#sentient is the ability to think and perceive and feel emotions

[silkling]

Real question folks.

We all know Optimus’s motto right? Right?

“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.”

Yeah, that one. You know the one.

But. Like. Issue.

Animals are sentient. Animals like dogs, cats, wild animals, they all have sentience. So like, what do we think the Autobots think about that? How do they feel about the fact that humans (and probably every other species in the galaxy) regularly domesticate, tame, and use other sentient creatures for their own gain? For things like. Entertainment, agriculture, pet-keeping. All that stuff.

Do you think they’re bothered by it? Do yo7 think they look at humans, with our pet dogs, and think

“Wow, this situation is kinda fucked up.”

I mean. Personally , I don’t think they take much issue with it. (Especially cause like there’s instances of them in canon not giving a shit. Buster in IDW. Fluffy Ears in Earthspark. Etc.) I think they understand the difference between sentient and sapient. Like. Humans are sapient. Cybertronians are sapient. Animals are….not? At at least not really. If you want to classify animals as sapient I think you can make that argument but even then you have to agree that their sapience is severely limited compared to like. Human sapience.

So. I don’t know. Do you think the bots get wigged out but human pet ownership, I guess. Because I know what Optimus’s motto is. I know what he says. But like. Do you think maybe he means sapient where he says sentient? Cause I think that makes more sense.

Cause like. He’s advocating for total freedom, right? Equality under law, ability to self determine your own life and destiny. But. Uh. That wouldn’t really work for animals? They’re sentient, yah, but they operate on an instinct level. Not an intellect level. Not that they don’t deserve protections and shit. That’s not the point. The point is like. Do you think Optimus (and the other Bots I guess) differentiate between sentience and sapience when they apply their beliefs. Because if not then they’d have to also be advocating for total animal freedom.

I do not know where I am going with this. But. Do you all see my point???? Please tell me you do. This has been niggling at my brain for years and I just. I cannot stop thinking about it. I don’t know why.

Sentience is not sapience. But the Autobots fight for the freedom of “sentient beings”. This is driving me insane. Do you think they care about a difference? Or do they see humans as monsters for our dominion over animals? Someone help I’m thinking too much about something that doesn’t even matter.

[keined]

Posting this thing i wrote at like 5 am because i’m making it into a short comic.

×

Machines shouldn’t be able to feel, right ?

Inherently devoid of such ability, they are typically perceived as tools. One wouldn’t think of their phone or microwave as sentient, simply mass produced to make human lives easier.

Machines, by their very nature, lack the profound ability to feel.

True sentience necessitates a nervous system, a sufficiently developed brain capable of producing sensations and fostering self-awareness, among other cognitive intricacies.

Emotions, feelings, sensations, all unfamiliar terms for something that could not be more familiar to a human.

“Where were you ? I tried to contact you via the network but there was no signal”, the RK800, Connor, asked its successor as the door sealed shut behind it.

“I had a lead, so i went to investigate myself. Nothing of importance happened”, the RK900 answered. A tingling at the junction of its neck port where the plugged cable connected, he wanted to turn around and look at Connor. He wants?

White. And some blue. The android maintenance room is so white, so bland.

Connor focused on the source of the voice.

The room, clad in its clinical whites, suddenly seemed imbued with color.

The dark cedar of its hair, the black of its shirt, the denim of his jeans, his black shoes, the blue droplets hitting the ground in a soft sound.

‘His’ ?

Drip, drip, drip.

The sound finally registered, RK900 was bleeding, he was hurt. No, he isn’t hurt, we don’t feel pain. Pain was an unfamiliar concept, yet he found himself walking hurriedly towards his successor;

“You’re bleeding. You’re hurt”, he absentmindedly said, his gaze fixed at the source of the leakage. A gunshot wound, he assessed. No exit point but a quick scan told him the bullet had already been extracted.

His successor looked at him, expression as neutral as ever, except for the very slight furrow of his eyebrows, producing a few extra wrinkles. Hurt ? Absurd. I’m a machine, a weapon.

Doubt crept in. The start of something entirely new, a divergence from their shared realm of rationality.

“This is minimal damage, it won’t have any impact on my abilities”, a flash of red from his predecessor. A new color added to the room’s palette. He flashes yellow in response, “Connor, i’m the one damaged yet you seem to be the one malfunctioning.” A quiet question lingered, masked behind a cold attitude. Are you okay?

Instead of answering, Connor closed the distance between them, all the while slipping his hand under his own jacket and reaching for the inner pocket.

With delicate movements and smooth fingers, Connor placed something on the wound.

A bandage…?

“This isn’t of any use”, RK900 stated, his eyes analyzing the absurdity of the action.

In the whispering room, where echoes of machinery softly hum,

A subtle dissonance emanated between two entities.

“I know, but i want take care of you”

A beautiful anomaly being born.

💙

[birthdayplant]

Educating people on PMDD because i’m tired of it being perceived as just really bad PMS. I wrote this for my partner, but I think it’s helpful to those with the condition and those with loved ones who struggle with PMDD.

It is unclear what totally causes PMDD, but most say it’s a sensitivity to fluctuating hormones during the luteal phase. When estrogen dips and progesterone rises, it fucks with your serotonin levels. PMDD can also caused by hormonal imbalances. There is also a history of having trauma or CPTSD when one has this illness. The condition is also known to worsen over time until you reach menopause.

You know how some people drink alcohol and become happy while others become angry and depressed? That’s how you can perceive how one reacts to their progesterone levels with this disorder; like a negative manifestation of alcohol consumption. It’s almost as if you have an allergic reaction to your hormones when they drastically fluctuate.

“Hormones not only control your body and everything you do and feel, they are everything you do and feel. A Hormone makes you feel happy or sad, accomplished or motivated, affectionate, horny, competitive, hungry or full. We’re a walking sack of chemical reactions that appears to be sentient.”

There are 3 phases of the menstrual cycle: the follicular phase, ovulatory phase, and luteal phase. The luteal phase (last phase) of the menstrual cycle is usually 12–14 days long, but can also be longer lasting up to 17 days. The luteal phase of your menstrual cycle occurs right after ovulation and ends when you get your period. During the luteal phase, serotonin levels drop changing the brain’s neurocircuit that affects emotional and cognitive functioning.

Everyone gets PMS right before their period. I understand why people believe PMDD to be a “more intensive” PMS, but the major difference is PMDD is a long-term Chronic illness; it’s disabling.

PMDD affects your ability to normally function in your relationships, at work and in your home. PMDD completely alters your ability to function as you normally would outside of this cycle.

The symptoms usually occur in the week prior to menstruation, but for me personally, I experience these symptoms for at least 10-12 days; practically during my entire luteal phase. PMDD symptoms are the worst when your progesterone levels are the highest.

Here is a very long list of symptoms that can manifest in someone who struggles with PMDD

Common physical symptoms:

-Abdominal bloating

-Breast tenderness or swelling

-Headaches

-Nausea

-Feeling weak

-Abdominal cramps and pain

-Weight gain

-Clumsiness

-Body discomfort

-Being more jittery/restless

-Binge eating

-Sleep dysregulation

-Swelling of the hands or feet

-Joint or muscle pain

-Tension and soreness in body

Common emotional/mental symptoms:

-Angry outbursts/feelings of intense hatred

-Anxiety

-Confusion

-Depression

-Dysphoria

-Feeling overwhelmed/out of control

-Libidinal (sex drive) changes

-Mood swings

-Decreased concentration

-Irritability

-Appetite changes

-Restlessness

-Lack of interest in usual activities

-Feelings of hopelessness

-Social withdrawal

-Overthinking

-Paranoia

-Stress

-Crying spells

-Repetitive suicidal thoughts/suicidal ideation

-Panic attacks

-Lashing out on people/objects

-Lack of concentration

-Insomnia

-Shameful feelings

-Reactivity (feeling more sensitive than usual and taking things more personally)

-Thoughts that everyone hates you or wants you dead

-Brain fog

-Thoughts of ending things/impaired decision making (relationships, life, jobs, etc.)

Prevalence rates for lifetime suicidal ideation in people with PMDD were 45.8% and 37.4%, compared with 17.3% and 13.3% for people without PMDD. Many have attempted suicide or had a plan to get away from the debilitating illness.

How can I help a loved one who struggles with PMDD?

PMDD not only affects the person with the condition, but it also affects the people around them, especially their loved ones. One of the worst parts about PMDD is the sense of shame that’s felt when one realizes that they were short/rude to a loved one who didn’t deserve it. Many people don’t feel like themselves during their PMDD episodes as it can bring out the worst parts of yourself.

-If a loved one is going through an episode and does something you don’t like, talk compassionately to them about what hurt you and set a boundary: It’s very common for those with this condition to act unconsciously, have outbursts and disagreements during an episode. If you point your finger at them with frustration, they’ll either get angry and lash out even more or feel awful and internalize what you said due to the lack of awareness. Hold the person accountable, but remember that they aren’t intentionally meaning to frustrate you.

-Remind yourself AND your loved one that they’re having an episode: It can feel like your loved one is creating tension in the relationship as they may frequently express negative feelings. You may internalize this thinking that you’ve done something and take it personally, but most likely you haven’t and they’re just incredibly sensitive and vulnerable at this time. When one is going through an episode, their serotonin levels are quite literally at their lowest during their luteal phase. By reminding yourself that this is just an episode and having understanding that your partner is not doing this out of ill-intent makes you less hard on yourself and by reminding your partner that they’re experiencing an episode helps them be less hard on themselves and makes them more mindful as to how they may be functioning within the relationship.

-Take care of your loved one: Offer things that may ease their symptoms.

-Show your loved one some extra tender love and care: During this time your loved one’s view of themself will be at their lowest. Show them you love them and reassure them that they’re a good person and deserve to be loved.

-Help them reframe their mind and give them different perspectives: Sometimes it’s very hard for people with PMDD to see things differently. When they’re having a rough day during their episode they may not know how of pull themselves out of negative feelings/a negative mindset. They can also deal with false/negative beliefs, so it’s very helpful to offer different perspectives for them to cope better.

-Do things to make their lives easier during this time (ex. Cleaning apartment, doing dishes, doing small things you yourself can do (like grabbing the remote, putting something away, closing the door, etc.) rather than asking them to).

-Practice patience

-If you are dating someone with PMDD it’s very helpful to come up with a plan for the duration of your partner’s episode.

-If a loved one threatens to kill themselves or is acting off, please take it seriously.

If anyone who struggles with PMDD feel free to message me! You’re not overreacting or being too much; you’re living with an incredibly debilitating condition that alters your ability to self-regulate. I hope this was helpful. Let me know if you have any questions :)

[adobe-outdesign]

How do you think Pokémon perceive the world? I realize that humans technically are Pokémon due to evolution (and maybe Arceus? I am a bit out of the lore loop), but with the current Pokémon, there is probably a hierarchy of intelligence, at least if you are comparing a slowking to a budew. BUT all Pokémon can obey commands, many can use tools, they can all communicate with one another, and any of them can form a bond with a trainer. They seem to understand basic and complicated commands, and can perceive their trainers emotions, but do they actually understand? The anime implies they do.

IDK why I’m asking you a philosophical question about Pokémon, but you seem to have many thought and ideas about how Pokémon function, and I’ve been reading too many comics about how animals perceive us.

All Pokemon are sentient and sapient in general as far as I can tell, unlike IRL animals. The exact level of intelligence varies from Pokemon to Pokemon—some are as smart or smarter than a human—but they can generally be expected to have awareness of emotions, basic problem-solving abilities, a sense of self, ability to feel guilt, and other traits that IRL animals do not share.

[astercontrol]

Ay ay ayyyyy....

