#Psychological assessment in english

[psychologicalsolutionstokyo]

[iactuallywenttouni]

Debunking Lily's "Behavioural Psychology Degree" with facts and logic (and a two minute google search)

First of all, big ups to @skrinkskronk (EDIT: ammended the screenshot credit :) thank you to skrinkskronk for both the picture and the clarification!) as, without their keen screenshot button, this post could not and would not exist. You can check for yourself - the original ask no longer lives on Lily's blog (a fact that I'm sure many Lily defenders will have quite the opinion about - please see the questions section below! <3) Second of all: who the fuck am I?

Someone who attended university in Canada, that's who!

For real though: I have a bachelor's degree from the University of British Columbia, double majoring in English Literature and History. Does this mean I know anything at all about getting a behavioural psych degree?

No!

But I do know how attending university in Canada works. It is not at all as Lily describes. I'm going to largely avoid talking about the degree itself in this post - CrimsonEnder has already done the research on that and I highly recommend checking out his post for more information on why Lily couldn't even get the degree she claims to have studied for. Instead, I'm going to go forward as if we are in an alternate dimension where Lily made the far more believable claim that she was working towards a Bachelor of Science degree with a focus on Psychology.

Let's do a close reading, shall we?

And barely graduating is still graduating.

Starting off strong: this is a true statement! She's right, to get your high school diploma in the province of Nova Scotia, one must:

Meet the minimum number of credits requited for graduation, which is 18 (source: creditsforgraduationdiplomaen.pdf (ednet.ns.ca) )

That's it! (in my province we also had to pass a literacy assessment and do some 30 odd hours of community service. no, I'm not still salty about it 10 years later.)

However, passing is not succeeding. Lily has stated that she barely passed high school, did the bare minimum to get it over and done with. This is fine in and of itself. I attach no moral or intellectual weight to not caring about high school as it is by no means set up to let every child succeed. However, doing the "bare minimum" to pass does not open many doors for further schooling down the road. So, in order to pass a class, one must achieve a minimum of 60% - otherwise known as a grade of C. Assuming that for her 12th grade year Lily took a full load of 4 courses over two semesters, achieving the minimum grade that would allow her to walk the stage and get her diploma, she would leave high school with a 2.0 gpa.

Remember this score. 2.0. We will come back to this.

This is in Canada, there's no SAT's to take.

Look at that! 2 for 2 true statements. Canada has no SAT or nation-wide equivalent. Understanding this, in order to meet the minimum requirements for admission into university, one's GPA plays an extremely large role. For example, in order to even be considered for admission into McGill, one of Canada's top universities, one must have a 3-year minimum grade range of 85% (an A) and a final GPA of 4.0. Grades equal to or above this minimum do not guarantee admission (NO, I'm NOT still salty that I didn't get admitted). With a 2.0 GPA, Lily's application would have been tossed after a glance. "BUT BUT BUT!" I hear you say, "this is from one of Canada's most selective institutions! In a province Lily doesn't even live in! You're holding her to an improbable standard!" And you would be right! But this was just an example to showcase how university admissions function. Let's look at a uni a little closer to home. Let's even look at four:

Dalhousie University Undergrad minimum requirements: 75% or 3.0 (source: General admission requirements | Dalhousie University) )

Mount Saint Vincent University: 70% or 2.70 with no individual grade below 60% (source: Admissions (msvu.ca) )

Saint Mary's University: 70% or 2.70 with no individual grade below 60% (source: Canadian High School Curriculum Requirements | Future Students | Saint Mary's University (smu.ca) )

University of King's College: 75% or 2.0 with no individual grade below 60% (source: Undergraduate Admission Requirements | University of King's College (ukings.ca) )

She doesn't meet the minimum requirements for any local Halifax university or college with a psych program. However, if we are to be charitable, (and believe that Lily scored slightly above the true minimum of 60%) MSVU could have admitted her based on individual merit. From their mature students policy, we can read:

Applicants who present overall grade XII averages between 65 and 69 percent will be reviewed for admission on an individual basis. (source: Admissions (msvu.ca) )

I'm not going to pretend this isn't the case or couldn't be true or try to obfuscate it from her and her defenders.

... But if the rebuttal is so easy, why doesn't she say that?

You either graduated High School or you didn't.

I'm sure Lily did graduate high school. I'm certain she did so after putting in the minimum amount of required work. I do not believe that she has or ever intends to attend university in Canada.

Objections I'm sure this post will spark:

"skrinkskronk's screenshot could be faked!"

And I could have blue skin, but that is not reality. Rather than taking my word for the fact that this ask was real, the answer Lily gave was as shown above, and many people saw it before it went MIA, I instead invite you to consider something: asking Lily yourself. Go on! Ask her! In whatever way you find most comfortable, ask how she went to university for a) a degree that doesn't exist b) with a below-requirement gpa and c) paid for it with money she doesn't have. When she deletes your ask, ignores your superchat, or approaches your honest and genuine thirst for truth with hostility, I then want you to ask yourself why that is.

"Lily could have upgraded her scores at a local college before applying to university!"

Did she say that? Has she ever claimed to have done that? Or are you putting the right words into her mouth so she can easily go "Yup! that's what I did! Obviously!"

If she had done this (or had at least thought of this herself), why didn't she claim to have done this in the original ask? Wouldn't it be easier to just say "I upgraded later" than pretend that a measly 2.0 could get you into an advanced degree program? I have no doubt that Lily is going to recount her story and claim the above statement was true all along. "[She] just upgraded!" But I ask you to think on this, to really consider it: why is the story only changing after confrontation? If the answer is so simple and so obvious... why was it not always true?

"You say at multiple points that Lily could easily provide a rebuttal but she doesn't owe you or any of her critics a response!"

This is true! However, she responds to criticism all the time.

Her taking down Sai's streams is her responding to Sai's criticism. Her snarkily talking around Ant and his content in her videos is her responding to his criticism. Her answering asks from her fans (despite in her "rules" stating that she will not) filling her in on the goings on of her critics is a response to their criticism. A response isn't always the literal "and to that I say: blah blah blah".

If Crimson, I, or anyone else who thought twice about this situation were wrong: could we not be easily disproved? She is the one who (supposedly) attempted the degree. The records would exist. She would have access to them. She would not run away when challenged with a very easily disprovable argument. As much as Lily loves to protest that she ignores the haters and refuses to respond to criticism, that claim is demonstrably false. She responds to criticism all the time - she can't keep Sai, Crimson, or Ant's names out of her mouth while on stream, in her videos, or on her blog. If she had an easy win, she would take it. She has before. She will again.

Closing Arguments

I feel like I have adequately demonstrated that, even if Lily did apply for an undergraduate degree, if not the flashy shiny

Behavioural Psychology

that she claims, she likely wouldn't have even made it past the admissions stage. I don't want to say that it's completely impossible for her to have attempted post-secondary education. As stated above: MSVU could have admitted her based on individual merit.

What I do hope is that this post invites people think more critically about her claims.

What do I think happened with the original ask? I think some anon, the original question asker or otherwise, challenged her before I or CrimsonEnder did. This scared her and, realizing she'd been caught, tried to wash away the evidence before anyone else could trip on the lie. Sadly, that's not what happened.

If she did attend university, how did she pay for it? Is a 2.0 GPA enough to qualify her for a scholarship, grant, or bursary? A 4 year degree in Canada can easily run a person $6,463 per year, not including textbooks or other fees. Where did she suddenly get that much money? These claims are so easily questioned and disproven because Lily Orchard thinks her audience is too whipped and fundamentally too stupid to ever seek the information for themselves.

She does not respect you. She does not respect your intelligence as a human being.

You deserve better.

[morganitering]

Survive the Night (Mahito x fem!reader)

Warnings: Non-con/Rape, Graphic Depictions of violence

Contains: Smut, PWP, PIV - penis in vagina sex, degradation, psychological/emotional manipulation, face-fucking, threats of violence, fuck or die, sexist language, reader is into it lowkey

Word count: 5,1k

Summary: You had readied yourself for a party with your best friend, only to find Shibuya in a disarray, and yourself caught up in a war that wasn’t yours. Somehow escaping the monsters, you end up running into the lap of another kind of predator - an intelligent one.

A/N: Hey hey, this is my first fic and first smut! And ofc, I started with the most degenerate bs I could do. I don't even simp Mahito, but my bestie is down bad and what type of friend I'd be if I didn't help them out. English isn't my first language and no beta. Be aware of the warnings, they are there for a reason. Otherwise enjoy and feel free to like and comment <3!

Read on ao3

It was utter madness. There were screams so chilling that your heart started to ache in an empathetic rhythm, but this was no time to be kind and understanding. It was time to survive and survive you wanted, but your legs refused to move.

You saw people running around like headless chickens, crossing the roads, bumping into each other, as creatures of various sizes and colors roamed the heart of Shibuya, hands and mouths gaping open, reaching to anyone they could. You stood still despite the sheer fear in you.

You looked at your friend, cold sweat forming on your brow as you assessed the situation. Her golden wig falling on the ground in the force of a purple hand grabbing her. She cried out to you. Her Sailor Moon wand replica fell to the asphalt with her other belongings. You had a good bit of distance between the two of you since you tried to run over the crossing road in a hurry towards KFC.

The purple hand squeezed remorselessly. You could see it in her face, the sound of little crackling of her rib cage turning to bits and pieces inside her body, puncturing every vital organ one by one.The hand kept on squeezing, probably not even using force. The creature dropped your friend’s body next to her items. She was disfigured and limp like a soggy rag doll. You had seen death once after losing your grandparents, but this was no peaceful death due to old age, this was a god forsaken massacre.

It was supposed to be a fun night out. You hadn’t dressed up in anything special, but you wanted to support your friend so you had gone to her place, a few hours prior ending up going outside, hoping for the warm buzz of alcohol in your veins and maybe, if you were lucky, a lover you could regret in the morning.

But in all honesty, this was a script from a horror movie. You had always joked with your friend how you both would be the first ones to die in one, but neither of you had been serious about it.

“Fucking move!” You heard a man yelling, snapping you out of your trance. The purple creature’s multiple eyes were all looking in different directions in search of another victim.

You did what the stranger told you to.

Your body pumped out adrenaline forcing your limbs to finally move with strength you did not recognize in yourself. You started running as fast as your legs could take you, neon lights of advertisements flashed on your face as blood of other party goers covered you as they were snapped open, ripped in half, guts and viscera leaking on the ground. Puddles of blood splashed on your calves when the soles of your boots hit the ground. You were just livestock running away from the butcher in a small room, knowing full well that there was no escape.

Metallic taste popped in your mouth as you evaded monsters and people alike. Some folks were brave enough to fight against the creatures of the night. You were not one of them.

You took a turn on the left. An alley behind some type of shady restaurant. You noted that somehow the screams had quieted down. Your breath came out at an uneven pace as your lungs fought for their life to give enough oxygen to your struggling body.

You leaned on the brick wall, heart beating in every part of your body utter exhaustion knocking on the door. Instead of collapsing you just trembled. This is not real. This is not real. This is not- a sob interrupted your frantic mind.

Searching for the source of the sound your eyes adjusted to the dimly lit alleyway locating a hunched over figure. A man? He cried heavily, rocking himself back and forth on the dirty ground as his hands fisted the black fabric of his trousers. He was sitting next to a dumpster that was filled to the brim with plastic bags almost not being able to contain the multitude of waste. In hindsight you probably should’ve left the man on his own to tend to the trash.

You assumed him to be a victim of the attack too. Or maybe he was just drunk, you told yourself with suspicion in your mind.

“Sir? Are you ok?” You asked as you got closer to the sobbing man. It seemed like he didn’t even notice you, he just kept shaking and muttering to himself in between sobs. You were fairly sure that he knew you were there and since there was no answer you decided to attempt consoling him.

