#which has lead to a massive burnout

[the-irrelevant-trumpeter]

me: oh my god i have so much school stuff to do, it's so unfair that they dump an unreasonable amount of work on us and then expect us to be able to keep up with it when we simply don't have the time

also me: *spends an entire day watching youtube*

[itsabouttimex2]

Hi would it be alright if I request a yandere Platonic Noodlefam Headcanons please with a cherry on top 🙏

MK sets an impossible precedent for you to match. He’s stronger and far more skilled than you, serving as the mentee to the illustrious Monkey King, inheritor of compliant golden-hooped rod known as the Ruyi Jingu Bang.

When Pigsy and Tang see that one of their kids is constantly under attack from demons and monsters, it’s only natural for them to be worried about the other. MK becoming a local hero who regularly endangers himself also means that it’s entirely plausible for his friends and family to fall into the crosshairs of his enemies.

So your fathers; legal and surrogate alike, start to place new restrictions on you. No going out before or after designated times, no going out alone, they get to vet all new friends, so on.

You already weren’t allowed to date, but after their run-in with the Spider Queen teaches them that enemies will even try to seduce them to their demise, the two double down on that deal.

Sure, there were always rules to follow, but never on this level. You never minded rules like “text when you get there”, “be back before ten,” and “don’t leave Megapolis”. Those made sense, and you made sure to abide by them. And your diligence and responsibility have not only not been acknowledged, but instead tested with more rules than ever before.

This quickly breeds resentment from you to MK, because you very accurately surmise that it’s only because of your brother’s antics and adventures that your personal life has grown suddenly stifled and restrictive.

MK, obviously, is devastated. He just wants to keep you, his family, and everyone else safe, and seeing you blame him for how you’re getting treated kind of breaks his heart. Still, he doesn’t dare argue with Pigsy or Tang, in part because he actually does agree with them.

He’s your big brother, after all. Is it really that bad that he and your fathers want to keep you safe? Sure, it can get a bit lonely and frustrating for you, he won’t try and deny that. It must suck to be kept inside most of the time, especially when he runs all over and gets into incredible adventures. MK gets to cause trouble and stop evildoers on a weekly basis, and the most exciting thing you do is deliver the noodles that he was supposed to be dropping off. (The noodle cart is tagged, and so is your phone. They can’t ever be too careful, after all.)

MK is the “fun, happy kid” and you’re the “good, quiet kid”. You dutifully tend to your surrogate father’s noodle shop, biting back resentment as it swells in your chest. MK sneaks out with Mei to visit arcades and bust skulls.

A hard worker, a good listener, a skilled chef… these are all the great things that you become over time. But also, you’re bitterly jealous, overworked, and slowly grinding down to nothing with all the effort you put in.

Eventually, the exhausting duality of being put on a pedestal and held to it with shackles takes it’s due toll. All of it leads up to a massive burnout or breakdown, which shifts the dynamic severely.

If you end up burning out and end up fatigued and unmotivated, you get grilled a little too hard by your fathers, both terrified that something might be wrong or that someone might be hurting you.

It’s them. They’re the ones hurting you, but you can’t really say that. Since you can’t answer their questions honestly or explain what’s wrong, they have no idea about what they should do. Pigsy settles for treating you like you’re sick, forcing you to take several days off to stay in bed. It’s a bandaid solution, but it does accomplish something by giving you time to recuperate from the prior mentioned burnout.

Breakdowns are treated with more care and more severity. One little straw breaks your back, and then MK is getting a vicious/distraught earful about lending his duties to you without your permission, and Pigsy for allowing him to do so. Tang gets off easier on account of not being personally involved in the noodle shop’s affairs, but you call him out for calling himself your father and still allowing these things to happen.

The responses are… split, to say the least.

MK will genuinely apologize for the strain he’s been putting on you and admit that he hasn’t exactly been the greatest brother. He’ll give you a big hug and drag you to his room to hang out, ignoring your complaints and protests. You’re upset that he’s been going out too much? Then the solution is to spend more time with you! (It’s not, but at least he’s trying.)

Pigsy won’t stand for it. One of his kids, yelling at him? Absolutely not. Go to your room and calm down. (He’ll whip you up a bowl of noodles while you’re off stewing/sobbing.) Once you’ve eaten and cooled off, he’s open to an actual conversation- the end result is most likely him appointing Tang to take you out once a week or so, giving you an actual break from the monotony. Once again, not the best solution, but it’s definitely an improvement that lifts your spirits.

Tang validates your concerns by listening to them and comforting you, but doesn’t try to solve the problem at all. He offers to be your shoulder to cry on, but also acknowledges that what MK runs off to do is usually important, and can’t be avoided. But! He’s always here for you, dear. Now, come sit with him and have a bowl of noodles. Maybe he can read to you?

It’s not always so bad for you, thankfully. You’re still allowed to leave, under admittedly strict rules, for one. Pigsy also provides you a steady job, whether working with him in the kitchen or running deliveries. You interact with customers regularly, so not only are you never too lonely, they also allow you to keep in contact with customers they trust.

It could be worse. It could be better.

But it’s good enough to feel like home, to feel safe and loved, and that’s what makes it so hard to leave.

[sanshofox]

Just me pondering I guess… I feel like what really irks me also about the current entertainment/gaming industry debacle (with the massive layoffs, or AI being art and job theft or the irrational greed of business people) is that it now openly excludes and casts out one group of people w/o shame and in a way denies them being able to enjoy life (like free job choice) and what’s even worse is that it has become a threat of existence for those now out of a job, but also to those that still have one. It's more layoffs than job openings currently, which therefore almost completely denies access and those few that remain in the industry get cycled through one project after another, each time one step closer to burnout.

AI CEOs admit wanting to rid creatives of their job with reasoning that make them look like toddlers with a temper tantrum in adult suits that held a grudge for too long. And I feel like I am back in high school with my friends where you got bullied for being artsy nerds. Like god forbid people develop a passion and skills for smth and later enjoy their jobs. It's immensly dismaying for me. Because this feels like high school behavior, it’s the same damn scheme, but those are actually adult people in leading positions with huge impact. This is where behavior and decisions count and it’s ruining lifes. There’s an unhinderend amount of irrationality in business we haven’t seen like that before.

