#but that is also tied into a sense of social failure and ageing

[pulquedeguayaba]

This is so fucking annoying. I hate catching feelings.

[takemeinyrarmy]

BoyBoy book club⭑.ᐟ

These books have either been mentioned or recommended by the boys, list made to the best of my memory, some notes added for context + little abstract. [(A.) = Aleksa's rec; (L.) = Lucas' rec; (Al.) = Alex's rec] Reply or reblog to add more to update the list thanks! 

⊹ Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation - Silvia Federici  (A.) [Aleksa's commentary: Also 'Caliban and the Witch' by Silvia Federicci is brilliant. It's a great marxist-feminist retelling of the European witch-hunts, it's really really cool. It completely flipped my view of the birth of capitalism... She posits that capitalism is a reaction to a potential peasant revolution in Europe that never succeeded, and situates the witch-hunt as a tool of the capitalist class to break peasant social-ties and discipline women into their new role as reproducers of workers.] || Is a history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Moving from the peasant revolts of the late Middle Ages to the witch-hunts and the rise of mechanical philosophy, Federici investigates the capitalist rationalization of social reproduction. She shows how the battle against the rebel body and the conflict between body and mind are essential conditions for the development of labor power and self-ownership, two central principles of modern social organization.

⊹ The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Shoshana Zuboff  (A.) || This book looks at the development of digital companies like Google and Amazon, and suggests that their business models represent a new form of capitalist accumulation that she calls "surveillance capitalism". While industrial capitalism exploited and controlled nature with devastating consequences, surveillance capitalism exploits and controls human nature with a totalitarian order as the endpoint of the development.

⊹ Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia -  Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (L.) || In this book , Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari set forth the following theory: Western society's innate herd instinct has allowed the government, the media, and even the principles of economics to take advantage of each person's unwillingness to be cut off from the group. What's more, those who suffer from mental disorders may not be insane, but could be individuals in the purest sense, because they are by nature isolated from society.

⊹ Open Veins of Latin America - Eduardo Galeano (A.) (Intro to LATAM history, infuriating but good.) (Personal recommendation if you know nothing about LATAM.) || An analysis of the impact that European settlement, imperialism, and slavery have had in Latin America. In the book, Galeano analyzes the history of the Americas as a whole, from the time period of the European settlement of the New World to contemporary Latin America, describing the effects of European and later United States economic exploitation and political dominance over the region. Throughout the book, Galeano analyses notions of colonialism, imperialism, and the dependency theory.

⊹ The Origin of Capitalism - Ellen Wood (A.) || Book on history and political economy, specifically the history of capitalism, written from the perspective of political Marxism.

⊹ If We Burn - Vincent Bevins (L.) || The book concerns the wave of mass protests during the 2010s and examines the question of how the organization and tactics of such protests resulted in a "missing revolution," given that most of these movements appear to have failed in their goals, and even led to a "record of failures, setbacks, and cataclysms".

⊹ The Jakarta Method - Vincent Bevins (A.) [Aleksa’s recommendation for leftists friends] || It concerns U.S. government support for and complicity in anti-communist mass killings around the world and their aggregate consequences from the Cold War until the present era. The title is a reference to Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, during which an estimated one million people were killed in an effort to destroy the political left and movements for government reform in the country.

⊹ The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company - William Dalrymple (L.) [Not read by the boys yet, but wanted to read.] || History book that recounts the rise of the East India Company in the second half of the 18th century, against the backdrop of a crumbling Mughal Empire and the rise of regional powers.

⊹ The Triumph of Evil: The Reality of the USA's Cold War Victory - Austin Murphy (A.) || Contrary to the USA false propaganda, this book documents the fact that the USA triumph in the Cold War has increased economic suffering and wars, which are shown to be endemic to the New World Order under USA capitalist domination.

⊹ Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism - Yanis Varoufakis (L.) || Big tech has replaced capitalism’s twin pillars—markets and profit—with its platforms and rents. With every click and scroll, we labor like serfs to increase its power.  Welcome to technofeudalism . . .

⊹ The History of the Russian Revolution - Leon Trotsky (A.) [Aleksa's commentary: This might be misconstrued since I'm not a massive fan of Trotsky... but... his book "History of the russian revolution" is amazing. It's so unique to have such a detailed history book compiled by someone who was an active participant in the events, and he's surprisingly hilarious. Makes some great jokes in there and really captures the revolutionary spirit of the time.] || The History of the Russian Revolution offers an unparalleled account of one of the most pivotal and hotly debated events in world history. This book presents, from the perspective of one of its central actors, the profound liberating character of the early Russian Revolution.

⊹ Rise of The Red Engineers - Joel Andreas (A.) [Aleksa's commentary: It's a sick history book, focusing on a single university in China following it's history from imperial china, through the revolution and to the modern day. It documents sincere efforts to revolutionize the education system, but does it from a very detailed, on-the-ground view of how these cataclysmic changes effect individual students and teachers at this institution.] || In a fascinating account, author Joel Andreas chronicles how two mutually hostile groups—the poorly educated peasant revolutionaries who seized power in 1949 and China's old educated elite—coalesced to form a new dominant class.

⊹ Adults in the Room: My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment - Yanis Varoufakis (A.) [Aleksa's commentary: The book I mentioned earlier - "adults in the room" - is amazing. There's a great description of Greece's role in the European economy [as an archetype for other, small European countries] and the Union's successful attempts to discipline smaller countries to keep their monetary policy in line with the interest of central European bankers. I'd definitely reccommend it!] || What happens when you take on the establishment? In Adults in the Room, the renowned economist and former finance minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis gives the full, blistering account of his momentous clash with the mightiest economic and political forces on earth.

Edit: Links added when possible! If they stop working let me know or if you have a link for the ones missing.

[save-slot-a]

10. What is their greatest mental weakness?

Not So Nice Questions:

His own mind, as cliche as that can be.

Crowley, funny guy, always cracking jokes and smiling, has lived and continues to live a very traumatized life. He'd been conditioned from a young age that anything other than complete success or perfection was unacceptable when it comes to his work. Which, of course, has been intrinsically tied into who he is as a person. Being a hero is not just an occupation, but it's who he is, who he's been carefully constructed and curated to be. Thusly! The fear of failure plagues him because he knows what the dire consequences of that would mean for the entire kingdom. He tends to overthink and overanalyze and plans for literally every worst case scenario he can think of, going so far as to document them.

He's gotten better about relaxing over the last few years, but there's still a deeply paranoid itch that anyone and everyone could be trying to lull him into a false sense of security, just so they can stab him in the back. He's always had trouble lowering his guard and brushing off seriousness with a sense of levity, but he's learning to trust people for the first time and it feels... Nice. Which freaks him out because the world he knows is not nice. He hasn't done enough to earn a nicer, more peaceful existence yet.

Also he suffers socially pretty badly not only because of the isolated upbringing, but because he's got a touch of the 'tism /lh

TLDR; Crowley is deeply paranoid of other people's intentions and extremely self critical to the point of detriment. He doesn't see much value to his life other than being a sword and a shield to his kingdom, but is learning how to be a person too. His worst enemy will always be himself. :)

[akiizayoi4869]

Literally Azula makes the fall from the "highest" point a person can be (the war-winning princess of the dominant nation) to the "lowest" they can be (in an asylum strapped into a straight jacket with no one to get her out, let alone visit her).

(High and low being largely socially constructed ofc but yeah).

It's literally the biggest fall a person can make!

I wonder what that does to her personality and world view.

Since a very young age Azula has experienced: Her mother disappearing, her father talking about killing her brother, her father burning her brother in front of her for disrespect. Then she lived alone with said father for three years, starting at age eleven. He repeatedly sent her to war on the most dangerous missions. Then her friends leave her, and her brother leaves her. The one she lied to her father for. Only for him to leave her at the palace, sole focus to the father that now knows she went behind his back. So finally her father leaves her behind as well. She's going to be fire lord, which she never wanted to be, she only wanted to be with her father. The psychotic break comes at the realization that there isn't a person in the world that loves her.

This ongoing trauma since childhood can absolutely cause CPTSD. Symptoms are, in addition to PTSD symptoms, difficulty with relationships, a sense of being completely different from others, feelings of inadequacy, failure or shame AND loss of meanings / systems.

In my head it's not so hard for Azula to reject the FN ideology. Or better said, for it to lose it's meaning to her.

She was locked up probably with many people who were tremendously traumatized through the war, fire nation or not. And she's a smart girl. She didn't follow the ideology blindly, not if she valued non benders (Ty and Mai) and earth benders (Dai Li) over fire benders who should be superior. Not if she went behind the fire lords back. Not if she created false honor for her brother.

Azula believed in the fire nation and war 100%, but still she wasn't blind. Only one thing she values more than anything else: rationale.

So after Ozai leaves her, she realizes her whole life was a lie, her father's love was a lie. If this trauma isn't enough to cause a "loss of systems and meaning" then idk what is.

Do we really think Azula sticks to the ideology she threw her life away for? She was used for so shamelessly since she was a child? The system and culture that landed her in a sanitarium, loveless, cold, utterly alone?

I think her rejection of the ideology would start as a loss of meaning. This would give her the necessary distance to rationalize, to look at the ideology without her father's "love" tied into it, and come to the conclusion (because again, Azula is extremely smart) that the FN ideology is basically human bullshit. I think Azula's big brain would eventually work that out.

Btw

I wonder if there was a punishment for Azula's betrayal of Ozai that we didn't see? Zuko's punishment was "burn" and "leave". When Azula was told the "leave" part, she raged not to be treated like Zuko. Why would she compare it? Was there a "burn" part before? What Azula did to Ozai is so much worse than what Zuko did.

Also is Azula humbled by her time at the sanitarium?

(I know, my ask is all over the place. Sry XD. Love your blog so much).

Hey anon! Glad to hear that you like my blog☺️.

Wow, this was really well thought at. I have nothing left to add to this.

As for the question of whether or not Azula was "humbled" by her tike at the asylum, I'd say that she was. You don't have a breakdown like that and come out of it being the same person that you were before. Shame that the comics didn't want to portray that though.

[navabharathnationalschoolsstuff]

What’s the Secret to Raising Happy and Confident Kids?

Every parent dreams of raising children who are both happy and confident—young individuals equipped to face life with positivity and self-assurance. While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to parenting, certain universal principles can help create an environment where children thrive emotionally and socially. Here's a guide to understanding the key ingredients for fostering happiness and confidence in your kids.

CBSE Schools in Coimbatore

1. Unconditional Love and Support

At the core of raising happy and confident kids is providing them with a strong sense of belonging and security. Children need to know they are loved, no matter what.

How to Show It: Be present for your kids, actively listen to their concerns, and celebrate their individuality. Small gestures like hugs, affirmations, and spending quality time together go a long way.

2. Encouraging Independence

Confidence grows when children feel capable of handling tasks and making decisions. Encourage them to take age-appropriate risks and responsibilities.

Practical Tips: Let younger children pick their outfits or decide on a snack, while older kids can help with household chores or plan their schedules.

3. Teaching Resilience

Life is full of challenges, and teaching kids to navigate setbacks is crucial. Resilience is built when children learn how to recover from failures.