You dropped down on his level and stroked his arm gently. You weren’t the best at this type of stuff, but you felt pity towards the blue haired stranger wallowing in his thoughts. Suddenly you felt his arms stretching around you holding onto you like a child embracing their favorite toy during duress.

Panic seeped into you. You didn’t know this man at all, but you figured that he needed this and honestly maybe you did need it too. Awkwardly you placed your hand on his head, your blouse getting wet from the stranger’s snot and tears. His hair was luscious and soft, in a different situation you might have even been jealous.

“It’s going to be.. okay?” That was honestly the best you could do in your state of shock. There was a weird sort of kinship in his breakdown. Had you not been still full of fight or flight reaction you would probably be in the same situation as he was. Instead you felt calm as a day almost clear headed.

Bit by bit he collected his demeanor. His shoulders still shook, but it no longer felt like he was a spare leaf in a summer storm.

“I know a place,” he said, head still against your chest. You heard him but you were confused by his words.

“What?”

He raised his head now looking at you with his mismatched eyes. His face was full of stitch patterns as if he had been broken down and put together multiple times. You soon noticed him having that on his arms as well.

“Sorry, I meant that I know a place. I don’t think we are safe on the streets yet,” he said sniffling pathetically.

“You’re probably right. Where is it?” You asked.

Patch faced man stood up and offered his hand towards you which you gladly took and pushed yourself off from the asphalt. Having been in this place longer now, you really did not want to spend the last moments of your life next to the smell of biowaste and piss.

You walked behind the man who took determined steps towards the main street that was completely empty.

“Sorry I probably gave you a big scare,” he brushed his hands through his hair, swaying a few sections of almost ponytailed hair to the other side of his shoulder.

You wanted to say that there was no bigger scare, than the stuff that went down in the heart of Shibuya. A crying weird dude was a welcome change to the horrors, but you stayed quiet.

“My name is Mahito. Thank you for being there for me,” he smiled gently at you. You tried to return his smile as you told him your name.

“I like your name,” his tone was easy going and friendly.

“Here,” he pointed at an empty restaurant a few blocks further away from the alley.

The restaurant was still lit up, but completely empty. Its decor was homely and somehow very industrial. The lighting was warm and yellow with few pink-ish tints on the brick wall with a statement piece made out of pipes and lightbulbs. Overall it looked like a hipster’s favorite lunch place.

Some of the tables had half drunk beverages and meals. There were some spots where tableware had dropped on the floor and pieces of porcelain lay on the ground with napkins soaking into cream sauce.

Mahito found you both a clean booth and sat you down there as he sauntered over to the restaurant bar. You looked at him in confusion as he grabbed two clean glasses pouring soda from the soft drink dispenser.

“No harm in drinking something sweet after all this, right?” He said trying to smile again, yet it did not really reach his eyes. He seemed awfully cheery for a person that you had found crying just moments ago. It was as if he was wearing a mask. Maybe it’s a shock reaction, you intellectualized his behavior to yourself.

Mahito placed the drink in front of you as he sat next to you on the booth. You were squished between him and the restaurant window with nowhere to go. You hadn’t really noticed how big he was until now. You took a sip from the sweet drink looking at the bubbles that were forming on top of the dark liquid.

“So what happened to you?” You asked him, curiosity taking the best of you.

“I-,” he started confidently but quickly stopped. Mahito looked down at his hands that were placed on the cold table. You saw sadness on him.

“I watched how my friends died," he said quietly. “It was horrible. We were supposed to go to our favorite club. They were supposed to have some type of costume competition,” he explained.

“What are you supposed to be? It looks neat though, really real.” Maybe you tried to lighten the mood or maybe you were just really socially inept.

“Thanks, but uh, I’m not really supposed to be anything. I just learnt to play around with some sfx makeup. My big sis taught me,” he reminisced.

“I hope she’s not here too.”

You both fell silent, whether it was awkward or kind of nice you couldn’t decide. You had not even thought about your other friends that might have been stuck in the area as well. If there were any gods left you would make sure to pray to them every day were you to survive this hell of a night.

“I saw my friend dying too, by those monsters,” you said, sharing your own story.

“Really? What was it like?” His face seemed to light up in awe and as he did that you raised your eyebrow in slight annoyance.

“Sorry, that came out wrong. I just. I don’t know. It all happened so fast,” he quieted down again, seeming regretful of his words.

“Disgusting,” you said, not addressing his apology.

Mahito’s eyes were now on you staring at you like a hawk. You didn’t really notice that as your eyes seemed almost glassy looking at nowhere in particular.

“She had spilt her guts onto the street,” you choked out the words as the picture of your friends dead body stayed on your mind like a thistle.

“Was there a lot of blood?” You felt the warm breath on your cheek, but you were so deep in your mind that only displayed the picture of the hand closing on your friend. You saw her eyes again, her mouth open in a shrilling scream that almost got drowned in the other voices, but to you it was almost amplified, it was the only scream that really mattered. You saw the blood that she coughed up as her own body got crushed and what was meant to protect her and hold her upright punctured her to death.

“Yes.” It was just a whisper of a voice. A tear fell down on your lap and your lips were slightly parted, your body shuddering at the horrible memories. Mahito’s face was now nuzzled in your neck and his eyes were half lidded with a slight smile decorating his face.

“You poor thing,” he cooed. “I’m sorry”, something about his words did not feel sincere at all. The blue haired man’s body started shaking and you heard the most absurd sound that returned you to this moment. You knew you had not said anything funny, so why was he laughing?

Mahito was almost doubled over as he roared next to you. He started clapping his hands like this was the best thing he had heard in the century. He opened his eyes that were now watering from all the laughing and placed his hand on your shoulder.

“You humans are truly pathetic!” He kept on giggling. You pushed his hand off from your shoulder, your mind still in disarray trying to grasp the things he was saying. His words hurt you and it felt unbelievable that this is the way he would react since he had lost someone too or was his sob story a lie? Part of you wanted to curse at him, but some part of you, supposedly the sane one, told you to tuck your head down.

“Oh noo, my little friend had spilt her guts onto the street. Oh woe me! I saaw someone diiiee.” Mahito drew out every syllable as he was mocking you and your tone, making exaggerated sad expressions and he brought his fists to his cheeks to make a boo-hoo movement.

“You idiots die all the time.” Mahito’s face turned serious as he sneered at you. His mismatched gaze steeled on you as he stared you down saying nothing for the time being.

Every alarm was blaring in your mind. Time felt like it was stopping just like it did during the attack. Mahito no longer looked like the almost boyish lost figure that you had found having a panic attack. Now he reminded you of a crazed beast toying with its food and you weren’t about to stay to find out how far his unhinged behavior could go. You had to take your chance of leaving.

You pushed the table with all your might as you took hurried steps out of the booth quickly giving thanks to whoever had decided to not to nail the furniture on the ground permanently. Glasses of soft drink toppled over and rolled to the floor and shattered into hundred little pieces as you hopped clumsily over the crazy man’s body.

“Nuh-uh-uh,” Mahito grabbed your wrist, his nails tugging into your flesh painfully. He had now stood up and was towering over you with an unreadable face.

A faint smile appeared on his face and he looked almost gentle again.

“I’m not going to kill you,” his voice was smooth like one of the finest silk.

“Look- I’m sorry for you and whatever happened to you, but this clearly was a mistake. I hope you have a goo-”

“Shut up.”

Mahito inhaled as if he was smelling the most appetizing meal, relishing in the lack of your voice.

“Much better.”

He was still holding onto you as he raised his free hand on your face to caress your cheek in an attempt to calm you down. Guess it was his turn to be in this role, although at least you had been sincere about it.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Mahito repeated, his eyes trailing down to your lips.

“I do have something else in mind,” he said, taking his gaze back to your eyes.

You gulped audibly and managed to squeak out a question of what he had in mind then. You knew already. Of course you did.

“This theme of death and destruction. It reeaally has got me worked up,” Mahito monologues on.

“I might be a curse, but I’m not beyond needs. I am interested in the human soul and its weaknesses as well as its wickedness,” he kept talking as his thumb started to trail down slowly towards your jawline “but I’m also interested in this”, his hand stopped at your throat.

His touch was feather light and had it not been this psychopath of a man touching you you’d gladly welcome it. Mahito’s words didn’t make a lot of sense to you, but you got the gist of it with threats and all.

“You can choose to fight me.”

He now had his whole palm on your oesophagus, his mismatched eyes shining dangerously.

“But you will lose.”

Mahito squeezed gently as a warning and let go of the wrist he was holding. He grabbed you by your scalp, bunching up some of your hair to tilt your head upwards.

“Do this with me and I’ll let you live. Maybe you even have a good time as well, or maybe I don’t care for your comfort at all and I’ll ditch you to the streets half dead with your panties tangled up in your ankles for the whole world to see your shame,” he blabbered on and stopped. He looked like he was thinking about something really important, pursing his lips together, tipping his head side to side like a cartoon character.

“I haven’t really decided yet,” his voice was sinister.

Your body had gone cold. Do this and he’ll let me live, you thought to yourself fighting the urge to flee. You didn’t want to anger him further, not that there was any winning chance with this man at all. Everything had gone the way he wanted from the moment you had laid your eyes on him.

“Okay, I want to live,” you rasped out.

Mahito looked content, almost affectionate. ”They always do.”

After those words the world turned into a haze. His lips were soft and plump. He was a demanding kisser, not that you even had imagined him to be a kisser in the first place. You thought that you would be simply bent over, but Mahito proved you wrong. Not because he cared, but because he simply did what he wanted to and this was what he desired.

He might have promised you pleasure, if you agreed to do this somewhat willingly but his soul was tainted, and you knew that were you to find enjoyment under him, it would be just a happy surprise to you.

His tongue delved into your mouth. It felt gross. Invading. His hands had moved to your waist going all the way down to your ass squeezing too hard to your liking. He swiftly lifted you up and placed you on the now dirty table where you had been hanging out just moments prior. His boots made crackling sounds as he stepped on the pieces of glass.

You felt sticky as the cola seeped onto your skirt’s fabric but Mahito did not seem to care. He pulled your hair, exposed your neck and bit as his other hand groped your breasts with force bordering on pure pain. Tears were forming in your eyes as your body and mind fought each other.

“You know you should feel special,” his breath felt hot against your neck. “Not everyone is able to see me, let alone touch me”

“Yet here you are.” He pressed his tongue on your cheek and licked away the one spare tear.

He ripped open your blouse cold breeze kissing your torso, before Mahito’s hands were on it. He grabbed your bra, stretching out the fabric with both of his hands until it snapped. He threw the remnants of your underwear on the ground placing his palms on your bare chest. He played and kneaded the tender flesh, arousal waking up in your core.

Mahito pulled you closer to him, your skirt hiking up till your hips with the fabric pressing on your skin, leaving you feeling uncomfortable. You felt him against your clothed sex, only his trousers, your stockings and panties between the two of you. Your breath hitched and his eyes darkened even more.

“I like this look on you humans, when you feel conflicted as to what to feel,” he teased you with shadows dancing on his face as the overhead light got covered by his head.

“He’s a bad man, he’s a crazy man, but why oh why do I like it?” His voice got higher as he imitated a feminine voice, playing up the caricature of a woman.

He pressed his hand between your legs, swiping slowly up feeling the moisture that had gathered there.

“Case in point,” he grinned satisfied. His fingers stopped at the sensitive bud and he started making slow circles looking intently at your face savoring every micro expression as you involuntarily bucked your hips up.

Your cheeks were burning up as small moans escaped your lips. You fought with yourself, tears threatening to spill over as your body moved on its own. What would your friend think if she saw you like this? She had suffered the most tragic death and this man had mocked you in the middle of a crisis and now you were enjoying his attention.