[sapphire-weapon]

i know most people don't know anything game dev and even i don't know much but some of your anons really need to documate themselves about what it takes to make a game and especially AAA games

because anyone knowing the strict minimum would know it's like impossible to have perfect work life balance when working on a AAA games... that’s not the kind of job where you clock in at 8 and clock out at 4, with plenty of time to unwind… and that is true for most artistic jobs actually

that's sad but it's like that

i was literally just ranting about this to @godtier lmao

here's the reality of what we're looking at with RE9. either:

the project has been scrapped and rebooted multiple, multiple times at this point due to a lack of coherent vision by management (which is kind of what the director told us -- that it took them a long time to decide what to do next after RE7), leading to dev burnout and an underwhelming, patchwork product as pieces of the old versions of the game get slapped together in order to save on dev time and cost, or

the team keeps trying new ideas that aren't working, leading to massive changes in narrative direction, level design, enemy encounters, and gameplay flow and mechanics that will eventually erode the core message and experience that the game was supposed to convey

or both.

i've said it before and i'll say it again:

if we do not see RE9 by the end of this month, you should be very, very nervous about what that product ends up being.

[jungian-julie]

Pregnancy and spiritual development

I believe that I had to get pregnant and have to have children to continue my spiritual development.

Stagnation was plaguing me, I felt quite lost after breaking my animus possession. When using the heroine's journey cycle as a guide, you could say that during my "girlboss era" I had the illusion of success.

I followed all the steps in "Nice girls don't get the corner office". I had that corner office. Well only sometimes because nobody exactly had a main place they could sit tbh, it would change constantly. My hair was cut very short and I was wearing suits everyday, which did cause people to take me way more seriously.

It came naturally to me, because I have had to lean on my animus, my inferior function, for most of my life. It's not easy being a woman in this society, especially while navigating a traumatic upbringing.

So I have a very well developed animus, which can easily take over. Yet even though I could do it - I could be a great lawyer, a great martial artist, I did not need a man - it was unbeknownst to me taking a massive toll on me. It lead to a burnout and a whole host of health problems. Some have me dealing with permanent damage.

It was like waking up from a dream. The illusion broke and I was aimless. My career felt like a fraud, my job felt like a fraud. I realized I wasn't actually adding anything to society and my work was meaningless. I had given up the chance to become a teacher, which I rather wanted, just for money and prestige.

I spent years doing nothing, just recovering and trying to recover myself. Find who I was before the longest stint of trauma, before the animus possession. I tried joining a convent too to become a nun, but they rejected me. They thought I was running away from life and challenges, which was true.

The reality is that I was deeply afraid of relationships with men and pregnancy. I stayed a virgin until my mid 20's because of that. My mother had a post partem psychosis and nearly killed me as a baby. I've always been afraid that I would go insane like her and end up killing the baby if I did ever get pregnant.

Sure, I could've continued avoiding all that, not face my deepest fears and traumas. I went completely through the fear, imagined the worst possible things and made it so that I created a situation where I can accept even those risks. Like surfing and managing a very bad trip.

I've seen so many professionals over the years who have said I'm not that much at risk of PPD/PPS. Plus being aware of it and telling doctors about it, means that they'll keep a better eye on me anyway. I have also been extremely picky with my partner choice, brutally picky, so I know that I'll get the support I need.

I know there's so much potential for suffering, but life is suffering anyway. I'd rather take meaningful suffering which feels more martyr-like than aimlessly floating in the wind like an autumn leaf. I needed to stop fencesitting. I needed to get off the pot or shit.

By orienting myself on motherhood, I have made more progress in processing my trauma than I've done in a decade. It has forced me to face what's in my shadow and also recover the positive things which were hidden in there.

It has helped me find a healthy form of femininity and find a place for my masculinity. It has freed me from superficial femininity pressures. I can't escape society, but I can choose to not let it affect me and to fight against it. While also not falling into the trap of admonishing femininity in favor of masculinity.

I'm not becoming a "trad" sahm homeschooling mother because I think it's easy, sunshine and rainbows. I'm becoming one, because that is what I feared the most and it's what I need to challenge my soul and make a diamond out of coal.

At the same time, it allows me to do what I always wanted to do and so many people gaslit me out of in favor of money. Which is working with children, teaching, cooking, baking, cleaning etc. I would rather clean piss and shit, which I have already done plenty while babysitting and when I volunteered at animal shelters, than manage one more manbaby in a suit.

Plus I am ready to just not be the main character anymore. I'm done with it. I'm bored, I'm not all that interesting and everyone loves the sidekick anyway. It also feels a lot more chill and peaceful and I'm still important and necessary in my own way. Plus there's less of a focus on me, so I can just do my own things.

I'm also really looking forward to becoming a granny and letting everyone else do the worrying while I stuff their faces with cakes.

[dailyanarchistposts]

The paradigm of government

Where does rigid radicalism come from? Surely there are a multiplicity of sources. Ultimately, we think it is an inheritance of Empire. It has been suggested to us that rigid radicalism is primarily a Euro-colonial phenomenon: that is, it is most intense in spaces where whiteness, heteropatriarchy, and colonization have the strongest hold.[129] These divisions induce habits of relating based in crisis and lack, as capitalism constantly pits people and groups in competition with each other. But rigid radicalism does not exactly mimic Empire; it emerges as a reaction to it, as an aspiration to be purely against it. When we spoke to adrienne maree brown, she suggested that it is an outgrowth of terror and violence:

Nick and carla: What sustains it? brown: The culture that there is only one way to be radical in the world, one way to create change. Nick and carla: What provokes or inspires it? What makes it spread? brown: Terror. We are dying out here. So much destruction is in motion. I think there is a feeling of urgency, that we need discipline and rigor to meet this massive threat to our existence—racism, capitalism, climate, all of it. It feels like we need to be an army.[130]

