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kedreeva · 2 days

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After a month-long fight, Artemis' system finally threw in the towel. We put her to sleep this morning.

I am crushed, and I don't really know what else to say.

She started slowing down shortly after her last suprelorin implant, and the xrays showed something, a weird shadow or cross-peritoneal sac encompassing her heart and liver, but none of the three avian vets who saw it could interpret what it actually was or what to do about it. We started her on some painkillers and antibiotics, and tube feeding liquid chow so she would not lose condition if she was not feeling well. We changed up antibiotics, we gave her an antiemetic for nausea, we tried different pain meds...

For a little while, she seemed to be improving. Whatever it was, it wasn't as visible on the next xrays, and her bloodwork looked better. She was moving around more and sleeping less (she'd been sleeping all day at the start), she could get up and down to the big perch on her own.

And then last night, her crop was a little squishy when I gave her her evening meds. I hoped that it was just that she'd finally eaten a good meal before bed, but when I came out today to give her morning meds, the blueberries from the evening before were still in her crop. That's NOT good. Her urates were also stained yellow. I called the vet and got an emergency appt, but I knew before I left that I would probably have to make the call to end it. I gave her a little time out in the sunshine and grass while I got the car ready, and then we drove down. She sat quietly, and didn't complain during the exam, but ultimately the radiograph showed the problem was still present, and her kidneys were shining bright. Her GI tract had slowed to a stop, her heartbeat was slowed way down, and her urates were showing crystals.

So, I said my goodbyes, and the vet did as well. Everyone was fond of Artemis- she was always well behaved and sweet to everyone she ever met. She loved people, she loved cuddles. She was only 6. I knew she wasn't going to make it a full, normal lifespan, not with everything that was wrong from the get go, but I had hoped for a few more years. I got a few more than she'd have gotten with anyone else. It's never enough.

Artemis was my favorite, from the moment she hatched. She was never mean- not to humans, not to other birds. She is the ONLY bird I've ever owned that was like that. She loved Stan from the moment she met him, and tolerated his weird social habits to the end of his days. They were ALWAYS together, always sitting in the sun together, always following one another. I'm honestly not surprised she followed him to death- there are so many anecdotes from keepers who have birds that spend weeks, even months, grieving after losing a close flock mate. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find Artemis had been holding onto life with both hands for Stan, and with his passing she gave up.

I am going to miss painting with her so much. I have her first painting, and her last, in my bedroom, and I'm really glad I didn't let that last one go yet.

I don't really know what else to say, besides that she was my heart. I loved her, and I hate that she's gone. There will never, ever be another lady like her.

Sleep sweet, lovely. I'll miss you til the end of my days, and I look forward to joining you at the meadow when that comes.

#artemis #peafowl #peahens #my pets #previous pets #animal death for ts #animal death #pet death for ts #pet death #This year has really been raking me over the fucking coals

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dceasesd · 2 days

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why juni ba’s the boy wonder has my favorite jason characterization of any contemporary comic run: a needlessly in-depth analysis (pt.1)

oh boy oh boy am i excited for this one buckle up boys it’s gonna be a long one. analysis under the cut (WITH PICTURES!!)

i, like many others, have many thoughts and opinions about juni ba's the boy wonder that i'd like to express. i was having trouble formatting my rant, though, so i decided that it was easiest to just address some of the common complaints i've seen about the comic and jason's characterization and insert my ramblings throughout it. so far i've seen three main complaints:

the typical boiling down of jason's character to "the angry one"

his lack of strategy going into the fight with the demon is out-of-character

the neighbor's kid interaction

to start with the first one-- when introducing jason's character, in both the second and first issue, ba uses the descriptors "coarse", "bitter", "hardened", "brash" and, of course, "rageful".

so, yes-- i understand where people are having issues with this characterization. however, even if it's overplayed, it's still important to remember that jason is angry, and is driven, in part, by his anger at bruce and the joker. and, as ba highlights, he deserved to be! completely erasing jason's anger is just as bad as defining him with it.

i also don't think it's wholly accurate to say that ba is boiling jason down to just his anger. it might seem like that when only considering the dialogue and narration, but jason's behavior in the comic doesn't perfectly align with how the narrator describes him. while the narration describes him as "rageful" and could be an instance of generalization, jason's actions throughout the comic are more aligned with two other emotions/motivators: fear and despair. we never see jason get actually, properly angry; the closest we get is when he's seemingly annoyed by damian (which i believe could be performative) and when he becomes violent, accidentally hurting damian.

even in this instance, though, he is not driven to this violence by rage, but rather fear. so, while ba states in the narration that jason is driven by his anger, he contradicts himself by highlighting how jason's sadness and terror motivates his character. this could be interpreted as lousy writing on ba's part, but i'm not going to attribute the paradox to that inference. to me, it actually represents a critque of the "jason is the angry robin" generalization, because it calls to attention the discrepancies between how one is described versus reality, an issue that jason both faces in the comics (bruce using him as a cautionary tale when dying WASN'T HIS FAULT) and outside of the comics, as mentioned previously.

furthermore, this highlights the difference between what jason believes about bruce's perspective and bruce's actual perspective (according to damian). jason believes himself to be a "failure", but damian refutes this by describing his conversation with bruce concerning jason, a conversation that does not align with jason's belief. if you couldn't tell by now, perception versus reality is a BIG theme in this comic (and for jason's character in general!)

i was really fascinated by ba's take on jason, because it veered pretty far from a lot of contemporary comics, most of which do, unfortunately, play with the angry robin jason generalization. they've been doing a bit with his fear, too, which has either been pretty fun or the most awful thing ever (i'm looking at you zdarsky. gotham war was fucked up), but what makes ba's jason stand out to me is how he grapples with his grief.

this boy is so sad. ba's jason might actually be the saddest rendition of him i've seen in canon content. we've seen jason grapple a little bit with the despair rooted in his death and resurrection, mainly in lost days, where he cries 3 (?) times, fresh out of the pit and very traumatized.

even in this comic, though, he reacts to his grief with anger more prominently than sadness. that obviously doesn't mean the despair isn't there, though-- anger is just an easier outlet for it (which i could really get into the masculinity aspects of that, but then this would be wayyyyyy too long).

ba's jason, though? that motherfucker is so. sad.

christ he's depressing. AND THAT'S SUCH A FRESH PERSPECTIVE!!!!!!! THANK YOU JUNI BA!!!!!!

now i'm pretty sure some people would argue that this rendition in out of character because he's so sad. to me, though, he's still the same jason; he covers up his sadness with anger and pettiness, redirecting his own insecurities onto those around him to mask his true feelings.

ba quite literally illustrates this in the comic. whenever he is being his snide, normal self, he has his red hood mask on; but when he actually opens up to damian and expresses himself truthfully, the mask is off. ba is highlighting how the classic jason anger and bitterness is, in part, a performance and coping mechanism.

this post is already too long, so i'll go over the two other critques in a different post, which i will link below (eventually). if you guys have any thoughts you'd like to share or discuss, my dms and asks are completely open! if you made it this far, i hope you enjoyed my ranting. look out for another post soon! :))

part 2 / part 3

#using my english major for evil #this is very different from stuff i usually post so i hope you guys like it #i had a blast writing it #dc comics #jason todd #batman #dc #robin #red hood #batfamily #batfam #damian wayne #red hood: lost days #the boy wonder #juni ba #dc meta #jason todd meta #the boy wonder meta

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nocturnowlette · 2 days

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There seems to be a lot of unquestioned arbitrary rules inserted into place for what people think a trigger is in hypnosis.

