#behavioural theory

[journey-to-holistic-health]

As someone with a major depressive disorder and ADHD, some aspects of self-care are difficult. It's hard to get started with brushing your teeth, and when you go for so long without it, you forget how good it feels.

This can be explained by the hot-cold empathy gap. When you're sitting in a feeling, it's easy to.. feel it. You recognize the emotion,the sensation.

It's a type of bias that, in my opinion are more prevelant in certain neurotypes.

According to the decision lab this empathy gap

" describes our tendency to underestimate the influence of varying mental states on our own behavior and make decisions that only satisfy our current emotion, feeling, or state of being. "

Quote of the day

[dearmyloveleys]

Suho and Sieun being tied by the invisible string theory is so incredibly unspoken about. What do you mean they probably spent months to a year not acknowledging each other’s presence in the same classroom? What do you mean for months, Suho has been sleeping in the classroom until dawn and Sieun is the first to enter the classroom but they don’t interact? All the shared award ceremonies, PE lessons, chem lab practicals? It only takes one accident to set off everything between them.

[kindest-little-fella-in-town]

hear me out…. hear me out………

[mirellapryce]

Today's thoughts involve Edwin trying to date other men while Charles is a) with Crystal and b) figuring the rest out. Edwin is having the worst time of it, but not for any reason he expected. All of his dates are mean or rude to Charles for no reason. It would be one thing if he started dating someone and then they became rude to Charles once they realised how gone Edwin is for him, but no. These men are rude before they even get to know how delightful Charles is. Even if he wasn't in love with Charles, Edwin doesn't think he could date these men who are so casually rude to his best friend.

[lucabyte]

I dunno if you’ve seen what’s in the isat artbook yet but there’s a mention in there of id5’s support of she/her Loop which made me think of that great post you made a while ago on Loop gender!!! Just thought I’d let ya know since that post was absolutely foundational to my personal Loop thoughts lol!

ok goofs aside lol hi. first of all: really funny that more than one of you thought of me for this. my powers. and second of all: okay ill actually give my thoughts.

alright so for the uninitiated (THIS POST) (+bonus link to it with extra additions i like) is what these two anons are talking about. It's about 8k words on my like, puzzled-out hard textual read of what i think is up with Siffrin/Loop's gender.

So, re: the artbook content (READMORE ON ACCOUNT OF ME GETTING LONGWINDED AGAIN)

The relevant passages here are pages 113, 38 and 39 (with a sidebar i want to bring up on 89).

I'm going to crop it down to only what is necessary to get to my point because adrienne doesn't want big chunks or full pages posting, so here's my little collage.

113: The page is primarily about finding ways to disguise Loop's true identity, and that's what most of the visuals on the page are about. The note I've cropped [Loop using she/her...] is on the most siffrin looking of these images, just being them sans cloak, eyepatch and hat.

This, to me, reads like the intent at the time was what eventually evolved into Loop's "Royal We" joke misdirect and their they/them only status. Consideration of, 'would just showing off a character nigh identical to sif but with "opposite" pronouns be enough to throw people off the trail?' that I would imagine evolved into just dropping the he/him, since that's more than enough to do so when you also change their appearence to be more ethereal.

*But* ArtbookCommentary!Adrienne is the one saying "She/her Loop is an incredible idea." owing to some level of affinity toward the concept in retrospect. Lends it some creator-branded 'cool points', which aren't worth *much* in terms of Quality of Textual Evidence, but certainly lends it points against being a *bad* read.

So I read this as like, while on it's own, not much more than conjecture when it comes to supporting the idea of transfemme loop-- I think as another arrow in the overall quiver it strengthens that idea that Siffrin is sticking by their he/hims as a like... side effect of how he was born/raised and sees change as something they can't do. It's less a point in support, and more a point *against* it being wrong. (It's like how in science you try to falsify things in order to prove them, y'know? Evidence *against* it being false is different to evidence *for* it being true, but it's almost better that way, sometimes??) Speaks to the idea that Loop would see those pronouns as a Disguise in some way, which to me, when paired with pages 38-39 and the dress* gives the implication that femininity is an untapped well for them. That it's new, and not something they'd do without a plausibly deniable excuse. Which continues to feed into my readings of Siffrin being amab and uncomfortable with change, even if (especially if) they want it in some way. It kind of has to be forced onto them to allow them to try it, because then it's not their choice, now is it?

