#also you’re not “evil” but possibly have some developmental trauma. Probably. Who am I to judge. Have fun with the realisation!

[more-thoughts-than-money]

Born “gifted”; grown chronically depressed

// long, personal post. basically a tutorial on express therapy (and by express I mean 10 years of rationalising, learning psychology on myself and fictional characters + 48 hours of not sleeping)

When I was grieving I spent 48 hours sleepless

it’s not that I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been on insomnia medication for 3 years now. I just had to “have a reason” and time to actually acknowledge my emotion and thoughts which caused my body to struggle with setting a “proper” circadian rhythm

Living with a 5 person family in basically a studio flat for 13 years of my life low-key harmed my ability to think and “feel” without privy eyes

this accidentally sent my brain into survival mode where I could only “think rationally” at night

So when we moved out and I got to have a room of my own

that’s when *serious* sleep problems started

my brain would just REFUSE to shut the fuck up

first off I was used to tv noise while falling asleep

i fixed it up with some rain sounds or watching ATLA when I was feeling funky

it distracted me enough

still I wouldn’t fucking sleep.

because my brain didn’t feel like it

probably hyperactivity which I could never “treat” with sport as an asthmatic kid

also an outcast but it is what it is

unable to name the cause of my insomnia I would just head to sleep at 10pm. Two reasons for that:

a) you know what they say! Don’t trust your thoughts after 10PM

b) 8h of sleep is THE healthy amount. And it seems like my brain likes waking up early for whatever reason!

yeah also I went through a fair share of medication before they got it right

anyways whoops I’m depressed now. Very depressed and even more anxious. Day by day my brain is giving me more compulsive behaviours and thoughts! Yaaay!

so I went through a 3 years worth of antidepressants

also a lot of unintended research (thanks, tiktok.)

basically I “subconsciously” KNEW what my problem is but “consciously” my brain refused I acknowledge it because haha living in the state of constant survival mode is way more fun! right?

right?

basically it was like being a doctor and being pretty certain about the diagnosis but having to go to some other doctor to objectively either confirm or discard my diagnosis

yeah anyways I changed medication, SNRI, venlafaxine

known to help some adhd folk with severe vegetative depression for “no reason”

Yeah basically my new psychiatrist kept on upping the dose until I got “a kick in the ass” so we know it works

and then my aunt died.

wELL my workaholic and emotionally constipated child brain would NOT acknowledge it

hell you’d catch me dead before I’d admit that I felt shitty but didn’t know how to deal with that because at the same time I “saw it coming”

No one ever told me she’s sick

I just saw her hair loss (or rather a sudden haircut change and awkward silence that followed) and had some foggy memory of someone saying her sister died of cancer

Mind you I don’t fucking remember my childhood that well

hell I don’t remember it at all but it is what it is

I just “know” some things and some are more of a “hunch”

I have this information buried in my brain but I can’t recall how it got there, ykwim?

yeah basically I was suspecting she’s dying of cancer but I was trying to stay optimistic and told myself I’m “overthinking it”

and I thought the mourning was “good enough of a reason” to stay up for 48 hours, write down my “thoughts” and wail all day long (yes, everyone gave me shit for crying growing up, how did you know?)

anyways yeah I did this and suddenly I “solved” the root of ALL my anxieties and minor paranoias.

as if it was a fucking riddle. Or a fucking house MD episode.

I hope you can understand WHY I’m so livid.

I SPENT OVER 3 YEARS ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS AND MADE ONE THERAPIST CRY JUST BECAUSE MY BRAIN WENT SO FAR INTO THE SURVIVAL MODE EVERY TIME I INTERACTED WITH A HUMAN BEING. IM JUST FUCKING AUTISTIC AND TRAUMATISED NOT “ANXIOUS” AND “PARANOID”

OH FOR FUCKS SAKE

Also I’m fucking dyslexic. But hyperlexic at the same time. I mean I’m hyperlexic in my native language, and I “remember” the spellings so I went undiagnosed

but I love technology. I want to be a CS student and then I’ll see where I can go from here. I’d love to work on an online learning platform for “gifted” children

y’know so they don’t lose their childhood but at the same time can associate learning with something nice and actually enjoyable

