#Individual Circumstances review

[chrispychanniem]

My Honest Opinion:

This is your evergreen "black cat and golden retriever" trope. It hands down is one of my favourite series.

Well, despite of it being one of my favourite series, I must admit that it was getting a bit over the top from time to time. I mean, I get it that it that the misunderstandings were pretty rough but damn, this is why you must communicate and be considerate.

But all's well that ends well. Hence I am glad that everything went well between them and eventually we got the happy ending that we were longing for. So, I definitely recommend watching this series.

[bl-issblog6621]

Best Boy Love Stories (BLs) of 2023 January Edition

This year, 2023, the BL world has enjoyed a massive premier of bl series especially from Japan, Korea, and ofcourse Thailand. Some of these series have been really good, others not quite, and others just bottom line frustrating. Regardless, it has quite a treat to watch the BL series push the boundaries to give the fans innovative storylines beyond first love and coming out stories to healing…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI’s “human in the loop” isn’t

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

AI's ability to make – or assist with – important decisions is fraught: on the one hand, AI can often classify things very well, at a speed and scale that outstrips the ability of any reasonably resourced group of humans. On the other hand, AI is sometimes very wrong, in ways that can be terribly harmful.

Bureaucracies and the AI pitchmen who hope to sell them algorithms are very excited about the cost-savings they could realize if algorithms could be turned loose on thorny, labor-intensive processes. Some of these are relatively low-stakes and make for an easy call: Brewster Kahle recently told me about the Internet Archive's project to scan a ton of journals on microfiche they bought as a library discard. It's pretty easy to have a high-res scanner auto-detect the positions of each page on the fiche and to run the text through OCR, but a human would still need to go through all those pages, marking the first and last page of each journal and identifying the table of contents and indexing it to the scanned pages. This is something AI apparently does very well, and instead of scrolling through endless pages, the Archive's human operator now just checks whether the first/last/index pages the AI identified are the right ones. A project that could have taken years is being tackled with never-seen swiftness.

The operator checking those fiche indices is something AI people like to call a "human in the loop" – a human operator who assesses each judgment made by the AI and overrides it should the AI have made a mistake. "Humans in the loop" present a tantalizing solution to algorithmic misfires, bias, and unexpected errors, and so "we'll put a human in the loop" is the cure-all response to any objection to putting an imperfect AI in charge of a high-stakes application.

But it's not just AIs that are imperfect. Humans are wildly imperfect, and one thing they turn out to be very bad at is supervising AIs. In a 2022 paper for Computer Law & Security Review, the mathematician and public policy expert Ben Green investigates the empirical limits on human oversight of algorithms:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3921216

Green situates public sector algorithms as the latest salvo in an age-old battle in public enforcement. Bureaucracies have two conflicting, irreconcilable imperatives: on the one hand, they want to be fair, and treat everyone the same. On the other hand, they want to exercise discretion, and take account of individual circumstances when administering justice. There's no way to do both of these things at the same time, obviously.

But algorithmic decision tools, overseen by humans, seem to hold out the possibility of doing the impossible and having both objective fairness and subjective discretion. Because it is grounded in computable mathematics, an algorithm is said to be "objective": given two equivalent reports of a parent who may be neglectful, the algorithm will make the same recommendation as to whether to take their children away. But because those recommendations are then reviewed by a human in the loop, there's a chance to take account of special circumstances that the algorithm missed. Finally, a cake that can be both had, and eaten!

For the paper, Green reviewed a long list of policies – local, national, and supra-national – for putting humans in the loop and found several common ways of mandating human oversight of AI.

First, policies specify that algorithms must have human oversight. Many jurisdictions set out long lists of decisions that must be reviewed by human beings, banning "fire and forget" systems that chug along in the background, blithely making consequential decisions without anyone ever reviewing them.

Second, policies specify that humans can exercise discretion when they override the AI. They aren't just there to catch instances in which the AI misinterprets a rule, but rather to apply human judgment to the rules' applications.

Next, policies require human oversight to be "meaningful" – to be more than a rubber stamp. For high-stakes decisions, a human has to do a thorough review of the AI's inputs and output before greenlighting it.

Finally, policies specify that humans can override the AI. This is key: we've all encountered instances in which "computer says no" and the hapless person operating the computer just shrugs their shoulders apologetically. Nothing I can do, sorry!

All of this sounds good, but unfortunately, it doesn't work. The question of how humans in the loop actually behave has been thoroughly studied, published in peer-reviewed, reputable journals, and replicated by other researchers. The measures for using humans to prevent algorithmic harms represent theories, and those theories are testable, and they have been tested, and they are wrong.

For example, people (including experts) are highly susceptible to "automation bias." They defer to automated systems, even when those systems produce outputs that conflict with their own expert experience and knowledge. A study of London cops found that they "overwhelmingly overestimated the credibility" of facial recognition and assessed its accuracy at 300% better than its actual performance.

Experts who are put in charge of overseeing an automated system get out of practice, because they no longer engage in the routine steps that lead up to the conclusion. Presented with conclusions, rather than problems to solve, experts lose the facility and familiarity with how all the factors that need to be weighed to produce a conclusion fit together. Far from being the easiest step of coming to a decision, reviewing the final step of that decision without doing the underlying work can be much harder to do reliably.

Worse: when algorithms are made "transparent" by presenting their chain of reasoning to expert reviewers, those reviewers become more deferential to the algorithm's conclusion, not less – after all, now the expert has to review not just one final conclusion, but several sub-conclusions.

Even worse: when humans do exercise discretion to override an algorithm, it's often to inject the very bias that the algorithm is there to prevent. Sure, the algorithm might give the same recommendation about two similar parents who are facing having their children taken away, but the judge who reviews the recommendations is more likely to override it for a white parent than for a Black one.

Humans in the loop experience "a diminished sense of control, responsibility, and moral agency." That means that they feel less able to override an algorithm – and they feel less morally culpable when they sit by and let the algorithm do its thing.

All of these effects are persistent even when people know about them, are trained to avoid them, and are given explicit instructions to do so. Remember, the whole reason to introduce AI is because of human imperfection. Designing an AI to correct human imperfection that only works when its human overseer is perfect produces predictably bad outcomes.

As Green writes, putting an AI in charge of a high-stakes decision, and using humans in the loop to prevent its harms, produces a "perverse effect": "alleviating scrutiny of government algorithms without actually addressing the underlying concerns." The human in the loop creates "a false sense of security" that sees algorithms deployed for high-stakes domains, and it shifts the responsibility for algorithmic failures to the human, creating what Dan Davies calls an "accountability sink":

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

The human in the loop is a false promise, a "salve that enables governments to obtain the benefits of algorithms without incurring the associated harms."

So why are we still talking about how AI is going to replace government and corporate bureaucracies, making decisions at machine speed, overseen by humans in the loop?

Well, what if the accountability sink is a feature and not a bug. What if governments, under enormous pressure to cut costs, figure out how to also cut corners, at the expense of people with very little social capital, and blame it all on human operators? The operators become, in the phrase of Madeleine Clare Elish, "moral crumple zones":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

As Green writes:

The emphasis on human oversight as a protective mechanism allows governments and vendors to have it both ways: they can promote an algorithm by proclaiming how its capabilities exceed those of humans, while simultaneously defending the algorithm and those responsible for it from scrutiny by pointing to the security (supposedly) provided by human oversight.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/30/a-neck-in-a-noose/#is-also-a-human-in-the-loop

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en ==

[coochiequeens]

This should not have taken so long

Trans women who have hurt or threatened women or girls will not be held in female prisons unless there are "exceptional" circumstances, new guidance states.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) policy follows a public outcry after a rapist was sent to a women's prison.

Isla Bryson raped two women while known as Adam Graham.

The Scottish Conservatives said the new policy was "subjective" and "unacceptable".

The latest figures show there were 23 trans prisoners in Scotland from January to March this year.

They included 19 trans women, seven of whom were in a women's prison, and four trans men - one of whom was in a male prison.

Under previous guidance drawn up in 2014, the prison service allowed prisoners to be placed in facilities matching their gender identity, rather than their sex at birth, providing accommodation that "best suits the person in custody's needs".

This was reviewed and in February, following the Bryson case, it was updated to say no newly convicted or remanded transgender prisoner with a history of violence against women would be housed in female prison facilities.

Under the new policy - which will come into force in February 2024 - a trans woman would not be allowed to move into the female estate if they had been convicted of, or were on remand awaiting trial for, a crime that harmed a female - unless there was "compelling evidence that they did not present an unacceptable risk of harm to those in the women's prison".

These offences include any that result in suffering to a female, such as sexual offences, murder, assault, abduction and intimidation.

Those who have changed their legal gender can also be housed in accordance with their sex at birth, "if it is considered necessary to support people's safety and wellbeing".

The policy states: "Only when staff have enough information to reach a decision that a trans individual can be safely accommodated will they be placed in an establishment which matches their affirmed gender."

Trans men will be admitted to the female estate, but those who have committed crimes against women may be kept separate from other prisoners if it is "deemed necessary" to "keep women in custody safe".

The new guidelines also allow officers to search inmates regardless of the inmate's "affirmed gender" or sex assigned at birth, "if it is necessary to keep the individual or staff safe".

Risks carefully managed'

Teresa Medhurst, chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service, said if a trans woman's offences were historic and low level, they could be moved to the female estate, but she stressed that would be exceptional.

She said all prisoners were "treated with dignity and respect, with their rights upheld, and any risks carefully managed".