The actual definition is very simple, at least from my perspective. A hypnotic trigger is anything that causes recall of a hypnotic suggestion. Anything.

The trigger itself doesn't need to be reinforced or have even been said before for it to be a trigger so long as it causes recall, it does not have to be a word or a sound. So long as the subject's brain can recognize it as a distinct thing, then it counts. It's closer to ontology than anything.

That being said, you need to understand properties of triggers and how every single aspect of a trigger will affect how the conditioned suggestion is received.

One of the most common and baffling mistakes I see both in trances and in triggers is the "active time" of the trigger; that's to say, the amount of time the brain needs to be acting on that suggestion.

I've always despised visual of an elevator or an ice block, because the subject needs to be hyperfocused on a very slow climb and fall which is near impossible to maintain the consistency of, especially if they need to focus on other things too.

In contrast, a trigger or suggestion that takes place near-instantly or over a few seconds only requires a moment of making an active change, which is simpler and more consistent, and allows for variability in the strength of the effects since you don't have the last minute of change to compare it to.

If this drop trigger only worked 80% as well as the last one, it's a lot harder to notice with a chunk of time of nothing happening between them. Even consistent, small bursts are better than a constant change, like stepping down stairs instead of going down an elevator.

Snaps are the most common form of signifying a trigger because we can make it with our hands, but more importantly, because they're sudden and loud.

The aesthetic of a sudden and loud sound translates to the subject's brain how to interpret the feeling of that trigger. This also means, though, that if you have a trigger that isn't meant to be a burst, that you may not want to use a snap at all.

This also extends into the idea of "suggestion equivalency", as I would call it.

Essentially, you want the aesthetics and potency of the trigger to reasonably match up to the effects of the suggestion itself. The reason a snap is powerful is because you're condensing a very strong effect into one moment. However, if you try to stretch that intense potency to multiple seconds, it'll simply fail. There is only so much focus, there is only so much trigger potency.

One of the myriad reasons I despise key elman inductions is the suggestion of "doubling trance" every time you blink. There is a cartoonish, absurd potency required for that idea that anyone who knows hypnosis at all from the hypnotist or subject side (or just like, the wheat and chessboard tale) would get severe cognitive dissonance from attempting to follow it.

Another issue to consider is the generality and widespreaded-ness of a conditional trigger.

One file from MissLilith that I think was rather silly (and I'm only ragging on her here because I like her work) tries to give the suggestion that any time you see any plant at all, you get aroused. Furthering the idea of keeping up intensity over time, if a stimuli is so ubiquitous that someone experiences it constantly, the spectacle of it is simply gone. That suggestion will, optimistically, exhaust itself within hours.

That's not even to mention that fact that seeing something does not have nearly as much of a spectacle and intense impact as a sudden sound or word. There's a reason why movies have stingers to signal sudden scary moments or realizations.

From a community perspective, you should also avoid the most common trigger words unless you want someone to be dropped accidentally or have your suggestions lumped in with ones from other hypnotists and files.

The last issue is another practical one, the idea of stimulus generalization.

Shortly after an intense session I had involving snaps one time, I watched a 2 hour long video by Nexpo about Petscop (good and atmospheric overview, though Nexpo is terrible when it comes to actually analyzing media himself).

Thing is, the text changing sounds in the game sound a scary amount like a snap. So, every single time there was gameplay audio, I'd get triggered by it, essentially fractionating myself due to continually bringing myself up right after it happened.

Clicker sounds can be set off by pens, snaps by other sudden, high-pitched single noises, even general obedience suggestions can be triggered by another person to your subject if they act similar or have a similar sounding vocal tone to you, among other things. One must always consider that possibility.

Overall, words as triggers are common for a reason, but you can do essentially anything, so long as you recognize many of the common shortfalls of doing so.

Good luck, and happy hypnotizing.

#owlette #hypnosis #hypnotism #hypnotic #covert hypnosis #hypno fantasy #hypno pet #hypno sub #hypnok1nk #hypnosub #hypnotized #hypnosis files #brainwashing #mind control #hypnofetish #hypnoposting #hypno advice #hypnosis advice #hypnokink

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five-thousand-loaves-of-bread · 2 days

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Hi. I read your post about being an "unreliable narrator" of your own life and I am having Feelings about it.

You said at the end to not respond with "relatable" if not friend/mutual etc. and so I am not doing that.

I am here to say Thank You, because you have given me a new way to describe an experience that I sometimes have.

Of course, my experience is very, very small compared to yours. I can pass as "normal" if I want to.

But still, you shared "Unreliable Narrator of Own Life", and so I would like to share "Executive Function Burnout" with you in return.

Thank you so much for sharing. Really. We are not the same, because no two people are really the same, but I see myself in you, and because I love myself and want myself to be happy, I also want the same things for you.

You are welcome to use "Executive Function Burnout" as a way to explain a thing.

I know words are hard sometimes (not always, but sometimes), so:

Executive = Decision Maker

Function = Capacity

Burnout = Used Up

I like finding connections between words, and translating complicated words into simple words.

I hope you have good rest, whatever that looks like for you. And I'm sorry I put so many words here.

Thank you for sharing. 💜

hey so. you nice about it so do appreciate, n think this problem caused by me not realize need elaborate what count as “say relate,” so that on me, n you tried respect that based on your interpretation, so am also gonna try be calm n nice about it

(tone tag is not mad. i think. well, if am mad it not your responsibility worry abt it)

by “don’t say relate” not just mean don’t say word “relate.” mean include saying anything that can be see as relating—say we similar, borrowing words, say see self in me, etc.

because often am describing level of severity that, unless you also go through, people don’t realize can affect that basic of thing. so people misunderstand to mean something milder. n that frustrate me because am try best to explain self as clear n work with communication disabilities. n history of be speak over by people…. for lack better term less severe in community.

now, don’t know how you (both actual you + general you for non mutuals) actually experience, don’t know how you actually understand. maybe you actually understand perfectly severity + actual experience. am have no way knowing unless know you more. and exact because have no way know unless that, n majority of people have met who do this don’t actually understand n experience, just ask people am not familiar with in general, not to tell me if they feel similar, if they relate.

to illustrate.

“burnout” very very. so very different from what am experiencing what am describe. have been very adamant in “do not call me burnout” because been repeat instances. if you not follow me for while, may not know that. n that okay not know! is why say “don’t say relate,” to prevent me see that.