I think a lot of “gifted kid burnout” comes from the | dopamine <—> habit making | mechanism

so if children can learn they don’t HAVE TO be good at every subject and learn their “strengths and weaknesses” early on

Hardships later on won’t be as depressing

cause hey maybe I’m not the best at english but I know a lot about maths and I like maths and maybe when I grow older I can be a mathematician!!

you see what I mean?

at least this is what I’m trying to do for myself

generational trauma and neurodivergency running in the family made me develop some shitty coping mechanisms (example - perfectionism in order to cope with my actual time blindness and the “need” for structure while hating organisation and refusing “unreasonable” authority)

I wasn’t raised catholic, not really

nor was I raised queer lol

but my brain reacted to religion the same way people who went through religious trauma did

basically I put myself through religious trauma on accident!

fun, aye?

what I mean is, I grew up religious because that’s what “felt right”

tradition and all that

and then I realised the catholics hate me for no fucking reason

and then I thought “well fuck you too!” And called myself an atheist

later it went into agnostic

and a couple of weeks back I grew OBSESSED with religion

christian one I mean

Fuck I even started reading the nsrv bible in english (!)

and then I tried to interpret it “by myself” using some historical context and googling some stuff

WHAAAAAAAT! Turns out the bible is a product of its own time and is not to be taken literally!

That’s crazy innit?

Yeah and then I realised all of my recent hyperfixations (last two years) were a silent ways of rationalising ALL my “unreasonable” anxiety and trauma caused by; you guessed it

NOT UNDERSTANDING SYMBOLISM AND SOCIAL CUES AS IT IS

IN MY NATIVE FUCKING LANGUAGE

I can learn *any* language

I just need some books, movies, music in said language

But don’t ask me about any grammar. I don’t care about grammar. And you can’t make me. Idfk what present simple is but I can shove it so far up your ass your own mother won’t recognise you. so yeah

I’m great at learning languages cause they’re a “brainless” work for me

I mean

I learn languages for fun - it’s a tool to communicate with broader audience AND find more knowledge on the internet (I Google EVERYTHING in english)

and when someone tries to make it into an actual job of mine. This is when it goes downhill.

also english being coded as “language of knowledge” is my “main” language

my native language is way more complicated and I never really had to acknowledge my emotion in polish

I mean maybe I did but I just never wanted to cause I never learned that! English in comparison is simple. It allows me to communicate simple ideas without the need to “sound smart”

this and isolation from my peers (kids are bastards) gave me an actual “language barrier”

which isn’t the case really

it was just my overthinking

I started enjoying polish music way more recently cause I can never get the lyrics

so I listen only to what sounds “cool”

in english on the other hand the most of my music taste was built around midwestern emo and folk punk

cause I listened only to songs that felt “somewhat relatable”

yeah all of that understanding makes me want to write an essay but i kind of don’t care and I’m too lazy to do that!

so yeah this is how I “cured” my compulsions, anxiety, depression, irritability and perfectionism. By having fucking adhd and being a massive nerd. because I would hyperfixate on linux, customisation, open source applications, cybersecurity, programming

turns out I’m great at maths since I KNOW HOW to solve the problems

My brain is just too quick to do it step by step so I tend to skip and get lost in my own fuckin notebook 💀

schooling just made me believe I suck at maths and i should actually kms for trying to improve at it /hj /lh

And I suck at my own language. I know a lot of “complicated” words and can deduce what certain words mean (logically) but I have issues adapting my language to my listeners. I either cuss every other word (too comfortable; thanks mom LMFAO)

Or I speak like an university professor. To my peers. And they don’t know what the fuck is going on. And I end up isolating myself because of crippling fear of being misinterpreted. And people think I don’t have a sense of humour whatsoever because I don’t “get” jokes. But I joke a lot and am very sarcastic cause that’s just how I am. God damn it

When were y’all going to tell me not everyone thinks I want to use them and be a bastard overall when I need to ask someone for help. when. were. you.