"The position, whilst it is still individualised, will ensure that those that have a history of violence against women and girls and present a risk to women will no longer be placed on admission in the women's estate.

"I am content that everyone who is a transgender individual is located in the prison which best suits their risk and needs profile."

She added that she was confident the new policy would address public concerns surrounding trans prisoners.

The Scottish government's Justice Secretary Angela Constance said the new policy protected the "safety and welfare" of staff and prisoners, and the "rights of transgender people".

She said: "SPS has considerable expertise, as well as a duty of care for the management of people in their custody, and this policy upholds its responsibilities to deliver safe, secure and suitable services for all."

Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Russell Findlay MSP said the new prison policy was "unacceptable" and put women at "even greater risk by further eroding their fundamental right to single-sex space".

"They say that male prisoners with a history of violence against women or girls should be allowed in the female estate and will only be blocked if they present a risk, which is completely subjective."

Lucy Hunter Blackman, from policy analysts Murray Blackburn Mackenzie, said any new policy in Scotland should not "talk narrowly about the potential risk of a physical or sexual assault".

She added: "It needs to recognise how the presence of someone male might impact upon group of vulnerable traumatised women, held in spaces from which they cannot escape."

[morlock-holmes]

A pointless, overly long, barely edited review of White Fragility

Well that book sucked.

The end I guess.

OK honestly the process of reading White Fragility was incredibly draining, I started out annoyed, then became amused and fascinated by Robin DiAngelo’s peculiar definition of “Individualism”, then got annoyed and angry again, then just… drained. It’s an exhausting book.

As I try to put my feelings out there I’m having trouble linking them together coherently but this book is just so exhausting that the idea of editing this and doing several passes is just draining to think about. So here are some scattered thoughts:

Before anything else, it’s just not well written or edited

White Fragility is very repetitive, ambling, and just kind of… not very well arranged in general. It’s clear that the book desperately needed a proper editor, or maybe it didn’t, since it became incredibly successful despite everything wrong with it. Here’s an example I’ve already mentioned. 

Towards the end of the first part of the book, DiAngelo puts together a list of a “common set of racial patterns” that are “the foundation of white fragility” and one of the bullets on that list reads,

“Wanting to jump over the hard, personal work and get to ‘solutions’”

Not once, anywhere in the preceding 111 pages or the succeeding 128 is the idea expanded on in any way whatsoever.

And it’s a truly baffling statement if you don’t expand on it. Why are solutions somehow opposed to “hard, personal work”? Is hard, personal work not part of a solution to some problem? If not why are we doing it?

The whole book has a similarly sloppy vibe; there’s very little factual information inside and what ideas there are are explained very badly.

A Christian apology for non-Christians

The more I read of White Fragility the more it seemed to me to have in common with badly written Christian apologia.

First off, modern, right-wing American Christian religious material often contains a sort of confusion that anybody could respond badly to the Gospels. After all, the good news of Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection is both obviously factually true AND self-evidently good news, but somehow when you go out and preach the gospels, non-believers will often act with derision or anger.

And there is a certain kind of Christian who will respond to that anger, not by considering that there might be factual or moral objections to the gospel, but by essentially asking, “What kind of bizarre psychological condition would cause somebody to get angry about something that is obviously true and obviously good?”

This is an ongoing thread in DiAngelo’s writing, starting with the introduction,

“In the early days of my work as what was then termed a diversity trainer, I was taken aback by how angry and defensive so many white people became at the suggestion that they were connected to racism in any way…

“I couldn’t understand their resentment or disinterest in learning more about such a complex social dynamic as racism. These reactions were especially perplexing when there were few or no people of color in their workplace, and they had the opportunity to learn from my cofacilitators(sic) of color. I assumed that in these circumstances, an educational workshop on racism would be appreciated. After all, didn’t the lack of diversity indicate a problem or at least suggest some perspectives were missing?”

Well gosh, why wouldn’t these people be excited to hear about all the things they’ve been doing wrong? Truly a mystery.

Secondly, most of the arguments DiAngelo makes are made very sloppily, and are only really convincing if you have already been well-convinced. To demonstrate this I would essentially have to just quote the whole book to you, but for an example see the bit above about wanting to jump over hard personal work. You and I have spent too much time in the fever swamp, we can guess what she means from cultural context, but she never explains it.

Third, as others have pointed out white supremacy in this book takes on the qualities of sin in Christian theology. All of us white people, simply by virtue of growing up in a white supremacist society, are racist. This isn’t really proven so much as assumed. 

You might assume that in Christian circles the fact that everybody is a sinner might level out hierarchies. After all, the Pastor is as much a sinner as you are.

But in many cases there is this kind of passive-aggressive jiujitsu. Oh, sure, the pastor sinned, but why should we criticize him when all men are sinners? Aren’t you failing to practice the virtue of forgiveness? 

Oh, what’s that, you did something bad? Well that’s a different story. It sounds like you haven’t been really giving yourself over to God. Maybe we haven’t been doing enough to help stop you from sinning. You should talk to the pastor and really think about where you’ve been going wrong, and of course we would just be enabling you if we didn’t call you out publicly, it’s an opportunity for growth on your part, and of course if you disagree with how we think you should atone, that's just further evidence of your sinfulness.

Anyway, speaking of passive-aggression:

The Passive-Aggressive style in Woke Politics

Robin DiAngelo comes off as one of the most passive-aggressive people I have ever read. And also, ironically, one of the most clueless people I have ever seen when it comes to the most basic aspects of ordinary human psychology.

Here, have some examples:

“I am typically received well when speaking in general terms–for example, ‘Your requirement that applicants have an advanced degree rather than equivalent experience is automatically disqualifying some of the applicants that could bring the perspectives and experiences you say you are looking for.’ Yet when I point out a concrete moment in the room in which someone’s racism is manifesting itself, white fragility erupts.”

Oh, what, seriously? When you say, “We all need to try harder to improve at this” people agree, but when you go, “Especially you Greg” Greg somehow becomes defensive? Crazy!

“For example, in a conversation about racism, when white people say that they work in a diverse environment or that they have people of color in their family, they are giving me their evidence that they are not racist. If this is their evidence, how are they defining racism?”

I mean… Literally the same way you do? DiAngelo talks extensively about how white people don’t understand racism because we often have very few interracial friendships or relationships. Like a lot. Like it’s one of the major themes of the book and, in her mind, one of the major sources of white fragility.

I mean, imagine you are talking to someone, and you go, “See, here’s the thing that people who have never been to Cleveland don’t understand” they might respond with “Oh, actually I was born in Cleveland and spent the first twenty years of my life there” and their reasons for doing so are so incredibly obvious and natural that it’s kind of hard to even articulate them. Like… yeah of course if you tell a room that they don’t understand racism because of their shallow relationships with people of color, fucking of course the people who have deep relationships with people of color are going to bring it up!

“White people are receptive to my presentation as long as it remains abstract. The moment I name some racially problematic dynamic or action happening in the room in the moment–for example, ‘Sharon, may I give you some feedback? While I understand it wasn’t intentional, your response to Jason’s story invalidates his experience as a black man’--white fragility erupts. Sharon defensively explains that she was misunderstood and then angrily withdraws, while others run in to defend her by re-explaining ‘what she really meant.’”

Sharon, let me stop you right there. Can I just take a moment to completely ignore the substance of what you just said, while pointing out that you are objectively annoying to the people around you?

“When another police shooting of an unarmed black man occurred, my workplace called for an informal lunch gathering of people who wanted to connect and find support. Just before the gathering, a woman of color pulled me aside and told me she wanted to attend but she was ‘in no mood for white women’s tears today’ I assured her that I would handle it. As the meeting started, I told my fellow white participants that if they felt moved to tears, they should please leave the room. I would go with them for support, but I asked that they not cry in the mixed group. After the discussion, I spent the next hour explaining to a very outraged white woman why she was asked not to cry in the presence of people of color.”

Hi, thanks for coming to our meeting where we coworkers can support each other and connect. Before we start, I just want to tell Donna, Tammy, Jim and Bob that your coworkers don’t really want to support you too much, so if you need support please go somewhere else and get it from people other than your coworkers.

Look, I get it, that black lady finds the idea of comforting some distraught white woman in the aftermath of a black man being shot absurd. Maybe don’t handle that in the most ham-handed way imaginable though?

I want you to reimagine some of these scenarios as though they were addressing a less politically fraught issue than racism. In order to do that, we need something with the following qualities:

It is often unintentional;

The people who do it are often unaware that they are doing it;

It is genuinely difficult for others to live with and should probably be corrected because of that;

There is a social stigma to it so people feel embarrassed when called out for it.

I think having really bad body odor is the perfect analogue. But can you fucking imagine some of these if that’s what we were talking about?

Imagine somebody saying, “When I say that proper hygiene is important as a way to respect your fellow employees, I get broad agreement, but when I publicly point out that a particular person has bad BO and many of their coworkers have complained, instead of being grateful for the feedback, they often get angry or defensive”

That person would be a monster!

The dirty secret of Robin DiAngelo and her ilk is that as much as they talk about “systemic racism” they really think of racism primarily as an interpersonal problem.

Here’s another quote, “The dominant paradigm of racism as discrete, individual, intentional, and malicious acts makes it unlikely that whites will acknowledge any of our actions as racism.”

I mean… All the examples I just cited above involve DiAngelo calling out discrete, individual, intentional acts. I guess sometimes the discrete, individual, intentional acts are non-malicious.

