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wlw-webcomic-bracket · 2 months ago

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In my professional life offline, I work with community development programs funded by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). One of the most important of these programs is the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, or “HOME” (not an acronym for some reason). In the last couple years, my office has contributed HOME funding to construction of around 400 new apartment units reserved for low-income families, plus conversion of a former hotel to single-resident occupancy units for people exiting homelessness and security deposit assistance for renters moving into market-rate units. I have a secondary role in the HOME program (most of my work is on a different grant, although I’ve contributed to the environmental reviews for all of our current round of projects), but I am immensely proud of what our team has done with a limited resource in a horrifically expensive housing market.

In 2023, House Republicans proposed cutting HUD’s 2024 budget for the HOME program by 67%, from $1.5 billion to $500 million.

Their proposal didn’t make it into the final bill. The President and Senate (under Democratic leadership) proposed HOME budgets of $1.8 billion and $1.5 billion, respectively. The final compromise budget allocated HUD $1.25 billion for the HOME program, a 17% cut which was passed down to every local HOME jurisdiction.

I’m glad the budget cuts weren’t worse. But what this means, in practical terms, is that one out of every six people we could have helped this year gets nothing. One out of every six people who would have received rent assistance is facing eviction. One out of every six people that would have received an affordable unit priced at 30% of their income has to keep giving 50% or more of their paycheck to market-rate landlords. We’re doing what we can with local resources, but there’s only so much you can do at the local level when federal funding goes away.

House Republicans are trying to reduce HOME funding to just $500 million again in 2025. So far, the Senate has rejected this, but barring a miracle upset, Democrats are almost certain to lose control of the Senate after next week’s election. If Republicans keep control of the House, and especially if they keep the House and win the Presidency, there is nothing stopping them from gutting housing programs completely.

I understand why people are frustrated with our choices this election. I am frustrated with our choices this election. But at the end of the day, I have a duty to my community. With Democrats in office, I can keep fulfilling that duty. With Republicans in office, I will lose the best tools I have to make a material difference to the vulnerable people who live around me. The people I serve will lose their housing, or they will lose their best path out of homelessness. There is no way around it.

Please, give me the tools to keep helping. Vote for Democrats up and down ballot, and once we’ve got them in office, thank them for doing what they do well and pressure the hell out of them to do better on the issues where they suck.

Because of gerrymandering (and geographic issues in general), control of the House will probably come down to just a few dozen races. I’m not endorsing any of these candidates on a personal level - some of them are probably good, some of them definitely suck - but they are the only bulwark we have against a party that wants to dismantle everything good about this country and lean into all the most shameful parts of our history. Every election matters, but if you live in one of these House districts, your vote is particularly important:

Alaska: AK-01 Mary Pelolta

Arizona: AZ-01 Amish Shah, AZ-06 Kirsten Engel

California: CA-13 Adam Gray, CA-22 Rudy Salas, CA-27 George Whitesides, CA-41 Will Rollins, CA-45 Derek Tran, CA-47 Dave Min

Colorado: CO-03 Adam Frisch, CO-08 Yadira Caraveo

Connecticut: CT-05 Jahana Hayes

Indiana: IN-01 Frank Mrvan

Iowa: IA-01 Christina Bohannan, IA-03 Lanon Baccam

Maine: ME-02 Jared Golden

Michigan: MI-07 Curtis Hertel Jr., MI-08 Kristen McDonald Rivet, MI-10 Carl Marlinga

Minnesota: MN-02 Angie Craig

Montana: MT-01 Monica Tranel

Nebraska: NE-02 Tony Vargas

New Jersey: NJ-07 Sue Altman

New Mexico: NM-02 Gabe Vasquez

New York: NY-04 Laura Gillen, NY-17 Mondaire Jones, NY-19 Josh Riley, NY-22 John Mannion