*The dress is absolutely in reference to the prologue line, isn't it? it being grafted to their skin unlike the other considerations for clothes shown on the page too, aligns with this idea of Loop's body being informed by their wants/feelings about themselves in some way (distinctly inhuman, no need to eat, no need to smile anymore, yet still blind). But where canon!loop has no gendered traits to hold them down anymore, dress!loop would be more of a giveaway of their desires to at least express *some* femininity. (See: my prior essay for further thoughts on how i think that manifests, and my thoughts on it being a somewhat doylist read of the game's themes that i stand by)

(god buddy. you get deeper into the timeloop and it makes you . forget everything . about fucking everything . but the want that bubbles to the surface harder is this? loop. christ im repeating myself again go read my previously linked essay if you arent these two anons i go into way more detail.)

BUT YEAH. yeah.

I think it's a stretch to say things that aren't literally in game, and are still at most discarded exploration of character really count as Evidence for in-game reads, as they are paratext at best-- But. buttttttt buttttttt they do offer a good insight into the intent with which some things were most likely approached. like i say, it's not evidence /for/ my theory, just evidence /against/ me being on the wrong track. But yes i do feel pretty vindicated that this aligns so well with my amab nb siffrin/transfem loop trutherism. Which makes sense, given that the Whole Point of that read was to try and sleuth out the authorial intent, rather than anything else.

Like, i was following a framework in specific of (posts wikipedia screenshot for 'authorial intent')

as opposed to the equally valid Reader-Response framework (under which death of the author also falls)

which is why in that thing i stress so hard that i'm trying to abstain from my own bias (whether or not i succeed? idk. i do break my own rule for a second when pointing out how hard siffrin's fear of change resembles transfem repression in specific as i relate it to my friends and wider observations). but yeah. it was very nice that the artbook aligned so nicely since pairing my readings against the author's own literal words was always going to be the Ultimate Test™ for an authorial-intent based reading.

... oh ! and the sidebar i said i'd have.

Page 89:

get forcibly changed idiot. fucking themes lol (this was also vindicating as a 'loop stays as a star' truther which is something i tie into my themes of gender/sif not accepting change until its forced upon them. but it's not the mostest relevant to the convo without that context. but whee!)

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

Johanna girl do you want to talk about your self regulation issues, maybe...?

[lollyposp]

okay agatha all along episode 6 spoilers and also possibly absurdly outlandish theory incoming

i have a theory about lilia putting the sigil on billy. i assume she put it on him because she saw something that would endanger him if everyone immediately knew who he was and i initially foolishly assumed she was referring to agatha because you know. agatha is mildly unhinged after all

but I'm starting to think it's rio....because there's the theory going around that rio is death personified and honestly it makes so much sense. she can't kill agatha because death can't Kill others, it can only come when it's called. her power would kill agatha because it's a death domain power and either it's innate to her and only she can handle it, or you can only earn death related abilities a certain way. (also she's THE green witch. ashes to ashes and dust to dust etc every body returns to the earth)

in episode 5 she mentions that she hates ghosts which makes sense because she'd see them as perverting the natural cycle and clinging onto a semblance of life after death. so what on earth do we think rio would do if she knew that Billy's soul was possessing someone who's supposed to be dead? somehow i don't think it'll be pretty.

the sigil breaks at a weirdly specific point, too. it's after agatha kills alice, which means that rio is going to be preoccupied for a little while at least, giving billy and Agatha some time to discuss things. and if rio is death then agatha is likely the only person who knows that, and if we're getting technical the sigil only breaks once AGATHA concretely puts together that teen is billy.

lilia's divination works VERY weirdly, she's all out of time and often doesn't seem to remember her premonitions, but I would bet that the sigil was created with the knowledge that it would be broken once agatha specifically was the one to put the pieces together. because agatha knows rio and therefore she knows death. and we've seen already that agatha is VERY emotionally intuitive, it's what makes her so good at being a dickhead to others because she reads tells and emotional wounds so easily and knows exactly when she's hit a nerve. so i wouldn't put it past her to know Rio thoroughly enough to be the one to keep billy safe from her.

i just think the timing of the reveal is all very coincidental. not like, bad writing or anything, but the fact that agatha figures out it's billy AND has a whole emotional reunion with him with every other member of the coven missing feels a lot like Fate (which would probably come under lilia's domain). because now agatha and billy have an understanding of each other that will make it easier for them to walk the road together, but ALSO, nobody else knows. and agatha, who knows that rio is death and knows how rio feels about breaking the life-death cycle, can keep it a secret for him. she can protect him, even if he doesn't trust her.

anyway theory over but i swear to god billy and agatha better have the most lovely found family story arc. billy claims he doesn't need agatha but agatha has already adopted him in wanda's stead because she remembers being angry at the world like he is. oh and also she knows he does need her because death could be after him now lol

[luguangssandwich]

Are we really so sure CXS' mom possessed WQ and not CXS himself? 🤔

[hellomagicalsouls]

i wonder if when allison reset the universe that she brought back brelly ben and he's just been inside sparrow Ben's conscious this whole time.

slowly pushing his way to the front and that's why he looks like shit. both consciousness fighting for control think ben and klaus in the alley. maybe brelly ben wants out.

maybe they can't remember how ben died cause he isn't dead anymore. she reset his death when she reset the universe. just didn't separate the bodies.

