are “pacing”, “sitting like he desperately wants to start bouncing his knees but is stopping himself from doing it”, and “standing unnaturally still” - but there you go. i don’t know anything about making gifs, or i’d gif this one specific talk menu idle he does where he holds eye contact for about three seconds, looks away uncomfortably, and then looks back out of the corner of his eyes.
deficits in […] understand[ing] relationships
mostly examples from his route in classic:
when the army arrives, he can claim to block that aglaya, whom he’s known for two days, is his best friend
he seems baffled by the fact that everone is smitten with maria and working with her, and seems equally baffled by the idea that she’s smitten with him
despite eva implying on day two that she is in a relationship with andrey, is completely blindsided by the revelation on day 6, asking him, “How in the world is she ‘your woman’?”
i’d also like to use his sign-off on his letter to artemy, day 2 of the haruspex route - he signs it as “Your friend (hopefully)”. i know i’m not the only autistic person who used to ask people if we were friends or not. pro tip, if you’ve never done this: don’t. it really weirds people out.
difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts
the fact that he stands out is blatantly obvious even in pathologic 2 and in the haruspex route of classic. people will comment on him being an outsider and mention that they don’t trust him. but you can watch it happen in real time in his route, because he never fully acclimates to the town. he says something about this to aglaya on day 7:
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Bachelor: Was there any particularly notable backstory? I’m deadly tired of all these people. They’re inhuman. They tell the future, believe in walking zombies, and die in all manners of painfully abnormal ways. Inquisitor: Your line of t hinking is obviously falacious - and I was implying something rather mundane. I promise you, no one can really tell the future around here: and neither are deaths inspired by third parties uncommon. Mysterious phenomenons do occur here sometimes… but hardly more often than anywhere else.
actually, there’s an example of him saying something similar to artemy on day 5 in pathologic 2:
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Damn this town… I feel I’m trapped in a nightmare. The absurdity of it all… There’s no one to talk to. Everyone’s so volatile. They all seem to want to help, but… their help is worse than hostility.
some of this can be explained by the town’s strangeness, but keep in mind that the first instance happens after he’s been there and involved in the ongoing for an entire week, and the second at nearly a week in. clearly he’s struggling to adjust to the changes.
it’s also worth noting that his reason for fleeing the town in the nocturnal ending?
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I have no place here anymore.
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This town is no longer mine. No longer human. No longer rational. It doesn’t… accept the likes of me anymore.
repetitive motor movements or speech
it’s harder to see the motor movements in classic, but remember how i pointed out earlier that he paces? pacing is a form of stimming. murky, who is canonically autistic, can also be found pacing as one of her idle animations. having stock phrases for characters to speak when you come near them already ticks off the box on “repetitive speech”, but that by itself doesn’t really cover what they’re talking about - echolalia.
but you know what this does fit with? “‘quoting’ things(communication is HARD! sometimes we need to take shortcuts and use someone else’s words)“
i’ll get to the more obvious example in a minute - i want to point out something that happens very early in pathologic 2 first. you know how you first meet him and artemy accuses daniil of trying to guilt-trip him by asking if it’s true that isidor would still be alive if artemy had come sooner? keep in mind that he spoke to rubin first. and this is what rubin says, when you get a chance to talk to him:
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Yesterday, I was told you had killed your father.
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That’s not far from the truth, Burakh.
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You betrayed him. You left when he needed you most. He cried out for your help, but you didn’t care. He was in peril, and you were too busy elsewhere, He believed, truly believed, that your arrival would put an end to his troubles. And, as always, he was right.
i’m not saying this was necessarily the game’s intent, but it’s entirely possible daniil is parroting back to artemy exactly what rubin said to him.
now, for what you’re probably expecting in this section: the latin. people love to refer to his use of latin as “random”, so let’s clear that up:
it is not latin daniil has made up. with the exception of latin that is mispelled in the game’s texts, all of them are proverbs or otherwise common sayings. you can find most of them on the wikipedia list of latin phrases, or through a 3-second google search.
he’s a doctor. him having taken latin isn’t anymore strange than a lawyer taking latin. in fact, if you pay attention, artemy also took latin; this is implied when artemy tells him he’s always sucked at it.
his uses of latin actually aren’t random at all. what he says fits the situation, and sometimes is used in place of him having to come up with something to say on his own.
prime example:
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Forget it, Burakh. I have a splitting headache. If you have no urgent business, then we’ll talk later. Later, later… Qui non proficit, deficit.
qui non proficit, deficit - he who does not advance, loses ground. in other words, “i’m sorry, but i really do need to keep working.” one of his voice lines.
as for why he doesn’t translate the latin: it probably wouldn’t even occur to him to. these are not obscure sayings. the utopians all have a certain degree of education - what would he need to translate them for?
this bleeds into something that isn’t really mentioned, but that i’ve found i have a lot of trouble with in everyday life. autistic people have a tendency to either overexplain (and then have everyone get mad at you because they feel you’re being condescending) or underexplain (and have everyone get mad at you because you haven’t explained anything). the latin would be a case where it feels like a justified underexplanation. you’ll notice that when it comes to anything scientific, he tends to do the reverse, and overexplain. this also happens in classic, whether artemy has asked him to clarify or not.
rigid thinking patterns
the thing i had marked for this was simply his strict adherence to western medical practices and refusal to acknowledge the supernatural, even when it seems obvious - he has a conversation in his route in classic with yulia about this, and that is in fact how he manages to get to her: by asking saburov if there are any other logical skeptics in town. it should be noted they seem to be breaking with this in pathologic 2, where one of his voicelines is “I’m no positivist. There are things in this world beyond our mundane perception.” i have no idea where they’re planning on going with that.
