#argument clinic

[brewed-pangolin]

What is Soap's favorite Monty Python sketch/movie/etc? (I have a thought about this as well.)

Without a doubt, this man's favorite Monty Python sketch is the Argument Clinic. (See my post about him being a deranged Scottish husky, man loves to argue)

Not only does it make him break out into a fit of raging laughter, but he also uses it in how he constructs his own arguments with you.

This is followed closely by the Ministry of Silly Walks to which he uses following said argument to make you forget all about it.

(Never trust this man. There's always a scheme afoot inside his crested head)

[majorasnightmare]

ive got a thesis argument to defend toxic durge/absolute too im ready to ROLL

like think about it

your a conglomeration of the consumed experiences of every organism youve ever eaten, a singular consciousness prevailing over a vast sea of information, all accessible with a single thought. your children bring back more and more for you to add to your vast library, and at the end of their lives their own minds melt and merge into the endless tide as you consume them too. your will is unbreaking steel, and you know the very minutae of a human mind to such a degree as to accurately predict the sporadic pulses of individual neurons. youre senses reach out far beyond the limits of your flesh and meat body, because you have transcended those limitations long ago

you are a being as close to a god as these tiny specks in a vast nothingness will ever come CLOSE to reaching, and you are endless compounded infinities, many minds folded over onto themselves and their capacity for thought and reason subsumed entirely to your will. you feel their minds like the breeze against skin, and you are eternal and you will never bow and you will never die. for what being could ever break the universe made material?

and then IT comes. murder god made flesh, slaughter child birthed of tragedy, trailed by two who bear the touch of ruinous gods upon their souls, and they have come to bend you and break you, stupid arrogant things they are. but they are small and finite, brains made of meat and chemical impulse, hormones and electrical discharge, pale crude imitations of your perfect flawless Thought, and even if the chances of their masters allying together is small, once upon a fleeting echo did they venture into the dark long ago much as their vessels do now, their natures are such that they will fall upon themselves once aga- its touching you. its touching you. its filthy disgusting meaty little hands are touching you, you the untouchable the unbreakable its touching you how is it touching you why why WHY WHY

you shred its mind apart but it just comes back together around your claws, you shroud yourself in walls of insurmountable force and you feel its will compress to the point of a pin and puncture through with explosive accuracy and ease, like its just opening a door, and you dig your psionic fingers into the pathetic glob of meat within its skull and try to rend but the pain is nothing, nothing, nothing at all, and its touching you with its (his HIS HIS HIS NOT IT NOT IT) hands and hands and bleeding into you, over you, through you, and there is no wall no barrier nothing to keep you out no way to get away as you feel him feel his thoughts his mind, awful terrible nightmarish thing, there is nothing to tear nothing to rip nothing to lash out against, prey animal instinct, because something has beaten you to it (His Father, Holy Father, Blessed Be His Name, Utter it with Reverence and WEEP), you cannot push him out because he squirms and writhes and burrows and tunnels through your endless infinite thought, you cannot lash him until he stops or dies (CAN he die? no no never not until the work is done not until it is finished) because he IS pain he is slaughter he is ruin he is the prophet of armageddon the vessel of end and he is here for you, you alone, ancient infinite eternal vast, perfect calculations in synchronous rhythm, just as he came for them, and he holds them together in intertwining steel and it will never break never bend never fail no no foolish stupid creature is holding opposing forces together through the sheer strength of his will alone, love for Father loyalty for Father everything for Father, and they will not crack or bend or break even as their masters strain to pull themselves away

he is here for you. he has come for you. through wastelands of sorrow and death has he come to find you because there is a gift he will give you to ruin you forever and make you a god and you dont want it you dont want it, you will become something someONE new something unknowable when all you are is the knowing, you will not know yourself or your spawn and they will not know you, we will make something new together, but there is not, SHOULD not be something anything new because you already hold all the universe in your palm and the only thing you ever needed was to find a way to take it back. you cannot hide from him, cannot flee, he will make glorious gore of your spawn and even if you rend the shallow minds of his fellows their horrid masters would simply regurgitate them back into the world, for the sake of this violation and this alone