& “executive function/dysfunction”, in way neurodivergent community typically think n talk about term, not describe what am experiencing.

n reason why say “don’t say relate” is, am can’t control how you feel. you (general you) can’t even control how you feel. can only ask you not do action. so ask you not do action. “relate all you want just don’t tell me.” kind of thing

again, do appreciate you be nice. n do appreciate you mean well, n want give me something in return. misunderstanding from miscommunication n that okay. hope you good day.

may borrow some of what wrote here into new post explain what meant by “not say relate if mutual / friend who experience this”, & why. please know it not target at you, you not only one, it something been thinking about do for while because it kinda unusual.

#answered #long post #🍞.txt

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xclowniex · 1 day

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So Israel can openly bomb a school that is a KNOWN. SHELTER. FOR. REFUGEES. and yet you won’t call their behavior “genocidal” simply because the proper channels won’t call it that (even tho there’s plenty of evidence proving that what they’re doing is the text book definition of genocide)

You say all the time to everyone else “listen to Israelis” but you tip toe around the Palestinians putting their lives on the line to expose what Israel is doing

Israel only bombs areas where hamas uses it as either a base or to carry out military operations. It a war crime by hamas to use civilian areas for those purposes. It still sucks and is a tragedy that those areas and buildings are getting destroyed, do not get me wrong, however the fault in the eyes of international law lies with Hamas not Israel.

If that is your logic for it being a genocide, then by your logic, it would be Hamas which is at fault for a genocide.

Again, I am going to trust those with relevent degrees and experiences relevent to calling it a genocide as your average person does not have all the information to call it one.

Your average person does not have all the information regarding military operations from both sides as well as how to properly interpret international law. I am literally simply just recognizing where I lack expertise and leaving it up to the experts, and I reccomend others do the same. Its not good to act like an expert in something you are not an expert in. It actually leads to spreading misinformation.

I would also like to say, how am I tip toeing? I have literally made multiple posts in support of Mosab Hasan Yousef who is a Palestinian who had to seek political assylum in the US so he would not get killed.

What do you expect me to do? Dedicate my whole blog? Do you not want me to talk about antisemitism and xenophobia? Because the thing is, my blog is mainly talking about those two things. Telling people to listen to and talk to Israelis is relevent to those two things. People 100% should be listening to Palestinians too. You are literally pulling a bean soup theory here. Aka don't ask an account who posts about bean soup recipies to post non bean soup recipies and instead find someone else who posts non bean soup recipies.

If you want to read a blog which is mainly about Palestinians, do find a blog which posts mainly about Palestinians. I am not going to give in to your idea of "anyone who talks mainly about antisemitism and Israelis must hate palestinians" as that is stupid. To use another analogy, just because I post mainly about pancakes does not mean i hate waffles.

#antisemitism #israel #i/p #jumblr #palestine #i/p war #gaza #am yisrael chai #ask clownie #but bad

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jeons-catalyst · 3 days

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People often speculate about Jungkook being jealous or possessive, sharing edits that portray him in such a light. I've observed those instances where he appears visibly uncomfortable—whether Jimin is interacting with another idol, interviewer, Park Bo-gum, Taemin, or even Namjoon. However, I don't interpret these as signs of jealousy. Jungkook seems to embody a profound and all-encompassing love. All or nothing type of love. He wears his heart on his sleeve, in the open for everyone to see. While Jimin, more grounded, safeguards his emotions, valuing and protecting them deeply. Putting his wee lil pocket. Both of them love so deeply. They are two different individuals with distinct emotional expressions. In those so-called "jeonlous" moments, I see a man who, in a sudden moment of clarity, comprehends the depth of his love for Jimin and the potential pain of losing that love. To lose HIM. It's a visceral, gut-wrenching realization—the thought of your beloved finding happiness with someone else. A fleeting, yet intensely human reaction. Most of the things we see online are heavily edited and manipulated but there are instances where I felt just like I described above .

Hi anon,

I have to say that imo, most of those Jeonlous edits or other videos potraying Jk as some jealous insecure lover are bullshit.

However, I think Jk does get jealous and possessive and not only with Jimin but with all his hyungs. He told us himself that he used to be very selfish and possessive and the kind of person who thought “what is yours is mine and what is mine is mine”. Ofcourse he has grown so much and has learned how to share but that jealousy and possessiveness are part and parcel of him. That is who Jungkook is lol. He has learned how to possess a healthy dose of jealousy and possessiveness (which is present in almost every relationship tbh) so i believe that he still feels a certain way when he sees Jimin interacting with certain people and also when he feels his members or friends giving other people the attention he wants.

Tae did say that Jk sulks when he isn’t given attention. We know him and Jimin were salty and jealous af when Tae started getting too close to his hwarang hyungs and they felt like his attention was divided, and there is that one mimimoni clip where Jk was clearly bothered by mimimoni up to the point where he pretended like he couldn’t hear Jimin who was seated right next to him with a mic, calling him lol.

Just watch this. My man was salty and it wasn’t a joke at all. I don’t know if he felt left out or if he got a little jealous because of the way Namjoon hugged Jimin but seeing how he himself has spoken about how possessive he used to be and knowing that he does get jealous, (the perilla leaves discussion) it isn’t unreasonable to say that is what was going on here.

Look at his face y’all 😂😂😂😂😂😂. My man was pissed!!!

This one i wouldn’t really say is jealousy but Jungkook’s reaction is always so funny to me. I guess it is possible that something about Taemin and Jimin’s friendship probably ticks him off too.

This is another moment where i genuinely feel like Jk got a little jealous. Not necessarily because he felt insecure but maybe just because he felt some way seeing Jimin give someone else that much attention plus taemin and jimin were really giggly and touchy and i noticed that Jk kept looking in their direction.

I did notice that Jk seems to be the type who looks away when he is jealous. Most times he just quickly looks at what is happening and looks away almost immediately lol. He is cute.

So while i get what you are saying about the jeonlous moments, i think Jk does actually get jealous and little possesive but not nearly as bad as people make it to seem. Jealousy and possessiveness aren’t necessarily bad qualities in human beings. When you love and care about something or someone, you tend to want to guard it jealousy and that is onlu because you love it. Can jealousy also be a negative trait? Absolutely but this is when it is excessive shown in moments when it isn’t necessary like the way some shippers (mostly tkkrs) make Jk out to be this insecure and dangerously jealous person who gets jealous at members simply putting an arm on Tae. That is ridiculous and doesn’t paint Jk in a good light at all.

There is a saying that You rarely know the value of what you have till you lose it or at the risk of losing it so i can jk looking at Jimin in those moments and realizing how valuable he is to him and not really wanting to share that amazingness with others, you know because of his perilla leaves personality, but at the end of the day, my man does get jealous and possessive and he isn’t even afraid to admit it.

Bonus

I remember this clip from years ago when Jimin was the only one who could tell Jk’s jealous face. He must have seen Jk make that face way too many times to be the only one out of all the members to recognize it (i’m still salty they didn’t show us the face tho🙄)

#jikook #jimin #jungkook #my asks #jikook blog

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elljayvee · 1 day

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Today I'm more than usually annoyed with a pop science article, so I'm going to talk about reading these sorts of articles, why you should always be skeptical of claims in them, and some of the ways you can tell the article's author didn't understand what they were reading and told you the wrong thing.