there’s also a quote floating somewhere around twitter about him having been raised by a military man, and militaries tend to enforce very rigid routines. you could say the same thing of block - who (in classic at least) i also have my suspicions about.
highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus
special interests. the one that should obviously come to mind is thanatology, though i would argue latin if not classics in general is a special interest of his as well - in addition to his usage of latin, he also references pericles in the marble nest and was probably refering to the roman occupation of haruspicy in addition to augurs in the same text. he also makes references to shakespeare more than once in both marble nest and pathologic 2.
hyper- or hyperoreactivity to sensory input
i don’t have much written down for this one but there seem to be several places in classic especially where he asks npcs to stop shouting at him. we don’t really have the privilege to know their volume or how they’re interacting with him, but i think it’s also worth noting that he’s the only one of the healers who wears gloves. in pathologic 2 he’s the only named character i can think of who wears them at all. his thing in the lucid dream about the brain being “a border”? gloves are his border, as is his jacket, which may be worn to cut down on sensory issues.
he will also sometimes seem to “overreact” to the situation at hand - such as in classic, when some dogheads mispeak and say that daniil is going to “sterilize” them, and instead of understanding that they must have mispoken, freaks out over the idea that they think they’re going to be… well… sterilized. or in haruspex route, when his reaction to the inquisitor arriving is to threaten suicide.
miscellaneous
he never goes anywhere without that carpet bag. we don’t see it in pathologic 2, but we do hear about it and he doesn’t let it go for a second in classic - not even in the cutscenes where he’s using the microscope. his bag could be a comfort item.
“getting very attached to things like inanimate objects” could work for the bag - but you know what it actually fits the bill much more obviously? the polyhedron. in the haruspex route he recognizes that it’s a lost cause, but he’s still too attached to it to let it go.
in classic at least, daniil is absolutely terrible at lying. most autistic people either are not good at lying, or feel uncomfortable or anxious with having to lie. when he’s asked by yulia and the kids in the polyhedron to lie to block (for different reasons) he’s clearly uncomfortable with the idea that it’ll work. and when it actually comes time to come up with a way to lie to block about why he needs five rifles, your options are to either buckle and tell him the truth, or simply say that you need them for “self-defense”. block believes that you’re not lying to him, but daniil can’t come up with any embeleshments to explain why he needs what he’s asking for.
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Commander: Are you hiding something from me? Bachelor: No.
he comes across as naive to other characters. in classic, capella has a voiceline saying, “The Bachelor is not smart. Intelligent, yes… but not smart.” in Pathologic 2, Daniil complains that Aglaya takes him for “a useless dreamer”. he’s also easily used by the Kains to fulfill their endgame in classic.
my final, and absolute favorite: he takes things way too literally. autistic people (and adhd people, from my understanding) have a hard time differentiating jokes and sarcasm. so my favorite moment in marble nest is a case of him taking that earlier advice - to “take heart” literally, by bringing the tragedians a literal human heart:
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Tragedian: Oh… Excellency. What a sordid sight! Sorry for underestimating you. You definitely do have… how shall I put it… a creative touch. But this is pure madness. You can’t take things so literally! Daniil: You wanted me to come back to you with an open heart. Well, here I am. …It looked too fitting to be a coincidence.
your mind map, after this, updates to say “I misunderstood the tragedians.”
conclusion
people don’t stop being autistic with age and i think he’s a good example of what it’s like to be in your late 20s and be autistic. i’m sure i missed things as i haven’t finished haruspex route of classic yet and there may just be some other things he does or says that i missed! if anyone has anything to add they think fits i would love to know, thank you for your time :)
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kyidyl · 3 years
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Kyidyl Explains Bone - Part 2
(these are collected under the KyidylBones tag bc I have the sense of humor of a 13 year old boy.) 
I decided to do this today since the other part was basically like boring intro stuff and that’s not really what you showed up for.  So today’s topic is: 
Human vs. Animal
Anthropology and archaeology departments the world over are often brought random bones people find to ID whether they’re human or animal, so you might be wondering how do we know the difference? Well...it takes practice.  And, honestly, if the pieces are too small we can’t tell without microscopic analysis of the bone structure, but most of the time we can tell.  
Human bone is very unique.  Our anatomy is unique because we’re the only living members of our genus Homo and the anatomical adaptations of Homo are unique among animals.  The weird combination of big brain, walks upright, fine motor control, and used to live in trees is just...weird.  Our internal microscopic structure is different than that of any other animal. We grow differently than any other animal because our young take so long to mature and are born so helpless.  So anatomically...we’re unique if you know what to look for, but fragmentary remains are super common so you can’t do it by anatomy alone.
One piece of info that’s important.  Bone is made of two components: collagen and minerals.  Squishy bits and crunchy bits respectively.  And, yes, if you’re wondering...scientists DO sometimes remove these bits for Reasons (TM).  
Context! 
Where did you find this thing? Was it a single bone in a patch of woods in your backyard? Probably animal, but not always.  In a pit at a dig with burned animal bones? Probably not a human because people don’t toss the remains of their friends and families in with dinner.  Across cultures people treat their own dead differently than their animal dead or their food.  So if you find it with the food? 99% chance it’s animal, even at a disturbed site (tho it’s not *impossible* to find people in with animal, especially in caves, very disturbed sites, or very old sites.  With very old sites you have to get comfortable with the idea that sometimes people were food and it wasn’t even that uncommon.)
Texture! 
I’m doing this one first bc I can’t give you pictures of texture so it can go outside the cut.  That microscopic structure I mentioned and differences in bone growth all lead to a different texture in human bone.  Now, I want to preface this by saying: this varies with the age of the bone and the age of the individual and the environment in which you found it.  But human bone tends to be a bit less....greasy than animal bone.  I don’t know how else to describe this, because understanding the difference in texture is literally something you can only do by handling them, but I’ll do my best.  