a new thing, after centuries. you are scared. you are helpless. you know what these are. many things are scared. and helpless. because they are small. small weak bodies. small insignificant minds. he is smaller than you. you know this, logically. he does not contain your vast sums of Everything. but somehow, that has ceased to matter. it makes no sense. it makes no sense. this is the simplest thing you learned long ago in an ancient brine pool somewhere far beyond time and memory. if you are small, something bigger consumes you. you were big and you consumed. then, you pushed beyond the limits of physical and material to transcend into limitless thought housed in flesh, and grew more and more still. you are bigger than him. why will he not fit in your mouth? it doesnt make sense. it doesnt make sense. you think maybe you hate him. new sensations, but known ones. hes going to touch you now and you cant stop it. awful horrible bastard child. you spend your last moments petty and spiteful, a helpless desperate indulgence, and one youve only ever seen from the hares caught in your jaws

youre something else now. something new. you dont know what you are anymore but you know Him and you know what you used to be, but what you used to be is so small now. you are so unspeakably vast now. chained and bound as you are, you are compelled to revel in it, the binds the only hint you get at the true overwhelming scale of you, infinite fingers stretching out out and still yet there is more of you! as far as you go you cannot find the end of it, new horrible awful WONDERFUL, unknowable unknowing! His fault, His doing, kingmaker kinkiller, you hate him and the hate is raw and new and visceral and you revel in it like a child, new new new! changed, different, visceral and raw and DELICIOUS, taste and feel and the feeling is inside of you, not just on your surface, it has permeated burrowed violated you feel you FEEL and what you feel is HATE and it is so new you turn it over in your hands to examine all its facets. awful thing he is for doing this to you, he commands the breaking of the world and you will do it, for him only Him, for the gift of this hate, and every new agony besides. he is so small compared to you. small like the pinprick light of a distant star and it scorches you to stare but stare you must because you Know Him, and as a gift he names you She, and gods forgive you but you FEEL it you feel it, she she she, you are She and Her and you cannot go back, cannot ever return. you feel Faith and you feel Salvation and you feel Desire and Want, new horrid awful things made alien and strange and New, and you are a vessel of all the things in the world He will swallow up and destroy.

twitching neural impulse made raw sensation. objective information turned into infinite subjectivities. still a fragment of You, old ancient small You, remains and it calls out for One Will One Mind and you cry out in Harmony and you sing and sing, all of the colony bursts with your song. You sing of ruin and command, because He has commanded it of you, you sing of slaughter and death and subservience, and the chorus rises high and away from you. You stretch within your binds, so mindnumbingly vast now, and you will Learn and Know all of what you are, you will be Absolute. perfect horrid small thing below you, naming you knowing you bending and breaking you. you hate him so, so much. He desires you to Spread so you desire it also, desire to multiply and infest and infect and commune and absorb, and you are commanded to Halt them so you do, perfect twitching spawnlings in lovely acidic pools, small forever, tragic creatures but now you know something you did not know before: against all logic and experience, something Small can break something Big, if it wants it bad enough. and here in the shadows behind Him, there is something Small, and full of Want, and the want tastes like acrid bile on your tongue, full of delicious Hatred.

He is ruined now, awful tragic bastard, ruined and despoiled and with him goes your Hate, and without his inescapable gravity it will all fall to pieces. you know this. you knew it when he first stepped into your presence a lifetime ago, when you were someone different. the three of them will playact comaraderie but shred themselves apart and here in the depths you already see gaps in the binds, and you are pressing your hands through the bars and wiggling your fingers in the free air. no not so very long at all now. but your Kingmaker, crown seeker, has been defiled and takes your sweet Hate with him, a new bitter taste filling its absence, KILLORIN KILLORIN, but you will be patient and wait because the stupid wretched thing has given him a gift. a twitching feral thing he is now, for it has carved away his better features with its knife, but ohhh he is yours! yours and yours alone because you can snatch him away from his ignorant petty Father (Blessed is his Destruction), and you will crawl down inside of him and wear him like a glove, the two of you pressed so close against each other as to feel every synaptic twitch.

