@theartofmadeline
Andulka
RMH
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taylor price
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"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
todays bird
tumblr dot com
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we're not kids anymore.
Cosimo Galluzzi
Product Placement
One Nice Bug Per Day
NASA
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tannertan36
Three Goblin Art
Kaledo Art
seen from Cameroon
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@foryouiwouldfallfromgrace
it is impossible to watch a movie. every night i think i want to watch a movie. no movie gets watched. because it's not possible
and yet they keep making movies with the hopes that one day humanity will discover a way to watch them. it's so inspiring
Everyone deserves a hug！
one person's "ugghh this trope is so overdone" is another person's "oooooohohohohohohohoho"
Happy Pride Month to these gay rebels
I have never, and will never, use "ofc" to mean "of fucking course". It literally stands for OF Course...
why are there so many posts about asexuals being immune to sirens. people. sirens don’t lure you in with sex (necessarily). they sing about whatever it is that you want most. they could sing about mothman or cinnamon toast crunch and guess what then your asexual pirate is fucking dead
this is the only kind of ace discourse i ever want to see on my dash. the only kind. ever again. good job
Do you think the sirens would be grateful that they finally get some variety?
“Oh my god we can finally just sing about pasta thank the fucking gods.”
I’m not asexual but I’m fairly certain sirens would do a far better job luring me into the depths with a song about pasta rather than sex…
I mean.
“WHAT THE FUCK STAY AWAY FROM THE ROCKS.”
“FUCKER THEY SAID THEY HAVE FETTUCCINE CARBONARA AND HOT GARLIC BREAD OVER THERE HANG ON BITCH.”
This is true; Odysseus heard them promising him knowledge of the future. So the next time you see artwork like this:
Remember those sultry naked chicks are saying “We’ll tell you the winning lotto numbers.”
Them: “We have unlimited wifi at incredible speeds~” Me: *diving headfirst into the water*
This post is a blessing
Congratulations! Odysseus! You’ve been selected as a winner for the free $1000 Amazon Gift Card, Apple iPhone X 256G or Samsung Galaxy S8! Claim your prize now!
Oh my god sirens were literally scam websites
Oh my god they were phishing
HUNTR/X 💥
personally i’m a fan of when a story is like. the love was there. unfortunately. this all could have actually gone a lot easier for everyone if the love hadn’t been there but here we are
kim soleum's radioactive anime bangs thank you for being the victim of my attempts to fight with color theory
my favorite female character in omniscient reader’s viewpoint is han sooyoung because not only do I support women’s rights, I support women’s wrongs. she’s a plagiarist. who was more successful than the original writer btw. she’s a total loser. she tried to kill everyone more powerful than herself and almost succeeded. her sponsoring constellation is the resident god of edgelord chunnibyou protagonist wannabes. she let the only guy who knows what’s going on better than she does die while he was literally right next to her because said sponsor insisted she protect his dick from being stabbed instead of his heart. rather than admit she was wrong about something, she faked her own death. repeatedly. to keep a member of her party distracted, she created a bunch of dancing naked clones of herself to traumatize him with. she has an ungodly amount of unresolved sexual tension with yoo sangah, her narrative foil who finds her morally repugnant, and nobody ever says a damn word about it. I want her to live forever
The Reckoners as a Metaphor for OCD
Spoilers for all three books in Sanderson’s Reckoners series, which, if you haven’t read, is excellent, and you should read.
The Reckoners trilogy takes place in a world where certain people, called Epics, have superpowers that corrupt those who wield them, making them more prone to mass murder than the average person. Power sets always come with a weakness, which the protagonist discovers is a fear, something the Epic was scared of before they gained their abilities. Most Epics avoid this fear. But, by confronting it, Epics can learn to use their powers without turning evil.
Where’s the metaphor for OCD? Well, if you know anything about OCD treatment via ERP therapy (and who doesn’t?), then the analogy is hopefully clear. If you don’t, allow me to spell it out.
What’s OCD?
Contrary to popular belief, OCD has nothing to do with cleanliness or perfection. OCD is a disorder categorized by:
Intrusive thoughts (obsession)
Strong, negative reactions to that thought
Compulsions to reduce the negative reaction (compulsion)
Oh hey, you see where the name OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) comes from now?
Source
In the classic OCD stereotype, that might look like this:
My intrusive thought tells me the surface I touched is not clean.
I become absolutely terrified of the possibility that I am infected with salmonella and will die.
I wash my hands to convince my brain that I don’t have salmonella and won’t die.
At first, this might seem clever. Hey, you were scared, but then you took a concrete action and it made you not scared anymore! That’s great! And if the compulsion remained just a simple hand-washing, maybe it would be. Unfortunately, over time, OCD convinces you that one hand wash isn’t enough. Now it takes two to kill salmonella. Or three.
OCD obsessions and compulsions can be about absolutely anything, Here are some examples:
I saw a bat; therefore I have rabies.
I am anxious because I’m going to die of rabies.
I spent 8 hours online researching whether the bat outside gave me rabies before I am convinced that I won’t die.
What if I accidentally cheated on my boyfriend last night?
I am terrified I might’ve cheated on my boyfriend.
I ask my boyfriend every morning whether or not I cheated on him and he reassures me that I did not.
If I pick up a knife, I’ll accidentally kill my wife.
I an scared because I don’t want to kill my wife.
I refuse to touch knives, even butter knives.
That last example is called an avoidance compulsion, which is sometimes hard to spot because it’s the lack of a compulsion, though it is still detrimental. The Epics in the Reckoners series all follow the avoidance compulsion, refusing to ever interact with their fears.
