#if my research is correct

[1stthingsfirst]

On Rehab

I've seen a lot of posts that suggest folks may not know much about rehab, so I'm jumping in with my experience.

Disclaimer: This is from a US-perspective, and from a person who has helped loved ones research/enter rehab but who has not gone myself. I did a little research and it seems like the options are similar in Thailand.

There are multiple forms of rehab:

Rehab can be inpatient (aka residential treatment) where you live at the rehab center. Rehab can also be outpatient where you live at your home and visit the rehab center regularly for individual and group therapy. A lot of people do a short stint (from a few days to weeks) inpatient before switching to outpatient. I'm calling this mixed rehab.

Inpatient programs are considered the gold star for treatment. They have the lowest relapse rates after release, so they are an excellent option if you can afford them. They are especially recommended for people who need a medically-supervised detox and/or more intensive oversight/care and an externally-imposed schedule and rules.

We know Ray can afford it, but inpatient programs are generally extremely expensive so many people opt for outpatient/mixed care due to affordability. They are also great options for people who can't take time away from work or family.

The absolute best chances at recovery are if you participate in at least 90 days inpatient, followed by outpatient care and ongoing participation in support groups. The longer you stay in any form of treatment, the higher the recovery success rate.

All that's to say: We don't yet know what type of program Ray will choose and if he will be away from home for any period of time. Based on what we saw in episode 10, I think he visited a hospital-based program, which is more likely to be mixed or outpatient. Plus, we see him out and about quite a bit in the episode 11 preview, so it's unlikely that he's (at least initially) choosing an inpatient program.

No one asked, but FYI, Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous and other 12-step programs are not rehab because they do not offer comprehensive supports. They are support groups. Participation in AA/NA/other support groups during and/or after rehab decreases likelihood of relapse, but they're not the same as rehab.

[aparticularbandit]

Okay, but. I know there were rumors about Billy being in CoC due to the casting call thing.

But.

But.

What if he brings Teddy with him?

[elodieunderglass]

changes and trends in horror-genre films are linked to the anxieties of the culture in its time and place. Vampires are the manifestation of grappling with sexuality; aliens, of foreign influence. Horror from the Cold War is about apathy and annihilation; classic Japanese horror is characterised by “nature’s revenge”; psychological horror plays with anxieties that absorbed its audience, like pregnancy/abortion, mental illness, femininity. Some horror presses on the bruise of being trapped in a situation with upsetting tasks to complete, especially ones that compromise you as a person - reflecting the horrors and anxieties of capitalism etc etc etc. Cosmic horror is slightly out of fashion because our culture is more comfortable with, even wistful for, “the unknown.” Monster horror now has to be aware of itself, as a contingent of people now live in the freedom and comfort of saying “I would willingly, gladly, even preferentially fuck that monster.” But I don’t know much about films or genres: that ground has been covered by cleverer people.

I don’t actually like horror or movies. What interests me at the moment is how horror of the 2020s has an element of perception and paying attention.

Multiple movies in one year discussed monsters that killed you if you perceived them. There are monsters you can’t look at; monsters that kill you instantly if you get their attention. Monsters where you have to be silent, look down, hold still: pray that they pass over you. M Zombies have changed from a hand-waved virus that covers extras in splashy gore, to insidious spores. A disaster film is called Don’t Look Up, a horror film is called Nope. Even trashy nun horror sets up strange premises of keeping your eyes fixed on something as the devil GETS you.

No idea if this is anything. (I haven’t seen any of these things because, unfortunately, I hate them.) Someone who understands better than me could say something clever here, and I hope they do.

But the thing I’m thinking about is what this will look like to the future, as the Victorian sex vampires and Cold War anxieties look to us. I think they’ll have a little sympathy, but they probably won’t. You poor little prey animals, the kids will say, you were awfully afraid of facing up to things, weren’t you?

[lunarw0rks]

john “big stretch” price

simon “make it fit” riley

soap “just the tip” mactavish

kyle “give me one more” garrick

[amiti-art]

Troilus design! (ft best dad Apollo) He's around 12 years old here.

Researching Troilus' story is not an easy task because unfortunately most of the ancient texts focused on him didn't survive and others only survived in fragments.