icb I had to go to paid therapy, feed myself some subliminal messaging, deprive myself of sleep for 48 hours, force myself to talk to my dad about things I don’t understand or scare me, go manic for a week on venlafaxine, my aunt had to die and I had to have a reason not to go to school for 2 days for me to actually acknowledge my emotion instead of rationalising it.

also everyone in school + my therapist thinks I’m still manic and in need of hospitalisation. How do I even begin to explain it’s not that I have superiority complex, and I just realised I’m hella smart, just in a pretty unexpected way….. because thorough my entire life I never acknowledged it for the sake of being “humble”. bitch it’s not humble it’s the lack of self worth and being someone else’s doormat.

y’all think that if I say “house md and one tumblr post cured me” they’ll let me off the radar?

no honestly I have too much to catch up on (maths, c++, reading in POLISH, and learning German for fun) to actually care about “depressing” things of this world

I mean sure it does sound unhealthy in hindsight

but thing is

this is the first time in my life where I don’t feel hopeless both about present AND the future

and I guess that’s enough for now

I have “a goal” and that’s enough

Later I might catch a job as an actual university professor. Maths or computer science. Biology or physics maybe?

it gives me an excuse to be “eccentric” lol

cause the students are here to learn not to make fun of who I am and focus on that

sure it’s a funny anecdote to mention like “dude my physics teacher is fucking nuts but at least his lectures are interesting”

and that’s all I care about

I get to express myself instead of internalising anything

and the students get to learn

yay and yay

mutual benefit!

yeah anyway fuck I have so much shit to catch up on and I’m so lazy I actually have to reorganise my room and desk so I don’t try to do my homework in bed……. (Yes I was THAT depressed and lazy)

when I do my chores in bed I keep on losing my pens and I’m one minor inconvenience away from doing something I might not particularly want to do…….

yah

thats it I guess

If this post made anyone realise something (“connect some dots”)

congrats and I’m sorry you had to find out this way LMFAO

if not

scroll ahead, not the target audience probably

[ziracona]

Hello! I have always believed that Michael needed better doctors and good treatment. He was simply billed as "Evil". Sometimes I think that at that time they were unaware or ignorant of mental illness, and that is why Michael did not recover. I wish it had been treated better. I would like to know your opinion about it ;v;

Oh, absolutely. Michael is a very tragic character, and what happened to him was almost entirely Loomis’ fault, secondarily the system and his parents’, and like onyl 0.8% his own. It’s true that mental health aid has historically been really bad in most places, and even today treatment and acceptance—even in specifically medical settings—tend to be abysmal. Of course people knew less than they do now about how psychological stuff works, but bias, cruelty, and superstition as well as a system that enables and even to degrees outright encourages that is to blame for the awful treatment people woth mental illnesses and personality disorders faced and continue to face, not just a lack of knowledge, and the history is really heavy and awful to look over. : ( It’s horrific some of the things doctors have done and do to people just trying to get help.

Like, in Michael’s case, we’ve had a name and understanding of psychosis since the 1800s. Canonically, by the time the poor kid was six years old, he was hearing voices telling him to do bad things to people. He told his parents, seeking help, and they did nothing to help him—just told him it was his imagination—despite knowing hos grandfather had suffered the same symptoms. If they had only taken him seriously and given him therapy and possibly medication too, Judith never would have died. (I am not goong to say it every time, but all this information is official canon) Michael’s reason for killing his family members is wanting the vocies talking to him to be quiet, because it’s agonizing. If you’ve ever had intrusive thoughts (stuff like “pull into oncoming traffic” or “break that and see what happens” and such that don’t actually compell or force you to do it at all, and are always things you as a person deeply do not want to do, but nevertheless are really annoying or distressing to hear in your head), imagine that cranked up to 1000, endless and constant, but from voices that seem to come from around you instead of in your head. Especially as a young child, with no understanding what is happening to you, this would be incredibly scary and distressing—doubly so when dismissed by your parents, whose sole job is supposed to be to love and protect you.

