#Psychological Conditioning

[girl4music]

Episode 11. Damn. That’s was cute but disheartening.

Catra’s trauma runs deep. She’s been made to believe that Adora only kept protecting her because she thought that she was weak and couldn’t handle it on her own when that’s never been the truth. That’s just what’s been instilled into her by the Horde and Shadow Weaver. That she was never anything more than weak and a failure unless Adora was with her - saving her.

Ooft that’s a tough one. I wonder how they’re going to do it. Child Catra and Adora were adorable. But it all just goes to show that this has been Catra’s experience since they were children. The constant psychological conditioning that she wasn’t ever strong enough to win her own battles, be her own warrior and hero - never mind anyone else’s. She wants to prove to herself that she can but she’s putting Adora in danger to prove it.

She needs to be shown that letting others struggle and even fall in the effort to climb higher is not a heroic act.

In fact it’s the opposite. It’s cowardice. She’s got it all backwards and upside down. But that’s psychological conditioning for you. You don’t think selfishness is bad.

I guess the question is will their friendship survive this psychological conditioning? Better yet. Will their love for each other help to heal it? For Catra, time will tell.

It’s not that Catra is a bad friend. I mean when it comes down to it, she does instinctively put Adora first. But because that trauma within her runs deep, so does the belief that she should be the one that’s put first. The way she sees it is it’s her time now to be the strong one. She doesn’t need Adora. She doesn’t need anyone to be heroic. But she’ll soon see that even heroes need help.

I know I keep saying it but I’m in awe. This really is such an ambitious storyline for a children’s show. It’s great!

[parasiticstars]

╰┈➤File Retrieved: Servant_Pets.pdf

Type: Servant Pets (also: housemaids, maid pets, housekeeping Pets)

Overview: These Pets work as housekeepers, maids, servants, cleaners, caretakers, groundskeepers, cooks, and whatever other task may be needed of them. They are trained to do any sort of domestic work possible, and therefore vary wildly in training, capability, mental acuity, physique, and personality. While still servile, they may have varying levels of authority over other servants and lapdogs. Ultimately, their purpose is to keep their master's home in pristine condition and the occupants satisfied, no matter what.

Not to be confused with Labor Pets, though laborers can work as servants and vice versa.

Servant Pets are held to high standards in skill, demeanor, and appearance, and must consist of some of the best the system has to offer. Some can fetch hundreds of thousands in auction, and will end up being a staple in their household for as long as they live.

Second-hand servants are inferior product for a reason, and may be retrained in labor.

Needs: Servants should be taken well care of to ensure the best possible work and cooperativeness, but without instilling any ideas of getting close to their masters or being like a lapdog. Indeed, servants may be under the lapdog's orders as well.

Medical care is to be swiftly given as needed. Prioritize getting the Pet back on its feet as soon as possible. Euthanasia is only required if an injury will permanently affect fine motor skills and/or rational decision making.

Servants are shipped with a simple identification collar, though this can be customized if the Pet is pre-ordered. They also come with two cotton trousers, two cotton button-down shirts, rubber gloves, and one set of EVA clogs with thick soles.

Training: Ideally, a servant Pets' training should be focused on total compliance and servility without sacrificing fine motor skills, rational decision making, and practical skills. It should be eager to please yet not be deluded to believing it is a human or a lapdog.

Emphasis must be placed on work ethic, complacency, submissiveness, attention to detail, proactivity, posture, and personal upkeep, in that order.

Servant Pets can come from a variety of sources, though some of the best have come from long-established breeding lines with specialized training. It is rare to have a good servant come from a Pet retaining its memories (such as a labor Pet), but could be possible with enough discipline. However, this may best be left to experienced owners.

While servants should be able to endure harsh work conditions, heavy-handed punishments (amputation, disfiguring) are entirely unnecessary, and will only be a waste of product. Verbal discipline, withholding food and amenities, and flogging with small objects (such as a ruler or a clothes hanger) are recommended.

Medical notes: Unless the Pet is to be used for breeding, both sexes must be sterilized to prevent any distractions from their duties. Females undergo a mandatory type III circumcision as well.

Servant Pets' lifespans are longer than other pets, averaging to 65 (discounting workplace accidents and violence from master to pet). While aging may take away value and capability in the mid thirties, they may continue to work well to 70. Past this age, however, it is in the best interest to both the master and the Pet to euthanize it, as the resource strain to support a geriatric Pet for the sake of an extra set of hands will be much more of a hindrance than it could help.

