#correlation is not causation

[crankydevon]

Selection bias is the bias introduced by the selection of individuals, groups, or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved, thereby failing to ensure that the sample obtained is representative of the population intended to be analyzed. (wikipedia)

something that should be taken with a grain of salt are the statistics talking about the high rates of mental illness + neurodivergence among trans people (ocd, bpd, adhd, autism, etc)

I see both sides of the political spectrum taking these studies at face value - conservatives say we're broken, and trans people try to come up with reasons why for example autism + gender dysphoria makes sense and why one of them feeds into another

at the end of the day you have to remember that we're the one category of people on this planet who are legally required to go see a psychiatrist in order to receive non-psychiatric medication and surgeries.

more trans people are in therapy by law than any other demographic of people, and as a result, this captures more comorbidities.

if I had to look at my own family & rates of mental illness?

mom, dad, 2 maternal aunts, maternal grandmother, paternal grandmother, sister, sibling, and me all have OCD.

7/9 of them are cishet, never been to therapy, never diagnosed. 2/9 are trans, required therapy for hormone treatment, and were diagnosed.

you don't have to do any math to just see that the resulting statistics end up intensely skewed.

and we can think back to how autism was virtually never diagnosed more than 50 years ago - ruling out any grandparents being included in statistics - and even my parents' generation (they're in their 60s now) wouldn't have been included either.

I don't think it's to anyone's benefit to accept these studies uncritically. a lot of these things are hereditary and far more prevalent in the overall population than people realize

[partywithponies]

Parents will be like "my child was well behaved until they got old enough to pay attention to [insert cartoon character here] and now they're disobedient and argumentative, ban this show 🤬" my siblings in christ that's called. Turning 3. Your child turned 3 and is now behaving like a 3 year old. I promise it's not Peppa Pig's fault your child learned to say no and ask why.

[your-average-teenage-mess]

It's really funny to me whatever people tell you stuff like "playing classical music to babies was proven to be correlated with them becoming more successful in life" or "people with aspd are statistically more likely to enjoy listening to hip-hop", as if they just found the ultimate lifehack by applying buzzfeed logic to real people. Like... I don't doubt that there's likey to be a correlation, but there IS a simpler explanation for it than the one you're thinking about.

[nacricissa]

Explaining why singers conceive faster

I now have the lore (I am reading through the illustrated guide) and would like to do more Vampire Biology.

It is noted in the Guide that Joham "had noticed that the more appealing an individual woman smelled to him, the more likely she was to conceive quickly." pg294

I can explain this.

Some people think it strange that such a thing would occur. Surely, it would be evolutionarily favoured to promote reproduction by enabling sex with potentially fertile partners, if such a thing were in fact detectible to vampires. However, sex is not the primary method of vampire reproduction. In fact, the continued existence of vampires is disfavored by sex, because it requires such careful control of bloodlust. This control makes it significantly less likely that the vampire would accidentally turn a human, in the way Carlisle was turned, and thus any mutations that favored such control would be less likely to propagate.

Anyhow, this explains why it would not be evolutionarily favoured to make sexually compatible partners less appealing than others, but not why the opposite might be true. The answer, I believe, is immunological.

Vampirism is a retrovirus. It is a condition, spread through fluid, which cannot reproduce without a living host and which inserts DNA into that living host. It is not specified if it's actually a virus, in the sense that it is unclear if venom contains actual virus particles, however, this would explain how vampire bodies have "venom-like" fluid throughout them; they have venom with the virions removed, thus those substances are not infectious.

Now, since we know that vampire sperm contains some, but not all, of the viral DNA (since hybrids exhibit vampire traits but clearly the egg is not infected in the same way vampires are or it would never be able to develop), it is reasonable to assume that the single copy of the extra vampiric chromosomes is having some effect on the presentation of the sperm cell. This could mean that some viral proteins are expressed by the sperm.

If this is the case, the female's immune system would pick them up, triggering chain reactions that notice pathogens. However, if the cells were more similar to the female's, fewer of those defenses would be triggered, as your body trains it's immune system not to recognize itself.