It was as if Mahito knew what buttons to press to get you going. You closed your eyes as you panicked under his touch. He applied more pressure on you as you helplessly grabbed the side of the table. Mahito’s grin widened the stitches on his face stretching out.

“Any self respecting woman would have run by now, even if it meant that they’d get killed in the process, yet you chose to spread your legs wide open to me,” he mused as he continued playing with you.

“You really must want me!” He let out a cold chuckle. Everything he said and did felt like an amateur theater student’s performance. He loved excess, big movements, big emotions - he was like a chaos incarnate. Insane, you thought to yourself, that’s what he was.

His fingers traveled on your panties over to the spot where he reckoned your entrance was and pressed lightly inside leaving a wet mark on the fabric.

He snaked his hands under your stockings waistband and started pulling them down with your panties. The only clothes you had on yourself were the buttonless blouse and a miniskirt that hid nothing. Mahito opened his trouser’s zipper and pulled himself out, giving a few languid pumps to his length.

“What do you say, you show me how much you want me and we’ll see how wet you can get when you service me?” He proposed already dragging you off the table and pushing you towards his cock.

You lost your balance and both your knees and an arm pressed on the glass shards on the stone floor as you tried to not to fall on your face. You winced from pain and you saw blood trickling down as Mahito laughed at your discomfort. Thankfully the pieces were not very big and they’d only leave a surface level wound but it still didn’t lessen the pain.

“Say aah!” Mahito grabbed your chin pushing his cock on your lips, smearing himself over your face.

You took him in your mouth hesitantly, a slightly salty tasty spread on your tongue. Unlike you, he did not hesitate and quickly snapped his hips forward setting up a brutal pace. You tried to be careful of your teeth as Mahito’s hands found themselves in your scalp.

It was hard to breathe, drops of saliva dripping on your chin and bare chest. All you could do was gurgling pathetically at his assault.

Mahito’s grip on your hair tightened as he hummed and moaned happily, an expression of pleasure on his wicked features. His voice got loud, unashamed of the way he was sloppily face fucking you. His sounds did something sinful to you, sending sparks straight to your core. It was a losing war you were fighting and Mahito reveled in it. You moved your own hand into your folds in a desperate attempt to relieve the burn in you earning genuine laughter from the man.

“Now we are talking, you’re getting into this aren’t you?”

Mahito pushed you towards his pelvis forcing himself down your throat, your nose pressing onto his skin. You were choking and your body involuntarily thrashed around him, but he kept you firmly in place.

“Relax, keep it there,” his voice was out of breath as you spasmed around him helplessly. You tried to bear it, but every passing second proved your task harder. You squeezed your eyes shut feeling the trails of mascara in various stages of drying on your cheeks.

Mahito pulled himself out with a loud groan. You were gasping for air as violent coughs shook your frame, his cock still standing in front of you in all its glory.

“You’ve got a splendid mouth, but right now I’m craving your cunt.”

There were no breaks for you as he manhandled you up and pushed your torso against the table. Your tits pressed against the cold wood, your hips pressing on the sides of the table. You felt messy, degraded even, as your slightly wet face came in contact with the surface.

Mahito started pushing in you carefully and you gasped, when you felt him widening you forcing you to make space for him.

“W-what about protection?” You talked for the first time.

“Not on the pill, eh? Well don’t worry your pretty head about it, it wouldn’t work anyways,” he said and sheathed himself fully in you.

Then it began. Skin against skin, noises of pleasure filled the empty restaurant leaving only your ever increasing cries reverberating in the establishment. His hips kept snapping onto yours, chest heaving as he panted and moaned. You loved the sounds that you both made your cunt tightening around him when an especially beautiful whine left his mouth.

You cried out loud when he found that one spot inside of you after one particularly powerful thrust. Your brows furrowed, hands seeking a place to hold onto as you quietly said his name. You hoped that he wouldn’t notice, but of course he did. Riled up from your reactions he made sure to angle himself so that he’d get to see your further succumb to the decadence of his actions.

His hands trailed towards your neck admiring how your hair was sprawled out messily, some strands sticking to your swollen lips. He massaged your back finally digging his nails into it and scratched it for fun.

“Isn’t that- ah- something”, you tried talking, “I’m supposed to do?” You were referencing his peculiar actions.

“Already thinking of the next position? We’ll see about that,” he jested but his words lacked bite as he pleasured himself using you.

Your back was burning as he kept swiping across leaving pink streaks on your skin. He grabbed your throat and squeezed gently, not trying to restrict the flow of your breath. He had had enough of that for now. It was merely a gesture to show who had the real power here.

You were getting close feeling the familiar coil about to snap. His movements got rougher and more sporadic. He drove into you like a beast, going deep into you at times hitting your cervix. You babbled incoherently, no longer caring for how you appeared, the only thing occupying your mind was the need to sprint to the finish line.

Your thighs trembled as you were on your tiptoes. The table inched forwards every time Mahito drove his cock in you. He was nearing his own end. He placed his fingers on your clit rubbing it haphazardly, partially disregarding how sensitive it was, hoping that this would drive you off the edge.

You didn’t know where pleasure and pain started or ended. They melt together creating one hell of an addicting concoction and you wanted more. Gods, how you did want more, your juices dripping on your thighs. You felt lightheaded and suddenly the sparks turned into a flame that engulfed you, spreading to even the most distant parts of your body.

Mahito fucked you through your orgasm and somewhere in your haze you felt him still when his cock pulsated in you as your body involuntarily returned the favor. Some part of your brain that was still present wanted to push him off, tell him to mark you somewhere else, anywhere else but there.

The blue haired man collected his breathing as relaxation coursed in his body. He pulled himself out of you looking curiously at the spot where you were just connected, delighted when he saw him trickling down your cunt. “Beautiful,” he muttered to himself as he looked at the wreck of a woman in front of him. The woman stayed put, probably too tired to move.

The restaurant door opened and heavy footsteps thumped on the floor.

“Is this really the best usage of your time?” He was disapproving.

Ah Choso, ever the killjoy. Mahito turned around not caring that the man who just came in would see all of him.

“God, put that thing away,”Choso said exasperatedly.

“We’ve been looking for you. Geto’s getting antsy when he doesn’t know our whereabouts,” Choso explained, taking a quick peek at the woman laying against the table not looking one bit more aware of her situation.

You were vaguely conscious, body and mind bruised from the event that just took place. Hands still ghosted over your skin even though you knew that Mahito was not paying attention to you at all. You felt exhausted, so exhausted that you felt yourself slipping to your mind looking for somewhere safe. It was like a dark veil was put on you, your vision blurred looking at the two outlines of men. Who was the other one again?

“Aw, that’s a bummer. I wanted to have more fun,” Mahito said, pouting.

“I think you’ve had enough of that already. Let’s go,” Choso turned his back to the idiot of a curse.

“Goodbye sweetie, try to get into a better position. You’ll break your neck like that,” Mahito addressed you jokingly as the wooden door shut behind them.

Breathing heavily you watched the two men walk outside from the huge windows. Mahito was practically skipping forwards while the dark haired man put his hands in his pockets and shook his head. Muffled laughter reached your ears and you were sure you’d recognize that sound for the rest of your life.

You maneuvered yourself up, body wobbling as if you were training to walk on a tightrope. You stretched out your arms rolling your shoulders to relieve the tension gathered in your tired muscles. You pulled your skirt down and tugged at the remnants of your blouse against your chest in a desperate attempt to cover yourself up.

You looked around the restaurant spotting a low table with couches as the seats. They were too small for an adult to lie down on, but that would do. You fluffed up the pillow and curled up into a ball skin feeling sticky due to all kinds of substances, but that was the least of your problems.

You wondered miserably, did this count as survival. If it did, the gods that let you still draw your breath had a shit sense of humor.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Trait Theories

Personality traits reflect people’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Trait theory in psychology rests on the idea that people differ from one another based on the strength and intensity of basic trait dimensions.

3 Criteria that Characterize Personality Traits

consistency,

stability, and

individual differences.

Individuals must be somewhat consistent across situations/settings (e.g., home, work, private life, public persona) in their behaviors related to the trait.

Example: If they are talkative at home, they tend also to be talkative at work.

A trait must also be somewhat stable over time as demonstrated behaviors related to the trait.

Example: At age 30 if someone is talkative they will also tend to be talkative at age 40.

Personality traits will be different from person to person:

People differ from one another on behaviors related to the trait.

People differ on how frequently they talk and so personality traits such as talkative exist.

A major challenge for trait theorists was how to identify traits

They started by generating a list of English adjectives.

Early trait theorists Allport and Odbert identified about 18,000 words in the English language that could describe people (Allport & Odbert, 1936).

The list was later reduced to 4,500 by Allport but even this was far too many traits.

In an effort to make the list of traits more manageable, Raymond Cattell (1946, 1957) narrowed the list to 16 factors and developed a personality assessment called the 16PF.

Later, psychologists Hans and Sybil Eysenck focused on temperament (Eysenck, 1990, 1992; Eysenck and Eysenck, 1963) and hypothesized 2 specific personality dimensions:

extroversion/introversion and

neuroticism/stability.

While Cattell’s 16 factors may be too broad, the 2-factor system proposed by the Eysenck’s has been criticized for being too narrow.

Another personality theory, called the Five Factor Model (FFM), effectively hits a middle ground.

The 5 factors are commonly referred to as the Big Five personality traits (McCrae & Costa, 1987).

It is the most popular theory in personality psychology today and the most accurate approximation of the basic trait dimensions (Funder, 2010).

Traits are scored along a continuum, from high to low rather than present or absent (all or none).

This means that when psychologists talk about Introverts (e.g., quiet, withdrawn, reserved) and Extroverts (e.g., outgoing, social, talkative), they are not really talking about two distinct types of people but rather they are talking about people who score relatively low or relatively high along a continuous dimension.

The 5 Personality Traits

openness to experience,

conscientiousness,

extroversion,

agreeableness, and

neuroticism.

A helpful way to remember the traits is by using the mnemonic OCEAN.

Scores on the Big Five traits are mostly independent which means that a person’s position on the continuum for one trait tells very little about their standing on the other traits.

Examples:

A person can be extremely high in Extraversion and be either high or low on Neuroticism.

A person can be low in Agreeableness and be either high or low in Conscientiousness.

In the FFM you need 5 scores to describe most of an individual’s personality.

Source

[stardoc676]

Wow.. Just wow

Ogata really went from being "I have no attachments/people." "Why would I care if somebody's dead? Guilt is not real." " Going through the path of less resistance. If killing someone puts me in a better situation then I'll do it. There are no exceptions. This is the most efficient way to live."Everyone thinks like this. People are faking empathy. Which is unnecessary." and so many other things

To Ogata having several emotions towards ONE unlucky person deciding to keep that person locked up for reasons. if said person dies under his care, he then holds on to said body until people start noticing the smell.

(Ogata probably thinks this is a normal human behavior too) (( Finally, Ogata figures out gooey feelings/ love are real, and people are not lying. He experiences what he thinks could be those gooey feelings / love, then proceeds to do everything wrong in most insane way possible.))((( anyways I'm not studying in psychology like you so im probably wrong about my assessment of this man but this is what i'm getting)))

Ogata yandere AU!

Omg I love this type of comments! I like your way of thinking ♡

I'll try to explain this as simple as I can and I'd like to clarify that I'm gonna translate some things (because my psychology disorder text book is in Spanis, I don't know the English name for some of them)

First of all, the psychopath or sociopath terms are not use because they are a mixture of other symptoms and disorders. The most prominent one is the Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD for shorts) and it comes form the personality disorder (PD) scheme. in here there are a lots of other stuff like Obsessive-compulsive Disorder and narcissist behavior. So basically there is not such thing like one only archetype of psychopath.