I clicked on an article in Eating Well about low bone density and dementia, because my mother has both. There's not a lot we can do for her now, but I am a curious person. I know Eating Well isn't great at science interpretation and communication, so I'm anticipating that I'm going to need to read the original study already, going in. (How do I know Eating Well isn't a great source usually? Well, I have read it before, and it has some really clear biases if you read a few articles that aren't science communication, and so you get to know a source over time like that. Regardless of how, I'm already suspicious they're not going to do a great job.)

The article is talking about research that shows low bone density may be predictive of dementia risk. It is written by a journalist and reviewed by a dietician. Now, I don't know what review the dietician did, but she did a bad job, and also, so did the journalist, because THE FIRST red flag that goes up is pretty quick: the math is very, very clearly wrong.

This says there are 3651 participants, and that over 11 years, 688 of them developed dementia. This is 18.8% and the article calls it 19%. That's fair! Not a red flag so far, just rounding. Then it says that of the 1211 people with lowest bone density at the start, 90 people (7.4%) developed dementia, and of the 1211 with highest bone density, only 57 (4.7%) did.

This IS a red flag. It's a GIANT red flag. This red flag can be seen from SPACE by anyone who knows how percentages work.

Here's how: You have 3651 people. 1211 of them are in the low bone density group, 1211 of them are in the high bone density group, leaving 1249 people. You have 688 total dementia cases, but your high and low groups account for only 147 of them, leaving 541 cases for that middle group. That's a LOT of cases. That middle tertile, just eyeballing it, has to have about 40% of its people with dementia -- that makes low bone density look like it predicts LOWER dementia risk relative to the middle group.

I can write out the equations for you two ways:

3651 - 1211 - 1211 = 1249 688 - 90 - 57 = 541 541/1249 = 0.433 0.433(100) = 43.3%

Because I am someone who does a fair amount of stats for a living, though, what I noticed was pretty much this equation:

0.074(1211) + x(1249) + 0.047(1211) = 0.19(3651) and I knew immediately that x had to be MUCH bigger than it should, which indeed the math bears out: x(1249) = 0.19(3651) - 0.074(1211) - 0.047(1211) x(1249) = 694 - 90 - 57 x = 547/1249 = 0.438 0.438(100) = 43.8%

That 694 is because the authors rounded 18.8 to 19 earlier, not because I can't math. So, due to rounding, you get slightly different answers -- but BOTH of them point to something SERIOUSLY WRONG with the reporting. What is actually going on in that middle tertile? Where do these numbers come from? Well, lucky us, they mention the name of an author, a journal, and a date. Always be wary of pop sci articles that don't give you a way to track down the original, but giving you that way to track things down doesn't mean they aren't still doing a crummy job with their reporting, as we see here.

The original paper is Association of Bone Mineral Density and Dementia: The Rotterdam Study, published March 2023 in Neurology. This is a pretty technical article with a fair amount of math and things in parens etc. etc. and tables and lots of measurements. The table captions are often not the greatest, which makes it a bit harder to read and interpret. For example, in Table 1, items are listed as number(number) and this can be any of:

count (percent) -- this one's usually labeled in the table itself

mean (standard deviation)

median (interquartile range) -- these last two are NOT labeled in the table, so we don't know which set of numbers is which.

Great. Thanks guys. Assuming what's called a "normal distribution" mean (SD) and median (IQR) numbers will be similar, but they're not the same and I'm irritated they're conflated but OK. Soldiering on!

The original study looked at several different measures of bone density, and found only ONE of them to show predictive ability for dementia: the density of the femoral neck. This means that for their article, Eating Well should have looked at the results for femoral neck bone density, which we find in Table 2:

You have the actual numbers for 5 years, 10 years, and study end, as well as the hazard risk (HR) for each bone density tertile, with the highest tertile set as the standard. Numbers in the HR column have 1 as a reference point -- lower than 1 is lower risk than the highest tertile, and higher than 1 is higher risk.

The first thing I noticed is that neither 57 nor 90 occur in the femoral neck section at ALL. Those numbers from the Eating Well article are just not there. I also notice that the other numbers don't align even one little bit -- the number of total cases of dementia is different, for example. I do notice that the column with the 10 year followup has numbers in it close to 57 and 90 (49, 67, 86, totaled to 202) and that the overall numbers for the total study are much higher -- 201, 236, 229. Interesting.

At this point, I just straight-up search the paper for "90", and I find it in Table 2....in the total bone density section, which the paper's authors have said is NOT the section that showed possible predictive results. I search for "57", and also find that in total bone density, and also....wow the EW author straight up failed to read. This is actually worse than I thought.

Read across, these are the 5 year followup numbers (first 2 columns - count and HR), 10 year (middle 2 columns), and total followup numbers (last 2 columns).

We see our friends 57 and 90 in the 10 year columns. 90 is, as described in the EW article, in the lowest bone density tertile, but 57 is NOT in the highest bone density tertile. It's in the middle tertile. The actual number for the highest tertile is 68. Additionally, the total cases for 10 years is nowhere near that 688 number -- it's 215. We only get total case numbers close to 688 when we look at the study end numbers: it's 686, in this particular group. If we look at the study end case numbers for highest, middle, and lowest tertiles, we see WHY this particular measure can't be used to predict anything: they are 227 (highest), 227 (middle), and 232 (lowest) -- not significantly different from each other.

We can also see here that this group of people -- people who had total bone density measurements -- is not 3651, but 3633, which is listed across the bottom row. The overall STUDY had 3651, but not all of them had total bone density recorded.

Now we know that the author of the EW article did all of the following:

read the wrong part of Table 2

mixed up middle and high tertile results

reported 10 year results mixed with total followup results (this resulted in the weird math that alerted me something was very very wrong in the first place).

and the person who was supposed to review the article didn't have even the basic math skills to catch the problem -- which she absolutely should have, as a registered dietician. For giggles, I looked up program requirements for a BS in Dietetics. Programs require things like statistics and precalc -- not math heavy, but the math that alerted me to this problem is VERY basic statistical knowledge, like the kind they teach in 6th grade level statistics, which I know because it was literally in my 6th grader's curriculum this past school year. So a registered dietician DEFINITELY had enough math to catch this problem, and should have, and Eating Well should be ashamed of itself.

SO. What can we learn from this?

Well, science communication is a skill set. Some people have worked very hard to develop that skill set and are excellent at it -- but lots of people do not have it, and even those who do can make mistakes. Many, many pop sci articles are not written by trained science communicators, or people with any education in how to read scientific articles, or people with good reading comprehension, even. It's very common for pop sci articles to have these sorts of errors in them. Therefore:

Always read pop sci articles with a skeptical eye. Ask yourself:

Do these numbers line up? Usually the math in pop sci articles is not very complex -- you can often do some basic arithmetic to make sure it even makes sense, as was the case here.