This story is brutal even for greek mythology standards so please keep that in mind if you want to continue reading this or do more research on your own.

Something that all of the versions seems to agree on is that he was a Trojan prince, son of queen Hecuba and was killed by Achilles. His father was either Apollo or Priam (Apollo fits more with the context of the story though).

Most of the versions also focus on Troilus' young age and he's often shown to be visibly shorter than Achilles on the vase paintings depicting his death.

The most popular version of the myth (which is also supported by ancient vase paintings) states that Troilus and his sister Polyxena (she's not preset in every version though) went outside of Troy on their horses and while they were at a fountain Achilles ambushed them.

Achilles then chased Troilus who tried to hide inside of Apollo's temple (possibly seeking his father's protection) but Achilles caught up to him and murdered Troilus either inside or in front of the temple and then brutally mutilated his body.

There 2 alternative reasons given for the murder:

1. There was a prophecy which said that if Troilus reached 21 years of age Troy would never fall.

2. Achilles fell in love with Troilus, tried to force himself on him and was enraged when the boy refused his advances. (This version seems to have more surviving evidence)

It could also be that the only reason that Achilles killed Troilus was the fact that he was a Trojan prince and therefore an enemy but this does not seem to fit with the brutality of the act.

Here are some vase paintings that show Troilus' death at the hands of Achilles

[cobaltfluff]

persona boyfriends being cringe (2/3)

[pomidaea]

AU Idea: Everything is the same except the Mo Family runs an opera troupe and Mo Xuanyu is one of the dan performers. He is a lousy actor with a decent singing voice. He forgets lines and has breakdowns a few minutes before the show starts. The troupe only allowed him to perform because they lack members and are desperate to climb the social ladder.

When people ask why the infamous ex-performer is hanging out with Hanguang-jun, Wei Wuxian gives an excuse that he's trying to learn music cultivation because his "family" was terrible and he wants to learn from a real musician

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Over the last few years, I’ve begun to heavily encourage people to think of a zoo or aquarium or sanctuary being accredited as conveying important information about their ethos / operations / politics - but not as an inherent indicator of quality. Why? Because accrediting groups can be and are fallible. There are issues with all of the accrediting groups and programs, to varying degrees, and so they’re just a piece of information for a discerning zoo-goer to incorporate into their overall opinion. I just saw a news article go by with some data that proves my point.

First off, good for Houston, no commentary that follows is directed that them.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a headline like this - there was one a couple years ago, about Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado also getting a perfect inspection. But here’s what bugs me about it.

If you see/hear the phrase “Facility X has been accredited by Y organization, which holds the highest standards in the world for this type of facility”, it kind of implies that facility X meets all of those standards, doesn’t it? Not most of them, not the majority. When you hear that a zoological facility has gone through a rigorous process to earn an accreditation branded (by the accrediting org) as “the gold standard” in the industry… the general public is going to interpret that as saying these facilities are in compliance with every single rule or standard. And what these headlines tell us, alongside the commentary from AZA in the articles, is that it’s not only not true - it never has been true. Most AZA accredited facilities apparently don’t meet all the AZA standards when they’re inspected, and that’s both okay with them and normal enough to talk about without worrying about the optics.

Let’s start with the basic information in the Houston Chronicle article, which will have been provided to them by the zoo and the AZA.

“Since it's inception in 1974, the AZA has conducted more than 2,700 inspections and awarded only eight perfect evaluations throughout the process's 50-year history. Houston Zoo's final report is 26 pages long — and filled with A's and A-pluses."

Okay, so… doing that math, less than one percent of AZA accreditation inspections don’t meet all the standards at the time of inspection. But, wait, that’s not just what that says. That bit of information isn’t talk about AZA accredited facilities vs the ones that got denied accreditation: this is telling us that of facilities that earned AZA accreditation, basically none of them meet all the standards at the time. This isn’t talking about tabled accreditations or provisional ones where they come back and check that something improved. Given that math from earlier, this information means that most - if not all - AZA accredited facilities have repeatedly failed to meet all of the standards at one point in time … and have still been accredited anyway.

That tracks with what was said about Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, back in 2021 when they got their perfect accreditation.