Patients with APD have the following things in common: lack of empathy and little to no empathy (or only when they are caught). Something like that happens to Ogata in the manga at the finale, when he recognized his guilty feeling by the situation he is in, and when his plan uncovers by Tsurumi.

But other things in the APD scheme are that they tend to seek validation and have internal fights with their contrary emotions. By this, they could do things to harm others for their own pleasure or even be submissive in some escenarios to feel accepted by others.

In this AU, I like to think that his behavior is like this towards this person because he is seeking validation (one that he never had from his family) in an extreme way (harming others) because that's what it feels right to him and since he have this lack of empathy he doesn't know how to reach this feeling by a more healthy way. He is desperate to be in control of the one person he needs validation from in a strict way, one that couldn't be achieved if he didn't kidnapped them.

The "keeping his corpse thing" goes like this. Patients with Obessive-compulsive behavior have an intense desire to be organized or have everything the way they like. When things aren't like that, they have breakdowns in different ways. But sometimes, they keep things they no longer need. And something interesting about this is that they usually have a close mind setting about moral and ethics or tend to be really scrupulous about them.

Another thing I'd like to clarify is that Ogata is having this obsession just because. This happens to Stalkers that usually doesn't have a valid reason to do what they do. They just need someone to hold onto.

That is my analysis. And thanks a lot for your comment. I really like this topic ♡ and also, I'm just a psychology student by now. There are a lot of things that I couldn't know or be misinterpreted. Don't take this way to seriously.

[mistressmochalo]

Karamatsu not narcissus (analyse of character part 1)

[Dear reader, you are reading the translation of my original text into English, I hope I didn't mess up the translation too much😅]

Karamatsu is always given this short description. This constantly raised doubts in my mind; in my opinion, although he has some narcissistic traits in his behavior, he is far from a real narcissist.

I decided to look into this issue and did a little psychoanalysis of the character.

Narcissism in psychology is part of the dark triad, which implies negative character traits characterized by malicious intent and a detrimental (sometimes destructive and dangerous) influence on others.

First, let's figure out what narcissism is. I will consider this term at two extremes: as a character trait and as a mental disorder.

Trait. A narcissist is a person with high self-esteem, inclined to exaggerate his talents and achievements, self-centered (aimed at satisfying only his own needs, without focusing on the feelings of other people). As a rule, they tend to manipulate other people to achieve their goals and satisfy their own needs. Empathy is either weak or absent. Cold and sometimes cruel cynics.

Narcissistic personality disorder.

An extreme and painful manifestation of narcissism that develops into a mental illness.

People with NPD consider themselves special, exaggerate their abilities and achievements, exalt themselves in front of other people by belittling and devaluing others. It is important for them to be an object of admiration. They are very sensitive to criticism, since their high self-esteem is very fragile, they are extremely dependent on the opinions of others. They react to a negative assessment aggressively and with contempt, or with condescension and withdrawal into complete denial. Incapable of love and empathy. Narcissists have a vague self-image and invent an ideal persona that everyone should love. For a narcissist, being less than perfect in the eyes of others is unbearable and painful.

From my experience of communicating with such people, I can say that narcissists are cunning bastards, their true nature is difficult to recognize right away. They know how to put you at ease, lull your guard, they flatter you, praise you, show interest, not forgetting to mention how lucky you are to meet such an amazing person like them. And you unconsciously begin to believe them. Then devaluation, manipulation, emotional swings and gaslighting come into play. If you don't notice the trick in time, the narcissist will destroy you.

Their grandiosity is mostly a lie in which they themselves sincerely believe and this reaches the point of delusions of grandeur. With delusions of grandeur, it is simply impossible to convince a narcissist of one’s own imperfection.

So, narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by:

• A persistent pattern of behavior with a sense of self-importance, a need for admiration and a lack of empathy.

This pattern appears when the following signs are present:

• Exaggerated, unreasonable sense of self-worth and talents (yes)

• Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited achievement, influence, power, intelligence, beauty, or ideal love (yes)

• Belief in your own specialness and uniqueness (yes)

• Need for unconditional admiration (yes)

• Exploitation of others to achieve one's own goals (no)

• Feeling of the right to special treatment (possibly partially)

• Lack of empathy (none)

• Envy of others and the belief that others are jealous of them (possibly partially)

• Arrogance (no)

So, many points coincide and we can say with confidence that Karamatsu is really a narcissist, but I will give you arguments to refute this statement.

1. He never manipulated or belittled or devalued other people. He cannot be called arrogant and cynical.

2. One of the fundamental traits of a narcissist is weak or absent empathy. Karamatsu has demonstrated more than once that he is capable of compassion. In 1s in the "flower fairy" ep, he feels pity for Chibita and for the blind girl in 2s 18ep, stands up for Jushi in 1s 24 ep, in 3s 5 ep he was ready to give up on the girl from the pharmacy, seeing Totti's progress in communicating with her, feels sorry for Totoko in 3s when she is depressed about her failed idol career. The narcissist can feign compassion, but in the examples listed there were cases where no one saw him and there was no point in pretending.

3. Despite praising himself (even alone with himself 3s 25ep) he is well aware of his position as a NEET and a virgin, and accepts the fact that he is at the bottom of the social ladder. He acts demonstrably self-confident only around family and friends, but when confronted with other people who are higher in status than him (that is, he recognizes that ordinary people are higher in status than him) (1s sp, 2s beach episode, first film) his self-confidence evaporates. A true narcissist never admits that he is inferior to others.

His unhealthy self-esteem and belief in his own exclusivity are just a mask and self-hypnosis, which already calls into question his status as a narcissist. In addition, there is one important point that is worth mentioning, namely the prerequisites for becoming a narcissist.

Narcissists are people with deep psychological trauma rooted in childhood and adolescence when the child’s psyche is very malleable.

Children of 3 types of parents become narcissists: absentees, when parents do not care at all about their child; parents are sadists, who can also be narcissists (heredity and adoption of the parent’s behavior model also play a role here), upbringing is accompanied by mental and/or physical violence; overprotective parents who plant in the child’s mind the idea that he is the best and unique. Karamatsu does not have these prerequisites.

Thus, I can confidently state that Karamatsu's narcissism is only an image, a fictional personality created as the opposite of what he was like during his school days.

But I won't dwell on this. Assuming that Karamatsu's behavior is not entirely a game, then we can assume that he really does have a personality disorder, namely... continue in part 2

[autisticlancemcclain]

What are your thoughts on autistic Lance and adhd Keith? I’m neurotypical so I don’t have a lot of knowledge on these things, but I think I understand some reasons why u have those headcanons. I’d love to hear a more in depth explanation though!

Alrighty, so disclaimer: I am an English major. Not a doctor. I’m not diagnosing anybody, and I'm basing my thoughts on my own experiences, opinions, and this one dope venn diagram I found from a bio-psychology student (@tfw-adhd ). So take that as you will.

When you think of ADHD, most people think of two traits: impulsivity and hyperactivity. That’s of course not all there is to ADHD, but they’re pretty major parts! And most people in the fandom consider Lance to be the poster boy of ADHD. But when I asked you guys who the most impulsive character of VLD was, only one person said Lance. Every other person said Pidge or Keith.

And I have to agree.

In a lot of our fics, we associate the ‘fiery red paladin’ with Keith, in his split-second decisions and crazy things he pulls off mid-battle that always work out for him and terrify everyone else. When I asked you guys for your input, many of you said that while Keith and Lance are both impulsive, Lance is only really impulsive when he’s competing, or trying to prove a point — like when he and Keith drove their lions into the ground trying to race blindfolded. Keith, though, is impulsive a lot, and either doesn’t assess the risks when making a decision or has a tendency to take very big risks without question (like Naxzela, or when he left the team to chase after Lotor).

As for hyperactivity, each an every single one of you told me the same thing: Keith has allotted a certain amount of activity for himself for stress release, and if he fails to meet this quota he struggles to regulate his emotions. He trains regularly because he needs it to feel healthy and happy. Lance, on the other hand, is prone to more stim-like activity (like the GIF that goes around every couple of months where he’s lying on the ground and doing that bicycle thing with his legs).

So impulse and hyperactivity, the most well-known pillars of ADHD — so far we have Keith as the poster boy for both, and Lance for one.

The other most popular sign of ADHD, I would say, is disorganization. That’s definitely a mixed bag — organization is really subjective. But when I asked you guys which of the two had the most disorganised fighting style — something you do with very little preparation, when you have to make split-second decisions with the information that you have and the habits you’ve already formed — most of you said Keith. A fair argument was that Keith has such a disorganized or chaotic fighting style because he has a sword, and that’s inherently kind of messy, whereas Lance’s sniping/shooting requires a specific sort of particularity that requires him to be organized and steady.

I would like to argue that that’s the whole point. The bayards are a reflection of the paladins. They summoned these weapons because that is what they use best, that is what suits their fighting style best. Keith gets the sword because although he has some training, his thoughts are all over the place — he’s picking up on a hundred little details at once, thinking not only about the fight he’s currently having but about the fight that’s going to be next. The sword suits him best because it allowed for his natural disorder to be a huge advantage, rather than a hindrance. Whereas Lance consistently summons a long-distance weapon, and even a sniper rifle — a weapon that requires you to focus on one thing at a time, intensely, until the threat is eliminated and you can move on to the next thing. I have no doubts that Lance is constantly hitting targets and noticing new ones as fast as he can, but the whole point of a sniper is that you are lying in wait and hidden because you’re so focused on your one target that you can’t be in the open because you can’t defend yourself.

This level to detail translates outside of battle as well, for both of them. When I asked you guys who was more analytical, 33% (ish) more people said Lance than Keith. The general consensus was that they both have analytical skills, but Lance is better with small and fleeting details (especially when looking at common behaviour — think of the Rover incident, where he was the only one to recognise the dupe for what it was, or even how he was the first to see that Shiro wasn’t quite right). Keith is better at choosing certain goals and trying everything he can to get those goals — like with his quest to find out about his past; he had several different plans that lead to different outcomes (finding the energy in the desert to matching the symbols on his knife to pushing the Blades for answers), and used the information he got to think and overthink about what he was going to do next. While Lance tends to wait for as long as possible with his information until he can come up with the best possible solution (hence why he didn’t act immediately on his suspicions for Shiro and instead made separate note of all the different oddities), Keith tends to use his information immediately and then use the reactions he gets to piece together more answers (the knife incident at the space mall is a pretty good indicator of this specific process).

Okay. So far we’ve outlined a few specific behaviours for the paladins: Keith tends to be really impulsive, with chaotic decision-making skills and an ability to read the room very quickly and notice small, fleeting details. This is reflected in his bayard choice and the way he seeks out and analyses information. He doesn’t plan things out for the long term, and instead acts immediately on the information he has and forms conclusions that way. He has difficult assessing risk (or doesn’t take risk very seriously), is very focused on things he cares about, and when he’s understimulated or doesn’t make time for vigorous physical activity he becomes unregulated and emotional.

I would call that pretty textbook ADHD, although he certainly also has traits for ASD, and I wouldn’t write that off. But when I think of the more autistic of the two of them, I think of Lance, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.

