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Musings of a Vulcan Philosopher

@beardofspock / beardofspock.tumblr.com

My name is Philip and I am an aspiring science fiction writer. This tumblr will document my efforts at getting my science fiction novel published. I will also post random stuff that interests me in the gaming/movies/music/theology arenas.
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iamthebricklayer
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theforce

i was 14 and i was walking through a mall by myself at 12am after my shift at coldstone creamery lol and a bunch of men started whistling and meowing and getting really close to me and they kept asking me questions and i kept not answering until i didn’t know what else to do so i said “i’m only 14” and almost in unison they said “we don’t care” i was so fucking scared i didn’t know what to do and they kept talking about how i looked and how my body looked and what they would do i was on the verge of tears i was all alone in a huge mall i knew i couldn’t outrun them all i felt totally hopeless until a maintenance worker came up to all of us with a huge industrial broom in her hand, i thought she was going to yell at all of us for being in the mall after hours bc she probably thought we were all friends but instead she cursed all of them out in spanish, threatened to press a panic button on her belt and then proceeded to walk me to the basement garage and waited with me until my mom got there to pick me up she had a death grip on her cart the whole time and a face of steel she looked so strong and i just kept saying thank you and she kept saying not to thank her because she had to stop them.

that was the moment i realized women were the most important beings on this planet and we have to protect each other bc nobody else is going to, she didn’t even know me, we couldn’t even communicate that well because of the language barrier, she could have lost her job for waiting with me in the parking lot but she looked out for me when she didn’t have to, she had nothing to gain from it, i’m 21 now and i tell everyone this story even though it happened 7 years ago, what she did that night helped me form and shape lot of my beliefs early on. 

i was at a grocery store really late one night and some old guy kind of eyed me as i walked out of the store next to this other lady. She and I made eye contact and i knew she was scared too. we loaded up our groceries into our cars as fast as possible and I had way more bags than her so she got done faster than me. I panicked because i was sure she was going to leave so i just hurried faster, shaking a little, and then i noticed she sat in her car, watching me and making sure nobody came near. She waited not until all my groceries were loaded, or until my cart was put away, or until I got into my car. No, she didn’t drive away until I drove away. 

And that was the moment that I realized how much women need other women. That we can’t win this war without each other and we have to be looking out for each other, every second. 

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ofgeography

my last year in new york city, i got off the subway around 9 or 10p.m. i only lived about 5 blocks from the f train, but i hadn’t gotten more than two before a woman’s hand suddenly touched my arm. 

“that guy behind us is following you,” she said. “he was watching you leave the train car and followed you up.”

i hadn’t noticed him, or at least not noticed him following me. when we stopped outside a grocery store, he stopped half a block back and loitered. the woman linked her arm with mine and walked me several blocks out of her way to my front door and made sure i got inside safely.

another time, nocigar and i were walking home and at a stoplight a stranger grabbed my arm when i wouldn’t respond to him and tried to physically drag me over to him. she—who is, by the way, not a very physically imposing girl—ripped his hand off my arm and snarled, “don’t fucking touch her.”

protect your friends. protect strangers. there are good men in the world, but don’t wait for them to do something if you can do it yourself.

I was at a club once and my friend left with her boyfriend so I finished my drink and was heading out to the parking lot when three girls came up to me and basically surrounded me. 

“Those guys behind us were talking about following you. We can walk with you.” 

I have MMA training but have never in my life had been offered the protection and sanction of my own gender. This is so important. 

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stele3

GIRL CODE. FUCKIN’ GIRL CODE. LEAVE NO GIRL BEHIND. EVER.

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clevergirlhelps
scriptspoonie
Anonymous asked:

Hello! These blogs are so super helpful, and yours is here just in time for me to begin writing my story! So thank you so much for your help in advance. I'm writing a story about a soldier that was captured during war. Part of the story is him struggling to trust his therapist enough to open up about what happened. During this time where he refuses to talk to anyone, how would PTSD affect his everyday actions, his thoughts, etc.? Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Have a great weekend!!!

scriptspoonie answered:

Hooboy. I’m going to just list several symptoms of PTSD and explain how they would each drain his energy and limit his ability to do things and how to include these in your writing. 