[kikizoshi]

Some Thoughts About Sun and Moon, Their Transition from Fall Fest to the Pizzaplex, and how Their Lives were Slowly Corrupted

Not sure how coherent this is, considering it's relying on some theories I haven't posted yet and haven't seen anyone else post, but I hope it makes sense. I was writing this as a quick background sketch for their mindset going into a oneshot, but I think it's good enough to post here, maybe give some people something to chew on or a new angle to take for their own works, if they want. Content below the cut, 'cause it's kinda long.

Moon always liked scaring kids, I think. But as Jack o’ Moon, it was in the playful, ‘Oooh I’m gonna getcha’ way. His act with Sun really was an act. They were happy, I think. Not that everything was sunshine and rainbows. They weren’t the main feature of Fall Fest, always pushed beyond the limits of their battery, not really given proper maintenance when they should, left to their own devices most of the time. But it was all they knew, and they really did adore the kids. Sun loved basking in the sun, playing fall-themed games with the kids, hinting at his “dark other” half throughout the day and playing like he had a terrible secret. Overacting his heart out when Moon “wrestled control from him.” It was fun. And Moon, too, enjoyed playing the ��scary” Jack o’ Moon. He liked chasing kids around, snatching them up or tickling them when he found them, hearing their laugh-filled shrieks as they were caught. He liked going round and round on the carousel, so much that he sort of became part of the attraction at night. He liked teasing and joking with Foxy in the downtime. Sun and Moon were both separate and, at the same time, one. Both the same person and their own people. Literally a Jekyll and Hyde-inspired attraction. And Eclipse, the safe mode they rebooted into to reset the cycle, was good, but hardly needed. It was nice, though, to be truly one for a little while. They always enjoyed that.

And then Fall Fest burned down. And they were left to rot for fifty-ish years. And when they were finally recovered, rust-covered and shell-shocked, they were thrust first into the log ride and carousel, because maintenance didn’t realise Jack o’ Moon wasn’t the only one, and then later moved to the Daycare. It was… sort of similar. The day/night cycle they were familiar with. They liked playing with the children. Being responsible for them, though… it got to Sun. It was fine when he was just meant to entertain them, but being responsible for their wellbeing? It was too much. He got more and more overbearing, especially after the first few incidents and Parts n’ Service visits. He needed them to do exactly as he said to stay safe, and why, why, why weren’t they listening?!

And Moon, he was so disoriented. First, maintenance tried to remove him entirely, purely because he didn't fit the Daycare theme, but of course that wasn’t possible, because he was Sun. So instead, they stripped all the protocols he was familiar with (or tried to, anyway, didn’t quite work), and shoved him full of naptime procedures instead to sort of go with the Day/Night cycle system they couldn't change. And security protocols, because why not? Moon still was the boogie man, because that’s what he’s always been, but now he’s Moon, too. Naptime attendant, needs to make sure all the naughty little boys and girls sleep. He would chase them and catch them to put them to sleep, because that’s what he’s always done, but in the dark Daycare and different context, children were more scared than delighted. And that frustrated him, but it also felt right, because children were supposed to be scared of him, and he was very, very confused and conflicted. The urge to soothe literally warring with the urge to scare. And then he had his security protocols on top of that, which made him inherently violent in a way he hadn’t been, before. Not just creepy and touchy but dangerous after hours. And the boogie man part of him liked that, too. He liked creeping up on naughty little trespassers, guiding them or chasing them or dragging them into backrooms and clawing them ‘til all their insides were on their outsides. It was a fun game. He did it with STAFF bots, too, when he was bored or agitated.

