#LMAO I DO EXPERIENCE AUDITORY HALLUCINATIONS NOW HELP

[dungeonmastersconsortium]

TW: Mental Health

I struggled a lot with deciding whether or not to make this post. At various times while writing it, I have thought that it was (either separately, some simultaneously, or all together) vain, self-deprecating, self-indulgent, selfish, attention seeking, or too depressing for anyone else to read. And if you continue past this point, heads up: it probably is these things at various times.

For those of you that don't know, I have Bipolar 1 and Borderline personality disorder. I have been actively putting in the work for a few years to get myself toward a better place mentally. Therapy, psych, meds, you name it, I've been doing it. I firmly believe it's important to do the work. (Honestly, you should go to therapy too.) I need to start off by saying this because it's an important foundation for the rest of this post.

My pair of SWEET mental illnesses manifest together in various ways. Individually, they're kind of what you might expect. Take the Bipolar 1. If you've known me for a long time and we interact in person, socially, I GUARANTEE you have experienced one of my manic episodes, and possibly benefitted from it in some way. I'm "lucky" in that the way my manic/hypomanic episodes manifest is mostly in ways that don't directly harm people, especially physically. I get VERY charismatic and outgoing. Very impulsive. WAY more social. I get very generous with my friends, moreso than normal. These also have some really bad downsides, but they aren't the things that would get me hospitalized. (Except for a couple instances of auditory hallucination back in my younger days. Hasn't happened in over a decade, though.) But my impulsivity has hurt people's feelings when I do something careless. I've developed coping mechanisms for this that allow me to more responsibly indulge in mania (which DOES feel great, unfortunately) without harming anyone usually.

Y'all also definitely know I can get pretty depressed. It happens. It happened a LOT in the past. A little less often now. Part of the bipolar thing too.

In short, I feel things much more strongly than neurotypical folks. This applies to all emotional states. While not everything I feel is extreme, the strength at which I feel things has a greater capacity for highs and lows. I guess the best way to explain it would be that most neurotypical folks have an emotional capacity from 1-10, and it's a pretty even scale, proportional to events that occur to trigger that emotional state. I would characterize myself as having a 1-20 scale. One problem is that my emotional scale isn't exactly EVEN. The higher the initial emotional reaction, the more likely it is to slide up the scale if left unchecked. If I'm not careful, something that solicits a reaction of, say, 7, will work its way up higher and higher.

You've heard of people being "overcome by emotion," and I can tell you that it's… SOMETHING. My previous therapist described it as not just a negative thing, he referred to it as a kind of superpower. While yes, I can feel sadness, despair, anger, hopelessness, and outrage at incredibly strong levels, I also experience joy, love, excitement, and passionate at similarly high levels. This can be VERY dangerous if left unchecked for me. A strong "active" emotion like excitement, joy, or anger can trigger a full manic episode.

Every day is work for me, mentally. One of the things 3 separate therapists and 2 psychologists have told me is that I'm very good at metacognition. Metacognition is, in short, thinking about thinking. I'm pretty good at tracking my own thought patterns and examining root causes of present emotions. I'm pretty dang good at this point especially at pointing out to my partners when I can feel the mania or depression coming on. (Which I think they're pretty grateful for lmao) It helps me regulate my emotions, as I can usually backtrack something and figure out when/why it is that way. My last therapist told me it makes his job both easier and harder, because most people have trouble identifying their own thought patterns and processes in therapy, which is why they're in therapy.

I have, both inadvertently and on purpose, developed a lot of tools to help manage my behaviors. In general terms, the best metaphor I can think of is a sheepdog trying to herd a particularly unruly herd of sheep, with no fence. Part of me is just trying to get out, even though it'll objectively be bad for me. The other part of me is constantly running circles around the herd, doing its best to keep everything within safe boundaries. There's a problem with this, though, that the metaphor is also handy for.

A dog can't run forever. At some point, it's going to get tired. It's going to need a break, to rest. Even when the sheep aren't actively trying to get away, just remaining vigilant in place can be tiring. Because it KNOWS they're gonna try to get away again.

My biggest problem over the last couple years is… Hard to talk about. I've trained myself to be able to regulate, but it's a LOT of work. It can be VERY frustrating even when great things are happening, because I can't just let go and enjoy something, as if I let it go too far, it might be bad news. I keep myself in check because I don't want to hurt other people. In my deepest, most authentic self, I don't want to hurt anyone. But it's TIRING.

I think it's why one of my love languages is acts of service and gift giving. (Both giving and receiving.) Someone taking something off my plate without me having to ask is VERY meaningful to me, especially since I have a hard time asking for help. (Part of the whole 'not wanting to make my mental health other people's problem thing.) Gifts also show me concrete proof that other people think about me and care about me during the times I can't remember that any other way. If you've ever been in my office/game room, I'm surrounded by tokens of my friends'/partners'/former students' affection.