Your Role: Avoid solving all their problems for them. Instead, guide them in finding solutions. Teach them that mistakes are learning opportunities, not failures.

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4. Building Emotional Intelligence

Happiness is closely tied to the ability to understand and manage emotions. Help your children recognize and express their feelings in a healthy way.

Activities to Try: Use storytelling to discuss emotions or play games that encourage empathy. Demonstrate emotional regulation by remaining composed in stressful situations.

5. Encouraging Positive Self-Talk

Confident kids often have an inner voice that cheers them on. Help your children develop a mindset that focuses on their strengths and potential.

What You Can Do: Reframe negative self-statements into positive ones. For example, if your child says, "I can’t do this," encourage them to add, "yet," to shift their mindset toward growth.

6. Fostering Strong Connections

Children who feel connected to their family and community are generally happier and more confident. Relationships provide them with a support system and a sense of belonging.

Ways to Strengthen Bonds: Schedule regular family activities, encourage friendships, and get involved in community events or group activities like sports or arts.

7. Encouraging Curiosity and Play

Happiness thrives when kids are allowed to explore the world through curiosity and creativity.

Ideas for Exploration: Provide them with opportunities to try new things, from hobbies to outdoor adventures. Unstructured playtime is equally essential for their development.

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8. Setting Boundaries and Routines

While kids need freedom to grow, they also thrive within clear boundaries. Consistent routines give them a sense of stability, which is crucial for emotional well-being.

Actionable Tips: Create a predictable daily schedule, establish rules that make sense, and be consistent in enforcing them.

9. Being a Positive Role Model

Children learn by observing their parents. Show them how to approach life with optimism and confidence.

Lead by Example: Demonstrate self-care, celebrate your successes, and handle challenges with grace.

10. Encouraging Gratitude and Kindness

Happiness often comes from appreciating life’s small joys and spreading positivity to others. Teach your kids to be grateful and kind.

Simple Practices: Start a gratitude journal as a family or encourage acts of kindness like helping a neighbor or writing thank-you notes.

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Conclusion

Raising happy and confident kids is about creating a nurturing environment where they feel loved, supported, and empowered. By focusing on emotional well-being, resilience, and positive relationships, you equip your children with the tools to thrive in any situation.

Remember, there’s no perfect formula for parenting. Celebrate the small victories, learn from the challenges, and trust that your love and effort make all the difference.

[idigitizellp21]

All You Need To Know About Your Child’s Self-Esteem

As parents, one of the most important aspects of raising a child is maintaining and nurturing their self-esteem. A child’s self-esteem is the foundation upon which they build their confidence, resilience, and overall mental well being.

This blog aims to throw some valuable insights into how significant is self-esteem management in a child’s development. Furthermore, explore the factors that influence it, and offer actionable tips on how to support a healthy sense of self-worth in your child.

Let’s Understand Self-Esteem in The First Place

Self-esteem refers to the overall opinion a child has about themselves, encompassing their beliefs, values, and abilities. It directly impacts their emotional, social enhancement and also helps to shape how they perceive and interact with the world around them.

High self-esteem not only allows children to handle challenges with optimism but also boosts belief in their capabilities. On the other hand, low self-esteem can lead to self-doubt, anxiety, and a reluctance to try new things.

Major Factors Influencing Self-esteem in Your Children

Parental Influence: Parents play a crucial role in shaping a child’s self-esteem. Children who receive consistent love, and support, and interact with their parents tend to have higher self-respect. Conversely, overly critical or neglectful parenting can negatively impact a child’s perception of themselves.

Social Environment: Peer interactions, school experiences, and societal norms all influence a child’s dignity. Positive relationships and acceptance from peers and teachers can boost their confidence, while bullying or negative comparisons may lead to diminishing self-esteem.

Personal Achievements: Children who experience success in academics, sports, or creative pursuits often develop a sense of accomplishment which is directly responsible for a boost in self-confidence. On the other hand, repeated failures without adequate support can harm their morale which can harm your child.

Media and Technology: Media portrayals and social media can also affect a child’s self-esteem, as they may compare themselves to unrealistic standards or succumb to cyberbullying.

Major Factors Influencing Self-esteem in Your Children

Unconditional Love and Acceptance: Express love for your child, irrespective of their achievements or failures. Highlight that your love is unwavering, reinforcing the idea that your worth is not tied to accomplishments.

Encourage Positive Self-Talk: Help your child recognize and challenge negative self-talk. Teach them to replace self-criticism with self-affirmations, focusing on their strengths and efforts.

Set Realistic Goals: Encourage goal-setting and celebrate progress, no matter how small. Setting achievable objectives helps build a sense of competence and accomplishment.

Promote Independence: Allow your child to make age-appropriate decisions and take responsibility for their actions. Encouraging autonomy boosts their confidence and self-reliance.

Teach Resilience: Help your child develop resilience by acknowledging and validating their emotions while teaching coping strategies to handle challenges and setbacks.

Provide Constructive Feedback: When offering feedback, focus on the effort rather than the outcome. Constructive criticism that gives priority to improvement rather than personal flaws is essential for nurturing self-esteem.

Limit Media Exposure: Monitor your child’s media consumption and guide them to understand that media portrayals often present an unrealistic image of beauty, success, and happiness.

Encourage Social Skills: Help your child develop healthy social skills and friendships. Positive social interactions contribute significantly to their self-esteem.

A child’s self-esteem is an important aspect of their overall development and well being. As parents, we play a vital role in shaping our child’s self-perception and fostering a positive sense of self-worth. By providing unconditional love, setting realistic goals, promoting resilience, and limiting negative influences, you can empower your children to grow into confident, capable, and emotionally resilient individuals.

The best international school in Mumbai, Harshad Valia International School fosters children’s self-esteem by offering a positive learning environment, personalized attention, appreciation for achievements and inclusive activities. We promote self-worth, self-confidence, and skill exploration to enhance students’ overall skill sets and raise strong-minded kids.

Food For Thought:

Building self-esteem is an ongoing process. Be Patient!

[katakaluptastrophy]

There's something fascinating and very uncomfortable about the queer space feudalism of Nine Houses.

Because as OP points out, the term queer is odd here: none of these ways of being are at odds with a cisheteronormativie social pattern. They are normative, in a world that simply doesn't appear to make significant distinctions about sexuality or gender.

But the Nine Houses are feudal states of an empire, with hereditary rulers and an obsession with cultivating appropriate patterns of marriage and reproduction.

Isaac's planned arranged marriage is one of the examples we see of this preoccupation, but there are plenty more: Harrow's parents' willingness to commit mass murder for a necromantic heir; that the Fifth's "failure of chromosomes" is something to mention in a military intelligence report; 23 year old prince Babs saying he should have stayed home and gotten married; Harrow having to use her puppeted dead parents to shut down suggestions of marriage between her and Ortus in her teens; and the Sermon on Necromancers and Cavaliers' list of different patterns of marriage between House aristocrats' necromancer and cavalier lines to ensure marriages with appropriate power dynamics. Even the apparently salacious novels seem to end with marriage and reproduction.

It paints a picture of a world where for aristocrats marriage is often at least semi arranged, sometimes planned from childhood, and enacted at a relatively young age. We know Babs seemed to have a rather disastrous dating life, but seems to think getting married would have been a fait acomplis - did he have the possibility of an arranged match waiting back on the Third?

Which raises another fascinating question about this:the historical models for this kind of system are heavily predicated on the control of female sexuality and reproduction. That's obviously not the case in the Nine Houses: gender doesn't seem particularly significant, reproduction doesn't seem particularly tied to sex, and they seem to have a relatively sex positive culture. There's no sense that House aristocrats are waiting for marriage or being chaperoned. They seem to participate in some kind of regular dating culture: as well as the references to Babs' disastrous dating life, we also hear about Abigail dumping Magnus in what sounds like a fairly typical teenage way.

You get the sense that House aristocrats have a relatively high degree of sexual and romantic autonomy, but rather less autonomy in terms of marriage as a political and legal contract and in reproduction. Some of the Sixth's genetic diversity strategy seems to be based around the system's highly structured rules around reproduction and House affiliation (the question of quite what the Sixth's sexy soldiers are doing is another uncomfortable discussion entirely). And we know necromancers aren't allowed to marry outside of House - to be a necromancer may bring a degree of social and religious power, but also appears to make you a reproductive asset belonging to your House (probably not unrelated to necromantic fertility issues...)

Different Houses seem to have different priorities here. I suspect some of the "mix of vat womb and XX carry" reference in relation to Isaac refers to the Fourth trying to maximise reproductive potential: it's explicitly stated that they purposefully have large families, and one way to do that efficiently, especially if many people are going to the front young, would be to make use of all available gestational capacity, whether physical or necromantic. I would be unsurprised if the age gaps between Fourth House siblings were often fewer than nine months, having been relatively simultaneously gestated by both vat wombs and XX carry. This could, as OP points out, imply a preference in Fourth House culture for marriages where such doubling up of reproductive capacity is possible.

Thinking about the Fourth, it also seems significant that Abigail appears to be orchestrating this normative path for Isaac when she herself seems to have actively defied a number of House cultural norms around marriage: Abigail spent a decade in higher education and didn't marry until her late 20s. And while she and Magnus' families were clearly moving in similar enough circles that she was dancing with him at balls, he doesn't seem to be quite the class of person you would expect the heir of the Fifth to marry: as seneschal, he may be a senior civil servant with enormous political power, but he doesn't appear to be an otherwise titled noble and he shares the same job title as Crux. Whatever else Abigail's mothers may have been doing politically in the decades before the Lyctor pilgrimage, they either didn't or couldn't get their daughter to follow typical marriage conventions, even as her brother appears to have settled down and reproduced on a more expected timescale.

There's more that's probably relevant here: the eugenic underpinnings of both Sixth and Seventh marriage and/or reproductive practices or the implications of the engineering of the Asht brothers or indeed Babs for the autonomy of cavalier families.

TL;DNR - making feudalism gender neutral and sex positive still, shockingly, does not stop it from being awful.

It's amazing how much incidental and easy-to-miss queerness tazmuir manages to pack into the Fourth House section of the Cohort Intelligence Files at the end of GtN.

"Sir Jeannemary Chatur" is a cool vibe and easy to spot, but it's worth taking a close look at Judith's notes on Isaac too:

Abigail Pent has forged a strong relationship with both Tettares and Chatur, much stronger even than her mothers’ relationship with Tettares’ father. It is already suggested that her nephew will be affianced to him once they are of age.

Firstly, "mothers'" (not "mother's"), indicating that Abigail has two moms - this is subtle enough that I missed it in all 5 or so of my prior readings.

Second, and more complicatedly, that Abigail is planning to have Isaac marry her nephew. On the surface of it, this seems cool - my initial reading was that Isaac is gay, and Abigail wants him to have a spouse who he has some chance of being interested in. But given that this is in the context of an arranged marriage between aristocratic families, we should also consider the reproductive lens (especially given the mention of his siblings being "a mix of vat-womb and XX carry" in the preceding paragraph) - I think a more compelling reading of this passage is actually that Isaac is trans¹ (or Abigail's nephew is). And tugging on this thread takes us to a bit of a dark place.