North Carolina: NC-01 Don Davis

Ohio: OH-09 Marcy Kaptur, OH-13 Emilia Sykes

Oregon: OR-05 Janelle Bynum

Pennsylvania: PA-07 Susan Wild, PA-08 Matt Cartwright, PA-10 Janelle Stelson

Texas: TX-34 Vicente Gonzalez

Virginia: VA-02 Missy Cotter Smasal, VA-07 Eugene Vindman

Washington: WA-03 Marie Gluesenkamp Perez

Wisconsin: WI-03 Rebecca Cooke

#I’m sorry for the long post especially for my non-US followers #or anyone who can’t vote for any reason #but this is so fucking important #this is one of a million different ways that the government works that are invisible to most people #but life-saving to the people who are impacted #and Republicans want to dismantle all of them #we fight back where we can in whatever ways we can #this election is one of the ways that we fight #and it’s one of the ways that we can make that fight easier for ourselves for the next two years #so please vote. please encourage other like-minded people to vote. please volunteer to help people vote if that’s something you can do #this election is how we live to fight another day #and regardless of how it goes I look forward to fighting alongside you in whatever form our personal contributions may be <3

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not-poignant · 2 years ago

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Techniques for writing a bad drug trip:

We're going to be using excerpts from one of my own chapters here from my story Eversion to discuss the kind of writing techniques that will help make a bad drug trip more believable. In context, the character Connor has nonconsensually been given a synthetic made-up highball of drugs that gives him a horrible time, and this does not accurately reflect what bad drug trips look like across all drugs, for example sometimes throwing up on ayahuasca is a feature, and not a bug. What I'll be focusing on instead are the actual narrative techniques that indicate an affected mind and body vs. specific technques for specific drugs.

Beginning Stages:

Firstly, pre-bad-trip, it's useful to depict your character beforehand as being fully - or as close to fully lucid as possible. Have them realising things, actively thinking, describing their surroundings, and doing things in a kind of logical way - show them doing something mundane even, like walking into a room, or a cafe. In this case, Connor walks into a cafe, describes the cafe, makes some mental notes and then has a lucid conversation.

Next, most of the time any drug gives you physical symptoms even before the bad trip part, so describe those. In this case:

Seconds later Connor’s heart began to race

The needle slid free and Connor hardly felt it.

He stumbled over nothing as he passed the group of cyclists, staring at them as his heart beat harder and harder, as sweat broke out over his forehead.

At this point in the story, another character takes over, the person who gives him the highball picks up the conversation because Connor is overwhelmed by the physical sensations and doesn't feel like talking. He stops thinking about his environment accurately and starts to notice things while dropping others. His thoughts are already being affected.

This is when you can start using techniques like time skipping, forgetfulness, memory loss, or alternatively focusing on one thing a lot and a lot of other things a little.

Connor nodded, thinking that he needed to get away, that he needed to go somewhere. He reached for his phone, but it wasn’t there. Where was his phone? His vision slanted, time slipped away from him. He was beneath a tree, throwing up while Gabriel petted his shoulder and waited beside him.

Here we have a strong time skip - Connor goes from looking for his phone, in the next paragraph he's throwing up by a tree. This progression of events has no logic, except for the bad drug trip. Which means we now know Connor is being really affected by what's happening. These two paragraphs also show forgetfulness - Connor needs to get away / needs to go somewhere, but can't remember where. He looks for his phone, but has forgotten Gabriel took it from him. You don't even need the 'time slipped away from him' description, vision slanting or blurring tends to indicate to readers in situations like this that someone is being quite seriously affected by what's happening to them.

Middle Stages:

Then, he was walking, but couldn’t think past the scattered, rushing noises in his ears, looking like black jags across his vision.

He landed hard on his knees and stared down bewildered at the grass. He looked around, vision turning to brightness, cars zooming by too fast and too large, the sky distorted, the clouds inverting. He raised a hand to his head, but another hand �� warm and gentle – rested at his temple, thumb gently stroking. Connor leaned into it, whimpering.

We're doing a lot of time skipping now, alongside mental symptoms.