That’s the kind of central hypocrisy and profoundly passive-aggressive style of this kind of discourse. You call out a specific person for a specific act in a very public way, and then, if they get defensive, you can talk about how sad it is that when you told them that the specific thing that they personally did was bad, they didn’t realize you were just talking about systemic racism and it’s awfully silly that they are getting so defensive when all you are talking about is systemic problems, not individual faults.

DiAngelo often talks about how whites need to be less sensitive because we are not in any danger, but, like, most of the concrete problems she addresses aren’t dangerous to black people either.

Which brings me to the last section,

What is the goddamned point of all this?

DiAngelo constantly talks about the absence of cross-racial relationships between blacks and whites, but never really addresses the question of why the hell a black person would want to be friends with a white person. Honestly it sounds like it sucks; we’re all racist. Frankly I don’t see what we bring to the table other than an endless parade of microaggressions and neuroses that could just be avoided altogether by sticking to making friends with your fellow minorities.

A couple of people responding to my blog have called the book racist against whites but that’s not quite right, there’s also this bizarre sort of… Apologizing for how much better off we are then everybody else. It’s taken as basically a given that black people all wish they had the position that we do, but we just don’t let them and they’ll never get it unless we shape up and learn to give it to them.

There’s a tremendous amount of guilt but it’s combined with a massive self-absorption. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that for DiAngelo, the entire world revolves around whites and our conception of ourselves. And I mean that literally:

“...[W]hite supremacy is circulated globally. This powerful ideology promotes the idea of whiteness as the ideal of humanity well beyond the West…

“In his book The Racial Contract, Charles W. Mills argues that the racial contract is a tacit and sometimes explicit agreement among members of the peoples of Europe to assert, promote, and maintain the ideal of white supremacy in relation to all other people of the world. This agreement is an intentional and integral characteristic of the social contract, underwriting all other social contracts.”

Like… All of them? Like relations between China and the Democratic Republic of Congo are underwritten by the belief in white supremacy? White supremacy is in fact integral to the politcal relationship between those two countries?

One of the things I wondered when reading the book was why on earth DiAngelo gets paid so much money to consult. In her telling there are two forces, a white supremacist overclass dedicated to ignoring and minimizing evidence of systemic racism and a minority underclass which is nearly helpless in the face of white supremacy. Which of these groups is paying her five figure speaking fees?

Anyway to continue that quote, 

“Mills describes white supremacy as ‘the unnamed politcal system that has made the world what is is today.’”

I mean… I feel like it has a name. It’s named white supremacy. Robin DiAngelo wrote a best-selling book about it that people only bought because they already agree about it existing and being really, really important.

Hey, so, how does Tammy from HR crying about the police shooting a black teenager maintain a global white hegemony that undergirds literally all other social forces?

One thing, at least, that made me glad that I finished the book was seeing DiAngelo state overtly something that I feel has been implicit on much American thinking about race lately:

“When white people ask me what to do about racism and white fragility, the first thing I ask is, ‘What has enabled you to be a full, educated, professional adult and not know what to do about racism?’...”

Uh… You’re asking me how I graduated college without knowing how to upend a massive collusion between every nation in Europe that undergirds all of global politics and economics?

I mean I didn’t actually graduate, maybe “Overturning the entire global paradigm 101” was one of the classes I didn’t get around to.

“If we take that question seriously and map out all the ways we have come to not know what to do, we will have our guide before us. For example, if my answer is that I was not educated about racism, I know that I will have to get educated. If my answer is that I do not know people of color, I will need to build relationships. If it is because there are no people of color in my environment, I will need to get out of my comfort zone and change my environment, addressing racism is not without effort…”

Hey, yeah, but what about the part where I make minimum wage and probably can’t even overthrow Luxemburg, let alone all of Europe?

“Next, I say, ‘Do whatever it takes for you to internalize the above assumptions’ I believe that if we white people were truly coming from these assumptions, not only would our interpersonal relationships change, but so would our institutions. Our institutions would change because we would see to it that they would.”

This is exactly what I have been saying seems to be the dominant belief in America today. If we just teach Sharon from accounting to stop talking over her black co-workers, if Sharon internalizes exactly the right ideas about white supremacy from exactly the right corporate consultants, eventually, once we get our heads straight, there will be a kind of spontaneous eruption of will which will end racism forever.

From talking to more right-wing acquaintances I have come to the belief that many of them essentially agree with that premise. That racism sort of emerges as a kind of spontaneous emanation of wrong-think, and once we have used social pressure and the threat of being fired to get everybody to say the correct things about racism, racism will vanish.

And so the debate in America is no longer about policy; we don’t believe in a racial policy. The debate is about how we ought to talk about racism, with the parties disagreeing on what kind of talk will ultimately cause racism to disappear.

Do we solve police shootings by hiring a diversity consultant to tell the employees of our tech firm about white fragility, or should we hire a different consultant to teach them about color-blindness and treating people as equals?

[plethoraworldatlas]

In reading Marcia's review of her experience with Shadowdark, I contemplated on how I run my own OSE games. This is also fresh on my mind because I am running Miranda Elkins' fantastic Nightwick. Its all about distilling things down to the interesting choice and eliminating the non-interesting one.

Basic Equipment: I am thinking about charging my players a flat rate for all basic dungeoneering equipment that is rolled into weekly expenses-- so 7sp a week for expenses plus ~3-5sp for pick of equipment

Not interesting:  Cost of equipment, especially down to coppers

Interesting: Scarcity (what if there is no 50' rope this week?) and how many slots PC dedicates to basic equipment

Light: Due to torch cost and number per slot, it is easy to carry a lot of torches.

Not interesting: Carrying enough light to last 12-24 turns- easily done

Interesting: When torches extinguish-- like in the middle of a fight or when the goblins you are negotiating with get mad; how many hands in the party are occupied by torches

This is why I prefer to use the overloaded encounter die to simulate inopportune moments when a torch is snuffed out- gust of wind, dripping slime, bucket of sand thrown by a sneaky goblin. And with regards to hands, holding a torch potentially lowers AC, removes a weapon, or makes spell casting delayed (need both hands). One saving grace: torches are an improvised weapon that do 1d4 dmg and are on fire.

Stuck Doors: I now commonly interpret the 2-in-6 chance as a basic surprise roll. If they players fail it, they make a loud noise and alert anything on the other side of the door, but open it next round.

Not interesting: Rolling a d6 over and over again to see if PCs finally break down a door

Interesting: Seeing if PC get surprise on whatever is on the otherside; if additional equipment is brought to deal with doors

I usually like the idea that a crowbar allows and additional 1d6 rolled per individual with one.

Rations: This is similar to the situation with light, its easy to carry enough food/water for 2-4 hours which is more likely the time frame of a dungeon delve-- not a camping trip.

Not interesting: Tracking both food and water separately for nominal circumstances

Interesting: How many PCs carry rations; will rations be used for other things (like distracting monsters) or saved to avoid fatigue

For me the nature of rations are both food and water abstracted. So if a player want to use food as a distraction, mark off 1 rations. If a player wants to douse a small fire, use 2 rations as you frantically empty out a water skin and try to put out the fire consuming the spell book.

Secret Doors & Traps:  Two dungeon features that are opposite sides of the same coin. Really I think Chris McDowall has written some of the best bits on this that boil down to "traps are puzzles" and not really "gotcha".

Not interesting: Situations where the PCs have to pick the exact right spot and roll a 1-2 in 6

Interesting: Adding in environmental clues or other sources of information that allows discovery by players investigating the fictional environment

Now, I will keep both rolls as a back-up for either PCs not having a good idea and/or a back-up for perhaps me being unable to convey the fictional environment properly in the moment.

Weapons: I've yet to find a really good way to do weapons simply outside of 1d6 damage for all types. I don't mind BX's variable weapon damage. And I do like some old rulesets sorta "first strike" if your weapon is larger than an opponents other wise smaller, lighter weapons strike first in subsequent arounds.

So here is what I have got so far: Using a weapon two-handed is a +1 to damage, using an off-hand weapon is +1 to-hit, and a shield is of course +1 AC. I do like that fighters with bows can shoot twice if they did not move and the "cleave" ability.

Not interesting: Weapon factors that are so extensive they require a separate rules discussion, trigger player obsession, and/or orient the whole of gameplay to combat

Interesting: What PCs chose to do with their hands: more armor, more weapons, or more light

So that is it for now, if you'd like to see more of my house rules here is my post on the Serpent Song Hymnal. I hope to have a sorta player version created sometime soon but I'm still trying to dial-in what my go-to "french vanilla" D&D is like.

[natalieh007]

Okay I am so into Camus and Sartre beef. So this is a little recap.

So Sartre was Marxist and Camus was not (he was in communist party but he got the fuck out as fast as he could). Also another problem Sartre believed that violence and wars could create greater good, on the other side Camus was all about a peace.

So they were friends (and rivals) for a while and then their different opinions started to show up. Then an argument broke out, but was initially confined to a relatively small group of mutual friends of the two of them. THEN Camus wrote a letter in which he wrote "hell is other people", it was kinda easy to imagine that he was referring to Sartre.

‘Absolute freedom is the right of the strongest to dominate,’ Camus wrote, while ‘absolute justice is achieved by the suppression of all contradiction: therefore it destroys freedom.’ The conflict between justice and freedom required constant re-balancing, political moderation, an acceptance and celebration of that which limits the most: our humanity. ‘To live and let live,’ he said, ‘in order to create what we are.’