Empire’s destruction in motion can trigger desires for control and militarized discipline. It can lead to a monolithic notion of the right way to be radical, hostile, and suspicious towards other ways of being. It forces out the messiness of relationships and everyday life in favor of clear lines between good/bad and radical/reactionary. In this sense, rigid radicalism imports Empire’s tendencies of fixing, governing, disciplining, and controlling, while presenting these as a means of liberation or revolution. In this sense, many radical movements in the West (and elsewhere) have been entangled in what Spanish intellectual Amador Fernández-Savater has called the paradigm of government:

In the paradigm of government, being a militant implies always being angry with what happens, because it is not what should happen; always chastising others, because they are not aware of what they should be aware of; always frustrated, because what exists is lacking in this or that; always anxious, because the real is permanently headed in the wrong direction and you have to subdue it, direct it, straighten it. All of this implies not enjoying, never letting yourself be carried away by the situation, not trusting in the forces of the world.[131]

In the paradigm of government, one always has an idea of what should be happening, and this gets in the way of being present with what is always already happening and the capacity to be attuned to the transformative potentials in one’s own situation. Under the paradigm of government, people are never committed enough. Silvia Federici spoke to this when we interviewed her:

This is why I don’t believe in the concept of “self-sacrifice,” where self-sacrifice means that we do things that go against our needs, our desires, our potentials, and for the sake of political work we have to repress ourselves. This has been a common practice in political movements in the past. But it is one that produces constantly dissatisfied individuals.[132]

Because rigid radicalism induces a sense of duty and obligation everywhere, there is a constant sense that one is never doing enough. In this context, “burnout” in radical spaces is not just about being worn out by hard work; it is often code for being wounded, depleted, and frayed: “I’m fucking burning.” What depletes us is not just long hours, but the tendencies of shame, anxiety, mistrust, competition, and perfectionism. It is the way in which these tendencies stifle joy: they prevent the capacity for collective creativity, experimentation, and transformation. Often, saying one is burnt out is the safest way to disappear, to take a break, to take care of oneself and get away from these dynamics.

[darkness-falls-tarot]

Joe Locke: what’s next for his career, potential for awards and also sneaking in to my cards; how is his relationship with James now?

All readings are alleged and for entertainment purposes only; please take each reading with a grain of salt.

What can we expect from Joe in the next coming weeks: the wheel of fortune reversed, the emperor, the high priestess - for Joe he is going to have a lot of massive changes coming his way but not all of them will be positive. I think these changes are to his life in general like privacy; he may distance himself from Social Media platforms or try to take some time between those he cares for and himself. He wants some normalcy in life again and he’s planning to take control of that where he can; but he’s also walking with this feeling gnawing at his insides saying that there is something he needs to be aware of and cautious about.

What is this issue Joe needs to be concerned about: death reversed, 3 of cups, king of pentacles - something has been holding Joe back from his true potential. He’s been avoiding this situation for a while and doesn’t want to admit to it but it’s time to let go of whatever this is. in doing so he will find more time to be with friends and family to enjoy his success in the industry. He wants to go out and celebrate his success like he should and he knows it’s possible but only if he finally breaks his tie to whatever is holding him back.

What is Joe’s potential for awards this year: the lovers reversed, king of cups, queen of wands reversed, the magician - I think this year he isn’t trying for that and trying instead to find his place in the industry. He’s been involved with someone who’s promised to show him the ropes but I don’t think that worked well for him and he’s lost now. I get the feeling Katherine may be his person to lean on and help him find that courage to try and get himself out there to get awards and show his true talent. For now he’s withdrawn most likely from this other individual who has lead him astray but he’s more than capable of winning awards; he will get back into that rhythm he had before and find himself working hard to get his name out there again.

What future roles can we expect from Joe: night of cups, knight of pentacles, 10 of wands reversed - I think Joe is going to try for a romantic film role. While he’s shown that in Heartstopper I think he wants to try for a feature length romance film. This will be a lot to undertake because he’s aiming for an LGBTQ romance film and Hollywood is still weary on that subject; but Joe is looking for this and perhaps a script has landed on his desk that he’s going to do, but he will have to put a lot of effort to make sure the world see it. That is going to be a lot of pressure though and it may give him a sense of burnout so his enthusiasm for the movie may not be what it was at the start because he spent so long trying to get an audience that he feels a little hurt because they should see it for the story alone. (Honestly this kind of movie is pay to see, we need more queer love stories on the big screen).

How is Joe’s relationship: judgment, 7 of pentacles, the chariot - they seem to be entering a new phase in their relationship. It’s been a long time coming but they have worked very hard to make each other happy and have been patient with each other over the past several months. With this new phase I feel they will be going further and further in the relationship. I’m sensing this may be a sign they’re moving in together or buying a home together; their end goal is marriage which they both want. For now it seems they are seeing if this will keep going as it has been.

Oracle card for Joe’s career: cavern of secrets - I think Hoe does know what is next role is but he’s keeping it a surprise. You may get an announcement on instagram, a TikTok or something. He’s already been cast but he’s waiting until he’s given the go ahead to tell everyone.

Oracle card for Joe’s love life: golden mirror - is his relationship one sided? This card can show either there is too much love from one but not enough from the other; they may keep things going to save face but deep down it’s not what they really want.

Does Joe want out of his relationship: yes. The card pulled also says he’s just winging it and not sure what to think about this relationship. He’s not familiar with what his partner wants.

Does James want out of the relationship: no. The card also says dangers in stillness so I take that as James will try to keep things going but in time Joe may get tired or realize he wants something or someone else.

I may do another reading on Joe and James’ relationship this week.