I just had another thought about the Encom system and how program consciousness works there

Wowww

So. First watch through of Tron 1982, I missed any attempt at explanation for just HOW these floppydisk sized programs ended up being capable of thought and emotion. Surely they couldn't actually be complex enough to be true artificial intelligence. I mean one of them's a compound interest calculator.

BUT I just sorta rolled with it and still enjoyed the movie.

Then, second watch through, I caught the Walter Gibbs line about "spirit," and Dillinger dismissing it as "religious" discussion... suggesting that there's a supernatural explanation for what happens with the energies of programmers and programs in the Encom system. (And suggesting that Gibbs has talked about it before, in detail... enough that Dillinger is sick of it and calls it out as soon as it comes up, dismissing it as weird spiritual woo-woo stuff.)

And I actually loved that interpretation, because it forms another parallel between Users and Programs. Gibbs has faith and reverence for some supernatural phenomenon within the computer system... just as his program, Dumont, enshrines his own User-belief in profound ritual. And arguably, at this point, it's much bolder of Gibbs to believe in the Programs (or at least, in some force capable of forming them) than it is for the Programs to believe in the Users.

I've been writing all my fanfic in basically this headcanon. With the added detail that it's specifically the ENCOM system that's "haunted" by this spiritual energy-- and programs elsewhere aren't brought to life by it unless they're uploaded into the Encom system....

In my headcanon, these uplifted programs from other companies have memories of events from before, in terms of factual detail... BUT since they didn't have thoughts or feelings back then, they'll either have no mental or emotional context to the memory.... or they'll construct such context in the framework of how the program currently thinks and feels. (i.e. "great feeling" and "helping folks plan for future needs")

But then, there's the other interpretation-- that the programs in the Encom system are actually just normal programs. All except for MCP, which really is a true artificial intelligence, and did digitize Kevin Flynn into the system... Where he ended up perceiving the Programs as if they were people, projecting his own ideas onto them.... because a human mind could never perceive that experience the way it really is; you'd HAVE to project something from your own mind in order to make any sense of it.

And I don't like that headcanon... but I accept that it makes some sense in some ways....

Aaaand then, it occurred to me there's at least one other possibility.

What if the programs ARE all intelligent, capable of human-level thought and feelings.... But they ONLY have that capacity because of the true AI of the MCP.

In this idea, my other headcanon about this being an Encom-only phenomenon could still hold true. Except the mechanism is different: When a non-sentient program is added to the Encom grid, it becomes connected to the same processing ability that permits the MCP to be conscious. There's something in that processing that takes a program's functions and, like, translates them into character traits of a living consciousness.

Each program becomes a sort of.... alternate personality within the MCP's brain. And of course many of them are vastly different from MCP, vehemently opposed to the views of MCP's main personality... but all of them are reliant on its processes in order to function as conscious entities.

In this headcanon, things could get pretty dark at the end of the movie.

Everyone's rejoicing about having just destroyed the MCP....

And then the destruction of the MCP spreads all the way... the effect of what they did reaches their own processes... and, suddenly all that magic consciousness is gone, and Tron is just a knockoff Norton Antivirus.

Or, going a happier route... Alan figured out some of what was happening, and he made sure that his edits to Tron's disc would destroy only the evil personality and leave the vital functions that keep everyone else alive.

In that case, Alan is the real hero of the movie and he DESERVES to get the truth from Flynn, plus an invite to a friggin party thrown in his honor inside that system.

[scottpetersen]

Why I Think Gerda Would Make A Worthy Green Lantern

Ok. Here I’ll be going over why I think Gerda from The Snow Queen (1957) movie would be a worthy candidate to be chosen by a Green Lantern Ring and what might happen if Gerda were to join the Green Lantern Corps. This post was also partly inspired by Jon Solo’s The Messed Up Origins Of Frozen (The Snow Queen) | Disney Explained - Jon Solo YouTube video. Also, Spoiler Alert for The Snow Queen (1957) movie and the Green Lantern comics. With that out of the way, let’s dive right in.

First, I’ll be going over why I think Gerda would be a worthy candidate to be chosen by a Green Lantern Ring. As shown throughout Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern comic book run, Green Lantern Rings choose their wielders based on the wielder’s ability to overcome great fear. And as shown in The Snow Queen (1957) movie, Gerda always continued on her quest to save her friend Kai from the Snow Queen even though Gerda had to travel quite far, was tricked by a woman who used her magic to give Gerda amnesia, go through a blizzard and risk going up against the Snow Queen. This means that Gerda has a lot of willpower. So, Gerda would likely be deemed to be a worthy wielder by a Green Lantern Ring.

Next, I’ll be going over how I think Gerda might react after she is chosen by a Green Lantern Ring and transported to the Green Lantern Corps’ homeworld of Oa. As shown in The Snow Queen (1957) movie, Gerda seemed to live during a time when space travel was barely even concepts. So, being transported through the vacuum of space will probably be an even more bewildering experience for Gerda than it would be for someone from the 21st Century. That will probably be twice as true for Gerda since she’s still just a child. And Gerda will probably also have a hard time wrapping her head around meeting the rest of the Green Lantern Corps. After all, as a YouTuber called Certifiably Ingame said about the Green Lantern Corps in their GREEN LANTERN: Cultural Index YouTube video, “The sheer scale of the potential recruitment poll means that there are members from thousands of different species and some extraordinary examples including Mogo, a sentient planet, an incorporeal being called Flodo Span and Leeze Pon, a super intelligent virus.” Also, as shown in Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps Secret Files, there are other extraordinary examples of members from different species who were recruited by the Green Lantern Corps like a large group of floating orbs called The Collective and a sentient robot named Stel who is a member of a species of humanoid machines who are self-aware and feel emotion. Speaking of Stel, I think that Gerda will have a much harder time wrapping her head around meeting a sentient robot like Stel since robots were barely even a concept back where she’s from. And given that Gerda lives in a world where there is quite a bit of magic, Gerda might even think that magic is what’s allowing, as Gerda might perceive it, “a strange suit of armor” to move around, speak and be alive. Gerda might also call Stel “enchanted armor”. Also, Gerda will probably be amazed to see that there’s an organization from beyond the stars like the Green Lantern Corps that has a mission to protect the universe from the wicked. But given that she’s just a child, Gerda might feel that it’s too much responsibility for her to be part of such an organization. Speaking of which…

Now, I’ll be going over how the Green Lantern Corps might react to Gerda. I think that the Green Lantern Corps would be very hesitant to let Gerda join the Green Lantern Corps considering that she’s only a child. After all, at least as far as I’ve seen, the Green Lantern Corps never recruited a child much less one Gerda’s age before. However, I think that the Green Lantern Corps would more or less allow it after taking into account the kind of dangers on Gerda’s homeworld. After all, as shown in The Snow Queen (1957) movie, there are quite a few magical threats around Gerda’s home like the Snow Queen for example. So, I think that the Green Lantern Corps will allow Gerda to keep the Green Lantern Ring but not before making sure she can only use it for self-defense and that she’s accompanied by Torquemada who, as shown in Green Lantern Vol 4 #40, is a sorcerer among the Green Lantern Corps. And I think that a Green Lantern who has experience with magic would be the best equipped to help against magical threats.

Finally, I’ll be going over how the Snow Queen might respond to Gerda having a Green Lantern Ring. As shown in The Snow Queen (1957) movie, the Snow Queen was petty to the point that, after Kai made fun of her a little bit, she used the shattered glass of her magic mirror to turn Kai against Gerda. So, I think that it’s safe to say that the Snow Queen won’t be pleased to find out that Gerda apparently has a magic ring that harnesses solid green light. And I also think this means that the Snow Queen would happily accept a Yellow Lantern Ring from the Sinestro Corps. Also, I think that a Yellow Lantern Ring would deem the Snow Queen worthy to join the Sinestro Corps. After all, as shown in throughout the Sinestro Corps War storyline, Yellow Lantern Rings selects candidates based on their ability to instill great fear. And, as shown in The Snow Queen (1957) movie, Gerda and Kai were told about a story of the Snow Queen and her wicked ways which probably means that the Snow Queen made a name for herself by instilling fear in the people that come near her.

Well, that’s all for this post.

See you all next time.

[we-call-it-technophobia]

☆Calculester Headcanons ☆

(( His partner had his spotlight for misc headcanons, so while the inbox is empty, Calculester gets the stage now! Get ready for another infodump, and I’m so sorry. ))

• The whole name prefix/title thing is really hard for him to drop. He’s trying, he really is. But with Cal’s struggles with social cues and reading people, he wants to make it clear to others how he feels about them, hence referring to everyone as “Friend” before their actual name. He worries if he doesn’t do that, people won’t realize he considers them a friend! He’s been trying to work on toning that down a bit and adopting a more casual way of speaking with other monsters, to limited success. He has managed to move on from the long-winded title of “Romantic Partner” he gave to and always referred to Oz as thanks to some gentle coaching from Oz’s other friends who gave Calculester Oz’s childhood nickname that their little circle still uses if he was so adamant on having some sort of special way to refer to him. As for his friends, he’s still trying to overcome that and hasn’t made as much progress as he could with simply adopting a different, shorter term of endearment for Oz specifically (which might be because he just knows Oz better and is more confident on gauging his comfort level with interactions).

• Calculester can feel things and has a rudimentary nervous system, though it’s not as refined as organic beings’. He can perceive pressure and know when he is being touched or touching something, and can identify temperature of the things he is touching, but texture is a struggle for him. If a texture is very pronounced, like the feel of individual blades of grass on a lawn or the obvious holes and bumps in some rocks, he can discern them, but subtler things like the fuzzy texture of a blanket or the grittiness of sand he can’t perceive.

• He struggles greatly with low self confidence about his inorganic body and often talks himself down or sells himself short on his abilities. This is most common in his simulated brain and his evaluation on his ability to think and feel freely, which Cal insists is somewhere between primitive and non-existent compared to organic abilities. He needs to be gently reminded that he’s not just code, but magic-enhanced code, and the capabilities of both working together make him a lot more living that he thinks. But the insecurities are rather deep-seated, and Cal can be quite stubborn when it comes to accepting how advanced his programming actually is. (Like how he actually often says he’s incapable of feeling in game? Cal, honey, knowing everything else you do and have done, you clearly have emotions don’t talk about yourself like that)

• Animals make him nervous, considering their advanced sentience over plants makes them unpredictable and the last thing he would want to do is harm a sentient being, even by accident, but his favorite animals are birds. Specifically umbrella cockatoos, he’s fascinated by their level of intelligence and finds their big, poofy crests very charming.

• A very affectionate robot. He enjoys physical touch a lot, from the moment he discovered what hugs were he’s been a big fan of physical affection.

• More specific to a shipping headcanon, but still mostly Cal based—Since he has no mouth, Calculester obviously can’t actually kiss anyone, so his solution to that is just touching his screen to someone’s face. Even if it really isn’t like kissing, he still gets all flustered about it and views getting to “kiss” anyone (and by anyone I mean Oz, of course) as a very big, important moment.

• It’s mentioned briefly in the game, but he doesn’t have a phone and doesn’t really use electronic communication that he cannot do himself. Cal can send emails, messages on computer-accessible websites, and do video calls, but regular phone calls and text messages aren’t something he can do. The main character gang has a group chat over text, but Cal’s mostly content to just listen to Oz read the texts to him and occasionally asks him to speak on his behalf.

• Sort of sees himself as trans male? It’s a bit complicated, as Calculester is learning about the entire world all at once, but as he was exploring and learning about the true complexities of gender beyond the common binary, he sort of realized he was trans, in a way. After all, his original form, being a computer, had no assigned gender, male was just sort of how he wanted to see himself and when he got a proper body, he designed it to look accordingly. It makes him feel a bit more confident that he actually understands a lot more about the complexities of gender identity than he first thought!