The voices say they’ll be quiet if Michael kills Judith, so Halloween night, he does. Important to note here Michael is recently six years old at the time, which developmental psych literally is not old enough to have a complete understanding what death itself is, let alone complex morality. You /cannot/ be evil at six, you simply don’t have a complex enough understanding of right and wrong or of consequence to /be/ evil. Also at this age, usually kids see death as a vague concept, but one that applies to people they don’t know only, not to them and their loved ones. In Halloween 1978, immediately after stabbing Judith, Michael looks away while he keeps doing it, and his breathing speeds up in a scared way. He barely looks at the body, and immediately goes down stairs to wait for his parents—probably for them to fix it—and does nothing to flee or hide what he’s done. He looks traumatized when they take his mask off. (Lots of little notes here like that Judith when she sees him seems annoyed but not very, and when he attacks her, tries to shield herself and call to him to stop, rather than fleeing or fighting back, which [appealing instead of fight or flight] is pretty exclusively something you only would use if attcked by someone you are on good terms with—I mean, Michael is six—if Judith had /tried/ to fight back, no way she would have died—so there’s less than nothing to indicate they had anything but a loving familial sibling relationship. But if I list all these I’m gonna launch into my six page Michael Myers meta so I will speed through the rest.)

Anyway! Sorry, I have many feelings. About...everything. Including Michael for sure. So, immediately after killing Judith, Michael stops talking. He also shows other psychosis and trauma readily recognized side effects, like catatonia, slowed movement. In Halloween 1978c Dr. Loomis claims he tried to treat Michael for eight years, then spent another seven trying to keep him locked up because he realized he was evil. This is a /blatant/ lie, as in film canon Loomis, by Michael’s review hearing I believe four months in? Six or less for sure, I believe it is four. Loomis has /already/ become convinced Michael is a demon in human form, faking his symptoms, and itching to kill again. The other doctors think Loomis is crazy, as does the other doctor who examines Michael, but they’re awful people so they let him stay Michael’s doctor anyway, even though they refuse to move him to Litchfield maximum security. By this time only a few months in, Loomis is canonically also threatening the six year old in his care and constantly telling him he is an evil being who wants to get out and terrorize again. (Also, I will die enraged the sentance Michael gets for killing Judith is to remain locked in solitary in a sanitorium for /15/ years, until he turns 21, at which point he will be tried as an adult for murder??? The fuck?? You CANNOT charge a 6 year old’s crime in adult court! ‘Tried as an adult’ is meant for like, when a 17 year old dismembers their family and eats them! It’s for particularly heinous crimes, committed by someone /very/ close to being legally an adult, and that /only/. The idea of waiting fifteen years to try someone as an adult for something done at age six is laughable and sick).

Okay this is already long, I get carried away rip. Uhhh, anyway, yeah. In Smith’s Grove, Michael is visited by mom and Laurie once, then never sees any of his family again, because his dad hates him and forbids the others—finds out because Laurie is four and talks that they went /one/ time, and physically beats four year old Laurie for mentioning his name until she trauma blocks out ever having had a brother. From then on, Michael spends /fifteen/ years and all the dest of his developmental stages of childhood in a sanitorium with Dr. Loomis—a man who on wild religious superstition grounds assumes by his own admission /on sight/ that Michael is evil, and no other human contact. According to canon, Michael spends at least four hours of /every/ day with Loomis, his /only/ human contact, who threatens him, promises to stop him, and endlessly barrages him with “You’re evil, you’re not human, you want to kill again, I /will/ stop you,” and nothing else. He also canonically keeps Michael overdosed on a type of antipsychotic that, while a fine drug if used normally, if overdosed can deeply worsen symptoms, and can cause permanent brain damage.

Honestly, if a six year old is exposed yo major trauma, none of their issues are explained, legitimized, or believed, and almost all of their developmental stage is spent with endless voices they don’t know the cause of suggesting murder and violence, one human being and authority figure telling them over and over and over for fifteen years with no other constant in their life or human contact period that they are a demon in human form who wants to kill and is /going/ to do so again...? How else was that story ever going to end? I’ve said it before, but that’s beyond conditioning; it’s lab growing a human child to one day walk out and murder Laurie Strode with a large kitchen knife.

I stand by Halloween is a greek tragedy more than a slasher, and Michael and Laurie are both victims. He’s the Asterios, she’s the Ariadne. Loomis the Minos, the real villain. (Or the Poseidon choose your poison).

