#(and hypervigilance has its own logics)

[t4tpumpkinduo]

thinking abt old dsmp discourse at work has me knuckling glass and eating the leftover shards

[ancat-dubh]

harvest moon over the marshes + nighttime canal walk, 18 September

[alexilulu]

Books I Read In 2024 #14: Final Girls Support Group (Grady Hendrix, Berkley Books, 2021)

Lynnette Tarkington is one of 6 girls who survived multiple horrific spree murders and became the Final Girls, the subjects of intense media and social scrutiny, who meet together in secret with a therapist even now, decades after their experiences. When a hypervigilant Lynnette begins to spot the signs that someone is coming for the Final Girls, their lives are torn apart as she races against a seemingly inexorable final stand.

Full spoilers below.

I think I liked this novel more before I started writing this review.

At some point in my life, i began to have very detailed, specific thoughts about horror as a genre and medium. I didn't watch it when i was young (possibly because i had a formative experience of waking up during a slumber party at 9am when, for some reason, the shower scene in Poltergeist was being played very loudly on the TV I fell asleep in front of, but who knows actually), but there is something about the whole genre that I do find interesting. If I'd point to any one thing, it was probably playing Alien: Isolation when it came out that made me really think about it as a genre and method.

I don't think that Final Girl Support Group is horror, per se. It's a thriller that is performing the same genre moves as a slasher movie, but it also can't commit to being a slasher in a proper way. The only people who die in the novel is Adrienne (named for Adrienne King, the actress who portrays Alice Hardy in Friday the 13th, the movie series her Final Girl story is based off of), who is also curiously the only black woman in the novel. The ending is a sop to turning against the cycle of violence in which the women have all been unwillingly placed by having the villain (an incel in plain sight who is trying to kill all the Final Girls as revenge against his mother, their therapist and his groomed and self-manufactured final girl who pushes him to further and further excesses) be captured by police.

I get those criticisms out front here because I don't want anyone to think this is something it isn't. The plot is a third generation copy of Screa, (which is funny, because it already has Scream in it) and it shows. But there is something that shines through it despite the relative thinness of Lynnette's half-baked sleuthing of the solution to Who Is Killing Final Girls?

Lynnette is a fairly good protagonist, in that she is a horrifically damaged, broken woman who has shattered herself into a shape small enough to protect from a world obsessed with the pain and death of women. Each of the women is changed by their experiences; Julia (the Scream Final Girl) is paraplegic after killing her Ghostface with a three story drop, Heather is a former drug user after her experience with the Dream King (which implies some VERY strange things about both her and the world that the novel never answers given the Nightmare on Elm Street inspiration, in one of the better parts of the book) and Dani (the survivor of the Halloween expy) has given up on everything but her wife, her ranch and the support group. Lynnette herself is a PTSD nightmare of a woman, bound to her apartment and the support group and nothing else, a collection of hypervigilance responses in the shape of an adult woman (they never specify the year though, so its hard to place any of them in their ages; presumably given the slashers are contemporary to when the movies released, these are all women in their fourties, but its hard to say).

Lynnette is also a liar. She's unreliable about the state of the world (albeit in an extremely realistic way, as someone who cannot understand her own damage as anything but the logical response to her life), as well as about her own life. In her version of Silent Night, Deadly Night, she was hung from a pair of antlers as a deranged man in a santa claus suit killed her boyfriend, her family and her little sister in front of her while she played dead. This then repeated with the killer's brother mimicing the crime after she was adopted by a new family, only for him to survive his wounds from the police and go on to hold a furious grudge against Lynnette. Fundamentally, this means that she's not truly a Final Girl, which is to say that she did not kill her attacker while surviving, and that is the thematic meat of the novel.

The novel has more to say about the world-building of a group of damaged women who have had to forge themselves into a public identity based around the things that were done to them than as people in their own right. And with that comes in-group safety. These women have looked to each other for comfort and safety for 30 years, but even here they have their intra-community strife. Any group of people placed into isolation with one another will inevitably find something to want to scream at each other for, so the nature of Final Girlhood is immediate and obvious as a way to build hierarchy. Lynnette doesn't even realize it's happening to her, despite everything, because she's so caught up in her own warped worldview to realize that the women around her hold her as lesser than her.

The other thing the novel has so much to say about is the nature of the American obsession with the pain of white womanhood. These women are famous, their trauma repackaged into blockbuster movies (or flops, in some cases), and it changed their lives. Marilyn (the survivor of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre expy) married rich on her own after the movies and made herself into a social crusader (using the money of her prison baron husband, in the classic liberal-meets-conservative marriage of the wealthy). Adrienne, who dies as the instigating motion of the plot, forged the camp from her Friday the 13th experience into a home for traumatized women to learn to trust again and grow past their experiences. Others, like Heather, live like dissolute, past-use Hollywood stars who burned their fortunes on drugs and fast times and now seek only the next cash infusion to reclaim a little bit of that fire. They collectively made their nut off their own pain, but America demands more; the endless sequelification of their pain continues, with Adrienne's being the most prolific as a mirror to the cavalcade of Friday the 13th sequels. Fundamentally, this means there is the same sort of movie fandom around the circumstances of the real lives as there is around serial killers, complete with 'murderabilia' from the acts themselves. In the middle act of the movie, the police, who have Lynnette in custody, arrange horrific pranks and treatment for her specifically, from a papering of her letters to the killer on the plexiglass of her cell to a Christmas themed tableaux in the interrogation room on the other side of the one-way glass.

Ultimately, the plot ends in everyone living, choosing recovery and a new way forward for themselves from the hardened places they had made for themselves, but it feels a little hollow. It's too pat. The most dangerous moments in Lynnette's Final Girl becoming are powerful, but so much more of it is the sirt of pat mystery that wouldn't have passed muster in a movie theater. The final revelation of who the killer is comes from a homemade comic book Lynnette bought off her therapist's youngest son, who is for some reason privy to all the details of his brother's plan and wrote it all down in a homemade comic, that she never once looked at for 250 pages. The phenomenal moments in the novel (the trip out to the betrayer Final Girl who sides with the murders more than her own kind, and her nightmare murder shack filled with murderabilia, the police sequence, and some of the more interesting Lynnette moments like when she finally opens up to the reader about her experience) do little to keep the dull parts from dragging. And yet, I say dragging only in the most superficial way; I finished it in 3 sittings, so can I really fault a novel that made me slam it in 100 page spurts as being boring? It compelled despite it all, mostly because I found Lynnette fascinating. In the end though, I don't know if that's enough to recommend it to anyone but diehard enjoyers of slasher aesthetic (though divorced from the same tropes it speaks to) or the hardened Thriller Reader.

[mariacallous]

Timofey Sozaev left Russia in September 2019. After nearly 20 years as an LGBTQ+ rights activist, cofounding several organizations, he found out, while visiting friends in the United States, that the Kremlin had become aware of his advocacy work. He didn’t go back.

It wasn’t an easy decision. Sozaev knew that not returning would mean “handing over everything that I love and that is valuable to me to the enemy: obscurantist homophobes, an inhuman political regime that will stop at nothing.” Still, while he was in the US, he realized he was experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder: depression, hypervigilance, problems sleeping, poor concentration. They got worse as the day of his scheduled return approached. “My psyche and body just told me ‘no,’” he says. He applied for asylum.

Five years later, life for LGBTQ+ Russians is even more harrowing than it was when Sozaev left. Over the past decade, building on the anti-“gay propaganda” laws that had targeted Sozaev, President Vladimir Putin has imposed further restrictions on the freedoms of queer citizens, citing a desire to return the country to “traditional family values.”

Last year, Russia enacted a law banning gender-affirming care. In March, the government added the “LGBT movement” to its list of extremist and terrorist organizations. It represents, says Ksen Pallegedara Murry, an Oregon-based family law attorney who works with LGBTQ+ clients and Russian immigrants, a “direct government campaign targeting the extermination of queers.” As authorities raid gay bars, queer Russians have moved off of open social networks and onto private Telegram chats to organize, socialize, and even find the support and resources necessary to flee.

“Telegram is now an empowerment tool for Russian LGBTQ+ people,” Sozaev says. It gives them the “opportunity to feel and see that they are not alone. This breaks down isolation and restores people's belief in their strengths.” Since arriving in the US, he has started his own Telegram channel to provide help to the Russian-speaking LGBTQ+ community in the US. It has more than 2,000 individual subscribers, a number that doesn’t include the people who view it without subscribing.

Sozaev’s channel is one of many, though exactly how many is all but impossible to determine. Roughly half of Russia’s 140 million residents use Telegram, so being on the messaging app itself doesn’t draw unwanted attention. Still, LGBTQ+ citizens routinely create new channels to avoid government surveillance and detection. Under Russia’s latest restrictions, any website deemed to have pro-LGBTQ+ content is added to a national block list, making it inaccessible without a VPN (and even VPNs are in jeopardy). Telegram is the next best option.

Because it allows for large group chats (channels can have unlimited subscribers; groups cap out at 200,000 people) as well as private messages, Telegram gives LGBTQ+ people in Russia and beyond the ability to help each other as a group or one-on-one. But it’s also not ironclad. There are constant worries of government surveillance, and the app has been a hub for the Kremlin’s anti-queer propaganda.

The presence of that propaganda also may provide a bit of cover, says Kyle Walter, global head of investigative research and innovation at Logically. Putin, for example, banned Facebook and Twitter/X in 2022 for failing to toe the line on Russia’s war in Ukraine. Because Telegram purports to be an agnostic platform, the Kremlin can keep its own messages on it while drowning out messages from actual queer Russians. “Because they're able to utilize Telegram so significantly in their propaganda and disinformation operations,” Walter says, “there's less of an onus to crack down on it.”

Still, Walter notes, there’s always speculation that the Kremlin has access to the platform’s backend data, and it’s risky to openly communicate on the platform as a queer person. (Telegram did not respond to several requests for comment on this story.)

This makes Telegram both an essential tool and one queer Russians use in secret. Adriana Espinosa, the director of cash assistance and emergency travel support with Rainbow Railroad, a nonprofit that helps at-risk LGBTQ+ people worldwide get to safety, explains that the organization is reliant on digital communication “with activists on the ground as well as persons facing persecution,” but wouldn’t say which messaging apps or platforms the organization uses, citing security concerns. Espinosa added that assisting queer people in Russia has become harder in recent months, and some grassroots orgs on the ground have had to cease operations.

“We cannot disclose specific details of how we support the relocation of individuals, as this would jeopardize their safety and our ability to support them,” Espinosa says. “The Russian LGBTQI+ community is resilient, and some individuals have found their own ways of leaving the country.”

Telegram’s centrality to the lives of Russians, LGBTQ+ and otherwise, dates back to its launch. Founded in Russia in 2013, Telegram now claims nearly a billion users worldwide. Practically since its founding, though, experts have wondered how safe those users’ data is. Although often referred to as “secure,” it only offers end-to-end encryption in its “secret” chats. On messaging apps like Signal, end-to-end encryption is the default.