See, animal bone found in association with humans is normally put through some kind of alteration process.  Cooking, smoking, etc.  Human bone sometimes is - after all, people cremate their dead or dry them out or mummify them or eat them all the time - but buried bone tends to be drier in texture than animal bone.  Animal bone won’t leave greasy stains or residue, but it will feel smoother - less porous.  As humans (and animals) decay, the collagen goes first and leaves behind the minerals.  This happens at different rates for different organisms in different conditions, but human bone that has been buried will have a different texture than animal bone, and it will be slightly less smooth or greasy (listen bone grease isn’t GREASE grease it’s just like a way of talking about how dried out it is. Older = less grease.  New things will leave like food grease on your fingers.). But after you’ve felt it a few times - buried human bone has a different texture than animal bone.  
Color! 
Human bone is a different color from other kinds of bone.  It’s similar, but not the same.  And! Unless it has been bleached by the sun (something I’ll touch on more when I do the damage post.), it’s not white.  Not when it has been defleshed naturally.  So halloween decorations? Yeah, all the wrong color.  Anyway, this is where we start to get into images, so I’m going to start putting things behind the cut.  
Here is an image of mixed animal bone from my own collection: 
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Ooooo so many cool things in this one picture.  There’s burned bone, small bone, big bone, MgO staining, teef!, moar different burned bone...and one of the things that gets mistaken as human most often: turtle shell.  It’s the piece that’s in the top row, fourth from the right.  It looks very much like human skull when it’s fragmentary and is easy to mistake it as such.  It’s flat and the lines look like sutures (place where the bones in the skull fused, and are now the markers of separate bones.), but they don’t go all the way through.  Anyway, this is a good depiction of the wide variety of colors animal bone comes in.  The large piece in the very lower right is close to what I’d consider an average.  
Here’s an image of human femur that has been defleshed, but not buried: 
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(Source)
Probably a young adult because the bone is in good condition, and the head has been fused but the suture isn’t completely grown over (obliterated).  
These are also human femurs: 
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(Source)
Side note: they all probably had rickets and that center one is a juvenile, and I’ll teach you how to ID that later on.  They were found in a cave, a burial, and an archaeological site respectively.  
This is another femur: 
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(Source)
Bottom is the femur, and it has a healed break in the middle.  The top is also a femur but it has....so...so...many problems.  SO MANY.  I could barely tell it’s a femur from this angle.  
Anyway, the color and texture on that front femur is what I would consider like an average color and texture for a human bone.  And it’s tan, sure, but it’s a different color tan than animal bone, especially IRL.  
In short: human bone looks different and feels different than animal bone, even before you take into consideration things like anatomy.  
Regarding anatomy, it’s...well, it’s an incredibly complex topic and I don’t know that I can really cover it appropriately here in my blog.  It mostly boils down to the impact that bipedalism has on our bodies, the impact that a big brain has on our skulls, and the impact that our manual dexterity on our fingers.  The walking thing is especially important because it changes *everything* about our anatomy.  Like...head to toe.  Everything.  
If you’re interested in human bone anatomy I have two resource recommendations for you.  First, The Human Bone Manual.  This is the one I used for school, and it’s the most useful textbook I’ve ever purchased.  I still use it all the time.  The ebook version is around $18.  Second, this app is called Essential Skeleton 4. It’s free, and it’s the most comprehensive skeletal anatomy app I’ve ever seen (and I’ve used a LOT of them.  It’s made by the same people who make essential anatomy - but EA isn’t free.).  Unfortunately, it’s iOS only and I’ve never found a decent alternative for android. :/ 
There is a lot more to telling human from animal, but my hope is that you’ll pick it up as I make the other entries into the series.  My best advice here is to develop an eye for detail.  Be like Elliot Spencer: it’s a very distinctive ___________. 
One final note on anatomy: people almost always do not realize what size bones actually are.  Human femurs are long and they’re heavy for their size.  They’re usually at least a foot or two in length (I mean...obviously...height is a factor.). The head is good and solid, and the shaft is thick with a lot of compact bone, but when the soft tissue is gone they’re hollow.  Most of the long bones are.  Foot bones are larger than most people expect. Skulls vary in size between softball-ish and volleyball-ish.  And human bone has a distinctive density which, unfortunately, you can’t learn the feel of without handling bone.  If you pick up a bone that looks right but doesn’t feel right - you know it.  I handled a human femur that felt like bird bone (bird bone is very light with a lot of spongy bone bc they fly.) because of a pathology (a non-standard but usually naturally occurring thing on the bone.  Breaks aren’t a pathology, but their regrowth can be.  Syphilis damage is a pathology because bacteria is naturally occurring, as are things like bone cancer, osteoporosis, etc.).  Other times it’s because your damned osteology prof mixed in a human-looking animal bone with the box of remains to trip you up because the differences can be real subtle and you need to learn that.  
Anyway, I think that’s it for today.  I’ll seeya tomorrow, peoples! 
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cruelfeline · 4 years
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The Hordak Bleatings Masterpost
The new and improved Masterpost! All of my ridiculous bleating in one place! Now with categories to allow you, dear friends and neighbors, to better marvel at the utter nonsense I get up to in my spare time. It shall be updated every so often/when I remember. 
some of these categories may overlap or perhaps not be perfect; I tried; there was... a lot
Enjoy!