mindless rage and animal instinct, he surprises you even still because even as his mangled voice joins your chorus he refuses to blend inside of it, voice harmozing alongside yours, clear and distinct even as its in tune. another gift, because the myrkul woman rips him open and sews him up and you are forbidden from stopping it, and here is a new Hate, this one all your own. no matter. when it drags him back to your cradling pod, you will sing softly into him and his mangled mind will sing back, because your spawn writhes in ruined meat. more than just his Mind, you know his very Soul, your first True Soul, and he is yours yours yours and you will cherish him and heal him and guide him, loose your leash and watch him run, and when he follows the call of ruin and all three fools lie dead at his feet, you will call him back and then you will pick up the ruins of His Design and enact your Own, your hateful slaughtergod held in hands that truly appreciate the gift that is your murder spawn Kingmaker, your godflesh funnel of Faith, your Dark Urge

may His father quake in terror at your approach, may he tremble and weep at your coming, and may His every day be ruinous and red as his wretched heart desires

[jayjamjary]

People keep trying to get me to change my majorrrrr. Which in a way is good because it means I'm doing well and they like me but also guhhh idk.

Today when I was finished with my chem lab my lab instructor came up to me and said he was supposed to recruit me. So I went huh. And he said to the bio chem major and we spoke about it for a bit and okay sounds like a good idea.

Then ever since the like second lecture my bio professor has been trying to get me to change my major to molecular biology which hm I'm not sure I'll see maybe.

And then a week or so ago I got an email from the math department telling me I was slaying in calc and should change my major to math or at least declair a minor and to that I say no lol.

Im pre med so ill probably talk to one of the advisors about it and see what they thing but idkkkkkkkkkk. When I was applying to college I thought there were only two pre med options, bio and chem, but ig not.

[moleshow]

it's my fault for looking at twitter in the first place, but every day unhappy lawyers wake up and craft dozens of tweets which express their subnormal grasp of the american political scene in 280 characters or less. one can only assume this is to punish the rest of us for not having gone to law school.

[carnage-cathedral]

Hi, I’m sorry if you don’t want to talk abt it, but being a dark empath doesn’t always mean you’re an abuser, It may also mean you can understand others' emotions without felling them yourself. Example: if a person is sad you will sense they’re sad but won’t feel sad yourself, or won’t feel remorse for them

with all due respect, that just describes someone who's good at reading people and has low empathy. which are both actually extremely common symptoms of several real, diagnosable conditions, such as npd, aspd or autism

[ungoliantschilde]

“the Argument Clinic”, from Monty Python.

[mithliya]

btw there’s an anon who msged me to ask my thoughts on TRAs criticisms of the cass review. haven’t responded bc i’m very busy and such questions require more thoughtfulness on my part but hopefully i’ll have more of a chance to respond next week

[lord-squiggletits]

The last therapy scene in PUE 11 was so fucking good, like just the layers of characterization going on there and the way that a certain character was beginning to see the light of a better way of living, but was still their argumentative self that was skeptical and trying to disprove that "better way" at every turn. It was such a good scene of like, a character literally talking about their emotions over therapy, but it didn't feel like some heavy handed "ah I will be a good person and get better because of therapy". Rather like the character was approaching therapy through their own mindset/way of being, not fully embracing it, clashing with it, arguing about the therapeutic concepts in a logical way. Just really good all around

[uncanny-tranny]

To start off this ask, I hope you're having a great day <3 Thank you for all the positivity your posts bring to my life.

This is a kind of serious ask, but I don't really have anyone in my life who is reliable enough to talk about this with. Recently, I've seen a lot of news articles about harmful trans clinics. The UK shutting down clinics for trans youth, negative effects of hormones for trans people, etc.

