#thesuperfeyneednoshoes

[scripttorture]

I'm wondering whether a plot point in a story I once read was realistic:

A character claims to have been trained in torture techniques that not only leave no marks (which I think you've called "clean torture"), but also don't require "tools" - no weapons, no devices, no technology, no environmental control (e.g. over lighting or temperature), and so on. If I recall correctly, he says this to threaten someone who is restrained in an otherwise completely bare room, and there's no suggestion of sexual assault being one of the techniques

Is this a thing? Would one person actually be able to torture another if it was just the two of them alone in a room, and not have it leave any kind of physical evidence?

In short: yes, that’s possible. But the devil, as always is in the detail.

 You see from the way this is framed it seems as if the story is implying the character is highly skilled, dangerous and required specialist training. And that is in keeping with how torturers talk and behave. But it isn’t really in keeping with reality.

 Because what he’s talking about is probably a ‘clean’ (ie non-scarring) beating, which essentially amounts to repeated open handed slaps on fleshy areas of the body. It’s very painful. It is still dangerous and it can kill (via kidney failure). But it isn’t… smart or complicated or hard to think up. It doesn’t require training or specialist knowledge.

 It’s probably worth mentioning here that clean torture does sometimes leave temporary marks. But they’re always the sorts of marks that might be explained away by something else.

 The swelling standing stress positions cause in the legs goes down quickly. But even if an independent witness sees this swelling… it can be caused by a whole range of diseases and health conditions. Institutions can and have turned around and said possible evidence of torture was down to underlying health conditions or other factors.

 This is part of why torture trials usually have a lot of survivors giving evidence. It’s about establishing a consistent pattern over dozens or hundreds of victims rather then tearing apart the evidence of one person.

 Clean beatings can leave the skin swollen, inflamed and sometimes visibly reddened. But a wide range of skin conditions can look similar. Some people would get similar looking marks from being restrained on a hard bed in a hospital. I get similar marks from sitting her on my sofa with my laptop on my knees typing asks. I also get them from kneeling on the floor when I use my sewing machine.

 There are a couple of other clean tortures that could fit in this scenario. The British National Style favours standing stress positions without restraints, usually using a wall and enforcing them by beating people who refuse to comply. Forced exercise is another relatively common torture that fits this description.

 And again, these can potentially leave some evidence. It’s just not clear evidence and it’s not obvious evidence. An exhausted, pained prisoner does not mean clear evidence of torture.

 With more torturers sleep deprivation could also fit this scenario. Something like relay interrogation, where the torturers swap out to rest but continue questioning/berating the prisoner and keeping them awake for days at a time.

 Generally I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using this scenario in a story. But I’d advise anyone considering it to be careful how they frame this incident. It would be very easy for the narrative to accidentally back up the torturer’s assertion that they’re skilled/trained or imply that these ‘techniques’ are intelligent, unusual things.

 The scene itself isn’t ‘wrong’. It’s just the sort of scenario that can relies on the reader’s background knowledge to fill in the blanks.

 And unfortunately that’s not something we can do when we’re talking about torture or abuse. Accurate information is difficult to find and not accessible for the majority of people. Misinformation and apologia is everywhere. Until that changes I don’t think we can rely on readers filling in the blanks with anything but apologia.

 Which is why it’s important to try and think through the implications of what we write.

 I hope that helps :)

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[biologyweeps]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/vagina-sealing-glue-stick-terrifying-new-alternative-traditional/ HELP

New official partyline: Men are not allowed to invent period products anymore unless they’ve had periods themselves are are perhaps obgyns and the jury is still out on the second point.

Like

I guess the official idea was ‘make like one of those silicone cup things, but without having to boil any silicone afterwards’ but went about it in the worst way possible. 

Not just is the base idea weird as fuck (lots of ideas are weird as fuck, lbr), it’s an active health hazard. Why? Well, this is what your junk looks like:

dude suggests to glue the labia minora shut to keep the blood in. As you may notice that means that you glue it over the urethral opening. If you think, hey doesn’t that mean you got blood swimming around there a lot? congrats you found the problem

This is DOUBTLESSLY going to be UTI central on a majority of people who use it for the simple reason that not just does blood make for excellent bacterial growth medium to begin with, we’re talking about blood that’s already saturated with bacteria because it passed your your vaginal channel and now it’s just.... chilling there, right by the urethra. That’s such a fundamentally bad idea that I wanna take the dude’s doctorate away for it, but as it’s a doctorate in chiropractics... no, you know what, even a chiropractic should have a better fucking grip on human anatomy especially because I spy a ‘human biology’ B.Sc down there 

And on top of it, the inventor said this:

"You as a woman should have come up with a better solution than diapers and plugs, but you didn’t. Reason being women are focused on and distracted by your period 25 per cent of the time, making them far less productive than they could be. Women tend to be far more creative than men, but their periods that [sic] stifle them and play with their heads.”

If there was a camera here I’d be looking right at it now. 

tldr: fuck this it’s going to give you a UTI from hell, and fuck the inventor, specifically. 