[hittingthebrainsfunnybone]

An Ex-Whumpee, teetering into the role of the Whumper they hated

Inspired by and paraphrased from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Humanity is defined by its determined heart and resolved will. Since mine was taken away, fully cleaned from my consciousness, I can comfortably act knowing I am already inhuman and monstrous.

With you, I was thrown through a flurry of shock, chaos and pain. The last agony I was dealt: I believed relief would come after. All I can experience is the grey dead calm of inaction, and the certainty that it will never lead to anything more vivid. You deprived my soul of both hope and fear.

No matter the warmth of the people around me, I'm trapped in the cold empty place in my mind I hollowed out to survive. I am confined by my own will, because their warmth would only burn me. Only someone made just as brittle and deject could truly love me.

Back then, I couldn't fathom how someone who fully understood the difference between right and wrong could hate and hurt and torment another person like you did to me, but now I'm beginning to understand that when man is miserable, he is malicious.

My heart was too susceptible to love and sympathy. In their absence, it was wrenched by misery to vice and hatred. If I had never let my heart idle in that enviable gentle state, then the violent change might have been a torture it could endure.

Never claim you freed me. You played god when you warped my mind, my identity, and my heart. God at least had the conscience to make man lively and alluring. You made me in your own image, but only leaving the most filthy and deplorable parts. I'm only free to be isolated and hated since I resemble you.

For and instant, I dared to shake off my chains and look around me with a lofty and ambitious spirit. We were both men, neither with more purpose or value than the other. But the iron had eaten into my flesh, and I sank down again, trembling and hopeless, into my wretched and lowly existence.

I was benevolent and good; the evils of the world made me a fiend. I asked for kindness and sympathy so I could become virtuous again, but was denied. Instead I am something to beware: hopelessness lead to becoming fearless, and therefore powerful.

For the genuine sympathy and understanding of one human being, I might make peace with it all yet. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and the rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy one, I will indulge the other.

[noxthesleepymoodyoverthinker]

I have, unfortunately, already (unintentionally) trained my brain to never notice the happiness of achieving something - since I have never basked in my achievements for a long loooooong time. :(

Will have to remember this and try to retrain it.

(Reblogging as a reminder.)

If you have achieved something, please remember to observe a mandatory period of basking in the warm glow of your achievement like a lizard on a stone, lest you teach your brain that effort is futile, actually, because it didn't get to enjoy its happy chemicals, so, naturally, nothing good ever comes of trying. (And no, avoiding punishment is not a reward!)

I recommend, like, 5% of basking time in relation to whatever time you invested into achieving the thing minimum. And if you can't make your own bask, friend-brought is fine (= tell your friends!).

[melcowpland]

Do we really need an Emergency Alert?

This weekend the UK government is doing a test of an emergency alert by sending it to every mobilie phone in the country. But the question is, do we really need it? https://www.gov.uk/alerts They’re telling us that this alert system will be used in life threatening situations such as flooding, fires and extreme weather, but to be honest, and I hate to be the one swimming upstream on this, when…

[betterlyf]

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[hisenemy]

I wanted to study others and behaviours. Now I see through everyone and everything.

Studying human nature and norms so masking isn’t as hard. (It is).

[angstingantlers]

Perfectly Clean Mind Control

Whump: psychological abuse, mind control, manipulation, identity altering, (de)conditioning, paranoia.

-

Mind control that doesn't dominate your thoughts, it just... is your thoughts. Perfectly rewriting your will and everything it embodies. Not a single trace of resistance because this is just what you want. Why would you resist your own thoughts? Why would you disagree with your own motivations, your own desires?

Mind control that doesn't shatter once it's done, it just disappears. You don't snap back into awareness. You barely even notice. You just continue as if nothing ever happened. Maybe one moment you look back and you frown, because thinking on it, you remember when you happily followed that person out of town, and you remember what you did, you remember wanting to... but that's crazy. Why did you think that was okay? Why did you want to do that?

Or maybe you were under this mind control for so long that even once it's over you look back and say, "Oh, of course I did that." As far as you're concerned you've always held the beliefs you do now. You've always wanted to do these things. You don't remember why, but you've never had to think of why, and it doesn't matter anyway when you've always been so confident that you're right. It isn't until you're challenged on it all and reminded that you never used to be like this, that you were different before, that something has changed that you finally falter. And you try to think of where this all started, try to figure out why things changed -- and all you can really remember is an entrancing pair of eyes, and a gentle suggestion, and then your own mouth responding, "That's a great idea. Let's go."

And suddenly, you realise that you have no idea how much of what you are, what you were, and what you believed you always have been is just a lie. You don't know whether any thought you have now is really yours or just another preciously placed prompt. You don't trust your impulses, you don't trust your desires, you definitely don't trust your judgement.