[sleepxng-prince]

✮⋆˙ never meet your heroes

UNI:VERSE

masterlist | next

you — are the one who tied the gang together. if you hadn't been the one to introduce each other, there's a small chance your group would have formed. people have always noticed how different you and your friends are from each other, but that is the thing that brought you all together. the four of you were childhood friends, going through school with each other and dreading the day that adult responsibilities would inevitably tear you apart. that was until months after your graduation, when a boy band debuted in your town. you and the girls were initially stunned, seeing names of boys you'd gone to school with, but decided to indulge in the group out of curiosity. this lead to you all becoming quite big fans of them, attending every concert from the start. heizou immediately stood out to you as the lead singer - you remember walking by him in the halls so many times, noticing him but never seeing him. he sings with his body and soul, and damn did it sound good - his confident on stage hit you with full force, leaving you with the thought that, one day, you'd be confident enough to sing on stage as well. 5WIRL became the thing that eventually inspired you and your friends to start your own band, which kicked off quite well. you take the place as lead vocalist and guitarist, naturally assuming the role as the "face" of the band.

barbara — is the one who first brought up 5WIRL after overhearing a group of girls talking about them in passing. one of the names stuck out to her - venti - until it clicked that he was the former music club president. she had never been close to him, in fact he rarely appeared at meetings, but she knew how gorgeous his voice was so it was exciting to hear about him getting into a band. it was barbara's need to support an old acquaintance that lead to getting everyone tickets. seeing him perform sparked that old passion within barbara, so she picked up piano again after so long. originally, barbara learned piano because she was a part of a choir at her church, but she left that after some time due to burnout. barbara is the keyboardist of the group, and also does some vocals. she's most well-known for being a religious girl that fails to fit the mold of one - it appeals to a lot of people, for some reason.

yunjin — is the one who has always had some eyes on her from a young age. she is well-known in her hometown for singing opera as a little girl, something that not many had seen before. yunjin also appeared on television, being the youngest competitor on the show at the time. she took home first place, and became a big deal for a while - but as she aged, and as school took up all her time, that died out alongside her passion for opera. her love for it never changed, of course, but the motivation she once had was nothing but dust. seeing 5wirl perform lead yunjin to reconnect with her childhood passion, inspired by the gorgeous voice of kazuha — his range reminded her of her own, and it left yunjin inspired once more. she took opera up once again, and put it on the side once the band was formed. yunjin is the drummer, and is most well-known for her former minor fame in childhood. fans absolutely adore seeing her opera performances as well, so the band often likes to let yunjin take center stage and do a performance as the final song for concerts.

xinyan — is the one who suggested a band be started. from the moment xinyan discovered music, it was her lifelong dream - to be in a band and tour the world, to witness a massive smiling crowd cheer out her name... it brought her so much joy to imagine; she wanted to be a part of something big, perhaps to make up for the lack of support given to her as a kid. she never conformed to what everyone seems to want her to do or even be. she wanted so badly to escape the expectations put on her, and be around those who would understand and support her regardless. she found it in you, in barbara, and in yunjin - three people she knew would support her with everything they have. seeing xiao and aether dancing on stage lit an endless fire within xinyan, sending all her childhood dreams to the front of her mind until they were all she could see. at some point, instead of 5WIRL, she saw herself and her best friends performing on stage — and that's when it hit her. that's where she sees her future, and it's doing what she loves with the people she loves most.

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Is 6.5% enough?

Today, there was a leak in the Times that said the independent body who make recommendations on teacher pay has recommended a pay rise of 6.5% for teachers in England for September. Obviously, we don’t know all the details, and funding is a key issue, but is 6.5% enough to save education?

Anecdata, but I recently met up with some friends from my teacher training course. We’re close to hitting the 5 year mark- by which point 1/3 of teachers apparently quit. Except I’m going to be the only one out of five of us teaching in England in September, an attrition rate of 80%. And I don’t think that attrition rate is so unusual, any more.

Right now, on one of the main websites which schools use to advertise vacancies, there are over 12,000 teaching/education jobs being advertised in England. It’s very roughly one vacancy for every two schools. These vacancies won’t be evenly distributed between all schools, so there will be schools in September with huge staff shortages. It’s not an exaggeration to say education is in crisis.

If we got 6.5% (and if it were funded, ensuring all teachers could receive the pay rise), would it make any difference? It’s lower than inflation, after all, and many of the things that we regularly need to buy have gone up by more than inflation in the past year.

As a brief explanation, most teachers in England are paid according to one pay scale. People get a bit more in Inner/outer London and the surrounding areas, but otherwise there’s one set of pay for the whole country. All teachers progress from the starting point M1, to M6, usually at the rate of one pay point a year. The 6.5% would be added on to all of these paypoints.

6.5% would bring M1 (the starting pay point for most qualified teachers) very close to the original Tory promise of a £30,000 starting salary for teachers. At the top of the main pay scale- M6 (which is the point at the pay scale where this would have most impact) it would increase salaries by over £2000 to £41, 332. This would be noticeable in pay packets, enough to reduce people’s financial stresses- which can enable them to cope better with a stressful working environment.

I know some of you will say £40k is a lot, but bear in mind we are talking about a postgraduate qualified professional with at least 6 years of experience. For someone with a chemistry, physics or maths degree, that could be their starting salary in industry. It’s about equivalent to the average salary of a pharmacist. In a capitalist system, pay has to be competitive.  

After M6, to increase your pay, you either need to get onto the “upper pay scale” or take on an extra responsibility payment known as a TLR. Getting on to the upper pay scale used to be relatively automatic, but now it’s much harder. It can certainly take people two or three years to progress from M6 to upper pay scale, and you’re expected to take on “whole school responsibilities” which can amount to a lot of extra work, with not that much of an increase in pay. Increasingly, in England, teacher pay is capped at M6, although there are a lot of older teachers who are on the upper pay scale, and sometimes, they find themselves getting pushed out because they are too expensive. If you move schools, there’s no guarantee of getting a UPS pay point at the new school.

TLRs are even worse in many ways. This is the way that people like heads of department and heads of year are paid. It’s a figure set by your school, within a national range, and there’s no consistency between schools. A Head of Science in one school may get £5000, whilst another only gets £3000. It’s worth noting that it’s also much harder to get a TLR in primary. Because TLRs are often the only way to increase your pay, a lot of people rush to take them on, sometimes in the second or third year of teaching. This often leads to burnout, because people take on massive responsibilities before they are ready, and the consequences can be damaging to everyone around them as well.