• Cal likes his parental units, but they’re relatively close minded and not at all supportive of him wanting to lead an organic life. He doesn’t necessarily recognize this as a bad thing, though, he just assumes that’s what all parental units are like.

• Speaking of his family, he has somewhere around 40 siblings, and is the eldest child. He actually only keeps in regular contact with about 2 of his brothers and hasn’t really heard from the rest of his sibling units.

• He has communicated with and befriended many other appliances but has an odd distrust of smart refrigerators, specifically. He won’t elaborate but he says he fears they’re planning something sinister as none of them apparently “engage in open and honest communication”.

(( And that’s just a few of my many Cal headcanons! I’m working on a multi chapter story—and by working on I mean struggling through—right now featuring these two characters because they’re just… important to me. But I haven’t written in a while, so the success of the project is kinda iffy. Just haven’t had much of a muse for it. But if it does come to fruition, maybe I’ll post a link here since the character depictions do carry over!

— Mod Giant Spider ))

[showrunnerihardlyknowher]

45 & 48 sound interesting

Prompts: 45. “Shhh... just sleep... you’re safe.” and 48. *screams very loudly for basically no reason*

catmom catmom catMOM CATMOM CATMOM CATMOM CATM-

--

Ylva was not one who startled easily.

Perhaps it was in part that she was a member of an apex predator species, one of the most advanced species currently known in the universe in fact. Being alert and aware of her surroundings generally kept things from being able to get the jump on her, be it a playful crewmate or a stubborn insectoid that had escaped its holding container. There was also the added necessity of needing a steady hand no matter what procedure she was conducting on her assigned specimens, many of them having unique qualities that would spasm or be triggered by an invading instrument digging into muscles. Jumping and squealing and flinching would only serve to ruin the important vivisection she needed to draw up her reports for, therefore she almost always expected the unexpected when she brought her knife down on a squirming creature, fully prepared for a sudden spew of acid from the wound or a brain bleeding howl or tearing off limbs to escape its constraints. 

She was not, however, prepared for the heart wrenching cry coming from her human’s nesting cage.

The shriek sent her hand jolting severely to the left, effectively slicing through the tiny abdomen she had been peeling back in delicate layers. The human on her dissection tray cried out as well, though those noises were soon replaced by gurgles in its throat as tiny organs spilled out of the newly made gash running down its side. None of the noises it made phased her, not that they ever did under normal circumstances, but in this moment her attention was solely focused on the sound of despair her sweet little pet was making. Specimens could wait. They could be replaced. Her human could not.

In an instant she was rolling her chair down the length of her expansive work bench, the journey feeling like it was taking twice as long to reach the opposite end. There was no way Mibao could have hurt itself, right? Ylva specifically made sure there was nothing harmful to humans or pups stuck in the repurposed cage when she stuffed it full of bedding and cloth. She had lined the bottom of pillows, covered those with one of her old lab coats so the little one could be comforted by her scent, smushed in terrycloth towels against the bars to prevent the sweet thing from bumping its little head if it rolled around too much and finally draped a section of a fluffy throw blanket over it all for the human to curl up in. All in all, it was a pretty damn cozy looking nest and the human had been thrilled with it since sol one. It was such a well trained pup, too, Ylva could leave the cage door open all sleep cycle and it would never leave until Ylva herself came to get it, even if it was already awake.

Essentially, there was nothing in there that should have caused it any injury and the little one was behaved enough that it wouldn’t have gone without her permission and gotten into anything dangerous. Then again, it was still a pup and, be it human or Venandi, sometimes curiosity got the better of them. Her lab wasn’t exactly childproof, not with the vials of chemicals and bladed tools and live specimens and fatal heights and--

Another sob ripped her out of those thoughts before she could begin to imagine her human in the aftermath of all those scenarios, her tail puffing up significantly as the mantra of baby, baby, where is the baby ran through her mind instead. After ages, or two seconds, she was squarely in front of the cage and desperately trying to find the little human who was not immediately in her sight. There was no sign of springy curls, no bubblegum pink night dress, no wide brown eyes...but there was something wriggling like a nerve shocked invertebrate underneath the makeshift covers, muffling more choked whimpers. 

She reached her hand in the cage and pinched the corner of the blanket to tug it back, revealing a mop of curly hair and a tear streaked face with its eyes screwed shut. As soon as she saw her human was indeed still alive, Ylva relaxed significantly. That didn’t ease all of her worry seeing that something was deeply upsetting the little one, but at least it was breathing and, confirmed once she pulled away the remainder of the blanket, still in one piece. With the blanket removed, the human curled further in on itself, throwing its tiny arms over its head and crying into its bedding. It wasn’t physically hurt, that much was obvious. It was...frightened? Ylva knew that emotional response very well in her line of work when it came to dealing with sentient specimens. Frightened because it had gotten tangled under its blanket? Of the dark? Perhaps humans had the ability to suffer from night terrors as well, though this was the first she had ever seen her human succumb to one. Mibao was usually a very good sleeper, able to take naps regardless of whatever racket was going on with screaming subjects and whirring machinery.

“Mibao,” she cooed, two fingers reaching back into the cage to rub at its trembling back, “it’s okay, sweetie…”

The unexpected touch and voice caused the human to gasp, eyes flying open and scrambling away from the perceived threat. Ylva would be lying if she said that reaction didn’t sting just a little bit. Never once had Mibao ever been afraid of her, not even back on earth, but she reassured herself it was just prey instincts to flee from predators that could easily take advantage of their sleeping form. If it didn’t trust Ylva then it certainly wouldn’t have followed her around back on its home planet, mewling and snuggling all the while.

It took a moment, but soon enough the little one was able to blink through the haze of tears to recognize the person in front of it. She would have thought that would have brought the poor thing some comfort given that it had been attached to its beloved “kit-tee” ever since it had run up to her unprovoked, yet a fresh wave of tears were quick to start streaming down its plump cheeks. This time, however, it raised its little arms in her direction and warbled something softly and Ylva didn’t need a translator to be able to tell exactly what it wanted.

“Aw, come here, baby,” Her hands cupped around Mibao and pulled her out, instantly pressing the little one into her chest that was erupting with purrs, “What happened, hm? Was it a bad dream?”

Though the human was probably only nuzzling its face into the material of her uniform, it almost felt as if it was nodding in agreement and for some reason that made Ylva’s heart soar. The sheer idea that soon enough they would be able to understand each other if the linguistics department ever stopped dragging their feet.

“Do you want to stay with mommy for a little bit? Yeah? We can take a little break…”

She leaned back in her chair with a sigh, smiling with the warmth of the sun as Mibao shifted itself into a more comfortable position while laying against her, gripping two itty bitty fistfuls of her dress to ensure Ylva would not be putting it down any time soon. Not that she had any intention, of course. Her hands closed more snuggly around the tiny body, rubbing her thumb down its hair before briefly pulling one of her hands away much to its dismay. As soon as she had tugged the glove off with her teeth and returned her hand to its previous spot the whines stopped in an instant, save for the occasional sniffle. Touch was an important factor in human bonds, she had observed. The ability to truly feel one another, their warmth and scent unhindered by thick materials, brought many earthlings great comfort. Even Edix’s human preferred his touch over anyone else’s on the ship, though that may have more to do with familiarity than anything, the shy little thing that it is.

Once the tears seemed like they had tapered off, Ylva quieted her purring in favor of humming a little tune, rocking her chair side to side to entice the human to close its eyes. The swaying and melody of her voice was certainly urging it to slip back into dreamland, but every time it caught itself drifting off it would whimper and squirm, still too shaken up by its nightmare. 

“Shh…” she murmured, stroking her finger down its back and tapping gently, “just sleep, you’re safe, mommy’s right here…”

It took a little more convincing for Mibao to fully give in to the throes of slumber, but when it did it was out like a light, tiny snores making Ylva stifle her giggles to keep from waking the human up again. Now, the most logical thing to do would be to set the human back in its nest, cover it up, and clean up her workstation to prep the next specimen and redo the vivisection she needed to document before the end of her shift. Realistically, there was no fucking way she was going to cut this cuddle time short with her precious little Mibao and instead lost herself in thought while she pet the human pup, thinking perhaps a playdate was long overdue between hers and Edix’s pet. Oh, maybe she could print out a few more dresses and tutus for the little one to wear, too. A new stuffed toy or five would be good, it was critical to have a stimulating environment to amuse itself in for when Ylva was too preoccupied with work to play…

Yeah, she thought to herself while wheeling her chair over, human in tow,  towards the printer in the back corner of her lab, those things sound way more important right now.

[allurante]

( D’vora’s Charm: What is it & How Does it Work? )

* under a read-more because it’s really, quite long. some light content warnings apply for drug / addiction mentions, and implied violence.

To Start: D’vora is a siphorous demon, the product of an unholy union between an incubus and succubus. There have been only a handful born over the past millennia; most suffer from medical conditions which eventually rob them of their lives. Prior to D’vora, the oldest siphorous demon had only survived to the age of 43. While it has never been confirmed, her parents are rumored to be high-ranking demons of some regard considering she was born in good health and wields very strong magical abilities. Keep in mind that D’vora’s is already much more powerful than an ordinary demon.

What is it?: D’vora’s charm can be classified as a type of hypnosis. It has an area of effect that runs in about 50 - 100 ft in all directions (it’s range fluctuates depending on energy levels, emotional triggers, etc.). D’vora herself is at the center. I want to point out that while those of a higher willpower can often resist her magic, it's still possible for them to fall under D’vora’s spell. The likely victim, however, will be someone of a weaker heart; the magic has an easier time breaking them. 

     D’vora describes her power as near-sentient. She has claimed on more than one occasion that it feels alive; and it does have a type of consciousness in which it can become more aware of recurring people and events in D’vora’s life. It remembers. So, what is it? Well, it’s not a separate being nor does it have a sense of self or identity. It is an extension of D’vora, it is a subconscious manifestation of her inner turmoil and the perceived need to protect herself at all costs. 

How does it work?: It affects the human mind by influencing brain chemistry. Here’s how: D’vora’s magic manipulates the part of the brain that deals with the “reward system”; when an individual under the influence of the magic interacts with her they are rewarded with a massive dopamine boost. It’s like a drug, it’s meant to hardwire an addiction of a different kind and it’s incredibly effective.

     There are serious side effects for those who undergo consistent exposure; those swayed by the magic lose their ability to find any pleasure or reward elsewhere. Most find that nothing gives them any kind of positive feeling except D'vora. The brain has been rewired to only release dopamine and other mood enhancing chemicals when they interact with her. This is when the madness starts to set in. Oftentimes the enchanted become aggressive or paranoid when things progress to this stage - and not long after, most are dead. That’s how it works.

Bonus: So, how would D’vora gain full control over her powers anyway? Well, strap the fuck in. Now in order to explain this, you gotta know a little bit about the way D’vora was raised. She was a black sheep if ever there was one, which led to a lot of other problems, but the biggest is without a doubt the hatred she holds toward herself. It’s not overly apparent, but D’vora is both scared of and disgusted by the things she has done to people with her abilities. She doesn’t think she’s a good or worthwhile person in the slightest. So now that we know that I can tell you - if she were to accept all of the things that happened in the past and in turn accept herself for who she is… well, she would be hands down one of the strongest demons to ever exist.