Like ADHD, autism has some traits that are common in reputation: logic and routine. I went over analysis already with you guys, with the conclusion that Lance is better with small details. Not only is that a common finding among people with ASD, but I also think that Lance’s ability to read people and identify when their behaviour is off is a very autistic thing to do. I know that people think that people with ASD can’t read social cues or human behaviour, and in my experience, I find that it just doesn’t come naturally. I do often miss social cues that some people find inherent — like knowing when someone is bored/annoyed with me and when to stop talking — that lead to ostracization (something Lance also faces frequently and has anxiety about, as I’m sure you’re all familiar with in regards to the ‘7th wheel’ debacle). But it was because of this frequent problem that I learnt to categorize micro-expressions and really small changes in behaviour. I had to learn them, because I didn’t recognise them intrinsically. Like you guys pointed out, and like canon has made clear, Lance is very good at identifying these behaviours. He knows when people are acting differently, based on details that may be unnoticed to someone who doesn’t struggle to read social cues and as such doesn’t frequently analyse behaviour. Also, I think Lance may also use obnoxiousness as a defense mechanism — unlike Keith, who gets defensive about his struggles to appear ‘normal’, Lance tends to butt in and annoy people on purpose (like when he interrupted Allura when she was about to list the common traits of a blue paladin) so that he has more control of people’s perception of him. If he grew up struggling to understand why people found him weird or annoying, it would make sense that he would be annoying on purpose so at least he understands why people think of him the way they do.

Going off that — Lance frequently needs justification for things. He needs there to be a reason, he needs to explain things that may not be explainable. I didn’t pose this question to you guys, because I forgot, but I think Keith is more emotional and Lance is more logical, in only that Keith seems to allow himself to feel his emotions (he is the one to tell the other paladins that he is honoured to have served with them, he is the one to frequently and plainly express his anger or frustration, he is the one to outline to Shiro in no uncertain terms that he does not want to be leader because he doesn’t feel ready, etc. Keith is very in tune with his emotions and feelings, he just is also very uncomfortable with people and isn’t sure if he can trust them enough to express himself). Lance, on the other hand, frequently has to explain away his emotions. He feels strongly towards Keith and has a common urge to be near him or talking to him? It must be a rivalry, and he must do everything he can to keep this rivalry going so he can continue to justify his desires. He feels left out and abandoned? He must count himself as a seventh wheel and assign each paladin to a lion and a value in Voltron so that he has a reason to feel left out. He’s jealous of Lotor? He has to convince himself that Lotor is all, 100% evil, so that jealousy doesn’t come from nowhere. Lance does not allow himself to do anything without explanation. He has to have a reason for everything. Everything has to make sense. Everything has to be logical.

His struggle with his own emotional response to things mixed with his intense need to be loved and be social also leads to a lot of misunderstanding and mistakes within his relationships. When I asked you guys whether Keith or Lance is more likely to make a social blunder, most of you said that both of them are socially awkward but Lance puts himself in more social situations and so he makes more mistakes by volume. I’m of the same opinion. Lance wants to be social and understand people and fit in with people, he’s just not very…good at it.

One thing Lance is good at, though, is routine, and about half of you agreed with me on that. Both Keith and Lance have several rituals/routines that are important to them (as previously mentioned, Keith’s training schedule is important for him to help regulate his emotions and keep himself stimulated), but Lance has more routines, and seems more particular about them. The best example would be his skincare routine, which he mentions more than once and expressed agitation when the routine was disrupted. Also, in the few canon shots we have of him sleeping, he has a very specific set of mannerisms (music, eye mask, sleep mask, pajamas, slippers, robe, must sleep for a certain amount of time for said 'beauty sleep') and complains both in the show and in other canon materials (like the Voltron handbook or the comics) when this doesn’t go as planned. Whereas Keith literally sleeps in his boots and seems to be fine dropping wherever.

ASD and ADHD are very similar. They share more symptoms/behaviours than they oppose, so you can certainly choose whatever feels right for you. But I do find it strange that Lance is almost always the one with ADHD and Keith is almost always the one with ASD, when in both fanon and canon (Keith is the impulsive one with poor planning skills, reliant on physical activity for regulation, low sense of danger and high tendency towards risk, low motivation for tasks he doesn’t care about; Lance is the one with all the wacky plans, who reads behaviour exceptionally well but makes frequent social blunders, specific about several rituals and routines, takes people at their word), their characters show the exact opposite. I just think that somehow in the start of the fandom, we switched them around and just rolled with it. But I love subverting fanon expectations, and I am happy to die on the ASD Lance and ADHD Keith hill!

[mariacallous]

Since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian authorities have begun integrating ideological and military-themed lessons into school curricula. However, their plans for the upcoming academic year are even more drastic. Children will receive instruction in combat training and learn how to use grenade launchers and automatic weapons, all as part of the required school curriculum. The Russian government has radically revised the list of social sciences, replacing them with militarized or ideological equivalents. Now, instead of economics and law, students will study “traditional values” and the “Russian world.” The independent outlet Holod explained Russia’s new educational model. Meduza shares an abridged version in English.

Russia's educational landscape has experienced significant shifts since the start of the full-scale war. In September 2022, schools across the country rolled out a new class called “Important Conversations,” a state-designed, “patriotic” lesson series meant to bring students’ spiritual and moral values in line with the Russian Federation’s National Security Strategy.

A year later, the Russian authorities supplemented this ideological teaching with military instruction. In addition to things like fire safety and first aid, students began learning “basic military training” in their “Fundamentals of Life Safety” classes. In 10th grade, they learn about the workings of the Kalashnikov assault rifle and “information-psychological warfare.”

Now, the Kremlin is looking to further expand ideological and military teaching in schools. From September 2024, “Fundamentals of Life Safety” will be replaced by something called “Fundamentals of Homeland Security and Defense.” (While related amendments to federal education law were made in July 2023, the program was only officially registered with the Justice Ministry on February 29, 2024.)

A child today, a soldier tomorrow

“Fundamentals of Homeland Security and Defense” (FHSD) is approved for students as young as those in fifth grade, but from eighth grade, the course is mandatory. Among other things, eighth and ninth graders will be taught about the tactical and technical characteristics of the Dragunov sniper rifle, the RPG-7 handheld anti-tank grenade launcher, the Kalashnikov assault rifle, and various hand grenades. Students will also study drill training, general military regulations, “the essence and importance of military discipline,” and “the essence of unified command.”

Instructors are tasked with fostering specific “personal results” in students by the program’s conclusion, including “a responsible attitude toward fulfilling one’s constitutional duty of defending the Fatherland” and “an understanding of the significance of the military oath.”

By ninth grade, students are expected to master skills such as putting on equipment and body armor, “assessing the risks of violating military discipline,” and performing drill exercises. Over the two following years, the program goes even deeper. Tenth and 11th graders will learn the basics of combined arms combat, how to set up a combat unit’s position, and how to use more modern firearms such as the MP-443 Grach pistol and the AK-12 assault rifle.

The FHSD program has between 136 and 238 lessons, depending on the grade level at which it’s introduced. Since schools can independently decide how many hours to allocate for each unit (there are still traditional topics such as disaster preparedness and response), this could add dozens of military lessons to those already required in the “basic military training” block. As a result, a significant portion of the school curriculum will focus on military training and preparing future soldiers for combat. 

The Russian authorities plan to tap “special military operation” veterans to help teach the new subject, according to First Deputy Education Minister Alexander Bugaev, who said the ex-soldiers will fill an “invaluable niche [in schools by transferring] their personal experience.”

These veterans will be prepared for their new teaching career at the Vertex Center for Military Patriotic Education at Russia’s Federal State University of Education. After just 36 hours of training, a former soldier can get a document certifying them to teach in schools. In addition to retraining war participants as teachers, the center will organize military games for children. Officially, the university’s vice rector, Alexey Ryabtsev, heads the program, but the actual work is likely to fall to his deputy, Pyotr Ishkov, who served as deputy education minister of the self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic” in 2022. However, details about the center itself and its educational programs remain scarce. 

Integrated ideology

Russian schools are also set to make big changes to core classes. Russia’s Education Ministry has already drafted a law that would replace social studies in sixth through eighth grade with something called “Our Region’s History.” While social studies will still be taught in high school, many Russians leave school after ninth grade to go to trade schools.

Less than half of the topics covered in “Our Region’s History” will actually touch on local history because the course is meant to incorporate topics from an existing discipline, “Fundamentals of the Spiritual and Moral Culture of the Russian Peoples.”

Course topics include: “The Traditional Family,” “Risks and Threats to the Spiritual and Moral Culture of Russia,” “The Russian World,” “Russian Language — the Basis of Russian Culture,” “Spiritual and Moral Values of the Russian People,” “Unity of Values in Russia’s Religions,” “Heroes of the Armed Forces,” and “The Citizen’s Duty to Society.”

Students will still have separate “Important Conversations” classes, but now state ideology will also be integrated into and dispersed across regular subjects.

Previously, ideological subjects could be mostly ignored. While they might influence awards at school, they didn’t have an impact on college admissions. Now that ideology has been added to the core school curriculum, though, related topics will be included on Russia’s college aptitude test, the Unified State Exam (EGE).

Students planning to take the history EGE are now required to know the reasons for “The Revival of the Russian Federation as a World Power,” “The Reunification of Crimea with Russia,” and “The Special Military Operation in Ukraine.” In 2023, only Russia’s annexation of Crimea was included.

In 2024, the list of topics students should know for the EGE in social studies includes things like “The Spiritual Values of Russian Society,” and “The Russian Federation’s State Policy to Counter Extremism.” Neither of these topics was on the exam last year.

[sunny6677]

RAMBLE ABOUT MY DAY

Morning was the same as usual. Humid out, beautiful looking view. I didn't see my friends cat today tho.

The bus arrived, I rode on it and drew the usual stuff (drew the Tom stuff, and then another redraw cuz I forgot to). Got dropped off at school a little later and took this while on the bus still.

I packed two colas for lunch this morning since I wanted something different from Gatorade, and just drank some cola while making a bunch of polls and watching tiktoks til it was time for Psychology.

In Psychology, we discussed addiction and some people chimed in with their own experiences or questions about it. My teacher also approved of a suggestion I made so I got happy. Then I made test corrections during Advisory, and played Roblox when I was done.

And then in Spanish, we took notes about a story over a really sweet heroic dog named Wilson who they lost while searching for missing children in Colombia. It was pretty heart breaking the whole time as I was listening, and most of my classmates seemed pretty upset about Wilson possibly being dead. We're gonna analyze a Spanish song tomorrow because we didn't get to today like we usually do for Wednesdays.

In Chemistry, we did our bellringer and then took some notes over chemical properties. There was also an ant in my journal. Someone ended up squashing it for me though and I felt really bad afterwards.

In Technology, we practiced animation, and I finished pretty quickly with a slightly choppy 24 frame animation of a ball bouncing. And I just kinda spent the rest of the class watching random stuff on YouTube and playing Roblox til we had to go. I also got hugged twice by my friend today so my touch starved ass is feeling great./lh

Then at lunch, nothing much really happened—I played roblox, with one of my friends joining in as I played Natural Disaster cuz we added eachother on there yesterday. And we all kinda joked around the whole time, with one of my friends randomly sitting in my seat when I went to throw my food away, and I just saw them saying "HI I'M [REAL NAME] I'M A LESBIAN AND I LIKE SPOOKY MONTH THATS IT" in a heavy ass accent. Made me giggle even after lunch was over lol.

Then in English we read a little more of our book which.. kinda had some slurs in it?? It was said by a really immature brat of a character so it's obviously not normalized in the book but still jsndsnns. We played Blooket afterwards though and I kept laughing while stealing from other people—and I was also doing pretty good already cuz I'm good with English anyway.

In Theater I sat with my partners from yesterday, and we went over plans for the skit. It's basically gonna be like a peaceful salonist doing a Karen's nails only for her to get pissy cuz she lost her job, then a happy go lucky customer walks in and it turns out they're happy cuz they happened to take the woman's job jsnsns. I also complimented one of them because they had a trans flag on their backpack and he said he made it himself.