That is what Camus wrote in The Rebel and Sartre was like “EWWWW” not very communist of Camus (as far as Sartre was concerned, he thought that it was possible to achieve perfect justice and freedom – that described the achievement of communism. Under capitalism, and in poverty, workers could not be free. Their options were unpalatable and inhumane: to work a pitiless and alienating job, or to die. But by removing the oppressors and broadly returning autonomy to the workers, communism allows each individual to live without material want, and therefore to choose how best they can realise themselves. This makes them free, and through this unbending equality, it is also just. THE PROBLEM is that, for Sartre and many others on the Left, communism required revolutionary violence to achieve because the existing order must be smashed.) And they were close friends at that time so instead of, I guess, TALK IT OUT like Sartre telling Camus „you know what ? I think the rebel was shit” and Camus being like „okay you epitome of hell” or just being like „we don’t have to agree on everything”, Les Temps Modernes – Sartre’s journal (it was edited by him) PUBLISHED LIKE FEW MOTHS AFTER THE LETTER a critical review of The Rebel - sold out three times over. And like it was year 1951 in which Sartre published just one work and it wasn’t successful BUT THE REWIEW FOR SURE WAS (Sartre’s diss track could be banger)

Anyways then Sartre wrote a public letter about Camus. He wrote that their friendship wasn’t easy but he’s gonna miss it AND THAT Camus is philosophically incapable ??

And that was a final straw so they never spoke to each other again.

BUT 15 years after Camus’s death Sartre was asked about their friendship AND Sartre said that Camus was probably his last good friend.

My conclusion is that if they were alive they would love mean girls (don’t ask me why.)

In case u didn’t read The Rebel or you don’t remember, in the book, Camus gave voice to a roughly drawn ‘philosophy of revolt’. This wasn’t a philosophical system per se, but an amalgamation of philosophical and political ideas: every human is free, but freedom itself is relative; one must embrace limits, moderation, ‘calculated risk’; absolutes are anti-human. Most of all, Camus condemned revolutionary violence. Violence might be used in extreme circumstances (he supported the French war effort, after all) but the use of revolutionary violence to nudge history in the direction you desire is utopian, absolutist, and a betrayal of yourself.)

[bumblee-stumblee]

NHS England to stop prescribing puberty blockers

10 hours ago

By Josh Parry,

LGBT & Identity Producer

Children will no longer routinely be prescribed puberty blockers at gender identity clinics, NHS England has confirmed.

The decision comes after a review found there was "not enough evidence" they are safe or effective.

Puberty blockers, which pause the physical changes of puberty, will now only be available as part of research.

It comes weeks before an independent review into gender identity services in England is due to be published.

An interim report from the review, published in 2022 by Dr Hilary Cass, had earlier found there were "gaps in evidence" around the drugs and called for a transformation in the model of care for children with gender-related distress.

Dr Cass's review follows a sharp rise in referrals to the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids), run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, which saw an increase from 250 per year to over 5,000 in 2022.

Puberty supressing hormones - more commonly known as puberty blockers - work by suppressing the release of hormones that cause puberty and are often prescribed to children questioning their gender as a way of stopping physical changes such as breast development or facial hair.

Fewer than 100 young people in England are currently prescribed puberty blockers by the NHS. They will all able to continue their treatment.

NHS England held a public consultation on their usage and last year introduced an interim policy which stated they should only be given as part of research trials or in "exceptional circumstances".

The BBC understands that the new policy, confirmed on Tuesday, will not allow them to be prescribed "routinely" outside of a research trial, but that individual clinicians can still apply to have the drugs funded for patients on a case-by-case basis.

Gids is due to close at the end of March. Two new NHS services due in London and Liverpool are set to open at the beginning of April, followed by a number of regional specialist centres over the next two years.

Health Minister Maria Caulfield said: "We have always been clear that children's safety and wellbeing is paramount, so we welcome this landmark decision by the NHS.

"Ending the routine prescription of puberty blockers will help ensure that care is based on evidence, expert clinical opinion and is in the best interests of the child."

The consultation on the future of gender services received more than 4,000 responses, including 10% from trans adults and 5% from clinicians.

John Stewart, national director of specialised commissioning at NHS England, said: "Given that the debate is often very polarised, so too were the responses to the consultation.

"Many people said the policy didn't go far enough in terms of still allowing potential access [to puberty blockers] through research, and others saying clearly they disagreed fundamentally and that these should be routinely available to everyone who believes they need it."

The BBC understands NHS England aims to begin its study into the use of puberty blockers by December 2024, and is yet to decide who can take part

---

Oh hey, will you look at that.

[weeb-polls-with-pip]

Autistic Anime Girls Group 3 Round 2 Match 5

SUBMISSION PROPAGANDA:

Sayaka -

"Deadpan, forthright, and unapologetically candid, Kanamori never hesitates to voice her thoughts, no matter how harsh or unvarnished they may be. She is often deemed as impolite, ruthless or severely intimidating (by adults and peers her age alike), and is jokingly compared to the likes of the Yakuza. She’s regarded with a degree of caution, due to her unwavering no-nonsense attitude and the fact that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants, phone camera at the ready to capture any slip up that could potentially be used as blackmail later. Survival is her top priority, looking out for herself and whoever might be left behind unfairly by circumstance. She has a steadfast mind for business and strong work ethic, openly admitting to her desire for monetary compensation (or other favors and methods of payment, such as milk or food) for even the smaller and most mundane of tasks, and won’t shy away from charging fellow members of the club as well.

She firmly holds the belief that friendship is an idealized and glorified notion. To her, individuals referred to as "friends" are often mere products of chance, brought together by shared interests and nothing more. Sayaka adamantly refrains from using the term "friend" and readily corrects anyone who mistakenly categorizes her coworkers or those she spends time with as such. She befittingly conveyed this perspective of hers to Midori on the very day they first crossed paths, and this prompted Midori to freely opt out of using the label entirely as well, instead referring to her closest peers as “comrades” ever since.

Regardless of this, Sayaka prefers to achieve a level of coexistence, as she personally describes it, with those she truly cares about, such as the few other club members. While not explicitly considering the girls as her friends, her actions reveal a deep concern for their well-being. She often watches over them, remains by their side and is ready to defend them and their cause whenever necessary. A significant reason the club came to be in the first place is Sayaka's recognition of her classmates' immense artistic potential. She encouraged them to establish their own independent studio, enabling them to create their animated films, attain recognition, and reap profits from their efforts.

In her role as their producer, she's primarily motivated by financial gain, but as she reviews Midori's and Tsubame's work, she ensures they always have the option to do their job efficiently and avoid overexerting themselves if they ever choose to do so. She’s equally supportive of their goals and will often assure them that their art is more than good enough. She insists that their work is already impressive; therefore, they could forgo so much self-imposed pressure and stop doubting their abilities or attaching undue importance to others' unhelpful criticisms, as these are often incongruent with their own artistic sensibilities and convictions.

Sayaka lacks interest and doesn’t possess much insight about art herself, yet she is more than willing to learn from her team to become a better producer. Aside from having a keen eye for business since her early childhood (despite being bad at math), she also appears to be quite knowledgeable in a wide variety of topics, and will take people by surprise whenever she starts rambling about the ins-and-outs of something that’s relevant at any given moment. One time, someone pointed out that Kanamori wasn’t at all different from Asakusa on this regard, to which Tsubame responded with a simple and knowing “yup”.

She can be seen idly cracking the knuckles of her right hand every now and then, and rarely displays a different emotion as she goes about her day donning a neutral grimace on her face. Kanamori almost only ever smiles when she’s getting paid, when friendly mocking someone, or when she’s in the middle of twisting someone’s arm to hers and the club’s advantage.

I’m going to cut it here, since I realized I have much more to say about Sayaka than any other Eizouken member so far (I thought Midori was going to be the longest but this one was already effortlessly surpassing 700 words and counting. Good god) Please please PLEASE consider voting for her!! she’s an amazing character in general, and I can easily see why she’s Sumito Oowara’s personal favorite of the bunch."

Miku -

"Hatsune Miku is the character/persona created for a voice bank. As such, she has no set personality and can essentially be molded to fit the song’s scenario. She’s basically made to be your little dress up doll except your not dressing her up with clothes you’re dressing her up with your special interests and hyperfixations. She’s like the Barbie of Autism, if you will. As such, she has garnered many fans since her debut because of how relatable she is and how comforting she can be and how you can project your own interests or quirks on her and it’d still fit her because that’s essentially what she was made for!!!

You could consider the songs she sings and brings to life for producers to be her special interest!

As she’s a voice bank, she also can struggle with tone and inflection when speaking or singing, but can also, at times, sound very life like as well! She’s incredibly versatile as a tool to use for songs and as a character! She can do anything and be anything!

Also, all characters under the Vocaloid title usually come with an item that represents them! Miku’s is a leek/spring onion, even her hair has a similar appearance to one and it could be considered a special interest of hers!

I know the whole “she can be anything” seems sorta like flimsy propaganda for her, but I think it can also resemble how some people on the autism spectrum mask our true personalities and try and adapt to who we are talking to! And we can also have many talents and special interests at a single time! At least, that’s how my experience has been with being on the spectrum….

(Anywhosies I hope this helps! Miku has been important to me and many others for a long time and it’d be a shame for her to lose due to lack of propaganda 😔)."

[lmk-oc-competition]

LMK OC COMPETITION - UPDATE

Alright folks, as of right now, we've got 44 submissions. Keep in mind though that due to certain circumstances (reviewal that submissions fall under the rules, dropouts, etc.), this is not the official number for accepted competitors. I will say that I have not finished looking through each submission individually yet.