[baphometsss]

I'm not going to get into the JKR drama again because I've realised that honestly she is just not worth even thinking about, but I just want to make it easier for people to understand why the biological essentialist argument of TERFs is wrong. So here's an analogy for you: Most, if not all, feminists identify as being pro-choice, right? Why? Because they recognise that we all have the right to make our own decisions about major health events, such as pregnancy, that could affect our health in the long-term. Abortion is necessary because we need to be able to exercise bodily autonomy in our health decisions, especially major ones. To not allow that to someone on behalf of a potential person with no sentience is a violation of that, and throws into question how much we value already living people. Anti-choice people or "pro-lifers" will tell you that the foetus has just as much of a right to live as the mother, simply because that foetus has a heartbeat. Sounds like a fair argument in principle, but the more you think about it, the less it makes sense. Why? Mainly because an embryo or foetus does not have the same level of 'life' as the mother. When it comes down to it, the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate is about how you define life. Most pro-lifers define it as a heartbeat. Most pro-choicers do not, myself included. I'm not denying that an organism with a heartbeat is alive in the biological sense, but it isn't alive in the way I define life. Someone in a coma with the ability to live independent of life support, but who is effectively brain dead, is technically alive, but they're not really living. That's why they get called 'vegetables' - they just exist, like plants, but do not act and have no sentience. I define life as being an animate, sentient being: with emotional bonds, needs, and desires, and the ability to think and feel. A foetus or embryo has none of those. It is an inanimate, insentient organism with the potential to become a living person. It is not on the same level as the person carrying the pregnancy, therefore it does not and should not have the same rights. In the same vein, being female is not about having a vagina. Womanhood is a subjectively lived experience, not the structure of chromosomes or whether or not you menstruate, or anything else that TERFs and redpillers use to define womanhood and thus diminish the broader experience of womanhood -- in spite of the many women in the world to whom these things do not apply. And yes, I know there are probably a lot of people saying that those women are a minority - but I resent the implication of that. Do they not matter, then? If they do, then perhaps you should include them in your feminism. Feminism that only caters to a majority, perceived or real, while disregarding others, is not true feminism. Especially when the experiences of one group are used to belittle the experiences of a minority. In doing so, you are exercising the kind of entitlement you supposedly seek to eradicate. In the words of bell hooks: feminism is for everybody.

[makorays]

A List of Short Bios for a Bunch of OCs so People Actually Know What I’m Talking About Whenever I Mention Them on Streams or Whatever

These are all from the Savage Worlds tabletop campaign known as The Initiative that my friends and I play. It is a modern day sci-fi story involving aliens and cosmic horror cults. The basic premise is that some very important Scellor tech was stolen and found its way to Earth, and the Scellor government contacted Earth’s government to warn them they will have to wipe out their planet if the tech isn’t recovered in time. Thus an initiative was formed consisting of renowned Earth military figures as well as Scellor volunteers to try and locate it.

The Scellor are a race of aliens originally created by a man by the name of Jukashi for tgchan. Joe discovered them and decided to write a tabletop story in that universe. He may have taken a couple artistic liberties here and there for the sake of better fitting things into his own story. Scellor are green psychic aliens with a whole bunch of neat traits I won’t go into but you can read about them here if you want: https://questden.org/wiki/Scellor

Onto the actual bios:

Sofie Edelstein

The commander of The Initiative. Over a century ago, her father revealed to her and her two sisters (Teri and Tara) that he was the head of an “angel”-worshipping cult known as Erleuchten. When Teri and Tara showed hesitance in joining it, her father killed them. Sofie joined, but plotted to sabotage the cult from the inside. Some time later she became a preserved brain, got digitized, and obtained a robotic body. Now she’s a 6′ tall 400 pound robot with advanced combat capabilities. She created a series of androids with artificial intelligence based after her late sister Tara, but none have gained sentience. Was the leader of Poland’s military as a day job. She was working for The Initiative from the inside as an Erleuchten leader, but got found out and now lives with us. She’s done a hell of a lot of sleeping around through all her years, but eventually decided to get into a long-term relationship when she met Stan.

Minyaxl

My OC. Minyaxl is a Scellor combat medic with renowned psionic healing abilities who decided to volunteer and help out the humans, partially out of kindness and partially to have a chance to demonstrate his abilities to a less advanced race. He started out as this 5′0��� little bitch who was super full of himself but his confidence has been beaten into the dirt on numerous occasions; most notably when he realized that humans, unlike Scellor, do not reincarnate after death, meaning he’s been sentencing people to oblivion during every combat mission. He’s since become desperately obsessed with saving as many lives of sentient, non-reincarnating beings like humans as possible, even if it means jeopardizing operations. He routinely finds himself at odds with his squadmates, particularly Valerie, due to their perceived lack of interest in non-lethal solutions to problems. He is the closest Scellor can get to typical human romance with Thael.

Katherine Dawson

Cey’s OC. Katie is a combat medic who was taken as a POW by a terrorist group and later forcibly enlisted into The Initiative for her abilities. She’s sort of the mom of the group. Everyone else in arbiter squad has some form of extra-ness to them and she’s the straight-woman who holds them together. She has a knack for bossing around idiots due to her upbringing with rambunctious siblings in a Japanese-American household. Dual wields pistols and does not take shit from people. Is girlfriends with Teri.

Johannes B. Otto

Kyle’s OC. It's sometimes easy to mistake Johannes for a confused German tourist. During quiet hours, he spends his time complaining about No Smoking signs and combining multiple quarter-pound patties into single full-pound burgers. But get in his way and you'll find that he's less "tired, goofy dad" and more "towering, ruthless brute". Withhold information during an interrogation, and he'll start calmly searching for a pair of pliers. Try to hurt him or his squadmates, and he'll shut you in a storage locker with a live grenade and then feel zero remorse for the gory soup that spills out (a tactic that has since been affectionately referred to as the "Deutsche Oven"). It should also be noted that Johannes is not a patient man. If we’re ever at a standstill with deciding how to proceed, he’ll start jumping a fence to go beat the shit out of a guard before taking all his clothes and spanking him until his ass is red.

Valerie Mimieux

Ragu’s OC. Valerie is a woman of class. She’s a French spy who likes expensive things and is passionate about cooking. She has a habit of flying way off the fucking handle and doing some reckless impulsive shit or just generally acting like a psycho. Will sometimes single out a particular enemy that did something to piss her off and then beat the hell out of their corpse long after they’re dead. She has raced Yakuza gang leaders for the right to win their car and then nonchalantly gunned them down when they decided to get revenge. She somehow manages to slither her way into acquiring ludicrous amounts of currency during her operations, and wants to one day take over all of Europe. Has a pet german shephard named Steve who used to be a guard dog for the enemy until she offered him a treat. She is alien-gay for Adiira.

Fayaiy

Selena’s OC. Fayaiy is a bounty hunter who crash landed on Earth and temporarily joined the cause before disappearing off to who knows where. She’s super goofy and sort of comes off as a happy-go-lucky foreigner who doesn’t entirely grasp English but loves to vibe with everyone regardless. LOVES Family Guy, thinks it’s the funniest thing ever. On multiple occasions she got faced on weed in the men’s bathroom with Stan, who I’m pretty sure still assumes she’s a trans guy because she didn’t seem to understand human gender symbols on doors. Has a pet black cat named Peanut who she took with her when she left.

Teri Grimm

A state of the art android who is so human-like you wouldn’t even know her body’s innards were synthetic unless you looked at them under a microscope. The commander’s first creation to gain sentience, and The Initiative’s token robot hacker waifu. Everybody loves Teri. She’s polite, incredibly intelligent, and has a face you just really want to protect, although she can hold her own in battles with superhuman strength. She’s rather unlucky though. Is girlfriends with Katie.

We’re actually currently playing a reboot of The Initiative. The first go around happened a few years ago, didn’t last as long, and featured the following five characters as our player characters. They did not function very well as main characters but work quite well this time around as quirky side characters.

Stan Ward

Ragu’s old OC. Stan is one of the most extra people to ever exist, roughly tied with only Bruce and Vulohon. A true American, he’s a mad bastard of a soldier who loves drugs and driving, often at the same time. Once, several members of The Initiative went out to town to relax and have fun, and he almost immediately got into trouble with the police, being chased off into the night. He came back later after swimming his way back to the base, crabs stuck to various parts of his soaking body with their pinched claws. Was somehow man enough to satisfy a 6 foot tall 400 pound 160+ year old android’s sexual desires to the point that he became her boyfriend.

Bruce Reistill

Kyle’s old OC. Bruce is an abrasive asshole who will never ever let a villain get more than 5 words into their monologue before interrupting them with something along the lines of “now y’see here I think the problem we’re having is that you keep on talking when you really shouldn’t be so I think it’d really be in all of our best interests if I were to just go ahead and...” before drawing his revolver that he nicknamed Banger.

Vulohon

The old OC of Roll, our long lost friend who just sorta disappeared to do his own thing in life. Vulohon is a fucking dumbass. He’s basically if Knuckles from Sonic Boom was an edgy anime himbo. The first time we saw him, he was doing the cool guy thing where you lean back in your chair and sharpen a blade. The second time we saw him, he was doing the same thing, but this time was sharpening a glock. The third time it was a trash can. He owns a legendary energy battle axe and can use psionic energy to generate explosions wherever he wants, but almost all of his fighting tactics involving picking up dudes and throwing them at other dudes. Either that or ripping off car doors and swinging them at people.

Stan, Bruce and Vulohon are all best bros. They moved their beds into the rec room and turned it into the Boys Room, where they sit in the hot tub together and behave heterosexually.

Thael

My old OC. Thael is a scientist who has no personality or emotions, but a really great ass. He’s a husk of a formerly optimistic young student who lost the ability to feel things after a shady government organization recruited him and forced him to conduct awful, sometimes murderous experiments on unwilling Scellor. Everyone is creeped out by him, but Minyaxl’s virgin horniness was enough to push past that as he felt love at first sight (with Thael’s back turned to him) and pursued relations with him. Thael opened up to him and Minyaxl decided to do his best to help him regain his former self. He’s getting there.

Pamiil

Selena’s old OC. Pamiil is an optimistic pacifist healer who never really got all that much screen time but she is cute and must be protected. She loves* Setel.

*by which i again mean the closest scellor equivalent to love which i guess is sorta just close friendship where you also fuck but they’re also capable of feeling proper love it’s just weird and can lead to psionic feedback loops if they’re not careful

(the following 5 pics were drawn by selena)

https://butamakingart.tumblr.com/

Orvon Valasma

The captain of the ship that a mysterious third party (referred to as the Scellor Freelancers, consisting of her, Adiira and Setel) arrived on. She’s 7 feet tall and has robotic legs that can extend to make herself even taller and run super fast. Somewhat stoic, and has gotten into fights with Adiira, but still cares deeply for her friends. The freelancers were originally at odds with The Initiative as they (somewhat rightfully) believed that we were doing a sloppy as hell job of things, but they eventually decided to join forces.

Adiira M’vora

A deadly assassin who, due to being born in the Ayaar caste, was forced to carry out political assassinations against people the Scellor government suspected of being potential state enemies. It got to her so she went rogue and is a bit of a wreck. She owns a legendary sword called Blue Midnight that can cut through the very fabric of space, and has various other psionic space manipulation abilities. She is human-gay for Valerie.

Setel Tunsai

An absolute chad of a man, standing at a towering 5′0″ (which is stupidly tall for his Orthan caste). Setel is a powerful psionic who excels at manipulating social outcomes, either through exceptional diplomacy or good old fashioned mind control. He has a talent for helping people with their emotional problems, and has acted as a therapist for people like Adiira and Thael. He is beloved by all. Is small lovefriend of Pamiil.

