#and how this impacts their psychology

[dehautdesert]

I agree with the assessment that he's tired of dealing with it, and that it makes more sense pragmatically to just endure the pain once (though he doesn't replace them all at once, he's doing it bit by bit over the course of several years) rather than having them fail on him randomly.

But, even with his own bones he also spends his childhood riding and swimming and engaging in various shenanigans, and both Aral and Piotr think that he has good chances of passing the academy physical (given perfect written exam scores) in TWA (he only fails the exam because he wanted to show off to that other guy who accused him of nepotism), and he survives as a mercenary for years with his original bones, so we can assume that his issues, while certainly inconvenient and not to be underestimated, are not that debilitating.

As for the rest - those are all things he actively chose for himself, because he chose a profession where people routinely try to break each other's bones. He doesn't need to know exactly how to turn in order to absorb the least amount of damage in a fight, he doesn't need to know how to assess when it's necessary to break his own bones for a mission. And he doesn't get synthetic bones because he wants to enjoy himself riding Fat Ninny without worrying about breaking them, he does it because of his job. He could stay at home and be a doctor or a politician or an entrepreneur like Mark (living proof that there's no innate "soldierness" in Miles, as Mark has his exact same genes). Hell, he could even be a fake mercenary admiral and just lead from the tactics room instead of the front lines! This is the bloody-minded determination part: he wants this to the point that he will inflict pain on himself to get it, and I love the juxtaposition of, I guess, paradoxically putting oneself (or at least one's desires) first but also putting oneself dead last that this implies.

BUT, on a bit of a higher level, why does he want to be a soldier so desperately? Could it be that it's because his culture overemphasizes military prowess to the loss of everything else? They have an Emperor and he sits on a military camp stool instead of a throne, emphasizing the military as the backbone of power and societal hierarchy in this country.

But even then, there are plenty of people in Barrayar who are willing to put in their recommended ten years for formality's sake and go on to do something else (like Tien), or who manage to be useful despite not being military (Byerly) or who do desk jobs for the entirety of their military career (Ivan). Miles is suicidal when he can no longer be a soldier and endure people twice his height regularly trying to break his bones.

Could this be because his family consists entirely of soldiers? To the point that Piotr and Aral are completely defined by their military prowess? Piotr did so many things for the people of his district, but that's not what Piotr talks about and what he is known for and what Miles knows about him - to everyone, Piotr is the brilliant general of the Cetagandan occupation. Aral makes beautiful art but really he's the guy who conquered Komarr with a strategy so brilliant he wrote a book about it. Hell, Miles's father fell in love with Miles's mother because of her being a soldier with soldierly qualities - he calls her "Captain" as an endearment. Cordelia built schools and hospitals and raised an emperor all while raising Miles with his plethora of medical issues but she's known and admired for her one singular act of violence: killing Vordarian.

To Miles, being a soldier is inextricably tied to being loved and respected and valued, to being good enough and worthy enough for his loved ones. And this is literally the first thing we are told about him in TWA and the point is repeated over and over again throughout the series. And while people can tell him that they love and appreciate him anyway, and mean it, every piece of evidence his surroundings have ever given him kind of points in the opposite direction, and he's smart enough to perceive that.

And this is such a fundamental thing for him that you kinda can't assume that it doesn't tip the balance when deciding whether he should get artificial bones - after all, it's kind of a big deal how often he anticipates himself being in situations where they can be an inconvenience.

And it's also telling how Miles, who is preternaturally good at going around an obstacle to get what he wants, and also at playing at his exact strengths, never even thinks of making things easier for himself by choosing another path, he just pummels through the wall and then through the pain this causes, because subjectively he has no other choice even though objectively he does (he's a wealthy, well-bred and well-connected, charming man of above average intelligence). And he never even thinks of exploring WHY he does it that way, like a fish doesn't notice the water it's surrounded by.

Sometimes I think about how Miles Vorkosigan went through a series of likely traumatic medical procedures to replace every long bone in his body with a more durable, synthetic one. Of his own free will. He didn't have to do this. He himself admits that it hurt like a bitch. And keep in mind that his childhood is already defined by a series of long, painful surgeries that he didn't choose.

I have a lowkey obsession with the way prosthetics and artificial limbs and similar things are treated in narratives, and to me this act is THE essence of both his personality and the way he perceives his culture.

He could have chosen any other job and likely excelled at it but military achievement is so important in his culture, in his family, for him personally, that he will cut himself open and excavate the fragile bones from his body limb by limb to replace them with sturdier, artificial ones so that he can be a good enough soldier.

I love the mix of implications present in this and tbh it's kind of the essence of my fixation with this kind of narrative device (which is why this is my favourite book series!). It's that mix of stone-cold pragmatism (I want to be good at this->I need better bones to be good at this->I will replace my bones) and raw, desperate, bloody-minded determination (I want this so bad and nothing will stop me from getting it, not even myself; I am ready to cut myself open and mutilate myself if it means getting what I want), and total self-annihilation (I am not good enough, so I need to put myself through massive pain to fit the criteria of good enough, and my pain doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things because without this I'm worthless anyway). Which one is present in which percentage? Is he lowkey returning to what traumatized him as a child, except this time it's his choice and he's the one who's in control? It's up for debate I guess. But I love how it tells you everything you need to know about the man. All the rest of his behavior is just handwaving to keep people's eyes away from the essence of him, and this is it.