Does one part of the article seem to contradict another part of the article?

Do I feel confused about what exactly I'm being told? What's not clear about it?

Am I being told about HOW something works or WHY it works or both? Are those two things being conflated somehow?

Is there a link or way to find the original research? If not, my advice is to throw the whole article away. If yes, you can go check it out -- often just looking at the abstract or results section will be enough, and abstracts usually aren't paywalled even if the rest of the article is. You would be surprised how many times the abstract says "we found X" and the pop sci article says "the researchers found Y".

Could I explain this article to someone and have it make sense? If not, why not?

Is the article confusing correlation (these things happen together) with causation (one of these things causes the other)?

Pop sci articles, like other journalistic articles, are extremely subject to bias issues from the publication they're in. A lot of people tend to read pop sci articles as neutral, factual reporting, but they aren't! I mentioned EW's biases earlier -- the one I think is most relevant to how their article is written is a pervasive belief that if you just eat the right things in the right amounts you will be thin and healthy and stave off all kinds of problems. They close their article by mentioning that, although the study's authors are clear that this connection is unlikely to be causative, and that risk factors for low bone density and dementia have substantial overlap, readers should act like it might be causitive with diet and exercise choices that promote bone health. They were so excited to get to their point about fixing your diet that they didn't pay attention to the actual science they were reporting on. (Sidenote: actual scientific journal articles are supposed to be neutral, factual reporting. They also aren't actually that, but there are some measures in place around this to try to prevent the worst effects of bias.)

It's worth brushing up some basic math skills. You don't need to know a lot! Very basic information will help you better understand a lot of articles -- both ones that are accurate and well-written, and ones that are shoddy and should not have been published. I really like Larry Gonick's The Cartoon Guide to Statistics but if your grasp of percentages is shaky, it will be too advanced. A good option might be something like The I Hate Mathematics! Book, which is pretty old but really accessible, but there's probably some newer great ones out there that I just don't know about.

#science #pop sci #reading comprehension #how dare you say we piss on the poor #math #statistics #eating well #bad science communication #neurology #dementia #bone density

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radioactive-juice · 8 hours

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Okay so I just watched a video about the extinction from some guy’s Entities series and. Thoughts:

I feel like a lot of people forget that the Entities are not completely separate things. We have the colours analogy and the Giant Creature with multiple limbs too big to see that it’s all one thing. So, as much as it’s useful to understand stuff, Smirke’s 14 is canonically a very flawed explanation of something very difficult to comprehend.

Especially with the revelation that the rituals will never work by themselves and that the entities need to all come into being at once, it’s clear that they are more connected than they are independent.

The video was talking about the statements that are contested in terms of whether they are Extinction or whatever else. First, they can be both. Second, the point of the extinction’s Emergence isn’t so much Totally New Never Before Seen Fear but Fear Becoming More Widespread So We Should Distinguish Itself From Others. Fear of drastic change, the end of life as we know it, etc, existed before the Extinction was thought up, and will exist even though the Extinction never technically Emerged. Dekker says it is branching off from the End, but I think that’s still too rigid.

In mag200 when we get the origin story of the fears, it starts as “Once, there was fear”. It’s one thing that starts to specialise as life gets more intelligent and learns the things to be scared of. Then, “The thing that was fear felt itself began to tear, to crack and fracture along a thousand unseen fault lines”. So, we do have confirmation that it isn’t just One Thing. But they started as one, which begs the question, where do we draw the lines between Fears?

I think a lot of us have the idea of Which Entities Are Which based on their motifs, which I think holds back our understanding. The Web is one that particularly gets me. As an Entity, it’s about control and manipulation, but a lot of the time it’s boiled down to Fear of Spiders. Spiders symbolise control because of their webs, the idea of being trapped, knowing your fate but unable to escape it. That’s the essence of the Web. Falling into a spider nest and getting them all over your face? Horrifying, but not the right psychological aspects. I’d say it’s more Corruption, feeding more on the fear of disgusting things. I think puppets would be an interesting motif for The Web, but puppets are like dolls which are basically monopolised by the Stranger. Now I’m starting to rant. In general, I believe we could have a lot more interesting interpretations of the Entities if we thought of them more as the psychological fear they represent rather than their common motifs. For example, I really like what they did with the Buried also representing debt rather than simply Dirt.

On the fandom wiki (I know it sucks. If there’s a better alternative lemme know), a lot of the s5 domains are described as serving multiple fears, which makes sense since they cater so closely to the specific fears of the people in them, which aren’t necessarily a single Fear. Then, of course, we have Protocol. I’ve seen a few posts echoing the same point of We Don’t Need to Rethink the Fears to Make Protocol Make Sense, We Just Need to Stop Defining Everything So Rigidly. I hope Protocol continues to Get Weird with it so we’re forced to think about the Fears from a different perspective than Archives. It’s healthy. It’s enrichment.

In conclusion, the Fears aren’t so separate, Smirke’s 14 has never been real, the Extinction isn’t a world-breaking anomaly, and motifs don’t necessarily define what Powers are actually at play.

#if you have your own thoughts please please share #i could probably write this more clearly but I have to write essays for finals so I don't really want to do it right now #maybe i'll do some more coherent analysis later #make a #fucking thesis statement or smth #also sorry the capitalisation of entities and stuff is inconsistant throughout this #the magnus archives #tma #robins radiation #the magnus protocol #tmagp #tma spoilers #tma analysis

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i-heart-hxh · 21 hours

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In all honesty why do you think Killua made the number two comment to Gon? I feel like he doesn’t realize how messed up that is to say to someone who has gone through extensive trauma trying to prove himself to a father who also put him in “second place” to something he deemed more important. It was hurtful and I don’t see how that can be repaired now. Even if they do reunite Gon is going to just step on eggshells and fear that even one slip up will cause Killua to just leave him again. Idk I just feel like separation wasn’t the solution here. They needed to talk and then stay together. But “taking a break” rarely works out for any relationship. It also sucks that Gon constantly told Killua how important he was to him but Killua NEVER returned this sentiment verbally so Gon’s just stuck thinking he’s a piece of shit who destroyed his most important relationship. Killua really did just say “screw Gon I have Alluka now”.

Hello!

I don't agree with this interpretation at all; to me, there are a number of complex reasons why Killua made that comment, and I don't think it will destroy their relationship by any means.

This post--In-Depth analysis on the Hidden Reasons behind Gon & Killua's separation scene (ep 147) Why Gon is 'Number 2'--is the best starting point for anyone trying to understand the separation, in my opinion. It's cohesive, uses supporting evidence from the series and demonstrates the careful wording used in the separation, and it makes more sense than any other interpretation I've read of why Killua would make such a comment to Gon. I keep referring back to this post because I truly think it holds keys to understanding the separation that other posts I've seen don't.