“Cheyenne Mountain Zoo has earned an incredibly rare clean report of inspection and its seventh consecutive five-year accreditation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). In nearly 50 years of accreditations, CMZoo is only the fourth organization to earn a ‘clean’ report, which means there wasn’t a single major or minor concern reported”

Seven consecutive accreditation processes - and only one of them where they actually met all the standard at the time.

Here’s what the AZA CEO had to say about Houston’s accreditation achievement in that article, which reinforces my conclusion here:

"AZA president and CEO Dan Ashe says the multi-day inspection process, which occurs every five years, has been described as "comprehensive, exhausting and intimidating."

"We send a team of experts in who spend several days talking to employees, guests and the governing board. They look at animal care and husbandry. They look at the governance structure and finances. They look comprehensively at the organization," Ashe explains. "For a facility like Houston Zoo to have a completely clean accreditation and inspection is extremely rare. These inspectors are experts, it's hard to get to the point where they can't find something.""

Now, here’s the rub. We, as members of the public, will never have any idea which standards it is deemed okay for a given AZA facility to not meet. All of the zoological accrediting groups consider accreditation information proprietary - the only way we find out information about how a facility does during accreditation is if they choose to share it themselves.

On top of that, it’s complicated by the fact that last time I read them AZA had over 212 pages of accreditation standards and related guidance that facilities had to comply with. Now, AZA doesn’t accredit facilities if there are major deviations from their standards, or if there’s an issue on something important or highly contentious. So - based on my completely outsider but heavily researched perspective - this probably means that most zoos are in non-compliance with a couple of standards, but not more than a handful.

To make trying to figure this out even more fun, it is also important to know that AZA’s standards are performance standards: whether or not they’re “met” is based on a subjective assessment performed by the accreditation inspectors and the accreditation committee. This means that what qualifies as fulfilling the standards can and does vary between facilities, depending on who inspected them and the composition of the committee at the time.

So why do I care so much? Because when it comes to public trust, branding matters. AZA has gained a reputation as the most stringent accrediting group in the country - to the point that it can lobby legislators to write exceptions into state and federal laws just for its members - based on how they message about their accreditation program. How intensive it is, how much oversight it provides, what a high level of rigor the facilities are held to. That… doesn’t track with “well, actually, the vast majority of the zoos meet most of the standards most of the time.” People who support AZA - people who visit AZA accredited zoos specifically because of what it means about the quality of the facility - believe that accreditation means all the standards are being met!

To be clear: most AZA zoos do meet some pretty high standards. It’s likely that what are being let slide are pretty minor things. I expect it’s on stuff the facility can improve without too much hassle, and it might be that doing so is probably part of what’s required. There’s not enough information available to people outside the fold. But I will say, I don’t think any zoo is getting accredited despite AZA having knowledge of a serious problem.

Where I take issue with this whole situations is the ethics of the marketing and branding. AZA frames themselves as being the best-of-the-best, the gold standard, when it turns out that most of their accredited zoos aren’t totally in compliance, and they know and it’s fine. They seem to be approaching accreditation like a grade, where anything over a certain amount of compliance is acceptable. The public, though, is being fed a narrative that implies it’s a 99/100 pass/fail type of situation. That’s not super honest, imho, which shows up in how there’s zero transparency with the public about it - it goes unspoken and unacknowledged, except when it’s used for promotional gain.

And then, like, on top of the honesty in marketing part, it’s just… something that gets joked about, which really rubs me the wrong way. Like this statement from the media releases for the Cheyenne Mountain accreditation:

“Another of our ‘We Believe’ statements is, ‘We value laughter as good medicine,’” said Chastain. “To put this clean accreditation into perspective, when I asked Dan Ashe, AZA president and CEO, for his comments about how rare this is, he joked, ‘A completely clean inspection report is so unusual, and so unlikely, it brings one word to mind — bribery!’“

So, TL;DR, even AZA accreditation is designed so that their accredited zoos don’t have to - and mostly don’t - actually fully meet all the standards. I’d love to know more about what types of standards AZA is willing to let slide when they accredit a facility, but given the proprietary nature of that information, it’s pretty unlikely there will ever be more information available. AZA accreditation tells you what standards a zoo aspires to meet, what their approximate ethics are, and what political pool they play in. When it comes to the quality of a facility and their animal care, though, sporting an accreditation acronym is just a piece of the larger puzzle.