I do think 6.5% might be just enough to keep some people who are looking elsewhere from leaving. But the main reason people leave is often work related stress, often euphemistically called “workload”, which is largely being driven by the collapse in other services such as social services, the NHS and social care. “Workload” is also often made worse by being in a short staffed department, so it becomes a vicious cycle. I’ll write more about workload in another post.

However, the point is, the profession is on the brink of collapse. I really do believe that. I think the only way to save education would be to tempt a lot of the recent leavers back in. And 6.5% won’t be enough to do that. I don’t think 10% would be enough to do that. Without tackling the systemic problems within teaching, and without a pay system that really rewards classroom teachers doing the key, every day job that makes education functional, pay increases that don’t even match inflation aren’t enough.

[izztreme-art-n-stuff]

So I said I'd elaborate on my headcanon of Jack and Whyatt being autistic, and now here I am to talk about it. In list form. I'm sorry.

Whyatt:

He's a severe creature of habit. He really doesn't like things being completely out of his control, so he makes routines to try and make a safe and controlled environment for himself. This, however, comes with him unintentionally showing control freak tendencies that bother others.

His stims are rubbing his hair, which usually happens when he's deep in thought or stressed out, and playing with his shirt collar and/or cape, usually when he's nervous.

He gets very hyperfixated on books and sometimes gets so fixated on one that he constantly rereads it and it becomes all that he talks about. He only infodumps to his friends and family because he's insecure about how everyone else would think about his current fixation.

He's very sensitive to light and tends to avoid any place that is far too bright for him to bear. He also doesn't like being around crowded places and likes to keep to himself unless he's with his friends.

He keeps a calm and collected demeanor, partially because that is how he is as a person, but also partially because he feels that's what everyone expects of him. He has a massive restraint on most of his emotions as he feels that's not what anyone wants from him, and he only shows his true feelings once he gets pushed far enough, as SRATSOR chapter 3 will show.

Jack:

He actually masks his autism, which is a severe pain to himself. This was caused by his toxic friend Peter Rabbit when he was still with him during his Super Reader days and it pretty much stuck since as he's terrified of what people might think of his true self. This masking has caused him to have many burnouts and meltdowns that he hides in his own room most of the time. Needless to say, he hates masking, he just doesn't know if he should unmask or not.

His stims are bouncing his leg, rubbing his facial hair, and clicking his tongue. These are usually suppressed due to the aforementioned masking and it only crops up when he's really excited, impatient, or nervous.

Music is actually his hyperfixation, and one he's partially open about as he decided to make it his career, but he tries not to infodump about it as much as he would as he knows way too much about music and its history than he feels he should know. He also has a lesser fixation on plants, having been spawned when he gained plant powers for the first time, but he tends to keep that on the down low too.

He has a sensitivity to sound, which is good when you're a musician, but really bad when you're stuck in a room full of people talking about stuff you don't really care about. He also gets bothered by sounds that no one else can hear/pay no mind to. Of course, because he's masking, he often forces himself into social situations where a lot of noise is created, which becomes very stressful for him, but he feels obligated to try and make a good impression on everyone. This is the main reason he keeps getting meltdowns in the privacy of his own room, as he lets his stress build up and only lets it all out once he knows he's fully alone.

He has a terrible habit of bottling up his emotions, to the point where he's at the brink of blowing up on someone and having a meltdown. He believes that everyone sees him as one of the cooler guys that don't show much emotion, and tries to keep up the persona that he built up in his head when, in reality, he's actually a very emotional person and it's pretty hard for him not to feel an intense amount of feelings. So far, he found a healthy coping mechanism of venting his emotions through song...but that's the only one, and not something he can do all the time, so he just defaults to bottling them up again. He also tends to react with his emotions first and then think about it later, which leads to a lot of regrettable moments for him, especially in the case of him feeling angry.

And a couple that apply to both are them constantly talk to themselves, though Jack tries to keep it more of a mumble, and they tend to talk with their hands a lot, with Jack keeping his hand gestures close to his personal space while Whyatt likes to do more grander, outwardly gestures, which is especially the case when he's getting very emotional

So...thoughts?

[os-mapmaker]

I have received an extra plush version of the Messiah. I only have need for one, so I would like to gift it to you as something to keep yourself occupied with. The task you have set yourself on is daunting. While acknowledging its massive scale does help to a degree, that acknowledgment won't carry you through the entire process. Take it from me, burning yourself out won't do you any good.

…You want to gift this to me?

I…I greatly appreciate it.

And, regarding your concerns about my work… Well, you have likely noticed that it has been moving at a very slow pace. I know that improper pacing can lead to increased stress, which could result in burnout. So I am trying to keep my work at a slow, steady pace.

I appreciate the concerns though.

. . .

Thank you so much for the gift.

[destinygoldenstar]

Jo Minamino ; The Ultimate Musical Sensation (Danganronpa The Privileged Traitor)

Jahan Oishi Minamino (Yah-han Oi-she Mean-ah-mean-oh) ; 21 Years Old ; From Bollywood, India ; The Ultimate Musical Sensation

Jo Minamino is a student of Hopes Peak College Class B-3 in Danganronpa The Privileged Traitor.

Jo is a celebrity in the Bollywood industry since childhood. His main career specialized in musicals, stage and movie, and gained massive popularity all over the world for his incredible singing voice and acting skill. He’s had lead roles most of the time.

Music itself is a huge part of Jo’s life and what he’s defined by. It used to be his great passion, his entire world, and what he felt he was made and born to do in this world.

Emphasis on ‘used to be’.

See, Jo is actually a very soft spoken person in real life. He’s a rather gentle fellow who likes modak and hates getting into fights and likes to keep to himself when he can. If he can’t keep his emotion in check at the moment, he REALLY can’t, but it’s more getting upset at himself than anyone else.