Despite this, Telegram has become popular among groups worldwide looking to organize. In the US, it’s a hub for QAnon conspiracy theorists and extremists; it was also reportedly used by those calling for disruptions at President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021. Several far-right channels were kicked off the platform around the same time. It’s also been a gathering place for extremists in the UK and Ireland.

Iran outright banned Telegram in 2018 after it was used to organize street protests against the regime the previous year. The ban had serious implications for activists, journalists, and others seeking to exchange information. Russia also attempted to block the app in 2018, after founder Pavel Durov refused to hand over user data to the Kremlin. Those efforts ultimately failed, and the ban was lifted in 2020. Durov made a similar commitment to protect the data of users in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion of that country in 2022. Security experts expressed concern, but Telegram has remained a popular news and communication tool in the region.

Telegram’s prevalence as a far-right hub in some parts of the world and a place for both pro- and anti-LGBTQ+ content in Russia gets at broader questions of moderation and regulation on social media platforms. Any platform that’s not trying to crack down on any type of content, Walter notes, will become “a place where people who are not able to express themselves freely on mainstream platforms are gonna move, because they just feel safer posting there.”

As Russia’s war in Ukraine has continued, it has embarked on a campaign to eradicate what it sees as the West’s influence, including acceptance of queer people. Walter notes that some anti-LGBTQ+ Telegram propaganda campaigns in the region go so far as to claim Ukraine is training its soldiers to be gay. Nine months into the conflict, the country’s parliament passed a law criminalizing attempts to promote “nontraditional sexual relations” in everything from movies to ads to online posts.

“The restrictions, which render life precarious for LGBT+ individuals in Russia, have a much more ambitious purpose—to consolidate conservative support at home and position Russia as the defender of ‘traditional values,’” Graeme Reid, the director of Human Rights Watch’s LGBTQ+ rights program, wrote last year. That precariousness has only increased in the year since.

Before Sozaev fled Russia, his primary organizing tool and social media hub had been Facebook. A Russian court banned Facebook, along with Instagram, in 2022, labeling the Meta platforms as “extremist.” The ruling spared WhatsApp, but for organizers like Sozaev, Telegram has become their meeting place.

Still, LGBTQ+ people remain cautious. Some of their public Telegram channels have been targeted, indicating that the government is watching. Anyone who uses their real name on the app risks investigation. Sozaev explains that people often encourage each other to delete the Telegram app from their phones before trying to cross the border. Their devices could be searched, and the presence of the app could put them in jeopardy and prevent them from being allowed out of the country. Telegram groups also provide tutorials instructing LGBTQ+ people on what they should do if they are being questioned by Russian authorities.

“Just going on our Telegram channel and seeing concrete steps for how people get out” and then finding community with other LGBTQ+ Russians is what is most effective, says Maxim Ibadov, the national coordinator for RUSA LGBTQ+, a nonprofit formed in 2008 to support Russian-speaking queer people in the US.

There are about 1,000 people on RUSA LGBTQ+’s Telegram channel, and although most members are US-based, people in Russia frequently reach out to the organization looking for ways out of the country. Often, people active in the chat connect people looking to escape with organizations like Rainbow Railroad. Others share strategies for where they crossed the border.

Ibadov notes that Telegram is one of the primary ways their organization connects with people trying to leave Russia and community members who have recently arrived in the US and need support rebuilding their lives. “They don’t know where to go, and they might not have the desire or comfort to go to our in-person events at first,” Ibadov explains, noting that being able to follow the RUSA LGBTQ+’s Telegram is a way to build trust and confidence in the organization and its members.

Telegram also helps RUSA LGBTQ+ community leaders know what kinds of support their members need. The organization recently started a Telegram chat for queer-identifying parents after a lesbian couple who made it to the US from Russia reached out looking for opportunities for their children to connect with other kids.

The interactive nature of Telegram also lends itself to community members providing mutual aid to each other. Ibadov says that often someone will come to their Telegram channel to ask about how to access health care or legal support, and before RUSA LGBTQ+ staff or volunteers can respond, numerous community members will have already weighed in.

Ibadov notes that for many LGBTQ+ people in Russia, Telegram is one of the few places they can see people living openly. As a result, they see their organization’s presence on the platform as vital not just for providing resources but also giving hope. “LGBTQ+ people in Russia can’t [publicly] fight; we have to fight for them here,” they say, “so there is hope for them there.”

[lovelyladylavie]

Uzuri: the (unelected leader, its his mission theyre on), so he often gets his way. He's pretty petty, but understands when his team doesn't want to do something. He will remember everything, however.

Chot: He doesn't get his way very much at all. He had an abusive father who objected to everything he ever tried to take an interest in. And now, he's on someone else's mission and has to go along with most everything. The car got too crowded one time, and he had to sit on the roof. The one area he has control is in cooking. He can cook most anything and his friends adore whatever he comes up with.

Rosa: she's about 50/50. Team decisions aren't up to her, and on her home world, even her future was already decided. She's doing her best now to strike out and do her own thing, in her clothes, actions, and fighting style. She's been scraping by since she was born and wants more. She's intent on getting it.

Deliah: Born into a city that was under hypervigillence, she never had much freedom. She's an adult and can do as she pleases personally, but her former job as a toll booth girl had her feeling... boxed in. She's getting her way and running free for the first time in her life. She's getting hers!

-

Renee: As the oldest of three sisters, she's often the leader, and can throw that position around. Will muscle her way to victory.

Lavie: If she can logic her way to getting what she wants, she'll often get it.

Silva: The Baby. Gets everything without a fuss from their uncle.

-

Staris: Living in the 15th century, she doesn't often get what she wants as a woman. Makes plans to do what she needs to do.

Nabola: little to no freedom in the empire, but life on earth as the master of the manor has been very liberating!

Which OC always gets their way?

[shattered-catalyst]

Intro to OCD for the RPC part 1/?

This is a balmy 6 page document on the VERY BASICS of OCD by a person who has had OCD for over 15 years and knows their shit.

If you want to write a character who has OCD this series is going to be a good starting point. If you dont know much about OCD I encourage you to read it so you can be an ally to those of us who have the disorder.

OCD is made into a cultural joke and when there isnt the ‘Obsessive Cat disorder’ bullshit its an angst off with other people and their non-ocd intrusive thoughts. Its different. Do your research and be an ally.

This will cover the very very basics. The next post will look into subtypes of OCD and how those are experienced.

 Whomst can write it? 

Literally anyone as long as you 

● Do so respectfully and not make a mockery of the disorder and the harm it causes in peoples lives 

● Dont make OCD the characters single thing or boil them down to it entirely ● Do respect the experiences and opinions of muns who have the disorder if they have concerns about your portrayal.

● Dont milk it for angst - unless you have OCD in which case release some of your angst.

● Dont try and say you know what intrusive thoughts are because they have *insert any other neuro a-typical thing here* 

● Dont police how Muns who have OCD choose to portray it. Its our experience not yours. I like to write out my characters OCD as I experience OCD so my experiences are different from other muns. OCD is very diverse in its effects but always ask if you arent sure.

. What isnt OCD? 

● Cleanliness or organization- OCD is NEVER an adjective. 

● Planning/ Hypervigilance/Organized/Methodical 

● Turning light switches on and off, unplugging things (find out more on later time)

 ● “I have to organize my pencils otherwise it bothers me” “ I have to make sure my mattress is straight” “ my nails have to be the same length” are all typical responses from people WHO DO NOT have OCD. 

● Making sure objects are lined up neatly 

● Having things go in a particular order like the letters CDO as the joke goes

● Really loving Cats, Corgis, or Christmas; if you own any of these items i urge you to reflect and also send me 10$ (jk but do reflect)

The Barest minimum 

Google OCD this will be an advanced version of OCD. This will be long but if you want to be aware of others or want to write the character you will read it. 

OCD is made of Obsessions. Triggers. Anxiety, Compulsions/Rituals.

1. Obsessions are the thoughts 

2. Triggers are the object/person/image/situation/smell ETC 

3. The Anxiety occurs is at uncomfortable levels to the point of panic or anxiety attacks

 4. Compulsions or Rituals are performed 

*There is a variant of OCD called Pure O. In this individuals have the obsessions triggers and anxiety but there is NO compulsion or ritual. This is still valid OCD. 

Obsessions are the precursors to the flawed unwanted and harmful intrusive thoughts: 

Im going to use you so you really understand this because its important.If you misunderstand this you are basically encouraging a mental health condition and dont get a sticker for reading this far. 

First check out this link as it has ALL the subtypes and examples. 

Obsessions can be hidden by the intrusive thought and teasing them out can be difficult to do if you have the disorder because well its a disorder okay thats why. It boils down to ‘i could harm someone’ ‘i could cause harm’ ‘ i may have accidentally harmed ___’ ‘ i may accidentally harm’ etc 

This is the flawed powerful belief that predate the Intrusive Thought. 

Intrusive thoughts appear in every brain on earth. They are not special or unusual however intrusive thoughts with OCD get stuck in the brain- meaning they stay there no matter what you do. So yes , they are different from intrusive thoughts in other conditions. 

The thing about OCD is that it latches on to what you hold dear; it may be you are a caring person and love children and animals- your OCD would give you intrusive violent or sexual thoughts or images. These are horrible to experience. They are not welcome nor appreciated and there is no benefit or positive side to having them. 

If say social justice is something you hold dear your ocd may take the form of intrusive thoughts of slurs, jokes, visuals etc. These are horrible to experience and lead to high levels of anxiety and are not positive nor beneficial to have in any way shape or form. 

Maybe you would not harm someone or you value others; your OCD may present as graphic intrusive images or thoughts around poisoning, stabbing,accidental..ly murdering (yeah you read that right), hitting, insulting etc someone else 

I must emphasize this because it is critical that people understand POCD: for the sake of those of us who have OCD read this until its burned into your brain. 

This is the fucked up awful Obsessive thought that you are/were/ or could be sexually attracted to children. This is NOT pedophilia. People kill themselves over this because they are afraid that these intrusive thoughts are true. People isolate themselves and dont have families out of fear of harming a child. People take work in different fields or avoid areas with children out of the absolute terror their obsessive thoughts could be true. This is NOT pedophilia. There is NO attraction present.

Most people who experience POCD intrusive thoughts would rather punch a sharknado than even THINK of hurting a kid in any way shape or form. That is why the OCD does its thing it is like having an abusive brain. 

Again for clarity's sake 

If you value social justice -> the intrusive thoughts violate social justice stuff 

If you value animals -> intrusive thoughts come up with harming animals 

If you care about the protection and safety of children -> POCD 

Triggers would be the situation, scenario, object, person,creature, context etc that is related to the Obsession. It can be literally anything. 

What follows is a hell of a lot of anxiety that can range anywhere from discomfort to full on panic attacks. 

Everyone has different intrusive thoughts and everyone experiences different amounts of distress upon being triggered. 

● As a side bar. Do not ever try and expose someone to their triggers or write about a character being exposed to their triggers as a way to help ‘cure them’ or ‘expose them’ to ANYTHING. What you are doing is literally taking someone with a mental illness and shoving them into a breakdown and thats a piece of shit move. Exposure therapy does exist and is done by professionals TRAINED in ERP. My parents did this a lot and I am positive I am not alone in that experience. 