Biological/Medical Musings
A Fairly Comprehensive List of Hordak’s Clinical Signs
I Wrote Too Much About Hordak’s Arms
And Then Someone Asked About His Elbows So Voila
Someone Else Asked About His Eyes
Yes; I Did Measure Hordak’s Ears via Fuzzy Math; You’re Welcome
A Brief Word About Dentition
Some Sad Thoughts About Clone Lifespan
I Like to Headcanon that Clones Have Naturally Different Eye Colors
Counting Hordak’s Ports
Thinking About Terrible Ways Prime Could Institute Biological Control
Doing Very Fuzzy Math And Wondering Just How Young Hordak Could Be
Spending Way Too Much Time Figuring Out Whether Hordak is Left or Right Handed
Why Tiny Food is Probably Ideal for Hordak (a joke ask I essentially took Seriously)
Discussing Hordak’s Temper
Considering Whether Hordak Needs Oxygen
Discussing Whether Prime and his Clones are Genetically Identical
Hordak in Relation to Other Characters
Entrapdak
Hordak Can Get Close to Entrapta Because He Needn’t Fear Her
Discussing Entrapdak Age Discourse
Bit More Regarding Hordak’s Maturity vs. Entrapta’s
Hordak Didn’t Manipulate Entrapta… But Catra Did
Assessing that Unfortunate Moment When Hordak Snapped at Entrapta
Further Assessing Hordak Snapping at Entrapta by Noting When He Doesn’t
On Hordak’s Wardrobe Change
Entrapta Shushing Hordak is One of My Favorite Interactions
The Entrapdak Scene Was Also One of Self-Love
I Really Like How Entrapta Talks to Hordak About Failure
Hordak Tells an Actual Lie and Succeeds
Entrapta’s and Hordak’s Social Differences Help Them Connect to One Another
I Would Have Appreciated A Scene Where Entrapta Learns About What Happened To Hordak
Hordak Takes Strength From Realizing That Entrapta Came For Him
Hordak and Entrapta Just Like One Another, and I Enjoy That
There is a Huge Difference in How The Alliance and Hordak React to Entrapta Being on Beast Island, and it’s Jarring
This is Mostly About Catradora But Kind of in the Sense of Why Entrapdak is Better, so Here it Goes
Entrapta Didn’t Teach Hordak How to Love; She Taught Him How to Be Loved
The Soup Scene is a Condensed View of Why Entrapdak Works in Light of the Rest of Hordak’s Arc
Hordak and Entrapta Search for One Another Alone, and it Makes Me Sad
I Love How Hordak Scooches Over for Entrapta to Join Him on his Throne
Catra
The How-Catra-Manipulated-Hordak Masterpost
Watching Catra and Hordak Switch Roles in Season Three is Fascinating
Hordak and Catra’s Low Points Indicate Their Core Problems
Did Hordak Abuse Catra? Did She Abuse Him? The World May Never Know
Comparing Hordak and Catra in Terms of Consequences and Agency
Hordak and Catra’s Apparent Ages Likely Affect How People Judge Them
Why Doesn’t Hordak Subdue Catra?
Losing and Regaining the Will to Fight is Another Hordak/Catra Parallel
Sometimes I Wish The Show Would Focus Less on Catra and More on Hordak
Why Catra Besting Hordak Isn’t As Satisfying As Catra Besting Shadow Weaver
Hordak Exhibits Some Level of Trust in Catra Even in Season 2... and She Betrays It
The Difference in How Hordak and Catra Handle Relationships followed by Why They Are Like This 
Some Brief Words on the Differences Between How Hordak and Catra End Up Driven to Destruction in Season Four
Musing About What I Actually Would Accept as “Hordak Abusing Catra”
I Think It’s Kind of Funny that Some Expect Catra to be Suspicious of Hordak Post-Canon
Two Scenes That Look Distressing Side-by-Side
Discussing How Catra and Hordak Start Off as Parallels but Later Deviate Due to Character Differences
Adora
How Adora and Hordak End Season Four Differently
Hordak and Adora Parallels
I Wonder if Adora Recognizes Some of Herself in Hordak
Other
This is Actually About Shadow Weaver, but Compared to Hordak, So…
Hordak Doesn’t Seem to have a “Rule the World!” Moment (compared to Shadow Weaver)
On Hordak’s Weird Interactions with DT
Watching DT Circle Hordak is Interesting
Let’s Compare the Circling Scenes, Shall We?
What Wrong Hordak’s Arc Teaches Us About Clones and Hordak
Wondering if Hordak Actually has Control Over the Etherian Horde (could he have stopped the war?)
Prime
There Is A Huge Difference In The Standards Prime And Hordak Hold Others Two Versus Themselves
Hordak and Horde Prime Handle Their Own Vulnerabilities Quite Differently
The Difference Between How Prime and Hordak Use Anger
The Moment Prime Touched Hordak’s Face is the Moment I Truly Knew That Something About Hordak’s Backstory was Very Wrong
Clone/Origin/Prime-Related Sadness
The Clone Thing
More Distressed Bleating about The Clone Thing
Hordak’s DMV Photo Disturbs Me
Hordak Isn’t Actually an Idiot About Disease Transmission
On Hordak’s Bodily Autonomy, or Lack Thereof
How Much of Hordak is “Hordak?”
I’m 99% Certain That Hordak Sucks at Lying Because he Literally Couldn’t
You’d Think Hordak would Think Things Through, But…
Hordak isn’t Really Proud of “Hordak” (with a bonus Adora mention)
Hordak Provides Excellent Fridge Horror
Hordak’s Behavioral Pathology Isn’t Actually Pathology
So! That Purification Ritual was Really Something
Despite Erasure, Hordak Remains Himself
The Clones Are Essentially Trapped By Prime And It Upsets Me
I Get Annoyed That The Clones Aren’t Discussed More By Our Heroes
Again, I Wish The Show Acknowledged The Clones A Bit More, Wrongie Edition
Wouldn’t It Be Swell If Prime Really Did Manage The Clones Like Livestock? 