For years his sleep schedule has been non existent, he has habits of making self deprecating jokes, and he gets nervous around peers, especially those that recognize him from his shows.

This is all due to trauma from the very career that got him famous in the first place.

He never had a say in his fame or his job. His parents just heard him singing to himself one day and put him in auditions in a “I’m not asking I’m telling” way. He landed a big part despite just being a newbie kid at the time and his fame just grew from there.

What followed was an entire childhood worth of isolation from other kids his age, pressures of perfecting his singing and acting for multiple performances at once, people putting him on pedestals like an object to display, and severe burnout from the music he used to love.

Did the adults care? No. They kept using him.

It got to a point where his own parents used their kids fame for their own egos, became heavy drinkers, and sent him to live on his own at fourteen because they would be too drunk to take care of him.

It led him in the hands of a theater director that would take him in, but only so he could be used for more shows.

And let’s just say the director would be arrested five years later for exposed abuse of many kinds on minors. They found Jo in a beaten malnourished and sleep deprived state that was masked with makeup and stage glamour for awhile before anyone even noticed.

For the next two years before Hopes Peak, Jo had been stuck with no authority figure, taking medications for his PTSD from his harsh childhood, and taking a break from life in general. He had quit the spotlight, which got backlash from the fans of him that kept him distant from others emotionally. He continued to say ‘screw the spotlight’ when he decided to do nothing about his lack of hairbrush and his major weight gain.

His love for music? Very much killed off. But deep down, he hoped that Hopes Peak would at least help him rediscover what he loved about music in the first place.

Guess what it did instead? Undo pretty much all of his progress.

Turns out, he’s stuck there forever in a killing game. It’s kill or be killed.

Victim? Killer? Survivor?

See my other profiles; The Protagonist ; The Mastermind; The Ultimate Good Cop ; The Ultimate Bad Cop ; The Ultimate Scientist ; The Ultimate Archer ; The Ultimate Environmentalist ; The Ultimate Arsonist ; The Ultimate Vigilante ; The Ultimate Violinist ; The Ultimate Renaissance Student ; The Ultimate Dance Streamer ; The Ultimate Video Game Modifier ; The Ultimate Poetry Writer

[morilucidstories]

In your pinned post, I'm curious to know what's going on with the bat dragon person and who might be you holding your cat? Poking around the blog hasn't gotten me answers. Or maybe answers are there and I'm just hungry and tired.

I had this whole thing written with pics on my phone, and then the wifi flaked and the whole things became lost into tumblr's void when I hit post, so this is the 2nd version. ;-; But this version has more images so it's objectively better.

That's not me in the image. That's Lily Mills, the main character of one of my original comics I post on Tapas and Webtoons Canvas. Pine Barrens Super Natural is based on the legends I grew up hearing from my family about the New Jersey Pine Barrens/Pinelands, and shojo romance comics. Lily is a mix of me and my sibling from when we were young -that's why she looks like me (and Lyly if you know what they look like from MtW.)

The series blurb & summary of Ch 1&2: Lily Mills and her dad, Don Mills, have just moved into the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. On their first night there, Lily is attacked by monsters that should only exist in legends. Luckily, another super natural monster also rescues her. There's definitely some connection to the super natural hidden in Lily's past, and it's going to a lot harder for it to stay hidden now that she finds herself surrounded by all sorts of Super Natural things.

Here is the full version of the cover with the logo:

This comic is actually a reboot of the original comic I started when I was 15-16 in my Sophomore year of Highschool. (It was made on notebook paper.) When I started it I didn't really have a plan for where it was going until around chapters 15-20, so this reboot is taking a lot of loose ends and either cutting them out or adapting them to work with the plot. It's taking me so long to make because I'm struggling with burnout, and I'm now past most of the mental issues I was using it to process so sometimes working on it puts be make into that worst head space. With Lyly's help as my editor we have rewritten and redesigned the parts that cause me problems so once I get back into it, I should be fine.

The little kitty thing is Mascot. He normally appears at the bottom chapters with the credits, in the cover images, and sometimes pops up in chapters with author's notes and comments.

((If anyone wants to head canon any of my characters as neurotypical just know that it is head canon and not supported by anything in the plot -or me))

Below this point are more character descriptions, but just know that most involve spoilers for things that happen after Ch2. I didn't spoil the biggest things just a few things that lead up to them.

The devil catboy is Damian Leeds the son of the Jersey Devil (TJ) and a human (Nancy). I grew up hearing many different stories about the Jersey Devil with many different depictions so this version is a polymorph, and so is his son. Damian is able to change between human, Neko Mimi, and full furry forms. Lily does not know that the Kitty Devil that saved her is Damian. Damian gets a massive crush on Lily. He's very emotionally secure which makes him a great support as a friend, but he also struggle with recognizing that others won't respond to stress the same way he does.

Nancy Leeds works at the local Super Natural Animal Wildlife Reserve. She is also Don's new boss. SN stuff is kept secret from the populace.

Even though Lily and Damian are the central 2 characters, the readers have pretty unanimously voted Erik as the fan favorite. They are a mix of many of the friends I had growing up. She is nonbinary and uses all pronouns. He is a huge nerd, lover of chaos and cringe. When not in the school building, Erik wears a beanie their brother made them that reads "I ♥️ Emo Boys." She's the heart of the group without question.

Alex is Erik's older brother. He is a huge anxiety gay, and introvert. He prefers letting others take center stage while he watches. This does mean he's prone to bottle things up. Luckily he's the type to go to his friends for help after isolating to process. He hasn't had many appearances yet, but what has been revealed is that he really likes fashion and sewing. He has also been weirdly touchy with Lily and even he doesn't know why. The most recent chapter and the next few will have him as a focus.

(Alex and Erik are half Italian, half Columbian American. This hasn't had an opportunity to be brought up in the story yet. I had a bunch friends that were Columbian. Their extended family and specifically their grandparents were very like my Italian grandparents. So I made these two a mix of those just like they are mixes of many friends I had growing up. Even though I've had these characters for half of my life, I have never been able to decide on a last name for them.)