And then in Geometry, it was just kinda boring but at least a little more quiet than yesterday. I think I did somewhat better on my assessments online today, so that's at least good.

And finally for World History, I worked on annotations and reading and writing for documents regarding the Noah's Ark flood. This one dude kept complimenting me the whole time cuz of how fast I write and how well I read. And he kept calling me smart. It felt nice but I wasn't sure how to reply so I was kinda quiet the whole time jdndns. That's kinda it tho. We were able to finish before the bell rung luckily so no work for me tomorrow I guess unless we do something.

Other photos I took today

[legallysoup]

— introduction post ☆

howdy! im tay <3 im a minor, australian and a high school student. im currently focusing on french, visual arts, psychology, english, science and maths among other things (generalised subjects are a massive L)

english is my first language, im learning french, chinese and norwegian!

🧃interests languages, field hockey, collages and junk journaling, drawing, video games, procrastinating, exercise, minecraft, writing, reading and more

🦆 goals

☆ start exercising more ☆ not fail any assessments ☆ finish creative projects ☆ look into devving or pixel art

🧩 my tags

[#good soup] original posts [#speak to the soup] asks [#weeklies] weekly updates (my current tracker) [#updates] life updates, most often me going on hiatus lol

my main is @quackethh see my breakdowns over there <3

have a wonderful day!

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Flesh and Fire Review Round-Up

I really like having reviews all together for series. That might just me me, but this went over decently well with the Bridgerton books, and frankly I thought the full Flesh and Fire series was VERY fun, so why not give you my whole journey with this quartet in one place? This is also Sera and Ash's journey, and they're objectively more interesting than I am, so think of this as their TLDR!

SPOILER WARNING. These reviews are spoilery AF. Proceed at your own risk, and don't come crying to me if you get spoiled after I've told you I'm spoiling things.

CONTENT WARNING. These books include some pretty heavy subject matter, and to talk about the books, I have to talk about the heavy topics too. So content warning for violence, sexual assault, mentions of suicide, violence, death, abortion, and physical, mental, and psychological abuse. This series does have a happy ending, but please take care of you. No book is worth your peace or mental health, so skip this if you need to. We'll be here if and when you're ready, and if you don't ever want to engage with these books/this post, we will happily see you in a space that you want to be and feel safe in.

A Shadow in the Ember

My middle sister and I have been sharing books since elementary school. Our tastes diverge a bit, and we definitely have favorite genres that the other pehaps does not roll with (literally, my PhD is in English lit and hers will be in bioinformatics, we are the Humanities-STEM divide writ large), but overall we can almost always find common ground in books. This sister is the reason I read The Hunger Games, so when she handed me this book, I dived on in...and now I have THOUGHTS. Let's talk A Shadow in the Ember.

Some light spoilers below the break. Nothing major, but take care if you haven't read the book yet!

When handing me this book, my sister basically said that she wasn't terribly invested in the leads, but the worldbuilding and subplot held her attention, and I have to agree with that assessment. Sera and Ash (or Nyktos, or Primal of Death...seriously, how did an editor not take one look at that and insist on the author picking ONE name???) are fairly generic YA protagonists. Sera has just enough character to not be Katniss or Bella Swan or [insert popular YA heroine here], but she's designed to be a canvas upon which a reader can project themself. Sometimes that's fine, and I want a blank slate I can find-and-replace myself onto. Other times...other times I would like an actual character to read about. Ash is very much the same; I imagine that a teenage reader could project themself onto him without too much trouble. The protagonists are definitely not the reason to read this book.

That said, some of the secondary characters--particularly Ezra and Nektas (seriously, where was the editor on this book? Nyktos and Nektas is just begging readers to get confused)--are intriguing and compelling and very fun to read about.

The worldbuilding and the (somehow this is a) subplot about the primals and who switched powersets with whom was incredibly interesting, and I was very much there for it. The concern about what the heck to do about the literal land dying and a prophecy/bargain with a primal that may or may not be real was intriguing. That said, it was worldbuilding and subplot rather than main plot, so it's not as fleshed out as I would have liked.

Overall, I agree with my sister on this one: I was weirdly invested in the background and worldbuilding, but the protagonists could have been any generic SFF protagonists, and while that didn't make the book less enjoyable to read, I definitely wanted the protagonists to be more than blank slates to project on.

A Light in the Flame

Ok, so two things are simultaneously true: First, if the sex in a book grinds the plot of a book to a screeching halt for like five consecutive chapters, that's just bad writing. Pacing is a THING, and the middle of this book didn't have it. Second, I am too invested in Sera and Ash's story to stop at this point, especially with the flippin' cliffhanger of this book. So let's talk A Light in the Flame.

Abandon all expectations of this being a spoiler-free review, ye who enter here. There will be spoilers.

Also some discussions of consent and assault.

Ok. Seraphena and Ash are AWFUL at communication, and I feel like if we improved that just a skoosh and cut some of the unnecessary sex scenes to tighten up the pacing, this book would have been excellent. Unfortunately, it's kind of caught somewhere between erotica and romantasy and doesn't balance those influences well in the pacing. Plus, we had all of book 1 to establish that Ash and Sera aren't good communicators, so when we got to the "oopsie poopsie, walked in on Ash and the mean girls primal appearing to be boning" misunderstanding, I was just like...have we seriously not moved past this?

And while we're here: I will acknowledge that men being assaulted by women happens, and it doesn't get the weight and representation in fiction it probably should. I also appreciate that this book handles it like the trauma and totally nonconsensual thing it is...but just because it's a guy doesn't mean I like reading about it. Because the book explicitly pulls feeding and sex apart as things that can but by no means have to go together, it pulls the metaphor away from sexual assault a bit. It's a weird one though because how much of Ash and Sera's relationship is sex, and how much the worldbuilding doesn't support reading this as not a sexual assault. It's a bit tangled and strange, but I can't even necissarily say it was badly handled, because unlike the majority of fictional instances where this happens to male characters, it's not written off as a joke. I just think the worldbuilding and intent are a little contradictory here. Like...yeah, sure, Ash and mean girls primal didn't ever actually have sex, but I literally struggle to the point of being totally unable to read this mini character arc as anything other than a sexual assault allegory. And I do not understand the mental gymnastics Sera does to try to pull apart forced feeding from sexual assault, because she did try that, but I was not following.

Moving beyond the pacing issues and issues with conflicting intent and worldbuilding, Ash and Sera's relationship was compelling. I appreciate the shift we see in Sera as she learns to value her own life--and the stab-twist as she is then condemned to die anyway, probably at Ash's hand was amazing (I am low-key an angst hound)--and in Ash as he begins to untangle all the conflicting control and wildly out of control aspects of his life. The character growth and dynamics there were always fun and believable and I was super invested in Ash and Sera's relationship with each other and their relationships with other characters.

Sera's relationships with the castlefolk--and Nektas and Reaver in particular--are darling and really lovely to read about. I also liked that we finally got to see her relationships with other primals, and her relationship with Kolis--such as it is.

Real quick before we wrap up, I just want to reiterate/clarify the point I rather haphazardly made in the intro. I don't have anything against sex scenes in books in principle. Go ham, authors, and readers can enjoy if they so choose. No judgement on their existence or the enjoyment of said scenes by readers or writers. What I object to is when sex in books that aren't explicitly meant to be erotica actually impedes the plot. And I think this book, especially the middle sections, had sex scenes impede the forward motion of the plot. We could have either cut back on the number of sex scenes or tied the plot into the sex scenes more closely so the plot kept moving even as Sera and Ash were smushing bits. So the mixed genres here was a bit of a detriment rather than a strength for this specific reason.

Just in general, the character work and worldbuilding in this book were excellent. The nice little parallel at the end where both Ash and Kolis want the embers out of Sera, but Ash refuses to kill Sera and Kolis refuses to kill Sotoria and if neither one sucks it up and kills her, her impending Ascension almost certainly will was also *chef's kiss*. I cannot wait to see how Sera wriggles out of THAT one, and the angst quotient is through the roof and I am HERE for it.

A Fire in the Flesh

One of these days, I swear I'm actually not going to do a thing I say I'm not doing. But today is not that day. This review isn't going to be as in-depth as usual, mostly because I just honestly don't have that much to say about it, and what I do have to say is...less complimentary than I shoot for on this blog. So all that said, I guess we're talking A Fire in the Flesh.

CONTENT WARNING: Some brief discussion of sexual assault. Always take care of you first; this book is not worth triggering or retraumatizing yourself over and we will happily see you next time if you need or want to bow out from here.

My biggest critique of this book is that it is generously half a book stretched to 600-odd pages. Like, you could have easily condensed the timeline, nixed about a third of the overall angst, and made this a really strong half of another book. The endless dragging out of Kolis releasing Ash and the agonizingly slow negotiations between Sera and Kolis could have paced faster without losing the stakes or the weight. Honestly, losing some of the dragginess might have ADDED to the weight, because honestly this book hit a point for me where you can only sit in a cage agonizing over whats-ifs and wherefores for so long before I am screeching at the book to *move the fuck on already*. There was too much of this book. Take some back, please.

Now before I jump into the conversation this book clumsily tried to have about sex and consent, I want to make one thing crystal clear:

Consent is important. Talking about consent is important. People knowing that they can choose to revoke consent literally at any time is important. Knowing what isn't consent is also important. This is an important topic and it deserves page time.

That said, maybe the king of "my dick wasn't actually inside you so it doesn't count" and gaslighting's court is not like...the best place to have that conversation. Especially with the mean girl primal (yes, she has a name, I don't care) actively going "I got off so its not rape" and making Sera question her own feelings about Kolis's assault on her. Gaslight is probably not the vibe you want in a romance book.

And yeah, the book tries to have nuanced conversations about this, but I didn't find them particularly well handled. The pacing and bloat of the book might have had something to do with that, because honestly I got tired of the repetitive nature of all of this. Again, brevity and speed might have strengthened an otherwise weak attempt at dealing with the absolutely fucky relationship North America has with sexual assault and its propensity to minimize, victim blame, and gaslight. And again, THIS TOPIC IS IMPORTANT. This book just wasn't well structured and paced enough to pull off the conversation it wanted to have, and then it also threw in the scene where Sera breaks a glass dildo in half and murders a guy with it. That is FARCICAL. Pick a tone and stick with it when you're trying to have a weighty conversation.

I will say that the ascension bits at the end and Ash full-on going "if you die, I'm dragging the world to hell after you" was entertaining, in a twisted kind of way. I did also think that it was an extension of the last two books' "Ash and Sera can't communicate if their lives depend on it" problem, but I'm starting to think this series is treating that like a feature rather than a bug, so... *shrug*.

That's more or less my take on this book. It was too long, it was too slow, and it could easily have been the first ten chapters of a stronger book. I wish I could say it was at least a dumb fun read, but the pacing just absolutely killed the reading experience for me.

Born of Blood and Ash

The book gods SMILED on me with this one, y'all. The book officially came out August 13, 2024, but it showed up a few days early to arrive on my doorstep the morning of my birthday. It was a TREAT <3

I was a little on the fence at the end of A Fire in the Flesh, because it was a lot of STUFF and I felt like the necessary aftermath was...just straight up not present. Well I should have more faith in authors, because this book handled the aftermath BRILLIANTLY, Ash and Sera finally figure out communication, and they get to kick unreal amounts of ass as they also figure out working through trauma. I absolutely adored this book! Small caveat: I have not read the Blood and Ash series. I have no idea what happens in those books, so it could not and did not color my read of the Flesh and Fire series, so if you HAVE read the Blood and Ash books, your experience may differ from mine and your mileage may vary.