Since we're under the 64 required participants and the deadline is coming in just a few hours, it has been decided that there will be a two day extension. Sign-ups will now be due on September 2nd. This is because if we cannot reach 64 participants, then we will have to start with only 32 and I want to avoid having to cut people out of the competition if possible. The updated schedule will be posted shortly, thanks for your understanding <3

If you have a LMK OC that you want to join in, feel free to sign-up here!

[amaryllis-sagitta]

So, where is the "secret ending" at?

This shit almost looks like some planetary alignment. We've already had Elgar'nan hasten a moon somehow to trigger the eclipse (???), but originally the gods were waiting for a celestial alignment. They needed the magical properties of an eclipse.

This kinda messes with the series' approach to the role of the hero. So far, we've had individuals rise to the occasion, however they could under their circumstances. That the Executors are actively scheming kinda shifts attention to the Kairos (the critical timing) itself and brings in a more fatalistic feel, through this supposed convergence of events into what comes next.

Yet, if we review the plot while looking at all the slides showing their influence, they mostly seem to have had an interest in the Blight.

FIve (?) priests by an altar with human sacrifice under the image of the Golden City, and the Tevinter sigil on the left - that's supposed to represent the Magisters Sidereal. They broke into the Black City, now revealed as a "quarantine zone" for the Blight. The goal might have been to free it all, but only a fraction of the Blight returned with the magisters to the world as a result. According The Dread Wolf Take You, Fen'Harel has recently thwarted another attemptto break into the Black City.

The Blighted Evanuris, imprisoned in the place of Regret, tried to control darkspawn in the world, gathering them around their Archdemons. Humanity devised a way to kill the Archdemons, and the order of Grey Wardens guarded the secret recipe and carried out the duty. Four Blights were ended with their respective Archdemons' deaths, rendering the bound Evanuris "mortal". As a result, most Evanuris might have withered away in their prison since.

It turned out that Grey Wardens kept Corypheus, one of the Magisters Sidereal, imprisoned under the Vimmark Mountains. They hired an apostate named Malcolm Hawke to renew the wards on the prison.

The Fifth Blight begun, and during the first battle of Grey Wardens aided by Ferelden and the local Circle of Magi, Teyrn Loghain ordered the retreat of his forces from Ostagar. As a result, Fereldan Grey Wardens were almost wept out. The family of THAT Malcolm Hawke was driven out of Ferelden.

Flemeth had to send her daughter and future vessel of Mythal, Morrigan, on a mission to accompany the remaining two Grey Wardens of Ostagar (and, as we learn later, to find an opportunity to carry out the Dark Ritual and purify the Old God's soul through an "Old God Baby". Thought that state was discarded in DATV). With Morrigan's defiance and drive to learn her mother's secrets, Flemeth was killed in her dragon form... or something else happened to her that prompted her "respawn" at the Sundermount in DA 2. In retrospective, there's a feeling that Flemeth being weakened somehow mattered here, and that Morrigan might have been sent away from the Korcarri Wilds as... a means of protection.

Flemeth's weird conversation with Hawke about fate and a leap into the abyss hints that she foresaw Hawke's role in The Plot. Hawke was taken to Kirkwall, where they looked for odd jobs as an immigrant and ended up going on a treasure hunting expedition in the Vimmark Mountains...

The red lyrium idol had lied dormant under the Vimmarks, inside a Titan's corpse, the presumably first discovered vein of blighted red lyrium. With DATV reveals, it doesn't seem like a coincidence that Flemythal checked up on the Dalish who lived in the area and probably also other things.

The Tethras Brothers' expedition with Hawke onboard found the idol and Bartrand stole it, having his mind twisted in the aftermath. Bartrand eventually sold the idol off to a woman who turned out to be Knight Templar Meredith Stannard herself, whose reign of mage terror and paranoia was likely fueled even further by red lyrium. These events snowballed into the doom of Kirkwall and were a major contributor to the outbreak of the Mage-Templar war.

Hawke pursued the trail of their father, and they discovered imprisoned Corypheus. Despite Hawke and Varric thinking they defeated Corypheus for good, he sneaked out, having hopped into one of the Grey Wardens present at the site.

Around the year 9:40, Fen'Harel decided he must re-join the world of living, regain his powers, and tear down the Veil ASAP. He set now-freed Corypheus onto the trail of his Orb of power. Corypheus chose the Conclave, called by Divine Justinia Vth in Haven to end the mage-tempalr war, as his opportunity to tear the Breach in the sky and return to the Black City. With the ritual interrupted by the future Herald of Andraste, Inquisition's events ensued. Fen'Harel joined the Inquisition undercover to grant them resources of his former rebellion and nudge it towards success, as he needed someone else to kill Corypheus and let him close enough to his Orb.

In the secret ending, Flemeth is shown in a slide next to Corypheus and the Breach. And we realize that, once again, Flemythal was weakened. After defeating Corypheus, it turned out that Fen'harel's orb got destroyed, and that he could not recover his powers from it anymore. In the DAI post-credit scene, he admitted his mistake of giving his Orb to Corypheus to Flemythal, and she offered him her powers (the final statuette mural in Lighthouse seems to lend this scene a tone of underlying conflict or reluctant consent on Mythal's part, rather than apology and sorrow). Flemythal with experience of entire centuries was no longer an actor in history, even if Morrigan salvaged her legacy and whatever memories of Mythal she could.

The red lyrium idol, now imbued into the red lyrium husk of Meredith, got stolen. Through trickery described in The Assassin's Tale in The Dread Wolf Take You and the intrigue of the comic books from Knight Errant to Dark Fortress, the idol found its way back to Fen'Harel's agents. It was purified into Solas's dagger, as recognized by Rook's vision of Varric in DATV.

According to Luck in The Gardens from Tevinter Nights, an eldritch being named Cekorax haunted Minrathous at some point. It was neither from "this world" nor from The Fade. It had very Void-y things to say about embracing peace in blindness.

Fen'Harel abandoned the Inquisition after Corypheus's defeat. Ten years of distractions, double crossing factions, planting his agents and work undercover followed to ensure the success of his plan. During a crucial meeting of spies at the Teahouse, he made an appearance in disguise, among agents who want to share intel... about his plans specifically. And an Executor was among them. Fen'Harel killed several birds with one stone: petrified the Executor before they revealed to others what they knew, killed the Carta assassin and the Mortalitasi. The agent of the Inquisitor begged for her life, and Fen'Harel granted it - but not before sending Charter away with a warning about the Executors. He also hinted that a greater threat to "all existence" urges him to carry out his plan no matter what.

Varric Tethras established a new network of connections that eventually discovered Fen'harel's hideaway in Minrathous in the nick of time, just as he was moving the remaining two Evanuris to a new, more stable prison before taking down the Veil for good. Rook, informed solely by Varric so far, makes a quick call to interrupt the ritual while Varric tries to talk Solas down. Events of Veilguard ensue. Having swapped with the Evanuris in the Fade prison, Fen'Harel grants the Veilguard the resources of his former rebellion and nudges Rook towards success, as long as it benefits him. He needs someone else to dispose of the Evanuris for him and get his ritual dagger back.

The Veilguard learns about the origins of the Blight and Mythal's and Fen'harel's involvement in it. In retrospective, Mythal commissioned a weapon that would stop the Titans from retaliating for the elvhen firstborn stealing lyrium to make bodies for themselves. By tearing the Titans' spirit essence ("dreams") from them, Mythal corrupted them, which spawned the Blight. Mythal buried the secret of the Blight and tried to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

But some people might have found the Void of their own accord and splintered from the Evanuris. These were erased from history and deemed the Forgotten Ones. When Elgar'nan usurped all the power, Mythal turned her back on Fen'Harel to be closer to Elgar'nan instead, where she assessed she was more needed as the gods' Peacekeeper. Ghilan'nain joined the Evanuris in her pursuit of an ultimate transgression. Fen'Harel stepped at Elgar'nan's ego so effectively that the Evanuris wanted to embrace the blight to defeat him???? Mythal gatekept the knowledge again, so Elgar'nan got rid of her. [I'm not sure of this part to be fair, I'm probably missing something. DATV Act 2 was terribly hazy for me]

This prompted Fen'Harel to carry out the Great Betrayal, lock out the Evanuris, and quarantine the Blight in the Black City. The Veil, kept up by the Evanuris's own life force, was established together with the Black City, but it also pulled all the celestial spirit essence to stick to one area, which became the modern Fade. Thus, the Great Betrayal weakened the world's magic and doomed the elvhen race to the Quickening. It seems that Fen'Harel did not expect the full extent of the Betrayal's consequences, and the Veil was doomed to slowly deteriorate on its own anyway. As we learn, the Archdemons being killed in their respective Blights likely led directly to other Evanuris' demise. Fen'Harel feared the Wardens preventively killing the remaining Archdemons in DAI because, before taking all the "precautions" and preparations between DAI and DATV, he must have expected this to abruptly end BOTH "veils" and make the Black City burst open.

The Veilguard slays the two remaining Archdemons and two remaining Evanuris, and no matter the outcome for Solas, he is bound with his life's blood to keep the Veil up - by choice, by trickery, or by force. Wardens near Hossberg hint that the Blight might have started to respond to some other "song", that Antoine sensed underneath the Archdemon/ Evanuris song.

In his "good" ending, Fen'Harel vows to do whatever he can to soothe the sundered Titans' blighted dreams, though he cannot heal it completely. Still, his Dinan'Shiral is far from complete.