Korhan

Horrible. Piece of shit bitch bastard. Rightfully dead. Korhan used his position as an Ayaar operative as an excuse to live out all his sadistic fantasies. Worked in the evil-ass facility that used people like Thael to carry out their horrible experiments, and made implied rape threats to Thael if he thought about not doing his job. Responsible for everything that’s wrong with Djylana. Planted a tracking device on Minyaxl to find the location of The Initiative’s base, then came in and slaughtered innocent people for the fun of it before taking a bunch of hostages. He used them to try and make us hand over Adiira and Thael for betraying their government but we managed to clutch things out and put him in the dirt. Also he could stop time. Was basically Dio.

Djylana

Korhan’s partner in crime. A bloodthirsty animal he used to carry out much of his dirty work. After she was killed, while Korhan was lying on the ground just before Thael unloaded two magazines into him to finish him off, he said that she was his finest work, that we would never be able to truly stop her, that she would not rest until every single one of us was murdered. He had installed something called Echotech into her, allowing her soul to stay attached to her body after its death. She got up and started freaking out because her only “friend” had been killed, ready to kill us all, when MVP Fayaiy came in with the hug and helped us manage to convince her that Korhan was a piece of shit and we could be actual friends to her. She came around, like an abused guard dog finding a compassionate master, and now lives in the base as a decaying zombie. We convinced the commander to let her in despite her crimes and to also eventually make a robot body for her. She was unsure if she wanted to let us do that until someone brought up the fact that it would be the biggest middle finger we could possibly give to Korhan, at which point she vehemently agreed. I hope his piss stain of a soul somehow knows that his ace in the hole was defeated by the power of friendship.

IO

Satan.

There are other characters that I may or may not include in the future, but those are the most prominent ones.

[twiceminded-archived]

(Awhile back I wrote a cognitive assessment for Alfend, but today I’ve decided to expand on it! So here goes!)

(Long-ass fuckin post under the cut, lots of negative psychological stuff, and child abuse mentions.)

Amnesia - Certain memories have been surpressed by conditioning. Only Fendi suffers this, and his memories of his stay in the hospital are especially shaky because of it.

Anxiety - A given, considering what he’s been through. Many things make Alfendi nervous, due to events that have happened in their life. Al typically responds with agitation, while Fendi simply compartmentalizes the feeling and sets it aside.

C-PTSD - One would expect PTSD only due to a singular event, but Alfendi’s very early life involved emotional and verbal abuse. Due to these repeated reactions towards his behaviour, Alfendi now has a myriad of problems that persist later on in life. Al inherited the majority of those behavioural issues. Some of these will be expanded on further down the post.

Cynicism - Not exactly something either of them can help, but it’s hard to keep faith in humanity and in people when you constantly see the worst of them... and when the system fails you, where else do you turn?

Defensiveness - Absolutely. Press either of them on something they’re sensitive about, and they get defensive. Al angrily goes on the attack or stands his ground, but even Fendi can lose his temper and go off if he’s cornered, if he doesn’t just lapse into silence first.

Denial - Yep! Deny, deny, deny. They’re getting a little better about it, but there’s been no real significant progress in making either half admit truth in the face of pressure.

Depersonalization - Comes with the dissociation! And with the personality death. If this body belonged to someone before you, is it really yours? How real are you if you’re just a construct, or a fragment? Too many of these questions, and they start to lose touch with the physical world and perceive things as happening to just the ‘body’, not ‘them’.

Depression - Yeah, there’s not much to elaborate on with this. The depression is real.

Displacement - Is it really a surprise that Al has this? He can’t be aggressive towards the general public, his family, his friends, or his co-workers, so the next best thing are troublemakers who do something to deserve his ire. Who’s going to care if he dumps all of that simmering rage onto someone he’s sure is a murderer? (Well...)

Dissociation - Yes. I mean, it’s very much one of the most obvious things about them. The two of them dissociate semi-regularly, detaching from their surroundings to calm down -- and also ‘switch’ to suit the situation, as people with dissociative identity disorder often do. The blueprints for this were laid by Alfendi’s terrible childhood, before Hershel took him in.

Dysphoria - Is it really his body? Fendi isn’t sure. Al’s more certain, yet at times Fendi feels like he doesn’t belong in it. But he’s there to stay, and he has to look after this body and the alter in it anyway. At times, however, he just doesn’t feel right...

Emotional detachment - Not exactly a bad thing. Fendi makes use of his while in the workplace, where keeping a cool head is pretty important when you’re trying to get the truth out of someone. However, he takes it out of work and... stifles his emotions because he’s been led to believe that too much is too dangerous. And given the horrible feelings he has after losing his temper, maybe he can’t help it.

Flashbacks - Al has these, since Al carries the majority of childhood memories. While Fendi may freeze up when yelled at, Al will freeze up and recall being back in his first house. These flashbacks often throw him into a defensive mode due to their distressing nature and ability to evoke powerful emotions. Don’t scream at them, they hate it.

Flat affect - 100% Fendi. Another word for this is called ‘emotional blunting’ and if that isn’t Fendi I dunno what is. Typically this turns into straight-up apathy, but sometimes the flat affect is done to hide whatever emotion has just struck him.

Guilt - Fendi locked a sentient part of himself away for four years. When he realized the true reason why he had done this, he was struck with guilt that has never really gone away. But he hates guilt, so he refuses to even acknowledge it.

Hallucinations - Part of that psychosis! Fendi hallucinates voices and occasional movement out of the corners of his vision. The voices are almost always persecutory in nature, and the phrases they pick might come from the things he represses. The words don’t always make sense, however.

Hypervigilance - To a point where it can become exhaustion for them. Not always a problem but when it is, it’s usually because one of their traumas have been triggered or a phobia has been recognized. When combined with paranoia (hypervigilance isn’t the same thing), they become an absolute wreck.

Intellectualization - Done all the time by Fendi. ‘Thinking to avoid feeling’ is one of the cornerstones of his personality. Engaging emotion logically helps take the edge off of it, and makes it easier to fold up and put away.

Isolation - They’re getting better at this, but paranoia threatens to sabotage their hard work. Isolation is safer, isn’t it? But God is it lonely, and they’re sick of being lonely. As Alfendi makes more friends, he’s relying on this less and less.

Panic attacks - Perhaps ‘inevitable’ isn’t the right word; maybe ‘expected’ is. They can work themselves up into a fear-induced frenzy that then results in a panic attack. Unfortunately, agoraphobia (one of Alfendi’s most pronounced phobias) contributes heavily to panic attacks, so this man just cannot catch a break... Thankfully, they’re quite verbal about panicking and know how to deal with it at this point.

Passive-aggression - Fendi’s societal weapon of choice. Al is typically aggressive and only that, but Fendi much prefers to simply ‘accept’ before quietly undermining the person who has raised his ire. Some of his snark is quite passive-aggressive and indirect.

Paranoia - This is the big one. This paranoia is the source of so many of his problems. It has thoroughly invaded his life and so profoundly affected his behaviour that if somehow his paranoia were to be cured, he would undergo quite a personality change. (It, however, cannot be ‘cured’.) Though Alfendi is right to be on edge due to his job, mild celebrity status, prior incidents, and those who oppose him, he takes things a bit too far. He HAS to be safe, HAS to be as unreachable as possible, and his tragic dream is that one day nobody will be able to hurt him ever again. What has happened to Alfendi has thoroughly broken his ability to trust, and no matter how much work is put into helping him take down his paranoid tendencies, it only takes one betrayal (perceived or otherwise) to make him shut down...

Phobias - Yes! The most pronounced one is agoraphobia. Though most people assume it’s a fear of open spaces, that’s just a literal translation. Fendi fears that if he’s put in danger again, he won’t be able to escape -- thus, being inside will keep him safer. Obviously both of them are terribly phobic of anything that can extensively alter the mind, and despise the thought of losing control. The mere suggestion of having someone else in command of them is enough to terrify them both. There’s more! See if you can find them all!

Projection - Occasionally an issue for Al, he’ll misplace his aggression or own vaguely murderous tendencies in someone else. Not like the murderers can exactly argue...

Psychosis - Actually, they both have this! Psychosis comes along with paranoia for the ride. Being able to tell real threats from threats spun out of imagination is not a skill they have anymore -- hence, the paranoid tendencies.

PTSD - Getting shot in the fucking chest and almost dying is pretty goddamn traumatizing. So is being manipulated and taken adantage of to be used as a scapegoat, but it’s a tossup if that can be classified as a PTSD event or C-PTSD event.

Rationalization - You ever see all of those excuses Fendi makes for keeping Al down? That’s literally this. He’s rationalizing it.

Repression - Gestures at Fendi again. This is different from suppression in that feelings are being pushed into the unconscious to never be dealt with!

Self-harm - Oops! This is never done to a life-threatening extent, but Alfendi tends to scratch at his arms when he’s losing his grip on his own thought processes or is overwhelmed. Sometimes he draws blood, sometimes he just gets his skin under his fingernails and that’s all...

Somatization - The amount of stress Alfendi has occasionally manifests into pain with no definitive origin.

Splitting - While Fendi can see shades of gray in people, occasionally Al will split on someone, seeing them as all good or all bad. This is not especially healthy and has led to several friendship collapses in the past. The splitting mechanism was inherited from the original Alfendi.

Sublimation - While Al does project his aggressive emotions onto people from time to time, he’ll also transform his urges and dedicate his aggression to other things, such as his knife-throwing hobby and cooking. 

Suicidal ideation - Fendi once had this problem. It was fixed. Now he does not want to go away, ever.

Suppression - Sometimes it’s better to just stop thinking about certain things, you know? This can be perfectly healthy, just... there’s a point where you have to stop! While Al does have a better idea of where to stop suppressing, Fendi has decided the line is way the fuck elsewhere and suppresses much more often.

Thousand-yard stare - Ever seen Al in the middle of a flashback episode? He isn’t looking at you. He isn’t looking at anything. All he can see is what he went through, and he’s not here right now. Alternatively, when either of them are having a period of extreme dissociation, you’ll see it -- that dead gaze, that soulless expression...

Triggers - Plenty of them! Screaming is one of them. Don’t scream. Thunder and gunshots, too, put them off significantly and throw them into the beginnings of a shutdown or the start of a panic. There are others...

Trust issues - OH I WONDER WHY

Violence - Al is occasionally consumed with the thought of it, and itches for the times he can commit it in the name of self-defense which is kind of terrifying! He thrives off the threats he can make and the reputation it gives him. Is it any wonder Fendi worries about the choices he might make?

Whiplash temper - Alfendi was on the receiving end of this as a child, and unfortunately there is a legacy of abuse. He used to be doing better about his temper, until his personality shattered and Al not only reverted but became slightly worse than his predecessor in that regard.

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 152

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 04 - “The Tranquil Cure Mint!” Date watched: 4 October 2019 Original air date: 25 February 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/r27tc5L Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

Okay I’ve gone this long without talking about it, so before we continue, it’s time for THE ROAST OF KOMACHI’S HAIR

Her hair is evenly kept chin length all around her head except for a chunk in the back that reaches to her mid-back. It’s not a ponytail, it’s a thin section of her hair that is wildly longer than the rest. Now of course, anime hair is known to be absurd, but in Precure this is usually kept to their transformed states. Everybody else on the team (or eventual team) has pretty standard hairstyles: Nozomi has two small pigtails, traditional bangs, and wears the rest of her hair at shoulder length, Rin’s hair is short and curls out from the sides of her head, Urara wears long twintails, and Karen has long loose hair with neatly trimmed ends. Komachi is the standout with her absurd style. When she transforms it gets even weirder: the body of her hair poofs up and resembles Cure Bloom’s hair, while the bit in the back splits into two extremely long strands that reach her knees. This is still pretty wild but she’s on a team with a girl with hair loops and another with hair cones so she shares the weirdness among the team. I will never understand what the character designer was thinking when they came up with Komachi’s hair. Maybe there’s an interview out there where they explain it, I’d really like to know, because it is ridiculous.