You don't trust yourself. And you never can again.

[loonybun]

official psa. we should clicker train/pavlov whumpees more often. thank you for your consideration.

[girl4music]

CARINA: “Well, I am very glad you called. But I should go back to work now.”

MAYA:

*voice breaking*

“I’m the truck.”

CARINA: “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at American idioms.”

MAYA: “I’m the truck. I’m, I’m, I’m… I’m the truck that drunkenly plowed into Station 19 and destroyed an entire family.”

CARINA: “Hey. Hey.”

MAYA:

*crying*

“I’m the truck.”

You took on a responsibility that you were not ready for and didn’t know that you were not ready for. You cared enough about your family that you tried to do what you could for them while under pressure. You simply didn’t have the experience or the knowledge to know how to do it. You’re only guilty of ignoring the fact that you were struggling and you couldn’t reach out and communicate that to anyone in your team for fear of them telling you you’re a failure. It’s something your dad instilled into you from a very young age that you just couldn’t see or think any other way. As you said, you’re wired to be relentless. You’re conditioned in a way that you didn’t anticipate or predict you would be because you thought it was the right or best way to be. That it was the way to make or be a winner. That method may have worked for you. It may still work for you. But that wouldn’t work with everyone.

You’re not the truck. You’re just part of the collision. Your dad is the truck because he never cared for you in the way you clearly care for your team. I don’t agree, because you’re just a victim of circumstance. You just didn’t know it. Psychological abuse is difficult to see when you’re in it because you’re trained not to see it.

I’ll admit that I had no sympathy for you to begin with but that was before I realized how deep this goes. See, I’ve also made a bad judgement call out of lack of awareness. I’ve admitted to it. That’s what you need to do now. Admit to where you’ve gone wrong now that you’re aware that you have. Your team will understand.

Man what a mess. And you know, Carina might not understand anything that’s going on but least Maya’s not alone. She can be comforted by an outsider. Sometimes that’s the thing that’s needed most. To be comforted by somebody that’s away from all the drama but cares enough to listen to all the drama.

An outside POV. I always find that’s helpful anyway.

@priea01 You were right. I was jumping to conclusions with Maya a bit when I said that she’s treating her team as Captain the way her dad treated her as her coach and that she deserves no sympathy for it. But I obviously didn’t understand the circumstances for being as deep as they are. It’s psychological abuse that she’s only starting to acknowledge and unpack now that she’s in a position where she’s in power. She didn’t recognize her treatment of her as a bad thing because her brain is hardwired to think that it’s good.

She’s just another victim of the system of emotional abuse which cycles itself around and around again.

It’s only now with the self-revelation of her saying that she’s the truck that she’s realized something is wrong.

[parasiticstars]

╰┈➤File Retrieved: Labor_Pets.pdf

Type: Labor Pets (also: working Pets)

Overview: These Pets take the jobs that human laborers protected by OSHA will not. Their masters are usually contractors, plantation/farm owners, and managers. They often will go from contractor to contractor as the job demands; as such, the older a labor Pet is, the more likely it will have a variety of skills and strengths.

Not to be confused with Servant Pets, though servants may work as laborers and vice versa.

Typical jobs are working on agricultural plants, plantations, heavy construction, certain factories, and warehouses. Labor Pets are not paid, but do earn "privileges", such as extra rations for themselves or their whole team, menial amenities in their bunks (if applicable), and breaks-- all of which may be taken away for misbehavior at their masters' discretion.

Needs: PPE is unnecessary with labor Pets unless the job is exceedingly dangerous. However, medical care may be given when needed and if confirmed the subject is not faking to shirk its duties.

Laborers are shipped with their standard collar-- a utilitarian metal band; heavy around the neck and extremely hard to take off, its main function is identification (via a number printed on the side), a marker if the Pet has a history of bad behavior or some kind of disability, and electric prongs for disciplinary use.

Training: Ideally, a labor Pets' training should be focused on forming learned helplessness and total compliance without sacrificing fine motor skills, rational decision making, practical skills, and communication. Since these types of Pets often retain their memories, however fragmented, best behavioral results come from the subjects voluntarily signing themselves into the system.

Labor Pets are often selected from people from extremely low income or homelessness, refugees, trafficking, prison, or runaways. Rarely, veterans may also be signed in, though symptoms of PTSD may complicate their ability to work heavy machinery.

Laborers may also be from the dregs and the flunkees of any other kind of Pet training. They will require more training, thus, laborers sourced from other Pets may preform better in "simpler" jobs, such as clothing factories or working on farms and plantations.