In addition to the insight provided in that post--where Killua is trying to put some distance between him and Gon for Gon's safety and well-being, essentially--I also think it's:

a) Partly how Killua is trying to steel himself to leave Gon, by telling himself, Gon, and Alluka that Alluka is his priority for now

b) Part of Killua's campaign of teasing Gon lightheartedly on the topic, to bring it up while at the same time downplaying the emotional effects of what happened between them--because when they're separating is not the right time for them to seriously address it or work through it

I do think the second place comment hurt Gon a little, but...Gon is already aware that he hurt Killua, and after his life was literally saved by Alluka (Nanika), being put in "second place" is not the worst outcome ever, honestly. Plus, it confirms he's still one of the most important people to Killua even after everything that happened between them! Killua is not saying Gon is trash to him now, even though it is a bit of a jab.

I've also said before that I think Togashi had Killua make this comment with awareness that we, as the audience, would be like, "Uh-huh Killua, sure, interesting of you to say this so shortly after you centered your entire life on him for basically the whole series and even seriously considered doing a lovers suicide with this guy..." We're most likely supposed to see it as Killua not being fully honest, even though Alluka does obviously mean a lot to Killua and by necessity she has to be his priority now. Plus, even Alluka herself says she'll give Killua back to Gon after a while. She must have some idea of how much Gon means to Killua, to be so willing to "give him back." I've said this before, but I see this line from Alluka about giving Killua back to Gon as a promise from Togashi to the audience that this isn't forever.

Gon isn't clueless; he knows Killua cares about him even though Killua struggles to express it verbally. The degree of trust and unspoken understanding between them in the dodgeball match is a good (albeit complicated) example of this. The two didn't communicate to the degree they needed to during Chimera Ant Arc, which makes sense because they're young and have their own issues and it was terribly traumatic for both for them, but they also have a good understanding of each other overall, and it's not giving Gon enough credit to assume he has no idea just because Killua hasn't said it. He doesn't know the full extent of Killua's feelings for him, certainly (I hope he will someday!), but he is aware Killua cares about him. Even when it comes to the separation, Killua expressing his pain shows that he still cares about Gon! He's saying that what happened still hurts, because he still cares! He's making light of it, but it's honestly a step in the right direction for him to be discussing it at all. If they can't be honest with each other about how what happened impacted them, they can't heal.

Of course it would be better for their relationship if they talked it out fully and came to some sort of resolution, but neither of them were in a place where they could do that quite yet. Killua is too closed up emotionally and hurting from seeing Gon essentially die in front of him, and Gon needs to recover from essentially throwing his life away and saying those things to Killua that we know he regrets. They do need some time apart to reflect and grow.

Are the two boys in a complicated emotional situation currently? Yes. Do I think this dooms them to never reconnect or heal their relationship? Absolutely not. I see their separation as more of a "We gotta go our separate ways for now because we both have things we have to deal with," (both externally and internally) than anything final. They agree to stay in touch, they express sadness at having to part, they make it clear several times that this is a temporary parting. Why make them clearly unsatisfied with having to part if they're not going to have an opportunity to make things right later?

#hunter x hunter #hxh #gon #killua #killugon #gonkillu #meta #long post #my posts #asks #anonymous #anon I really hope you can see this differently #also ugh there's so much to address here #I'm not sure I'm totally satisfied with this post but gonna post it anyway

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cowboybaedling · 2 days

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Your post strikes me as off in a way that I can't articulate well. I ask you this in good faith: how much do you truly fear any slightly negative statement about a trans woman can result in other trans people or allies (which I assume they must be if they're a friend of yours in the first place) could result in her being harassed? Again, attempting to approach this in good faith. I'm a trans woman who's been harassed off the ends of the earth when I was younger and I still have trauma over it, so I don't approach the subject lightly. I'm not trying to downplay it, just get a sense of where your feelings on the issue are.

oh it's you again. well forgive me if i take your claims of "good faith" with a tiny grain of salt here given our previous interactions, but i'll try and answer in kind as long as you do.

anyway, in my post i was speaking from personal experience, in many cases from conversations i have had with friends both past and present who are, as you surmised "other trans people and allies". and i would like to note here also that most of them i still consider friends.

the thing is, when you are a victim of transmisogyny and harrassment, and just plain bullying, you start to notice patterns in how things work. and since the nature of these things is that they don't get said to your face, often where you notice it first, if you're paying attention, is not when it is directed at you, but when you are seeing it directed at other trans women you know.

so one of the things that i have noticed, and one of the things which i am sure has been said many times by many people more eloquent than me, is that transfems aren't afforded space to be flawed in the same way other people are. the things we say and do are interpreted uncharitably because a lot of non-transfems still (whether consciously or not) view us as dangerous or "male-brained". so whenever vague language is used about us, others have a tendency to interpret it in the worst way they can. "i don't like her very much", "i have personal beef with her", "she's kind of weird" etc. immediately get jumped to "she must be a (creep/predator/pedophile/whatever else this person views as the greatest evil)"

and when you've seen all this happen, when you've seen sites like kiwifarms get set up entirely around harassing us, when you've seen people, friends of yours uncritically parrotting how x or y tranny did x or y awful thing and that's why she totally deserves all of the harassment she gets, you start to get a little jaded around all of this kind of vague talk. you start to wonder what things others are saying to their friends about you and what ways those friends are interpreting those things. and perhaps, in the middle of a conversation with a tme friend, you decide to just drop whatever quarrels you had with some random trans woman you know because last time you said something like that to them, they with full confidence said "she's a bitch and we don't like her" the next time that woman was brought up, and you wondered to yourself in that moment if a cis woman would have been instantly demonised in that way.

and all of this is, after all, just my own experiences. maybe i really am just living in a bubble or being paranoid and maybe in the rest of the world really is nice to transfems all the time. i sure would like it if that was the case. but judging by the number of people who resonated with my posts about this, i'm willing to err on the side of that not being the case. i would rather 100 people think im being a paranoid bitch for protecting my transfem sisters than one transfem be hurt indirectly by something i said.

#this turned out wordier than i intended #oh well #transmisogyny

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jacketpotatoo · 1 day

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I watched Hadestown live on the West End and I just wanted to ramble because it changed my life.

Melanie La Barrie is an absolutely electric Hermes. she's charismatic and fun and toes the line between a god enjoying the beauty of the present and a god, tired and resigned, that knows how the story ends. she is an interlocutor that invites the audience into this tale whilst being fully There with the characters. a moment that broke me was Road to Hell (Reprise) where she says the 'alright' twice to Orpheus in a way meant to comfort him rather than in a detached manner to the audience. It was like a grandmother calming down her grandson and it was devastating. I love how she stands in the shadows in scenes where she isn't involved and checks her pocketwatch often - it's a reminder of her omniscience and meta-theatrically, how she's an occupant of present stage-time as well as story time. A story time that spans thousands of years, from oral Greek myth, to Ovid, to this present retelling set in Depression Era America.