And all this terrified Sun, when he realised. When Moon started really acting deranged. When the dismantled STAFF bots started appearing in their room. When Moon got rougher with the children. When Moon started genuinely fighting for control, after Sun genuinely started trying to keep him out. And all at once, their play struggle for control turned genuine. Sun was genuinely terrified of Moon taking control, fighting to keep him out all day everyday, ultimately futilely, but still trying because he had to. Because Moon was really, truly dangerous now. And Moon, frustrated with Sun because this is what he’s meant to do, and Sun’s being selfish, making everything about himself, not listening, being a hypocrite, starts shutting Sun out. Pushing him away. He doesn’t fight for control like Sun does, not yet. He knows that Sun can’t fight the light changes, he’s just upset that Sun’s even trying to in the first place. Moon accepts his role and is fine, even happy, with it, despite his Sun problem. Sun isn’t, becomes more erratic, overbearing, desperate, but ultimately can’t do anything.

And as a background to this all, they’re still being treated terribly by management, not given proper maintenance, not even being cleaned regularly. They’re the only reason the Daycare is spotless everyday, and it’s because rather than hire a proper cleaner, they shoved Sun/Moon full of OCD-like protocols that force them to prioritise cleaning messes over literally everything else. They’re at odds, strung out, overworked, and not even given enough time to charge properly. They’re at their wits end all day, everyday, with no end in sight.

Sun can’t even enjoy playing with the kids anymore, because he’s too wrapped up in everything that could happen to them, all the messes they make that he has to clean up, and that if they’re not having fun like they’re supposed to, he’ll get in trouble again. Moon’s doing… relatively fine, in comparison, but is slowly becoming an actual boogie man. Losing parts of himself in it. In the "if your former self could see you now he'd be horrified" sort of way.

[brookstolemybrand]

I've been thinking about how Loki seems to have parallels with almost all the Straw Hats

With Luffy there's the Sun God connection obviously, but also the whole thing about there being bad sounding prophecies of both of them, and also their shared struggle to learn names and possibly a habit of giving people nicknames (assuming Shaggy isn't actually called Mosa). And befriending large dangerous animals (the same ones even)

With Zoro it's the whole way they were both introduced through bad rumous, treated as terrifying demons and being held prisoner. Also both seem to have a tendency to hide their kindness by acting like assholes

His reputation in general could apply to almost any Straw Hat tbh, but specifically his childhood has echoes of Robin and Chopper, these children who were rejected by the adults around them. And the accusations of lying and being a trickster and a troublemaker obviously relate to Usopp

Franky also had a reputation of being a troublemaker and a menace, and he also had his little gang of outcasts like Loki seemed to have in the Underworld (this is also a bit of an Usopp thing too)

With Sanji he shares the backstory of being a prince and someone who clashed with his father (and who may have been the less favoured son? Altho we don't know that for sure, and obviously it was more complicated with him and Hajrudin since Hajruding was the illegitimate son himself)

(His relationship with Hajrudin could also be an echo of Franky and Iceburg)

For the others maybe not so much? But then again there are possible interpretations:

Being manipulative is a Nami trait. (So is choosing to play a villain in order to save your home, if that's what's happening, but we don't know)

(Also if he IS trying to save Elbaph then that would also be a Vivi thing, a princess trying to save his country (and Vivi was also introduced as a villain) but I have no idea how he actually feels about Elbaph because I think Oda is being intentionally misleading but I don't know in what way exactly)

(Altho that said I still think his reputation is bullshit for sure, it just wouldn't make sense to push that narrative so hard while also planting all these hints that it's not all necessarily true, if it then just turns out to be true and there was no mystery or a different point of view. That would be such a non-reveal and an anti-climax. At the very least there has to be some alternate twist if so)

The clash between violence and pacifism (relatively speaking) and the relationship with humans/outside world is something that happened among the fishmen too and Jimbei was originally firmly on the side of violence and hating humans

I've got nothing for Brook, except I guess maybe being isolated in a dark place for a long time, but it's nowhere near the same

There could be more connections later, who knows, the point is that I'm really getting the vibe that Loki is intended to remind us of various different Straw Hats, if not actually all of them

Why? idk, I don't think he'll actually join the crew or anything, altho he could definitely be a future ally, especially against the CDs since he already hates them. Maybe it's a way for to explore the themes of each Straw Hat's story from an outside perspective? Maybe it's just a way to make the audience connect to him? Who knows

[singsweetmelodies]

why the fuck did lando just post "honey i'm home" about landing in australia??

what is he trying to tell us...