Given how much the Fourth and Fifth evidently care about the heredity of their rulers, we can infer that someone in Isaac's position wouldn't have any real reproductive autonomy even if he had survived to adulthood. And while the existence of vat wombs obviates the horror of forced pregnancy/childbirth, this is still a pretty fucked up situation (to say nothing of the Ninth where they don't even have access to vat wombs). To me, this signifies a fundamental injustice of organising society around hereditary nobility; one that persists even if it can be made to be superficially gay- and trans-inclusive.

With this in mind it's worth interrogating my use of the word "queerness" at the beginning of the post. In the real world "queer" is viable as an umbrella term for all the many LGBTQIA+ identities specifically because those identities are all at odds with the cis-/hetero-/etc.-normative nature of our society. But in the Nine Houses it doesn't seem like being gay/bisexual/trans is stigmatised in the same way, so one could say that these identities are not "queer" per se (strange, other) in a diegetic context.

"Sir Jeannemary Chatur" reflects a similar mismatch. In the real world, a woman using the title "sir" is at odds with both traditional gender roles and (more significantly) institutional usage of the title. But in the Nine Houses this title seems to be devoid of any specific gendered connotations, and its application to Jeannemary is not a subversion of that society's gender norms, but instead an affirmation of the (normative, exploitative) social role of cavalier.

So in summary: Isaac is trans, what queerness means in the Nine Houses can be quite different from what it means in the real world, and pinkwashing an unjust society doesn't make it more just (even if it's headed by a queer person).

¹ This isn't to say that Isaac isn't gay - I headcanon him as both gay and trans. But I don't think him being married off to Abigail's nephew is (primarily) about his sexual orientation.

PS: If you like being haunted by the ghosts of these characters, check out @katakaluptastrophy's fic, Your children are weapons, which got me thinking about these two again lately.

[garnetdawn]

Ok! Real question after asking a joke one earlier. BUT, how does the whole clipped wing situation affect Jess mentality. Basically, is there any real social stigma tied to it for him? Any sense of longing/jealousy for what he lost, or is it largely something that doesn’t bother him or something he moved on from?

Losing his wings and fire at a young age was devastating. For him it's where his life ended. It's where he died. Now he lives in a limbo of his own failure. It does gets better, he does find acceptance, but he still longs for flying again. It's what hits him emotionally the most. And being a wingless, lone young dragon in a world where they are so rare (believed to be extinct) and powerful brought a lot of unwanted attention, too. A dragon without their main weapons was a much easier target in this hostile place he was thrown at. It's a reason why he is so violent and tough on a surface level, he tries so hard to mantain his image as a highly dangerous assassin. It was a way for him to survive, but also a way for him to have some of that powerful presence of a dragon. Being feared, hated, acknowledged and talked about.

[firesnap]

Okay, I'm going to add one last thing to this mental health in analysis discussion.

The phrase "c!Wilbur's responsible for his own mental health."

This is going behind a read more because it's incredibly long, rambling, and more of a frustration on comparing the roles fictional characters play to each other versus autonomous living humans.

"c!"Wilbur is responsible for his own mental health" is both true and, potentially, incredibly damaging. Everyone is responsible for their own mental health. You're responsible for going outside to touch grass, for taking mental refreshers, for conducting self-checks and addressing mental needs.

However, mental health does reach a thing called a crisis point. Saying someone is in charge of their mental health, when they're actively suicidal or suffering PTSD, paranoia, delusions, etc.., can be incredibly damaging. At that point, a person is often incapable of knowing they need help, or are shying away from contact or help as a result of their condition.

This statement is, usually, applied to c!Wilbur when it comes to Tommy. Tommy is a child. Saying Tommy wasn't expected or required to help Wilbur because of his age and inexperience shouldn't then be extended to that no one should have been expected to help him and Wilbur was in charge of his own mental health. Because the statement is true, but also, cruel.

Let me try this analogy with some other troublesome talk about social ties and obligations. Sometimes, usually in relation to Bench Trio, I see that whole "As _______'s friend, they are not obligated or required to care about _____. They're just required to be their friend."

And it makes me realize that we've taken analysis too far into one direction. Yeah, as autonomous human beings we absolutely owe nothing to other human beings except the obligations we choose to take on. Friendships and family members are all, despite societal expectations, optional obligations.

But that's also such a bleak outlook. What support systems can we create for ourselves and each other when we have to preface every emergency and every low point with "no one is obligated to be kind." When we create ties to each other, most of us assume those ties are consistent unless something comes to challenge them. This is sort of exaggerated when we're talking about fictional characters.

When we're talking about characters, we have to assume unless the character has said otherwise, that they do feel a sense of obligation to friends and family. This isn't a real person where we can question and discuss their motivations with them. There are no mental health facilities, medications and doctors in this universe. The characters exist in a light fantasy themed universe where the only support systems they have are the ones they give each other.

We also have to assume this because, from a story standpoint, stories are boring when characters exist like they owe each other nothing. If there are no motivations and clear connections to other characters then everyone is existing in a vacuum. (There's also a whole hornets nest of usually this sentiment is expressed to either address a failure of a character as not as a failure or when someone doesn't want to discuss a negative aspect of a dynamic).

With Wilbur, he had friends and adults in his life that could have intervened in a normal situations. Exile to Pogtopia was, unintentionally, the perfectly crafted way of both destroying what support systems Wilbur/the L'Manburgians had built for themselves and to put Wilbur at a crisis point where he could no longer manage his own mental health.

The conversation about Wilbur's health shouldn't be framed as "Wilbur should have been responsible for his mental health." That goes back to this other post I saw about how sometimes we take our own mental illness experience and assume its universal. Because we're expected to take charge of our own mental needs (and we think of the times we sought help for mental struggles), it gets applied to all situations. But, by doing that, when a person legitimately cannot help themselves, we sort of blame them for that.

We don't look at a person with a gunshot wound and say "they really are responsible for their own gunshot health."

As humans, we say "why didn't anyone help them if they could." We also don't look at a child next to the gunshot victim and say "why didn't you stop the bleeding." Usually people understand expectations of help are based on one's capabilities to actually provide it.

So with Wilbur, who was at a crisis point, the tragedy remains that the people who would have helped, who would have felt obligated to help, had no idea anything was happening. It was a failure of their little found family, but not anyone's fault. It's nuanced, because Wilbur should have reached out before Pogtopia, but he didn't. Other characters absolutely held obligations to help him, and to acknowledge that no one helped him isn't a slam on them or erasing Wilbur's own responsibilities.

Honestly, it's more of a comment on how Schaltt won the moment he cut Wilbur and Tommy off from everything and everyone they knew. The characters had created a family with each other and felt obligations and ties to each other. Without that support, they all had to flounder on their own. Some found strength and thrived, and some didn't survive it.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Weird, “A Preoccupation with Death.”

Hope you enjoy :)

Analysis By Dr. Krill MD

Humanity’s preoccupation with death has always fascinated me: I say fascinated because to say that it disturbs me would be rather unscientific, and I have been attempting to reign in my anger… I have had some… complaints over the last year about the unprofessionalism of my previous papers. The GA community does not appreciate, and I quote, “Excessive swearing, and screaming” in virtual reports, so today I will attempt to be calm and relaxed as I explain to you, common human traditions based around death.

Now you must understand, from my perspective these practices are quite bizarre. Vrull have no rituals associated with death. The Vrull are disposed of and their bodies are incinerated. The ash is then disposed with by mixing into the soil to produce needed plants on the planet surface. There are no other options, and no other arrangements are made.

However, I am told that funeral rights with humans are, often, more to do with what the living need than what the deceased do. However, there are some funeral rights believed to be required in certain human cultures, so that rule does not always hold completely true.

I will begin from the moment of death.

Unlike the Vrull humans do not know their exact time of death. Granted this is not because the Vrull have a set clocking system in their bodies which sets the time in which we die, but because our society sets forth a time of our usefulness. No one knows how long a Vrull can feasibly live because no one has tried it before. I myself might plan on finding out, as I have no intention of returning for my scheduled termination, which is already a year overdue.

Humans, like most other species die in several different ways, accidents, sickness, or the sudden failure of the body due to old age, the final one generally happening peacefully and in their sleep.

However this is where humans tend to diverge from their inhuman counterparts, in that they are very social creatures, the death of a human is usually witnessed by multiple family members and friends, in the case of sickness, and is mourned many weeks after because the death of someone in your social circle changes that circle forever. Social bonds are cut and entire social lives are upended. Humans bond so heavily with each other that the loss of one of their own can lead to mental and emotional trauma extreme enough to require medication and hospitalization.

Humans plan their deaths months to years in advance. In certain instances, their jobs force them to plan their death in advance in case something were to happen. Decisions need to be made about who owns their property, where it goes, what happens to their dwellings, and how the surviving members of their family will be supported. Sometimes they plan this due to terminal illness which they knew will lead to their deaths, otherwise they might just do it out of precaution.

There are many different ways of disposing of a corpse. First of all, you must determine if any of the human parts are recyclable: this being the very morbid idea of taking someone else’s organs and giving them to another person. Now with the advancement of this technology, organ transplants from donors is not as common as it once was seeing as they can now 3D print organs. However, this method is not time effective and is very costly, in some cases leaving the harvesting of deceased human organs to be the only viable option.

Yes, they take organs from dead people… the doctor and surgeon in me admires that thought process, but the thinking breathing creature inside of me recoils heavily at the idea.

Assuming that no one requires your organs, or if you have especially requested for your organ not to be used  than there are other questions that need to be addressed. There are humans who have jobs especially in the business of taking care of dead bodies. They are generally moved in special containers and placed in refrigerated units to slow decomposition while the relatives determine what they want to do with the body.

In certain cases, where the death is suspicious, as related to murder, there are, in fact, humans who specilize in determining the cause and time of death based on the decomposition rate of a body and the stiffness of the flesh itself. This is a semi-common practice across the galaxy, and I myself have performed one or two autopsies since my professional career began though they are far more common for humans.

I find that the most humane method of human enterrement, and the one that makes most sense to me as a Vrull is the idea of cremation. The body is taken and placed in a furnace that is then heated enough to turn the body to ash leaving only bone fragments and the occasional mineral deposit. The ash may then be given to the family members or disposed of accordingly. Some humans find it comforting to keep the remains in some sort of container.... A fact which I find morbid but, we have proven in abundance that I find much of what humanity does, rather morbid.

It is only going to get worse.

The other method of disposal, popular through human history, however made someone obscure in recent centuries due to the proliferation of human burial sites…. The common north american and European Burial and funeral rights went as follows. After death, and freezing in the morgue, a special human with the job of mortician is called in to prepared the body for burial…. This is where it gets very morbid.

The body is drained of all of its fluids and then pumped full of preservatives to slow down the process of decomposition. The faces are then painted with makeup to give the corpse the appearance of sleep rather than death. The body is dressed in fine clothing and placed inside a coffin or casket: these in themselves can cost thousands of dollars as the family members decide what materials the box should be made out of and lined with, precious metals, woods like oak or steel, and the inside lined in velvet satin or silk. The body is placed inside with the person dressed in a finely tailored suit before a hearse: a special vehicle designed to carry caskets is brought to the place of mourning, generally a curch or a funeral home.