The writing technique itself is changing. In one sentence we cover a lot of choppy subjects - vision turning bright, cars too fast, sky distorting, clouds inverting. It gives a sense of too much information happening at the same time - Connor's senses are overwhelmed.

This kind of choppy information can be delivered in short complete sentences, but I liked one run-on sentence here because it gives that sense of 'and then this and this and this and this and this' which is sometimes how it feels to have too much information coming in at once.

It's also making use of the senses. We have vision and hearing and touch all in the same paragraph. We also have 'too fast' 'too large' - things are too much. Not only that, but describing things as distorted indicates strongly that Connor's already hallucinating and hasn't realised yet.

At this point in your bad drug trip, you should not be using your regular writing style. If your character isn't thinking like normal, you might want to consider also not writing 'like normal' for that character.

(This is the same for when a character is having a flashback, is overwhelmed, or is experiencing something intense for any reason).

He took great, shuddering breaths and then pressed shaking fingers to his stomach. The knot of pain in his thigh was manifesting there as well.

Now, for the bad drug trip to truly be bad, we also have the physicality of the experience. The body comes along for the ride and it often feels like it's dying during a bad drug trip.

Huge shuddering breaths and shaking hands can indicate an overloaded nervous system, also someone who might be going into shock, or who is hyperventilating, or who is literally experiencing respiratory distress. We don't have to know what it is - one or all of them could be true! A person on a bad drug trip, unless they're a medical professional or experienced with bad drug trips, will not know or be assessing what is happening to them as it happens.

He flinched back when he saw black inching out from beneath his knees on the grass, dimly knew it as a hallucination before that awareness vanished and he pushed himself back and away.

Boop a hallucination. Connor was already hallucinating, but now he realises too. You don't need to include this. I was writing a smart, analytical character, and he does know he's having a bad drug trip, so he's allowed little moments of realisation. Your character might know more, or they might know less.

Intense / Peak Stages:

He could feel the way his body pulsed at discordant rhythms, too fast, too slow, never in sync throughout his body. The tips of his fingers were throbbing. His feet felt like stones. He looked at Gabriel’s perfect beard and thought of tearing his face off. It would be brief, brutal, bloody, but then he could just lie down.

Writing emotional distortion here is that Connor feels like behaving violently, which - to this degree - isn't normal for him. The drug overdose is making him vengeful. We know it's part of the drug overdose because the first part of the paragraph focuses on all his physical symptoms. The drug trip might make your character too terrified to function, it might make them aroused (i.e. fuck or die sex pollen scenarios), it might make them giddy. Have some emotional distortion going on on some level. Even if it's extreme anhedonia or apathy in the face of potentially dying.

The hospital was clearly giving him too many sedatives. He didn’t know how to tell them that he had no tolerance, he couldn’t take the dosages that his father was pushing for.

Now we hit full flashback. Connor now believes he's being overdosed with sedatives in the hospital, and is no longer in the present at all. He's not even 'I remember' - he's just there. Flashbacks won't happen with every bad drug trip but they are common to any bad drug trip that is hallucinatory in nature.

Connor stared up at the ceiling of his apartment, and his hands rested on the floor. His heart was beating far too fast, fluttering in his chest. He felt hazy. Every now and then he had to clench his hands into fists so tight that his knuckles ached. A compulsion. He couldn’t stop himself from doing it. He’d feel himself shake, and then he’d stop, and he’d stare upwards. He was lying on the floor.

Connor stared ahead. The corner of his mouth felt wet. He was drooling. His fingers and toes kept twitching against his will.

What Connor is describing now is seizure activity.

Connor isn't consciously clenching his hands into fists, his body is doing that. He calls it a compulsion, but it's not. Feeling your body shake and then stop and then shake again is - in this instance for Connor - active seizure activity.

Not all seizures cause full unconsciousness of the entire brain, for example. Connor doesn't know what's happening to him, but we can tell from the physical symptoms here - heart fast and fluttering, feeling hazy, physical movements completely beyond his control - that he's now in a danger zone.