This is not normally as relevant when fertilization is possible, because the more discriminating parts of the immune system are suppressed when the body expects foreign material (sperm, then maybe a baby) to be present. However, this window is based around the life expectancy of human sperm, which is not very long. If we are assuming the sperm cells are presenting enough vampiric traits to be recognized as a pathogen, it is quite likely that they would be more able to survive the harsh environment of the vagina for longer than human sperm, leaving a larger window where fertilization is possible. This would mean that for two partners having regular sex, more of the vampire's sperm would be in the fallopian tubes when the egg passes, increasing the likelihood of fertilization, if the vampire's sperm was presenting more cellular structures that closely resembled those of the female.

This still doesn't explain the smelling good thing. That one is pretty simple though. Things tend to smell good if they are good for you. This has been somewhat broken as a heuristic by humans' ability to manufacture taste as a separate thing from nutrition, through cooking and chemical synthesis, but in general, the reason a corpse stinks is because it's really hazardous for you to eat it, and so on. This would indicate that singers, which we established above are people more biologically similar to the vampire, are more nutritionally advantageous. This makes sense. Vampires have no digestive tract, no way of processing and extracting nutrients from varied food sources. This is why they cannot eat food, they must consume blood. This would indicate that biologically similar structures are more accessible to the vampire, in terms of nutrition, that the more similar parts can better be incorporated into their bodies. They don't have a method of disposing of waste, so particles unfamiliar to the vampire would simply be used, but less efficiently.

[emptyheadgamer]

[imkeepinit]

[therighthandofvengeance]

[alilloserboy]

Taking psychology really helps you discern what on this website here is total bullshit, grounded in truth, or plain facts. (Hint hint; a lot of it makes no fucking sense)

[necromanticowboy]

It’s not that homeschooling makes kids freaks. It’s more that freaks end up homeschooled.

Like I’ve met a lot of well adjusted homeschoolers and a lot of fucking weirdo homeschoolers and I shit you not the biggest indicator was their parents.

[herssian]

“video games make you violent” final fantasy xiv zenos yae galvus grew up with no video games and look how that turned out

[prokopetz]

1983, the year that Star Wars Episode VI – Return of the Jedi was released, also saw the release of no less than three films adapted from the work of Stephen King: Christine, Cujo, and The Dead Zone. At the time, this was the largest number of Stephen King films released in a single year.

This record would stand until 2017, when it was exceeded by four Stephen King films in a single year: 1922, The Dark Tower, Gerald's Game, and It Chapter One. 2017 also saw the release of Star Wars Episode VIII – The Last Jedi.

As we all know, correlation implies causation, which raises a very important question: do Stephen King movies cause films whose titles contain the word "Jedi", or do films whose titles contain the word "Jedi" cause Stephen King movies?

[heckyeahponyscans]

Happy Fakie Friday! Today I'd like to talk about my personal definition of what makes a toy a "fakie", as I've had people bridle (hee hee) at some of my Fakie Friday picks in the past.

First, let's talk about what doesn't define a fakie.

A fakie doesn't have to be a bootleg (though they can be).

A fakie doesn't have to be made by an unknown, fly-by-night company. Remco was founded in 1949, Buddy L's toy division was founded in 1921.

A fakie doesn't have to have incomprehensible or poorly designed packaging.

A fakie doesn't have to be a poor quality or poorly thought out toy.

Okay, so what IS a fakie?

Fakies aren't about non-Hasbro horse toys being "bad" and Hasbro horse toys being "good"; it's about how impactful the My Little Pony brand is. Even in the years where the toyline was completely dormant, your average joe would look at a rainbow horse with a heart on its bum and think "My Little Pony."

^ This horse in Hercules isn't proportioned like a MLP at all but in the Year of Our Lord 1997 everyone was talking about "the scene where Pegasus was almost seduced by a My Little Pony." (Though the pink horse was actually the bad guys in disguise.)

I love fakies! But no matter how innovative and high quality are, they cannot escape being compared to the platonic ideal: a Real My Little Pony.

So here is my ultimate test of whether a toy horse is a fakie:

Throw away its packaging. Lose all its accessories. Toss it in a baggie with random small toys and hang it on a hook in Savers, Value Village, or Goodwill.