Many times the body is then put through a “viewing”.... It sounds just as bad as I make it seem, when the humans come in…. In large groups…. To stare at their dead relative. Just…. Stare at their rotting corpse before it is hauled away and lowered into an six foot hole in the earth. A decorative rock is then place on top of that inscribed with the deceased’s name so that everyone knows where to find their moldering corpse….

….

….

I am told this provides a lot of closure for family members, though I have yet to understand why staring at a painted corpse would be helpful.’

Unfortunately, with humans, this isn't the most gruesome method they have of corpse disposal, nor the most involved 

You may also chose to donate your body to science…

They might hand your bod over to a medical school, where aspiring doctors will, in groups, dissect your corpse slowly over an intervening few weeks or months. It is… gruesome, but a necessary part of the learning process. Your skeleton might even be recycled for use as a tool to demonstrate the skeletal structure to those very same students.

Perhaps your body will end up in a museum, where they will encase your nervous system in plaster and place it on a wall for school children and visiting day travelers to view.

Perhaps you might donate your body to…. A body farm. A palace where scientists will toss your corpse out into different elements to observe the rate and change of decomposition based on different dump sites. They will examine the decomposition, the moisture loss, and the bugs which take to eating your body. This research will then be used to determine the cause o death for other corpses disposed of by murderers or in similar fashion.

It is gruesome, but I suppose…. It is useful for scientific efforts.

These aren't the only methods of body disposal.

Bodies have been tied to the top of large towers

Thrown into the woods to be eaten by animals

Dumped into pits.

And in a couple of cases, launched into the vacuum of space.

Different rituals require family members to spend more or less time with the body, to wrap it in special cloth, or to anoint it with certain oils. 

The Egyptians were widely known for their complex and involved enterrement rituals commonly known as mummification.

The body was first embalmed

The brain was removed

The organs removed and placed in specialized canopic jars 

The body was then dried

Then wrapped which continued to help in the drying process 

Then the body was finally entered, and due to the sandy heat of the desert, the body was often preserved to a great and surprising degree. Egyptians believed that those things you had in life would come with you after death, and so egyptian rulers were entered with great riches and inside grand palaces 

Then of course there is the last ritual which I learned about just recently.

Certain tribal societies will….. Eat…. their dead….

They will eat them….

As in the entire village will get together and consume the corpse in a feast, believing that without this they cannot enter the afterlife.

…..

…

…

…

…

I am going to draft a proposal to the GASC that screaming and profanities should be considered scientifically appropriate when in regards to humans

[xskyll]

The BNHA x Chobits AU that no one, not even Mineta, asked for.

The ramblings of my mind under the cut. Warning, it’s loooong.

Okay, so bear in mind that I only watched four episodes of Chobits and it was probably about 14 years ago, and also I didn’t really like it, lol

-Todoroki finds Midoriya laying on some bags of trash next to a dumpster.

-First he’s like “oh no, I need an adult,” because for all his “training,” dad never actually told him what to do when he found a dead body, (this is the summer before he starts U.A., so he’s still living at home). Endeavor is away for a week, and Fuyumi doesn’t count to him (sort of an Aristocats, “she’s not [an adult,] she’s just a sister!” thing). While he’s trying to remember that the police exist, he notices this dead body has very strange ear-like things. He comes closer to investigate. There are lots of weird body types in the world, because of quirks, but these things look metal, which isn’t unheard of, but something about these ears just strike him as unnatural.

- Good news, it seems like a robot, not a dead body. The ears open easily, and there are buttons inside. A power button (that’s right CHOBITS!! It’s in the ear! My love story isn’t going to start with molestation), some USB ports, an aux port, a slot for a microchip or SIM card or whatever, some sort of safety switch (he flips that on)…what really convinces him this is totally a robot are the blutooth and volume buttons (that’s right, Midoriya in this au can charge phones AND he’s a speaker, although the volume buttons’ primary function is to control the volume of his voice).

- He has no good reason for taking this thing home. It weights a ton, it’s awkwardly naked, except for some bandages wrapped around it, which do nothing to hide how anatomically correct this robot is, and he already has a phone charger, so he really has no use for it. 

- He feels weird about it though. While he was checking out the ears, he touched its face and the skin was soft and warm. He checked for a pulse, just out of curiosity, and found one. It looks like a person, aside from the ears, and it feels like a person. He feels bad leaving it in the trash. So he takes it home.

- Cue comedy routine where he gets this thing, not just in the house, but to his room without Fuyumi noticing.

- Once in his room, he hits the power switch. Nothing happens. He holds the power switch. Bingo. Robo-boy powers to life, bright, adorably large green eyes open. He’s holding it in his arms, and it’s still all tied up. It looks up at him and says hello.

- He drops it.

- He apologizes as he picks it back up, tugging at the wrappings to try to get its arms free. He realizes he needs to get pants, or at least boxers, for it, because it’s awake now and very much naked.

- For the very first time, he realizes that this adorable, thin-yet-lean-muscled, between 14-16 looking robo-boy might have been someone’s weird sex doll. They probably threw it away because they found a real person to date and they didn’t want them to know about their underage sex robot. This also sort of explains the pulse; the mystery pervert person probably programmed a fake pulse and did something to make his skin warm, to make him feel more real. Gross.

- He’s broken from these thoughts when the robot speaks. It says, “Please insert memory bank files or turn on base memory.” Todoroki is already freaking out, because this thing wants its memories, and he doesn’t have them. He opens the ear again and investigates. Next to the empty slot, there’s a small button labeled BM. Base memory? Sure, why not. He pushes it.

- The robot goes blank faced for a few seconds. When he comes to, he looks at Todoroki, then the room, then down at himself. He flexes his arms, trying to break the bands around him, but stops, saying, “Safety mode is on.”

- Todoroki finishes helping unwrap him, awkwardly doing so while pointedly looking away, once he gets to his lower half. Once he’s free, he goes and gets a pair of boxers and throws them in his direction. “Can you put them on?” He’s curious if the robot can do something like that unaided, and also he doesn’t want to cloth it himself, because even though this is a robot, it looks like a very cute boy his age. And it has a pulse. He can’t stop thinking about that.

- The robot puts on the boxers, after inspecting them for a second. He honestly does struggle to figure it out for a moment, cause he has zero common sense, but he does figure it out. It probably takes him about a minute. Once they’re on, he stands and starts inspecting the room.

- “Do you have a name?” seems like a dumb question, but he asks anyway and the robot answers, “I’m Project Midoriya.”

- Background info time. Midoriya is not fully a robot. He was kidnapped just seven months ago, coming home from school. It was the day of the sludge villain attack, but he got nabbed before they could cross paths. AFO wanted a quirkless person to experiment on. He did his research and found Midoriya Izuku, a quirkless boy with no friends and little family, who wouldn’t be missed very much. He’s confident enough that he won’t get caught that he titles his new project by its name: Midoriya. Midoriya’s memories are still in his mind, but they’re suppressed. AFO found it easier to backup his memories to a chip, so he could remove them as needed. When they were installed, Midoriya responded best to his own name anyway, so calling him that was also the easiest thing. Without his memories, AFO found him a bit annoying, because he had no social skills or common sense. He needed to be taught, which he didn’t have the patience for, so usually he just left the memories in. He was a timid boy anyway and easy to intimidate, especially if he threaten to hurt his mom.

- The cops figure his disappearance was maybe a runaway situation, but given his track record and the profile on him they’d compiled from listening to his mom, classmates, and teachers, they figure it’s more likely a kidnapping or murder. Fun fact though, he got kidnapped the day Bakugou told him to kill himself. Obviously no body is found, but he knows people go to forests to hang themselves, or put weights in their pockets and drown themselves. Those bodies can take years to find. So while all of this is happening, Bakugou is out there just every day, “what have I done, what have I done, what have I done?” When they finally see each other again, Bakugou freaks out and Midoriya’s suppressed memories are triggered. Bakugou demands answers, Todoroki is confused and defensive, and Midoriya is just, “System overload. Shutting down,” and then face plants to the floor.

- Anyway, back to Shouto. He asks Midoriya if he remembers anything. Midoriya has exactly one memory (or at least, one easily accessible memory), and it’s this: “A man. He looked like this.” He put his hand over his face. “He said, ‘Sensei put so much work into you. Why are you so useless (Deku)?’”

- More bg info, AFO gave Midoriya to Shigaraki, telling him to try to make him useful, and Shigaraki DID try for a couple of months, but he was over the whole situation after basically one day. With his memories, Midoriya was scared and traumatized, had morals, cried a bunch and sometimes tried to escape, and was just UGH. He could mute his voice, but even that didn’t help, cause this kid was just sooo annoying. Without his memories he was awkward and boring and still annoying. Eventually he just yeeted him into a trash heap, but took his memory chip, since it technically contains LoV information.

- Midoriya considers his only memory and thinks being called Deku feels sort of normal, so he says as much. “Deku might also be my name. You can call me that, if you want.” Todoroki says he’ll stick with Midoriya, because Deku isn’t a nice name for his new robot friend.

- So the first section of the story after this is fairly light-hearted. Todoroki has to keep Midoriya a secret from Endeavor and Fuyumi (I feel like she does find out eventually, but agrees to help hide him, as she sees it’s good for her little bro to finally have this (maybe?) living thing/person to talk to and take care of.) Speaking of care, Midoriya is very easy to care for. He can eat, drink, and sleep, but doesn’t need to. He has some sort of self-charging system. Most of his “care” involves teaching him social skills (which oof, blind leading the blind, but they say teaching is the best way to learn, so this is actually good for Shouto too). Embarrassing stuff happens. Fluffy stuff happens. It’s a good time.

- Shouto spends the summer with Midoriya this way. Most of their interactions are fluffy and light, but not all. The first time he comes back to his room after training with his dad, he learns two things: Midoriya has first aid knowledge programmed into him and he’s capable of crying. As the trainings continue, Midoriya eventually reveals that he has over a hundred fighting styles programmed into him and knows over 70 ways to kill a person, but he can’t access any of that information while his safety is on. Todoroki is just like, “Uuuuuh, that’s really good to know…but we’re gonna keep the safety on for now, okay? I hate my dad but also please don’t murder him. He’s famous so we wouldn’t get away with it. Also murder is bad, don’t kill people.”

- Midoriya wants to know if all heroes are like Endeavor and Shouto is like, noooo and shows him the debut video of his personal favorite hero: All Might. Watching this video is the first time Midoriya has a “System overloading. Shutting down” moment. Shouto has an absolute panic attack, because if Midoriya reboots and his memories are wiped, then he’ll have lost the best friend he ever had. But Midoriya restarts and he’s fine. He explains that sometimes he shuts down, to prevent a system failure, which would damage his…idk, hard drive or whatever. He quietly admits that the All Might video is very familiar, and he thinks maybe it used to be important to him. Shouto questions him about his memories and Midoriya theorizes that perhaps he has them backed up, but he isn’t sure how to access them. 