It’s More Emotionally Poignant That The Clones Are Individuals Rather Than Drones
Prime’s Doctrine Ensures Hordak Blames Himself, and it’s an Awful Control Measure
Hordak Probably Isn’t Dumb for Using Uninsulated Cables; Rather, Clone Sadness is in Play
Why I Can’t See Hordak and the Other Clones As Colonizers (unlike Prime) (also a whole convo thread)
Thinking About Clones and Self-Care
Each Clone Will Have to Realize That They Were Victimized
Wondering if Horde Clones Might Feel Anxious Sleeping Alone
Why Prime Might Encourage Some Autonomy in His Clones (spoilers: for cruelty)
Completely Arbitrary Classification of Clones Post-Prime!
Prime is an Actual God to the Clones and it is Terrifying
Canon Plausibility of Blanket Burritoing Horde Clones!
I Appreciate That, Despite Their Devotion, the Clones are Portrayed as Legitimately Suffering due to Prime
Catra and Adora have Happy Memories; do the Clones?; does Hordak?
Morality/Punishment/Redemption Related
Morality is (sadly) not a Universal Thing
Don’t Talk to me About the Reset as “Proper Punishment”
Why Hordak Doesn’t Just Become a Good Citizen
I Think About Hordak’s Choices a Lot
Hordak as an Abuse Mimic Rather Than Pure Evil
Looking at the Horde Child Soldier Thing From a Certain POV
Emotional Support is a Necessary Part of Healing
Hordak Was Forgiven Without Redemption, And I’m OK With That
Hordak’s Arc Speaks Directly to People who were “Raised Wrong”
I Wonder if Hordak Would See anti-Princess Propaganda as Propaganda
Semi-Intelligent Plot/Story Observations
Hordak’s Portrayal is a Function of Character Lens
Hordak Gets Very Legit Development in Season Four
She-Ra Isn’t a War Drama and Here’s Why
Hordak Suffers From a Distressing Lack of Agency
Hordak is a Weirdly Unenthusiastic Lord
The Season 4 Finale Reframes Hordak’s Vulnerability 
Untangling Hordak’s Backstory in Light of What We Now Know
Why Hordak Getting Possessed is Narratively Good
Hordak’s Rebellion and Subsequent Possession Essentially Summarize His Story
There Are Big Differences Between Hordak and Prime’s Etherian Wars
It Is Pretty Unlikely That Hordak Would Have Pulled The Portal Lever
It Occurred To Me That Hordak May Initially Ignore FO’s Tech Because It’s Just Really Old
An Assessment Of The Villain Intro Cards, Focusing On Hordak
I Think It’s Silly To Blame Hordak For Everything - Especially When Considering Prime
Literally Just a Thread Explaining Why Hordak is Sympathetic
Some Words On Exactly How Terrible DT’s Reveal Was For Hordak
The Escalation of Hordak’s Situation is Really Something
An Anon Asks a Normal Question and I go on a Tangent About Hordak Compensating for his Inability to Innovate via Entrapta and Catra
There are Monumental Differences Between the Galactic and Etherian Hordes in Terms of Brainwashing and Agency
Thinking About Why Chipped Etherians May Not be That Sympathetic To Clones After All
Random Bit of Logicking About Why Hordak Calls the Princesses a Rebellion
Figuring Out Why I Find Hordak So Much More Sympathetic Than The Princesses
Brief Musing on How Hordak Might Face Antagonism From Both Sides Post-Canon
Hordak’s Story Touches on the Concept of the Imperfection of Authority
Someone Asked Me if I Found Hordak’s S5 Arc Satisfying
Discussing Whether Or Not Hordak Planned on Leading Anything After Conquering Etheria
Taking Apart an Abysmal Twitter Take Because It’s Fun
Talking About Prime’s Clone Troops v. Robot Troops
Talking About Hordak’s Emotional Age
Hordak’s S3 Backtory Being Part-Delusion Helps Emphasize the Inequality in Attachment Between the Clones and Prime
A Few Not-So-Nice Acts Hordak Commits That I Find Justifiable
Random Headcanons of All Sorts
Stupidly Cute, Pointless Headcanon #3825 (ears covered)
Stupid Pointlessly Cute Headcanon #4853 (yawning, with appropriate artwork)
Stupid Pointlessly Cute Headcanon #2938 (snoring)
Stupid Pointlessly Cute Headcanon #1423 (REM sleep)
Stupidly Cute, Pointless Headcanon #7845 (blushing)
Random Hordak-Related Thought #2935 (forearms)
I Like to Think That Hordak Does Cute Things in his Sleep
I Like to Think That Hordak’s Eyes Dim While He Sleeps
Literally Me Just Having Emotions
Thinking About the Stress of Maintaining His Image in the Horde
Why Hordak’s Trauma is Particularly Disturbing To Me (compared to Catra/Adora)
Catra Overcomes her Fear of her Abuser; Hordak Does Not
All of my Emotions over the S4 Finale
Hordak’s Goddamned Smirk Lied to Me
I Have Feelings about Hordak’s Enforced Self-Care
I Need Hordak to Know that He is Loved
Hordak Goes Pew Pew and It’s Cute
Watching Hordak Lift Things Makes Me Smile
Hordak’s Unreasonable Expectations Make Me Sad
Please Just Let Hordak Rest
A Sassy Post About People Complaining the Hordak and Catra are Forgiven
All My Words About That Hordak/Adora Scene
Hordak Taps the Asphyxiation Lever With Two Fingers And It Makes Me Happy
I Wonder If Individuality Felt Blasphemous To Hordak
Please Don’t Stab Clones In Their Ports, Thank You
Hordak Clasps His Hands And It Makes Me Anxious
Hordak Shaming Catra Mimics the Purification Room And It’s Disturbing
Watching Hordak Give Up Is Heartbreaking
I Worry About Hordak Handling Anxiety
People Being Considerate of Hordak Makes My Heart Smile
I Wonder If Magic Was Frightening to Hordak at First
Thinking About Hordak Progressing in Terms of Self-Care
Prime Never Calls Hordak by Name, not Even Once
Just Being Sad While Realizing the Sort of Life Hordak had to Look Forward To
Strange Fic-Like Things No One Should Read
Please Consider: A Concept Masterpost
Hordak Practices Eyerolling
Imp Hacks Up The Worst Color of Hairball
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anthroxlove · 2 years
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Hare Psychopathy Checklist
In the test, a clinician interviews a potential sociopath and scores them on 20 criteria, such as "promiscuous sexual Behavior" or "impulsivity." On each criterion, the subject is ranked on a 3-point scale: (0 = item does not apply, 1 = item applies somewhat, 2 = item definitely applies). The scores are summed to create a rank of zero to 40. Anyone who scores 30 and above is probably a psycho.