1. Hyper-Arousal

  • Hyper-vigilance: Every little sound and shadow is going to make his brain go into overdrive. It is going to kick his fight-or-flight mode on high and its almost never going to calm down. This is EXTREMELY draining. His brain and body is going to be a coiled spring, ready for danger, at all times. This is physically exhausting and drains spoons incredibly quickly. 
  • Some ways this will change his daily life - he won’t be able to spend as much time in crowds or even just outside his house because there is too much stimulation for him to handle for to long. He probably won’t sleep well because again, all those little noises houses make at night is going to make him panic and lose more spoons - he could combat this by getting a white noise machine. 
  • Emotional Outbursts: Many individuals with PTSD may experience unstable emotional states. 
  • It wouldn’t be odd for him to suddenly feel very angry or irritable with no recognizable reason or target. He may also swing the other way and start crying without any warning. These episodes are extremely draining and there frequency may prevent your character from getting things done. 
  • Lack of Concentration: High levels of distraction, the hyper-vigilance, the adrenaline constantly running through his body is going to make if difficult for your character to concentration for an extended period of time.
  • This lack of concentration may make it difficult for your character to work, attend school, do homework or fill out things like medical forms for doctors appointments. This could lead to him pushing such appointments back because he is unable to prepare for them.

2. Avoidance 

  • Situational Avoidance: Your character is going to try to avoid any situation that might remind him of his trauma.
  • If he was in a tank that was bombed, he may go out of his way to avoid driving. If something happened in a wooded area, he may take a longer route to avoid a similar area because it reminds him of his trauma. This could make your character miss deadlines, appointment times, or cause a significant amount of time to be dedicated to this avoidance which means other things will not get done. 
  • Social Isolation: Another type of avoidance is social avoidance - this means your character may avoid his family and friends, either because he doesn’t have the energy to be social or being around other people cause him to panic. Being forced into these situations would drain his energy very quickly.
  • This may cause him to avoid things like birthday celebrations, holiday parties, any type of gathering. These events are going to be extremely exhausting as your character is already tired and the amount of people and noise are going to exhaust him. 
  • Something else that might influence his social isolation is his PTSD influencing his view of other people - he may begin to mistrust others and feel as if the world is a dangerous place. This mindset is extraordinarily draining and would significantly impact his energy levels. 
  • Triggers: Triggers are sights, sounds, smells, situations, items; pretty much anything that reminds your character of his trauma. 
  • Before he is aware of his triggers, he will most likely stumble upon many of them and suffer from flashbacks or anxiety attacks, which is extremely exhausting.
  • When he knows his triggers, he is going to try his best to avoid them, which may mean changing his routine, getting up earlier to go shopping when it is quieter, not going to fun events like fairs or the movies because he doesn’t want to fun into a trigger. 
  • Triggers are often unavoidable or unexpected, prompting exhausting anxiety attacks or flashbacks multiple times a day, eating up time to get things done and exhausting your character.
  • Consider what his trauma consists of - does it involve guns? If so, it might not be just real guns that can trigger an anxiety attack or flashback. Plastic guns, guns in movies or TV shows, sounds that are similar like a car backfiring or fireworks, the smell of gunpowder, even just something that shoots something, like a Nerf Gun. Think through his potential triggers and then think about all the situations those could be found in - he is going to have to schedule his entire day around avoiding these triggers, especially when he is not actively working with his therapist on his trauma at this point.

3. Flashbacks/Remembering the Trauma

  • Nightmares: When he does fall asleep, he is most likely going to have nightmares. 
  • He may or may not remember the specifics of the nightmare, but he will most likely wake up in a panic, shaking, sweating. It’s going to take him a long time to fall back to sleep, if he even does. If he does fall back to sleep, it may be a very tense sleep, waking up frequently and not allowing his body to relax - this means he is going to wake up in the morning already exhausted, anxious, and running on panic. 
  • Flashbacks: Flashbacks are often one of the stereotypical symptoms of PTSD, however they are extremely common. Flashbacks may happen multiple times a day, at varying severity each time. 
  • One type of flashback is an emotional flashback - these flashbacks only affect the individuals emotional state, not their senses. So if your character is triggered and reminded of his trauma, his emotional state may quickly move to match the emotional state during the trauma - so intense fear, adrenaline, anger, sadness. These intense episodes that may come at anytime, last up to an hour, and are extremely exhausting. 
  • The common type of flashbacks you see in media are sometimes called ‘full flashbacks’ or ‘psychological flashbacks’. This is when the brain believes that it is back during the traumatic event, and the individuals senses - sight, hearing, smell, taste - are going to be taken back to the moment of the trauma. Your character will not be fully in reality at the time and any attempts to touch or otherwise break the individual out of the flashback could result in a negative or fearful reaction. These flashbacks can also last a significant amount of time and be draining. 