- This is exciting for Shouto, because he thinks maybe if Midoriya experiences more “triggers,” like the video, he might regain his memories and be able to shed some light on the general mystery of where he came from/who made him/what his purpose is. Whenever Endeavor is away, he tries to sneak Midoriya out, so he can see the real world. He isn’t too concerned about his ears, because in a world of quirks, there are plenty of odd looking people around. So far he’s been wearing Todoroki’s clothes, which a little too big on him, so they go shopping and get him clothes. None of their outings seem to trigger anything, except one time when they pass a park where Midoriya and Bakugou used to play as kids. Midoriya grows quiet and seems far away for a moment, but he doesn’t overload and shakes off the familiar feeling.

- Whenever they see All Might stuff he’s just !!!!!!! He can’t remember why he likes All Might, but he remembers how he feels about him. The more All Might stuff he sees, the more his old feelings return. One day they pass a large All Might poster and Midoriya says, “I think maybe I wanted to be like him, once.”

- Eventually Todoroki starts school. He feels bad about leaving him, but Midoriya is content to stay in his room and occupy himself until Todoroki comes home. He’s part computer, so he’s a total boss at helping with math homework. He likes doing homework with Todoroki in general, because he likes learning. This is great for Todoroki’s grades because again, the teaching thing helps everything stick better for him. 

- The attack on USJ happens and Todoroki sees Shigaraki, who has a hand on his face, and he’s like, “Shit, shit, shit, this is the guy who threw away Midoriya,” and he has NO idea what to do with that information. Midoriya belonging to the LoV does explain the “70+ ways to kill” programming though. He tells Midoriya what happened and Midoriya is kind of whatever about it. He says, “Maybe I belonged to villains, but I belong to you, now.” And Shouto is like, “No, no, no, no. You do not. You belong to yourself” and Midoriya is just ????

- I think for the Sports Festival, Midoriya convinces him to use his fire. It’s sort of like, “It’s your power, even though its origin is Endeavor. Just like how everything I can do is my power, even though I was programmed by villains. Being made by villains doesn’t make me a villain. Using the resources they gave me doesn’t make me a villain. Being Endeavor’s son doesn’t make you Endeavor, and using your fire doesn’t either.” Todoroki turns off Midoriya’s safety, confident he has nothing to fear.

- Midoriya watches the Sports Festival on tv (using his blutooth, he can actually just hear the volume in his head, so he can watch silently). He sees Bakugou. Seeing him on screen doesn’t have a huge impact on him, but he does feel something. Fear, unease, admiration, and affection. He’s confused and uncomfortable, and ends up looking away from the screen whenever he’s shown for too long.

- Shouto actually starts making friends at school. Being with Midoriya has taught him a lot about being kind and the joy having other people in your life can bring. Still, he doesn’t trust anyone enough to tell them about Midoriya. He’s terrified of losing him.

- For the Hosu incident, Midoriya is home alone, probably doing something on Shouto’s laptop. He sees the breaking news and is just, “Welp, that’s where Shouto, the official best person in the world, is, so guess I’m going to Hosu to make sure he’s safe.” He leaves the house alone, for the first time ever, and just runs to Hosu. Idk how far away Hosu is from the Todoroki residence, but Midoriya doesn’t fatigue and he’s also outrageously fast, so it’s fine. Also he can see in the dark, but only if he activates his night vision, which makes his eyes glow. Not good for sneaking, but very pretty and cool. I’m not sure how he finds Shouto, or how Shouto found Iida, but I imagine Stain is like, seconds from skewering him and then Midoriya comes out of nowhere and collides with Stain (which is a big deal, cause remember, Midoriya is filled with metal parts and is super heavy). They fight together and at some point Stain cuts Midoriya and he bleeds, which for Shouto is like !?!??! And then he licks his blood and the paralysis works and Shouto is just !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Later, after the life threatening stuff is over, Todoroki has some seriously thoughts about this, because what if Midoriya is human? Or part human? That would be a huge development, and also kind of relief for him, because he sort of feels like he’s been falling in love, but he’s been desperately stomping down on those feelings, because he knows falling in love with a robot probably isn’t healthy. But falling in love with a half robot? I mean, Iida could be called part robot, with his legs, if you want to get technical about it. And Todoroki does want to get technical about it, thank you very much. If Iida is dateable, then so is Midoriya.

- Back to Hosu. They beat Stain and, after securing him, Todoroki tells Midoriya to go home, before his dad arrives. Once he leaves, he begs Iida not to tell anyone he saw him and promises to explain later. For ease of narrative, Native was unconscious the entire fight.

- Endeavor shows up, as does the Nomu. It takes Shouto but Stain rescues him. At the hospital, Todoroki explains the Midoriya situation to Iida, revealing that this incident was the first time he realized Midoriya had blood in him. Iida agrees to keep the secret, but urges Todoroki to tell someone. Maybe Aizawa. He agrees to consider, but he doesn’t want Midoriya to get taken away and like, locked up to be studied or something. He and Iida become better friends, bonding over almost dying together and sharing the secret of Midoriya. 

- Midterms! Shouto scores higher because he has an awesome robot tutor. He doesn’t actually care, but good for him regardless.

- Summer field trip time. Midoriya can’t come, obviously. I’m thinking during this time, he decides to sneak out of the house and explore on his own. He feels guilty, because Shouto would worry if he knew, but he just feels this draw. He feels like maybe his old memories were important, and he’s becoming curious. He keeps thinking about the boy from the Sports Festival and about All Might. He ends up in his old neighborhood. He sees his middle school and he doesn’t remember anything, but seeing the building makes him feel lonely and sort of bad about himself. It reminds him of Shigaraki calling him Deku, and the familiar feeling that gave him. He leaves and finds himself on his old street. He isn’t close at all to his old home - he can barely see the apartment building - but he can still see it. He almost shuts down, but turns away quickly and starts back the way he came. He doesn’t remember anything, but seeing that building fills him with overwhelming emotions. The strongest one reminds him of his feelings for Shouto, but it’s different. He can’t place it, but he knows he’d die to protect Shouto, and he feels like maybe he once knew someone in that building that he would also die to protect. Once he gets home, he realizes he’s crying. He decides to sleep and he dreams of green eyes and a smile that looks like home.

- Shouto is injured during the villain attack and goes to the hospital. Once he’s released, he agrees with Kirishima that they’ll go rescue Bakugou. That whole thing pretty much goes at it did in canon, except All Might never found a successor, so he’s more powerful. He defeats AFO and does not have to retire, though he’s feeling an overwhelming pressure to find a successor now, because he knows he’s hanging on by a thread.

- Dorms!! Shouto is bringing his boy with him. He figures he can hide him just as easily there as he can at home. Getting him in is a little tricky, but he manages. From there, it’s smooth sailing.

- Except not really, because living with 18-19 other people (19 if Hitoshi is in the class, which, maybe) is way different than living with 2. Midoriya is discovered in like, a week and everyone is freaking out, most of all Bakugou, who basically breaks down. He tries to hit Midoriya and screams at him, about thinking he was dead and going to his funeral and how it was his fault and having to face his mom and did Midoriya even think about his mom??? As previously mentioned, Midoriya just shuts down and face plants to the ground.

- Shouto finally learns Midoriya’s full name. Midoriya Izuku. A+ name. Very cute. He plans to use it immediately.

- Bakugou’s insight changes the situation completely. Now they know Izuku was once 100% human and something awful happened to him. They end up bringing him to Aizawa and explaining the situation and everything they know. Todoroki gets scolded, cause Izuku could have been dangerous and he should have known better, but he doesn’t even pretend to have regrets. Endeavor would have made him throw Izuku back into the trash where he found him. His best friend isn’t trash.

- Now the name of the game is helping Izuku restore his memories. Bakugou is a huge help, but patience is required, to keep Izuku from overloading. He remembers bits and pieces at a time, all centered around Bakugou. Aizawa agrees to let him attend classes, so they can keep an eye on him. He’s also hoping a school setting might trigger more memories. He meets All Might and he doesn’t even get to announce his system malfunction before he’s out. He sees him, starts smoking at the mouth and hits the floor. All Might is very alarmed.

- Tsukauchi is made aware of the situation. He wants to keep things under wraps though. If the LoV is aware Midoriya is out and about, they may target him. If they can restore his memories though, they may gain insight into the group’s plans. That being said, he thinks it’s only right that they tell Inko. They tell her they have information on her son and make her sign a contract, agreeing not to release any information. Once she agrees, they brief her on what they know and, at the end, bring in Izuku.

- Izuku has been talking with Bakugou about his mom, to prepare for this (he usually wants Shouto with him for these conversations, and Shouto and Bakugou sort on inadvertently become friends). He can’t remember her at all, but he remembers the face in his dream. He knows it’s her. While talking, he’s shut down a few times (which drives Bakugou up the wall, and also scares him a little, cause he kind of looks dead when it happens), but he thinks he might be ready to see her now. He’s brought in and he does not shut down, not fully, but he comes close. He definitely glitches a little, maybe doing a quick reboot, quick enough that he doesn’t even fall, and his voice comes out cracked and metallic when he speaks, and there are sparks in his mouth, but he manages, “Mom?” They both cry and she holds him while he tells her, voice wavering between sounding normal and sounding robotic, that he doesn’t remember her, but he loves her, he knows he loves her so so much and he knows he’s missed her, even though he didn’t know who she was. It’s very emotional, and extremely hard for both of them when they finally have to separate, because Izuku can’t go home with her. She’s allowed to visit though, and each visit helps him restore little pieces of his memory. Between her and Bakugou, he starts making enough progress that he stops shutting down when he gains a new memory, and he starts remembering his old hopes and dreams. He doesn’t remember what AFO did to him, but he remembers enough of his past to feel self-conscious now, about his body. He breaks down one day and Shouto holds him while he grapples with his identity, his humanity, and his future. 

- I’m picturing a scene where he’s crying and Shouto takes his face in his hands and explains all the beautiful things about him that make him human, and he finishes up with something corny like, “I know you, Izuku. You’re human. You have to be human, because I’m in love with you.” And then they KISS and it is ROMANTIC!

- He decides he still wants to be a hero and he becomes a real member of 1A, instead of just a visitor. The whole class helps him design a costume and come up with a name and in general are just like, “Cyborg Hero, yay!!”

- And that’s all I got. I think eventually he would fight the league, and probably retrieve his chip, giving him 100% of his memories. There’s a LOT of trauma to deal with there, because he was basically torn apart and put back together several times by AFO, but they do gain all the information they need to take down the LoV for good. And the Overhaul arc is in there. Izuku might still intern with Nighteye, because All Might is like, “Robot successor? Maybe???” and he wants Nighteye’s opinion. Nighteye can’t see his future, because he’s not fully human, but eventually he gives his stamp of approval. Eri is rescued and that’s a very personal fight for Izuku, because he identifies with what she’s gone through. And of course she loves him and thinks his ears are cute and his glowy eyes are pretty.