Compulsions or Rituals: Now you may be saying ‘hey i know what those are’ yeah dude me too and I have had ocd for over 15 years and trained in mental health for 7 and guess what. They teach ya wrong. 

Compulsions or ‘rituals’ are any behavior done to alleviate the anxiety from the intrusive thought and trigger object. 

This can be as passive as ‘i am leaving the room’ ‘ i am checking my body sensations’ ‘ i am trying SO HARD TO HEAR MY HEARTBEAT’ .

 It can also be repeating the same thing over and over. To illustrate this I once mentally chanted the same song lyric line on a 3 hour plane ride because otherwise we were all going to die. I took one for the whole team.

It can be somatic things like counting your heart beats, focusing on your breathing, swallowing, staring and not blinking for so many seconds. 

It can be readjusting clothing until the seams fit. It can be checking god yes checking IK its a common trope but it IS a compulsion that has ruined my life and can be as passive as checking my reality or texting for proof my cat is still alive. It can also be checking yourself for assurance you wouldnt do the intrusive thought or that the intrusive thought isnt going to happen.

Compulsions are mentally painful and sometimes physically painful; 

● Washing your hands with scalding water for 5+ minutes can lead to horribly dry and cracking skin to down right BURNS.

● If you do the same movement you can mess up joints and ligaments. So if you pray constantly you may have knee issues from standing and kneeling.

● If your compulsion has you doing movement against an object ie say gripping and regripping something you get callouses. 

● If you compulsively exercise you may get trapped doing something above a healthy amount or say going from not working out to running a five minute mile and wiping out on a treadmill because your brain demanded it. Totally didnt do that... 

● If your compulsions make you rub against any object you can get friction burns and scars. 

To put this in perspective 15 years of compulsions have left my hands and finger joints a complete mess, damaged my arm tendons, friction scars on my arms that only now faded, and scars on my legs from doing too much of an activity. 

Its not lmao I gotta fix these pencils its real agony and real torture. 

In short compulsions and rituals are not fun they are absolutely not logical, and we know they are not logical but we are forced to do them. Thats why its a disorder. 

OCD disrupts relationships with social components such as ; 

Obsessively checking in with partner/friend if things are ‘okay’ (this feels horrible to do too fyi like you KNOW things are fine but you cant NOT because the anxiety is SO BAD), 

Relationship OCD is a WHOLE category itself! this ties into sexuality OCD where your obsessive thoughts prey on your sexuality (regardless of your orientation), your relationship, cheating or being disloyal etc.

OCD causes significant withdrawal from others, fears of being a monster, intense guilt over intrusive thoughts, disgust with yourself over the intrusive thoughts sometimes leading to self punishment. 

OCD leads to strange behavior which more often than not leads to bullying and ostracization. To exemplify this I have an intrusive thought that I have stolen something when I am inside stores, my check-check-check-check-check-recheck! of my pockets gets me store security called so often its criminal.

OCD limits activities that may expose them to triggers or influenced by intrusive thoughts ie: not being able to take the train to work or only getting off at bus stops with even numbers.

OCD impacts where they spend time, who they associate with, what jobs they take or even if they have a family or not

OCD leads to overwhelming feelings of guilt, shame, and fear over having intrusive thoughts or images that they experience which causes them to socially isolate or have difficulty in social situations. 

OCD leads to Hyperfixation: like a lot of other things but thankfully it is just hyperfixation and not different from other diagnoses. 

OCD leads to rigidity or structured routines: I have listened to the same CD in my car for 5 years now. Every single day. 5 Years.And Im not okay with that. 

OCD impacts standards we hold ourselves to and others: its like regular perfectionism but like add on 5 extra layers of anxiety! 

OCD according to NIMH statistics 

1.2% Occurrence among US adults 

2.3% Lifetime Prevalence among US adults 

34.8% Of Adults who have OCD suffer moderate impairment to daily functioning 50.6% of Adults who have OCD suffer serious impairment to daily functioning

OCD has strong co-morbidity with the following:

Tourettes Syndrome- is a genetic friend of OCD and if you have tourettes or OCD your chances of having someone else in the family is high

ADHD

Autism 

GAD

Eating Disorders

Depression - this is a big one along with low self esteem because of the intrusive thoughts

Writers like to make jokes about characters “being OCD” well now they have clinical OCD and you should consider fleshing out your character with this information just as you would any other disorder.

Batman (DC)

Riddler (?)(DC)

Domino (Marvel)

 Cyclops (Marvel)

[sugar-petals]

Hi, I was wondering do you have any ideas on how exo biases reflect in us the same way our bts bias does?

ok so, this goes after the same “how we pick our bias based on our struggles” / “what gift of ours they reflect” format.

kyungsoo

what you believe you lack: ability to maneuver throught the trials and utter chaos of life. you find it hard to keep cool, set bounaries, and do things precisely your way. you long for being a compelling, subtle, and collected character who handles everything thrown at them. you often wish human nature would confuse and faze you less. you wish that everyone just does their job and won’t cause upheaval. you wish all was better regulated and things taken care of.

your potential and gifts: you’re a devoted family person and aspire for peaceful living. meanwhile, a part of you is highly logical and assertive. you are extremely efficent and always the one to arrive at the finish line first because you’re so focused and single-minded. your smile is innocent. people think you’re cool for liking RnB. you’re great with animals and a genuinely good friend. you’re loyal.

jongdae

what you believe you lack: you assume you’re naturally unintelligent and don’t fit in, have nothing valuable to say even when you try very hard. you think others will exclude or step on you and not consider your opinion. you’re anxious that you end up silenced and scorned at, made a sheep. you fear that you’re not outstanding or interesting at all in any regard, or live up to high expectations.

your potential and gifts: a meme machine, someone who truly pursues what they want. you are humankind at its most brave when you realize that you can direct circumstances to your wishes more than your former powerless self thought. you can go against any outdated norm you want and get away with it. people like you for being a renegade, not for taming yourself and biting your tongue. people support you when and because (!) you speak the truth.

yixing

what you believe you lack: a shield to protect you from how invasive reality is, all while you’re afraid to lose touch completely. you feel left out or squarely pushed to be on our own devices. you feel discriminated against or entirely underestimated. you feel like you could never achieve a sense of pride or show your true colors. you want harmony and fairness but are proven otherwise everywhere you look.

your potential and gifts: you are dignified, sexy, cool, smooth, and talented. show stopper potential right here. you cannot be overlooked because you are a royal. you have a sense of justice and treat everyone with the same base line of respect. you’re deep. you are cute and the least likely to annoy an introvert or sensitive person which you can interpret as a certificate for a sound character. you work hard and take things seriously.

suho

what you believe you lack: the skill to make everything happen the way it should. in fact, “shoulds” govern your life. life made you disappointed and a misanthrope. you know that you can still be frustrated and overworked if you have everything others wish they had. the dark side of responsibility or your attempt to seize it is eating you alive. you wish you had real support and encouragement.

your potential and gifts: that patience is something only surpassed by water washing down a stone. you believe in etiquette, you’re the old school and you’re damn right, manners are there for a reason. also, yes, you are attractive and look very elegant to others. you are welcome in every household. other people may disappoint you, but you are no disappointment to others.

baekhyun

what you believe you lack: you’re emotionally, sexually, romantically, and socially deprived to extreme degrees. you often feel a sense of numbness, coldness, loneliness, demotivation, unimportance and lack of purpose in the greater scheme. your worldview is cynical bordering nihilistic. you find it hard to connect meaningfully and never feel you know the right thing to say/do. you are conventionally attractive but got left behind in the dating race. you isolate yourself. you have severe body image issues. you depend on others valuing you more than the average person and feel bad because you think it’s a bottomless pit that nobody can fill, not even you.

your potential and gifts: you’re the determining factor in a social setting. others admire you. in fact, they are obsessed. your ambition is boundless. you know how to protect yourself. you’re a professional, invoking jealousy and awe wherever you go. other people do love and respect you, you’re just way out of their league for them to word it your way. you have the midas touch, all you pick up as a project turns to gold.

minseok

what you believe you lack: organization and sweetness in life, something to stir things up. you’re feeling like you are caught in eternal boredom and chores and it’s driving you insane. hell, you are against this entire system, the rat cage is turning you into a hypervigilant. you wish for more diversion in your life. you want to really raise the roof but are haunted by a terrifying restraint from within yourself.

your potential and gifts: you can bring order to things and speak frankly. people see that you are a dark horse, understated but still always to be reckoned with. people like you for your curiosity, constructiveness, and ease to be around. they feel safe and comforted around you. you don’t seem to age since years. you are great at all leisure and ever-pleasant.

jongin

what you believe you lack: what you beat yourself up for is that you feel like a slob who can’t engage others no matter what you do. you feel isolated, un-dateable, weak, always pushed to the fringes. you think you need to be nicer, fitter, sexier, fiercer, and more popular and adapted to be accepted. you wish you had more pizzazz and appeal. you never thought you could cause a stir or get any attention. you retreat from the world a lot and rein in your energy.

your potential and gifts: even if you’re not actively athletic, you do have it in you. your body is in better shape than you accuse yourself for day by day. you get one with music and naturally stand up for yourself. others can’t do you no wrong. despite what you say to yourself, you have nice skin. you’re always the most passionate person in the room.

sehun

what you believe you lack: excellence — you assume you’re always meh in everything. or vice versa, you have unacknowledged expertise, something you can’t make a reality. you feel like you’d have to take life more seriously but you’re just floating on, closed up, annoyed, overlooked, even cast out. you wish you knew the balance of speaking your mind and acting with compassion. 

your potential and gifts: people think you’re cute no matter what you do. nor do they criticize your moral standards unlike you assume they do. they think you are nice and forthcoming all while being what you are, a badass bitch. you are universally envied and well-known in your circle, believe it or not. people would kill for your silhouette.

chanyeol

what you believe you lack: you think your life has been going down the drain ever since. everything feels dull. deep down, there’s nothing else but sadness and exclusion from all the important things. you wish you had more overview and a bigger emotional and physical presence. you wish more people would love and support and hype you. you hardly find excitement these days, it’s all dragging you down

your potential and gifts: even if you might feel lost in social situations, you still have your aims and you should very well stick to your motives. you are fine-tuned to people and help others out. you can safely leave the rocket science in florida: you don’t have to be a born sunshine, superman, or a model to get by. a good heart and a dose of charm is enough down the line. the secret to a happy life is not in looks nor attitude but how you uplift others.

[gateauxes]

the war on gender terror

At this point in my life, the presence of mostly-white liberal feminism is inescapable. While I'm excited to see more people taking baby steps to a radical analysis, largely I am frustrated. On the other hand, involuntary exposure to popular feminism is the reason why I'm noticing a trend in it. Here's my report from where I'm standing: the liberal feminists don't know it, but reactionaries are trying to scare them.