The big problem is that… This is kinda the rest of my life. It's a lot of work, with no end in sight if I want to be the person I want to be. Looking out over the horizon of years that I have remaining, however many that might be… The task seems daunting and despair inducing. A prior therapist suggested DBT, but I HAVE the tools to cope, which is what DBT offers. DBT involves twice weekly sessions, one individually and one group, where you learn the skills to deal with your strong emotions, your relationship with attachment, (whether you actively avoid, push away, or attach too strongly,) and develop the tools to handle it. And there's a lot of homework. A LOT. And diary work. And that's why it was never going to work for me. I ALREADY do the mental lists, the metacognition, the identification. The thought of duplicating that work only made the despair worse.

Sometimes I just want to let everything go and be truly reckless for a little while. (No, not like in a stupid "my jokerification moment" kind of way.) Not because I want to hurt other people, but because.. Well, selfishly, it's not fair to have to be this vigilant all the time. It's constant work that I have to do that others don't have to do. It's exhausting and tiring, and there's no therapy that can really address that part of my brain. The frustrating part of therapy and psychiatry is that there's a focus on bringing the patient/client to as close they can to functioning in society, and I put in a LOT of work. There's a lot that I can say about how much it sucks that the SOCIETY we're supposed to be a part of (USA + Capitalism) says, "get on board or fucking die," and does not do any work to accommodate us. But that's a whole other conversation, and this post is already REALLY long.

There's not much of a point here. There's no moral. I guess I just wanted to share my struggle. Maybe someone else will see this and relate. I know it's difficult to find. If you google, "why didn't DBT work for me," you'll get mostly articles talking about how it works for 70-77% of people with BPD, or forum posts telling those asking this question (usually asked in frustrated, despairing tones) that they just didn't work hard enough. Or buy in to the program enough.

I find that insulting. I do work hard, because I think the work is WORTH it. But a lifetime of work like this is daunting when you consider it as a whole, not just as the present. So I try to take it a moment at a time. A day at a time. A week, maybe.

I guess I'll close with a quote from The Good Place. Because I just binge watched it again last weekend.

“I argue that we choose to be good because of our bonds with other people and our innate desire to treat them with dignity. Simply put, we are not in this alone.”

-Chid Anagonye

[tussive]

Something stupid about me is I just kind of inherently respect people who have insane levels of dedications to things. I think probably because I've never been that dedicated to anything and I do envy it in a way.

But I'm reading this thread of Bluelight and I don't want to go into too much detail about the drug information/chemistry involved, because it's not really important, I do want to kind of explain because I think the level to which he's dedicating himself to achieve what he's achieving kind of helps make my point that I'm stupid, lmao. So in its pure HCl form, MDPV is a white powder. When it first came onto the RC, this is how it was available. At some point however someone came out with a tan MDPV, which produced significantly different effects. The white MDPV is prone to causing paranoia, hallucinations, is very tweaky and compulsive and has a terrible comedown. The tan MDPV is a smooth, euphoric ride that is apparently so hypersexual many people would refer to it as "perv powder." Nobody is actually sure what the difference is, however part of the process involves freebasing it. But that isn't the whole process, it is also necessary to leave the resulting oil in water for extended periods of time, during which people assume the MDPV degrades and some impurity results which is the actual source of the desired effects. This man is fucking dedicated to understanding how to produce the tan MDPV. He has done countless experiments on doing so and at one point details the various ways that he has been harmed even in doing these experiments.

"Now---- I haven't tasted this stuff. Over the past two years I have played with mdpv using ether, tuloene, xylene, baking soda, galacial acetate, vinegar, water, ethanol and dirt from my garden(the bacterial connection). I have precipitated, heated, frozen, incubated, dissolved, evaporated, combined and separated every possible combination of precipitate, solution and oil. In the process I have come up with substances that were less than enjoyable to ingest. I am my only test subject for these experiments. I temporarily blinded myself for three hours after drying and ingesting a brown goo that appeared after five days of incubating an odd gray precipitate after an ether/acetate experiment with pv. I once ended up with a dark brown substance that looked similar to the darker tan pv versions. It gave me an incapacitating headache that lasted 4 days. I had overheated the pv oil during precipitation and created something horrible. I got PV oil on my skin and didn't sleep for 72 hours, during which time hellish visual and auditory hallucinations had me locked in the bathroom where I hid in the bathtub for 30 hours. My first hit of the acetate salt that I created from the tan had me hallucinating again for a few days. I had not considered that the salt version of the tan freebase might have dosages measured in micrograms. I should have guessed from the huge residual slush left over from the Acetic Acid wash. But I didn't. I bumped 3 milligrams. 300 micrograms is a large dose.

What I'm saying is that my body is barely being held together, and what little cohesion is left is the result of vitamins and pure will power. So I just don't have the courage to go down the acetate road. The HCL road has used me up."