- Oh, and the School Festival. I honestly don’t even know what to do with him. He can learn any instrument just by like, downloading some YouTube tutorial videos. He can learn any dance by watching it once. He’s really strong, really fast, and can also operate as a speaker (though that can be awkward, cause it’s through his mouth, so he’d just be standing there with his mouth open). They might keep his role same as canon, idk. They’d probably all fight over him.

- I’m sure none of this was anything like Chobits. Sorry. I just think the ears are neat, really, and liked the idea of Izuku being a cyborg (Chobits isn’t even about cyborgs, lol).

Sorry this is outrageously long! If you want to write this into a full fic, feel free to use my ideas! Just give me a shoutout, maybe? And tell me about it, so I can read it!

[michelo-thedreamer]

BLOG NUMBER ONE

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Greetings to my fellow writers.

For years (I have had many at my disposal) I have been a student of the World War II era, not in studying the art of warfare and battle strategy, but as a person in awe of the political and social motivations that led to the slaughter of millions. Having reviewed hundreds of books and journals on this wide-ranging topic, I have been and remain somewhat clueless on the wherefores and whys of this overpoweringly disastrous period.  Regardless of all the overviews, examinations, and explanations, I just don’t get it.

In her intensely debated book Eichmann in Jerusalem, written following the trial of Nazi criminal Adolph Eichmann, Hannah Arendt coined the words, “banality of evil.”  The book, an overview of the trail of Eichmann for crimes committed upon the people of the Jewish diaspora, she examined the rationales and behaviors of otherwise law-abiding human beings under the stresses of totalitarian regimes. Arendt concluded that Eichmann, as well as lesser contributors to these crimes, were not so much evil-infused monsters as they were ordinary (banal) people who placidly allowed evil times and vilifications to carry them into a sea of criminality.

Quote courtesy of Philosophy Matters

To date, the most terrifying self-imposed question that flutters about my soul is the following: what would you do in response to similar times and vilifications?  I have never answered that question with a sense of confidence.  Perhaps my soul remains wholly vibrant with the question unanswered.  I’m not sure.

Once, during a discussion of fascism, I asked my son-in-law, how he would respond to the pressures of totalitarianism.  He replied firmly that he would assuredly resist.  Then I posed a horrifying scenario: should a lower ranking government hack arrive with an announcement that someone dear to your life would be harmed unless you cooperated, would you?  He would not respond.

Historical photo: not copyrighted

Getting back to my journey in accepting this course challenge, my introductory blog words provide the rationale for the short story I intend to write this winter. The story topic is neither directly tied to WWII nor the Jewish diaspora.  The story will not examine the “banality of evil”; however, in different place and time. It will examine the plight of a family persecuted by those who never asked the question, “what would I do?”  The story line concerns itself with the tragic outcomes ensuing from a segment of society that has undermined the truth and has enshrined chronic falsehoods.

 Refugees flee the Nazi invasion of France

Photo courtesy of Forbes Magazine

My proposed story will not transpire in Europe, but in the United States of America.  Yes, the story will have political overtones.  Yes, the tale I envision will not be well greeted by those consumed by partisan dogma.  Yes, the ideas forming in my aging brain are heavily founded on a series of “what if” scenarios. Yes, the telling of the tale will include a degree of symbolism, beginning with the story title: Flight from Egypt.

Egypt Bay, Maine

Photo courtesy of Pemetic Purveyors Real Estate Co. 

As an amateur writer I have created more that a dozen short stories, many that included autobiographical features (I’ve lived a delightfully adventurous life). However, as my writing matures, I have discovered the joy in traveling beyond autobiography and into fictitious conjecture.  Thanks to our professor’s influence last semester I have learned that my more “personal” stories were better drafted as creative nonfiction pieces. The proposed short story is an adventure into fiction with little personal experience.  Yet I have known the nature of the characters I hope to create on paper.

While I am eagerly anticipating the forthcoming writing adventure, I am also frightened by the prospect: as with much of my life’s endeavors I am affected by a fear of failure.  What if the flow and nature of the story just doesn’t work? What if my story lacks the senses of angst and terror that I envision?

In response to fear, I ardently implore that you, my readers and fellow students, assist in advising and guiding me in this adventure. Creativity is gift that heavily rests on the foundation of our peers and predecessors.  Words sung in a somewhat sappy anthem written in the post WWII era included those in the title “No Man is an Island.”  Aside from the unnecessary masculinization of the title, there is truth to the chorale’s intended concepts. 

[thedreadvampy]

On the other hand, and moving away from direct Mechanisms Discourse (which I prefer to not get over involved in tbh but also this ISN'T about that it's just jumping off it) - it absolutely is deeply classist to assume that somebody is illiterate or ignorant because of poverty/assumed poverty, and that's a huge problem. but also I think on a broader social level (at least in the UK) there is an idea in the left that it's classist to acknowledge the connection between poverty and illiteracy, while the truth is that illiteracy is a problem of poverty (poverty not in the sense of just Not Having Money but in the sense of system denial of adequate resources). Poverty doesn't = illiteracy but illiteracy is very much a problem of poverty - not a failure of a marginalised individual but a failure of the system marginalising them.

Adult illiteracy is a surprisingly large issue in eg both rural and urban Scotland, but it's not because poor people are stupid, ignorant or unwilling to learn - it's because schools are inadequate or inaccessible, classes are managed not taught, teachers are stretched thin and schools are underfunded so don't have resources to help struggling students, if you get to secondary school still unable to read and write you're completely locked out of the educational system unless you can access a school with the resources to teach you individually, and because of this, classism and a lack of support, poorer kids are more likely to switch off school as early as possible.

Social geography is also a big issue. In urban areas, schools in poorer areas get bad reputations, so they're underfunded, so they do worse, so they're funded less, etc, until they're a bare minimum of staff just trying to get through the day in collapsing buildings with no resources and five textbooks. Where better-funded schools can afford teaching assistants, 1:1 support for struggling students, decent food provision for kids, follow-up on children in need of support at home, more teachers for smaller classes, maybe counseling and psychological support, maybe Special Educational Needs classes for older kids to work on basic literacy and numeracy to catch up, worse-funded schools have one underpaid unsupported teacher trying to manage a class of 35 kids with wildly different needs. They don't have the resources to help support kids with issues that might affect their schooling, like parental abuse or neglect, trauma, a parent in prison, care responsibilities, hunger, homelessness, neurodiversities that affect their ability to learn in the prescribed way, learning disabilities like dyslexia, physical health issues including visual or auditory impairments...all things that when supported are highly surmountable but when unsupported often end up with children being perceived and treated as stupid, disruptive or evil. The problem then compounds itself because the kids are badly treated which makes them more disruptive and less able to learn, and more and more work is needed to help them which teachers continue to not have any capacity or resources for.

Rural poverty comes with its own schooling issues as well, in that poverty is generally correlated with remoteness. Poor rural communities are often hours away from population centres, so either you have tiny highly local schools serving a handful of families where a single teacher needs to invent lesson plans that somehow balance the needs of 11 year olds and 4 year olds of all abilities, or your kids need to somehow get into town every morning before you get to work, which may mean dropping them off at 6am, having to part pay for buses, taxis or ferries, sending them on their own, or leaving them with friends and family, and realistically the way that often shakes down is that they don't go. You teach them at home, and they may not even exist for the truancy office to know about.

Literacy is also connected to family culture. Both my parents were people with degrees from educated families, and my mum was a full time parent, and the result is that school didn't teach me to read - I was already a confident and enthusiastic reader. Even richer families may hire tutors for small children, pay for extracurricular learning, etc. The poorer a family is, the more likely neither parent is available to spend time reading with their kids, because they're working full time - at that economic level a single income household is almost entirely unviable so either both parents work or there's a single parent working extra hours or they're just exhausted from worrying about the bills and what's sold to them as a personal failure to look after their family.

One thing it's easy to forget is that while people in the UK still do drop out of school in their teens to work, a generation ago it was almost the norm for a lot of communities (especially the children of farmers, miners and factory workers) to have left school well before the end of compulsory education, both because of school being a hostile space and because of the need for an additional income. Now as well as then, a lot of kids drop out to work as unpaid carers, disproportionately in poorer families that can't afford private care or therapeutic support. Literacy aside, generations of leaving school with no qualifications doesn't tend to teach you that formal learning is as important as experience and vocational learning, and you don't expect to finish anyway so why put yourself through misery trying to do well? But it includes literacy. I grew up in a former mining area and a lot of people my dad's age and older were literate enough to read signs and football results, but took adult classes in middle age or later to get past the pointing finger and moving lips. and if you're parents don't or can't read, it's a lot harder for you to learn.

There's a lot of classism and shame tied up in the roots of illiteracy. Teachers and governments and schoolmates will often have vocally expressed low expectations of poorer students; a rich child who does poorly at school has problems, a poor child who does poorly at school is a problem child. They're often treated with hostility and aggression from infancy and any anger or disinterest in school is often treated not as a problem to be solved but as proof that you were right to deem them a write-off. Poorer or more neglected children (or children for whom English is a second language) will often be deemed "stupid" by their peers, and start at a disadvantage because of the issues around early childhood learning in families where parents are overstretched.

Kids learn not to admit that they don't know or understand something, because if you start school unable to read and write and do basic maths when a lot of kids your age are already confident, you get mocked and called stupid and lazy by your peers, and treated with frustration by your teachers. So kids learn to avoid people noticing that they need help. That means that school, which could help a lot, isn't somewhere you can go for help but a source of huge anxiety and pain - more so when you factor in the background radiation of classism that only grows as you get older around not having the right clothes, the right toys, the right experiences, my mum says your mum's a ragger, my mum says I shouldn't hang out with you because you're a bad lot - so again kids switch off very early and see education as something to survive not something helpful.

The same is very much true of adult literacy. A lot of adults are very shamed and embarrassed to admit that they struggle with reading and writing - a lot of parents particularly want to be able to teach their kids to read, but aren't confident readers themselves, and feel too stupid and embarrassed to admit out loud that they can't read well, let alone to seek out and endure adult literacy classes that are a constant reminder of their perceived failure and ignorance (and can also be excruciating. Books for adult literacy learning are not nearly widespread enough and a lot of intelligent experienced adults are subjected to reading Spot the Dog and similar books targeted at small children's interests). Adult literacy classes also cost time and also money, so a lot of people only have the space for them after retirement, if at all.

And increasingly, illiteracy (or lack of fluency in English) increases poverty and marginalisation, and thus the chances of inherited literacy problems. Reading information, filling out forms and accessing the internet in a meaningful way are all massively limited by illiteracy, and you need those skills to access welfare, to access medical care, to avoid exploitative loans, to deal with any service providers, etc. Most jobs above minimum wage and a lot below require a fairly high level of literacy, whether it's office work or reading an instructional memo on a building site or reading drink instructions in McDonalds. Illiteracy is a huge barrier between somebody and the rest of the world, especially in a modern world that just assumes universal literacy, and especially especially as more and more of life involves the internet, texting, WhatsApp, email, and so on - it's becoming harder and harder for people with limited literacy to be fully involved in society. And that means the only mobility is downwards, and that exacerbates all the problems that lead to adult illiteracy.