Now, you said that this was before your character began working with his therapist, but these symptoms won’t go away suddenly. As your character begins to work through his trauma and develop coping skills, these symptoms may decrease in severity or disappear all together eventually. However, some PTSD sufferers will always have some of these symptoms and have to cope with them. 

I hope this helps!

- Mod Riley

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scriptshrink

I’ve written about PTSD before, but it’s always good to get multiple opinions / experiences!

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reblogged

We need to pay attention to automation now (x) | follow @the-future-now

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the-descolada

god this is so idiotic, instead of using automation to streamline production and redistribute wealth we’re fearing it because it takes away jobs that no one should have to do in the first place. If everyone was simply given the resources to live and live well this would be seen as a miracle, not a fucking disaster

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sexhaver

yeah honestly as a robotics major this shit makes me so tired. under any sane mode of production automation would be seen as a godsend but because people have to work under capitalism im driving them to starvation

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snommelp

Automation should make life easier for everyone, but because we still operate with the pre-industrial mindset of “contribute or starve” automation becomes a threat instead.

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n1ghtcrwler

If I remember correctly, the automation tax was intended to provide a fund used to make people’s lives easier. That bit just didn’t find its way into this very brief gifset.

Source: facebook.com
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thegabecole
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rickgrimesbabyface

Listen y’all, being anti-racist is not like a one time “I saw the light and I’ll never be racist again” deal, racism is something that has to be actively and constantly unlearned. Every day you have to challenge your thinking. 

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Writing Science Fiction: Tips for Beginners

We’ve seen a lot of science fiction stories over the past year or so. It’s not like they sci-fi ever went out of style, but it seems to be gaining popularity recently.

For some, writing science fiction might seem like a daunting genre to break into. Do you need to know complex mathematical equations? Do you need to know exactly how space travel works? Did you need to major in astrophysics?

Sure, those things don’t hurt, but they’re absolutely not necessary. You can write a great sci-fi novel without years of research. And you can tell a really interesting story, even if you’re not a science pro.

Here are a few tips to get started:

Consider ‘What-if’ Scenarios

This isn’t just a great rule for sci-fi novels, but I think the best ones use this approach. Start off with a simple what-if scenario. For example: what if we lived on a world made of ice? What if in this particular world only consisted of women? Obviously, you’ll need to expand on those scenarios and spend time really developing what those caveats would mean, but you get the idea.

Start with a small what-if scenario and brainstorm!

Figure Out Your Rules

I don’t think writing great sci-fi depends on being 100% scientifically accurate ALL THE TIME, but I do think you need to stick to your own rules. Whatever is a hard rule for your own universe, it’s important to keep it that way. Does your world have ships that can travel quickly from planet to planet? Sure, that’s great! Figure out your own rules for space travel and develop your world. How do the inhabitants on one planet act/grow/eat/interact compared to the inhabitants of another? Spend time developing these ideas!

No Info Dumps!

Sometimes when people write science fiction, they tend to explain their universe all in one big info-dump. Don’t. This is boring and it does nothing to serve your story. Slowly reveal information. Every plot point in your story should serve a purpose. Develop your characters through the action and show off your worlds through them. Get creative.

Keep it Vague

If you’re unsure about the science of something, write to your strengths. Don’t understand how space travel works? Maybe your MC is put to sleep during a long trip. This is just one example, but try to figure out a way to make it work for you. Maybe avoid space travel altogether if it doesn’t serve your story.

Listen, this isn’t a substitute for research, but I also don’t want you to avoid writing science fiction if you just don’t get a lot of the concepts involved. If you’ve got a great idea for a story, work it out to fit your style. Science fiction is a great platform for unique and compelling character studies, so don’t get scared off! You don’t have to write hard science fiction in order to write a good novel.

-Kris Noel

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clevergirlhelps

What is autism?