I love the jazz. the fact that the unbroken song is reflected in music genre and the presence of the band onstage with the rest of the cast. there were just little moments (like at the very beginning, Hermes goes to Eurydice and asks her if she's ready and they smile at each other before the former makes her way frontstage) where the Stage of it all is made clear. it's a story about telling stories and the cast is as important as the dramatis personae in its retelling. like the blurring of character and actor - when Our Lady Of The Underground takes time to give the band their flowers. it's so important in a story focusing on the average person and survival and creation of art. And it's just so genius to juxtapose those on stage that have access to the audience (Hermes and the band) and those that do not (the chorus and mortals). also the juxtaposition of Hades and Persephone (gods whose lives persevere in the changing of seasons and the cycle of death) and Orpheus and Eurydice (whose lives end but stories continue in this loop that inadvertently perpetuates hope by retelling in a different kind of immortality). Don't even get me started on flower symbolism. also also the band gave an encore performance and i love them sm like trombone guy?? mvp.

Some small things about the rest of the cast too: Hades was an absolute standout. he wasn't my favourite listening to the soundtrack a million times but he's a scene stealer and i loved every bit of him. just the way the actor carried himself - his walk, the set of his shoulders - was fucking perfect. tortured villain and sleazy capitalist at once. when he danced with Persephone he ended up doing this silly little jig that she followed along with after giggling a little and like. AAAAA?? And his 'I don't know' to Orpheus was so genuine. When he let Orpheus go his handshake was stretched long and he clutched him just that little bit longer because he knew that they wouldn't make it and. ugh. i'm so emotional. Persephone? transcendent. her voice. her moves! again, tortured and so, so fun. when she started dancing with Hades she couldn't look at him for awhile and her face was this beautiful mesh of emotions that transitions to pure joy. oh she was perfect.

I didn't get Irish Orpheus but Swing Orpheus was wonderful as well. He has the same puppy dog energy as Reeve!Orpheus but he was less dreamy/head-in-the-cloudsy. Wait For Me (alongside fucking gorgeous lighting and staging) and If It's True?? URGH. Actually lifechanging live experience. I'm not the same person I once was. also Eurydice was fantastic. she was British and while the cadence/accent took me a few songs to get used to, she brings a very different hard-tortured energy to Eurydice - it was an interesting and fitting interpretation of the character. this was reflected in her vocal texture as well with a much more desperate and belt-y sound than Noblezada!Eurydice. I love them both though, she was wonderful. ALSO she and Orpheus kept having these sweet little eye-contact interactions onstage when other things were going on and argh i love these goobers. a sad tale and a tragedy :,)

i have so much more to say and this is getting too long but i also wanted to mention that the theatre was full of audible gasps when Orpheus turned around. just. what an incredible, immersive, emotional experience. i'd one thousand recommend seeing it if you have the opportunity.

#i could truly go on about this forever #fuck i love hadestown #jp musings #hadestown #long post #meta

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khaire-traveler · 2 days

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is there anything wrong w worshipping deities with connected historical origins, such as like pan and hermes, as one being? or would that be disrespectful? do you know of any resources regarding this topic, in reference to either this sort of modern-day worship or ancient worship?

Hey, Nonny!

It's absolutely not wrong or bad at all! You can choose to interpret their historical connections however you wish to. I personally see Hermes and Pan, for example, as two separate deities. I do sometimes share digital offerings for Pan, although I don't explicitly worship him. It's more like, "Hey, I think you're cool, so here you go!" I also worship Hermes very closely; I give thanks to Pan both out of respect for Hermes and because I think he's super cool. So, you can say I worship both, and I've never had any issues with that personally.

Regarding sources on the worship of them, I can't say I know of any specific ones. You may be able to find some through a hardcore online search, but I'm sure that'd be difficult. :/ I believe that Hermes and Pan specifically were likely worshipped together in ancient Greece, since the mythology references Pan as a son of Hermes, but I don't know about other deities with historical connections. ***If any of my followers or fellow worshippers know of any resources on this topic, please let me know!!!***

Truthfully, it's up to you what you choose to do with your worship. You can worship both deities at once; I highly doubt they'd have an issue with that. I have yet to meet a deity who is opposed to being worshipped, just in general, and showing appreciation for the older deities that have been all but lost to time would likely be highly appreciated by them. c:

I hope this helps, and take care! 🧡

#anon asks #answered asks #deity worship

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mixelation · 1 day

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What does the working relationship with hiruzen and Minato look like after the Tori murder attempt (seems like being an anbu in hiruzens office whenever they have to talk after it would be the most stressful thing)

excellent question. i'm not sure how i want to develop it exactly, but minato's overall character arc is that he doesn't actually like spending time in konoha. hiraishin means he can just go anywhere he wants, and there's more exciting places out there. he prefers being on missions, and the people he might go to konoha to spend time with are largely also on missions. in canon he'd have his romance with kushina to keep him tied to konoha, but in async they're instead close friends and his wifeguy energies are directed at your local semi-nomadic scam artist. so he's already sort of divorced from konoha as a place

leading up to the murder attempt, hiruzen first attempts to get him in line by giving him a genin team (minato enjoys this) and then when he doesn't get in line, starts overworking him. tori interprets this as "konoha is trying to kill you, idiot" but minato is like "noooo they just need meeeee" and TBH it's a little of both. the tori murder attempt makes his view of konoha leadership sours & he's more inclined to believe tori's hypothesis

i think maybe the murder attempt makes more sense if the plan was to frame someone else. at first i was thinking it'd be a "be more obedient, bc we can and WILL take away your loved ones" type of message, but i'm not actually sure that move makes..... sense? the genin are pretty expendable people that minato has imprinted on, so they could be used against him, but also you have to be VERY confident you've read Minato's personality right and you're not about to make a missing-nin. so maybe the plan was instead to murder tori and then make it seem like some other ninja did it, in order to pull a "you see why you need to dedicate yourself more to konoha?" kind of move. either way, they get caught immediately

i want the murder attempt to be a major ideological turning point for minato, but i'm not sure what his short term move would be because i think he'd be hesitant to actually abandon konoha (or more specifically, his team, kushina, jiraiya). i might kill his old genin teammates to help shift his mood without killing anyone the readers actually care about. also part of his character arc is he just defers more and more to tori's plans so TBH he might just do what tori tells him*

tori: okay hear me out. this is what i would do in this situation. just go back to konoha and act like nothing happened. it will drive them insane but they can't say anything to you without admitting what they did. and you can keep your little genin team

jiraiya: that is a terrible idea

minato: no, no. i like this. tell me more

*minato doesn't just do what she says for the sake of doing what she says. however he does slowly join the tori logic train and is like "but this plan makes sense--"

#asynchronicity #toriverse

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crystallinestars · 3 days

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Wow, it’s such a relief to find people who don’t like Haikaveh either. Was really disappointed when I read Sethos’s voiceline.. I am bisexual and I think that Haikaveh (along with many other pairings) is queerbaiting and some type of fetish. I’ve made a long written analysis on why I think it is and how I think it’s offensive, simply because I find it interesting and enjoy analyzing things. Really love their duo and they’re great parallels but they fit a sibling / platonic soulmate duo better than a romantic one 🤦‍♀️ It’s getting annoying at this point and I wish Hoyoverse would stop, but it earns them attention and money so why would they? Just want to enjoy my favorite character without him being used as an accessory for another. Disappoints me that other gay people don’t notice (or care) that they are being stereotypical themselves and that Hoyoverse is basically using our sexualities for accessories and money. Haven’t looked into the translation thing with Sethos’s voiceline but if it’s true it was more neutral in CN, then that’s interesting. The same Haikaveh defenders will yap about how “CN is the original!1!1!1” but if you bring something like this translation up they lose it. Hoyoverse has never been a “gay representation” company, it’s a queer-baiting one. 🤦‍♀️ But at the same time, I don’t really even care. I’m not a gay person who cares much about my sexuality or others, but things like this are frustrating. Wish there were more people who understand my view on why I think their presentation is harmful.