If you want the bad drug trip to reach 'a normal person would be in an ambulance by now' - this is a good place to be. Focus on strange sensations of the heart, the pulse, shaking, the sensation of overheating or being too cold. If you want, look up the symptoms of shock, or tachycardia.

Aftermath of bad drug trip:

In the aftermath of a bad drug trip, be aware that it can take some time for a person's thoughts to return to normal. Don't write an instant return to normalcy once a person is physically stabilised. Often they show mood shifts that are quite profound. Even a person coming down from MDMA often experiences depression or flatness after a great night out with zero negative memories.

Normal aftermaths/ongoing side effects from bad drug trips include apathy, depression, suicidal ideation, anhedonia, flatness, lethargy, exhaustion (literally, the body physically went through several marathons), pain, and foggy, disconnected thinking (both because the brain went through something traumatic and the drugs take a while to work through the system). GI (gastrointestional disturbances) are common, from 'not going to the bathroom at all' to 'diarrhea' etc. Sometimes these after-effects last days, sometimes they last weeks, sometimes they even last months.

So! In summary helpful techniques for bad drug trips can include:

Shorter, choppier sentences to indicate overwhelm

Physical symptoms being 'experienced' - character often doesn't know what's happening except in special circumstances

A progression of physical symptoms.

Focus on all of the senses

Hallucinations and/or flashbacks (one usually happens with the other)

Unusual emotional affect or emotional distortion

Time skips / non-linear time jumps

Inability to think properly

Focusing on some things too much and other things not at all

Realising there is a progression, that must include a heavy aftermath (unless you're trying to be special, or unless it's one of the few drugs that can make you feel unusually euphoric afterwards and then there's still usually a crash after that lmao)

Different drugs create different, known effects, however, people will have different 'bad drug trips' depending on their circumstances.

I'm a little bit afraid this post is going to crash so I'm going to post it now! And for that anon who asked me what kind of writing I used - this is it! :D

#pia on writing #writing techniques #dodgy advice #always use drugs responsibly folks #save the bad drug trips for #your characters #when you want to whump the fuck out of them #there are also OTHER ways you can write bad drug trips #this is just ONE way #but you can use some or all of these techniques #and they will help you a lot #imho these techniques will help in ANY high intensity scene writing #if you ever want to know more pls just shoot me an ask #and i'll do my best #if you don't know much about mind-altering drugs #please do your research

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codenamesazanka · 6 months ago

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AU in which Deku gets to interrogate Mr. Compress about Shigaraki

.•.

Izuku blanched. "What?"

"I said, those hands he wears all over…" Sako spoke with the exaggerated tone of an adult talking to a slow child. "…belong to his family. Told us that himself."

"Serial killer trophies?" Tsukauchi muttered, jotting into his notebook.

Sako paused, before shifting his gaze - turned icy cold - to the detective. "If you think a four-year-old is capable of that, Detective."

"Four..." Izuku choked on the word. "You mean… He got his quirk… and then…?"

In his mind, the images shot themselves at Izuku: the Decay at Jaku, spreading relentlessly... Shigaraki from the mall, four fingers wrapped around his neck, the fifth threatening to land... the child Izuku saw, crying from a broken heart... Smiling wide, as if to say there's no one he can't save...

"He was never saved..." Izuku whispered. "There was an accident, and he was never saved... Why wasn't he saved? Why did no one know, this whole time? How..."

.•.

and bam. That's pretty much half the flashback Deku sees in Chapters 417 & 418. And essentially half the save Deku does (*Figuring out why Shigaraki can't let go of his sad and lonely past*, then going to hold Tenko's hand). Now he doesn't need to launch OFA into Shigaraki to break open his psyche. Now Deku can just talk to Shigaraki and tell him he's there to hold his hand and give him peace in... Chapter 379? End the fight early.

Sadly there'd be no cool punching, but Shigaraki lives. Well, I guess Shigaraki might still stay the League's leader, so the cool punching still has to happen. And then Shigaraki lives. maybe.