Autism is a natural variation of human neurology which is categorized as a developmental disability. About 1% of the worlds population is autistic. Autism is a lifelong condition meaning that autistic people are born autistic and that they will die autistic. You cannot “catch autism” or “become autistic” like you can risk becoming mentally or physically ill - neither vaccines or heavy metals or gluten will make you autistic if you aren’t born with it. You also can’t cure autism or recover from it - but all autistic people can live fulfilling, happy lives with the right accommodations so an autism diagnosis isn’t the death sentence that many people make it out to be. Autism isn’t a diagnosis which can be clearly separated from who you are and how you see the world - it affects every aspect about of how you think about, experience and interact with the world around you. There are many different aspects of being autistic which makes it hard to summarize the condition, but I’ll do my best to introduce you to some of the common autistic traits and experiences in this post.

  • Sensory processing. Autistic people’s sensory processing is different from most people’s sensory processing. This means that autistic people may be over- or undersensitive to different sensory input. This means that we may have trouble with sounds, touches, smells, tastes, etc that most people can easily tolerate or block out or that we may seek out loud music, blinking lights, bright colors, spicy food, strong smells and activities which provide physical activity and deep pressure. Many autistic people lack the filter that most people have which makes them able to block out background sounds, meaning that the ticking of a clock, the buzzing from a lamp or two people having a conversation nearby might make us unable to focus on what we’re supposed to be focusing on. This means that many autistic people will have trouble focusing in situations with lots of sensory input, for example situations where many people are gathered together, and that we are more easily overwhelmed and stressed out by different sensory input than allistic (non-autistc) people. 
  • Stimming. Stimming is short for self-stimulatory behavior, meaning a behavior which is meant to stimulate one of your senses. Some common stims are rocking back and forth, bouncing your legs or feet, hand flapping, hand wringing and repeating words and sentences, but a stim can be any kind of repeated movement or action which stimulates on your senses. Stimming can thus be many different things - you can stim by smelling, touching, watching, moving, tasting and listening. The reason behind why autistic people stim is tied up in the fact that autistic people’s sensory processing tend to be atypical - when there’s a lot of overwhelming, stressing sensory input, providing your own repeated sensory input by listening to a song on repeat or rocking back or forth or smelling something you like the smell of may help you focus and calm down. Autistic people also stim to express emotions - it’s a natural part of our body language just like smiling or frowning is a natural part of most people’s body language. We may jump up and down and flap our hands when excited where most people would simply smile, or we may rock back and forth and press our hands against or faces where other people would cry. That being said, an autistic person doesn’t need a certain, deep reason for stimming - we often do it simply because it’s fun and because it feels good. 
  • Shutdowns and meltdowns. Shutdowns are meltdowns are both responses to extreme distress - they’re often caused by unpleasant, overwhelming sensory input that the autistic person in question is unable to escape, but they can also be caused by strong negative emotions. A meltdown is an outward reaction to said distress where a shutdown is an inwards reaction. An autistic person having a meltdown is a person who has reached a point where they are no longer in control of their own body - they’re experiencing and flight or fight response, so to say. An autistic person may scream, lash out, cry, smash things and run away during a meltdown. Shutdowns are another possible respons to a similar situation - during those, the autistic person may become unresponsive, locked in place, unable to talk, etc. You should never get mad at autistic people or hold them responsible for having meltdowns and shutdowns - they’ve reached a place where they’re so distressed that they’re losing control of themselves and instead of distressing them further, you should help them escape or resolve what’s causing the distress - after you have given them plenty of time to calm down and recover, that is.
  • Trouble with non-verbal communication such as body language, facial expressions and tone of voice. Autism is a disability which affects communication and the ability to socialize, meaning that autistic people may have trouble reading, using and comprehending body language, facial expressions and tone of voice just like they may have trouble learning, conforming to and applying social rules. We may not be able to take a hint that someone’s not interested in talking to us just like we may not notice when someone’s interested in us romantically or sexually. We have trouble noticing when other people are bored or tired or sad or angry and we might thus often come across as uncaring or annoying in social situations. Our trouble with reading other people and seeing the nuance in their body language, facial expressions and tone of voice also means that many autistic people have trouble grasping sarcasm, irony and metaphors. 
  • Trouble with words and speech. Most autistic people have some degree of trouble with expressing their thoughts and opinions through spoken words.This is because most of us don’t naturally think in words - we may experience, think about and process the world around us in pictures or sensory experiences and we may thus have trouble transforming those input and experiences into words. We may also have trouble with the process of speaking, not because there’s something physically wrong with us but because we can have trouble with making our throats and mouths pronounce the words or because we may have trouble with going from thinking a word to succeeding with the process of actually saying it out loud. It’s common for autistic people to have periods where they aren’t able to speak - we call it going nonverbal - and some autistic people can’t speak at all. That doesn’t mean that they can’t think or communicate, though - they may instead communicate via written words, text to speech apps, facilitated typing, sign language, picture boards, etc.
  • Executive dysfunction. Executive functioning is what allows us to go from thinking about or wanting to do something to actually doing it, it’s what makes us able to keep the different steps required to complete a task straight in our heads and it’s what makes us able to plan and focus on different tasks. Autistic people often have trouble with executive functioning which makes many everyday tasks that most people can just do without thinking twice about it really hard. Imagine that you want to do laundry but your brain doesn’t automatically come up with the steps required to complete the task - take the laundry basket to the washing machine, open the washing machine, put clothes into the washing machine, add soap, etc - instead you’re just standing there, knowing that you somehow have to go from dirty laundry to clean clothes without knowing how to go about it. This is a problem for many autistic people which makes many everyday tasks hard or impossible to do without help. We may need someone to prompt us to do what we need to do or we may need someone to talk us through the steps or we may need visual or written instructions which illustrate the steps required to complete a certain task. Executive dysfunction is the main reason why many autistic people have trouble with basic, everyday tasks that most people their age can easily do without help.
  • Special interests. Many autistic people have a topic or a thing that they’re deeply, passionately interested in. Some autistic people compare having a special interest to being in love - it’s what your mind drifts to when there’s nothing else to occupy it, it’s the only thing you want to talk about, it’s the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning and it’s the last thing you think of before you fall asleep. This intense level of interest and passion often allows autistic people to excel in their areas of interest even when they may have trouble with basic everyday tasks. Some autistic people have special interests that lasts a life time, other people experience that their special interests change every couple years or maybe every couple months - or in some cases, every couple weeks. Some autistic people have one special interest at a time, other autistic people have many special interests. 
  • Routines. Since the world is often very chaotic and confusing for autistic people due to our atypical sensory processing and our struggles with executive dysfunction and social interaction, many autistic people rely on routines to create a sense of order in a confusing and chaotic world. We usually like to do the same things in the exact same way every day and if something breaks our routine or if something unexpected happens - or if somebody suggests an impulsive trip to the beach on a day where we hadn’t expected to do anything but the usual - it may result in shutdowns or meltdowns. If you want an autistic person to break or change their routine it’s recommended that you warn them in good time and that you give them plenty of time to prepare and adjust.
  • Unique points of view and different ways of thinking. Due to the fact that autistic people experience the world so differently from how most people experience it, we see the world from a different angle - often allowing us to come up with ideas or thoughts or input or solutions that you wouldn’t get anywhere else. Autistic people often have unique points of view and unusual ways or thinking and learning and this is often a strength - as we say in the autistic community, we are different, not less. 