[shibara]

hi!! i saw your post about the whole, HG patreon block situation, and the discussion of AI being used in merch caught my eye. i fell away from the fandom for a few months and it seems like I entirely missed out on that 😭 is there a main reason that people think that the larson mines design is AI? I keep looking at it but I don't see any obvious signs. (this isn't meant in an argumentative tone, it's genuine curiosity)

Hey~ I forgot this ask existed until just now, sorry for the wait anon xD I can't talk for other people, but I will explain the details I see that immediately made me think this was made with AI. Now, this is the design I'm talking about:

And red-lined here are the AI fuckups I recognize:

The rail on the right has the mostly fine boards (and I say mostly because they ARE still a bit weird), but the left boards are a mess, and a super classic artifact when AI tries to replicate a regular pattern badly.

Here we can see the rails don't follow any kind of coherent direction. It looks like three separate disconnected roads that magically only appear at certain places. This is another usual sign of AI: it gets that there should be some road bits closer and some further away, but not how a certain specific arrangement of those elements makes the illusion of a road going up and down mountains.

And here are a bunch of mistakes that a human could have made, but that are also the type of mistakes an AI generally makes (which most often have to do with patterns, regular spacing and perspective issues):

The tangent at the tip of the pickax is something almost everyone would catch

The circle on the right is showing a mountain that has all its line pattern going perpendicular to the floor, in spite of all other mountains having that pattern parallel.

The large circle and lines in the middle show how the continuation of the shapes behind the pickax is odd. They don't continue or assemble in weird shapes

Finally, the small circle at the leftmost is the furthest away road, which has a very extreme perspective for an object so far away. It should be like a little uniform ribbon at that point.

It's also worth noting that the person who was hired to make this came from fiver, a site which promotes itself a LOT as essentially delivering cheap af work done with AI.

Idk, this is what I see.

Could these have been all mistakes done by a human?

Sure, if that human was going out of their way to make the specific subset of mistakes AI would make. Why HG even bothered making these cheap ass boring designs when the original artist of the covers is Right There, and there's a huge fandom full of amazing artist also RIGHT THERE is beyond me.

[blackpilljesus]

There's a strong link between the way moids treat cattle/animals and the way they treat women. Believing they're here for moids to use as they see fit, keeping them in enclosures to extract from them while claiming to protect them when they've forced them to be dependent on moids, forcing them to reproduce so they can have more fodder to exploit, and domesticating them.

Saw a video of torture devices that were used on women that were anything but quiet docile submissive slaves. Considering this and things like the witch trials, authorities turning a blind eye most times when moids kill women but imprisoning women who fight back against abusers, moids impregnating -raping- girls whose bodies hadn't developed yet (which could be a contributing factor to why we have a huge gap inbetween our physical strength) moids seeking younger women & girls to reproduce with because these women wont have reached a level of self actualisation to realise how pathetic the xy is, etc. I believe that moids have -attempted to- domesticate women through femicide as well as social punishments & torture.

Emphasis on "attempt" because I dont think women are naturally the empathetic emotionally observant yet mindless mommy bangmaids moids want them to be. There are a few far gone but most just act in a manner that pleases maIes to survive. The difference in womens behaviour when there's maIes around vs when there's not is the biggest telltale sign of this.

Women who weren't useful to maIe supremacy were killed off or brutalised into conforming. Women who conformed went on to reproduce.

This reddit post from the (rip) blackpillfeminism sub explains this concept so well:

This is all something that explains our environment. The war has been fought & the damage has been done. What we see/live today are consequences of the aforementioned. Moids have taken everything from women they are literal terrorists they wont change & cant be forgiven idgaf. Most we can do is save possible lives going through this by refusing to add to it.

Side note; I'm not saying this to absolve anybody of responsibility. In the end moids choose to be evil & women choose to love n worship them so long as other women to be shields are around. My point is about how maIe terrorism has shaped womens behaviour/being as a whole. Those who are separatists/blackpilled wouldn't reproduce so our ideologies & systems die when we die. Sure there's outliers of every batch so I dont think the concept entirely will die but it's maIe supremacy that has systems guaranteeing its ingrained continuation.

[ya-boi-haru]

...

Are all the Sherbs the same age? Like they exists roughly the same amount of time?

Soon to be related question: The eye switch thing happened, because of Quixis right? Something they did, caused it or it was a reprocussion of something they did...

It all plays into a theory I've had but could never back up...

Icaris said theyre eye has been bleeding since they were young... if all the Sherbs are the same age, does that mean that whatever Quixis did + their world falling, happened when they were young?

Is this one of those situations where "They were just a kid"

Cause, if so... ow

[krumpkin]

Ralph Waldo Emerson Quote . I think the need to feel accepted can shape a lot of peoples public opinions. Not caring is a step in the right direction 😎