(He is essentially explaining that when converted into acetate salt of MDPV, the result is extremely promising for the desired effects, however he has had so many horrible side effects just from experimenting with the HCl he no longer has it in him to attempt new experiments with the acetate. That may be obvious from the quote but I feel like out of context it may not be entirely clear.)

Now, he's gone to such extreme efforts and put himself through so much suffering and for what? He only uses drugs to enhance sex. He's doing this just so he can fucking goon for hours and jack his stupid dick and it's all just kind of pathetic through that lens, raelly. In terms of motivations I have absolutely zero respect for him or his efforts.

But when I read that quote about the things he has put himself through to achieve his goals, I can't help but feel like he's kind of cool. Even though he very much is not.

[butwhatifidothis]

3H and Bleach: Where the Fuck am I

So, I’m finally hunkering down and trying to write out this post lmao. I’ve mentioned here and there how my personal experience with the 3H’s fandom is similar to my experience with the Bleach fandom’s in more than one way, and - look. Like, I get there’s definitely a semi-universal thing that goes on across all fandoms. I don’t mean for this to say that this only happens within these two fandoms, because duh, of course they don’t. But!! This post is partly me wanting to air years long annoyance towards the Bleach fandom that just so happens to coincide with my feelings towards the 3H fandom, sooo... yeah lmao

I’ll probably be skimming over some bits about 3H, since most people who come across this will already be familiar with what I’d be talking about in that regard vs Bleach, so just a heads up

Note: This is gonna talk about Bleach which will spoiler territory (writing this off the cuff so not sure where this is goin’ yet lmao but I know that much), so if you don’t wanna see that then don’t read this post lol, I know for sure I’ll be spoiling something ahhhh... noticeable, lol

Ableism against the mentally ill

Now, most people reading this post will be familiar with the blog and how this very, very much applies to 3H, but for the sake of this post I’ll lay it out anyway with a brief summary

Dimitri and Rhea are both characters within 3H that suffer from severe trauma that heavily impacts their mental state. Both are the sole survivors of a horrific slaughter, with that slaughter redefining who they are and leaving a permanent marker within their minds in some way (Dimitri with having auditory and visual hallucinations, Rhea with having obsessive tendencies towards bringing her mother back from the dead). Specifically in CF, both characters are set up in the plot as antagonists, with both characters having to relive their trauma in some way due to the actions Byleth and Edelgard take against them (for Dimitri, having his home be razed to the ground and everyone he cares for dying around him, for Rhea having someone use her mother’s mutilated remains be used to end her and her race) and express extreme anger towards Byleth and Edelgard before they are killed to progress/end the story

Now, uh, sad shit right? Not exactly fuckin’ happy sunshine rainbows. These two characters are put through the wringer and are then murdered. They are rightfully not the fuckin’ happiest because of what happened to them before and what happens to them within the present story. But we’ve heard it all before: “They were crazy!” “They couldn’t be reasoned with!” “They had to be put down out of mercy because they were too ~far gone~ to live happily!” “They needed to be killed for the good of everyone!” It’s an extremely ableist rhetoric that gets passed around the fandom as though it’s totally fine to directly state that mentally ill people should be put down if they’re deemed a “lost cause.” Especially worrying because. You know. If they are a “”””lost cause”””” then it’s directly and specifically because of actions Byleth and Edelgard take against them. 

But how does this remind me of Bleach? What kind of similar extreme, worrying ableism exists there? Well, let me introduce to best girl a certain character with... a reputation, to say the least:

Meet Momo Hinamori.

Holy shit it’s so weird writing this out because I’ve been wanting to for years but have never worked up the nerve to do it lol

It should be noted, in the Bleach verse there’s two worlds out of three - Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, though I’ll only be talking of the former - that deal with “souls” (the essence within a living human). Souls age far more slowly than human bodies do in terms of body, not necessarily the mind (so a teenage soul will likely behave as such for a long while) so keep in mind that I’m going to be using numbers that may seem weird to someone who hasn’t seen Bleach lol.  With that out of the way, here’s a similar, if longer for context to those who haven’t seen Bleach, summary for Momo’s character as it relevant to this post:

Momo is a character in Bleach that grows a deep admiration towards Sosuke Aizen, a respected captain of the military force called the Gotei 13. She comes to views him as the most important person in her world due to him both noticing and paying direct attention to her as well as saving her and her friends’ lives during a training mission gone wrong while she was younger. Note that “younger” here means 40 years ago from the start of the story. Aizen would praise her all the time, allow her to sleep over in his quarters, would drape his cloaks over her when she looked cold, and would overall treat Momo as though he was his daughter for most of the time we see them interact in the beginning portions of the show. Note that none of this is sexual in nature, nor is it ever implied to be seen as such. That’ll be important later in this post