CONCLUSION: The Executors seem to show keen interest in the quotient of the Blight in the world, its power, its gatekeepers and its enemies. They might try to snatch control over the Blight once it has started to sing "something else" than the Evanuris. And thanks to a cascade of events that led up to DATV, the Taint is virtually everywhere. Its greatest gatekeeper Flemythal is no longer active and Morrimythal isn't nearly as experienced and competent to fend off cosmic threats. Fen'Harel has been bound to fuel the Veil.

PERSONAL TINFOIL THEORY: The Blight channels whatever is the strongest currently manifest will of the Void. First, it was the corrupted spirit/dreams of the Titans themselves, then, the Evanuris used the Blight as a weapon and made the Archdemons their proxies in the Blight's "song", now it can be the Executors, or the returning Forgotten Ones. Perhaps the Black City has formed a will of its own, even - the Blight eruptions we dispatched across Hossberg Wetlands seemed to be eerily more intelligent than the "regular" Blight.

[elicathebunny]

The importance of writing for mental health: A GUIDE TO JOURNALING.

What is journaling?

journaling is the practice of regularly writing down thoughts, reflections, experiences, and emotions in a journal or diary. It can take many forms, including free writing, guided prompts, gratitude journaling, or specific types like bullet journaling.

What are the benefits of journaling?

Emotional Expression: Journaling provides a safe space to express and process emotions. Writing about feelings, experiences, and challenges can help individuals acknowledge and make sense of their emotions, leading to increased emotional awareness and regulation.

Stress Reduction: Writing about stressful events or worries can act as a form of stress relief. By putting thoughts onto paper, individuals can release pent-up emotions and gain a sense of control over their circumstances, thereby reducing stress levels.

Problem Solving: Journaling encourages reflection and introspection, allowing individuals to gain insights into their thoughts and behaviors. This process can help identify patterns, triggers, and potential solutions to problems, fostering personal growth and resilience.

Self-Discovery: Regular journaling promotes self-discovery and self-awareness. Through writing, individuals can explore their values, beliefs, strengths, and weaknesses, leading to a deeper understanding of themselves and their identity.

Gratitude and Positive Thinking: Incorporating gratitude journaling can cultivate a positive mindset and improve overall well-being. By focusing on the things they are grateful for, individuals can shift their perspective from negativity to positivity, fostering a sense of happiness and contentment.

Tracking Progress: Journaling allows individuals to track their progress towards personal goals, whether they're related to mental health, personal development, or behaviour change. By documenting successes, setbacks, and lessons learned, individuals can stay motivated and accountable on their journey towards self-improvement.

Mindfulness and Relaxation: Engaging in mindful journaling practices, such as free writing or guided prompts, can promote relaxation and mindfulness. By immersing themselves in the present moment and the act of writing, individuals can experience a sense of calm and clarity.

How to start journaling:

Choose Your Journal: Select a journal or notebook that appeals to you. It could be a traditional paper journal, a digital journaling app, or even a dedicated section in your planner.

Set Aside Time: Schedule regular time for journaling in your day. It could be in the morning to reflect on the day ahead, in the evening to unwind and process your day, or any other time that works best for you.

Decide on a Format: Determine the type of journaling you want to do. You might opt for free writing, where you simply write whatever comes to mind, or you could use guided prompts to focus your thoughts on specific topics or themes.

Start Writing: Begin by putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Don't worry about grammar or spelling; the goal is to let your thoughts flow freely. Write about your feelings, experiences, goals, challenges, or anything else on your mind.

Experiment: Don't be afraid to experiment with different journaling styles and techniques to find what resonates with you. You might try gratitude journaling, where you write down things you're thankful for each day, or bullet journaling, which combines writing with organising and planning.

Be Consistent: Make an effort to journal regularly, even if it's just for a few minutes each day. Consistency is key to building a habit and reaping the benefits of journaling over time.

Reflect and Review: Periodically review your journal entries to reflect on your thoughts, emotions, and experiences. This can help you gain insights into patterns, identify areas for growth, and track your progress over time.

Adjust as Needed: Be flexible and open to adjusting your journaling practice as needed. If a particular approach isn't working for you, don't hesitate to try something different until you find what feels right.

How to use journal prompts:

Choose Relevant Prompts: Select prompts that resonate with you and align with your current goals, interests, or areas you want to explore. You can find prompts online, in books, or create your own based on what you want to focus on.

Engage: Schedule dedicated time for journaling with prompts. Preferably a time and place where you can really engage with what you are writing down, after all, there is no point in aimlessly writing and answering questions if they don't serve a purpose to you.

Read and Reflect: Take a moment to read the prompt carefully and let it sink in. Consider how it relates to your life, experiences, thoughts, and emotions.

Write Freely: Start writing without overthinking or censoring yourself. Let your thoughts flow naturally and explore the prompt in depth. Write as much or as little as you feel compelled to.

Be Honest and Authentic: Don't hold back. Be honest with yourself and write from the heart. Your journal is a safe space for self-expression, so feel free to explore your true feelings and experiences.

Stay Open-Minded: Allow yourself to explore different perspectives and ideas prompted by the writing exercise. Embrace ambiguity and uncertainty, as they can lead to new insights and understanding.

Reflect on Your Responses: After writing, take some time to reflect on what you've written. Consider what you've learned about yourself, any patterns or themes that emerge, and how you can apply these insights to your life.

Repeat and Explore: Continue using journal prompts regularly to deepen your self-awareness and personal growth. Experiment with different types of prompts and approaches to keep your journaling practice fresh and engaging.

550+ Journal Prompts: The ultimate list.

Writing a gratitude journal.

Schedule: Writing first thing in the morning or night is the best time to give gratitude, this could be in general or it could be aimed towards God or whatever you believe in.

Reflect on Your Day: Take a moment to reflect on your day and identify things you're grateful for. These could be big or small, from significant achievements to simple pleasures. Reflect on the day before if you are writing in the morning.

Write from the Heart: Write down three to five things you're grateful for each day. Be specific and descriptive, and focus on why you're grateful for each item. For example, instead of just saying "I'm grateful for my family," you could write, "I'm grateful for the laughter and love shared during dinner with my family."

Express Genuine Appreciation: Cultivate a genuine sense of appreciation for the things you're grateful for. Reflect on the positive impact they have on your life and how they make you feel.

Be Consistent: Make gratitude journaling a daily habit. Consistency is key to reaping the benefits of gratitude over time.

Do things differently: Keep your gratitude journal fresh and interesting by varying your entries. You can express gratitude for different aspects of your life, such as relationships, health, work, nature, or personal accomplishments.

Review Your Entries: Periodically review your gratitude journal entries to reflect on the positive moments and blessings in your life. This can reinforce feelings of gratitude and serve as a reminder of all the good things you have to be thankful for.

Stay Open-Minded: Be open to finding gratitude in unexpected places or during challenging times. Even in difficult situations, there's often something to be grateful for, whether it's a lesson learned, a silver lining, or the support of others.

101 Gratitude prompts.

Bullet journalling.

Bullet journaling is a customizable organizational system that combines elements of a planner, diary, to-do list, and journal. It was developed by Ryder Carroll and has gained popularity for its flexibility and adaptability to individual needs. In a bullet journal, you use a series of symbols, such as dots for tasks, circles for events, and dashes for notes, to organize your entries. It allows you to track habits, set goals, jot down ideas, and plan your day in a way that suits your lifestyle. Many people find it helpful for increasing productivity, staying organized, and promoting mindfulness.

How to bullet journal:

Set Up Your Notebook: Begin by numbering the pages of your notebook. Typically, the first few pages are reserved for an index or table of contents where you can log the contents of your journal for easy reference.

Create Key Symbols: Decide on a set of symbols to represent different types of entries. For example, use a dot for tasks, a circle for events, a dash for notes, and so on. Customize these symbols to fit your needs.

Set Up Monthly Logs: Dedicate a spread (two facing pages) for each month. Write the name of the month at the top of the page and list the dates vertically down the side. Use this space to jot down important events, deadlines, and tasks for the month.

Set Up Daily Logs: Each day, create a new entry where you list the date and any tasks, events, or notes for that day. Use your key symbols to categorize your entries.

Migration: At the end of each month, review your entries and migrate any unfinished tasks to the next month's log. You can also reflect on what worked well and what didn't, and make adjustments as needed.

Collections: In addition to your monthly and daily logs, you can create collections for specific topics or projects. These can include things like habit trackers, goal-setting pages, brainstorming sessions, or anything else you want to keep track of.

Get Creative: Don't be afraid to add doodles, colours, or decorations to personalise your journal and make it enjoyable to use. Search online for inspiration

[ingravinoveritas]

i honestly think it was just a stupid joke, maybe for attention but like isnt that the point of instagram? idk just my own not very strong opinion

You're absolutely right, it could just be a stupid joke. I am well aware that I sometimes read a lot into things or unintentionally misread things, so I fully appreciate you saying this. The thing is, though, that she continued with this on Twitter as well:

So from my perspective, that makes it seem like less of an Instagram thing and more of an Anna thing. As does the fact that she has a longtime pattern of making posts like this when he is trending/when something Michael has been part of gains a lot of positive attention. (Contrast that with, for example, the negative reviews of The Way, and how she never said another word about it or in support of him once the backlash happened in response to the show.)