#nalslastworkingbraincell #of course the real fun is in Deku convincing Mr. C to spill #Convincing Mr. C of his intent to save Shigaraki #'so please give us any information you can! i promise i want to help him!'#him having to prove his save to Mr. C #prove he's a true hero #in a way saving Mr. C's heart too - from cynicism #this one i kinda blame horikoshi for #feels like it's taking the easy way out in writing

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peppermintpegis · 1 year ago

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netflix one piece live action feels a little like fanfic in that it makes sure it hits all the important notes but doesnt do all the work to make them hit which works in fic where the reader is supposed to bring all the emotional story investment from the original but doesnt work in a multi million adaptation that is supposed to be able to stand on its own or even serve as an intro to the series. it even does this in service to have more koby and helmeppo gay moments in this essay i w

#one piece #opla #the fleshing out of koby and helmeppo is like honestly good its a beacon of light its truly really fun #and all the actors are great it is just what they are given .#they didnt let nami do any real betraying. they didnt even have her steal the merry!! she just stole the map that they added in!!!!#ddont get me started on the gutting of sanjis intro. i dont give a shit about if don krieg appears or not i need to see this guy fuckin #feed the hand thats about to kill him im going to start shaking like a dog.#im almost madder krieg appeared for just a little id rather have that time be used for. anything else really.#like have one of arlongs guys starved half to death when they get to arlong park!or idk anything! no gin appears look its gin! you know him #sanji doesnt even get to beat the shit out of a shitty guest. like i guess he does a little but it feels so blink and you miss it #+the first like two eps were good!! buggys great hes scary and weird and fun. i dont mind that he sticks around longer in theory #but the way he is comedic relief instead of basically every character having funny bits is like. ahghhhgggg. its a symptom of this really #mean and edgy feeling the whole thing has. like the removal of people missing usopps pirate calling :( and how cocoyashi didnt know #nami was working to help them. like p. please. can we have caring and bonds in this world?? trust and love???#anyway. sorry for having expectations of a netflix show im so close to putting this into a more proper form rather than tags. just to get i #all out of my system cause fuck man.#anyway solid 7/10 not as bad as it couldve been

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thereareeyesinsidethetrees · 9 days ago

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ford: i just don’t see the point in esentuating-

stan: accentuate

ford: i know, that’s just how i pronounce it

stan: wh- so, what, it’s fine when you get grammar wrong but it’s a crime when i do it?

ford: it is when a demon is actively trying to kill us and you’re making a fool of yourself instead of helping

stan: okay, wow, first of all- rude

ford: what’s rude is you telling my entire family that i’m the bad twin while i’m covered in my own ash and soot

stan: …to be fair, i didn’t notice-

ford: do you remember what mabel said we had to work on?

stan: i- (sigh) yeah…i’m sorry, ford

ford: forgiven. and i would like you to know that i am grateful for every day i get to wake up and spend with you

stan: heh- are you just trying to match me? or is that you being honest?

ford: you know it is :]

stan: aw- <:]

#for reference:#mabel told stan he needed to work on apologizing instead of shifting blame and making up excuses #the show (and the fandom) paints his issue as not being able to say please but really the lack of apologizing is the bigger issue #mabel told ford it would go a long way to be more open with those he trusts #‘if you appreciate something tell them that! and if they hurt you tell them that too’#‘that dumb triangle isn’t here anymore. you don’t need to be scared of being overheard’#‘and you don’t need to worry about any of us treating you the same way he did’#‘grunkle stan can be a goof but he loves you and he would never do any of that stuff to you- so as long as he knows it’s hurting you’#‘so let him know’#it’s been immensely helpful to both

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kyouka-supremacy · 1 year ago

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Does anyone know where I can find the good quality version of this image? It's so frustrating because when cross searching on google it'll tell me the original quality is 850x478, but I can't find a way to download it in that quality. This is another version of the image (I'm guessing it's Mayoi promo art):

But I liked the clean white background one...