1. Do you have "excess glibness" or superficial charm? (For sociopaths, the answer to this question is yes.)
2. Do you have a grandiose sense of self-worth? (Psychopaths do.)
3. Do you have an excess need for stimulation or proneness to boredom? (Psychopaths can't endure periods of the doldrums.)
4. Are you a pathological liar? (Psychopaths don't care about the truth.)
5. Are you conning or manipulative? (Psychopaths often believe they can pull the strings of the dupes around them.)
6. Do you display a lack of remorse or guilt? (Psychopaths don't feel bad when they do bad things.)
7. Do you have "shallow affect"? (Psychopaths show a lack of emotions when an emotional reaction is appropriate)
8. Are you callous, or do you lack empathy? (Psychopaths just don't care when bad things happen to other people.)
9. Do you have a "parasitic lifestyle"? (Psychopaths prefer not to work for a living. They feel it is easier to take stuff from other people.)
10. Do you have poor behavioral controls? (Psychopaths find it difficult to keep themselves in check)
11. Do you have a history of promiscuous sexual behavior? (Psychopaths like one-night stands.)
12. Do you have a history of early behavioral problems? (As children, psychopaths often have a history of cruelty to others.)
13. Do you lack realistic long-term goals? (Psychopaths prefer crazy schemes over life or career goals.)
14. Are you overly impulsive? (Psychopaths are very, very impulsive.)
15. Do you have a high level of irresponsibility? (Psychopaths aren't big on doing the right thing.)
16. Do you fail to accept responsibility for your own actions? (When you're a psycho, it's always someone else's fault.)
17. Have you had many short-term "marital" relationships? (Psychopaths have an inability to commit to, or repeatedly betray, long-term relationships.)
18. Do you have a history of juvenile delinquency? (Psychopaths start young.)
19. Have you ever experienced a "revocation of conditional release"? (Even when psychopaths catch a break — like being let out of prison on probation — they tend to screw up.)
20. Do you display "criminal versatility"? (Psychopaths differ from normal criminals because they don't really care which type of laws they break — they'll break any of them, under the right circumstances.)
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Note
i have to wonder if there's an implication that can be drawn the other way around wrt playfulness and stress - not that un-playful individuals experience stress more acutely, but that people who experience stress more acutely become less and less playful. i have intense, disproportionate shame/fear reactions due to Childhood Trauma(tm) and it's inhibiting as fuck - my work with my singing teacher to relax and (though i've never framed it this way) play(!) w/out embarrassment has been (1/3)
one of the most healing things for me... so i think there's this nexus of inhibition & confidence/security & perspective/scale & playfulness & resilience. to be playful you have to be a bit silly and vulnerable and willing to take a risk on doing something "wrong" i.e. not take yourself too seriously, but if you feel chronically unsafe you'll take yourself & everything else too seriously and want to do it "right" so you minimize the perceived risk of harm. going back to my singing teacher (2/3)
the most important thing she did for me was create an explicitly safe, non-judgmental environment where it's not only ok but even desirable to "fuck up" and "look/sound stupid" and to reinforce that message multiple times. so anyway that quote just made me think that "don't take things/yourself too seriously" sits at this interesting intersection between increasing playfulness & coping strategies for emotional damage. sorry to ramble about it in your ask box lol! (3/3)
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yes I think this is so so true!! all of this, lol, but especially the part about how acute stress can make it increasingly difficult to be playful. i have written a lot about working through internalized shame here in the past, and especially about the ways that shame causes you to both physically and emotionally shut down parts of yourself. (i actually gave a talk about this subject recently! it was like, a layman’s intro to the neuroscience of shame, with a specific focus on how shame responses affect people’s ability to learn & to connect socially with others in learning spaces.) 
i do just want to clarify that the excerpt i posted was from a study that was very narrowly focused on answering the question: “is there a link between playfulness levels and positive/adaptive coping mechanisms in responding to stress?” the study wasn’t designed to answer larger questions about what kinds of life experiences might produce higher levels of playfulness vs. make it difficult to be playful (such as past trauma, not having one’s basic needs for security met, etc.). in the conclusion the authors note that their findings (i.e., that playful people seem to be more able to readily access and use positive coping mechanisms) means that we should be doing more research on how to cultivate playfulness and how to help people unlearn maladaptive coping mechanisms like self-blame. so the point of the study was not to blame individuals or place the responsibility on individual people (“if you could just lighten up, you wouldn’t be so stressed / unhappy / bad at coping!”). it was more like, an attempt to establish that playfulness (as a way of engaging with the world) seems to be associated with all of these positive ways of coping and managing stress, and so we might want to research playfulness more deeply and/or focus on cultivating it in college students.