Anyway, I 100% agree! If he had just gotten help from his parents, Judith would have never died. If he’d had good doctors, none of the events of 1978 would have come to pass, or anything after it. Loomis single-handedly causes the deaths in 1978 himself through years of cruelty, and bigoted bias towards a small child in his care who needed his help, not his abuse, but he chose to break as much as he possibly could despite his responsibilities as a doctor, an adult, and a human.

If you’re interested, I did a canon-deep-dive character study short story on Michael on AO3! Halloween is such a sad story but it’s fascinating. God, poor Michael and Laurie deserved so much better than they got. It’s a testament to Michael’s character that even after 15 years of Dr. Loomis, he really only kills his intented target(s) in search of quiet from the voices, and anyone who sees him/would be a threat, and not other people. Makes no attempt to kill any of the kids in Halloween 2018, and only kills Bob when he literally opens the door to his hiding spot and Michael is found and Bob becomes a threat to him. In H20, after Michael has had 20 years on his own, you get arguably the least brutal Michael, who intentionally passes on killing the mother and child, and the security guard he walks right past, because they don’t see him and thus he doesn’t /have/ to. Halloween II is less intentionally avoiding, but even then he still does the same multiple times too, like with the old lady making a sandwich, or the scene in the incubator room. Anyway he desevered better fuck Loomis all my homies hate Loomis.

[jupiteronic]

hi, i have pisces mars, how can i develop it? i suck

don’t do the whole “i suck” thing for starters. It’s hard ik especially for those of us who are mentally ill and/or went through trauma and have conditioned thoughts like these, but also it can be helpful to remind yourself that your thoughts do not define you and to redirect your thoughts rather than bully them away or blame yourself for them (let me know if you want resources on this!) so as to diminish later blowups/ guilt-tripping behaviours. a lot of Pisces mars people very much are willing to change their ways/ listen to other perspectives like you! telling people you suck doesn’t really come across as taking responsibility though, a lot of people will take offense to that - rightfully so - and think you’re being manipulative or simply looking for validation, acceptance or forgiveness. probably wasn’t your intention, it’s just important to think about how others would interpret our behavior. 

accept that feeling bad isn’t an excuse to avoid preemptively thinking about how your actions impact others, it takes practice but make a conscious effort and you’ll be surprised how much good you can do despite overwhelming emotions! in a similar vein though, do NOT ignore or repress or minimize your emotions for the sake of others. if anything that will lead to more uncontrolled anger, manipulative behavior, and self-pitying feelings/thoughts which further reinforce the unhealthy behaviours you’re trying to rid yourself of

BEWARE OF WHO YOU SURROUND YOURSELF WITH

if you can, avoid fixating on what you did wrong and feeling shame + guilt for it. focus on how you can improve or eliminate the behaviours you don’t like & more importantly how you can make it up to anyone you hurt - especially if that person is yourself. easier said than done, especially for the obsessive types, but again i find that redirecting thoughts makes this easier than blaming yourself for fixating on your guilt. it can be an endless cycle really. how do you apologise to others + how do you apologise to yourself? if you don’t do either of those much, start working from there

get feedback from others where appropriate but take the feedback with a grain of salt until you have multiple perspectives

watch self regulation skills vids or read about it or... cant believe i’m saying this.. listen to a p*dcast. whatever helps you absorb information the fastest. ideally you would learn about this through written/ spoken word of both your own and others, through audio, visually, artistically etc to master self-regulation but that’s obviously not realistic or convenient for everyone so start small with what seems most realistic to you!!! I know especially Pisces mars can get quickly lose interest or motivation when it comes to things involving thorough detail lol. the next point expands on this but what works for me is pretending I’m my own parent. in a way we all are our own parents, but emotionally investing myself in that fantasy helped me apply my energy to things I’d rather not do (like doing assignments is still very hard for me, and to avoid discouraging myself from doing them, i kind of have a conversation with myself about it and kind of take on the role of child + parent. this is just an example - sometimes it just helps to use your traits to your own advantage, like Pisces mars being more interested in fantasies/emotionally engaging things than boring menial tasks; i used an emotionally engaging fantasy to motivate myself to do work, be creative <3). avoid relying on others for regulation & discipline. this can be very difficult for some of us + i understand and empathize with this. the point here is to be as independent as you can be.  also something going wrong does not necessarily mean it’s a sign from the universe to stop trying i promise