[gayaest]

Rawiya — her name means “storyteller”. She loves nature and mori kei fashion, and enjoys sunsets! 🌾🐛👒🧸

[thevoidstaredback]

Phantom's Coffee

Enough Caffeine to Kill an Elephant Side Story

There is a lot that comes with being a ghost. Most of that is really cool superpowers. The unfortunate side effect with the whole being dead thing is that he doesn't have need for human functions or sustenance.

It had been a horrible thing to discover, really. The lack of constant need for sleep and food and drink was sometimes useful, but that came with the realization that nothing affected him.

At first, Danny and his team thought it was because he was dead. No blood flow, no working organs, no metabolism. This lead to a lot of experimentation. Drugs and alcohol had no effect, neither did poisons. He didn't get sick anymore, no matter what he did!

And then he realized that coffee didn't work.

Naturally distraught, Danny went straight to Frostbite to figure out what was going on. It's finals season, damnit! Coffee was gonna be the one thing to pull him through his studies!

"From what I can tell," the yeti explained, "your human functions have stopped. Quite the opposite, really."

Danny blinked. "But, I'm dead. Ghosts don't have working organs or stuff like that."

"Indeed, but you're only half dead."

"What difference does that make?"

Why did Frostbite now have charts, and where did they come from? "I can only guess, but when you died and brought back, the electricity jump started everything in your body. It essentially supercharged you. I can only assume that it'll die down in time to the point of non-function, but we can't know for sure."

"Wait," Danny's voice was nervous, "What does that mean?"

Frostbite took a minute to think over his words, looking for how to phrase what he wanted to say. "When you are alive, your heart beats slower than it did before your death, yes?"

"Yeah."

"That would be the effects of the ectoplasm that reanimated you. Your heart rate is slower, breathing takes a more conscious effort, your blood flow is slower, your organs are all working at half of what they used to." He took another moment of pause. "When you are dead, your heart beats faster than it did, breathing is faster, blood flow is faster, your organs are working at twice capacity."

Danny's breathing, now that he was very aware of it, picked up. "What- But that- What?!"

"With a high enough voltage, electricity kills. With a high enough concentration, ectoplasm reanimates."

"Reani- but I'm alive!"

"Indeed."

"But that doesn't make sense!"

"Doesn't it?"

"No!"

"Perhaps I should try a different phrasing." Frostbite said. "When you are Danny Fenton, you are more dead than alive in the sense that your body has been killed and not fully revived. When you are Danny Phantom, you are more alive than dead in the sense that your body was revived and not fully killed."

Danny was quiet for a moment. "Reanimated and revived aren't interchangeable, Frostbite."

"In some contexts', no. In others, they are."

"Are they here?"

A beat. "Yes."

Danny knew he was lying, but he didn't call him out on it. That was a crisis for another day, thank you very much.

So, higher metabolism for Danny Phantom, lower one for Danny Fenton. Great.

All crises pushed aside to freak out about never later, Danny's ew mission was to find out exactly how much caffeine would be required to give him the buzz of wakefulness that he was searching for.

Normally, the course of action would to be to measure how much e weighs and look up the maximum caffeine intake his body could handle. It was the first thing he tried, and it failed.

By the tried and true method of 'Fuck It, We Ball', Danny learned that he needs to have 35,000 milligrams of caffeine in a single sitting before any effect takes hold when he's drinking as Phantom.

The calculations running at a 5:1 ratio, caffeine milligrams to weight pounds, the lowest end on the scale of average weight of a small female elephant (3,175 kilos), multiplied by five gives him the 15,875 milligrams that would be enough to give him a low buzz and keep him awake for a few hours. That's enough to kill the elephants on the low end of the scale.

(Jazz vetoed any kind of caffeine that wasn't naturally occuring in chocolate when he's Danny Fenton. She said that he's already died once and that he doesn't need heart problems to kill him.)

(Danny calls bull, but he isn't willing to risk his sister's ire.)

Because he can't let finals get the best of him, Danny decided to take it a step further.