so i think you are absolutely right that when we talk about playfulness it’s important not to think of it as something that something people just “have” or don’t have (detached from any consideration of people’s backgrounds, lived experiences, etc.). and we also want to avoid pathologizing its absence (“if you don’t have a playful attitude then there’s something wrong/flawed/messed up about you that needs to be fixed”). my research is focused on understanding how we can better create learning environments like the one your singing teacher has created for you -- i.e., spaces where people feel more secure and less vulnerable to scathing or hypercritical judgment; where failures and mistakes are encouraged & normalized as a natural, healthy part of the learning experience; where instructors are modeling self-compassion and deliberately not using shame-based methods; and just in general, where students are getting the kind of gentle, compassionate, consistent messaging you describe receiving from your teacher. basically I’m interested in creating classrooms that provide the stability and consistency people need in order to learn adaptive coping mechanisms that will serve them well outside of those learning spaces.
i think these questions are so important because most college instructors are VERY aware that our students come into our classrooms carrying many different kinds of trauma—whether it’s the more extreme forms that we tend to think of when we think about trauma (childhood abuse, sexual assault, trauma experienced by combat veterans or refugees from warzones), or the forms of pervasive lowgrade trauma associated with financial precarity, racialized stress, etc., or even just the “lighter” or harder-to-classify forms of trauma that rachel naomi remen calls “the cultural shadow” (i.e., the toxic dominant culture that many of us grow up immersed in). and anyone who has taught at the college level (or taught any age level) knows that as a teacher you often have to at least temporarily play aspects of counselor / social worker / person adept at navigating university bureaucracy to help keep students in crisis from slipping through the cracks. (that is obviously NOT ideal, as those roles should be filled by trained professionals! but we have all been in those situations, where you are the first line of support for a student in crisis, or sometimes the last line of support because they have slipped through the giant holes in our country’s social safety nets.)
i think there’s been a shift in recent years towards “trauma-informed pedagogy,” but the slightly watered-down version of this approach many instructors receive tends to be very focused on mitigating harm in the classroom (ie, avoiding certain things or framing material in certain ways so as to avoid re-traumatizing students). this work is obviously HUGELY important (and my own research project is v much informed by it!). but i sometimes feel like these approaches are very damage-centered, ie very focused on understanding how students are “damaged” by their experiences and how we can “prevent further damage” in the classroom space. again, wanting to adopt teaching practices that avoid retraumatizing students is a good thing!!! but i think what i am hoping my work can do is suggest that we can and should strive for more than just limiting damage. to put this another way: i’m looking for ways to go beyond asking “how can we avoid re-traumatizing students in our classrooms?” to thinking more broadly about how we (as teachers, mentors, etc) can design learning environments and learning experiences that help students grow into healthier, happier, more emotionally resilient versions of themselves—and hopefully help build a foundation of social-emotional skills that they will take with them into their adult lives.
play is not the sole "answer” or solution! but i think that for me, it’s been one useful way to think about things like trauma-informed teaching, restorative practices, and social-emotional mentoring strategies, in ways that center a more positive, joyful understanding of what happy and emotionally well-adjusted adulthood can look/feel like. does that make sense?? i think about cultivating playfulness as just one angle onto answering these questions, or as one approach or set of strategies that people could have in their toolkits as they think about how we design learning environments. it won’t work for all students or all teachers or all learning environments, and it won’t solve all of the problems in higher ed (or in a culture where traumatic experiences are so prevalent and yet are so often left unacknowledged and untreated). but i think for me at least it’s been one generative way to reimagine some of the common structures and norms that structure higher ed learning environments.
anyway sorry to use your ask as a springboard into a long “thinking aloud” post!! but i really enjoyed reading your thoughts and i feel like it’s prompted me to articulate some thoughts that have just been sort of murkily floating around in my mind for the last couple weeks. i am also so glad for you that you have a space in your own life (and a trusted teacher figure) where you feel secure & can practice and explore being vulnerable, making mistakes, being silly/playful, etc. it sounds like she is a really wonderful teacher, and it’s so cool too that you are able to describe the ways in which that learning space has felt healing or healthy for you.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about how transness is pathologised in a way gayness largely isn’t anymore (in mainstream America). For some reason it’s perfectly acceptable to say “counselors should do everything they can to ‘help’ kids who think they might be trans be comfortable in their ‘natural’ bodies and ‘natural’ expression,” while it’s generally not acceptable to say “counselors should do everything they can to ‘help’ kids who think they might be gay become comfortable with their opposite-sex attraction so they don’t feel the need to be attracted to the same sex.” Because that is just straight up conversion therapy. But I think because transitioning often involves changing your body (and that’s really all most cis people think it is), people think non-normative gender identities are inherently tied to either mental illness or just some form of aberration, not something “normal people” experience. So if they think some kid or person seems “mostly normal,” they assume they aren’t really trans. There’s this line of thinking that if people get the right “help” they won’t feel trans anymore, that it’s just a passing phase, and that if we normalize openly shifting one’s identity away from what one is assigned at birth, people who would have just “grown out of it” will live their lives as weird, struggling, miserable trans people. And I hate it.
It’s so insidious, the pathologization of transness. People don’t even hear the hatred, the judgment, or the disgust in their words. “Concern” which judges, infantilizes, and discriminates against people is not helpful concern. It’s not kind concern. It’s “I know what’s right for you better than you do, and my worldview is correct and yours isn’t, so I have to save you from yourself.” It reminds me of the “white savior” narrative as it’s been used historically (less so today where it often refers to ‘allies’ ‘saving’ POC from racism) to justify colonization and slavery - it was white civilization’s duty to save savages from lives of ignorance and inhumanity. Trans people don’t need saving. They - we - need acceptance. So much of the mental health struggles (and even the gender dysphoria) trans people experience is a result of the people around them and society insisting that if your body is a certain way, that says all sorts of things about your gender and personality and who you are as a person.