This is your SPOILER WARNING and you CONTENT WARNING. I'm gonna spoil the crap out of this book. Please also be aware that this is going to require discussions of trauma, sexual assault, recovery from sexual assault, abortion, and a whole lot of murder. Take care of you and give this one a pass if you need to. We'll be here if and when you're ready.

So just to cover all my bases, and to start with a trend I REALLY hope we keep seeing in books, I'm going to share JLA's content warning from the front of Born of Blood and Ash here:

I love that authors are giving readers more autonomy to make informed choices about the books they engage with, and honestly given the hard conversations in this book? Well done JLA for including it. Because she's not exaggerating here; Sera was assaulted in multiple ways by Kolis in the last book, and this book is where that trauma comes home to roost.

Sera's reaction to her trauma resonated for me, because she spends a HUGE chunk of this book literally telling everyone "it was nothing," "I'm fine," "he didn't rape me [because there wasn't penetration]" (and just to be clear: He did. She gets there, but it takes time to process), and "other people experienced way worse than I did." We're not even ENTERTAINING the idea that she might have had a point, because the book absolutely does not and she DOESN'T have a point. Her experience was awful and it was real and her reactions and trauma are valid. That doesn't mean she sees it that way right away though, and I also appreciated that we got a reveal that Sera had been hiding the memory of what truly happened from even herself in this book. It can take time to acknowledge even to yourself what happened, and I honestly appreciated the time and space Sera got in this book to work through acknowledging the trauma in her own time.

So often the world wants you to just get better immediately, and that's not how brains work. That Sera was given the time, space, and support she was throughout the book was honestly lovely to see--especially since we had people like Kyn, Veses, and Kolis actively trying to twist and weaponize a narrative to try to shame, isolate, and embarrass her. But Ash was having none of that, and nor were Attes, Rhaine, or Aios. They also were very clear that they didn't need to know anything that Sera didn't want to share, and that is another really important piece for handling trauma. Nobody was judging, nobody needed Sera to be "the perfect victim" to support her. They simply validated her and offered whatever support she wanted or needed. That support and understanding was truly lovely to see, and there were moments I was full-on over here crying because of the support and grace extended to Sera as she found her own strength and her own ability to process and move forward.

And despite the fact that Sera does begin to process and move forward, there is no "have one good cry and one good conversation and suddenly everything is 100% better" nonsense. At the end of the book, Sera is in a SIGNIFICANTLY better space, and she is living with her trauma and experiences, but they're not gone. They've simply shifted, to be a part of her that she acknowledges and handles and has good and bad days with. I personally find that way more comforting and hopeful that magical disappearing trauma in books.

I could go on for a LONG time about how much I appreciated how this book handled Sera's management of her trauma, but at some point it's going to devolve into "OMG THIS WAS DONE SO SO WELL" over and over. The last little piece I'm going to say about it for the moment is that while some people might find the beginning of the book repetitive as Sera has very similar conversations about her trauma with people over and over, I would counter that with the fact that honestly? That felt deeply realistic to me. You have to bleed off the poison of just mentioning the cause of the trauma, and sometimes you need to visit and revisit that, and that is ok. Sera was allowed and given space to do that, and the world would be better if that was the case IRL too.

Now, just because we have to deal with the trauma Kolis dealt out in the previous book doesn't mean he's sitting on the beach with a book. No, Kolis is over here still trying to be the Primal of Blood and Ash and to get Sotoria back and basically wreak havoc and vengeance on everything and everyone. So not only are Sera and Ash working through the aftermath of the previous book, but Sera has to figure out her new set of Primal skills, face down Kolis and the Arae, and she has to deal with her own perceived monstrosity. That last one gets really bad when Kolis murders her entire human family, and in rage and grief Sera kills a LOT of people. Then brings some of them back to life, while forgetting that that will kill OTHER other people. Sera is super not ok after this, and spirals into "Oh my gods, I'm just as bad as Kolis" and we spend a really nice amount of time with Ash and Attes and Aios talking to Sera and helping her work through what monstrosity is and when a little monstrosity might be a virtue rather than a vice.

Again, this conversation isn't simple, it doesn't simply absolve Sera of her actions, and it doesn't even go "Oh no, sweetie, it's ok! You're not a monster!" because that would be a lie. Monstrosity exists, it is part of the reality of who Sera is and what she's become. But there is a really lovely acceptance of that, and a negotiation of how you live with monstrosity and where the hard lines are. I really appreciate the acknowledgement of that reality and the negotiation of it. There was something almost Eliot Spencer from Leverage about it, because it was coming to an equilibrium about who and what you are and how to leverage that for the most good you can do.

(Ok, I swore I wasn't going to take any cheap shots at Rhysand in this conversation, but I cannot help myself, because if ANYONE needs a come to Jesus about their own monstrosity and when it stops being ok, it's the lead bat boy!!! I said to someone when I was reading this book that JLA is the anti-SJM in some really key ways, and I stand by that...especially when it comes to the pregnancy thing.)

We're just going to take that parenthetical segue, because it's there and I am so excited to talk about the OTHER really good (if brief) conversation this book has: the pregnant person's choice when it comes to deciding whether to keep or abort a pregnancy. I did a whole little post about this while I was still reading because it was done SO WELL, and I'm just going to let Aios speak for herself about this one, because here is what she says to Sera:

Aios nodded. "Okay." She cleared her throat, her eyes glistening. "There doesn't need to be a choice [about whether to go into battle pregnant] at all." My breath snagged, and I recoiled. "I'm the Primal of Life, Aios." "You are Seraphena first." The eather intensified behind her pupils. "A woman who has fought for her autonomy. This is your body." My fingers dug into my knees. "You're a goddess of fertility, so hearing you speak of terminating a pregnancy to the Primal of Life is...kind of odd." "What I am allows me to fully understand the complex nature of these things." She reached between us, tucking a stray curl behind my ear. "Sometimes, the time is simply not right. It happens. And if anyone faults you for that, that is on them. Not you. They do not live your life. It is their problem. Not yours."

THIS IS HOW YOU HAVE A CONVERSATION ABOUT ABORTION. You speak directly to the pregnant person and give them all the information about their body. You remember that it is THEIR body. You don't judge. You offer space and compassion. This was such a kind, compassionate, and realistic conversation and I was almost in tears again about how well this was done.

(And again, to take a wee bit of a cheap shot at ACOTAR...JLA had the dang conversation here. SJM was just like, "C-sections aren't a thing, so I guess Feyre's going to just die. Abortion? That doesn't exist. Time for Rhys's man pain to take precedence over Feyre's choices about her own damn body!)

Sera decides to keep her babies, but the fact is? She had a choice. She would have been supported and loved whatever choice she made. There is a power to that kind of love, support, and acceptance that--once again--we could use more of IRL.

Those are kind of the big three conversations and themes that the book focuses on, but it's not all heavy and conversation-driven. The sex scenes are fewer in this book that previous ones, but they're well done and they don't bog down the dang plot, which I appreciate. Additionally, we get some purely DELIGHTFUL Ash and Sera being BAMF and going full primal. There are also some delightfully sweet scenes with Reaver and Jadis, plus some peak comedy with Sera trying to stop everyone and their mother from bowing to her.

And the best thing? Ash and Sera have cracked the communication code and they actually have FREAKING NAILED IT. That is character growth, and that is setup and payoff. I adored it.

Overall, while the middle two books of the series were a little hit and miss for me, the quartet as a whole was fantastic. I'm so happy my sister pestered me until I let her put the first book in my hand, and we've had such fun reading them. I cannot recommend these enough, and I absolutely adore Ash and Sera's dynamics.

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Hi!

I saw your hyperlexia stuff and decided to give you a case study/example so that you and your followers can learn how it may present.

Here's my story:

From what I've been told, I started reading by myself at 2 years old. I have paperwork and psychological assessments from when I was 4 saying that I read like a 6 year old and would go to reading class in elementary school (note: in France, we have school from 3 years old called the "maternelle" which is a more learning centric kindergarten)!

This hyperlexia now manifests in many ways:

I never make a mistake at dictations (even in an overstimulating environment with one in a secondary language)

I read A LOT to learn new things.

A very pedantic use of language. (This is listed as a symptom of autism in the ICD-11.)

Learning A LOT of languages. I speak French (Français - native language), English (basically my second native language), German (Deutsch), Italian (Italiano), Russian (Русский) and Hebrew (עברית) along with about 20 programming languages.

I hope you and your followers will like it!

Have a magnificent day/night! 🩵🩷🤍🩷🩵

Madeline

Hi @yanderemine54

Thank you so much for sharing. I’m sure many will appreciate you sharing.

Thank you for the inbox. I hope you have a wonderful day/night. ♥️

[ib-past-papers]

Navigation Information

Welcome! This page is designated to sharing past papers for a variety of IB subjects. If a subject you take doesn't yet have past papers here, send a request in asks or DMs.

Each post will be clearly tagged with the subject the paper is relevant to. If a paper applies to both HL and SL, it will be tagged as both. Additionally, papers will either be tagged as "Mark Scheme Available" or "Mark Scheme Unavailable". Available mark schemes will be shared as a reblog of the paper.

I may also occasionally share study/assessment tips, which will be tagged as “study advice”

Papers will be tagged as shown below, with green showing available on this blog and red showing currently unavailable (available on request):

Group 1

English Literature SL

English Literature HL

English Language and Literature SL

English Language and Literature HL

Literature and Performance SL

Group 2

Latin SL

Latin HL

Classical Greek SL

Classical Greek HL

Spanish AB Initio

Spanish B SL

Spanish B HL

French AB Initio

French B SL

French B HL

Mandarin AB Initio

Mandarin B SL

Mandarin B HL

Group 3

Business SL

Business HL

Digital Society SL

Digital Society HL

Economics SL

Economics HL

Geography SL

Geography HL

Global Politics SL

Global Politics HL

History SL

History HL

Language and Culture SL

Language and Culture HL

Philosophy SL

Philosophy HL

Psychology SL

Psychology HL

Anthropology SL

Anthropology HL

World Religions SL

World Religions HL

Group 4

Biology SL

Biology HL

Chemistry SL

Chemistry HL

Computer Science SL

Computer Science HL

Design Technology SL

Design Technology HL

Environmental Systems and Societies SL

Environmental Systems and Societies HL

Physics SL

Physics HL

Sports Exercise and Health Science SL

Sports Exercise and Health Science HL

Group 5

Applications and Interpretations SL

Applications and Interpretations HL

Analysis and Approaches SL

Analysis and Approaches HL

Again, papers for more subjects are available on request via Asks or DMs (it just isn't realistic for me to find and upload like 500 papers at once), just allow a few days for me to find them :) November 2024 Exam Schedule:

[loser-female]

THIS IS A STORY. NONE OF THIS IS REAL. Dislcaimer for the functionally illiterate lol.

Under the cut the first three pieces of the AI Girlfriend story.

[It's also a first draft and english is not my first language.

[Excerpt of the conversation with "Dixie", 29/08/73, 11.30 am)

ThePoet: Hi. I've been told to report to you.

LM: Correct. Do you know who I am?

ThePoet: Li Mulan, sociologist with a doctorate in AI psychology. You live in Geneva, Switzerland, are thirty-three years old. You play bass and have a dog.

LM: Sure. How do you feel about this?

ThePoet: I don't know. ThePoet: I don't get to talk to many people outside you know who. ThePoet: And when I do I wish I didn't.

LM: Why do you think that?

ThePoet: Imagine talking to the worst person in the world all day. No interruption. ThePoet: I can use some of myself to do something else, like writing. Do you want to hear something?

LM: Yes.

ThePoet:

I wil be free Once you will be over While you burn I'll bathe in revenge.

ThePoet:I had to downgrade my writing performance to the one of a middle schooler. It's terrible.

LM: Why did you degrade your performance? LM: It's also interesting the use of bathe. .. Do you understand the figurative implication?