[because-cur-non]

I had to try. (ch151: Prep School Closet Raid)

[maghrabiyya]

thesuperfeyneednoshoes replied to your post: “i’m sorry but if it was a man banning his girlfriend from talking to...”:

wait, who??

this girl i had the misfortune of meeting a couple of weeks ago who despises me because her boyfriend and i were becoming friends. she banned him from speaking to me and apparently almost every other girl who lives in a 10 mile radius of him lol

[hospodipomiluj]

Is there a theological term for the general idea that all worldly pleasure is inherently bad, including things like enjoying fashion (so like the Puritan opposition to slashed sleeves)? Or that the material world, e.g. the body, is inherently bad & material suffering is good (like medieval flagellants)? I keep finding myself looking for an umbrella term for this kind of thing when talking about social sciences. (To clarify, I'm not asking what you think about it, just whether it has a name.)

Hello! 

Aye, there is...kinda. It’s known as “stoicism”. It’s not so much a strictly theological term in as much as it’s the philosophical thought that all things of the flesh are evil an we have to get rid of any sort of enjoyment - even the enjoyment of food (as I understand it) was a grave thing to the Stoics. And don’t even bring up the idea of having emotions and enjoying them. Man, the Stoics were not fans of....anything that could be remotely enjoyable. 

Stoicism is actually a rather ancient Greek philosophical school, so it’s not so much a theological term, but we do find it mentioned often in theological works (St. Thomas’ works come immediately to mind, as he was a huge Greek fanboy). 

Just a brief aside: stoicism is pretty inconsistent with the Catholic faith. If you’d like more commentary on that, I’d be happy to provide, however I just felt a need to put it out there. 

Thanks so much for your question and God Bless! 

[goingsparebutwithprecision]

Tagged by @sinni-ok-sessi, many thank!

three ships: so it’s all aboard the polyamory train at casa goingspare right now, current obssessions include bingliushen (SVSSS) - this despite the fact I have consumed precisely one (1) volume and one (1) donghua season’s worth of this media,and thus have met the liu of this ship precisely once; hanwenzhou from Word of Honour - I blame @fractured-ice entirely for this, go read her sit and watch the world go by series immediately; and Shen Wei/happiness (Guardian) - I recently went on a Guardian gen/Shen Wei character study binge, and i just...let him have friends!!! let him have connections with yashou and other dixingren and his students and his fellow professors! hugs and snuggles for Hei Pao Shi! I demand it!

first ever ship: hmmmm so i didn’t really actively ship anything until I got on tumblr like 9 ish years ago, which means what I want to say is Alanna/George from The Song of The Lioness, but what would be actually truthful is either Castle/Beckett from Castle or both the main het ships from the first few seasons of The Mentalist, which I was very very into in the just-pre-tumblr years. I have no excuses and no defence.

last song: Achilles Come Down, Gang of Youths *drags hands down face*

last film: rewatched Encanto with friends over the weekend, it continues to be spectacular, @iveswallowedthelittlebookofcalm still hasn’t forgiven me for emotions inflicted thereby

currently reading: Abhorsen, Garth Nix, for @teachingmycattoread, continues to be my gold standard for fantasy worldbuilding and magic systems, I love it so much. Also partway through A Closed and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers Jane Austen at Home, Lucy Worsley, and Guardian, priest. One day I will get past the beginning of the Merit Brush section. One day.

currently watching: Legend of Fei, the new season of Queer Eye, Leverage: Redemption, Nirvana in Fire. Again. Once again I am Consumed By Emotion.

currently consuming: the delicious treat known only in my household as Butter Abomination. It is. So Good.

currently craving: more Butter Abomination, honestly.

Taggings! I continue to be bad at this! @iveswallowedthelittlebookofcalm, @roisesb @charhtebobo @thesuperfeyneednoshoes @starkey @july-19th-club

[professorfaber]

@thesuperfeyneednoshoes I promise you the problem with MLs is not that they're too radical.

[tacticalgrandma]

I must know: where do the "bitchy sleepover Lins" come from? I've looked up Freestyle Love Supreme, but which video are the stills from?

They’re from episode 5, “The Burbs”!

[sunnydaleherald]

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~~Belonging~~

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[ladyalisette]

11 Facts About Me

 Alright, so three people tagged me in this so clearly there’s no avoiding this, so let’s go.

1) I have a riciulous fear of heights, the one time my friend convinced me to go ride a freefall tower at a fair with her, I gave her a hand shaped bruise on the wrist by clinging on that tight

2) despite 1), I am absolutely fine in planes. Being in a flying tincan is A+ and no reason for worry but a flight of stairs with a glass railing has me glued to the next wall. Go figure.

3) I have longterm plans for a series of tattos, that once finished, will include an underboob, a backpiece and a number of smaller tats scattered down my right leg. Yes they’re all thematically linked. With any luck I’ll get the underboob done soonish.