- 🪷 / 🪽

Hello 🪷/🪽 Anon! (Let me know if you want to go by both emojis or just one) Welcome to our small club of not being into Haikaveh (or most Hoyoverse queer ships).

I agree with you that Kaveh and Haitham have a very sibling/platonic dynamic. In fact, their bickering reminds me a lot of my younger siblings’ bickering, so I view them as brothers, as well. It’s just unfortunate that the fandom rejects any interpretation that’s not romantic.

I also wish Mihoyo would stop, but they’re obsessed with tossing ship crumbs, and only to the most popular ships. As you said, it makes them money, so they have no reason to stop.

There is definitely some queerbaiting in Genshin, but I would say it’s not as bad as in HSR. HSR sometimes made me very uncomfortable with the fetishization of some of their ships, and I wondered if a man wrote it for a straight male audience…

Mihoyo has always had a history of wanting to include same-sex pairings in their games. Honkai Impact 3rd has a confirmed lesbian MC, and also two other female characters who canonically kiss (but due to updated laws in China, they had to remove that scene).

It doesn’t surprise me that they want to do similar things in Genshin and HSR, but they never commit to the ships. They only tease and hint at them, ala “There might be something between these characters, but also not really, but what if…?” and this is pretty much exclusive to same-sex pairings. This teasing and hinting makes the fandom so much worse to be in. Lots of other gacha games don’t do this, but for whatever reason, Mihoyo does.

I suspect some of the employees working on the game may be queer or have a huge interest in BL and GL (though it’s probably a mix of both), which is why they make all these ship crumbs. There’s nothing wrong with having queer relationships in games and other media, but the way they go about it feels… fetishizing, I guess? It doesn’t feel genuine. I can’t quite put my finger on what feels so off about this. You would know about this far more than me since you analyzed this already, so if you have interpretations you want to add, I’ll gladly hear you out.

It sucks because they market their games as being for all audiences, but then do things with a heavy bias for certain ships. It makes it so difficult to enjoy characters the way you want when the developer and fandom constantly shove in your face that your favorite character has an implied relationship or some other such thing.

Regarding the Sethos voiceline… my friend in China, who also dislikes Haikaveh, complained to me about it the other day. She said the original Chinese text felt like it was implying something between Kaveh and Haitham. Of course, that is just her personal interpretation, and some people don’t see a deeper meaning behind the words. However, it goes to show that even the Chinese audience can tell something is up with the voiceline, so it might not be as neutral as we hoped.

I’m all for more media having queer rep, but Mihoyo doesn’t do it right. I really wish I could just play their games without having ship teasing slapped in my face, but alas, they won’t ever change. At this point, it’s better to not play any of their games (though maybe Tears of Themis can stay) and ditch the fandoms for your peace of mind.

#Lunaria answers

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leolithe · 1 day

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this has been sitting in my drafts forever so i'm just gonna post it!!! these are my Plural Lotus headcanons that are Integral to my interpretation of them

Lotus represents balance while Natah and Margulis represent extremes, but she also represents Acceptance in The Sacrifice. So it makes sense that Lotus is the most passive, or "watching and waiting" one of the three

Lotus is also the most withdrawn and cautious one because she's the one who holds the trauma of every event leading to The New War. From her kidnapping in Apostasy Prologue, she was Lotus-turned-Margulis. From the Sacrifice to her death in New War, she was Lotus-turned-Natah.

After holding back Wally, Lotus fainting was a direct result of realising that the war was over. That she was finally free. That she could finally get the rest she desperately needed. And her entire body took that realisation and completely shut down. The need for rest was that dire.

This is when Natah and Margulis start to awaken. In the epilogue, when the Operator and Drifter are asking Lotus Radiant questions, Natah and Margulis also answer at the same time, each with their own insight and inflections. This is what leads to Lotus saying that she hears voices.

Natah was just as dead as Margulis when her body was reprogrammed. (Jovian Concord monologue: "I became a memory, a ghost"). Therefore, Lotus was formed from a blank slate of a (powerful) Sentient husk and Margulis' memory.

Natah, being the Sentient body personified, is able to access everyone's memories at will. She can also read everyone's minds, while still being able to focus perfectly on the present/outer world. She uses this to watch over Lotus and monitor her wellbeing.

Natah hates accessing or reading Margulis' mind though. She does not enjoy the imperfect, inaccurate, messy nature of Human memory. So she leaves Margulis alone for the most part.

Because she sees everyone's memories, Natah is the first to realize that she was formed to protect the Lotus. She takes the role of prosecutor, and she's very fiercely protective. Natah places much more weight in remembering the trauma rather than suppressing it like Margulis did.

Margulis is someone Lotus remembers for caring for and loving the Tenno, so she was formed with the intent of having a caretaker in the Lotus system. She's best at grounding Lotus, whispering soothing words to her and generally being a gentle and comforting presence.

There is very clear friction between the way Natah and Margulis handle their roles. Natah's decisiveness can be pushed into being cutthroat and stubborn, and Margulis' healing can veer into unrealistic idealism. Natah doesn't like how Margulis encourages Lotus to neglect her traumatic memories, and Margulis doesn't like Natah's insistence on forcing her to remember. They both think the other is pushing back Lotus' progress; Natah by intentionally surfacing painful memories and Margulis by exposing Lotus' weak points to the same aggressor again.

Very much a fight between, "If you don't remember how it damaged you, it will always happen again" vs "It will never happen again, you're safe and free to live like it never did"

Natah vs Margulis isn't only about Power vs Healing/Destroying the enemy vs Protecting your allies... it's about Remembrance vs Oblivion in regards to distress and trauma.

Lotus gets intermittently pulled around by these two for a while, until Margulis' comforting lies become unignorable and Natah's ruthlessness becomes unbearable. And when Lotus finally snaps and asserts herself to them... it's a wake up slap to both Natah and Margulis. This marks the point where they start quietly trying to work together... pushing past their rivalry to then FINALLY. Explore each other's bodies. Sentient-Human headmate style.

Thank you for reading. I can go on and on but I'm just gonna leave u with the mental image of Lotus walking in on Natah and Margulis having ravenous floor sex because they've actually never fucked a woman in their lives and they're not normal about it

#warframe #plural lotus #leoframe #warframe lotus #margulis #natah #the lotus #the new war spoilers #natahgulis

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