The last of the friend group is Mike Sasha Keith Apple Gate. In the OG version I made in Highschool, I had 3 characters that all played the same role at different times throughout the story so I mixed them into 1 person and introduced him in the plot much sooner. He too hot to remain single and keeps ending up in unwanted romantic relationships. MSK has anger management problems while also completely failing at defending his own boundaries. He has a grudge against Damian and the why hasn't been revealed yet. He's author's favorite and you can tell because of how much effort I put into his outfits and hair. Lastly, it has been revealed that MSK can see Super Natural Energy. It is through his eyes that it's also revealed that Alex's behavior around Lily is cause by an energy around her.

((Since I've been making it slowly over many years you can easily see the evolution of my art through this comic))

[blogofmastermind]

"The Secret to Simplified Medical Billing: Why Outsourcing Is the Game Changer Your Practice Needs"

Medical billing isn’t exactly what you signed up for when you decided to become a healthcare provider, right? Sure, you love helping patients, diagnosing conditions, and creating treatment plans, but the mountain of insurance forms, coding, claim denials, and follow-ups? Not so much.

But what if we told you there’s a way to avoid drowning in paperwork and get your practice’s billing process back on track? Enter outsourced medical billing.

Let’s take a closer look at how outsourcing your billing can save you time, reduce overhead costs, and, yes, even keep you from pulling your hair out when dealing with those annoying rejected claims.

Why Is Medical Billing So Complicated, Anyway?

Medical billing isn’t just about sending a patient a bill. It’s an intricate system involving a series of steps, each of which needs to be executed with precision. There’s coding, claim submission, insurance verification, and dealing with rejected claims—just to name a few. With healthcare laws and insurance policies changing constantly, it can feel like you're stuck in a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.

Here’s Where Outsourcing Comes to the Rescue

Outsourcing medical billing to experienced professionals who specialize in the revenue cycle process takes a massive weight off your shoulders. Instead of your staff spending hours trying to decipher insurance policies or disputing claim denials, you can focus on what really matters—your patients.

Top Benefits of Outsourcing Medical Billing

1. Increased Efficiency and Faster Payments

Time is money, and that couldn’t be more true in the world of healthcare. When you outsource your medical billing, you can expect faster claim submissions, quicker follow-ups, and, ultimately, faster payments. A professional billing company has the expertise to navigate insurance claims efficiently, resulting in improved cash flow and reduced days in accounts receivable.

Think about it: every day your claims are delayed means you're waiting longer for your hard-earned money. Outsourcing helps speed up the entire process, from claim submission to payment receipt. No more chasing down insurance companies or struggling with underpaid claims.

2. Reduced Billing Errors

One of the most common reasons for claim rejections is billing errors—incorrect codes, missing information, or inconsistent patient data. These errors not only delay payments but can also affect patient satisfaction if their accounts are inaccurately billed. By outsourcing medical billing to professionals, you can ensure that claims are submitted correctly the first time, reducing costly errors and unnecessary delays.

Billing experts are trained to identify and correct errors before they become a problem, meaning fewer claim denials and better outcomes for your practice.

3. Lower Overhead Costs

Maintaining an in-house billing department can be expensive. Between hiring, training, software, and payroll, the costs of managing medical billing internally quickly add up. By outsourcing, you can save money on employee salaries, benefits, and software licenses, as well as avoid the costs associated with billing errors and rework.

Outsourcing companies typically work on a pay-per-service or percentage-of-collections basis, which means you only pay for what you need. This provides greater flexibility and cost savings, allowing you to reinvest your resources into improving patient care and expanding your practice.

4. Reduced Stress and Burnout

As a healthcare provider, you’re already juggling patient care, treatment plans, and administrative responsibilities. The last thing you need is to add “billing expert” to your list. Dealing with rejected claims, coding mistakes, or the ever-changing rules from insurance companies can lead to burnout and frustration.

Outsourcing your medical billing means you can eliminate the stress associated with these tasks. Your team can focus on patient care, knowing that the billing experts are handling the rest.

The Importance of Choosing the Right Outsourcing Partner

While outsourcing your medical billing can be a game-changer for your practice, it’s crucial to choose the right partner. Here are a few things to look for when considering an outsourced medical billing service:

1. Experience with Healthcare Billing

Ensure your outsourcing partner has specific experience in medical billing and understands the nuances of healthcare coding, insurance policies, and regulations. They should also be well-versed in the challenges your practice faces and be able to tailor their services to meet your unique needs.

2. Knowledge of Compliance

Compliance with laws like HIPAA is a must. Your outsourcing partner should be knowledgeable about healthcare regulations to ensure that your patient’s personal and medical information is protected throughout the billing process.

3. Transparent Reporting

Your outsourcing company should provide detailed reports on your billing activity, including information on claim statuses, denials, and payment updates. This transparency allows you to stay informed about your financials without needing to micromanage every detail.

4. Good Communication and Support

Effective communication is essential. Choose a billing company that is responsive, approachable, and available when you have questions. Your team should feel like you have a trusted partner in the billing process, not just a vendor.

The Bottom Line: Simplify Your Billing, Streamline Your Practice

Outsourcing your medical billing can significantly reduce the time and effort spent on administrative tasks, improve accuracy, speed up payments, and ultimately save you money. With a team of experts handling the complexities of billing, your practice can focus on what it does best: delivering quality patient care.

In today’s healthcare environment, staying ahead of the curve means making strategic choices. Outsourcing medical billing is one of those choices that can help take your practice to the next level, improve your financial health, and reduce burnout among your team.

Don’t let billing be the thing that slows you down. Consider outsourcing today and enjoy a smoother, more efficient practice tomorrow.

[unsolicited-opinions]

I've been thinking a lot about the unique challenges faced by autistic women and AFAB persons.