While laborers should be able to endure extreme working conditions, heavy-handed punishments (deprivation, amputation, disfiguring) are entirely unnecessary, and will only be a waste of product.

Medical notes: Castration or neutering is generally unnecessary. Heavy monitoring during private time is often nil. Sterilization in males is only needed if the subject has a history of letting its sexual wants impede work.

Females must undergo a mandatory ovariohysterectomy, though circumcision is unnecessary.

Labor Pets' lifespans are somewhat longer than other pets, averaging to 55 (discounting workplace accidents, violence from master to pet, and pet to pet violence). While aging may take away value and capability in the mid thirties, they may continue to work well to 70. Past this age, however, it is in the best interest to both the master and the Pet to euthanize it, as the resource strain to support a geriatric Pet for the sake of an extra set of hands will be be much more of a hindrance than it could help.

[call-me-strega]

Dc x Dp Prompt #7: Pavlov’s Ghost Would be so Proud

In which Jazz tries to play matchmaker and accidentally classically conditions her new friend, Jason, into liking her brother.

Basically, Jazz is a college student at Gotham U when she shares a Lit class with Jason Peterson and they bond over deeply analyzing the characters. Jazz isn’t looking for a relationship (maybe she has a partner? Maybe she wants to focus on her studies? I’m low key considering aro-spec Jazz but who knows?) but she thinks Jason would get along great with her brother Danny and decides she wants to set them up.

She bribes Jason into coming over to study or hang out with the promise of fudge and take out and incidentally observes him deeply enjoying said food. She decides that since eating food puts Jason in a good mood that’s when it would be best to talk up her brother. So the next time Jason came over she casually steered the conversation toward her brother’s recent endeavors to transfer to Gotham in order to be closer to her because he’s so sweet and protective. She then offers Jason a slice of cheesecake she had leftover from a lunch out with the some friends which he graciously accepts. Then, just as he starts eating Jazz goes “oh here let me show you a picture of Danny!” and shows off her cute younger brother to her friend.

She doesn’t do it every time she and Jason meet because she figures that’s be too obvious but every time he comes over she offers him food knowing it puts him in a good mood so she can talk up her brother. It’s just that she says his name or shows him a picture of whatever Danny’s been up to recently while he’s eating.

Jazz just genuinely believes she’s just doing her best to be a good wing woman. It’s not until Danny actually moves to Gotham and Jazz decides to introduce them that she realizes what she’s done. She invites Jason over to come meet her brother and watches her how when he sees Danny he gives him an actual genuine smile, not a polite smile you give strangers, but one with actual joy. This is followed quickly by a sense of visible confusion in Jason‘s eyes and Jazz starts to connect the dots.

She excuses herself to the kitchen to go get the snacks she was planning to serve as she looks down at the tray she realizes ‘Oh my gosh I’ve been classically conditioning Jason to associate joy with my brother’! She puts together that an unconditioned stimulus = food (specifically served in her apartment) -> unconditoned response = Jason feels happy/good and that by talking about and showing off her brother every time Jason eats she made her brother a conditioned stimulus for Jason to associate with happiness.

She mentally groans realizing what she’s done but then looks back over at Danny and Jason hitting it off and can’t bring herself to fully regret it. This kinda was her goal as a wingwoman after all. She brings that snacks over to see a flush on her brother’s face and the tips of Jason’s ears red and thinks with a big grin ‘Hey! Maybe if this goes really well it’ll be a fun story to tell at their hypothetical wedding!’

[abhainnwhump]

Been obsessing over the idea of a Whumper who wants to live out a stereotypical family fantasy so they kidnap a few Whumpees to do it.

One Whumpee is their spouse. Whumpee is beautiful and caught Whumper's eye. They had a promising future before, but now they're stuck in this housewife role and have to suck up to their captor. They feel worse because they already have someone they love.

Another Whumpee is the kid. Whumper chose this one because of their small size and/or cute features. They have a cute bedroom, childish clothes, and limited access to information so they don't get too smart. They're also drugged most of the time so enjoy naps.

The last Whumpee is the pet. This one gets treated the worst. They have to act like a dog 24/7 and play fetch with the kid. Bonus points if this Whumpee was super cocky before and are now treated like an animal.

Whumper is the head of the household and makes sure everyone else stays in line. They want their family to be perfect, but they aren't against violence. They'll torture the Whumpees until "they love them again".

The Whumpees all befriend each other and plan to escape. They have to be careful so Whumper doesn't catch them, but they can't stay here.

[scintillatingshortgirl19]

gee i wonder if the issue could be at all related to the fact that the current treatment plan for his chronic pain consists solely of FUCKING IBUPROFEN

[unbfacts]