Reactionary feminist projects begin the same way as any other reactionary project - concern trolling liberals over topics at arms' length from the main goals of exclusion and domination. With regard to reactionary feminists the progression of topics are well-known: women's sports & 'human trafficking', then domestic violence shelters & kinky porn, then policing gender-segregated bathrooms, defunding trans healthcare, and opposing sex work of any kind. I've been watching a pessimistic thread emerge in liberal feminist (and radical!) circles which I believe has been pushed into place by reactionary feminists. This bio-pessimism places women into a perpetual state of victimhood that can never truly end due to the essential rapacious nature of men. If this seems like the same shit the second-wave lesbian separatists were peddling, that's because it is. What I want to question is how today's essentialist pessimism differs from its initial appearance.

RADFEMS ARE OBSESSED WITH DICK

Reactionary feminists have not dispensed with a religious-conservative perspective on the power of the penis - and by extension they imagine women identically to how the rest of the right views women. The penis, apparently, is the mechanism by which rape becomes possible. Therefore, any engagement with a person with a penis is a grave risk. Vulnerability is a mistake if you might be dealing with a rapist. The MeToo movement activated an enormous public forum about how incredibly prevalent the violence is, but I now see it used as a tool for re-framing this prevalence as a biological reality. (MeToo, even without being used as a tool, was ineffective at acknowledging that violence is perpetrated by all sorts of people). An explosion of survivors talking openly about violence as an unacceptable status quo has been infiltrated by reactionary feminists who whisper that this is the fate of all women, always. The new bio-law absorbs the third wave's progress in acknowledging diversity of experience - right up to the point where it would be forced to note that sexual nature, like categories of racially-dictated nature, is a myth.

This pessimism rooted in the power of the penis is hypervigilance beyond a realistic assessment of risk. (I also blame true crime podcasts and the media in general) This is not the careful awareness of one's surroundings which comes naturally to many of us. What I'm describing is avoiding going out at all, because of statistics on sexual violence which may not even reflect the risks in the neighbourhood. This, for instance, is purchasing and insuring a vehicle for the express purpose of avoiding public transit. I frequently notice that popular discussion of domestic violence neglects to mention the disproportion of violence toward people with disabilities, asserting that all of us have identical risk. Ultimately, this is the justification for a culture of exclusion as the only recourse to the ever-present threat of men. The fortress must be defended, and the enemy could be anywhere.

BUT HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GET LAID?

I do not want love or children, so my interest in sex is purely recreational. I have been told this is not in line with my female nature - I stand before you deviant and happy. However, anyone attracted to men must grapple with the contradiction of desire and very real risks. I support caution, and even precaution. My concern is with a bio-law that requires a baseline of suspicion if one is to survive, the assumption that one is always a moment away from violence. To be explicit, how am I supposed to have fun when I am letting the enemy penetrate my figurative fortress?

I think this is why kink is such a problem for reactionary feminists. The only way to make the horror of sleeping with the enemy worse is to find that some people like to confront, satirize, and role play the power dynamic. To choose recreational pain or literal bondage flies in the face of the notion that a woman’s lot is to be in constant pain, and to tolerate penetration as a miserable necessity. The reactionary feminist must sleep with one eye open, aware that her biology has already sealed her fate, and mitigate vulnerability by excluding the threat, since she can’t defend herself (biologically speaking). This is why trans women can’t stay at the domestic violence shelter, this is why you should worry for your life if your boyfriend watches kinky porn. As with vanilla dating, there are true risks - and reasonable precautions. But kink is about play with vulnerability - there is no room for play under the martial law of bio-pessimism. By hijacking post-MeToo popular feminism, reactionaries can reinsert the bone-chilling suggestion that it’s all rape, all the time. All the men want kinky sex, because it’s the closest they can come to hurting women the way they secretly wish to. According to this logic, the only way to safely navigate the risk is constant surveillance of men, the self, and any woman who could be a traitor. He’d better not be watching kinky porn, you’d better not be watching kinky porn, and the women in the kinky porn are either hapless victims or remorseless collaborators. Once we have arrived at this point, it’s obvious why the next step is a crusade against any pornography, and a mission to ensure that kink is understood as something men want and women tolerate. 

How can reactionary feminists get this done? By linking the prevalence of trauma with the increased visibility of alternative sexuality & gender, from kink-at-pride to polyamory to transcending assigned gender. They ask, do you feel uncomfortable when you see all this change? We’ve all been traumatized - who do these people think they are, flaunting a lifestyle that feels wrong to feminists like you? You should trust your gut, they urge. Perform a little more vigilance to be sure you’re safe. If you find yourself unable to open a dating app or sit next to a man on the bus without feeling deep dread and revulsion, that’s vigilance, and realistic given the state of things. Any - and most - men mean women harm.

REDPILLS AND RADFEMS BELIEVE THE SAME SHIT

Incels hate women, reactionary feminists love a certain kind of woman. This distinction is relevant, especially since incels pose a physical threat to women in general whereas reactionary feminists only attack trans people, black athletes, sex workers, the wrong kind of queers, kinksters, child athletes... Despite their own active hostility toward many types of women, reactionary feminists hold up incels/redpillers/the far right as evidence of the threat that all women live under. There is no doubt that women face misogynist and antifeminist violence. Reactionary feminists are are far from the only ones highlighting this. What’s worth investigating are the given reasons that a target is vulnerable, and what should be done to mitigate risk in the future. In these, an incel and a reactionary feminist are in perfect harmony. Instead of a realistic assessment of risk at an individual level, or an assessment of group dynamics that allowed a survivor-victim to fall through the cracks, both parties will insist that all women are simply unsafe at all times. This notion suits a reactionary feminist’s goal of closed-rank suspicion, and an incel’s dream of terrified submission. This perspective neglects to really ask why things turned out the way they did, because that’s not the point. Whether women are innately inferior or innately vulnerable, we must travel in flocks if we want to survive. The reactionary feminist offers herself as the shepherd, having assured the flock that the enemy is close at hand. Women cannot, of course, be a pack of wolves. Members of a wolf pack work cooperatively but diverge at will.

THE WAR ON GENDER TERROR

The cumulative effect of this mindset and focus is a miserable hypervigilance, which is further hostile to any who are not miserable and vigilant. We know this scrutiny well from living inside a war on terror, which resulted in a vast expansion of state power to exclude, surveil, and punish. Because they have not abandoned their desire to dominate, reactionary feminists would like to do the same along the lines of gender law. Exclusion requires a concrete set of criteria by which a person can be marked acceptable or unacceptable, and there is trouble when a person shifts between the two. Whether you’re an immigration agent or an officer of the gender police, you’ve got to demonize those who shift, and shifting itself. Special attention should be paid to possible ulterior motives. At the overt end, this looks like the myth of the predatory trans woman and the slavery-complicit sex worker. However, these will not be widely accepted until the audience is made nervous by less ridiculous threats with a basis in reality. Sex trafficking is real, and pickup artists really do share tips online about how to pick up, manipulate, and coerce women. However, alarmist chain-mail suggesting that ‘gang members’ are stealing women off the street via box trucks does not reflect reality, but rather supposes that the threat could be any construction worker or labourer with a truck. Given the way people of colour are disproportionately represented in blue-collar work, the implications of this racially-biased hypervigilance should be obvious. The rapid dissemination of information (true or false) online is useful when stoking fear of ulterior motives. Genuine desire to spread a message that could save another woman fuels the sharing of partially-true and emotionally charged statements. Given the existence of incel and pickup artist subcultures, it seems believable that most men could have consumed advice on how to covertly film during sex, or remove a condom without being noticed. Whether that is true or not is irrelevant - the thing to do is be cautious. No matter how they seem, anyone could be concealing their motives. It begins to make sense to suspect a male social worker, or police bathrooms. Furthermore, failure to agree to this assessment of risk is evidence of insufficient solidarity with the rest of the female sex. Solidarity is imperative, given the horrors made visible by feminists who just want to protect women. Inaction could suggest complicity, and asking for a source on a claim is indicative that one does not believe victims. An avalanche of scorn awaits those who ask questions out of turn. the terror cannot end until the defenses are fortified and the infiltrators exposed. As footage of atrocities is replayed during news coverage of foreign occupations, the danger inherent in womanhood must be grimly acknowledged when we consider stepping out into the world.

WHAT IS MY POINT?

Reactionary feminists cling to the second-wave notion of sex and gender as stable categories by which most oppression can be measured. For reactionary feminist strategies to be accepted by a popular feminism informed by intersectionality, popular feminists must at least partially believe in the inherent vulnerability of women or the base instincts of men. While this sentiment was more readily at hand during the second wave of feminism, third wave feminism resists homogenizing by sex, race, or class. While white liberal/popular feminism has an embarrassing tendency to acknowledge intersectionality only out of politeness and/or use it as a cudgel, even performative acknowledgement is a ward against overt essentialist dogma. For this reason, reactionary feminists must harness movements like MeToo, incel attacks, and further misconstrue actual misogynist violence to encourage hypervigilance against terror. The war on gender terror perverts the desire to confront diverse facets of misogyny into the pursuit of covert internal threats. The war compels commitment to defending the home front. A feeling of perpetual vulnerability is the perfect environment for the proliferation of exclusionary strategy. We must feel our goodness and our weakness to the core. Fully enjoying relationships with men, sexual diversity, and private moments of peace are collateral in pursuit of remaining ever-vigilant.

[moldbreakcr]

this whole interaction has had reno flipping from annoyance to compassion and sympathy. he gets being hot-headed and acting before thinking. maybe had the situation been different, reno would tell kuja of the times he's been coached and lectured for his behavior. or the danger he's put himself in because he let his own emotions get the better of him. reno suspected kuja was too stubborn to see, but they were similar.

on the other hand, shouldn't kuja have expected this? or had he been consequence free for so long that he thought this would be okay? reno doesn't know. it's not his business.

however, when kuja starts speaking, the annoyance wins out. reno tries. he takes a deep breath and squeezes his eyes shut because the last thing anyone needs is some pissed off people.

"i'm sorry, have you met rufus? he's not known for picking up on people's intentions. maybe you shoulda used some sense n' known these fuckin' assholes have been out to get you from day one. they have been testing you since you finally qualified to be rufus' bodyguard and work directly with him. they have wanted to prove you couldn't do this. they have been waiting for this exact goddamn moment and you fell right into it."

its less that he gets his anger and annoyance sorted, but he works it out in his brain and allows a logical thought. however, his tone still indicates a sense of irritation.

"i doubt this is an argument those guys will make, but from the standpoint of more observant folk, what you did shows that you are rash and impulsive. as a bodyguard, you are expected to be aware of those around you, especially when it comes to rufus. you need to be hypervigilant to a point of being able to guess possible intentions and someone's next move. you might've just disqualified yourself."

a sigh. a pause.

"but, like i said. rufus is arguing. has been. i can say he is one stubborn little bastard when he wants to be, so who knows what will happen next. i can only tell you based on past observations. how things have happened."

Back to the labs. Back to the labs.

The silver tail froze instantly, as Kuja's expression dropped. The words seemed to echo and increase with every breath taken. He wasn'r going to have a breakdown here- that wasn't going to happen, he told himself firmly.

Back to the labs.