To make a long story short, Aizen comes to betray her. He stabs her through the chest and shows and tells her that she never meant anything to him, throughout the 40 years they’ve known each other (which, mind, for a soul Momo’s approximate age 40 years is still a noticeable amount of time), and he was only using her to help bolster his image as a loveable captain so that he can hide his plan from everybody that much easier. He did horrible things to Momo - from setting her alarm clock back to a later time so that she would more likely come across his pinned, bloody fake corpse. to framing her childhood friend for the apparent murder and tricking her into fighting that friend, to far later in the series tricking that friend into stabbing her (hypnosis shit, to sum that up) for literally no stated reason - that ended up mentally breaking her. She couldn’t believe that the last four decades were all nothing but lies and she fell into a deep denial about Aizen’s true nature - someone else made him do everything he did, she must have missed something that would have warned her about Captain Aizen’s unfortunate situation that forced Captain Aizen to hurt her and everyone else. This denial would take the majority of Bleach’s entire runtime for her to get over completely, with her having hiccups in her recovery even as she works up the nerve to fight him.

Now, uh, also not the fuckin’ funnest of times to be had here. The deep, long-running mental and psychological manipulation of what approximates as a teenage girl from a trusted older figure is something that is very clearly horrific and bad of the older figure, right? Like, we’re on the same page here on that?

This wouldn’t be in this post if that was the case. No, Momo was the one constantly on fire for what happened to her. She was one of the most hated characters in the western audience, and there were endless jokes about “lol look at Momo, the pincushion!” “Crazy bitch Momo, better watch out!” making fun of her and her trauma relentlessly. If you managed to find a Momo fan in the early 2000′s you should have also bought a lotto ticket because holy fuck, everyone hated her. She acted in a startlingly real if deeply uncomfortable way in regards to years long manipulation and she was lambasted for it. She didn’t immediately get over decades long psychological abuse and she was called useless, weak, a horrible representation of female characters, stupid - you name it, she was likely called it. To this day I still tense up when I hear that someone likes Bleach and they mention Momo at all because I’m always thinking “does this person think this abuse victim is dumb for being abused?”

Dimitri, Rhea, and Momo are all victim-blamed to a disgusting degree in the 3H and Bleach fandoms. Dimitri and Rhea are always hit with “well if Dimitri hadn’t have fought back against Edelgard/Rhea caused the “”tyranical systems” in the first place, nothing would have happened to them!” and Momo was constantly hit with” well, it’s not Aizen’s fault Momo was so clingy to him, what could he have done!” and I get so fuckin’ mad dude.

But for Dimitri and Momo specifically, there’s one thing in particular that caught my attention:

The “Rejection Theories”

This had my head spinnin’ a bit when I first heard it, cuz I had managed to avoid the theory for a while in the 3H’s fandom, but apparently a sizeable amount of people seem to believe that Dimitri wasn’t just mad at Edelgard in the Holy Tomb because of... you know *waves hand* fuckin’ everything, but that the primary reason for his anger was that Edelgard... rejected his advances to her? And that the dagger he gave to her when they were 13 was a phallic symbol of baby Mitri’s want to have sex with Edelgard? And. Like. What in the fuck are you talking about. 

But like?? Bleach did this shit too with Momo?? It was also a sizeable amount of people - not everyone, but a noticeable amount - that believed that Momo was just mad that Aizen wouldn’t sleep with her? You’d see it pop up in fics so often, that Momo would want Aizen to fuck her and she’d “go crazy” when he denied her and Momo was actually just this shallow bitch who wanted a good fuck like... what.

Like, when I first heard the Phallic Dagger take the first thing that came to mind is “wait Momo was also accused of just wanting to have sex with the person who traumatized her wtf” 

“Actually it was the perpetrators that should be forgiven because lonely and also some shit about ruling better”

Those in the 3H fandom know how often the “Edelgard was lonely!” line gets thrown by just about every one of her stans. Edelgard was lonely and couldn’t trust anyone, so of course she did what she did! If she had someone near her she could trust she wouldn’t have acted like she does in the rest of the game! Nevermind that she “gets” this in CF in the form of Byleth and still acts just as shittily as she does in the other routes, or how being a little lonely doesn’t fuckin’ mean you get to start war. But anyway, we also hear that Edelgard was justified in doing what she did because her ruling Fodlan would have lead to more peace in the end, once she got rid of the power structures in place now (except that doesn’t happen but whatev I guess lmao)

Aizen? He was lonely too! He was far too strong for anyone to truly be able to understand him, and so he tragically fell down a dark path. If he had known someone who could be considered an equal to him he would have never done all the horrible things he did. And the Soul Society is unjust! It needs to be reformed! So him slaughtering hundreds of thousands of souls at the minimum to harvest all of their power to use as his own is justified because it’ll be used to create a more just society under his rule!