The other thing I keep thinking of is how vastly different the reaction would be if Michael was the one saying or doing any of this. If he'd posted a selfie of him wearing a "Who the F*ck is Anna Lundberg?" t-shirt. The feeling I have is that people's reactions to that would be very different, regardless of whether it is a reference to an episode title or something else from a TV show. Or if he tweeted "She's very grateful to have me to keep her grounded," it seems almost a certainty that it would come across as patronizing or condescending and he would be excoriated for it.

And then what also comes to mind is Michael on the Assembly saying that he cries every day. Again, I feel like, under any other circumstances, we would say that someone who is in a relationship and cries every day is a potential red flag, or at least something that seems concerning. But because Michael is a man, it seems like his feelings are more easily dismissed, and I'm genuinely confused as to why.

All that said, I do want to be clear and again emphasize that what I am reacting to is not just this one Insta story in isolation, but everything that she has been saying and posting for the last several years. It's the very fact that it keeps happening that is a problem, more so than any one individual post or comment by itself. So hopefully that makes sense and better explains where I am coming from, and I appreciate hearing the opinions of others as well...

[thegildedbee]

Intimidate: May 9 Prompt from @calaisreno

John Watson’s unfailing refusal to be intimidated by himself has always been a source of irritation to Mycroft.

He had revisited the issue at suitable intervals over the course of their acquaintance, seeking to satisfy his desire to arrive at a definitive answer to this conundrum, the better to remediate this deficiency in Watson. 

(That he has yet to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion about the phenomenon is one of the few failures that he allows himself to admit – within the confines of his own head, of course. It is a ridiculous state of affairs. After all, he has a much-loved panoply of tactics at his disposal for intimidating entire countries. Which he uses. Frequently. Successfully.)

(At one point he had toyed with the idea of writing up Person X’s behavior on this score to use as a “hypothetical” example in a training exercise for the department’s analysts to see if they could detect any meaningful clues he had inexplicably overlooked. He had quickly decided, however, that it would be prudent to set this idea aside, as the acquaintance of his department’s personnel with Sherlock’s sphere could unmask the pretense of a fictional model, without any compensatory insights having been generated.)

Given current circumstances, it is time to tick off this item on his list of outstanding actions. He gathers himself mentally, and begins a review of his previously generated list of candidate explanations. 

Initially, he had believed that Watson’s apparent imperviousness to his exercises of power was stupidity, advertised as bravery. After all, a cognitively-endowed individual encountering Mycroft in the key of intimidation would make a sound assessment of possible consequences and respond appropriately, as in “a word to the wise is sufficient.” For those with a deficit in intelligence, a simple recalibration in leaving less to subtext in conveying his meanings typically sufficed. And yet, not so with Watson. Strikethrough that premise.

Early on he had posited that the problem was aggression due to his military training – and yet Watson’s service file indicated he had no trouble following orders. Strikethrough that premise.

A later supposition was that Watson’s behavior is due to his being of small stature – the compensatory demeanor of a man to appear larger, as in a cat with an arched back and its hair standing up, or when a puffer fish expands like a balloon. And yet there are no other indications that Watson finds his physical limits of concern to support this supposition. Strikethrough that premise.

He had also considered that Watson’s attitude was the consequence of being a man with nothing to lose. While this fact might have powered his non-responsiveness to displays of power at one time, he had not appeared to be in such a state for quite some time -- and yet his obstinacy continued. Strikethrough that premise.

One explanation of which he is rather fond is that the man has a perverse enjoyment of being contrary for the sake of being contrary. And yet, sadly, this premise must also be committed to the strikethrough rubbish bin, as this attitude is not on display in other situations, as it would be if it was a personality characteristic.

A recurring conjecture has been that the biographical detail of Watson being a medical professional is relevant – that he has a caretaker complex. This rationale, he believes, has some merit. But it seems insubstantial as a complete explanation for why Watson appears to be uncowed while being on the receiving end of intimidation by one such as himself (not that there is another one such as himself known to him. But it is always a possibility; a vanishingly slight one, but a possibility nonetheless).

It is always at this point in the analysis that he comes up against a factor that seems inescapably relevant, but that he finds he is resistant to giving way to: that Watson’s imperviousness to intimidation is causally related to his association with his brother, rather than to circumstances that are solely Watson's own.

It is as if Watson’s insubordination is in the service of establishing a demilitarized zone around Sherlock, with Watson patrolling its perimeter, to repel and/or neutralize anything that he considers to be a threat. Well, was in the service of.

But why such a dedicated defense of his brother, such that Mycroft's intent to intimidate falls flat? This assertive stance had appeared within a very short period of time – Watson had become very loyal, very quickly. Scarcely a day after being informed of Sherlock’s existence he had killed a man – with an illegal weapon – because he believed his life was threatened, even while unable to hear what was happening, and the only evidence being that of viewing the unfolding of a pantomime.

Mycroft purses his lips in impatience and blinks his eyes to refocus them. No more time can be expended on the Watson question today – there are many urgent matters of international importance needing to be put right. And now that Sherlock has been removed from Watson’s life, Mycroft's listed item re analyzing Watson’s motivations can indeed be ticked off, due to that reality. 

Yes, Mycroft points out to himself, even Watson, needs must, be intimidated by death, and come to display submission to its dictates. It is unlikely that he will need to experience yet again Watson’s non-cooperative, headstrong, insolent manner (at least not any time soon). Indeed, with Sherlock "dead," there is no need to ponder the question further.  ........................................................ @calaisreno @totallysilvergirl @friday411 @peanitbear @original-welovethebeekeeper rest of the @s in the tags, which will work for communication purposes, I hope? just say the word if you want to be untagged or tagged xoxoxo

[letsquestjess]

A Brother in Need

Summary: Echo struggles after returning from Skako Minor, but his brothers are there for him.

Word count: 1.9K

Warnings: While there are no graphic descriptions, the Citadel and Skako Minor are briefly mentioned.

A/N: This one was written for @swprequels-big-bang! Can't wait for you all to see the art to go with it. It is phenomenal and I love it!

-- -- -- -- --

In the hushed atmosphere of the medical room, Echo couldn’t shake the unease, as if the stillness masked an imminent awakening of the dormant machines. After previous checkups had caused him more stress than was beneficial, the medics minimised the use of technological equipment, and in the rare circumstances it was required, he was not alone for a single second. 

His grip on the edge of the medical cot tightened. Occasionally, the scomp link attached to his other arm would disrupt his sense of balance. The staff promised him that his body would adapt, but the discomfort made it seem like an everlasting struggle. Each day, he pushed himself to the limit, desperate to reclaim his former strength and abilities, only to be met with failure at every turn. 

“Almost done,” clone medic Zel said, working swiftly. 

A wedge of blue light emitted from the hovering AZ unit and Echo kept his head drooped as it conducted the scans. With practise, he found if he averted his gaze and directed his attention away from the mechanical hum, he could cope long enough to complete his medical checks.  

“The difficult bit is over,” the medic assured him, collecting the reports from the droid and dismissing it from the room. “All I need is a blood sample, and then you’re good to go.” 

Zel acted with deft precision as he covered the back of the proffered hand with the cylinder and applied pressure to the syringe. As soon as he connected the specimen to the console, the monitor on the far wall lit up, flashing and stabilising into a solid green. 

Examining each result individually, he reviewed the list and returned to his patient with a comforting smile. “Your vital signs appear to be within the normal range, but I’m going to keep you on minimal training for another week and then reassess. Don’t want to cause more strain.” 

Echo acknowledged the medic’s terms with a meagre nod. 

“How has the past week been for you?” Zel inquired, as he tidied up the medical apparatus and disposed of empty packets in the correct bins. 

“Fine,” Echo replied, silently hoping that his prompt response wouldn’t betray the lie. Although he was far from fine, he intended to proceed with his routine so long as he met the requirements. 

“Have you been training regularly?”

“I have.” 

“And how have you coped with that?”

Echo grew silent, his throat bobbing with a grim gulp and his mouth becoming dry. Zel posed that question to him every checkup, and each time he faltered or contemplated lying, the medic waited, never pressuring him for a response. His duty as a brother held priority when not in emergency situations, and Echo conceded the truth was the only way to get the help he needed. “Not so fine,” he confessed. 

“Recovery isn’t a quick process,” Zel said. “It’s like learning everything all over again.”

“I’m trying, I really am, but… I just…”

Zel drew up a chair and took a seat beside the medical cot, noting Echo’s tight hold on the bedframe and the restless flicker of his eyes. “No rush. Take a breath.”

Inhaling against the pounding of his heart, Echo loosened his grasp and nestled his hand in his lap. He had no reason to be embarrassed in front of his brother, but the notion he could not carry out his duty filled him with a shame so intense it clenched at his soul. “I… trip a lot, stumble over nothing. I’m getting strange pains at the worst times during training. Although my new squad is supportive and assures me I’m not failing them, I know I am. Most of the time, I struggle to keep pace, and they have to take on extra to get us through the simulations.” His gaze dropped to the scomp link, mourning everything that was taken from him. 

“I won’t insist that you stop training unless it becomes too much to handle,” Zel said. “If that happens, I expect you to return here. It might help if you make a note of when the pains happen. Could be something with the prosthetics that need a bit of tweaking, but you’re doing well. And just so you know, you are not disappointing anyone. You joined Clone Force 99, right?” At Echo’s hum in response, he grinned. “I’ve heard they have unconventional methods, but if they are backing you up, maybe you should reciprocate that trust. Is there a particular squad mate who will listen?” 

“They all would,” Echo replied without hesitation. “I might get a few sarcastic comments, but I think that’s their way of showing they care.”