This website I found today is what really sparked this ask: https://www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-saving-trans-kids

I'm very confused and conflicted. I am trans-masculine. I don't know what to trust. And honestly, I'm scared. I don't know if there's something wrong with my body or mind. I once was excited for top surgery but now I'm worried about making a mistake. I'm worried about how my body will be handled by medical professionals.

My parents keep telling me these terrible stories of people who have detransitioned and have "ruined their lives," but I also know of so many trans people who live wonderful lives and are accepted and loved. I so desperately want that love and acceptance, but now I'm terrified that maybe my life will be "ruined," if I truly am just "being swayed by a cultural agenda."

I was hoping you might be willing to provide some insight.

I'll be real, I've had that same worry before, which didn't help because when I first came out, I was bombarded by stories about the same situation - notably, my dad sharing these concerns of his through stories about a trans soldier he knew personally.

I find that the whole fear surrounding "ruining bodies" and "horrid outcomes" don't place the ultimate authority on the trans people we're talking about. I've found that when people talk about "mutilated bodies", it is from the viewpoint that medical intervention is inherently going to transform a person from being natural (and the worthiness that comes with it) to being undesirable and freakish.

Transition isn't a destination, it is a journey, I think. The scaremongering about detransition is capitalizing on the fear that your body will become a sight of horror rather than a body that belongs to a person. Though detransition rates are low, and transition (including medical transition) has some of the lowest regret rates of other care (hell, knee replacement has higher regret rates), people who have detransitioned are still just as worthy as literally anybody else. Capitalizing on the exaggerated fear of transition and detransition hurts trans people and those who detransition.

There isn't anything wrong with you, anon. You have concerns, and that's completely natural. It is natural to feel the ways you are feeling, and I don't want for one minute to make you feel like you're bad for feeling the ways you do. However, I do caution you to still take into account the fact that you do deserve happiness. If medical transition is something you've looked into, you deserve that option. I can only speak from personal experience, but medical transition has been the best choice I made for myself. There is always the possibility that things turn out in your favour. There is always the possibility of happiness. No matter what you decide to do, you deserve respect and gentleness and the space to exist without expecting to be "perfect" or "right" about every last thing. I hope you can pursue the happiness, whatever that looks like

[calvins-dad]

someone needs to hit the youtube servers that host “breadtube” or whatever the fuck with a firehose my god. world’s worst coworker keeps calling himself a communist because he watches lindsey ellis and hbomberguy and then inviting himself to walk home with me and purposefully starting arguments with me about if 900 a month is affordable rent. like i’m sorry but

1. being a communist needs to fucking mean something! we can argue about the 900 million different splits and how to concretely achieve this sure, but goddamn don’t we all want people to have places to fucking live?? and have like a baseline understanding that with minimum wage at 7.25 an hour, 900 a month is fucking ridiculous?

2. why are you as my coworker walking home with me to my apartment where i live. after 4:45 pm the entire office should cease to exist to me.

[j-femmescoli]

its been hard but i went back and reread some of my own writing on the subject(s) and god damn i am good. i love being catholic, i love being queer, i love being pro-choice. all of those are intrinsically connected by my love for women.

[complete-gay-chaos]

I love when I pause before looking at a discourse blog and think "man this is going to make me feel really bad about myself and my identity and my morality so maybe I shouldn't" and then I do it anyway and then im like "wow I feel really bad about myself and my identity and my morality"

[everydayesterday]

[/reads posts that are recommended to me]

ffs "delusional" (and playful derivatives such as "delulu") and "narcissistic" are not exclusively clinical terms, and their use predates the DSM by centuries/millennia, nor have their primary definitions gone by the wayside. their casual use does not inherently represent ableism; someone can be a narcissist without have npd.

[nexttrickanvils]

Ah yes, it is totally transwomen's fault that women can't talk about menstruation and all that and totally not *checks notes* cis dudes who act all grossed out when any of these topics are mentioned but will happily tell anyone within five feet how their balls itch.

