A Lot Clicked For Me When My Mom Said The Reason She Was So Reactive Towards Me As A Kid Was That She

I’m starting to sound like a nutcase at work because upper management keeps trying to implement AI programs and AI assistants and Chat GPT and my middle-of-the-road, don’t-infodump, don’t-engage response has been “I don’t like AI”, “I prefer to remain in control of my own tasks”, “I’d rather make my own mistakes”, and “I don’t trust any machine smarter than a toaster”

it will forever bug me that tony stark sat on his ass for five years while the universe was crumbling and struggling to rebalance their communities after the blip, but yet when he finally helped bring back the billions of people that died, he was the one to get murals. he was the one to have a proper funeral. he was the one who left a “legacy”.

not natasha, who was always there for the people and being the one to run the avengers. 

not vision, who was a primary factor into trying to stop the blip from happening in the first place by sacrificing himself.

not any other hero who was murdered or sacrificed themselves during the battle of wakanda or the final battle between the avengers and thanos.

no one else got a funeral except a billionaire who spent the first thirty years of his life realizing that building war weapons was wrong, and spending the next ten years creating more problems for the real heroes.

Reblogging because this is REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT.

Also second that people shouldn't have to dump their whole medical history on someone, or be forced to share their medical trauma/life story, just to get what the hell they asked for and what they are more often literally PAYING for.

None of them are making this a problem. Especially if they ask "can you do this" and don't usually make a fuss if you can't, they just want to know so they can make an informed decision. It only becomes a problem when pretentious people decide to be spiteful, hateful, deceitful or judgemental with no cause and MAKE it a problem.

Just trust people to know what the fuck they can eat on their own. It's not your damn business.

DO NOT DO THIS.

This makes me so angry.

If you work in a movie theater and you do this I have no respect for you.

My younger brother is Type 1 Diabetic.

When we go to a movie theater, we always get him diet soda. If he were to get regular when we asked for diet, we would not give him the insulin he would need for it. If that happens, his blood sugar level could go so high he could go into a coma, go blind, or even die.

If somebody gave him regular soda instead of diet without telling us, that person could be responsible for a nine-year-old being killed or blinded.

Just thinking about that makes me so angry. I get scared every time we take him to a movie in case the people working there saw this picture and decide to do the same thing.

Please signal boost this so people know.

YES

[ Danmei in order of appearance: "Heaven Official's Blessing," "Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation," "Scum Villain's Self-Saving System," "The Husky and His White Cat Shizun," "Remnants of Filth," "Thousand Autumns," "Peerless," "Stars of Chaos," "Guardian," and "Ballad of Sword and Wine." ]

Keep your messaging simple:

“Trump fired everyone in charge of airplane safety, and a week later planes started crashing into each other.”

That’s it. That’s the messaging. Don’t get bogged down disputing Trump’s false claims. Just blame him, in short and repeatable sentences.

Oh.

We're at "traffic tickets are justification for disappearing people off the street and sending them to death camps with no due process" levels of fascism now.

Okay yeah we're like fucked, fucked.

Solitary Confinement

While I haven’t been directly asked for a Masterpost on Solitary Confinement the sheer volume of asks on the subject prompted me to put this together.

Let’s start with some definitions-

Most sources define solitary confinement as 23 hours (or more) a day without human contact. This can be in or outside of a prison context.

Most sources agree that anything over a week is prolonged solitary confinement and most victims would begin to show symptoms within a week or sooner.

All of the research on solitary confinement that I am familiar with was conducted in a prison context. Most of it was done in the USA. Some of the results and conclusions will be affected by that context and we do know that environment effects how well victims cope with isolation.

Symptoms of solitary confinement affect both physical and mental health

Physical symptoms include-

Headaches

Eye problems

Joint pain

Lethargy

Insomnia

Feelings of physical weakness

Psychological symptoms include-

Worsening of all pre-existing mental health problems

Depression

Anxiety

Feelings of helplessness

Self harm

Suicidal ideation

Aggression

Severe mood swings

Irrational impulses

Hallucinations

Psychosis

Difficulty interacting with people

Difficulty learning new skills

Memory problems

There is some data on the prevalence rates of different symptoms but it’s not very clear cut. The fact that pre-existing mental health conditions are more common in prison populations may skew the data.