[creekfiend]

I have indeed been simply deleting asks that I receive about this, but I just want to say. I find it so discouraging that people are so thoroughly nation-state pilled that they think that the only way for millions of one group of people to be safe living in a geographical region is the existence of a nation state which is actively enacting ethnic cleansing on the other people in that region. GOD that's fucking depressing I'm so fucking depressed.

[gh-0-stcup]

Daniel and Armand spent four years meeting up and having long, intense conversations about philosophy, culture, and history before they officially got together.

They had a very active social life and seemed to spend several years doing a wide variety of interesting activities together.

Daniel mentions how he grew increasingly bitter over the years. Things between him and Armand fell apart due to Armand not being willing to turn Daniel.

Daniel is free to leave at any time. Armand won't try to chase Daniel down if Daniel doesn't want to be there.

Daniel's alcoholism spirals out of control when he isn't with Armand. Daniel has been on the verge of death because of his alcoholism multiple times prior to this chapter.

[evocatiio]

if chibnall was the one writing this season you lot would be talking VERY differently

[hekateinhell]

"Maybe as the years pass," he [Armand] said, "desire will come again to me. I will know appetite again, even passion. Maybe when we meet in another age, these things will not be abstract and fleeting. I'll speak with a vigor that matches yours, instead of merely reflecting it. And we will ponder matters of immortality and wisdom. We will talk about vengeance or acceptance then. For now it's enough for me to say that I want to see you again. I want our paths to cross in the future. And for that reason alone, I will do as you ask and not what you want: I will spare your ill-fated Nicolas."

I gave an audible sigh of relief. Yet his tone was so changed, so strong, that it sounded a deep silent alarm in me. This was the coven master, surely, this quiet and forceful one, the one who would survive, no matter how the orphan in him wept. ~ Lestat, TVL

[wallbeatjournal]

keeping Kevarchie ALIVE. kevin ships dont get talked about nearly enough what about kevhead. personally i think jughead would rather kill himself than admit he's sexually attracted to kevin & it'd be incredibly amusing to watch them psychologically torture each other in an "ugh this is the guy i like???" kind of way. i cant tell if their specific brand of pretentiousness would clash or make them the most annoying power couple to ever exist

oh my godddd they would be atrocious. can you just imagine them writing/directing a play together?? bickering over kevin's vision for some theatrical adaptation of jughead's original comic or short story until they're so mad their only choice is to work it out nasty? (it's NOT homoerotic, kevin, stop calling it homoerotic. this story is about FRIENDSHIP that's practically me and archie right there!!)

and yeah jughead wouldn't want to acknowledge it bc it's so on-the-nose and beneath him and that would infuriate gay kevin who has endured so so much repressed closet case bullshit in his gay lifetime. i don't think they could stand to actually date. jughead would ultimately write a mean play about their liaisons and kevin would write a spiteful score/musical book for it and they'd pretend it was all so veiled in metaphor that nobody would ever realize what had happened (everyone would realize. it would be so blatant and cringe).

...or something like that.

[seraphdreams]

a lot of you are not understanding the magnitude of this genocide. when a permanent ceasefire and end to the occupation/genocide happen (which it will, inshallah), it’s not like palestinians can go back to living life as they used to.

where will they get their food if crops/plant life have been destroyed by the idf?

where will children and adults learn if schools have been destroyed by the idf?

where will they rest if their homes have been destroyed by the idf?

where will the sick and injured go if hospitals have been destroyed by the idf?

a generation of people will be deprived of basic necessities for years to come once palestine is rebuilt. how will they live? how can they go back?

[transmasc-rose]

Like I do think River and the Doctor's romance was built up poorly. However. You see. I like her.

[magentagalaxies]

vent incoming:

got my grades back for my courses last semester and most of it was to be expected, mostly A's, maybe an A-, etc. but i honestly can't get over the fact that my independent study (the buddy cole documentary) was for some reason given a B. like sure getting a B isn't bad per se, I usually get at least one B every semester and i honestly don't really care about what my exact gpa is as long as i can graduate, but come on. this school put me through months of psychological torment over this project and didn't even have the nerve to give me a B+??? i'm still coping with the self-doubt they forced on me and this bullshit is not helping!!

[faggling]

I love taking care of people omggg 😍😍😍

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

One of the many, many reasons I love Blade Runner is that it doesn't have this Big Epic Final Fight you've come to expect from literally any action film ever.

There's just Deckart and Roy - all others are dead, or not here - and it's just them and one was supposed to kill the other and has become the hunted.