Rufus had really been doing damage control the entire time trying to make sure that it didn't happen? Part of him was sure that he'd caused problems to the point Rufus wished he could do it, not that the blonde would fight for him to stay away from it.

Back to the labs.

"Why didn't he say anything?" He whispered into the silence that followed Reno's words. Kuja raised his voice as he looked at Reno. "Why didn't he tell me? Was that... That idiot just meant to rile me up? I fell for it didn't I? Fuck!" Kuja covered his face as he shouted at the end, the fur on his tail and hair slowly changing from silver to red even as he tried to get his emotions under control.

[gothamblacka]

cognitive assessment.

bold all that apply to your muse’s current mental state; italicise any that apply to your muse’s past mental state — repost don’t reblog !

alcoholism: or alcohol use disorder ( aud ), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems.

amnesia: a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

anxiety: a mental health disorder characterised by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities.

appetite loss: a reduced desire to eat.

binge eating: a psychological illness characterised by frequently eating excessive amounts of food, often when not hungry.

co-dependence: dysfunctional and maladaptive relationship reliant on another person’s dependence on the affected individual.

cynicism: an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self interest ( scepticism ), or to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile ( pessimism ).

defensiveness: the tendency to be sensitive to comments and criticism and to deny them. to constantly protect oneself from criticism, exposure of one’s shortcomings, or other real or perceived threats to the go.

depersonalisation: a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not belonging to oneself.

depression: a mental health disorder characterised by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

derealisation: alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal.

devaluation: defense mechanism used when a person attributes themselves, an object, or another person as completely flawed, worthless, or as having exaggerated negative qualities.

displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object or goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

dissociation: is any state of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences, such as a disconnect from reality.

drug abuse: the extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances.

dysphoria: a state of unease, or generalised dissatisfaction with life.

emotional detachment: an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, as well as coping with anxiety by avoiding certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as “ emotional numbing ” or dissociation.

flashbacks: an involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of said experience.

flat affect: a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. they may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic.

guilt: a cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realises — accurately or not — that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for it.

hallucinations: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

hypersomnia: or excessive sleepiness, is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

hypervigilance: an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity.

hypochondria: ( also known as illness anxiety disorder ) is a condition in which a person is inordinately worried about having a serious illness.

idealization: the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than reality.

insomnia: a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. they may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. insomnia is usually followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood.

intellectualization: a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress — where thinking is used to avoid feeling. it involves removing one’s self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

introjection: regarded as the process where the subject replicates in themselves behaviours, attributes, or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. cognate concepts include identification, incorporation, and internalisation.

isolation: a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory characterized by individuals defending themselves from possible threats by mentally and physically isolating themselves. by minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or the self concept.

low self esteem: a person with low self esteem feels unworthy, incapable, and incompetent.

narcissism: is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. narcissistic personality disorder ( npd ) is a personality disorder in which there is a long term pattern of abnormal behaviour characterised by exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of other’s feelings.

night terrors: also known as a sleep terror, is a sleep disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurs during the first hours of stage three to four rapid eye movement ( nrem ) sleep.

obsessive compulsion: obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ocd ) is a common, chromic, and long — lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts ( obsessions ) and behaviours ( compulsions ) that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.

panic attacks: a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and debilitating anxiety.

passive aggression: a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish a required task.

paranoia: the irrational and persistent feeling that people are “ out to get you. ” the three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

phobias: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

projection: psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. it involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

rationalization: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable and superior — by plausible means.

regression: a psychological defense mechanism in which a person abandons age — appropriate coping strategies in favor of earlier, more childlike patterns of behavior. this regression is a form of retreat, bringing back a time when the person feels safe and taken care of.

risky sex: risky sexual behavior is commonly defined as behavior that increases the probability of contracting sexually transmitted infections, diseases, becoming pregnant, or making a partner pregnant. drug use is associated with risky sexual behavior.

somatisation: the manifestation of psychological distress by the presentation of bodily symptoms.

splitting: ( also called black — and — white thinking or all — or — nothing thinking ) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

sublimation: is a mature type of defence mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long — term conversion of the initial impulse.

suicidal ideation: ( also known as suicidal thoughts ) is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide. the range of suicidal ideation varies from fleeting thoughts, to extensive thoughts, to detailed planning, roleplaying, and incomplete attempts.

sleepwalking: formally known as somnambulism, is a behaviour disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviours while asleep. it is more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived.

suppression: the act of stopping oneself from thinking or feeling something. it is generally assumed ineffective because even if you suppress or hold back an emotion, like anger, that feeling returns with a vengeance.

thousand yard stare: a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of soldiers who have become emotionally detached from the horrors around them. it is also sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.

triggers: something that sets of a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of their emotional trauma. triggers are very personal ; different things can trigger different people. the survivor may begin to avoid situations and stimuli that they think triggered the flashback.

trust issues: a person with these kinds of thoughts may construct social barriers as a defense mechanism to ensure that trust is not lost again. these barriers are often a person’s way of avoid the pain, rejection, or guilt associated with mistrust.

violence: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

temper: a reflection of irritation or rage, a propensity to be angered rapidly.

tagged : stolen tagging: @viclentheart @enygma @falsedking​ @cathief @0000004479 @sonicanary @prettybird @greenpuns,  @batvvmn, @starxhal , @btwng , @quinzotic , @chaoticblondes, @gctjinxd , @bulletballet , @reincarnatedhawk , @bcthound , @charmher

[drdemonprince]

@drdemonprince

Inspired by my bud @charmhausmarket

♬ Tarot Trick_Death Card - Aeryn Ken

TikTok Tarot Death Card challenge because I saw it on @floofybitch’s feed. 

Stop what you’re doing and find your nearest Tarot Deck. 

Locate the Death Card.

Pay attention to the order.

The card in front of it is what you need to focus on.

The card behind it is what you need to leave behind.

The card to focus on: The Emperor. 

What did I tell you guys!! It’s insane how often the Emperor comes up for me. The emperor represents logic, rationality, acquired wisdom and power, authority, stability, being a boss ass paternalistic masculine bitch. For me this card typically appears when I need to remember that I have got shit under control, can trust my own judgement, and stop trying to hide or bury the power that I have and just use it/own up to its existence. 

What I need to leave behind: The Empress (Reversed) 

If The Emperor is the classically masculine / paternalistic card, the Empress represents the stereotypically feminine: creativity, sensitivity, intuition, fertility, connection, and harmony. Reversed, it can represent being stuck or lost, a blockage to growth, or a creative block, which I found interesting as someone who just finished working on a book and isn’t sure what is going to come next and was planning to take a long break. (But who has been writing a lot of late, just not necessarily work writing). I’ve been taking it sleazy the last couple of weeks, having fun and resting up after a long long year of lots of writing and toil and planting seeds, so it’s funny to be told right now that I need to leave behind frivilous things that don’t carry me forward. 

What does this mean? I don’t think it means the most obvious interpretation, which would be that I need to stop faffing about and get back to being a boss with a lot of agency who creates things and pushes forward and makes things happen. No, I’ve had a whole year of desperate productivity and it was fueled by a sense of obligation, panic, fear of not making the most of my opportunities, and all kinds of weak-dicked motivations. I keep needing to remember to trust myself instead. 

For the first half of the pandemic I was feeling very insecure, desperate to prove my worthiness by working very hard and planting a lot of seeds for myself in hopes they’d grow into lasting projects. I was also doing a lot to tend to other people, emotionally and socially, and found it all terribly exhausting. And ultimately it did not work out well for me; I tried to care for other people and it created a lot of problems, because sometimes I took responsibility for the harmony of the group and the comfort of people who didn’t get along with one another, and that meant I got involved in some conflicts that ought to have nothing to do with me. and I just spent a lot of time wondering if i was being a good person or doing the right things and being very needlessly apologetic and agreeable to a degree that was almost cowardly and dishonest. 

I also stopped testosterone during this time and settled into a more feminine appearance, which was not consciously related, but thematically here is definitely relevant. The pandemic and the loneliness and vulnerability of it made me desperate to not anger people, to smooth things over, to repair bonds, to people please, to emotionally stifle myself, and as soon as I stopped listening to that and started being more confident, agentic, full-throated, and willing to disappoint, the better off i felt and the better my relationships were. 

I think what this reading means is that I need to stop trying to live up to some feminine ideal that I have never, ever wanted to actually be. I am not good at taking care of other people on an intuitive level. I do not thrive when I focus on every other person’s minute emotional reaction to things. I can be caring but I don’t need to be hypervigilant for distress, or other’s emotions, or try to manage those things for others, or try to be soft and pleasant and plugged in and intuitive. i can be me, i can be brusque and take up space and have strong opinions, disagree with people, miss when someone is implying something but not saying it outright and not let it be my problem unless they actually tell me about it, and set my own goals for myself rather than try to keep my agent and dean and random friends who bedgrudge me my imperfections happy. i can stop feeling apologetic for my masculine traits and just own them. 

or maybe i have the reading order completely backwards here and it’s the opposite. LOL 

[9ths]

cognitive assessment. bold all that apply to your muse’s current mental state; italicise any that apply to your muse’s past mental state — repost don’t reblog !

alcoholism: or alcohol use disorder ( aud ), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems.

amnesia: a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

anxiety: a mental health disorder characterised by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities.

appetite loss: a reduced desire to eat.

binge eating: a psychological illness characterised by frequently eating excessive amounts of food, often when not hungry.

co-dependence: dysfunctional and maladaptive relationship reliant on another person’s dependence on the affected individual.

cynicism: an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self interest ( scepticism ), or to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile ( pessimism ).

defensiveness: the tendency to be sensitive to comments and criticism and to deny them. to constantly protect oneself from criticism, exposure of one’s shortcomings, or other real or perceived threats to the go.

depersonalisation: a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not belonging to oneself.

depression: a mental health disorder characterised by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

derealisation: alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal.

devaluation: defense mechanism used when a person attributes themselves, an object, or another person as completely flawed, worthless, or as having exaggerated negative qualities.

displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object or goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

dissociation: is any state of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences, such as a disconnect from reality.

drug abuse: the extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances.

dysphoria: a state of unease, or generalised dissatisfaction with life.

emotional detachment: an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, as well as coping with anxiety by avoiding certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as “ emotional numbing ” or dissociation.

flashbacks: an involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of said experience.

flat affect: a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. they may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic.

guilt: a cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realises — accurately or not — that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for it.

hallucinations: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

hypersomnia: or excessive sleepiness, is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

hypervigilance: an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity.

hypochondria: ( also known as illness anxiety disorder ) is a condition in which a person is inordinately worried about having a serious illness.

idealisation: the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than reality.

insomnia: a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. they may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. insomnia is usually followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood.

intellectualisation: a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress — where thinking is used to avoid feeling. it involves removing one’s self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

introjection: regarded as the process where the subject replicates in themselves behaviours, attributes, or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. cognate concepts include identification, incorporation, and internalisation.

isolation: a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory characterized by individuals defending themselves from possible threats by mentally and physically isolating themselves. by minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or the self concept.