If your elderly relative who knows nothing about toys points out the baggie and says to you, the collector: "Oh, here's one with a My Little Pony in it", then it's a fakie. ;)

[ellycrys]

Huh.

That’s…

A lovely synchronicity if you’re a Good Omens fan.

Maybe we misheard Crowley and he was actually saying…

Listen, new nightingales.

Or… we collectively wished a new nightingale into existence?

welcome slaty-backed nightingale-thrush!

[adhdbisexualramblings]

Cringe culture is dead. Introducing … Regressor Bill Cipher headcanons!

(May contain TBoB spoilers)

Vent regressor flag and general age regression flag (couldn’t find the source, but is that really needed?)

(Regressing while drunk, general unhappy/vent regression, unhealthy coping, mentions of a psych ward (Theraprism), panic attacks, memory issues, Bill-typical violence (non-graphic))

-I hesitate to call it regression. Being a demon with no technical physical form, and also unfamiliar with human customs, he’s not a typical regressor at all. It’s also due to the fact that Bill doesn’t allow himself to feel things and the blurriness tied to his childhood memories.

-When he’s feeling mentally “smaller”, his triangle form will shrink to accommodate.

-Sleep comes to him easier when he’s small. Bill loathes it.

-Point blank, Bill’s regression is a 80/20 split from angry to sad.

-I do mean angry. You thought his usual pettiness and emotional issues were bad? They’re heightened by ten. He hasn’t caused universe-destroying incidents yet, though.

-Bill being regressed rarely ever impedes on his ability to harm others. He’s gotten very good at ‘separating himself’ from it. Though his deal-making is often sloppy.

-Dissociation. That’s it, that’s the note.

-Thankfully for everyone around Bill and himself, his fits - and regression as a whole - only last a few hours. He’s never regressed for a day, though he has regressed multiple times in a short span of time.

-His speech stays mostly intact, but he can slip up and use more childish phrases or demands.

-He still really loves silly straws.

-He tends to regress more than usual when drunk. Bill will absolutely whine and sob and cling to the ‘safest’ person. He regressed (mostly) after his and Ford’s “breakup.”

-The Henchmaniacs have many times been concerned by this.

-If Bill, for once, thinks he needs to regress, he’ll chug a lot of alcohol to ‘do the trick.’

-He gets scared of his own fire powers. Goes into panic mode if he sees any flame at all, really.

-Doesn’t think he needs or wants a caregiver, which is true sixty percent (60%) of the time.

-Calling him “Billy” will either make him attach himself to you or try to kill you, no in-between.

-Bill has memory gaps. He gets confused as to what part of his life he’s experiencing and it’s caused him a great deal of stress.

-Almost all of the Henchmaniacs (usually Pyronica) have had to listen to him cry. Bill never manages to tell them what he’s crying about.

-“I wanna go home.”

“…I thought we already were home, boss?”

“NO!” *cue tantrum*

-Ford managed to unintentionally make him positively regress once. Bill had no clue what to do with this information and shoved it away.

-Even if you know him very well, he hides his regression exceptionally and you’d be unable to tell ninety-nine percent (99%) of the time.

-The Theraprism isn’t ill-equipped to help regressors, but Bill never lets them. He refuses to take the medicine even with the silly straw and has had multiple panic attacks and resorted to attempted murder at the prospect. The staff will leave him to his own devices if it’s a particularly bad day.

-Bill draws lots of red and blue triangles on the bad days.

-His regression has never once been happy or enjoyable. That he can remember, at least.

-The Axolotl was his caregiver at some point, however. A long time ago, when they were friends. Rarely ever did the two meet, but Bill was genuinely the happiest when he was small with the Axolotl.

[demilypyro]

I actually wrote an essay on this in college. Fallout New Vegas has strong themes of anti-authoritarianism and self-determination, as well as the misuse of technology. And as we all know, trans women are predominantly radical-left tech nerds. Combine this with a game design that focuses heavily on self-expression and roleplay, and you'll attract trans women like fruitflies to a big juicy grapefruit.

[yamada-ryo]

becoming green on shinigami eyes made me start hrt