Masking isn't limited to neurodivergent people, but masking in neurodivergent people is profoundly impacted by gender because *all women, all AFAB people, NT and ND, are already coping with a layer of masking which their male counterparts don't have to deal with.*

A brief explanation of masking:

Masking is a coping strategy which a lot of autistic people develop, usually non-consciously, in which they suppress aspects of themselves which are frowned upon and socially perform "normality" to meet the expectations of the neurotypical world.

The neurotypical world, for example, wrongly regards stimming the same way it regards masturbation. Despite the fact that it feels good and is good for you, people get very nervous if you do it where they can see/hear...so many autistics will avoid being witnessed stimming and are deprived of an important self-regulation tool.

The NT world also punishes a failure to make just the right amount of eye contact and has expectations of small talk which are counter-intuitive or actively painful for ND folks- So autistic people not only hide/cease their stims, but also force themselves to make eye contact, prepare scripts for small-talk needs...and do a thousand other things, every day, most of their lives, just trying to pass for neurotypical.

Unfortunately, this eventually catches up to them because it places *massive additional burdens* on a nervous system which *already has fewer resources.* It is exhausting to do and almost inevitably leads to shutdowns, meltdowns, and burnout.

So how does gender figure into it?

Our culture teaches boys and men that it is appropriate for them to assert themselves, assert their views, and to strive to win others over to their point of view. When boys are frustrated, their frustration is generally validated.

That same culture expects girls and women (all AFAB folks, all girls and women, neurotypical and neurodivergent) to make *others* more comfortable. It teaches girls to make their needs, their views, and their agency secondary to the needs of others and they've been taught that this need to subvert their own agency is the only acceptable way to be a girl or a woman. *This means that women - ALL WOMEN - are already burdened by a deeply engrained expectation that they mask and subvert their true selves.*

Once I started to grasp this, it made perfect sense why neurodivergent AFAB folks generally present differently from neurodivergent boys. Where boys have been socialized to let their inner life be expressed, girls are actively taught to suppress theirs. The impact of this is enormous.

A late-diagnosed autistic man will usually do a lot better after learning how to shed their masking and learning to differentiate between who they really are and the performative behaviors/personas they've built for the comfort of others in hope that they'll be found acceptably "normal" in NT society. This takes time and a lot of work, but the benefits are clear. Once the masking is dropped, the additional drain on limited resources is gone....and shutdowns, meltdowns, and burnout all become less frequent/likely.

Now imagine being an AFAB autistic person and trying to do the same thing. In addition to the challenges your male contemporaries have, your masking is *already a layer deeper.*

But it doesn't end there.

That additional layer makes your autistic needs less visible AND tells you that it isn't okay to have or communicate your autistic needs. You're far more likely to be dismissed by professionals in behavioral health. The vast majority of the available research on autistic behaviors was done with boys (mostly white boys), so professionals in behavioral health are far less likely to *recognize* your challenges and correctly diagnose you. I know women who were told, by medical professionals, that they couldn't be autistic because they made eye contact and could passably perform small talk. AFAB autistics are more likely to be misdiagnosed as a result.

Once they start to un-mask, once they actually learn to identify and express their own needs, they're often treated like betrayers of a model of feminine presentation...which was sexist, self-harming, and misogynistic to start with.

I can only *imagine* how difficult and infuriating it is to be an autistic AFAB person, but I get angry just imagining it. It's a special blend of misogyny and ableism which is unique to their circumstances, and it's absolute bullshit.

So the next time somebody asks you to donate to Autism Speaks (which sucks and is deeply loathed by most autistic adults)?

Consider instead donating to AWN.

[sahonithereadwolf]

I've actually been saying this for years at this point. As a brief background, I'm a game dev who use to do the games journalism thing.

It's hard not to see all the major moves of the industry as an on coming collapse of the triple a when we're seeing the pop of the pandemic bubble in the form of rolling massive layoffs. But this is a movement longtime coming. Basically, there was a shift at about the end of the PS2/Xbox era and into ps3/360 when the media around games shifted from "toy/hobby market/consumer electronic" to "this is the industry making more money than Hollywood" which lead to a lot of outside money and investors from Hollywood to really want a piece of that pie. The industry has long been neighbors but the money started coming from a different source with different expectations. External validation, a chasing of maturity through fidelity and "prestige storytelling", safer more proven gameplay chasing well established markets. Stuff like that. There was a flattening in a definition of games and a start of a consolidation under these big mega studios systems. Really one of the saving graces at this time were the emerging digital marketplaces where people who didn't fit into those systems could skill make games and push for innovation on a mechanical, artistic, and even business level. But the past few years we've been seeing these mass acquirement as these massive AAA system face a brain drain. A combination of worker abuse, burnout, creative frustration. And these giant studios are trying to capitalize off these studio names while loading up with debt to keep this unsustainable system afloat. A lot of these executives don't want some money, but forever money but lack a concept of an economy of attention. Most people have room in their lives, if they are interested in these live service games that they want to chase, for maybe 2 of these in their life. At most. They require too much of your attention. It's not sustainable and you can't have a portfolio of multiple of these.

But there is a special sort of executive hubris that comes from wildly overestimating the perception of their ips and the idea that no, maybe this time, I'll be the roblox/fortnite. They have the golden ticket.

And I get it. I do. 5-6 years for a big game that might not sell vs a constantly updating brand synergy machine with a pleasure button built in is executive saltlick. But boy is that ship not getting out of a harbor especially as the people that DO actually buy into these have a level of sunk cost invested into the ones they already like? So, the eventual collapse will lead into one of these following scenarios, likely all of them at some scale:

-Money gets scared and so less games get made overall (most likely)

-Money decides to just invest in a bunch of smaller studios in the hopes that one of them will become the next bioware or blizzard and pay dividends (some are already doing this)

-A return to a smaller studio and game structure as bigger studios become unsustainable except for a select few (optimistic)

-Indie games, now with structures in place that weren't there in the first video game industry collapse, have a sort of life breathed into them because a frustrating part of human nature is you can't just "quit" art, just quit making art certain ways. However, there will need to be a new way to consume them. No matter what there is gonna be a bodycount.

Unironically I think we might run into another video game crash like back in the day