Like. Y’all. Lowkey? I’m so fuckin’ glad Edelgard proved herself to be just as fuckin’ awful with Byleth as without because this shit drove me up the fuckin’ wall back in the day. There was 0 ways to prove that Aizen would damn sure be just as fuckin’ bad if he had an “”equal”” to stand by him than if he didn’t, and I get to kinda be right because without fundamentally changing these characters’ backstories they would not give two flying shits about whether or not they had someone “equal to them” (which is still kinda degrading to think about anyway).

Now, this is where I move away to a different topic lol

A split in the narrative cause divides in the fandom

With 3H houses this is really fuckin’ easy to point at: there’s 4 routes, three consistent stories and one radically different story, and that difference in story causes heavy contention within the fandom. It’s very obvious so I won’t go over it much.

But how in the fuck is there a divide in Bleach? It’s not a fuckin’ Choose Your Own Adventure manga, it’s an anime and manga showing off the characters of Bleach’s stories and interactions (with, you know, plot and shit thrown in).

Well. It’s more accurate to say the anime told a story about the characters, and the manga told... the story about the characters.

In terms of plot, the anime didn’t change much from the manga, but hoo fuckin’ boy, did they change shit about some of the characters. Specifically, they changed a shit ton about three characters: the two main protagonists, Ichigo and Rukia, and another main character, Orihime.

Orihime. Got. Fucked.

The anime would make her far more ditzy and clumsy, her crush (turned growing love later on in the story) for Ichigo during more deeper moments that showcases her feelings for him were downplayed if not removed entirely in exchange for talking or thinking about food, key moments she has with Ichigo early in the manga were cut or deadass changed to something else in the anime, some key moments with her relationship with Rukia were cut, her backstory was watered down - so much of Orihime was fucked with in the anime (her fuckin’ introduction was changed drastically). Meanwhile Ichigo and Rukia were given moments that didn’t exist in the manga, they have filler arcs (remember those lmao) that would be stuffed with shit ton of moments for them that have no basis in the manga, other characters would change their behavior from the manga to reflect a sort of “thing” going on between Ichigo and Rukia.

Look, guys, the anime fucked up so bad the fucking mangaka, Tite Kubo, has said he gets stomach aches watching the early anime because it was that awful. And this divide between the anime and manga’s portrayal of these three character helped spawn the ship war of Bleach: Ichiruki vs Ichihime (oh but more on that in a bit). It tanked Orihime’s popularity because people thought she was the stupid dumbass that would stumble ass first into situations when that wasn’t her character at all. And because the majority of anime watchers only watch the anime... yeah, you can see where this went. So just like in 3H in Bleach you have these radically different tellings of the same characters that drove a big-ass wedge in the fandom

Marketing

Imma be transparent, like I’ve said before I managed to avoid nearly every marketing tactic for 3H so it’s a tad hard for me to speak personally, but from what I’ve been told Edelgard was heavily marketed towards the player base pre-release. She was the poster child of 3H, she got the figma, she was in the spotlight - unless you cleansed your board of 3H content you knew exactly who she was. On top of that, it doesn’t stop in-game - loading screen messages would assume you picked BE, Adrestia is the first option to pick when you want to impress one of the lords in the prologue, the BE class is the first option to pick in choosing which route to play, every character has some moment in the game post ts where they express sympathy with the woman who waged war on them for five years (even characters with no business doing so, like Seteth entertaining the idea that maybe Edelgard isn’t that bad during Myrddin). With all of that good PR for Edelgard in and out of the game it heavily impacted how people saw her, and much of it is used by stans to justify her being a good guy (mostly in the game marketing) despite everything else in the game clearly showing that Edelgard is the bad guy

With Bleach in that regard... you have Ichiruki

holy shit it’s so weird talking about Ichiruki i’m still lowkey nervous about talking about them lmao

With Ichiruki stans, they would cling onto outside material that promoted Ichigo and Rukia together as proof that their ship was going to be canon. Spreadsheets, calendars, poems (some of which didn’t even apply to Ichigo and Rukia’s relationship but they insisted they did anyway), novels - outside material that either wasn’t canon or didn’t pertain to Ichigo and Rukia’s relationship. They would shove it in the face of Ichihime shippers that ��see, we have all this stuff for us! We ain’t starving tonight!” when the canon (note: in the manga particularly) would clearly show Ichigo and Orihime’s relationship being the one that leans romantic in multiple significant ways. They would latch onto irrelevant shit that ain’t had nothin’ to do with anything and wave around as a paragon of romance when it literally wasn’t even canon

Just fuckin’ ignoring the creators deadass

Creators and developers of 3H: Edelgard is the typical Red Emperor the only difference is Girl

Stans: that’s just a headcanon

Kubo: Ichigo and Rukia have a platonic relationship and I’ve publicly said this since 2008