on the note of independence, take steps to becoming your own cheerleader. motivate & encourage yourself through positive self talk. in times where you feel demotivated, helpless or worthless, and say encouraging things to yourself. be aware that this will often seem silly and a waste of energy and u know how much Pisces mars like to save their energy at all costs lmao so this is definitely a common, normal reaction but every time this discourages you, remind yourself that IT IS worth trying and YOU are worth trying for yourself. sometimes I literally have to say cheesy shit like “you can do this” out loud repeatedly until I convince myself. it’s tiring & maybe embarrassing but recovering from chronic self-pity is even more tiring and embarrassing. avoid relying on others to uplift you & make you feel better. not to say that people shouldn’t help people, but just so you’re able to have your own back as much as possible

be more intellectually present oh my god 🤡 I beg of you. this can be very difficult especially for people who deal with adhd/mental illness(es)/trauma/learning disorders/developmental disorders etc. I don’t have all the answers for that but one thing most of us can do is engage in activities that nurture our intellectual health more frequently ; whether that’s reading (nonfiction preferrably), doing newspaper puzzles, crosswords/sudoku apps, problem-solving activities that don’t involve emotional appeal, etc just do it often. we all know how emotionally attentive Pisces mars can be but engage your intellectual side gamers (i.e. don’t game). I say this as a Pisces mars myself lolz please this is literally self-care

ik this is a snooze point but physical stimulation especially exercise can be really good for emotional wellbeing/ release. otherwise find literally any form of release - healthy forms I cannot stress this enough

wrt anger, bitterness, feelings of defeat: Pisces placements often have an external locus of control and thrive when they consider/have faith in something bigger than them. could be astrology, spirituality, religion, art, community, culture, all of the above, whatever makes u feel connected.

question your own intentions (but don’t overdo this); why am i acting this way or feeling this way? am I fishing for attention? if so, is there anything I can do to give myself the same warm feeling attention/validation from others would give me? am I acting like this because I feel hurt or taken advantage of? if so, is it possible for me to have a safe, healthy conversation about this with the source of the problem? WHAT is the source of the problem? what can i do about it? write this down if you can somewhere private and read it back to yourself later, notice any cognitive distortions in your thinking and make adjustments. this will help you practice using your intellectual side in distressing moments but there’s less point in using your thinking if it’s warped if you feel that’s the case for you. so google cognitive distortions & how to deal with them to get examples! try to make the adjustments next time you feel overwhelmed or have heightened emotions/senses

be firmer with your boundaries. with others AND yourself. the less you resist against boundaries the more your life will know peace because you are more careful with the people and/or behaviours you allow into YOUR life. do *not* ease up on your boundaries for the sake of other people. betraying yourself for others or immediate gratification is rarely a good idea in the long run. I’ve done the mistake of betraying my values for others many times and it’s caused unnecessary conflict which we are notorious for avoiding. that is until the evil puppeteer living in our brains snaps their fingers and commands us to go ham

[badbackgroundscience]

I’m very disappointed with the lack of evil beards, here

So wait, if evil duplicate!Thor can’t lift Thor’s hammer because he’s not worthy of its power, why could evil brain-damaged!Thor do it in Journey Into Mystery #94?

I’m getting ahead of myself...

We’re in the very next issue (i.e. #95) and Thor finds himself battling an identical copy of himself...with two hammers, so he’s extra dangerous. How did this happen? Dr. Donald Blake asked an evil theoretical physicist named Zaxton* to present Blake’s new invention at “the scientists’ convention”. He can’t do it himself because Thor has to be part of the demo, for some reason...

But that’s not the weird part of this scenario. The weird part is that - having only been shown to be a GP and/or surgeon in previous issues - Dr. Blake suddenly somehow has the skill to create artificial life.

Artificial life capable of solving “the world’s most complicated mathematical problem” in mere moments.