And I think that medically transitioning is only as ‘unnatural’ as something as basic as piercings or tattoos, or something as complex and vital as pacemakers or prosthetics. Just because we haven’t always had the ability to do it doesn’t mean it’s inherently worse than body modifications we have been able to do for thousands of years (like tattoos or simple prosthetics).
So, yes, before someone makes irreversible changes to their body, they should be sure they know what they’re getting into. But this faux concern goes well beyond that - it assumes that transness is curable, that dysphoria isn’t really real and is just an expression of anxiety or other mental health problems, and that socially or medically transitioning is both extreme and barely ever helpful (if at all). And none of that is true. The research shows that it’s not true. If you listen to the experiences of trans people you’ll know that’s not true. But people know so little about gender and transness that they see this “concern” and see no problem with it; they even think it’s kind. They worry about people who experience gender dysphoria or question their gender experiencing needless harm and discrimination. But the real problem is the external harm and discrimination itself. And trying to convince anyone they’re probably not trans contributes to that. Being told you’re (probably) wrong and naive and don’t know yourself, and running into gatekeeping that prevents you from accessing the resources you know would help you, is awful. I so hope that people are going to come to understand that better in the near future, because the backlash against trans people being visible in public life now is fucking heartbreaking.
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lovemesomesurveys · 3 years
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1. How has covid affected you? It just made me even more of a hermit crab than I already was, which I acknowledge is absolutely nothing at all compared to what so many people around the world experienced. It’s heartbreaking to say the least to see the tremendous effect it had. 
2. What is a comfort show of yours ? Shows I grew up with and have seen many times. The other day I couldn’t sleep at all and I decided to put on The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which used to come on the Disney Channel early in the morning when I was a kid and it was just really comforting and helped me relax enough to fall asleep. 
3. Are you open about your past or do you not let anyone in? I’m quite open on here that’s for sure. I’m not nearly as open in person as I am in these surveys. 
4. Favourite fast food joint? I don’t have a particular favorite, really, it just depends what I’m in the mood for.
5. Do you think we were put on this earth for a reason? Yes.
6. What is something you have done this year you’re proud of? Nothing. This year has been awful so far due to some health setbacks. 
7. Do u ever feel like surveys are usually the same questions? Oh, most definitely. I guess I have to expect that considering how many I take and how long I’ve been doing these things. Still, it does get annoying when the same questions come up a lot back to back. So often I’ll take a survey and then do another after and end coming across the same questions. 
8. What were you doing 10 years ago? Ten years ago I was 21. Wow. I was attending community college, I had friends and a social life, I was actually doing something... sigh. Soooo much has changed.
9. Do you call out Karen’s when they’re harassing a cashier? No.
10. Animal crossing , yay or nay? Yay. I was addicted like all of last year and then for some reason I stopped playing a few months ago. I should start up again. 
11. Why do you like to do surveys? I just genuinely enjoy doing them. Besides giving me something to do, these are like my diary entries as well. I’m able to vent and ramble, which is often needed. I also like the interesting and random questions to think about and answer. I just like ‘em, man. 
12. Did you ever have a MySpace ? Yep. I was super into Myspace back in it’s heyday.
13. Do you think breaks are toxic in a relationship? I wouldn’t say they’re toxic, but I don’t know how well they work out. You definitely have to make sure you’ve very, very clear on what all the break entails and that you’re both on the same page. 
14. Do you have a YouTube channel? If no , would you create one? If yes what’s your content? I have a YouTube account so I can subscribe to accounts and whatnot, but I myself don’t make videos. I have no interest at all in that.
15. Are you a math person? Noooo. Math and I have always been enemies. 
16. What’s the worse thing someone has said to you? Hm. I feel like the worst things have been said by me to myself. :/
17. Have you ever befriended someone because you felt bad? Kind of. :/
18. Would you ever date someone online? Nahh.
19. Have you been ghosted before? Would you ghost someone? I sure have and unfortunately I’ve done it as well. :/
20. When do you think things will be normal again? I don’t know...
21. Do you watch anime? No.
22. Biggest goal you wanna reach before 2020 is over ? Welp, that passed. 
23. How old did/do you turn this year ? I’ll be 32. D:
24. Do you like tiktok? I was hooked for a good while and then fell off. It’s been a couple months now since the last time I’ve been on there. 
25. Do you ever miss vine? We have TikTok now. But there were a lot of good Vines that still get mentioned and people remember. That was a whole different time. 
26. How are you doing, seriously? In the words of MCR, “I’m not o-fucking-kay.” It’s been rough.
27. Is there someone you want to talk to but you know you can’t? Kind of.
28. Do you make jokes to cope with your problems? Self-deprecating jokes are definitely something I do. 
29. Have you ever had someone call you their best friend but you didn’t even consider them a close friend? Yes. :X I feel like I’ve definitely been on the other side of that as well, though. I always felt like I was closer to someone and they didn’t feel the same way. 
30. Have you ever dealt with a pathological liar? Not to my knowledge.
31. Long or short surveys? Long.
32. If ur in school , are you doing it on zoom or in class? --
33. Would you ever have a pet rat? Gah, no.
34. Favourite memory with your best friend? There’s way too many. 
35. Favourite type of content to watch on YouTube? ASMR, vlogs, Disney related videos (history of Disney and its parks, history and information about the movies and TV shows past and present, theories, fun facts, etc), abandoned buildings, lifestyle videos, some drama videos...
36. Are you allergic to anything serious? No, thankfully. 
37. Dream job? I don’t have one. :/
38. Do you think dreams mean anything? Sometimes.
39. Fav clothing brand? I don’t have a favorite brand, really. 
40. Do you miss anyone? My loved ones who have passed away.
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