Stans, now, to this day: Ichigo and Rukia were robbed

Making people reject what they’re stanning for

I’ve seen a few people express that the more they interact with the fandom and see what her stans are doing, the more they grow to dislike Edelgard despite (some) initially liking or even loving her. To put it simply, the same thing happened with Ichiruki - hell, this happened with me with Ichiruki. I can’t fuckin’ stand the ship anymore because every time I think about it I’m reminded of the absolutely rancid, disgusting things Ichiruki stans have to done to others in the fandom, and even after nearly five years after Bleach has ended I still tense up when someone says they like Ichiruki over Ichihime precisely because of the behavior of the stans, just like I side-eye people who say Edelgard is the best lord. Do they like them because they simply prefer them over the other(s) and they’re not totally fuckin’ bonkers, or are they totally fuckin’ bonkers. 

And, like, that’s not fair! I know that! But I can’t help but think that when such a loud amount of people act in such deplorable ways just because someone didn’t like a bunch of lines on paper/pixels on a screen.

To all the nice Ichiruki and Edelgard fans, hope y’all are havin’ a nice day.

Long, crazy ass explanations as to why X =/= X (and if anything actually means Y)

Teacher theory for 3H. How Edelgard totally didn’t hire Kostas to kill Dimitri and Claude and was only thwarted because Claude booked it, but how she definitely actually meant to simply scare away the teacher that was with them so that Jeritza could be pulled from his already existing position in Garreg Mach to teach one class so that Edelgard can kinda keep a sorta closer eye on exactly one of the other classes (and just do shit all about the other one I guess), because Jertiza’d be able to gleam so much from teaching a class for a few hours a day I promise 

But for Bleach, you also have one particularly infamous theory positing shit that don’t real, with enough renown to be known by a specific name, and that’s the Lust Arc = Fail essay

To explain what the essay is about, I have to set the scene up a bit. Imagine, you, with your tiny little monkey brain, are watching Bleach, and you get to the part where Main Boyo is fighting against Villain to save Girly. Other Guy is there too - this is important. Main Boyo tries his hardest to fight Villain, but is ultimately shot through the fucking chest with a laser from Villain and dies. Like, for bit actually dies. Girly breaks down, has a straight up mental breakdown because she always “knew” that Main Boyo could do anything, and now he’s been killed and is dead in front of her. She screams out Main Boyo’s name, hysterically begging him to save her and protect her because holy shit the love of her life has been brutally murdered in front of her what the fuck. But Main Boyo, from literally beyond the line of death, hears her pleas and snaps back to life as a monster, with the sentence “I MUST PROTECT” repeatedly running through his head and being the only sentence he ever says while in this form, with him fucking destroying Villain and even going so far as to directly hurt Other Guy when Other Guy tries to stop Main Boyo from utterly stomping on Villain. Girly is the only person Main Boyo does not directly hurt, and when Villain is damn sure gonna fuckin’ kick the bucket that is when Main Boyo reverts back human. Everyone is more than a little shocked at what happened, but it’s clear from how relieved Girly is when Main Boyo comes back safe and sound that while this event fundamentally will change their relationship (and it does), it is still one that is extremely strong and they won’t let it get between them (and they don’t).

Now, when looking at the summary, you, with your absolutely miniscule peanut of a brain, might come away thinking, “Hm, Main Boyo might kinda care for Girly given that he literally rose from the dead to protect her and only her and went back to normal once she was safe” and you poor fool would be oh so wrong, because actually, this is all proof that Mian Boyo doesn’t care for Girly and that Villain actually cared more for Girly than Main Boyo ever could.

Without diving too deeply into the absolute lunacy of the Lust Arc = Fail essay, that was its main premise. That Ichigo, after rising from the literal dead directly after Orihime begged and pleaded that he protect and save her and then going on to protect and save specifically her (as Uryu - Other Guy - is also a friend of Ichigo’s and got his fucking arm cut off by Monster!Ichigo), is proof against Ichihime being romantic in any way and was not, in fact, a fuckin’ giant neon flashing sign that read THESE TWO ARE GONNA GET TOGETHER. It was the dumbest shit ever, but Ichiruki stans, much like Edelstans with Teacher Theory, clung to it like white on rice. It didn’t matter how much it was utterly debunked, it didn’t matter how the base premise was stupid as fuck, they point to it as the pinnacle of meta for their respective fandoms in their respective spaces.

And all of this leads me to um... the one I’m kinda the most worried about?

Stan Behavior

Edelstans are their own unique brand of awful in that that the shit they spew is particularly... worrying (”genocide isn’t bad if they aren’t human and also they kinda deserved it” “imperialism isn’t that bad really” the mentally ill should be put down if they’re deemed ~too far gone~” among other... wonderful takes...), and their behavior is also quite shitty, harassing content creators that go against the Approved Opinions (Ghast) or forcing people to take down fanart and in general infecting nearly every Rhea space with all kinds of disparaging comments no one asked for. They actively make the fandom a worse space, and when they flare up it’s almost always noticeable (again, Ghast)

Bleach?