low self esteem: a person with low self esteem feels unworthy, incapable, and incompetent.

narcissism: is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. narcissistic personality disorder ( npd ) is a personality disorder in which there is a long term pattern of abnormal behaviour characterised by exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of other’s feelings.

night terrors: also known as a sleep terror, is a sleep disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurs during the first hours of stage three to four rapid eye movement ( nrem ) sleep.

obsessive compulsion: obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ocd ) is a common, chromic, and long — lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts ( obsessions ) and behaviours ( compulsions ) that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.

panic attacks: a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and debilitating anxiety.

passive aggression: a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish a required task.

paranoia: the irrational and persistent feeling that people are “ out to get you. ” the three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

phobias: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

projection: psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. it involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

rationalization: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable and superior — by plausible means.

regression: a psychological defense mechanism in which a person abandons age — appropriate coping strategies in favor of earlier, more childlike patterns of behavior. this regression is a form of retreat, bringing back a time when the person feels safe and taken care of.

risky sex: risky sexual behavior is commonly defined as behavior that increases the probability of contracting sexually transmitted infections, diseases, becoming pregnant, or making a partner pregnant. drug use is associated with risky sexual behavior.

somatisation: the manifestation of psychological distress by the presentation of bodily symptoms.

splitting: ( also called black — and — white thinking or all — or — nothing thinking ) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

sublimation: is a mature type of defence mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long — term conversion of the initial impulse.

suicidal ideation: ( also known as suicidal thoughts ) is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide. the range of suicidal ideation varies from fleeting thoughts, to extensive thoughts, to detailed planning, roleplaying, and incomplete attempts.

sleepwalking: formally known as somnambulism, is a behaviour disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviours while asleep. it is more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived.

suppression: the act of stopping oneself from thinking or feeling something. it is generally assumed ineffective because even if you suppress or hold back an emotion, like anger, that feeling returns with a vengeance.

thousand yard stare: a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of soldiers who have become emotionally detached from the horrors around them. it is also sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.

triggers: something that sets of a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of their emotional trauma. triggers are very personal ; different things can trigger different people. the survivor may begin to avoid situations and stimuli that they think triggered the flashback.

trust issues: a person with these kinds of thoughts may construct social barriers as a defence mechanism to ensure that trust is not lost again. these barriers are often a person’s way of avoid the pain, rejection, or guilt associated with mistrust.

violence: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

temper: a reflection of irritation or rage, a propensity to be angered rapidly.\

[dikiyvter]

cognitive assessment.

bold all that apply to your muse’s current mental state; italicize any that apply to your muse’s past mental state — repost don’t reblog !

tagged by: nobody tagging: n o b o d y

alcoholism: or alcohol use disorder ( aud ), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems.

amnesia: a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

anxiety: a mental health disorder characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities.

appetite loss: a reduced desire to eat.

binge eating: a psychological illness characterized by frequently eating excessive amounts of food, often when not hungry.

co-dependence: dysfunctional and maladaptive relationship reliant on another person’s dependence on the affected individual.

cynicism: an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self interest ( skepticism ), or to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile ( pessimism ).

defensiveness: the tendency to be sensitive to comments and criticism and to deny them. to constantly protect oneself from criticism, exposure of one’s shortcomings, or other real or perceived threats to the go.

depersonalization: a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not belonging to oneself.

depression: a mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

derealization: alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal.

devaluation: defense mechanism used when a person attributes themselves, an object, or another person as completely flawed, worthless, or as having exaggerated negative qualities.

displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object or goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

dissociation: is any state of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences, such as a disconnect from reality.

drug abuse: the extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances.

dysphoria: a state of unease, or generalized dissatisfaction with life.

emotional detachment: an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, as well as coping with anxiety by avoiding certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as “ emotional numbing ” or dissociation.

flashbacks: an involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of said experience.

flat affect: a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. they may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic.

guilt: a cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realizes — accurately or not — that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for it.

hallucinations: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

hypersomnia: or excessive sleepiness, is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

hypervigilance: an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity.

hypochondria: ( also known as illness anxiety disorder ) is a condition in which a person is inordinately worried about having a serious illness.

idealization: the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than reality.

insomnia: a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. they may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. insomnia is usually followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood.

intellectualization: a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress — where thinking is used to avoid feeling. it involves removing one’s self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

introjection: regarded as the process where the subject replicates in themselves behaviors, attributes, or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. cognate concepts include identification, incorporation, and internalization.

isolation: a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory characterized by individuals defending themselves from possible threats by mentally and physically isolating themselves. by minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or the self concept.

low self esteem: a person with low self esteem feels unworthy, incapable, and incompetent.

narcissism: is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. narcissistic personality disorder ( npd ) is a personality disorder in which there is a long term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of other’s feelings. ( sort of?? he doesn’t have NPD by any stretch of the imagination but he is a narcissist and it’d feel wrong not to bold this in some way. ) 

night terrors: also known as a sleep terror, is a sleep disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurs during the first hours of stage three to four rapid eye movement ( nrem ) sleep.

obsessive compulsion: obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ocd ) is a common, chromic, and long — lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts ( obsessions ) and behaviors ( compulsions ) that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.

panic attacks: a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and debilitating anxiety.

passive aggression: a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish a required task.

paranoia: the irrational and persistent feeling that people are “ out to get you. ” the three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

phobias: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

projection: psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. it involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

rationalization: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable and superior — by plausible means.

regression: a psychological defense mechanism in which a person abandons age — appropriate coping strategies in favor of earlier, more childlike patterns of behavior. this regression is a form of retreat, bringing back a time when the person feels safe and taken care of.

risky sex: risky sexual behavior is commonly defined as behavior that increases the probability of contracting sexually transmitted infections, diseases, becoming pregnant, or making a partner pregnant. drug use is associated with risky sexual behavior.

somatization: the manifestation of psychological distress by the presentation of bodily symptoms.

splitting: ( also called black — and — white thinking or all — or — nothing thinking ) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

sublimation: is a mature type of defense mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long — term conversion of the initial impulse.

suicidal ideation: ( also known as suicidal thoughts ) is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide. the range of suicidal ideation varies from fleeting thoughts, to extensive thoughts, to detailed planning, roleplaying, and incomplete attempts.

sleepwalking: formally known as somnambulism, is a behavior disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviors while asleep. it is more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived.

suppression: the act of stopping oneself from thinking or feeling something. it is generally assumed ineffective because even if you suppress or hold back an emotion, like anger, that feeling returns with a vengeance.

thousand yard stare: a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of soldiers who have become emotionally detached from the horrors around them. it is also sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.

triggers: something that sets of a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of their emotional trauma. triggers are very personal ; different things can trigger different people. the survivor may begin to avoid situations and stimuli that they think triggered the flashback.

trust issues: a person with these kinds of thoughts may construct social barriers as a defense mechanism to ensure that trust is not lost again. these barriers are often a person’s way of avoid the pain, rejection, or guilt associated with mistrust.

violence: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

temper: a reflection of irritation or rage, a propensity to be angered rapidly.

[archivedxunovasheroine]

cognitive assessment.

bold all that apply to your muse’s current mental state; italicize any that apply to your muse’s past mental state — repost don’t reblog !

alcoholism: or alcohol use disorder ( aud ), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems.

amnesia: a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

anxiety: a mental health disorder characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities.

appetite loss: a reduced desire to eat.

binge eating: a psychological illness characterized by frequently eating excessive amounts of food, often when not hungry.

co-dependence: dysfunctional and maladaptive relationship reliant on another person’s dependence on the affected individual.

cynicism: an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self interest ( skepticism ), or to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile ( pessimism ).

defensiveness: the tendency to be sensitive to comments and criticism and to deny them. to constantly protect oneself from criticism, exposure of one’s shortcomings, or other real or perceived threats to the go.

depersonalization: a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not belonging to oneself.

depression: a mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

derealization: alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal.

devaluation: defense mechanism used when a person attributes themselves, an object, or another person as completely flawed, worthless, or as having exaggerated negative qualities.

displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object or goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

dissociation: is any state of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences, such as a disconnect from reality.

drug abuse: the extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances.

dysphoria: a state of unease, or generalized dissatisfaction with life.

emotional detachment: an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, as well as coping with anxiety by avoiding certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as “ emotional numbing ” or dissociation.

flashbacks: an involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of said experience.

flat affect: a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. they may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic.

guilt: a cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realizes — accurately or not — that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for it.

hallucinations: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

hypersomnia: or excessive sleepiness, is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

hypervigilance: an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity.

hypochondria: ( also known as illness anxiety disorder ) is a condition in which a person is inordinately worried about having a serious illness.

idealization: the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than reality.

insomnia: a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. they may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. insomnia is usually followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood.

intellectualization: a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress — where thinking is used to avoid feeling. it involves removing one’s self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

introjection: regarded as the process where the subject replicates in themselves behaviors, attributes, or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. cognate concepts include identification, incorporation, and internalization.

isolation: a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory characterized by individuals defending themselves from possible threats by mentally and physically isolating themselves. by minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or the self concept.

low self esteem: a person with low self esteem feels unworthy, incapable, and incompetent.

narcissism: is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. narcissistic personality disorder ( npd ) is a personality disorder in which there is a long term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of other’s feelings.

night terrors: also known as a sleep terror, is a sleep disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurs during the first hours of stage three to four rapid eye movement ( nrem ) sleep.

obsessive compulsion: obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ocd ) is a common, chromic, and long — lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts ( obsessions ) and behaviors ( compulsions ) that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.

panic attacks: a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and debilitating anxiety.

passive aggression: a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish a required task.

paranoia: the irrational and persistent feeling that people are “ out to get you. ” the three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

phobias: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

projection: psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. it involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

rationalization: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable and superior — by plausible means.

regression: a psychological defense mechanism in which a person abandons age — appropriate coping strategies in favor of earlier, more childlike patterns of behavior. this regression is a form of retreat, bringing back a time when the person feels safe and taken care of.

risky sex: risky sexual behavior is commonly defined as behavior that increases the probability of contracting sexually transmitted infections, diseases, becoming pregnant, or making a partner pregnant. drug use is associated with risky sexual behavior.

somatization: the manifestation of psychological distress by the presentation of bodily symptoms.

splitting: ( also called black — and — white thinking or all — or — nothing thinking ) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

sublimation: is a mature type of defense mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long — term conversion of the initial impulse.

suicidal ideation: ( also known as suicidal thoughts ) is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide. the range of suicidal ideation varies from fleeting thoughts, to extensive thoughts, to detailed planning, roleplaying, and incomplete attempts.

sleepwalking: formally known as somnambulism, is a behavior disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviors while asleep. it is more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived.

suppression: the act of stopping oneself from thinking or feeling something. it is generally assumed ineffective because even if you suppress or hold back an emotion, like anger, that feeling returns with a vengeance.

thousand yard stare: a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of soldiers who have become emotionally detached from the horrors around them. it is also sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.