I’ve now summarized some of the more common autistic traits and I hope that this post gave you a better understanding of what autism is and what it means to be autistic. Feel free to reblog and share this post far and wide if you found it helpful or educational.

Autism is something everyone has heard about but few people know anything about what it actually entails. This post is my attempt at introducing people to the different aspects of what being autistic means. I know that this post probably doesn’t fit the aesthetic/theme of your blog, but every time it ends up on a dash, a new person is being educated on what autism actually is - and I think that’s so important that I’ll kindly ask you to consider reblogging this post regardless of what kind of blog you have. (If you can’t/won’t reblog for any reason, then that is perfectly okay - I’m not trying to pressure or guilt trip people into reblogging. I’m simply trying to educate the people of tumblr about a topic which is very important to me - and I can’t do that without your help.)

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sendhelpposthaste
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wilwheaton
3453241342 asked:

Instead of blamecalling people for not voting for Clinton please figure out why this happened

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wilwheaton answered:

Oh, okay. Let me give it a try! I’ll keep it nice and simple for you, account-that-is-totally-real-and-sincere!

See, after the primaries, we have two candidates to choose for president. There will be other candidates running, of course, but one of these two will be the president.

This past election, we had a clear choice between a qualified but flawed woman, and a completely unqualified conman. 

Oh, but here’s where it gets sticky! A substantial number of voters didn’t get their way in the primaries, so rather than vote against putting a dangerously unqualified conman into the White House, they had their little temper tantrums. 

So I can figure out precisely why this happened. A bunch of goddamn emotional toddlers didn’t care that so much was at stake in this past presidential election, and now they get to stand around being smug and self-righteous while the adults in the room try to minimize the damage that they helped cause.

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