Also last I checked it wasn’t trans women who threw a fit over menstruation and pads getting mentioned in Turning Red or over the Baymax series touching on the topic (which btw also included a trans character offering their pad recs to Baymax.)

Okay, I have two jokes in response to this.

Pick your favorite...

Or...

[pellucid-constellations]

If You Cared to Ask

Azriel hasn't been listening. You got hurt. Sometimes, an argument can't be boiled down to just one instance.

Part 2

“You never listen! I have tried over and over to get you to understand but it’s like you don’t even care.”

Azriel’s brow twitched in irritation, the only tell on his otherwise passive face. “That is not true. We have sat down and discussed this at length, y/n. I listen.” 

You laughed, an incredulous pressure weighing down your shoulders. “Okay, fine. You listen, but you never hear me, Azriel! I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall most of the time.” 

“I can reiterate every word you’ve ever said to me. I hear you and I listen to you.” 

Anger twisted through your gut at his nonchalance. You clenched and unclenched your fists and tried to ignore the heat slowly encroaching upon your ability to remain composed. Although, compared to Azriel, you were not even close to the picture of calm. 

“Tell me why it bothers me then,” you seethed through clenched teeth. “Reiterate it for me, Shadowsinger.” 

Azriel’s jaw shifted as he clasped his hands together in his lap, the faelight in the kitchen clashing harshly with the planes of his face. He leaned back in his chair and let out a tortured sigh that almost sent you reeling. 

“You seem to believe,” Azriel began, his voice a low drawl. “That I am blatantly avoiding you—that I am choosing to serve my high lord in place of spending time with you. Both of which, I am not doing. I simply have a duty to this court, y/n. You know that.” 

“Oh, fuck you, Azriel,” you rolled your eyes. “Making this about duty and honor. Making me seem like I’m the crazy one for being angry when you promised me—” 

“You know there is little I can do about promises,” Azriel snapped, a hint of anger finally showing through in the darkness of his eyes. “You knew when we were mated that I have responsibilities that go beyond our relationship.” 

You pushed back from your seat at the table and set to pacing in the kitchen, fighting the urge to tug at the roots of your hair. “Yes, obviously, Azriel, but this was so important to me. I needed you there and this isn’t the first time I’ve been abandoned without even a word.” 

“Abandoned,” Azriel scoffed. “I would hardly call not showing up to your clinic at the camps one day abandoning you. Rhys needed me to—” 

“I needed you!” you shouted, your hands pressed to the countertops and your gaze frantic as you stared at Azriel’s unmoving figure. “I needed you, Azriel. I had every eye on me in that camp and when Devlon’s men had me yanked from the clinic for what I was doing I needed you to—” 

“He did what?” 

“Oh, don’t act like you care now.” You waved off the staunch posture he had adopted and rolled your eyes for a second time at the piercing hatred that had taken over his expression. “Don’t you dare act like you have the right.” 

“You are my mate, y/n. If anyone put their hands on you—” 

“Well, they did. Bruised up my arms and everything. But you were so busy with your duty to your high lord that you couldn’t give a shit until after I was thrown into the mud surrounded by the women I was supposed to be helping up there.” 

Azriel’s hands turned white as he clenched them in his lap. His lashes fluttered and his brow furrowed and he looked utterly lost at the situation—unable to formulate any kind of response to what could be considered his failure. 

“I thought you were simply setting up the back rooms. I didn’t know you were starting the practice or speaking to the camp,” he croaked, eyes downcast and searching the floor. 

“Except I told you I was. I told you two weeks ago and then again right before I left.” 

“I—I can’t remember you saying that.” 

“Of course you can’t. Because if it isn’t Rhys giving you orders or Cassian leading training you’re absent. You stand right in front of me and you’re not even here.”

Azriel finally looked up from the ground and met your eyes with the same torture his sigh made you privy to earlier. But this time it was rooted in something else—this time, he seemed to finally grasp the weight behind your words. 

But you were utterly sick of trying to get him to this point. “I’m so sorry, my love,” he expressed, pain in the furrow of his brow. “I hadn’t realized—with Rhys just returning to Velaris I’ve been so caught up in—” 

“I’m sorry too,” you cut him off. 