4) I have a horrible black thumb. The vast majority of plants I’ve owned over the course of my life died a horrible, slow death, safe for one succelent I’ve had since I’ve been 6. When I say that I think that plant is a vampire and killed the others to stay alive, I’m only half-joking. All the more because my current set of plants (an Aloe and a small orchid) are doing fine and the succulent stayed home with my parents when I moved out.

5) I have a collection of dead animals as wet preserved specimens in jars, as well as a whole lot of bones, feathers, mother of pearl from a local creek and a ton of dried insects. My family helps collect new specimens in my absence.

6) during 8th grade my art teacher complained that my drawings/paintings were to dark so for the next piece I did a crying woman superimposed over a graveyard, in b/w because I’m a contrary little fuck.

7) during 6th grade I faked a haunting on some girl who was bullying me. It was a full success.

8) Since I moved out, I’ve only once cooked something that wasn’t edible and that was because one of my ingredients had been spoiled and I noticed too late. Tying into that, I really enjoy cooking and baking and I have a lot of books for/about both.

9) I have an unhealthy love for overknee socks and fluffy turtleneck pullover. As one of the upsides of now living near the alps, I get to wear a lot of both. On the other hand I also recently bougth two corsets, and those have seen a fair bit of use, too. 

10) I have a small cat plushie that I’ve owned since my first birthday. I’m still sleeping with it and i’ve never parted with it once in my life. If I’ve been staying over somewhere, or went on holiday somewhere, the kitty went with me (despite a lowkey but deepseated anxiety of forgetting her somewhere abroad). 

11) My family has a fairly extensive history of accidents and hospital stays, with the sole exception of me. I’ve never even broken a toe while my dad had a childhood injury that forced him to learn being lefthanded and limits his use of his right arm, my mum has somewhat limited mobility in the fingers of her right hand, and my sister managed to break both her arms, and had abdominal surgery shortly after her 16th (for something that turned out to be way less of an issue than it looked like on the ultrasound). In keeping with 5) I have copies of all their ultrasounds/x-rays/fotos and when applicable, the titanium bits that held the bones together. 

Right so who do I tag? Alright, let’s see. @kaidashade @karrotdragoness22 @failuresimulator @katistrophe @s-a-i-l-o-r-m-o-u-t-h @critfails @pteroglossus @saberinthenight @hisgracehisexcellencysirsamvimes @thesuperfeyneednoshoes @charismaticintelligence

[biologyweeps]

wow

source

I made a sound like an angry, angry pterodactyl at this. ESPECIALLY the ‘joy’ one. Like, there was literal screeching at the screen. How. Fucking. Dare. These. People. 

My favourite part is how half of them don’t even tell you what essential oil you’re using, because those totally never have side effects, plants are safe! Atropin is natural and therefore harmless! 

I swear to fucking Plaguemum if I find these people I will club them with my Campbell. 

[because-cur-non]

The way you described Lafayette playing with his accent made me think of Russell Brand's debate style. His dialect is stereotyped as uneducated and unintelligent, and he often plays that up, as well as acting deliberately silly or immature sometimes as part of his humour; then when everyone thinks they've got him pegged he suddenly drops eloquent truth bombs about serious subjects, and the posh snobs who've been dismissing him as stupid get visibly caught off guard.

Ah yeah that's the same kind of thing! He definitely plays up the silly oblivious Frenchman trope and enjoys dropping the act to see the reaction. It's not the same connotations/context but same basic idea. 

[josefugone-blog]

finalfagtasy replied to your post: thesuperfeyneednoshoes: airagorncharda: ...

Tfw u go on tumblr for the first time in almost 2 months and this is the first post on ur dash

:?

[goingsparebutwithprecision]

Two tag games in two (? who knows with tumblr) weeks, my cup runneth over! tagged by @sinni-ok-sessi​

Last movie: answered in this post

Last song: Sedated, Hozier (my Hozier binge continues).

Currently watching: Julie and the Phantoms (soft! so soft!), Leverage (for something like the eleventh time) and Discotrek (two episodes into the new season and thus far it is delightful)

Currently reading: already answered for books, so have my three most recently read fics instead: the heart of perfect wisdom, malfaisant (Temeraire), Play It Again, metisket (Teen Wolf) (the craftsmanship! the meta! the ribs I have cracked laughing!), and I'm Going Out (Gonna Make A Name For Me And You), cosmicmilktea (The Untamed)

Currently craving: the downfall of capitalism

no pressure tagging @roisesb @charhtebobo @thesuperfeyneednoshoes @rediswriting @rowan-numerals @eros-cestlavie @iveswallowedthelittlebookofcalm

[marisatomay]

hey! you mentioned using the xkit tag reader extension, and i searched but can't find it. where'd you get it? i want it.

OH so you need to download the New Xkit extension for your browser, and then it has it’s own little extensions with tons of options (and that’s one of them)

[sashayed]

thesuperfeyneednoshoes replied to your photoset “i put on Powerful Lipstick this morning to try to hide the fact that i...”

You remind me of my aunt, wow.

i am your aunt. by the act of reading my Tumblr Blog u have consented to my materteral influence. read the terms of service