Our main hero protagonist is at the end, he's beaten down, he's at the brink of death, he can barely still walk and is just fleeing as far as he can, as long as he can, and he won't be able to go on much longer and there's really only so far he can run before he's inevitably caught. There's no last minute saviour, no sudden burst of strength, no last attempt to fight. He's terrified. He's running, limping, for just a few seconds more.

And the antagonist - the one who was supposed to be killed, the one who was supposed to be sub-human and is living his life as a slave, in fear - he's going mad. He barely ever had anything, and he lost the few others he had - the only ones who understood when the world was against them. He has only minutes to live, minutes that not even his creator - his god, almost - could drag out, a human god who died by his bare hands. There's nothing left to lose and nothing left to do, but there's the person who hunted him down like a machine or an animal that's one rogue, the one supposed to kill him, entirely at his mercy.

And then they're on that roof, and I don't know what Roy might think, but I know Deckart was done with his life. I know he was convinced he'd die right here - that both of them would die on this roof in the rain.

And when Roy pulls him up? There has to be an explanation. Surely he'll kill him now. What else could he possibly want?

But Roy isn't out for revenge anymore. For as little as he's lived, he's seen so incredibly much. And he knows there isn't anything to be done. He'll die, he'll be forgotten, just another rogue replicant - like moments in time, like tears in rain.

"Time to die." No sadness, no anger, nothing. There's nothing more to it, not anymore. It's a fact.

It's when he's free for the first time.

He's no longer living in fear. He died on his own terms. He's as free as he could ever be, in the only way that was ever even a possibility. And as he dies, as he no longer lives as a slave, that white dove flies away through the rain - a symbol of freedom, finally let go.

And Deckart is left alone on that roof, bleeding, his hand broken, exhausted, still not quite away from the brink of death he's been limping along for the last, what, minutes? (How long was it? Can't have been long. But it sure felt endless.)

There's no winner. No one has been defeated, either. There's just one who died, as he was always meant to, and one who lived, but his world might be in shambles.

What is life worth when you're just waiting for death? Is it freedom when you can never settle down? Could there ever be a different ending?

Also I'm going absolutely insane over the white dove which is a symbol for freedom btw like DAMN!!!!!!! IMPLICATIONS!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

[mystacoceti]

the confusion anglophone cognitive researchers of the first world create when they describe literacy of Latin script writing systems as general human literacy leaves a really obvious gap for whole language advocates to say "wHaT aBoUt ChInEsE??", only I don't think there's anything about written mandarin that would actually fundamentally contradict much of the research?

the claim by many researchers is that it's too hard to remember by brute force the 60000 odd words that a literate person needs to know for english — which is what the phonetic decoding is for, to ease the burden on memory with an extremely robust mnemonic tool. the only difference between hanzi and latin script would be the number of characters you have to memorize, ~3000 versus 26 (for english). and where children learning to read English will learn a handful of sight words by rote memory, the mandarin students would learn those characters as the sight words they often are. the modular aspect of both written and spoken chinese is probably what makes it doable yet hard, as opposed to nigh impossible. I assume it's only that first step of 3000 that's the real bitch, but after that it's all combining characters, like in english

[sodrippy]

we are the daughters of parents who should have gotten divorced

[sassytail]

A few days ago, basement roommate Kyle told me that he knows a guy who. Apparently desecrates graves by digging up freshly buried corpses, and using a drill to break through the cranium of the corpse, either huffs or somehow consumes the cerebrospinal fluid to get high.

Now I’m pretty sure that this must be completely made up to fuck with Kyle. Or just people in general, but Kyle insists that the guy is really doing it and he’s been trying to get clean from it for years. As though it’s a particularly powerfully addictive substance somehow.

Has anyone ever heard of that like. Happening. Or have any idea if that would even have any effect at all?

[psycherprince]

third hot take of the day is that yes "boycott fatigue" is. yikes. but we're not doing anyone any favors by pretending large boycotts don't take any effort whatsoever. like we talk abt "invisible labor" in the household when talking abt feminism, which is the cognitive load of knowing what has to get done even if the tasks are divided, and having to keep track of who is doing what (wrt childcare) and the preferences of your family when cooking/grocery shopping/etc. Other ppl have explained this better than me but the point is. It does take cognitive effort to keep track of what you can and can't buy, and which companies own what, etc etc.

We can acknowledge that yeah it does take effort and yeah it can be annoying that you have to make some kind of change, but also still maintain that complaining abt that right now is insanely tactless and irrelevant. Like yeah you DO have to remind yourself not to buy sabra hummus or the starbucks brand creamer or whatever but like there's a genocide yknow get some perspective

[parsleymusic]

the urge to respond to critique about portrayal of unpolitically correct attitudes or phrases or actions or whatever in regards to mental illness with "what if I told you that it's not my job to tell my readers that when my character says stuff like 'my binge eating disorder is not as bad as my brother's bipolar + PTSD combination; he has to win at something' that it's Bad and the Wrong Attitude to have when it's largely a tongue in cheek joke about living with mental illness and watching the people you love experience a different flavor that is also worse