#It's cute...#It's got Akutagawa stealing glances at Atsushi #Thought asking was worth a try ;;;;;;#Google cross image search has changed and as someone who used it as I use breathing it's been absolutely heartbreaking.#It makes cross searching images so much harder it's awful #Because before when you looked up an image it suggested you the best quality avaible of that image.#And the search got worse every year but it was still functional you know??#But now there's not that anymore. There's no “large” “medium” “small” and instead it only gives you “find image source”#Dude I don't want to find the image source. I've downloaded the image I KNOW the source. What I want is ANOTHER SOURCE with better quality #And I used to get it when I was 10 and I used to get it when I was 15 and I sued to get it when I was 20 #And now I don't have it anymore?? It stripes away one of the most powerful search tools on the internet from the public????#It drives me insane. Like why does internet get worse every year that's not how humanity is supposed to work #Sorry. I needed to rant. This makes every quality-freak media archivist (like me) job harder beyond comparison #Btw if you're looking for an alternative Yandex images still does the work... It's not as powerful search engine as google #and it's often going to miss the particular hidden media (y'know- super niche Akutagawa merch from 2018 and stuff)#But for the rest it does a pretty good job. If anything there's still the best quality avaible option #But seriously looking up stuff for aktgw-daily has gotten so much harder ever since this fucked up change to google lens #and it makes me hate the world. I haven't been able to find a way to reverse it but if anyone more tech savy than me who has any idea-#what I'm talking about can help me. Please please hmu I'll be grateful forever #Sorry for the rant I have a lot of pent up rage over this. Stop making broke people's lives harder challenge #random rambles

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asurrogateblog · 11 months ago

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...sudden radio silence on social media for the last few months i wonder why

#please dont hurt me #maybe im too optimistic but im hoping that by now any rational human being would realize 'okay maybe I was not Immune To Propaganda'#you're better than this david i know it #just admit he's been right this whole time. its okay.#we all know how hard israel worked to victimize itself and conflate any criticism against it as antisemitism #and not all of us had the right political networks to help guide us through the moral confusion and see things for what they really are #so now that the truth is more clearly obvious than ever you just need to set aside your pride and make some re-evaluations #you can still hate roger just accept that he's not a bigot he's mean the regular way #i believe in you #i guess the fact that he's gone quiet on the accusations against roger is a good sign. i would rather he be a coward than a zionist #hmmm. the photo in this post is not grammatically correct but im not turning back now

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alchemiclee · 1 year ago

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been looking in tags for a few days now to see if anyone else found the whole high cloud quintet and related story to be a bit.....poorly written, nonsensical, contradictory, full of plot holes and loose ends, etc. apparently i'm not the only one. (and i'm not even talking about shipping stuff, because any time I saw someone mad about bad writing, someone always replies to be homophobic and laugh about failed ships. weirdos.) it could have been so good but was thrown into the garbage for the most part (IF you noticed all the plot holes and contradiction. if not, then it's a fine enough story tbh. I expect most people to see it on surface level and not read all the little hidden lore bits and try to piece it together like my autistic brain did. which is ok! enjoy it if you liked it and ignore me 😆)