People who can't read after the age of 6 or so are treated as stupid. People who can't read fluently when they're adults are seen as stupid and almost subhuman. There's so much shame and personal judgement attached to difficulty reading, but the fact that illiteracy is almost exclusively linked to poverty and deprivation is pretty conclusive. Illiteracy isn't about the failure or stupidity of the individual, it's about the lack of support, care and respect afforded to poor people at all stages of their life. Being illiterate doesn't make you stupid - many people are highly intelligent, creative, capable, thoughtful, and illiterate. I know people who can immediately solve complex engineering problems on the fly but take ten minutes to write down a sentence of instruction. It isn't classist to say that illiteracy is caused by poverty - it's both classist and inaccurate to say that illiteracy says anything about the worth, intelligence or personhood of the poor, that it's a result of a desire to be ignorant, or that it's evidence that people are poor because they're stupid, incapable, ignorant or bad parents. The link between poverty and illiteracy is the problem of classism and bigotry, no more no less, and we deal with it by working against the ideas that both poverty and lack of education are a reflection of individual worth.

Illiteracy isn't a problem of intelligence, it's a problem of education, and that matters because education is not inherent. it's something that has to be provided and maintained by parents, by the state, by the community. you're not born educated. you are educated. except more than a quarter of the Scottish population isn't educated, because the system doesn't give a fuck about them and actively excludes them or accidentally leaves them behind.

[fallowhearth]

Lately I've been hit with the gender feelings, that I'd kind of bundled up and shoved behind the couch approximately 20 years ago. It's... I just don't know what to do about it. Apart from, I guess, shoving them back behind the couch and hoping they get lost there.

The feelings are so inextricably tied up with my body, which seems to complicate things. I've in a sense been trying to make the best of bad raw material my whole life. (At least that's how I've understood it.) I've gotten to a place where I feel... Ok... With what I've made. Now the thing I worry about is, would changing my body to be [different gender] make me feel worse? Since my body will always be a compromise, would it be a version of that compromise that I like even less? I don't know.

I know the obvious rejoinder is the kind of "you can just be [other gender]" argument of complete free for all, gender is a construct, you don't have to do anything to be who you say you are. And yeah, that's great, I agree, but the thought of just saying "I'm [different gender]" to people (and having them accept it, because I have good friends) actually makes me feel horrible? Like it would just emphasise how much I actually am not [different gender], to me. And I feel on some level this is kind of a moral failure, like it's meant to be that easy and if it's not, it's my fault.

It has nothing to do with other people - anyone else who is able to go about things that way, I have no issue with. It feels weird even having an opinion on other people's lives, like I'm literally so uninvolved why would I even need to approve of their gender or whatever, I'll just take whatever they say about themselves on faith.

The fact that my feelings are so rooted in the physical, rather than the social realm, also kind of crystallises why a lot of the body positivity messages floating around have never landed with me. It's been a kind of thorn in my psyche, the idea that my acceptance and appreciation of various body types on other people, but inability to extend that to myself, was again a kind of moral failure - but I suppose it makes sense if there was something else there. Some other kind of wrongness that I was feeling, unrelated.

I'm also ruminating on the idea that I wish I'd been exposed to these possibilities as a child or a teenager; I didn't even know trans people existed or that gender was a thing people had complicated feelings about. I had no language or community around it. The 90s were a different world, at least where I was. And I'm an adult now, with a professional career and all that. I know people who have transitioned at even older ages than I am now, and it was absolutely worth it for them, but it's hard in many ways still.

And being an autistic person, it's like could I be even more of a stereotype? Ooh, the autistic person has gender feelings! What a surprise...

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Religious Trauma Syndrome: How Some Organized Religion Leads to Mental Health Problems

By Valerie Tarico

Marlene Winell interviewed March 25, 2013

At age sixteen I began what would be a four year struggle with bulimia. When the symptoms started, I turned in desperation to adults who knew more than I did about how to stop shameful behavior—my Bible study leader and a visiting youth minister.  “If you ask anything in faith, believing,” they said. “It will be done.” I knew they were quoting [3] the Word of God. We prayed together, and I went home confident that God had heard my prayers. But my horrible compulsions didn’t go away. By the fall of my sophomore year in college, I was desperate and depressed enough that I made a suicide attempt. The problem wasn’t just the bulimia. I was convinced by then that I was a complete spiritual failure. My college counseling department had offered to get me real help (which they later did). But to my mind, at that point, such help couldn’t fix the core problem: I was a failure in the eyes of God. It would be years before I understood that my inability to heal bulimia through the mechanisms offered by biblical Christianity was not a function of my own spiritual deficiency but deficiencies in Evangelical religion itself.  

Dr. Marlene Winell is a human development consultant in the San Francisco Area. She is also the daughter of Pentecostal missionaries. This combination has given her work an unusual focus. For the past twenty years she has counseled men and women in recovery from various forms of fundamentalist religion including the Assemblies of God denomination in which she was raised. Winell is the author of Leaving the Fold – A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving their Religion [4], written during her years of private practice in psychology. Over the years, Winell has provided assistance to clients whose religious experiences were even more damaging than mine. Some of them are people whose psychological symptoms weren’t just exacerbated by their religion, but actually caused by it.  

Two years ago, Winell made waves by formally labeling what she calls “Religious Trauma Syndrome” (RTS) and beginning to write and speak on the subject for professional audiences. When the British Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Psychologists published a series of articles on the topic, members of a Christian counseling association protested what they called excessive attention to a “relatively niche topic.” One commenter said, “A religion, faith or book cannot be abuse but the people interpreting can make anything abusive.”

Is toxic religion simply misinterpretation? What is religious trauma? Why does Winell believe religious trauma merits its own diagnostic label?

Let’s start this interview with the basics. What exactly is religious trauma syndrome?

Winell: Religious trauma syndrome (RTS) is a set of symptoms and characteristics that tend to go together and which are related to harmful experiences with religion. They are the result of two things: immersion in a controlling religion and the secondary impact of leaving a religious group. The RTS label provides a name and description that affected people often recognize immediately. Many other people are surprised by the idea of RTS, because in our culture it is generally assumed that religion is benign or good for you. Just like telling kids about Santa Claus and letting them work out their beliefs later, people see no harm in teaching religion to children.

But in reality, religious teachings and practices sometimes cause serious mental health damage. The public is somewhat familiar with sexual and physical abuse in a religious context. As Journalist Janet Heimlich has documented in, Breaking Their Will, Bible-based religious groups that emphasize patriarchal authority in family structure and use harsh parenting methods can be destructive.

But the problem isn’t just physical and sexual abuse. Emotional and mental treatment in authoritarian religious groups also can be damaging because of 1) toxic teachings like eternal damnation or original sin 2) religious practices or mindset, such as punishment, black and white thinking, or sexual guilt, and 3) neglect that prevents a person from having the information or opportunities to develop normally.

Can you give me an example of RTS from your consulting practice?

Winell: I can give you many. One of the symptom clusters is around fear and anxiety. People indoctrinated into fundamentalist Christianity as small children sometimes have memories of being terrified by images of hell and apocalypse before their brains could begin to make sense of such ideas. Some survivors, who I prefer to call “reclaimers,” [8] have flashbacks, panic attacks, or nightmares in adulthood even when they intellectually no longer believe the theology. One client of mine, who during the day functioned well as a professional, struggled with intense fear many nights. She said,

“I was afraid I was going to hell. I was afraid I was doing something really wrong. I was completely out of control. I sometimes would wake up in the night and start screaming, thrashing my arms, trying to rid myself of what I was feeling. I’d walk around the house trying to think and calm myself down, in the middle of the night, trying to do some self-talk, but I felt like it was just something that – the fear and anxiety was taking over my life.” Or consider this comment, which refers to a film [9] used by evangelicals to warn about the horrors of the “end times” for nonbelievers.

“I was taken to see the film “A Thief In The Night”. WOW.  I am in shock to learn that many other people suffered the same traumas I lived with because of this film. A few days or weeks after the film viewing, I came into the house and mom wasn’t there. I stood there screaming in terror. When I stopped screaming, I began making my plan: Who my Christian neighbors were, who’s house to break into to get money and food. I was 12 years old and was preparing for Armageddon alone.”

In addition to anxiety, RTS can include depression, cognitive difficulties, and problems with social functioning. In fundamentalist Christianity, the individual is considered depraved and in need of salvation. A core message is “You are bad and wrong and deserve to die.” (The wages of sin is death [10].) This gets taught to millions of children through organizations like Child Evangelism Fellowship [11] and there is a group organized [12]  to oppose their incursion into public schools.  I’ve had clients who remember being distraught when given a vivid bloody image of Jesus paying the ultimate price for their sins. Decades later they sit telling me that they can’t manage to find any self-worth.

“After twenty-seven years of trying to live a perfect life, I failed. . . I was ashamed of myself all day long. My mind battling with itself with no relief. . . I always believed everything that I was taught but I thought that I was not approved by God. I thought that basically I, too, would die at Armageddon.

“I’ve spent literally years injuring myself, cutting and burning my arms, taking overdoses and starving myself, to punish myself so that God doesn’t have to punish me. It’s taken me years to feel deserving of anything good.”

Born-again Christianity and devout Catholicism [13] tell people they are weak and dependent, calling on phrases like “lean not unto your own understanding [14]” or “trust and obey [11].” People who internalize these messages can suffer from learned helplessness. I’ll give you an example from a client who had little decision-making ability after living his entire life devoted to following the “will of God.” The words here don’t convey the depth of his despair.

“I have an awful time making decisions in general. Like I can’t, you know, wake up in the morning, “What am I going to do today?” Like I don’t even know where to start. You know all the things I thought I might be doing are gone and I’m not sure I should even try to have a career; essentially I babysit my four-year-old all day.”

Authoritarian religious groups are subcultures where conformity is required in order to belong. Thus if you dare to leave the religion, you risk losing your entire support system as well.

“I lost all my friends. I lost my close ties to family. Now I’m losing my country. I’ve lost so much because of this malignant religion and I am angry and sad to my very core. . . I have tried hard to make new friends, but I have failed miserably. . . I am very lonely.”

Leaving a religion, after total immersion, can cause a complete upheaval of a person’s construction of reality, including the self, other people, life, and the future. People unfamiliar with this situation, including therapists, have trouble appreciating the sheer terror it can create.

“My form of religion was very strongly entrenched and anchored deeply in my heart. It is hard to describe how fully my religion informed, infused, and influenced my entire worldview. My first steps out of fundamentalism were profoundly frightening and I had frequent thoughts of suicide. Now I’m way past that but I still haven’t quite found “my place in the universe.”

Even for a person who was not so entrenched, leaving one’s religion can be a stressful and significant transition.

Many people seem to walk away from their religion easily, without really looking back. What is different about the clientele you work with?

Winell: Religious groups that are highly controlling, teach fear about the world, and keep members sheltered and ill-equipped to function in society are harder to leave easily. The difficulty seems to be greater if the person was born and raised in the religion rather than joining as an adult convert. This is because they have no frame of reference – no other “self” or way of “being in the world.” A common personality type is a person who is deeply emotional and thoughtful and who tends to throw themselves wholeheartedly into their endeavors. “True believers” who then lose their faith feel more anger and depression and grief than those who simply went to church on Sunday.