Rising from his seat, Zel returned the chair to the console and signed the datapad to approve of the results. “When an enemy is marching towards you, it’s not always possible to hold the line alone,” he said. “The principle applies to any form of recovery. You’ve got to do a lot of the work on your own, but not all of it. Let your squad assist you. You’ll get there. Just takes time.”

* * *

Sleep shunned him. He was unable to find rest, never mind a shred of sleep in the swarm of thoughts. Regardless of how much he swatted them aside or composed his breathing, they always crept back in, peering to check if he was aware before hurtling at him at full speed. 

If he could settle at night and handle the noise during the day, he wouldn’t have been bothered, but his mental haze had no sense of time or compassion. He would often recall the blaster smoke scent or find himself involuntarily retracing his steps towards the ill-fated spacecraft, prepared to defend his Jedi comrades and brothers. His footfalls reverberated, compelling him to the ramp, until... 

Resigning himself to another sleepless night, he lowered his legs from the bunk. He wobbled from the impact, still getting used to his prosthetics and afforded himself a moment to regain his balance. Even sitting had become an act he had to think about before he did. 

He scrubbed his face with his palms and lifted his head. A dull glow washed across the central table. Had he been so engrossed in his own thoughts to not notice Tech at the workbench? To grant himself some credit, the intelligent clone was usually rather quiet at night when he tinkered with his latest projects, mindful of the squad in their slumber. 

“Apologies if I disturbed you,” Tech murmured, the glass of his goggles capturing the sheen of the welding tool pinched in his grasp. Metal melted beneath the precise tip, cooled by a second, shorter instrument. “My brothers can sleep through almost anything.” 

“I’m not usually a light sleeper,” Echo replied quietly. “I mean, I wasn’t before…” He pointed at the connectors implanted into his skull and drank in the tepid skim of conditioned air. A delicate breeze tickled his nose and chilled the skin surrounding the embedded machinery that kept him alive. He held onto every sensation, hoping it would anchor him in the present and maintain his concentration on his mission. 

His wrists dangled from his parted legs, his head bowed and his body exhausted beyond its capacity. Zel’s advice leaked into the dense mist in his mind. Trust them, he told himself. They are your squad. Your brothers. They support you as much as you support them. 

“I go to bed but rarely sleep,” he said. “Hardly get the sensation of needing rest like I used to. Sometimes, I drift for a few hours, but it doesn’t last long.” Determined not to fester in the stuffy bunk, he shoved himself up from the thin mattress and made his way over to the table, collapsing into the seat across from the preoccupied clone. 

“That will be your cybernetics,” Tech said. 

“I gathered that.” Echo placed his scomp link onto the counter to alleviate a little of the pressure in his shoulder. Upon his return, he barely allowed himself any time to recuperate before immersing himself in retraining. A soldier at heart and a proud defender of the Republic, he used every stumble and fall as a reminder to stay focused. 

However, amidst the grumbles and the effort it took to push himself up again, within the measured breaths to soothe his irritation, he was reminded of the fact that he was no longer the man he once was. His body had been altered, parts of him removed and replaced with metal, cold and biting. 

Tech moved the tools aside and wiped away the leftover mineral powder from the curved device he had been constructing. With studious care, he began to file at the sharper edges. “If you would find it useful to discuss the challenges you’re facing, my work doesn’t require much concentration at this point.”

At that tiny allowance, words poured from Echo in a way they never had before. The floodgates of his thoughts burst open, unrestrained, tugging at the burden on his chest and lifting each cumbersome strain. The relief of being home, the grief at the news about Fives, and the fear of not living up to his past achievements whispered through the night like sacred secrets. In the end, he felt a sense of liberation as he plucked them out of his head and set them down before him to process. 

“I am sure that you have already been told this, but it will take patience for you to adjust,” Tech spoke once Echo had spilled out his soul. “Not just to a new body, but a new squad and new surroundings. We work… differently to most.”

“Different isn’t a bad thing,” Echo said. 

Tech’s lips curved in agreement and he stepped away from the bench, presenting his latest project to his teammate for inspection. “Can I ensure this fits before I complete the final alterations? You will not feel any discomfort.”

“Sure. But what is it?” 

“It is a piece of headgear that should help with the issues you have been having,” Tech responded, fastening it around the back of Echo’s head and removing it a few seconds later once he was content with the sizing. “I am certain that the implants are contributing to your difficulties, but this will isolate those problems and facilitate a stronger connection between your body and the cybernetic aspects.”

Echo observed him as he perched on the table, fine tuning the device. Tech had been working on this project for weeks, devoting the majority of his free time to finishing it. And it was for him. All those hours, those late nights, the quiet moments alone had been all for his benefit. “You’ve made this for me?” he asked. 

“Yes,” Tech said, as if it were the most clear-cut thing in the entire galaxy. “You are our brother. Why would we not help you?” 

At a loss for words, Echo sat in stunned silence. 

“I believe the slips you have been experiencing during simulation training are due to a disconnect between your neural relay and your prosthetics,” Tech continued, “but this headpiece is designed to assist you with that.”

“I… Thank you,” Echo said. “It, uh… it means a lot. I’ll leave you to it.” Getting up from the bench, he turned back to his goggled brother and smiled. “Don’t stay up too much longer. If Hunter finds out, he won’t be pleased.”

“He will not mind,” Tech assured him. “Not since I am helping a brother in need.” 

[thecorvidcurio]

PLEASE NOTE: This game is in very early development. Only the first two chapters are done and posted, but there may be bugs. If you run into any issues or notice any glaring errors, please let me know via asks or messages. Also, please bear in mind that the writing will be reviewed, revised, and updated as the project goes on. What you're reading is not the final product.

Summary: For as long as you can remember, no one you've loved has ever lasted very long.

The moment you come to love someone,  whether that love is familial, platonic, or romantic, tragedy befalls you both. In a desperate attempt to escape this cycle, you have moved somewhere remote, to a run-down apartment building in a mostly-abandoned area of an isolated town. However, the few others living in the building are far friendlier, and stranger, than you anticipated.

The more time you spend around these bizarre people, the more certain you are that there's a layer of reality you've previously been unaware of. As you discover more of what was previously hidden from you, though, it begs the question:

Is there something more to your tragic circumstances than an unfortunate run of bad luck? Could it be the result of some power you don't understand? And, if so, does that mean there's a way out of it?

Or, perhaps more importantly, does that mean there's someone to blame for your suffering?

Can be played as a romance, or with a focus on platonic connections.

Six potentially romanceable companion characters: Two women, two men, and two non-binary options.

Set your pronouns, appearance, and build your personality over the course of the game.

Decide how your character copes with their difficult situation, how their circumstances affect the way they interact with others, and whether any of that changes as the truth is revealed.

Help your new friends face their own troubles (or potentially make things worse...)

Discover the truth and, potentially, a solution. Or, at the very least, find some closure.

You can play the demo for free on itch.io.

More information about love interests and player stats can be found under the Read More.

Vicente - A very polite and put together man who values kindness and respect above all else. He's happy to help, and keen to look after others, but seems unsure what to do with himself when someone tries to show him the same kindness he shows others.

Abby - An eccentric person with seemingly limitless energy who values fun and excitement above all else. He's always looking for new and interesting things to occupy himself with, and seems to have no sense of self-preservation.

Kaida - A taciturn fellow who values knowledge and secrecy above all else. Knowledge is power, and there is safety in secrets. He's quite mysterious, seems to always be many steps ahead of everyone else, and seems to know things no one else does.

Marina - An unapologetically loud and rambunctious woman who values rebellion and individuality above all else. She's easily bored, and always looking for something new to challenge herself with. If you tell her she can't or shouldn't do something, it's just about guaranteed she'll be doing that thing in the near future.

Thea - An elegant and classy lady who values loyalty and honesty above all else. On the job, she's as glamorous as a starlet, singing on a stage and captivating any who hear her hypnotic voice. Off the job, though, she's something much different, and hopes to find someone who can appreciate both sides of her.

Shiloh - A cripplingly shy and skittish entity of uncertain origin who values privacy and comfort above all else. Shiloh enjoys observing others interacting, and lives vicariously through witnessing the connections other people form with each other, though Shiloh is quite sure that it will never manage to make such connections itself.

Personality:

Adaptable - Adamant Are you able to roll with the punches and adjust according to the situation at hand? Or are you stuck in your ways and insistent that the situation should yield to you, not the other way around?

Isolation - Connection Have you given up trying to connect with others? Did you ever want to in the first place? Are you content to keep a distance between yourself and others? If so, is that what you truly want, or what you believe you must settle for? Or do you crave connection? Will you grasp for it if given a chance?

Courteous - Callous Do you try to be kind to others, regardless of your ability or willingness to form actual connections with them? Or do you treat them coldly and keep yourself unapproachable?

Candid - Calculating Are you genuine in your interactions with others, or are your words and deeds measured carefully for specific purposes?

Approach to the Unknown:

Hopeful - Hopeless Do you believe things will ever get better? That it’s worth it to keep trying, keep holding on, keep hoping? Or have you long since learned that hope is too painful, too dangerous to risk?

Curious - Cautious Are you driven by the need to learn, explore, and discover? Or are you held back by the thoughts of what might happen if you stick your nose where it doesn’t belong?

Skeptic - Believer Do you believe the agonising tragedy of your life is just a consequence of the callous indifference of the universe? Do you think it’s just an unfortunate coincidence, a roll of the cosmic dice that you always lose? Or do you suspect something deeper is afoot?