#apparently one of the writers did it on purpose. wont explain here. you can find it elsewhere. but it makes sense now #that's why it fell apart and didnt make sense in the end #ive seem people say anyone mad about it is a shipper and thats why. they use it as an excuse to be homophobes #youre gross get out of thos fandom. im here as someone upset about the story who was very skeptical about any ship theories and focused #more on plot theories and overall friendship and stuff so its not even about shipping you het weirdos!!!#the contradictions and plot holes are bd regrdless of who you ship lmao stop reducing it to that #aure its fine if you ignlre those plot holes. but it happened to be the little plot holes that interested me the most so its obvious to me😅#cant wait until a talented writer in the fandom rewrites the whole story a lot better and fills in the holes and ties up the end better #please someone do this 😭#lee text #hsr #i just wanted a close found family who met a tragic end #my idea for a better way to write it is dan feng wanted free from the high elder cycle and yingxing helped him create a new elder #but it went wrong and failed because the preceptors fed him wrong info hopong it woukd destroy dan feng since they hated him #instead it was yingxing that died and dan feng selfishly brought him back somehow and thats why hes immortal and hates dan heng now #they created a monster in the process that made a mess and baiheng died trying to kill it maybe but hit its weak spot #so it was weaked enough for jingliu to slay it #maybe for a plot twist jing yuan somehow knew the preceptors were up to something and didnt stop the two because #they were too stubborn and he knew it would do nothing #we know the dragon heart disappeared so either it ended becoming bailu in the end #or it could be inaide blade bow. another fun possible plot twist. they never explained where it went so it coukd be a n y w h e r e #i had other ideas but i forget now. bht baiheng deserves better as well. just being a plot mechanism to make two dudes be stupid #is kinda bland and boring and wasted her character. she deserves better too!!!!#id write this if i had the time and brain power but ill hope someone else does it instead #OH yeah i forgot a big idea. dan feng and yingxing perhaps try to also kill the arbor and end the abundance and long life/reincarnation #and maybe that was one part that led to it all going wrong or something. since yingxing wanted revenge on the abundance for destroying #his home and family???? and dan feng wanted to escape the cycle? similar wants that worked together snd failed #these are all ideas from past theories i read and my own ideas i came up with all of which are better than what that bad writer did!#these are very incomplete ideas that im sure someone else can write better #lee rambles

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lovetogether · 2 months ago

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We think the obsession with making mental illness appear to be something one suffers from and / or changes (or ruins) their entire life causes a lot of this paranoia one is faking their illness. Self diagnosis is something we advocate for as we’d rather someone look into recovery for something they may or may not have then never know. That and, most just cannot afford to get a diagnosis (+ for some an official diagnosis would mean putting their livelihood at risk). However the act of show casing mental illness as wholly damaging can create an idea of idealized mental illness. This idea that one must be in constant suffering to justify their diagnosis. Mental illness though is muted, it’s a subtle thing we find, even the most severe cases. Dissociation detaches you from yourself but you still exist as an entity, which can be mistaken as “healthy”. Hallucinations are not often grandiose but rather small intrusions on your life, things which make living an inconvenience but nothing to the level of a horror film. Intrusive thoughts and violent outbursts are real and something which should be discussed but this idea it is otherworldly or obscene helps no one. Most if not all mental illness symptoms can appear quietly. If it were understood just how “normal” it may feel to be mentally ill then perhaps people wouldn’t be so scared to accept themselves. People often think “I relate but it’s not as extreme” when the truth is it’s never entirely that extreme to begin with. Episodes are momentary, mental illness can be debilitating but even in that state it is never full force every moment. Understanding that the mentally ill are closer to you than you realize is an important step to understanding and welcoming the mentally ill into our communities . And accepting ourselves.

#we study psyche and are heavily mentally ill ourself and thus advocate greatly for those in pain to find #any way possible to relieve it #the thing of faking is it’s such a nothing thing when you truly examine it.#if you found out by scientific standards (which are flawed as well) that you weren’t what you thought #that is not your fault whatsoever because the initial thought you had was based around actual experience #nothing sinister or wrong #it’s never wrong to suspect you may be hurting #adults often ask us why we aren’t going into psyche. the truth is we feel that feild is just not ready to handle actual mentally ill people #which is a sad statement in of itself . but that’s how we view it #we’d rather pull out hair than speak among people who all joined a feild because they’re interested in people like me #‘helping those in need’ is a great cause but in those environments can quickly become a sorta of savior complex #to which we do not want to face willingly #this is all to say we’re very lucky and have a great therapist currently. we do not think all people in this are bad #we think really people just need to examine their biases #there are people who need another to help them and this will never be wrong #however if you find yourself in the role of caretaker please reflect often #so as to not find yourself undermining that which you take care of #these are still people after all #writing

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