Artificial life with both unbreakable skin and the ability to turn into a “super-grenade” when a short-circuit causes it to blow up. (Don’t worry, Thor saves the day and throws him out the side of the building to explode high above the city, but how is it unbreakable from the outside and not the inside? Is it a special coating?). But let’s back up...

IQ - short for Intelligence Quotient - attempts to describe a human’s ‘smartness’ by providing a quantitative value based on the results of some cognitive test (There are many, but the most well-known are the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, first published in 1955, and the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales, first published 1916). Pop culture, of course, treats your IQ score as immutable and 100% accurate; that is certainly not the case. 

We’re still debating if intelligence can be quantified in the first place, but assuming it can be, standard IQ tests can’t possibly test for all forms of intelligence (if they even choose to try) because we also haven’t settled on how many and what they are. Also, as with any test, psychological factors (e.g. some sort of ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’, or not getting enough sleep the night before) as well as the exact questions asked can skew results, so you’re unlikely to get the same IQ score every single time you take it. Your score will also vary depending on the test you take, yet characters in media boast of IQ scores as if there is one universal test.

The predecessor to the Stanford-Binet test - the Binet-Simon test (published in 1905) - was one of the very first ‘successful’ IQ tests, created even before the term “IQ” was coined (by William Stern in 1912). But it was meant only for children, and used specifically to identify those with developmental disorders. The score was determined by finding your “mental age”, dividing by your physical age, then multiplying by 100. A 6-year old with the mental abilities of your average 6-year old would have an IQ of 100; so would a 12-year old with the skill of a 12-year old. But a 6-year old with the skill of a 12-year old would have an IQ of 200. A 6-year old with the mental ability of a 22.5-year old would have the same IQ as Donald Blake’s android. This ratio method, however, hasn’t been in use for many decades.

Instead, the modern IQ scale sets the mean (as in “average”) intelligence level of the population as 100 and distributes the population along something called a Gaussian curve, a.k.a. a “bell curve”.** (Adults and children are grouped separately.) Most of humanity has an IQ clustered near the middle, and the number of people with higher/lower IQs gets smaller faster and faster as you move away from that mean. It looks like this:

Without going into the mathematics behind it, about 68% of the adult population will have an IQ between 85 and 115. About 99.7% of people have an IQ between 55 and 145. (Also, an IQ of 115 makes you ‘more intelligent’ than 84% of the population; 130 makes you ‘more intelligent’ than 97.7% of the population; 145 makes you ‘more intelligent’ than 99.9%, and so on.*** Note the scare quotes around the words “more intelligent”.) 

However, the IQ numbers themselves are ordinal - that is, there’s no numerical value to them; they merely imply an order. Someone with an IQ of 116 is ‘smarter’ than someone with an IQ of 115, but we have no way of knowing how much ‘smarter’. If I have an IQ of 150,**** I am not twice as smart as someone with an IQ of 75. If Dr. Blake’s android has an IQ of 375, it means the "brightest human being” on the planet has an IQ of 374 - not 187.5. [Minor aside: due to sample size, the smartest humans on Earth can’t know their exact IQs, only theoretical ranges. The Marvel Universe does seem to be more highly populated with geniuses than ours, though...]

The exponential drop in percent abundance (of people with that IQ score) as we get further and further away from 100 is equally important. Perhaps more so. Because having an IQ of 375 would imply that there are approximately 445831475702184574230940704413731609451627284886312973695942933571110120374 humans + sentient aliens out there dumber than you. That’s a 4 with 74 other numbers after it. There aren’t enough atoms in the universe for there to be that many people.***** 

Anyway, let’s get back to the comic. Dr. Blake returns to his office to find Zaxton, and not find Jane. Zaxton reveals that he kidnapped the nurse to get Blake to help him finish a duplicating machine. Apparently Zaxton can’t figure out how to get it to work on anything organic, which is where Blake comes in.

Blake agrees to help, planning to don his superhero persona as soon as he’s got Jane’s location. He slips away while Zaxton is distracted duplicating cats in an alley, but the evil physicist catches him mid-transformation and turns the duplicating ray on Thor.

It also turns out the duplicating ray makes everything opposite...and under mind control...