Oh boy.

Guys. If you weren’t there for the Canonization of Ichihime (2016). You dodged a fucking bullet.

The outrage was out-fuckin’-rageous. Their behavior was some of the worst reactions anyone has ever seen come from the canonization of a ship in a shounen. This includes, but is not limited to:

Someone tearing apart all 70+ volumes of Bleach and burning it in their bathroom

In fact, multiple people tearing up Bleach and burning it, while keeping the Ichiruki moments and taping it to their walls

A Rukia cosplayer, in Rukia cosplay, printing out the final color spread of the end-game couples and their friends lounging about - with colored ink and all - and burning it, while filming herself doing so

Ichiruki porn being sent to Tite Kubo

Tite Kubo being accused of grooming a 15 Orihime cosplayer with no proof

Tite Kubo being accused of lying about his various health issues

Ichigo and Rukia being drawn cheating on their spouses with each other - and some of that also being sent to Tite Kubo

Tite Kubo being chased off Twitter by Ichiruki stans... again

Ichihime shippers getting sent death threats

Ichihime shippers getting called delusional for thinking their ship had a chance before the endgame couples were revealed, and then being called delusional for thinking their ship had any real basis and wasn’t pulled “out of nowhere”

Tite Kubo being accused of hating women because of Orihime being shown in an apron in the last chapter and Ichiruki stans jumping to the conclusion she became a housewife, and then Tite Kubo being accused of hating women because when it was revealed that Orihime has a job in a bakery to pay for college later they insisted what Kubo should have done was have Uryu, who’s a doctor at that point, pay for Orihime’s college instead of having Orihime pay for it with her own money 

And mind you, this is only the stuff I’ve personally seen and experienced

I am hoping and praying that Edelstans never get as bad as Ichiruki stans did in 2016, but with how otherwise similar they are my hopes are dwindling more and more. I guess I can take solace in the fact that they aren’t quite... that bad yet? In terms of actions, at least? Their sentiments though are infinitely worse, so like... cool

[hongjoongpresent]

Hi, Dani. I would like to know how to properly write psychotics since the way the media portrays them is very ableist and I think psychotics deserve good representation.

Oh. Uhhhhhhhh ive never been asked for help or anything like this before?? Uhhhh man idk. Disclaimer: im stupid and dont know anything about writing. Also: i only have my own experiences with being psychotic and i obviously cant speak for every single psychotic person lol.

Ok uh. I would say try to avoid a split personality serial killer trope. Please PLEASE dont do what danganronpa did to toko thats all hah. Also try to avoid pulling a korekiyo? So basically. Try not to literally tell your viewer/reader that "this person is strange and different meaning this person is creepy and i dont wanna be around them" which i felt was sorta the goal with korekiyo (SORRY FOR USING DANGANRONPA EXAMPLES BUT ITS THE BEST I GOT OK)

Ummm ok *thinks* fun psychotic things TM definitely include (at least for me! Ntot everyone obvs):

Spiders or bugs under your skin. Im pretty sure this is basically universal for psychotics since ive seen MANY PEOPLE talk about this. But its a very common delusion where it feels or even sounds like there are bugs or spiders under your skin (yuh its terrifying XD)

That one hallucination dude that just kinda stands in the corner?? Idk he whispers a lot (like. Speak the fuck up or SHUT the fuck up real.) And he doesnt really have a face or anything he just kinda stands there and either comforts you or insults you (its like being in a toxic relationship but its literally in your head so you cant leave <3)

Hyperfixations on people. Of course many many MANY neurodivergent disorders include hyperfixations, but im talking PEOPLE. I have trust issues. But when i do truly trust someone OH BOY i be thinking about them CONSTANTLY

Intrusive thoughts. Many people can have them sure but ive never met a psychotic person who didnt have intrusive thoughts. Think of things like. Stabbing someone. Randomly pushing or punching someone. Hitting someone with a chair. Kissing or even having sex with someone. (Literally anyone. Ive. Literally had intrusive thoughts about having sex with teachers. Not even attractive teachers or anything just. Normal people.) HOWEVER keep in mind... we dont usually ACT on these. Its not like "o i had a thought about stabbing my brother im gonna dtab my brother now".

PROBLEMS SLEEPING!!!! Because of reasons like. Thinking about the future or an idealized version of the future, thinking about what the Real World would be like once i leave this fake world. Or because the walls are breathing (why do they do that lmao?) Or some random hallucination decides to talk to you out of nowhere. Stuff like that.