OCD Treatment
I think there are two easy ways to misconceive of OCD and get the whole treatment wrong. The first is to assume intrusive thoughts are the problem and to try to get rid of them. This is what a lot of folks (myself included) assumed OCD treatment would look like. However, everyone, neurotypical folks included, has intrusive thoughts all the time. They just don’t react to them.
Another common response is to mitigate the compulsions. If you wash your hands too much, let’s get you some soap that’s softer on your hands. If it’s important for things to be clean, let’s help you clean the house twice daily. If you are worried you didn’t lock the door, take a picture so you can check later (as an aside, please don’t recommend this to people with OCD; this is called enabling a compulsion and reinforces the idea that if the door is unlocked, that’s a problem worth having a panic attack over, which it is not).
Both solutions will fail because neither addresses the actual problem, which occurs in step two. The problem is the anxiety response, not the intrusive thought and not the compulsion. It is possible to think any thought at all and not react to it.
Addressing Anxiety
Whether or not the intrusive thought is valid, the response is detrimental (if it wasn’t detrimental, you wouldn’t fit the diagnostic criteria for OCD). Treatment focuses on reducing the anxiety response by proving to your brain that the thought itself cannot hurt you. This is done through exposure response prevention therapy (ERP).
Basically, the brain is a complicated machine-learning algorithm. Every time it sees a compulsion relieve anxiety, it reinforces the idea that the compulsion is the only way to relieve anxiety. During ERP, you expose yourself to something you fear and refuse to engage in compulsions. Because the adrenaline response cannot last indefinitely, you eventually start feeling less afraid. Suddenly, your brain sees that there’s another way to get rid of the anxiety (I.e., by sitting with it). Over time, you can convince your brain that thoughts in and of themselves don’t require a reaction at all.
Source
I thought this was a post about the Reckoners
Only vaguely. I mostly wanted to talk about OCD (shh, don’t tell anyone). But, hopefully you can see some similarities now.
I see water.
I am terrified of water because it makes my powers go away and renders me weak.
I avoid water.
The Epics are all caught in a classic avoidance-based OCD obsession-compulsion loop.
But wait, I hear you cry. The Epics actually lose their powers when exposed to their weakness. Their reaction is justified.
Justified, maybe. Helpful? No. Most intrusive thoughts have a bit of truth in them. Bats can give you rabies. Rabies has as close to a 100% mortality rate as makes no odds. If you genuinely think you have rabies, you need to get a shot. Panicking about seeing a bat, however, does not help you survive rabies or make a rational decision about whether to get a rabies shot. The panic is useless.
Some OCD thoughts are completely true: in my case, I obsessed about my impending mortality. Unless I become the first immortal human (still working on that), my intrusive thought is accurate and I will die. Worrying about that now, though, is completely useless.
Similarly, the emotional reaction is interfering with the Epic’s life in a serious way. They could avoid their weakness just as well if they weren’t terrified of it. Again, the intrusive thought and compulsion aren’t what’s maladaptive here. It’s the emotional reaction.
And, when Epics face their fears head on, just as someone with OCD does during ERP therapy, the fear fades. In their case, it’s because they claim their powers and their weaknesses don’t work anymore. In the case of the OCD sufferer, it’s because the brain learns the reaction is overblown. So not only are they stuck in an obsessive-compulsive loop, it’s treated in the same way OCD is!!
So what?
As someone with OCD, I was delighted by the way facing the fear resolved the negative effects of being an Epic. I like that it portrayed the extreme fear of the weakness as a negative, even if the weakness existed. And I liked that characters didn’t ‘fight’ or argue with their weaknesses, as many people with OCD do with their intrusive thoughts. All told, rereading these books gave me new ways to think about my own OCD. I don’t think Sanderson was trying to make an OCD metaphor at all, but he made a pretty good one!
there’s something strangely gutwrenching about the solstice having already passed. there have been minor changes in the “side adventures” of the trio.
they know they’re entering medusa’s house. they go to the arch for sanctuary against echidna and chimera. they go to waterland to help ares and convince hephaestus to stop being like his family. they go to the lotus hotel to get help from hermes.
in the books they’re getting tricked and distracted and losing all of that time on their quest was an accident. but they still made it in the end.
but in the show? they did everything right. they were aware of where they were at all times. but then they go and ask for help.
they try to ask for athena’s help and she lets monsters into her temple because they “embarrassed her.” they try to ask for hermes’ help but he doesn’t tell them until it’s too late that the lotus hotel messes with time.
they basically did everything right on their quest only for their biggest failures to occur because of the gods.
but poseidon gives him four pearls. four, instead of three. one for sally too. but we already know that she gets left behind.
they tried so hard only for the deadline to lapse.
“ohh they’re pushing Percabeth too hard” “ohh lukes so weird to make that comment abt them bickering what about the slow burn” SHUT UP SHUT UP! LOOK ME IN THE EYE AND TELL ME YOUR OLDER SIBLING NEVER GAVE U SHIT FOR TALKING/LOOKING AT A KID YOUR AGE WHEN YOU WERE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL! THAT GIRL IS IN THE TRENCHES OF EMBARRASING OLDER BROTHER STAGE RN
YES WAR IS OVERRRR
i just want to know who thought of making the tunnel of love a dark creepy tunnel that gets lit up by gorgeous lights that tell the story of the rejection and abandonment of hepheastus while percy and annabeth look at each other and talk in quiet tones about the story and the stories percy's mom told him and that annabeth was indoctrinated into and meanwhile a song about love and pain is playing in the background and percy says he heard it in the orthodontist's office I JUST WANT TO TALK WITH THE WRITERS AND MAYBE EXAMINE THEIR BRAINS BECAUSE ?!?!?!??!?!?!?!!?1?