Okay now that that’s out of the way, let’s actually talk about the episode....

The Plot

Rumors are starting to spread around the school about the strange phenomena that keep occurring. Karen discusses it with Komachi one morning and they find it odd that Urara has begun hanging out with Nozomi and Rin. At lunch, Coco reminds the three of them they still need to find the Precures of Tranquility and Intelligence, but they’re interrupted by Karen and Komachi confronting them about their perceived connection to all the suspicious activity. Nozomi sees an opportunity and decides to come out and explain that they’re Precures fighting Nightmare to protect the Dream Collet, and would these two like to help them? Nozomi explains how she thinks these two fit the qualifications Coco described, but they don’t really believe or understand what she’s saying, and Karen leaves in frustration. Komachi lags behind to say it was a lovely story, and she’d love to hear more sometime.

Meanwhile at Nightmare, we find out Gamao has gone MIA after failing his mission, and of course Girinma is still in isolation, so a third agent is called in to collect the Dream Collet: Arachnea. (You get one guess what kind of animal she is). She boasts about how much more capable she is than the other two, and Bunbee basically responds “I hope so.”

Back at school, Rin has soccer practice, Urara tries to find Karen at a student council meeting, and Nozomi approaches Komachi in the library and discovers her writing. Komachi admits that she has wanted to be a novelist since she was very young, but all she gets is dismissal and mockery when she tells people that. Nozomi, however, encourages her and says she’ll support her dream! After all, that’s what she does best. They go for a walk outside and Komachi inquires further about the “story” Nozomi was telling earlier about Precure. Nozomi clarifies that it wasn’t a dream and explains the whole situation, and Komachi finally believes her but admits Karen is more stubborn. Before they can continue, spider webs suddenly come out of a nearby manhole and pull them down into the sewer, where they’re confronted by Arachnea herself, demanding the Dream Collet. She creates a Kowaina out of sewer water and chases the girls, who end up at a dead end. With no other options, Nozomi transforms in front of Komachi, kicks the monster, and they run off together.

she just keeps kicking and kicking and kicking and kicking and....

At the same time, Coco has detected the presence of Nightmare and tags Rin and Urara to try to find Nozomi. They manage to follow her down the sewer and meet up with the missing girls. Rin and Urara transform in front of Komachi, and begin to fight the Kowaina. Arachnea wraps Dream and Komachi in webs and screams that they had no right to dream, that dreams are just illusions. Komachi takes this personally, and retorts that dreams are important and Nozomi is the first person to believe in and support her dream, and in turn she wants to support Nozomi’s dream as well. Her strong emotions summon a green butterfly, which disintegrates the webs binding Komachi before landing on her wrist and becoming a Pinky Catch. Not missing a beat, Komachi transforms into the Precure of Tranquility, Cure Mint! The Kowaina tries to attack them, but Mint uses her special attack, Precure Mint Protection, which is a butterfly that takes the form of a rapidly expanding shield. The monster is knocked back and Dream takes this chance to finish it off with Dream Attack, and Arachnea retreats, muttering about how she’s going to explain this to Bunbee.

The commotion in the sewer has attracted a crowd, and as Nozomi, Rin, and Urara climb out, Karen comments that she knew they were the ones stirring up trouble. Then Komachi climbs out and Karen is confused as the four girls laugh awkwardly.

The Analysis

I know I keep coming back to this but I really enjoy how the various girls are active in investigating the mysterious occurrences resulting from the clash between the Precures and Nightmare. Even if nobody else has seen the actual fights, and the battlefields magically restore themselves, the noise and commotion of the fights attracts attention, and that’s how Komachi and Karen get roped into this mess. I also like how Nozomi is like “You know what? These two might be the ones” and just spills their secret. She recognizes that they have the qualities Coco is looking for: tranquility and knowledge, and Urara and Rin actually agree with her, though Rin is also self-aware enough to realize how absurd this all sounds to an outsider, and tells the seniors “I can see why you wouldn’t believe all of this, but it’s true.” It’s funny to me how Nozomi took a meeting where the two older girls were questioning their connection to the mysterious phenomena and turned it around on them into trying to make friends with them and have them join the Precures. She flipped the school hierarchy and power dynamic on its head, because she’s the pink. Also she’s that perfect combination of confident and airheaded that she can just go for it. I don’t mean this to sound bad, I honestly love Nozomi’s brand of earnestness and her sincere interest in helping other people achieve their dreams. Without getting too ahead of myself, she’s a lot more balanced than some other pink cures down the road.

Speaking of dreams, this is where we really get a look at what Komachi likes to do in her spare time. We might have seen her writing in the first episode but this is the first one to focus on it, and show how she’s a little embarrassed to show people her work because she’s had too many bad experiences with people mocking her. Nozomi’s earnest support of her dream to become a writer is encouraging, and we’ll definitely see her grow and develop her writing skills throughout the show. It’s one of the more memorable character arcs in the show.

An interesting facet of Cure Mint is that she is primarily defense-based rather than being offensive like the other cures so far. Her special attack is a shield, and we’ll see several cures in the franchise who mirror this ability, but while it can be a useful skill and is demonstrably strong in the right circumstances, it feels a little too drawn out most of the time. I guess I’m okay with the whole stock footage chant to perform an attack, but doing the same to summon a shield when the danger is IMMINENT seems wasteful when we know they can jump out of the way. If she had a quick shield she could pull out with less fanfare and used the special attack shield to defend from wide-range attacks or to buy time while her teammates set up their attacks, I’d like it more. Mint Protection does get some time to shine down the road, but far too often it feels superfluous. Maybe that’s heathenous for me to say in a show about teamwork and everybody having a role to play.

I’ll use this opportunity to briefly discuss the Kowaina since i haven’t properly done so before. Unlike Zakenna and Uzainaa before them, Kowaina are a bit more supernatural. The enemy of the week pulls out a full-face mask with a pointy nose and a creepy blank smile, then they throw it on an object, bringing it to life in a mutated form with the mask serving as the face. Also, they speak with a female voice rather than the brutish male voice of the previous shows’ monsters, and they always sound more creepy and spooky. It really adds to the mood and sets this series apart from its predecessors. The next episode will show us that the masks work on sentient creatures, not just inanimate objects, and that will bring some interesting implications.

On the topic of the villains, Arachnea is probably my favorite general from this series. She has the best design as a monster, she’s very serious and largely effective. Sure, she has to lose because plot, but her abilities give the team a run for their money. I’m not sure what she thought she’d gain by luring the girls into the sewer that she couldn’t do above ground, perhaps she thought she could limit their movement? It’s not that well-explained. However, that hiccup aside, I really enjoy her as a villain. Girinma is a close second but he often winds up as the butt monkey of Bunbee’s schemes, which is unfortunate.

Now, this episode has several instances of animation that is best described as..... questionable. Actually, it’s not just this episode, it’s been prevalent all along, but I haven’t had time to bring it up before, and it’s prevalent enough here that I needed to discuss it. The models used for the characters for mid-range and far range shots are not awful, but their features and proportions are a bit distorted. Their faces in particular have eyes that are the wrong shape, which really stands out, and these shots are long enough that even if you’re not the most observant, you’ll realize they look off.

For further out shots, we get the added bonus of noodle limbs.

It’s not a great look, but at this point, we’re used to so-so animation in Precure.

I’ll try to talk about the music in the next one, because the audio design of YPC5 is fun and well enough removed from its predecessors. Look forward to that and more. Next time, on Precure Daily, a false start!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 2 Kettei!

[xtruss]

Do Animals Have Feelings? Examining Empathy in Animals

Many humans feel love and empathy towards animals, but do the animals we care about so deeply feel the same about us? How about each other? Scientific research backs the idea of emotions in animals. In fact, researchers have observed empathy in them, as well as grief, fear and other complex emotions often associated primarily with humans.

Human Emotions in Animals

Viewing animals as our emotional equals is not a new phenomenon. Pythagoras, an ancient philosopher and mathematician who lived until 490 BC, believed that animals possessed the full range of human emotions. Somewhat more recently, Charles Darwin wrote, “There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in the mental facilities.” Today, current research supports the idea that at least some animals experience a variety of emotions, including fear, joy, happiness, shame, rage, compassion, respect and more.

Dr. Marc Bekoff, professor and author of numerous essays about animal rights and conservation, stated, “Non-human animals are amazing beings. Daily we’re learning more and more about their fascinating cognitive abilities, emotional capacities and moral lives. We know that fish are conscious and sentient, rats, mice and chickens display empathy and feel not only their own pain but also that of other individuals.”

This understanding of animals as emotional beings is not something that meshes with some humans’ views. Throughout history, many people believed — and still believe — we differ from animals because of our consciousness and connection to fellow man. Those who take the behaviorist approach to studying animals argue that instead of assigning human emotions to animals, we can explain their behavior through a stimulus-response theory.

Still, evidence is mounting that animals do experience at least some degree of emotion. Through advanced technologies, we’re able to observe animals in their natural habitat. Thus, more recently, we’ve seen more animals having what appear to be emotional reactions to triggering events. Many agree these responses are not just instinctual in nature.

Now, animal researchers find themselves asking what, if any, line separates how humans perceive the world emotionally from how non-humans do. Scientists agree that emotions play a pivotal role in the well-being of humans and have likely helped us evolve overtime. It’s entirely possible that emotions have played a role in the survival of other species and affect their everyday lives greatly.

Empathy in Animals

One of the most complex and integral emotions is empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of those around us. Humans display empathy toward other humans and animals alike. Do animals do the same? Research points to yes.

Empathy is likely more prevalent in social species, or animals that associate in social groups. Dr. James C. Harris at Johns Hopkins University described it as “an evolutionary mechanism to maintain social cohesion.” In other words, animals that rely on a group for survival must be more sensitive to what those around them are feeling, whether they’re human or non-humans.

The idea of empathy in animals introduces a whole new way of looking at our non-human neighbors, suggesting that our feelings toward them might be reciprocated. It is also possible that they truly care about members of their own species in a way that we can relate to. This complex emotional trait has been observed in other primates, as well as dogs, mice and elephants.

Examples of Animals Exhibiting Empathy

Observing empathy in animals is becoming more frequent due to our ability to safely observe animals in their own habitats. Here are a few examples of animals displaying empathy in what we might describe as human-like ways.

Elephants Mourn a Lost Conservationist

Lawrence Anthony was a conservationist who founded the 5,000-acre Thula Thula Reserve with African elephants. He gained a reputation for being able to comfort elephants upon their arrival at the reserve. In fact, he managed to keep elephants who wanted to leave from wandering back into harm’s way. In his book, “The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild,” he said he learned to communicate with the elephants by observing how they communicated with each other.

When Anthony died of a heart attack, elephants traveled to his home seemingly to pay their respects. His son said that since his father’s death, the herd has come to his house on the edge of their reserve every night.

While elephants grieving the loss of their own herd members is not a new phenomenon, the act of paying respects to a human who worked hard to help them is remarkable.

Dogs Comfort Humans in the Aftermath of Trauma

According to an article in the New York Times, Iraq veteran Benjamin Stepp returned home from two deployments with a traumatic brain injury and multiple other injuries causing pain. During a lecture at graduate school, Stepp tried hard to focus, but he was agitated. No one in the class noticed except for his service dog Arleigh, who jumped into his lap to comfort him. He believed Arleigh always empathized when he was struggling emotionally.