triggers: something that sets of a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of their emotional trauma. triggers are very personal ; different things can trigger different people. the survivor may begin to avoid situations and stimuli that they think triggered the flashback.

trust issues: a person with these kinds of thoughts may construct social barriers as a defense mechanism to ensure that trust is not lost again. these barriers are often a person’s way of avoid the pain, rejection, or guilt associated with mistrust.

violence: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

temper: a reflection of irritation or rage, a propensity to be angered rapidly

[abyssmalice]

cognitive assessment meme ! (aka flower pretends there’s nothing wrong with how traumatized she made her muse!)

bold all that apply to your muse’s current mental state; italicize any that apply to your muse’s past mental state — repost don’t reblog !

alcoholism: or alcohol use disorder ( aud ), is a broad term for any drinking of alcohol that results in mental or physical health problems.

amnesia: a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma.

anxiety: a mental health disorder characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one’s daily activities.

appetite loss: a reduced desire to eat.

binge eating: a psychological illness characterized by frequently eating excessive amounts of food, often when not hungry.

co-dependence: dysfunctional and maladaptive relationship reliant on another person’s dependence on the affected individual.

cynicism: an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self interest ( skepticism ), or to question whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile ( pessimism ).

defensiveness: the tendency to be sensitive to comments and criticism and to deny them. to constantly protect oneself from criticism, exposure of one’s shortcomings, or other real or perceived threats to the go.

depersonalization: a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not belonging to oneself.

depression: a mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.

derealization: alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal.

devaluation: defense mechanism used when a person attributes themselves, an object, or another person as completely flawed, worthless, or as having exaggerated negative qualities.

displacement: an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object or goals felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

dissociation: is any state of a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional experiences, such as a disconnect from reality.

drug abuse: the extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances.

dysphoria: a state of unease, or generalized dissatisfaction with life.

emotional detachment: an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, as well as coping with anxiety by avoiding certain situations that trigger it; it is often described as “ emotional numbing ” or dissociation.

flashbacks: an involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of said experience.

flat affect: a severe reduction in emotional expressiveness. they may not show the signs of normal emotion, perhaps may speak in a monotonous voice, have diminished facial expressions, and appear extremely apathetic.

guilt: a cognitive or emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realizes — accurately or not — that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated a universal moral standard and bear significant responsibility for it.

hallucinations: an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present.

hypersomnia: or excessive sleepiness, is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day.

hypervigilance: an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity.

hypochondria: ( also known as illness anxiety disorder ) is a condition in which a person is inordinately worried about having a serious illness.

idealization: the action of regarding or representing something as perfect or better than reality.

insomnia: a sleep disorder where people have trouble sleeping. they may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. insomnia is usually followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood.

intellectualization: a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress — where thinking is used to avoid feeling. it involves removing one’s self, emotionally, from a stressful event.

introjection: regarded as the process where the subject replicates in themselves behaviors, attributes, or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. cognate concepts include identification, incorporation, and internalization.

isolation: a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory characterized by individuals defending themselves from possible threats by mentally and physically isolating themselves. by minimizing associative connections with other thoughts, the threatening cognition is remembered less often and is less likely to affect self-esteem or the self concept.

low self esteem: a person with low self esteem feels unworthy, incapable, and incompetent.

narcissism: is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. narcissistic personality disorder ( npd ) is a personality disorder in which there is a long term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of understanding of other’s feelings.

night terrors: also known as a sleep terror, is a sleep disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurs during the first hours of stage three to four rapid eye movement ( nrem ) sleep.

obsessive compulsion: obsessive-compulsive disorder ( ocd ) is a common, chromic, and long — lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts ( obsessions ) and behaviors ( compulsions ) that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.

panic attacks: a sudden overwhelming feeling of acute and debilitating anxiety.

passive aggression: a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish a required task.

paranoia: the irrational and persistent feeling that people are “ out to get you. ” the three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

phobias: an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

projection: psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. it involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

rationalization: a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable — or even admirable and superior — by plausible means.

regression: a psychological defense mechanism in which a person abandons age — appropriate coping strategies in favor of earlier, more childlike patterns of behavior. this regression is a form of retreat, bringing back a time when the person feels safe and taken care of.

risky sex: risky sexual behavior is commonly defined as behavior that increases the probability of contracting sexually transmitted infections, diseases, becoming pregnant, or making a partner pregnant. drug use is associated with risky sexual behavior.

somatization: the manifestation of psychological distress by the presentation of bodily symptoms.

splitting: ( also called black — and — white thinking or all — or — nothing thinking ) is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole.

sublimation: is a mature type of defense mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are unconsciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long — term conversion of the initial impulse.

suicidal ideation: ( also known as suicidal thoughts ) is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide. the range of suicidal ideation varies from fleeting thoughts, to extensive thoughts, to detailed planning, roleplaying, and incomplete attempts.

sleepwalking: formally known as somnambulism, is a behavior disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviors while asleep. it is more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived.

suppression: the act of stopping oneself from thinking or feeling something. it is generally assumed ineffective because even if you suppress or hold back an emotion, like anger, that feeling returns with a vengeance.

thousand yard stare: a phrase often used to describe the blank, unfocused gaze of soldiers who have become emotionally detached from the horrors around them. it is also sometimes used more generally to describe the look of dissociation among victims of other types of trauma.

triggers: something that sets of a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of their emotional trauma. triggers are very personal ; different things can trigger different people. the survivor may begin to avoid situations and stimuli that they think triggered the flashback.

trust issues: a person with these kinds of thoughts may construct social barriers as a defense mechanism to ensure that trust is not lost again. these barriers are often a person’s way of avoid the pain, rejection, or guilt associated with mistrust.

violence: the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.

temper: a reflection of irritation or rage, a propensity to be angered rapidly.

Tagged by: No one, I just like these memes ww Tagging: You, obviously!

[magicalgirlelsa]

Notes and Excerpts from “YoRHa Ver. 1.05″ Novelization

I took notes so I could refer back to them myself as I write fics, but I could never find as much information as I wanted about the stage play prior to reading this, so I thought I’d share for those who may not be able to read it. If you are able to get a copy, I really encourage you to do so! The story is in NieR: Automata: Short Story Long (in Japanese, NieR: Automata: A Short Story.)

I took notes on things like android physiology and psychology, A2′s personality before these events took place, a vague outline of what happened, and more. There are some spoilers for the stage play, but if you’re familiar with her backstory from the game and the “Beasts of Slaughter” audio drama, you already know the gist of them.

[canonicity]

The novelization sees to be from 2017, which means that the version of the stage play it would be adapting is 1.1 (which I believe was released in 2015). This would presumably then be the first time the stage play was updated after the release of the game, despite the novelization being called 1.05. The 1.2 stage play (the most recent, from 2018) came about a year after this novelization.

[plot]

The Pearl Harbor Descent Mission is their first mission. Guided by their operators, Futaba and Yotsuba, and under orders from Commander, 16 units are deployed.

While approaching the ground, they come under fire. No. 2, No. 4, No. 16, and No. 21 are the sole survivors from the squadron. No. 2 becomes the leader now that No. 1 has been killed, but feels unable to lead

They request that Commander abort the mission, as they were not supposed to proceed if they lost more than 4 units, but have lost 12. Command refused, ordering them to proceed and cutting the transmission. No. 2 tries many times to contact Command, recognizing this mission is certain to get them killed, but is ignored by her. Later successes at contacting Command are met only with reiteration that they are ordered to continue the mission.

During an intense battle with the Machines, the 4 YoRHa units encounter members of the Resistance.

Lily (one of the Resistance members) is infected with the logic virus. Until this time, the Resistance (who seem not to have any units capable of hacking) thought the only way to respond was to kill someone as there was no hope of saving them, but No. 21 (a Scanner) is able to cure her of the virus.

The group makes their way to the location of the server room. The Machines have evolved again, and they don’t know how to fight them. Lily, who has become able to use their attacks after being infected with the logic virus, uses a gravity wave to stop the Machines, but she isn’t able to move while keeping the Machines in place. Dahlia, Margaret, and No. 16 stay behind with her. Everyone is aware that the 4 are certain to die. Later, No. 16 detonates her Black Box, taking them out along with the Machines.

No. 21 makes an excuse (perhaps true) about needing to stay behind to hack the elevator to get it to run. The truth is that in addition to this, she is infected with a logic virus that is resistant to hacking. The rest of the group realizes this, and Anemone stays with her to provide a mercy kill. After this, Anemone runs out into the battlefield in the hopes of getting killed by the Machines.

Rose, Erica, Gerbara, Sonia, Shion, No. 2, and No. 4 arrive at the server room alone, where they encounter the Red Girls. The Red Girls inform No. 2 and No. 4 that they were created and sent to Earth to die, that Commander knew the conditions would be worse than she told them, and that abandoning them to this fate was the plan all along.

They have bombs attached to their Black Boxes, which are set to go off if they die in the server room. The real purpose of their mission was to collect data for use in creating future models; it was intended all along that the entire squadron would die.

A strong and unpredictable Machine attacks them. Soon, No. 2 and No. 4 are the only ones left. The Red Girls want to kill No. 4 in front of No. 2 just to see how she reacts, but No. 4 survives and sacrifices herself to save No. 2.

[the resistance]

The Resistance members seen are said to be the sole survivors of a 160 person troop from the Eighth Descent Mission, 200 years ago. (Perhaps they didn’t know Jackass survived, or perhaps she is an android from somewhere else and joined the Resistance at a later time?)

In the timeline, this event can be found in the year 11732. This is 7,543 years after the collapse of Project Gestalt, exactly 200 years before the manufacture of YoRHa units was approved, and 205 years before the first YoRHa unit was operational.

Despite being created before Project YoRHa (and thus the Council of Humanity) was in the picture, they seem to actually believe in there being humans on the moon. They have tried to contact them and believe themselves to have been abandoned by the humans due to not having heard back.

The Resistance named themselves so as to feel more like a family and individuals, as android units don’t typically get individual names.

[android physiology and psychology]

Androids have “artificial muscles” which can become “tight from nerves,” just as humans tense up. They can also experience many other physiological indications of emotions, such as a heavy body, muscle weakness, difficulty breathing, and stomach pain.

Causes of death for androids include battle injuries, accidents, damage to their chassis (body/physical framework), cognitive malfunction, and logic viruses. (This isn’t necessarily a comprehensive list.)

Androids are, at least up to this squadron, hard-coded to fear their own destruction “to promote higher chances of survival.” Despite this, they are still capable of suicidal thoughts and self-sacrifice.

It seems androids are capable of dissociation and being paralyzed with fear.

Androids can sustain cuts, bruises, and scars. If they can bruise, we can potentially assume that the blood they have is a “layer” between their artificial skin and the machinery covering below it.

For an android, their Command’s orders are absolute. They are also “manipulated” into not questioning fishy things. Even if they notice suspicious things like a recon squad who found the server room and never returned, they won’t falter in following Command’s order to go there.

It’s not supposed to be possible for an android to get lost, due to having location data.