Aren’t these just people who would be depressed, anxious, or obsessive anyways?

Winell: Not at all. If my observation is correct, these are people who are intense and involved and caring. They hang on to the religion longer than those who simply “walk away” because they try to make it work even when they have doubts. Sometimes this is out of fear, but often it is out of devotion. These are people for whom ethics, integrity and compassion matter a great deal. I find that when they get better and rebuild their lives, they are wonderfully creative and energetic about new things.

In your mind, how is RTS different from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?

Winell: RTS is a specific set of symptoms and characteristics that are connected with harmful religious experience, not just any trauma. This is crucial to understanding the condition and any kind of self-help or treatment. (More details about this can be found on my Journey Free [15] website and discussed in my talk [16] at the Texas Freethought Convention.)

Another difference is the social context, which is extremely different from other traumas or forms of abuse. When someone is recovering from domestic abuse, for example, other people understand and support the need to leave and recover. They don’t question it as a matter of interpretation, and they don’t send the person back for more. But this is exactly what happens to many former believers who seek counseling. If a provider doesn’t understand the source of the symptoms, he or she may send a client for pastoral counseling, or to AA, or even to another church. One reclaimer expressed her frustration this way:

“Include physically-abusive parents who quote “Spare the rod and spoil the child” as literally as you can imagine and you have one fucked-up soul: an unloved, rejected, traumatized toddler in the body of an adult. I’m simply a broken spirit in an empty shell. But wait...That’s not enough!? There’s also the expectation by everyone in society that we victims should celebrate this with our perpetrators every Christmas and Easter!!”

Just like disorders such as autism or bulimia, giving RTS a real name has important advantages. People who are suffering find that having a label for their experience helps them feel less alone and guilty. Some have written to me to express their relief:

“There’s actually a name for it! I was brainwashed from birth and wasted 25 years of my life serving Him! I’ve since been out of my religion for several years now, but I cannot shake the haunting fear of hell and feel absolutely doomed. I’m now socially inept, unemployable, and the only way I can have sex is to pay for it.”

Labeling RTS encourages professionals to study it more carefully, develop treatments, and offer training. Hopefully, we can even work on prevention.

What do you see as the difference between religion that causes trauma and religion that doesn’t?

Winell: Religion causes trauma when it is highly controlling and prevents people from thinking for themselves and trusting their own feelings. Groups that demand obedience and conformity produce fear, not love and growth. With constant judgment of self and others, people become alienated from themselves, each other, and the world. Religion in its worst forms causes separation.

Conversely, groups that connect people and promote self-knowledge and personal growth can be said to be healthy. The book, Healthy Religion [17], describes these traits. Such groups put high value on respecting differences, and members feel empowered as individuals.  They provide social support, a place for events and rites of passage, exchange of ideas, inspiration, opportunities for service, and connection to social causes. They encourage spiritual practices that promote health like meditation or principles for living like the golden rule. More and more, non-theists are asking [18] how they can create similar spiritual communities without the supernaturalism. An atheist congregation [19] in London launched this year and has received over 200 inquiries from people wanting to replicate their model.

Some people say that terms like “recovery from religion” and “religious trauma syndrome” are just atheist attempts to pathologize religious belief.

Winell: Mental health professionals have enough to do without going out looking for new pathology. I never set out looking for a “niche topic,” and certainly not religious trauma syndrome. I originally wrote a paper for a conference of the American Psychological Association and thought that would be the end of it. Since then, I have tried to move on to other things several times, but this work has simply grown.

In my opinion, we are simply, as a culture, becoming aware of religious trauma. More and more people are leaving religion, as seen by polls [20] showing that the “religiously unaffiliated” have increased in the last five years from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. It’s no wonder the internet is exploding with websites for former believers from all religions, providing forums [21] for people to support each other. The huge population of people “leaving the fold” includes a subset at risk for RTS, and more people are talking about it and seeking help.  For example, there are thousands of former Mormons [22], and I was asked to speak about RTS at an Exmormon Foundation conference.  I facilitate an international support group online called Release and Reclaim [23]  which has monthly conference calls. An organization called Recovery from Religion, [24] helps people start self-help meet-up groups

Saying that someone is trying to pathologize authoritarian religion is like saying someone pathologized eating disorders by naming them. Before that, they were healthy? No, before that we weren’t noticing. People were suffering, thought they were alone, and blamed themselves.  Professionals had no awareness or training. This is the situation of RTS today. Authoritarian religion is already pathological, and leaving a high-control group can be traumatic. People are already suffering. They need to be recognized and helped. _______________________________

Statistics update:

Numbers of American ‘nones’ continues to rise

October 18, 2019

By David Crary – Associated Press

The portion of Americans with no religious affiliation is rising significantly, in tandem with a sharp drop in the percentage that identifies as Christians, according to new data from the Pew Research Center. …

Pew says all categories of the religiously unaffiliated population – often referred to as the “nones” grew in magnitude. Self-described atheists now account for 4% of U.S. adults, up from 2% in 2009; agnostics account for 5%, up from 3% a decade ago; and 17% of Americans now describe their religion as “nothing in particular,” up from 12% in 2009.

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2019/1018/Numbers-of-American-nones-continues-to-rise

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Marlene Winell interviewed by Valerie Tarico on recovering from religious trauma Uploaded on January 31, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIfABmbqSMA

24:12

On Moral Politics, a TV program with host Dr. Valerie Tarico, Marlene Winell describes the trauma that can result from harmful experiences with religious indoctrination. Dr. Winell explains that mental health issues are widespread and need to be understood just as we understand PTSD. There are steps to recovery, treatment modalities, and resources available as well. She now refers to this as RTS or Religious Trauma Syndrome. _______________________________

Links:
 
[3] https://www.biblestudyonjesuschrist.com/pog/ask1.htm 
[4] https://marlenewinell.net/leaving-fold-former 
[8] https://journeyfree.org/article/reclaimers/ 
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thief_in_the_Night_%28film%29 
[10] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+6%3A23&version=KJV 
[11] https://valerietarico.com/2011/02/04/our-public-schools-their-mission-field/ 
[12] http://www.intrinsicdignity.com/ 
[13] https://www.maryjohnson.co/an-unquenchable-thirst/ 
[14] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+3%3A5-6&version=KJV [15] https://journeyfree.org/category/uncategorized/ [16] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qrE4pMBlis 
[17] https://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Religion-Psychological-Guide-Mature/dp/1425924166 [18] https://www.humanistchaplaincy.org/ [19] https://www.christianpost.com/news/london-atheist-church-model-looking-to-expand-worldwide-91516 [20] https://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/ 
[21] https://new.exchristian.net/ 
[22] https://www.exmormon.org/ 
[23] https://journeyfree.org/group-forum/ [24] https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/

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Get God’s Self-Appointed Messengers Out of Your Head

Valerie Tarico Which buzz phrases from your past are stuck in your brain? “God’s messengers” were all real complicated people with biases, blind spots, favorite foods and morning breath. They were not gods and they are not you. So how can you get them out of your head or at least reduce them to muffled background noise?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElfyYA420F0

[unwelcome-ozian]

Hey Oz, hope this ask finds you well. What are the subtle signs you might've been programmed/experienced ritual abuse? Everything online seems to give overt examples...

Child believes he or she is evil or causes others to be evil Mistrust of others outside the group Strong fear of God Overly obedient or perfectionistic Strong feelings of shame or guilt Programmed statements or behaviors Sleep problems or nightmares

I did my best with identifying the trauma responses that are looked for in ritual abuse/programming. Trauma responses are important for those around the child/person to monitor who are doing the abuse/programming. The responses are normal responses to trauma. What the cult attempts to do is teach the survivors to cover their responses to blend in to society. The ritual abuse warning signs are shrouded by the trauma signs.

Symptoms of R.A. in children: 0-3 Excessive fear (i.e. separation from the care giver, of the dark) Sleeping issues Failure to thrive Feeding issues /difficulty swallowing

Children with DID are much more likely to develop imaginary friends at a younger age (two or three years old), and often have more of them. These friends seem very real to the child with a great deal of reality confusion and persistent impersonation. The imaginary friend does not always “act” in the best interest of the child. And, the child may be truly unable to remember misbehaviours, blaming it on the imaginary friend.

Children 3-9 Fear of specific things: people, places objects Refusing to talk about fears Nightmares difficulty sleeping Trouble eating changes in appetite food aversion Excessive shame/shame based behavior Behavior regression Body shame begins Attachment issues Difficulty walking Fearful of specific days Sexualized behavior with ritual themes Hiding Self preservation begins Passive response to difficult situations Confusion due to not knowing where to find protection Concrete triggers/verbal and visual cues Playing reenactment Heightened gag reflex Fear of religious symbols (crosses, Jesus, crucifixes, colors, and numbers 777) Talking about people in masks Talking about people in robes Use of ritual phrases in play (love is a lie that binds and ties) Ritual phrases with children will sound like rhymes

Common signs are frequent trance-like states (“spacing out” or daydreaming), as well as the child reporting that people often become angry or upset with them for unknown reasons. Or, the child shows dramatic changes in preferences, such as food, games, or clothes, as well as changes in language, accent, or even voice or handwriting style. The child may experience recurrent periods of amnesia or missing blocks of time, such as having no memory of the previous day, which may include denying behaviours that others have personally witnessed the child do. These could be negative behaviors, but may also include behaviours that the child would appear to have little motivation to deny. Additional common signs in children with DID are having an imaginary friend well into school-age, as well as unprovoked rages and violent behaviour that may seem to come out of nowhere.

9-13 Depression Nightmares Excessive masturbation/sexualized behavior Eating disorders/ food aversion Suicidal thoughts and gestures Poor social skills Overly attached/clingy Cutting/burning Resists removing clothes at appropriate times/layering of clothing Emotional shutdown Hiding Apathetic world view Re-enactment behavior as coping skills (drinking blood, pinning people down in specific ways during “play”) Fear of high days when it begins to get dark. (Normal behavior during the day.) Talk of people in masks Bible verses are misquoted (Jesus says suffer the children) They may talk about things inside them that are “watching them.” No spiritual identity when asked Secretive about where family/people they are with spend their time. Absent from school after high days (most people don’t know the high days so they wouldn’t suspect)

13-18 Thinks of body as dirty/repulsive bad Difficulty regulating emotions No sense of safety/attempts at safety are misguided Interpersonal relationships difficulty due to trauma response Distorted worldview Impulsive and compulsive behavior related to the abuse and to avoid the abuse Attempting to stay the night at a friends house on a high day (knowing they won’t be allowed) Self harm will involve symbols of the cult/occult Reenactment of the trauma to gain control. (May present as roll playing. People will think they are morbid with an active imagination)

Adulthood Fear of intimacy Flashbacks Body memories Fear of being in a circle or group of people standing in a circle Aversion to certain meats Fear of basement small rooms Body memories

Any age artwork depicting grids, graves, cyclonic shapes, doodles of circles, occult symbols, people in robes( purple, red, black) masks, bonfires, distorted drawings of Jesus and other spiritual figures and items.

Oz