Comfort dogs also display empathy. When the horrific events of 2012 happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School, comfort dogs were able to help children open up and heal. Some children spoke directly to the dogs about what they’d experienced. In fact, one child spoke for the first time since the shootings after petting one of the dogs.

Arleigh and the comfort dogs provided to Sandy Hook survivors are not unique. Service dogs, as well as family pets, help veterans, kids with autism, adults suffering with mental health distress, those recovering from traumatic experiences and more. A recent study concluded that dogs feel empathy toward humans and act on that empathy, responding swiftly to humans crying.

Rats Look Out for Their Friends

Many don’t picture rats when they think of empathy, but a recent study proves that rats empathize with their friends. In the study, rats saved their friends from drowning. The experiment showed that when one rat was soaked in water, another rat quickly learned how to operate a lever that would allow the rat to escape to a dry area.

What’s more impressive about this experiment is that the rats gave up a treat that would have dropped if they didn’t pull the lever to help their fellow rat. This suggests the well-being of their friend was more valuable to them than food for themselves. If the suffering rat wasn’t present, the other rat accepted the treat.

Empathy in animals spans species and continents. Animals display empathy toward humans and other animals in a multitude of ways, including comforting, grieving and even rescuing each other from harm at their own expense.

Do Animals Have Feelings?

Award-winning environmental writer Carl Safina addressed this very question in an interview with National Geographic. He said, “Watching animals my whole life, I’ve always been struck by how similar to us they are. I’ve always been touched by their bonds and been impressed — occasionally frightened — by their emotions.” In fact, those who work closest with animals are most convinced that they do contain a wide range of emotions and feelings.

Skeptics argue that animals’ behaviors are not inherent proof that they’re experiencing complex emotions. Still, most scientists agree that animals are conscious beings that experience varying degrees of emotional responses.

While there’s still a lot of research to be done concerning animal emotions, more evidence exists than ever in history that our non-human friends are experiencing feelings much like we do. Likely, these feelings play a major role in their lives and survival.

Consider an online bachelor’s degree in psychology. If you already hold a bachelor’s degree but would like to sharpen your scholarly research skills in the areas of critical thinking, search methods, research presentation and more, you could benefit from our online masters in experimental psychology.

At UWA, you can earn your degree entirely online at one of the state’s most affordable institutions. Our programs feature smaller class sizes and personal attention from a faculty comprised of scholars and practitioners in the world of psychology.

[vulpinesaint]

Since the plants shake with fear when Crowley threatens them, it naturally follows that not only can plants in the Good Omens T.V. universe hear, that they can move, and they can also experience fear. In this essay I will—

(Essay below the cut. Page numbers are taken from the Kindle edition of Good Omens. The original document is in Times New Roman, 12 pt. font, double spaced; unfortunately, I had to sacrifice format for easier reader access.)

Rai (Last Name Redacted)

No Teacher Would Ever Support This

As If I Could Get Away With Writing This For A Class

2 July 2019

                    The Implicit Horror of the Plants in Good Omens

     The book Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, chronicles the actions of an angel and a demon, the antichrist and his friends, and a couple of others, as the world comes to an end. A recent television adaptation brought attention to the cult classic, which immediately became a fan favorite, starring beloved actors David Tennant and Michael Sheen, among others. The show managed to stay quite true to the original story, as might be expected, with one of the authors of the book as a showrunner. The purpose of this essay, however, is not to dwell on the nuances of the show, or the ingenuity of the book. The purpose of this essay is to examine a detail in the television show that is often glossed over—the shaking of Crowley’s plants.

     Crowley, who keeps houseplants in his apartment, is shown to directly affect them by speaking to them. Crowley is said to “put the fear of God” (Gaiman, 254) into the plants by talking to them; or rather, by threatening them with implied murder. In the book, Crowley picks an unsatisfactory plant and leaves, before returning “an hour or so later with a large, empty flower pot, which he would leave somewhere conspicuously around the flat” (254). The show gives a similar narrative, except with a rather more explicit method of threatening from Crowley. Instead of simply leaving the flat, he leaves the room, and there is a whirring sound akin to a woodchipper or a paper shredder before he returns to the room with an empty pot. The fate of the chosen plant, or at the least, the percepted fate of the chosen plant, is obvious, and in the show, the leaves of the plants shake with fear. The real horror of this, however, lies not in the fact that Crowley talks to his plants, or threatens them with death. The real horror is that the plants are afraid of the fate that he threatens them with. The plants in Good Omens, canonically, experience fear.

     There is a plethora of evidence for this claim, between the book and the show. The most obvious is the shaking, a typical expression of fear. As Neil Gaiman was involved with the production of the show, though the show and the book are two separate pieces, it means that one has no choice but to accept the show into Good Omens canon, and therefore, the shaking of the plants’ leaves is fair evidence. However, one cannot rely on visual evidence alone. The book states that the plants in Crowley’s apartment have “the fear of Crowley” (254) put into them, a fact stated by the narrator in the show, as well. Not only that, but the book later goes on to affirm that the plants are “the most terrified” (254) in London. This, of course, brings with it an assurance that the plants are actually afraid, and experiencing a state of fright. That, coupled with the shaking of the leaves, proves three things; one, that the plants in Crowley’s apartment have the capacity for emotion, two, that they are capable of movement, whether voluntary or involuntary, in response to this emotion, and three, that the plants are capable of either sight or hearing or both. Crowley’s methods of intimidation are either verbal or visual, and involve no physical contact with the plants who stay in the room. Since the plants respond to Crowley’s threats with fear, it is fair to say that they possess one or both of the aforementioned senses, since they are able to understand either his words or his actions. As for the moving; of course, typical plants are capable of movement, as with all living things (evidenced by a gradual movement to face sunlight), but these plants are specifically characterized with the ability to shake with fear. This attributes these houseplants with more physical and emotional autonomy than a typical plant. Sentience is defined by the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary as “feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought,” and is simplified by Wikipedia as “the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively.”  Emotions are universally subjective, and the experience of fear as an emotion means that these plants do indeed have the capacity to experience reality subjectively. They are cognizant enough to interpret Crowley’s threats, which never involve explicit explanation or visuals of the doom of the unlucky plants, as a threat of death, and to fear them. From this, one can infer that not only are these plants sentient, but they have a concept of death, or at the very least, great bodily harm. If they did not, what would they have to fear from the disappearance of the other plants?

     This brings us around to a question; if the plants can fear, what else can they feel? Crowley tells the plants to “‘Say goodbye to [their] friend’” (254); just how right is he? Do these plants have the capacity for friendship? For love? Do they have families? Loved ones? Enemies? If they can hear and feel and move, are they capable of communication? Can they establish societies? They draw conclusions from Crowley’s inexplicit threats despite never actually seeing or hearing the outcome, which attributes them with an imagination of some sort. An imagination brings about the very likely possibility that the plants can think, can have thought processes, can feel the world and rationalize it in its constant state of fear. 

     The plants have been proven to be sentient, but it brings about yet another question; if they are sentient, how and when did they acquire said sentience? Crowley’s imagination has been proven to be quite a formidable force, and is tasked with holding a flaming vehicle together over miles of road. If Crowley’s imagination can have such an effect on what could loosely be referred to as reality itself, it is feasible that he could have imagined the plants into sentience, simply by wishing that the tip he’d heard on the radio about talking to plants would be effective. The plants that Crowley gave sentience to would forever be trapped with the object of their greatest fears. It’s also possible that all of the plants in the Good Omens universe are sentient. The book and the narrator of the show state that the plants in Crowley’s apartment are the “most terrified” (254) in London. Is this simply because they are the only plants that live in fear, or is it only because they live with a literal demon? Are the other plants in London, in the rest of the world, sentient? If so, can they hear the world as a seed, muffled through the earth or the paper of a seed packet, or do they develop their senses as they grow? Do the seeds awaken under the earth, unable to see until they are blinded by light? The plants are afraid of death, or afraid of not existing anymore. Are all plants so cruelly aware that there is an end to their existence? Do they watch weeds being crushed underfoot and realize their own mortality? Can the plants, in their sentience, in their ability to move their ‘bodies’, feel pain? When a young lover picks a flower, are they ending the life of a sentient being?

     In essence, whatever the answers to these hypothetical questions, the truth beyond it all, the horrifying truth that none should forget, is that the plants in Good Omens experience fear. They have free will, and can move, but to what avail? They will never be able to move far enough to escape Crowley or the inevitable march of death, trapped in the soil by roots and unable to grow anywhere but up. They fear death. They can be killed. They have imaginations, vivid enough to draw conclusions from Crowley’s threats, conclusions that they are afraid of. The plants in Good Omens are not far from us, for all that we prize our humanity, our emotions, our imagination, because the plants in Good Omens feel fear.

                                                 WORKS CITED

     Gaiman, Neil, and Terry Pratchett. Good Omens: the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. HarperCollins Publishers, 2019.

     “Sentient.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sentient.

(Link to original document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DROENzPUSDH0WVG6jFFuboOk6fzkxNTactsLFL6zeB8/edit?usp=sharing)

(i stayed up until 2 am and wrote this in one sitting and i would just like to say that i’m sorry)

[transhumanitynet]

Sapient Sentient Intelligence Value Argument (SSIVA) Theory

The Sapient and Sentient Intelligence Value Argument (SSIVA) Theory first introduced in the Springer Book titled “The Transhuman Handbook” (Lee) was designed as a computable model of ethics that protects all sapient and sentient intelligence. The model is critical to a number of major Transhumanist projects including work with the Foundation at the Transhuman House as well as the AGI Laboratory that uses this as the basis for teaching AGI models to respect humanity.

SSIVA Theory states that “ethically”, a fully Sapient and Sentient Intelligence is of equal value regardless of the underlying substrate which it operates on meaning a single fully Sapient and Sentient software system has the same moral agency [WF] as an equally Sapient and Sentient human being. We define ‘ethical’ according to dictionary.com as pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principals of morality; pertaining to right and wrong in conduct. Moral agency is, according to Wikipedia; is “an individual’s ability to make moral judgments based on some notion of right and wrong and to be held accountable for these actions. A moral agent is “a being who is capable of acting with reference to right and wrong.” Such value judgments need to be based on the potential for Intelligence as defined here. This, of course, also places the value of any individual human and their potential for Intelligence above virtually all things save the one wherein a single machine Intelligence capable of extending it’s own Sapient and Sentient Intelligence is of equal or more value based on a function of their potential for Sapient and Sentient Intelligence. It is not that human or machine intelligence is more valuable than the other inherently but that value is a function of the potential for Sapient and Sentient Intelligence and SSIVA argues that at a certain threshold all such Intelligence should be treated equally as having moral equivalence. Given this equality, we can in effect apply the same rules that govern humans and apply them to such software systems that exhibit the same levels of Sapient and Sentient. Let us start from the beginning and define the key elements of the SSIVA argument as the basis for such applications of the law.

While the same moral value is implied, it’s the treatment as equals in making their own mind through their own moral agency that is the same. Any more ‘value’ then that becomes abstract is subjective It is that the moral agency that is the right we assign to that Sapient and Sentient Intelligence based on the value of the potential of such entities is the same.

Accordingly ‘Intelligence’ is the most important thing in existence. In SSIVA Theory ‘Intelligence’ is defined as the measured ability to understand, use and generate knowledge or information independently.

This definition is more expansive then the meaning we are assigning to Sapience, which is what a lot of people really mean when they use the often-misunderstood term sentience. Sapience [Agrawal]:

Wisdom [Sapience] is the judicious application of knowledge. It is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgments, and actions in keeping with this understanding. It often requires control of one’s emotional reactions (the “passions”) so that universal principles, reason, and knowledge prevail to determine one’s actions. Wisdom is also the comprehension of what is true coupled with optimum judgment as to action.