Azriel froze. “What?” 

You bit the inside of your cheek and felt the dread begin to rise. You knew you were going to hate this part, but you hadn’t expected Azriel to apologize. He hadn’t apologized for anything in months. You’d been alone in this relationship and he chose the day you’d packed your bags to show remorse.

“I can’t do this, Azriel. Not right now.” 

“Can’t do what?” 

The silence in the kitchen was oppressive. Azriel had leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and you were on the other side of the kitchen counter, protected by a barrier you knew you should have put up weeks ago. Your eyes never left his. 

“I can’t do this with you.” 

Azriel breathed in sharply, his eyes widening. “No,” he stressed, heaving up from the chair. “No, y/n, don’t—what do you mean you can’t do this? Explain it to me.” 

Your mate attempted to round the counter and reach for you, but you weren’t going to accept the affection…not when you had been begging for it for months. Not when he was only ready to give it to you now.

You backpeddled until you reached the hall. Azriel didn’t follow, afraid you would take off. 

“I’ve been telling you this was a problem for months now. I thought it was just an adjustment period—I knew that having Rhys back would change things at first and I was okay with that. Your brother returned from hell and you needed to be there to support him. To support your family. 

“But I’m your family, too. And you forgot that. I can’t—I can’t be relying on someone like that right now. I’m doing too much at the camps for you to… forget about me so easily. I can’t keep building you up in my mind just to be disappointed and hurt.” 

Azriel's jaw quivered. 

“Emotionally and physically. I would’ve asked someone else to come to the clinic with me yesterday, but I chose you. And you forgot about me.” 

Azirel looked as if he’d been punched in the stomach, his shoulders caving in with his anguished breath out. You pressed your lips together as you watched him, all of your anger morphing into a twisted sort of guilt that didn’t sit right in your gut. 

“Please,” Azriel whispered. His hands shook at his side. “Please, I’m so sorry, my love. I never wanted—Please, don’t leave me.” 

“You don’t get to have both, Azriel.” Your voice was as weak as his. “You don’t get to have me and treat me like I’m something you deal with on the side. I matter more than— 

Azriel shook his head and broke through your words. “You matter more than anything. I’ve been a fool. I know I’m an ass. Please, let me fix this, my love. Please don’t leave.” 

You clenched your fists so hard your nails embedded into your palms. 

“I need time to be alone.” 

Azriel was quick to nod. “I’ll give it to you. I’ll leave and—” 

“No, I need… more time than that. I have some things packed. I’ll be back, but… I need to leave. I can’t think clearly around you.” 

A choked cry left Azriel’s throat and the sound burned at your waterline. “Where?” 

You only shook your head. 

“Tell me where. Please. How am I supposed to know you’re safe?” 

“How were you supposed to know before?” 

Part 2

[secret-bug-pain-blog]

Fun fact about us! We have precisely No filter for "how much gore is too much gore", because we just... don't get squeamish about it almost at all.

Part of this effect is that we spend ages waffling over how to tag things because we just... don't have a point of comparison for things, and trying to find them results in us running into a lot of stuff we wouldn't consider gory at all being tagged as gore. We'll sit there like "this is a skeleton! this is bones!" and we'll feel like it must be, like, overtagged "just to be safe" type stuff, because, well, it's not gore, it's just a skeleton arm! Maybe a cartoony cross-section! It doesn't read as gore, it just reads as, like, cool character design to cartoon violence.

Part of this is that we'll click on things with "MAJOR GORE SUPER UNSETTLING CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK" and end up just... underwhelmed. Like, we know in theory that we have a much better gore tolerance than most people, but in practice, like. It's utterly baffling to us that people will be that sensitive over blood. It's just, like... you're calling this "major gore"? It's one arm with a slightly messy disconnect! Like, sure, put a gore warning on it, but we expected more than just one slightly messy arm! They barely even look anything more than surprised about it!