The highest end of the scale for the average weight of female elephants is 4,050 kilos, multiplied by the same five, gives 20,250 milligrams of caffeine.

Essentially, the lower end of the scale would give him the same effect as 99 (and a bit) 473 milliliter cans of Rockstar Energy Drinks in one sitting. The higher end of the scale would be 126 (and a bit) 473 milliliter cans of Rockstar Energy Drinks in one sitting.

All that was left to do, now that he has the maths for the desired effect figured out, was to mix that in his favorite drink: A Red Eye.

Truly an abomination for the ages.

After way too much brain power, Phantom's completed coffee order looks like this:

A large Red Eye with 20,250 mg of caffeine

2 tablespoons of cinnamon

1 tablespoon of honey

1/8 cup of chocolate syrup

and 3 mint leaves or 1 teaspoon of mint extract

(he added 4 shots of vodka when he turned 21)

Danny is gonna kick his finals' ass, and be hyped up on caffeine while doing it!

Storyboard

[chaoticace2005]

Spiders, their senses, and Angel Dust implications

I already screamed to @xxqueenofdragonsxx about this but figured I’d put it out there because I was doing research and I can’t stop thinking about it.

While we don’t know how canon it is to the show, this does have some implications for fanfics and is fun to consider.

Spiders don’t have ears. Or noses. Or tongues.

People have already made jokes about Angel’s lack of a nose, but it tracks with that fact. We also don’t see his ears, although we have seen his tongue (which, given he isn’t an actual spider there can be some allowances made.) Yes, he doesn’t have pedipalps to act as a substitution for his nose/tongue, but that isn’t the only place they can smell/taste things.

It’s their legs/feet(?). Their legs and bodies have sensory hair cells that allows them to detect vibrations in the air, as well as changes in electrical fields (which… Vox and Alastor implications? Can Angel sense them.) Humans hear via sensory hair cells too, but those are concentrated in the cochlea of the inner ear and surrounded by the outer/middle ear system (eardrum, etc.) Spiders don’t have that. They also have chemoreceptors that can smell and taste things.

Now, as someone who didn’t know much about spiders it’s cool to think about in terms of a character with some spider-like characteristics. But then I thought about this other aspect of Angel

His clothing

More specifically his constant usage of gloves/long sleeves/boots. We know he hates his spider feet, and yeah, the usage of gloves and his blazer can be to fit his style, but it’s also fun to think that maybe him wearing them is an active attempt to reduce sensory input? He’d still get some vibration input because the fabric won’t block everything, but it won’t be as direct. But since spider sensory organs aren’t localized like humans are, this could essentially be the equivalent of wearing a headphones. (Also do you really want to taste every single thing you touch?)

Which brings me to the second order of business: when he DOESNT wear his gloves. We do see him have to be bare for the camera, and if you consider him wearing clothes as a way of sensory modulation, he could essentially be forced to get all that input. Sensory overload would already be so ways in a place with so many sounds, lights, smells, etc. but imagine if you also have to do that when not used to such a level of exposure?

In humans there’s a condition called hyperacusis, which is basically a reduced pain and discomfort threshold to sounds. Some everyday ones can cause pain. Some neurodivergent people also have sensory sensitivities like that, in both cases sometimes headphones can help to reduce input.

The thing is though, if you constantly wear them you’re reducing your own threshold. It’s not recommended for people with hyperacusis to wear earplugs all the time because it makes them even more sensitive when not wearing them.

So, if you apply the same principle here, there is even more reason to consider the idea Angel would have some level of overstimulation just from not having his clothes on, combine that with the work environment, what he has to do, and the emotional turmoil of it all and that just makes it worse.

Which… with me anyways I’ve found when I’m too overloaded my brain tends to nope out and dissociate. So that could be what happens to Angel as well.

Then, there is one time outside of the studio we see him with uncovered arms and that’s the battle at the hotel.

Here, he’s wearing gloves but his arms are exposed. So it could be said that he’s allowing himself access to more input while also not overwhelming himself. He still has a buffer with the gloves on, but he also has heightened awareness for things around him.