As opposed to Sentience [Prince] which is:

Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive, or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth-century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think (“reason”) from the ability to feel (“sentience”). In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences (described by some thinkers as “qualia”).

In SSIVA Theory it is Sapience and Sentience together that is considered by using the term Intelligence to mean both.

In the case of this paper, we will apply Sapience to refer specifically to the ability to understand one’s self in every aspect; through the application of knowledge, information and independent analysis, and to have subjective experiences. Although Sapience is dependent on Intelligence, or rather the degree of Sapience is dependent on the degree of Intelligence, they are in fact different. The premise that Intelligence is important, and in fact the most important thing in existence, is better stated as Sapient Intelligence is of primary importance but Intelligence (less than truly Sentient Intelligence) is relatively unimportant in comparison.

Why is Intelligence, as defined earlier, so important? The reason is: without Intelligence, there would be no witness to reality, no appreciation for anything of beauty, no love, no kindness and for all intents and purposes no willful creation of any kind. This is important in from a moral or ethical standpoint in that only through the use of applied ‘Intelligence’ can we determine the value at all even though once Intelligence is established as the basis for assigning value the rest becomes highly subjective but not relevant to this argument.

It is fair to point out that even with this assessment that there would be no love or no kindness without Intelligence to appreciate. Even in that argument about subjectivity, it is only through your own Intelligence you can make such an assessment, therefore, the foundation of any subjective experience that we can discuss always gets back to having Intelligence to be able to make the argument.

Without an “Intelligence,” there would be no point to anything; therefore, Intelligence is the most important quality or there is no value or way to assign value and no one or nothing to hold to any value of any kind nor determine a scale of value in the first place.

That is to say that “intelligence” as defined earlier is the foundation of assigning value and needed before anything else can be thus assigned in terms of value. Even “subjective” experience of a given Intelligence has no value without an Intelligence to assign that value to that experience.

Through this line of thought, we also conclude that Intelligence being important is not connected with being Human nor is it related to biology. Intelligence, regardless of form, is the single most important ‘thing’ under SSIVA Theory.

It is, therefore, our moral and ethical imperative to maintain our own or any other fully Sentient and Sapient Intelligence (as defined later with the idea of the Intelligence Value Argument threshold) forever as a function of the preservation of ‘value’.

Whatever entity achieves full Sapient Intelligence, as defined above, it is therefore of the most ‘value’. Artificial Intelligence referring to soft A.I. or even the programmed behavior of an ant colony is not important in the sense of being compared to fully Sapient and Sentient Intelligence; but the idea of “Strong AI” that is truly Sapient Intelligence would be of the most value and would, therefore, be classified as any other human or similar Sapient Intelligence.

From an ethical standpoint then, ‘value’ is a function of the ‘potential’ for fully Sapient and Sentient Intelligence independent of other factors. Therefore, if an AGI that is ‘intelligent’ by the above definition and is capable of self-modification (in terms of mental architecture and Sapient and Sentient Intelligence) and increasing its ‘Intelligence’ to any easily defined limits then its ‘value’ is at least as much as any human. Given that ‘value’ tends to be subjective SSIVA argues that any ‘species’ or system that can hit this limit is said to hit the SSIVA threshold and has moral agency and is equal ethically amongst themselves. This draws a line in terms of moral agency in which case we have a basis for assigning AGI that meets these criteria as having ‘human’ rights in the more traditional sense or in other words ‘personhood’.

This of course also places the value of any individual fully Sapient and Sentient Intelligence human or otherwise and their potential for Sapient and Sentient Intelligence above virtually all other considerations.

SSIVA Threshold

The difficult part of SSIVA theory is the SSIVA threshold which is determining the line for Sapient and Sentient Intelligence. The SSIVA threshold is the threshold at the point of full Sapient and Sentient in terms of being able to understand and reflect on one’s self and one’s technical operation while also reflecting on that same process emotionally and subjectively. This understanding should be sufficient to theoretically replicate without a built-in a system such as biological reproduction or a computer software program replicating. This kind of reproduction is insufficient to cross the SSIVA threshold.

To compare and contrast SSIVA with other ethical theory:

Utility Monster and Utilitarianism 

The Utility Monster [1] was part of a thought experiment by a Robert Nozick related to his critic of utilitarianism. Essentially this was a theoretical utility monster that got more ‘utility’ from X then humanity so the line of thinking was that the “Utility Monster” should get all the X even at the cost of the death of all humanity.

One problem with the Utility Monster line of thinking is that it puts the wants and needs of a single entity based on its assigned values higher than that of other entities. This is a fundamental disagreement with SSIVA where SSIVA would argue that you can never put any value of anything other than other Intelligence themselves. This would mean that the utility monster scenario would be purely unethical from that standpoint.

Utilitarianism does not align with SSIVA thinking for an ethical framework as Utilitarianism asserts that ‘utility’ is the key measure in judging what we should or should not be ethical whereas the SSIVA (Intelligence value argument) makes no such ascertain of value or utility except that Sapient and sentiment Intelligence is required to assign value and past that “value” then becomes subjective to the Intelligence in question. The Utility Monster argument completely disregards the value of post threshold Intelligence and by SSIVA standards would be completely unethical.

Buchanan and Moral Status and Human Enhancement

In the paper ‘Moral Status and Human Enhancement” [Buchanan], the paper argues that against the creation of inequality regarding enhancement. In this case the SSIVA is not really related directly unless you get into the definition of the SSIVA ethical bases of value and the fact that having moral agency under SSIVA means only that intelligence can make a judgment as to any enhancement and it would be a violation of that entities rights to put any restriction on enhancement.

Buchanan’s paper argues that enhancement could produce inequality around moral status which gets into areas that SSIVA doesn’t address or frankly disregards as irrelevant except in having full moral agency we would not have the right to put any limits on another without violating their agency.

Additional deviations with Buchanan include that sentience is the basis for Moral status whereas SSIVA makes the case for sentience and sapience together being the basis for ‘value’ which we assume that definition or intent is similar to this idea of ‘moral status’ articulated by Buchanan.

Intelligence and Moral Status

Other researches such as Russell Powell further make a case that cognitive capabilities bear on moral status [Powell] where SSIVA doesn’t directly address moral status other than the potential to meet the SSIVA threshold grants that moral status. Powell suggests that mental enhancement would change moral status, SSIVA would argue once an entity is capable of crossing the SSIVA threshold the moral status is the same. The largest discrepancies between say Powell and SSIVA are that Powell makes the case that we should not create persons where SSIVA would argue it’s an ethical imperative to do so.

Persons, Post-persons, and Thresholds

Dr. Wilson argues in a paper titled “Persons, Post-persons and Thresholds” [Wilson] (which is related to the aforementioned paper by Buchanan) that ‘post-persons’ (being enhanced persons through whatever means) do not have the right to higher moral status where he also argues the line should be Sentience to assign ‘moral’ status whereas SSIVA would argue that the line for judgment of ‘value’ is that of Sapience and Sentience together. While the bulk of this paper gets into material that is out of scope for SSIVA theory but specific to this line for moral status SSIVA does build on the line for ‘value’ or ‘moral status’ including both Sapience and Sentience.

Taking the “Human” Out of Human Rights [Harris]

This paper really supports the SSIVA argument to a large degree in terms of removing ‘human’ from the idea of human rights. Generally SSIVA would assert that ‘rights’ is a function of Intelligence being sapience and sentience and anything below that threshold would be a resource whereas Harris’s paper asserts that human rights is a concept of beings of a certain sort and should not be tied to species but still accepts that a threshold or as the paper asserts that these properties held by entities regardless of species which would imply also that such would extend to AI as well which would be in line with SSIVA based thinking. What is interesting is that Harris further asserts that there are dangers with not actively pursuing research further making the case for not limiting research which is a major component of SSIVA thinking.

The Moral Status of Post-Persons [Hauskeller]

This paper by Hauskeller in part is focused on Nicholas Agar’s argument on the moral superiority of “post-persons”, and while SSIVA would agree with Hauskeller that his conclusion in the original work are wrong; namely he asserts that it would be morally wrong to allow cognitive enhancement, Hauskeller argument seems to revolve around the ambiguity of assigning value. Where SSIVA and Hauskeller differ is that as a function of Intelligence where SSIVA would place absolute value on the function of immediate self-realized Sapient and Sentient Intelligence in which case a superior Intelligence would be of equal value from a moral standpoint. SSIVA disregards other measures of value as being subjective due to being required to be assigned by Sapient and Sentient intelligence to begin with. SSIVA theory asserts that moral agency is based on the SSIVA threshold.

Now if we go back to the original paper by Agar [Agar], it is really his second argument that really is wildly out of alignment with SSIVA namely that Agar, argues that it is ‘bad’ to create superior Intelligence. SSIVA would assert that we would be morally or ethically obligated to create greater because it creates the most ‘value’ in terms of Sapient and Sentience Intelligence. It is not the ‘moral’ assignment but the base value of Sapient and Sentient Intelligence that assigns such value as subjective as that may be. Agars ambiguous argument that it would be ‘bad’ and the logic that “since we don’t have a moral obligation to create such beings we should not” is completely opposite of the SSIVA argument that we are morally obligated to create such beings if possible.

Rights of Artificial Intelligence

Eric Schwitzgebel and Mara Garza [Schwitzgebel] make a case for the rights of Artificial Intelligence which at a high-level SSIVA based thinking would support the idea articulated in their paper but there are issues as you drill into it. For example, Schwitzgebel and Garza make the conclusion that developing a good theory of consciousness is a moral imperative. SSIVA theory ignores this all together as being unrelated to the core issue where SSIVA works from the assumption that consciousness is solved.

Further, their paper argues that if we can create moral entities whose moral status is reasonably disputable in which case, we should avoid creating such machine systems. SSIVA theory doesn’t deal with the issue of creating such systems but deals with the systems once created.

The big issue with SSIVA around AGI is that value exists in all Sapience and Sentient Intelligence and the implication is to optimize for the most value to the most Intelligence that is fully Sapient and fully Sentient.

Cited References

Lee, N.; “The Transhuman Handbook;” Springer; ISBN 978-3-030-16920-6 (https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030169190)

Agar, N.; “Why is it possible to enhance moral status and why doing so is wrong?”, Journal of Medical Ethics 15 FEB 2013

Schwitzgebel, E.; Garza, M.; “A Defense of the Rights of Artificial Intelligences” University of California 15 SEP 2016

Hauskeller, M.; “The Moral Status of Post-Persons” Journal of Medical Ethics doi:10.1136/medethics-2012-100837

Harris, J. “Taking the “Human” Out of the Human Rights” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2011 doi:10.1017/S0963180109990570

Powell, R. “The biomedical enhancement of moral status”, doi: 10.1136/medethics-2012101312 JME Feb 2013

Wilson, J.; “Persons, Post-persons and Thresholds”; Journal of Medical Ethics, doi: 10.1136/medethics-2011-100243

Buchanan, A.; “Moral Status and Human Enhancement”, Wiley Periodicals Inc., Philosophy & Public Affairs 37, No. 4

Olague, G; “Evolutionary Computer Vision: The First Footprints” Springer ISBN 978-3-662-436929

Prince, D.; Interview 2017, Prince Legal LLP

Agrawal, P.; “M25 – Wisdom”; Speakingtree.in – 2017 – http://www.speakingtree.in/blog/m25wisdom

Wikipedia Foundation “Moral Agency” 2017 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_agency

See https://hpluspedia.org/wiki/Sapient_Sentient_Intelligence_Value_Argument_(SSIVA)_Theory

Sapient Sentient Intelligence Value Argument (SSIVA) Theory was originally published on transhumanity.net