Speaking in general terms: physical symptoms of some kind are extremely common, depression or suicidal inclination is extremely common, anxiety is extremely common. Hallucinations and psychosis are less common but some estimates put their occurrence rate as high as 30%.

Factors that make Solitary Even Worse

Age is a major risk factor. Research on children specifically is lacking and the research that there is isn’t always clear about the age of the children involved. However in teenagers solitary confinement has greater and longer lasting negative effects. The current research suggests that younger children would suffer even more.

 Pre-existing mental health conditions are all worsened significantly by solitary confinement.

When solitary is combined with poor living conditions the effects on individuals can be devastating. Particularly harmful are lack of space, lack of stimulation, lack of light, lack of sound and any combination of the factors mentioned in this list.

 Having no known release date or time has been shown     experimentally to drastically reduce the amount of time people will feel     comfortable in solitary confinement. This holds true over days. Characters who are confined indefinitely or with no known release date should show worse symptoms then characters who know when they’ll be let out.

Any additional stress, trauma or torture. Threats, lack of medical care and anything that is likely to cause additional suffering will make solitary worse.

 Protective Factors

Some people are really resistant to the effects of isolation and we don’t know why. Individuals such as astronauts, lone sailors and     people conducting polar research are often specially selected in part for     their ability to withstand isolation. The important thing to remember is     that while they exist these people are not common and they are not the norm.

 Having a cause seems to have a hugely protective effect. Political prisoners in solitary confinement do better than other types of prisoners but they do still show symptoms and suffer from confinement.

How long is too long?

A lot of the asks I get on solitary assume it is much less damaging than it is, so I’m going to end with a couple of points on timings that will hopefully help people judge what’s an appropriate time frame for their story.

Remember that torture is cumulative and any additional factors/traumas will make symptoms significantly worse.

Less than a week- the character probably won’t show any lasting effects, though they will probably have started to show some symptoms while confined.

One week to one month- the character will have multiple symptoms, some of which will persist after they get out of solitary and start interacting with people again. They will struggle with mental health problems and may find it difficult to interact with people in a socially acceptable way. However with a strong support network and time they may still make a full recovery.

One month to one year- it is extremely likely that the character has self harmed and/or attempted suicide at least once. They will have multiple severe symptoms. The risk of hallucinations, psychosis and catatonia is increased. Multiple severe symptoms will persist when the character is released and they will probably have to deal with the resulting mental health problems for the rest of their life. Social isolation after release is extremely common and makes symptoms worse. Socially unacceptable symptoms are more likely and likely to persist after release.

Several years- the risk of death by suicide is incredibly high. Self mutilation (ie amputation, scarring the face etc) starts to become an issue. Symptoms can be so severe that the character may not have a firm grasp of reality. Chance of recovery is minimal and many victims find that on release they can no longer interact with others in socially acceptable ways. They are often isolated and severely mentally ill. The risk of suicide after release remains high.

So to summarise-

Solitary confinement is an extremely damaging torture which has long term repercussions effecting victims for the rest of their lives.

It’s rarely portrayed accurately in fiction, but you can help me change that.

If you’d like to use solitary confinement in your writing think about the symptoms your character will show and the time frame they’re confined for.

Consider how those symptoms impact on your character and your story. If possible pick symptoms that fit well with your story and character. Use both physical and psychological symptoms.

Above all don’t be tempted to play down the symptoms and effects of solitary.

I know it’s a long and intimidating list of symptoms. That, I suppose, is part of the point. Writing torture victims well means accepting that characters won’t survive without symptoms and trying to capture how they’d deal with these changes and challenges.

It isn’t easy. It shouldn’t be. It’s also far from impossible.

And as always I am here to help.

[Sources:

Sourcebook on Solitary Confinement by S Shalev A good general overview of the subject.

Solitary Confinement by P S Smith A summary of scholarly debate.

Deep Custody: Segreation Units and Close Supervision Centres in England and Wales by S Shalev and K Edgar This source is particularly about UK prisons but talks in more depth about the process of prisoners being put into solitary confinement and the conditions in UK jails.

American Civil Liberties Union, a source of first hand accounts.

Solitary Watch, another good source of first hand accounts, focused on US prisoners primarily but with some other cases around the world.]

Edited for typos, thank you for catching that.

Disclaimer

Steve dealing with casualties vs. Tony dealing with casualties