It appears that androids can have symptoms similar to PTSD (such as hypervigilance, nightmares, “people who struggle constantly from the terrible memories they were given”), whether a result of real memories or the simulated memories they are given.

[simulated memories]

All androids (at least between the Resistance members and the YoRHa squadron) are given “simulated memories” to “be like humans.”

“Everyone was aware that simulated memories were not real. But to the individual, they all seemed real. Simulated memories were just as vivid as, if not more vivid than, the real memories they had.” But they still value their real memories more.

These memories can be of happy lives, or cruel experiences. Either way, it seems that these memories influence who they are.

No. 2′s memories are of living alone with her grandmother in the countryside after losing her parents at a young age. No. 4′s were of being a happy, sociable high school girl. Rose’s memory is of being a little boy with a military father. One remembers being bullied. A couple of Resistance members imply their memories are of being child soldiers.

There is no indication as to whether the practice of implementing simulated memories continued or was discontinued after this mission.

[logic viruses]

There are predictable stages of the logic virus infection progressing. The first outward sign seems to be jerky movements, as the virus causes them to slowly lose control of their bodies. When their eyes are shining red like a Machine’s, it’s in the terminal phase.

Machines were already weaponizing logic viruses prior to the Pearl Harbor Descent mission.

“The logic virus that the Machines spread could all of a sudden overwrite data in an android’s cyberbrain. Then it would destroy the android’s consciousness and take over their body.”

There may be different types of logic viruses. When Lily is infected and is saved through hacking, she realizes she is able to use enemy attacks such as gravity wave. They are unsure whether this is a different type of virus, which copies its own attacks into an infected unit, or whether the virus adapted in this way because Lily lacked attack power.

Even after sustaining injuries that would be impossible to survive, a dead android can be infected and “animated” by a machine to attack their comrades.

The logic viruses are also capable of evolution, as No. 21 becomes infected with a logic virus that she is not able to hack out.

[changes between generations]

Rather than having one Operator per field unit, they have Futaba and Yotsuba fulfilling this role for the entire squadron. (Based on the names, there may be two or more other operators who do not appear, but that’s only speculation. In the context of counters, ‘futa’ is two and ‘yotsu’ four, but it might be coincidence; and we don’t know if the first and third, or any others, are even operational if it is true.)

“When Rose and her companions had been manufactured, there had been rumors and stories about humans. No. 2 felt a bit of a generation gap. A difference of two hundred years was no small amount of time. No. 2 rarely heard stories of humans.”

In No. 2′s generation, single-digit numbered models are Attackers, 1x (i.e., 10-19) are Gunners, and 2x are Scanners.

No. 2 is surprised to hear that there is a weapons merchant among the Resistance, noting, “Currency economics had existed a long time ago. She remembered hearing that the occupation of merchant disappeared along with the collapse of the system...”

Unlike the Resistance members, the YoRHa squadron have shields to the logic virus, however these shields are clearly not impervious to being rendered ineffective by the virus’ evolution.

The Resistance members don’t seem to be familiar with Scanner-types or hacking.

Newer models have better resistance to Machines’ gravity attacks, recover faster, and are more durable.

Machine cores appeared to thermal sensors as an unusually cool spot in their bodies, which allows androids to locate their core (which is their weak spot). However, Machines evolved to put heat-insulating material around their core to disguise it. This makes the Resistance members and squadron units unable to defeat them, so presumably weaponry has changed by Automata.

This is said in an interview with Yoko rather than the stage play, but it feels relevant to note that this mission was almost certainly before (and, in fact, a big part of the reason) the “emotions are prohibited” rule was implemented.

[relationships]

“being with No. 4 made No. 2 feel more at home.”

The Resistance works to cleanse the Earth of Machines not for humans, but for each other.

The Resistance see one another as family. No. 2 reflects that she doesn’t understand the concept of a family, but there are a number of parallels between how she acts with her comrades and how the Resistance members act with one another, so the accuracy of this is perhaps debatable.

No. 2 is prone to brooding. No. 4 seems good at picking up on when this is happening, and tries to comfort or distract her.

[Seed]

Seed is noted to be old, both through her memories and the deterioration of her body.

Seed is said to be a celebrated warrior, and says that she “lived with humans, shared experiences, and stormed the battlefield with them.” (Note that this would put her at around 10,000 years old, but since Popola and Devola are that old, it’s not out of the question.) She says she has been to Earth 3 times to fight Machines, and her first mission was in the desert.

Currently, she is an experimental unit whose purpose is to test new prototype equipment and participate in simulations with it, even though the experiments are known to be hard on her body.

Seed either genuinely believes there are humans on the moon, or is lying to No. 2 about it.

She begins to question whether her memories of fighting among the humans are real or artificial. Perhaps it is not a coincidence then that she is soon killed in the process of testing “magnetic field-resistant skin.”

Seed’s death occurred quite close to the Pearl Harbor Descent Mission. No. 2 later speculates that it may be because she was too sympathetic to the YoRHa soldiers, if she knew they were doomed.

At the time of Seed’s death, No. 2 doesn’t understand why, even though Seed should have been backed up and able to be moved to a new body, Commander refuses. She is simply told, “This is already a decided matter.”

[A2/No. 2]

Before and during these events, No. 2 is loyal, naive, and emotional. She gets scared easily and is often on the verge of tears. Her comrades are more important to her than anything else, including her own life.

Granted, given that two or three separate people tell her to find a reason to live, she may not particularly value her own life.

She tries to stay optimistic so long as there is the “potential” for success, no matter how slim.

No. 2 thinks little of sacrificing herself, at one point reflecting, “If she couldn’t become as strong as No. 1, then at least she could become a shield for her comrades.”

Even though it shouldn’t be possible, No. 2 seems to have an abysmal sense of direction. She gets lost in the small Resistance camp. She gets lost in “this small orbiting base” (presumably the Bunker?). It’s acknowledged that this is very odd -- “How the hell could an android get lost? She thought she would be suspected as a defective model.” -- but never explained.

The Commander describes No. 2 as a “mediocre specimen lacking extraordinary qualities.” When faced with this statement, No. 2 apologizes, reflecting that “Just as the commander had said, she was average in every way and had nothing she was exceptionally good at. No. 2 knew it too well.” She also describes herself as a “boring, unexceptional model.”

The word “potential” has significant meaning to her, after Seed told her that “being average means she has the potential to improve in every way.”

“She understood how Lily felt, because she also had an inferiority complex of feeling like useless baggage.”

No. 2 has always hated fighting and wishes she didn’t have to.

“Not wanting to bother her comrades. Not wanting to be a burden to her comrades. That was how No. 2 had fought, in training and on the battlefield. Everything she did was for the sake of her comrades, but her comrades kept dying.”

No. 2 blames herself for the Resistance members dying, since she was the one to convince them to cooperate.

When having to kill her zombified, infected former comrades: “No. 2 felt something die inside of her.”

When No. 2 comes to after the explosion, her first thought is that someone stronger should have survived instead.

She only learned recently (to Automata’s “present day”) that Anemone had survived. Until that time, she had thought herself the sole survivor of the entire mission.

In present day, she continues to have frequent, recurring nightmares of that mission.

[misc]

The androids predating them created YoRHa to spur android evolution, because with the Machines evolving, the androids were struggling in the war.

When a unit has “made significant contributions on the battlefield,” they may fill out a request form to receive a name, which then must go to the board (Council of Humanity?) for approval. This may or may not be the case for Futaba and Yotsuba (since they have potentially numeric names), but is said to be true of Seed. (Whether this is actually true of Seed or was implemented as part of a cover story is, of course, unknown.)

The Resistance wants to give No. 2 a name, but she feels she has “no right to have a name, not without having produced any results.” She asks that they wait until after the mission, but really she is against it without going through the proper channels.

The Bunker(?) has different rooms that simulate different situations, such as one in which location data is not available. However, this does not seem to be where the current units’ battle simulations take place, as Seed remarks that units don’t go there unless they are “experimental subjects or staff.”

excerpts

“What should I do... I can’t be a captain.”

She [No. 2] couldn’t. Why me, she thought. Why did she survive, and not No. 1?

.

Anemone was speechless. No. 21′s eyes were both blood red. It was a symptom from the terminal stages of infection. It was a miracle she was operating the terminal in this state. It wouldn’t have been surprising if she had gone rampant minutes ago. She must have held it together via sheer willpower, to get No. 2 and the group to the server room.

“Please. While I’m still myself.”

Anemone leveled the gun at No. 21. She struggled to keep her hands steady.

“Any last words?”

No. 21′s mouth distorted into a smile. Or rather, she tried to smile.

“Who would you pass them on to, even if I had any?”

“I’ll hear you out. Even if I die right after this.”

“I’m glad I met you. These memories are real. Thank you.”

.

[When No. 2 asks Seed why she takes part in the dangerous and painful experiments:]

“Well, I should be retired by now, after all.”

Seed’s chassis was covered in scars. Perhaps they had stopped production of her original parts; much of her body used parts that were obviously not of her original design.

“I left everything on the battlefield. Do you understand?” she asked, to which No. 2 shook her head. She had never even been in a battle, so she couldn’t imagine a battlefield either.

“Anger, sadness, fear, and even happiness. I have none of it now. There’s nothing in this empty head of mine.” Seed looked down at her hands. “But when I’m holding a weapon, I forget all of that. Even if this is a simulated battlefield.”

.

[Seed’s message to No. 2]

“If you’re seeing this message, then that means I’m no longer a part of this world.”

She stopped breathing. She thought her heart would stop beating too.

“Unlike humans, we’re told that androids have no souls. This message is the closest thing to a soul that I can leave you with.”

“No...” Her voice sounded far away.

.

Why couldn’t they upload her [Seed’s] data to a spare chassis? Technologically speaking, avoiding death was possible. Yet.

“Why? I can’t accept that!”

The commander had already disappeared.

“I can’t... accept that...”

Her shoulders involuntarily shook. Pain rose from the bottom of her throat. No. 2 cried alone in a deserted hallway.

.

The night before--after Lily had told No. 2 that “Rose is my only captain!”--No. 2 had curled up in a fetal position at the edge of camp. No. 2 had felt unreasonably dejected until No. 21 came up to her to explain the situation.

.

What determined who lived was not power or intelligence. It was sheer luck. Even so, she was chosen to live. A fate chosen on a whim. Then, she had to do whatever being a survivor entailed.

Destroy the Machines. Destroy everything. Nobody would get in her way. She would kill anybody who tried. Whoever that person would be. [...]

First, she had to escape this shitty place. After she repaired her chassis, she would go massacre the Machines. She would ruin them, one by one. That was her reason to live...

.

She had died during that battle. Her old self was buried under the rubble with her comrades.

That’s why even if she knew Anemone was alive, she didn’t go out of her way to contact her. She didn’t know what to do if she met her. But now she had a perfect excuse, in the form of a fuel filter, to go talk to her.

She peered toward the direction the box specified. She could see some high-rise structures beyond the sandstorms.

“Guess I’ll go.”

She walked, kicking sand as she went. She called out her comrades’ names in her head. But she felt nothing.

She was empty inside.