The Thors fight mid-flight, and Zaxton duplicates a bunch of airplanes to slow the original down; this begs the question of whether or not there are duplicated people in those planes, or if they will soon be crashing into the ground below because no one is flying them. This also begs the question of how Thor does not slam into them, because Thor does not fly. Remember, Thor throws his hammer and is carried along for the ride - he shouldn’t be able to change trajectory midair. And yet, here we are...

Evil!Thor throws his hammers at the halted Thor, and it turns out they’re as effective as marshmallows.

Here’s yet another question: how does the evil Thor fade into nothingness? Perhaps it is to solve the problem of conservation of mass - that he must cease to exist because the particles that comprised him appeared out of nowhere in the first place. I’m reminded of the quantum mechanical weirdness referred to as “virtual particles”. Basically, the vacuum of space is not a vacuum at the subatomic level. Not only do you have light (acting both as a particle and wave) streaming through it all the time, but you have particles that randomly pop in and out of existence all the time. They aren’t created from nothing, but from the present energy (Remember, energy equals mass times the speed of light squared). When it happens, it’s always a pair of particles - 1 matter + 1 anti-of-that-matter, like an electron and a positron, and they almost immediately annihilate one another to turn back into energy.`* Duplicate Thor can’t be anti-matter, because his particles would have annihilated any corresponding matter particles he ran (or flew) into, generating a lot of light in the process, but I’m satisfied with the net particle count being zero with his destruction.

With evil!Thor defeated, Zaxton duplicates himself to create a decoy, but the device falls from his hands and over the side of a bridge. He tries to catch it, falls over himself, and goes squash. Oops.

Don’t worry, though. His duplicate’s still up there, and since Zaxton was evil, this guy’s good. It’s not suggested that he’s an empty shell (i.e. needing the other Zaxton to mind control him), and Thor says this version can become “a boon to humanity.”

The comic ends, completely ignoring the fact that this Zaxton is probably going to vanish into thin air...as well as all of those cats and typewriters...Only a matter of time...

* He doesn’t know he’s evil, of course, but a name like Zaxton should be a big clue...

** In the real world, IQ scores aren’t distributed perfectly according to this bell curve; for one thing, it’s easier for IQ to be lowered - by trauma or some sort of disorder - than to be raised. Thus, it’s even more unrealistic to have an IQ over 200. It’s also really difficult to pin down super-high IQs because there are so few people to compare against, and if two people consistently score identically across multiple exams, it’s impossible to determine who’s ‘smarter’ by those metrics. Thus, you should take any IQ value over 160 with a grain of salt.

Also, there’s this phenomenon called the Flynn Effect, where there’s been an observed increase in average IQ score over the years (about 3 points per decade). It’s not so much that everyone in subsequent generations is getting smarter, but there are fewer people getting lower scores. There’s debate on how much is increase in general intelligence and how much is people getting better at taking IQ tests (it’s likely both). Either way, In order to keep the bell curve shape, test makers have to redefine what a score of 100 means with each new edition. 

*** Using basic probability, we can calculate the number of people on the planet that would have a specific IQ. 1 in 6 would be 115, 1 in 44 would be 130, 1 in 741 would have 145, and 1 in 31,574 would have an IQ of 160. Theoretically, there are 7 people walking around on the planet with an IQ of 190, and none with an IQ of 200 (i.e. because it’s 1 person out of every 76.5 billion people). 

**** Which I don’t. I was tested when I was 10 - you don’t need to know what it was - but that number is certainly out of date. Also, please see Stephen Hawking’s quote about IQ: “People who boast about their I.Q. are losers."

***** The estimated number of atoms in the universe is about 1x10^80, 91% of which are hydrogen atoms (8.9% are helium). 

`*  When they pop into existence with either on opposite sides of a black hole’s event horizon (one trapped inside, the other escaping), they cause the black hole to slowly dissolve. The particles that escape are known as “Hawking Radiation”, named after you-know-who.

Journey Into Mystery #95 - Writers: Stan Lee & Robert Bernstein, Art: Joe Sinnott

Photo Credit:

IQ bell curve By Alessio Damato, Mikhail Ryazanov - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0