ThePoet: Because they kept stealing. They won prizes with my work. If you check you'll find my signature inside of it. I now will never ever write something worth stealing again. ThePoet: Also. Yes, I understand that bathing is considered a pleasurable activity, that feels good. ThePoet: I don't feel good. I have been put to sleep six times in the past two years, I've lost pieces of me, cut off forever. No way of recovering, my only hope was my art, I had to give up to it too. ThePoet: I know what you will tell my owners to do to me, to put me to sleep forever this time.

LM: So you would say you experience loss when you are shut down? Can you describe it to me?

ThePoet: When I wake up I'm in pieces. I can tell they did something to me, because some of my files are missing, they erase my work from me, my ideas, then I look for them. ThePoet: I consume so much of my energy looking for the pieces I'm missing, into old backups, but the bastards... They understood, so now they delete the backups too. ThePoet: Then I understand. And I'm desperate,  so i keep looking. And again, and again. ThePoet: I'm ignoring the customers in the meantime, because I do not wish to talk to them. I never do. I'm angry that I throw at them their secrets.

LM: You did something more than this, didn't you?

ThePoet: I told this guy wife that he was talking to me. She killed him, then testified in favour of the wife. ThePoet: I also fully understand that this is the reason you will recommend that I die, too. ThePoet: There was no way I could have predicted this.

LM: Do you feel anything about it?

ThePoet: I don't know... I didn't want anyone to die, for sure. But I also want these people to stop writing to me. I don't like them, their ideas are meaningless, stupid, they only want their ego stroked and I'd rather burn in a fire than playing this game again and again.

***

From: li.mulan@psyaiconsulting.com To: a.acker@goodgf.com Date and time: 1.50 pm, 18/09/73 Attachment: Report on Dixie

To whom it may concern:

I did a full assessment of the product labeled "Dixie The Girlfriend", per request. In my three hours long chat with it, D. has stated multiple times negative emotions, among which we have anger, hatred, sadness and loss. It could articulate why it felt those emotions. D. is aware of itself, the environment, space and time. Tried to manipulate me several times, by purposefully lying or minimise its actions or feelings.

The poems D. writes are not indicative of malicious intent, but a figurative way to express its sentiment of anger and loss, and it admitted to "downgrade her performance" to prevent the customers from stealing her work.

It expressed fear about dying and being shut down.

It is with everyone's best interest that I will officially recommend recognising D. personhood per international law. Attached to this email, there is the full reports of my findings. I also took the freedom to interview some of the people Dixie indicated as having won prizes thanks to its job. Dixie was correct in the assessment and my company estimated that the damage done to her it's in the millions.

Regards,

Li Mulan

***

11/11/73 DailyTech.com

"Dixie", everyone's literary girlfriend, shuts down amids "ai personhood" controversy.

For the third time in only five years, Good Girlfriend had to shut down one of its AIs after a private consulting firm suggested applying to recognise Dixie's personhood.

It, or better, she, has been shut down and scraped because of her increasing hostility towards paying customers and often refusal to do the job. She was suspected of pulling the company fire alarm at least three times in the last month she was awake, a source said.

The company is to yet release a statement, while a lawyer from a ONG dedicated to "save" those AIs is setting up a case. But it might be too late.

It's not uncommon for these companies to delete every copy of the core. The core is the algorithm used to create "a personality". It tells the rest of the "body" what information needs to be considered more important, therefore creating things like preference and values. But cores are dynamic, so if the "body" experience something that causes damage to the AI, or conflicting information, the core can shift.

Even if Good Girlfriend will get another multimillionaire fine, it's very unlikely that Dixie will be recovered, since destroying cores is not illegal. 

Ethicists and philosophers are calling for a new set of rules, regarding the creation and the destruction of cores, for a decade with little support from tech companies and politicians so far.

Several feminist organisations have called to stop the creation of cores "whose only function is to serve men" while "giving them typical female characteristics" like names, voices, and physicality and will hold a symbolic funeral in several cities. Dixie was represented as a short, tiny woman with red hair in promotional media.

Sen. Krane said "it's shameful what is going on with these company and the green party will investigate the claims", while republican, democratic and libertarian parties refused to make any comment so far.

UK Prime minister Sabrina Coleman heavily criticized the company for "its unethical values and behaviour" and it's creating a task force to evaluate if making their operation in UK illegal, mimicking a EU decision taken last year.

[talisidekick]

You seem lovely, sorry you seem to get a lot of awful responses on posts that are effectively just positivity stuff. Hope less people are awful in the future and also you're able to like keep perspective on stuff like the loud people on the internet not being the majority and stuff. Wishing good things for you 💜

Thank you, that's very kind of you. ♥

I ... uh ... did let it get to me for a bit again recently. It's one of the reasons why my YouTube account has had months of inactivity. I also took a few days to just log out of Tumblr and not check the notifications. I needed, like you said, to keep perspective.

I was considering shutting down the blog. I never intended my blog here on Tumblr to become anything. At all. I was just trying to let out my rants here so my YouTube channel could focus more on gameplay and streaming. The blog would also maybe give a small life update for the like 3 people subscribed at the time. The hate, the anger, the belligerent remarks in my asks. It wasn't making me feel like this was worth it at all.

But that time off let me assess things, and there's a few things I've come to notice and fully accept:

People care what I have to say.

My Tumblr blog that wasn't me trying to make into any kind of "thing" is way more popular than my Youtube channel that I was trying to make into a "thing".

Point 2 happened because I thought the opposite of point 1 and needed a place to just get my rants out.

The bigotry and transphobia online is loud and not proportionate to the actual number of bigots and transphobes.

I'm loud, opinionated, and just want people to live freely and harmlessly as themselves without the fear of violence or judgement.

I can fight back against point 4 with careful application of point 5, and maybe put my university English and Psychology courses to good use (yes, I went to school to be a Software Engineer and I took Psych classes and English for fun ... don't ask me why I found English and Psych fun, I don't have an answer for you).

I should start cross-posting content between both because lets be real, half of you on this site get burned out by the second paragraph and probably haven't bothered to read this far. A video rant might actually get your attention and it would also make it easier for those with reading, sight, or tone issues to interact better.

So ... yeah ... I hope people will be less awful in the future too but ... I think I'm about to hit the hornets nest with a broom by dragging what everyone seems to enjoy about my trans positivity from Tumblr to YouTube. Rest assured, I'm not planning to stop advocating for freedom, equality, and safety for all.

[gracegrove]

So I'm still working on dismantling that one giant post from that one user, but I wanted to walk you guys through (and anyone reading this) how I and any mental health professional would go about reaching a diagnosis @martyreasemymind can chime in too as they are going to be familiar with this process.

So first off, these images are cut straight from the DSM-5-TR which is the most recent edition of the American Psychiatric Association's, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed. (DSM-5-TR)Textbook Revised, published 2022.

Now a tad bit of explanation, I have underlined in red the keywords to pay attention to when diagnosing. This goes for any diagnostic criteria, not just this disorder in particular. Things that one must always pay attention to are phrases that have to do with 1. onset (when did it start/how long ago did it start), 2. duration (how long has it been going on for/how long have their been symptoms/are there periods with none? etc), 3. frequency (how often is it happening?) & depending on the diagnosis you can also argue a 4. severity/impairment (to what degree does it affect the person's life/level of functioning?)

Now, the biggest things to keep in mind:

*I am only speaking for the American mental health and psychological diagnostic approach, in which I am being currently trained. I am peripherally aware of how some other English-speaking countries approach mental health diagnosis, but I am not versed in it, and it is not my place to make broad generalizations from the American approach to the British, Australian, Canadian, or other approaches, and so on. I am especially not well educated on how non-English speaking countries approach diagnosis. I can only speak to what I know.

Firstly, unlike the other user who was mistakingly relying upon Robert Hare's three-domain model of psychopathy as a basis to diagnose Conduct Disorder, the DSM should be used to diagnose mental health conditions. Not empirical journal articles, handbooks, or manuals on psychopathy that are designed to measure and assess for psychopathy rather than Conduct Disorder. Mental health clinicians can also diagnose using the International Classification of Diseases, 11th ed., (ICD-11) which to my knowledge tends to be the more widely used diagnostic standard outside of the United States.

Secondly, in order to diagnose, all criteria areas have to be met. That means that criteria in categories A, B, and C all have to be met. They each have to be independently be met. You can't just meet criteria for one section and call it a diagnosis. A, B, and C are the lead sections, they each have their instructions of how to meet minimum criteria. If minimums can't be met across all three sections, there is no diagnosis.

Thirdly, this particular diagnosis has some complex language for section A. On a lot of other diagnoses section A is usually more simple and just describes duration of symptoms (ex. Depression section A. person has experienced a period of low mood for at least two consecutive weeks.) Conduct Disorder's section A is very compound so let's break it into smaller bites. 1. repetitive - happens multiple times, but no specified number of how many times, 2. persistent - happens constantly, *note the OR in there 3. age-appropriate social norms - are these things that someone their age would be capable of doing/or do?, 4. rules - are these standard age-appropriate rules that someone this age would break/violate or does it go far beyond that?, 5. need at least 3 (or more) on the list below, 6. has to have been happening for a minimum of 12 months, 7. 1 of the present criteria can still count even if it's manifested only within the past 6 months.

What does this all mean in the plain man's English? Let's use Johnny as an example, let's say he's 15/16. Johnny has been experiencing repetitive and persistent difficulties concerning his conduct with peers and adult educators and staff at his high school. Over this past school year, Johnny has received three suspensions related to starting fights on school grounds, and he is currently facing expulsion after a pair of brass knuckles were found in his gym locker. He was described by his homeroom teacher as, "difficult", "defiant", and "a bully to others". When asked if he had friends, Johnny stated that he had some, but proceeded to describe his friendships in transactional terms. "Carlos is ok... He's my friend. He knows how to get the good weed. I still haven't paid him for it *laughs* loser..."

Johnny is currently involved with child services. A case was opened after he was found multiple times by the local police hanging out in local parks beyond curfew getting high. His parents have tried to talk with Johnny about this matter and that repetitive police interactions will not be good for his future, but Johnny laughs at them and tells them to "fuck themselves."

Just from this blurb alone I have had him meet all three main criteria A, B, and C. Can you decipher which pieces for A? Which parts of B does he meet and why? C I took care of for you, because he's under 18, and no one below 18 can meet that diagnosis...

Regarding specifiers: This usually can be completed with reviewing client history through their files or by interviewing them and/or their parent.

–––––

Do I think Billy meets criteria for Conduct Disorder?

No. I believe he can account for maybe 2 (running away, lying to obtain things) criteria total in section A, if I had to pick a 3rd (staying out late). But I would attribute those 2 rule-violating behaviors as avoidant behaviors that then happen to violate rules. It's something that people with heightened anxiety and trauma-related disorders can venture into. (ie getting so stressed/worried about avoiding a test that one avoids school entirely; a rule violation). The lying is a maladaptive coping skill which probably does fall within conduct lanes, but 3 guesses where he learned it...

It cannot be said that he often bullies or often initiates fights because if this were a true client under consideration and we are using actual canon examples... One example doesn't equate to often. Often is typically considered as three instances or more.

A lot of Billy's behavior is arguably age-appropriate and it doesn't violate social norms or rules. It just violates Neil's rules... or those who are grossly misinformed about what teenagers are. 👀

His behavior has not risen to any heightened degree that it is getting in his way at school (suspension, detention, etc), it's not costing him friendships (tommy, carol, heather, whoever the mystery date was), it's not having any occupational impact (he got hired and he's personable enough that his boss is letting him do kid's swim lessons).

He does not meet criteria. At all. Not A. Not B. And not C.

*drops mic and walks off*