Again, the amount of this actually being applicable in canon is hard to say. Sense we don’t know how spidery Angel really is (since again, he does have a tongue) and what level of research went into that aspect of their character designs. But I think it’s a fun thing to consider.

So uhhh… yeah. Totally normal about this all as someone who totally isn’t interested in audiology, hyperfixating on hazbin hotel, and neurodivergent myself.

(Update: there is now a fic)

[shithowdy]

can you guys please for the love of christ start checking the bio of someone who has posted a dumbass take to make sure they aren't an actual child before you decide to do sick dunks on them to your audience of thousands

[royalarchivist]

Mike: Are you awake, Buba? Did papa wake you up?

Mike: He was dreaming, poor thing. Ah, I've completely lost my positioning for stream.* It's over, Bubba. Who told you to be so cute like that?

A little cutie made a guest appearance on Mike's stream! 🐕‍🦺💚

[theaologies]

I got so caught up in writing about Irish lighthouses at work today I forgot that Solas’s hideout is called The Lighthouse while the Irish term for The Lighthouse is An Teach Solais (Solas=Light Teach=House). This is nothing but that’s a fun little coincidence. The Lighthouse is Solas’s House (literally)

[polyshodivorce]

Hoh/deaf wxs

Tsukasa who’s always talked too loudly and has to ask people to repeat what they said. Saki’s friends noticing she tends to talk slowly and use her hands when explaining things by habit even when her brother isn’t around.

The Otori family learning sign language. Emu getting so excited that she signs too quickly for anyone to keep up and decorating her hearing aids with stickers. WxS always leaving the lights on at sleepovers so she can read their lips during late night sleepy conversations.

Rui noticing he’s beginning to find it a bit difficult to follow what others are saying or doesn’t realize when someone’s talking to him. Always unconsciously leaning in when he’s spoken to. Putting in extra effort to make his shows visually engaging and full of easy to follow gestures so they can still be enjoyed without music or dialogue.

Robo-Nene programed to sign as she speaks. Nene shyily asking people if they can come closer when speaking to her. She used to worry whether she could perform or act properly, so she always takes extra time to memorize not only her own lines, but everyone else’s, so she’ll never miss her cue even if she doesn’t hear it.

[thelaurenshippen]

open ai made a little post about how they chose their chatbot voices and two things stood out to me:

a) I am genuinely pleased and surprised that the voices come from specific real people that they hired and paid, rather than being built off of all of the data open ai has scraped. the voice for siri did one job for one company 20 years ago and now she is literally everywhere without ever being compensated by apple or even acknowledged as the voice. there's simply no way she was paid enough in that original job. whereas, open ai says "each actor receives compensation above top-of-market rates, and this will continue for as long as their voices are used in our products." this could mean literally anything (what market rate are we going above? does continue mean they get residuals or get paid for doing more sessions?) but, christ, at least the actors are doing it with full knowledge of what their voices are being used for and can decide for themselves if the compensation is enough

b) the post talks about working with "award-winning casting directors" to get the voices. first of all, yay for paying casting directors! we love to see it. but they also say the CDs received over 400 submissions in a week and they state that like a big number and it's just...not at all. and look, without knowing the intricacies of the casting process, it's hard to know what approach the CDs took - it's very possible they were selective from the jump and 400 is a lot from the pool they were tapping. 400 would be a lot if you were going to the agencies directly and asking for names, but there's just no way in hell open ai went after big stars for this. so it would've been a pool of unknowns. in which case, 400 is laughably small. even if you're not using the big casting sites like actorsaccess, I've worked on projects with CDs and their own internal systems where we've gotten over 100 submissions for a single role. I've posted roles on casting sites and received literally thousands of submissions in just a few days

look, I have a very limited perspective on this - I am not a casting director (imo, one of the most important and undervalued jobs in hollywood) and I, in fact, hate the process of casting with a passion. but 400 just seemed like such a tiny pool to pull from and, idk, it heartens me! it's heartening to think that there's very little interest from actors and agents to be doing this kind of stuff. and absolutely no shade to the actors who did--I want actors to get their bag however they want as long as it's, like, safe sane and consensual, you know? but there's something encouraging about thinking that open ai hired some big casting agency to get their foot into the voice acting door and people didn't come running