Nothing feeling real. Life is a simulation and nothing matters anyway. Everyone in this world is not even really a person. Theyre just computer generated to make me believe its the real world but i know its not. Everything revolves around me this world is built around me. Everything that happened before i was here is just made up and never actually happened. Or at least it didnt matter. Im the main character in this video game.

Auditory hallucinations!! Theyre the worst tbh. Screaming, random crying, mean laughter (why is it never anything fun ughhhh). Usually, i try to ignore auditory hallucinations by listening to music with my earplugs in.

Man sorry for making this post really long but. Im not good with advice?? These are purely my own experiences!! Just. Try to avoid making them the butt of the joke or the Weird Unlikable Character TM.

[aquarianlights]

Depending on how tomorrow goes, I may or may not go MIA from every single social media site and texting app that everyone knows me on without any notice but this. I’m not really telling anyone. Posting a mass update here and maybe fb later. But even if tomorrow goes “well” or anywhere in the “good” category...I may be too overwhelmed to be talking to anyone or on any kind of social media for a while. Hours, days, weeks. If it goes poorly, expect me gone for at least a month. If I’m still alive by the end of that---which I should be, coz I will have Echo right by my side and he will never leave my side again and I will do everything in my power to push through and be positive and be a good dad for him---then I will eventually crawl back onto social media. But my queue may run out for the second time in my entire time since I made this blog like 6-7+ years ago. It’s only run out once so far and that’s because it wasn’t maxed out and slowed down before I got institutionalized once and that was a longer stay than normal. Normally I manage to get out before my queue runs out and then ...”treat myself” with a queue filling binge of positive stuff and foxes and glittery things and nerdy things and all things christmas and cold weather. Just general stuff I like...packing it full, coz it’ll usually be on the very last few posts by the time I get out, but no one will have noticed my absence coz it won’t have run out.

But the personal space I will need from how intense this could potentially be...is terrifying for me. I usually go to social media to cope. Somehow, this is so terrifying, that stepping away from social media, stepping away from my friends, and venturing out on my own and putting myself in rather dangerous situations would be my best way to cope. Other than pouring my hours into research and schoolwork... I do have plenty of medical texts to read that I haven’t had the time to do more than skim over [stares longingly at them all].

The amount of overwhelming this is ....is just... it would break a neurotypical person and shred them to pieces. For me? I’m not sure what it will do. The good thing about my particular neurodivergency is that I don’t have much of a conscience to work with (I thought the auditory hallucinations were what everyone was referring to as a conscience until professionals finally told me that’s not what a conscience is and upon further research found I didn’t have one which is great for this situation but damn). I

This could potentially be the hardest moment of my entire life, but I won’t know that until I’m lying on my death bed. This could potentially be the biggest mistake I ever make, but I won’t know that until I’m lying on my death bed. This could potentially be the best thing that ever happens to me, but again... I won’t know that until I’m lying on my death bed. As of right now...at the age of 26...on the date of February 24th, 2018. . .this WILL be the hardest day of my entire life to date. This will be the hardest thing I will ever have to do in my life, no matter the outcome. I’m not scared; I’m sick. I feel like it’d be a better idea to kill myself than go through with this. I’d get to avoid the whole thing.

I hate how logical that is.

And I hate how there’s literally not a single counter argument to it and not even one downside. There WAS one downside and that was that my friends would grieve and/or care but the two people who I was worried about caring/grieving and it affecting their lives have thoroughly proven it won’t and that they do not. That’s not pessimism or anything. That’s just cold, hard fact. Yeah, it’s a sad fact. But. . .it’s fact nonetheless. And I gotta look at the truth one way or another. Facts don’t change just because they’re not in my favour.

I really do hate how logical suicide is right now.

And I really do hate how there isn’t a single counter-argument to it. And how I have absolutely no one in my corner right now and how I have to support every single one of my friends despite the fact I have told them over and over again that I can’t be there for them and to stop and to back the fuck off with their damn problems, because I’m going through too much of my own stuff to help them with theirs. There’s only two people I will put aside my ridiculous mountain of issues that could possibly lead to my death and hopefully will to help...One has proven she is and always has been in my corner no matter what she’s going through. And the other has proven that she is definitely unreliable and won’t be there for me no matter how hard I try for her. The first one... She is the strongest person ever and she will get through my death. She will. She’s been through worse. The second one won’t care even in the slightest or even notice. I’m pretty sure she’d be relieved and happy, tbh. Lol. She’d be out there thinkin’ “FINALLY, DAMN” lolololol. I know I would be. Like, I know I WILL be when I finally do it and get to move on to the next plane of existence and get those brief moments as an infant where you’re not able to speak or communicate in any way because you have all your memories from your past life? Yeah. I’m gonna be fucking throwing a party in whatever form of a crib or bed type thing my new planet and new species has. I hope to fuck my new species is a lot more peaceful than this one. And I hope they’re more advanced and more intelligent. I guess that depends on my karma and I have no clue where my karma is at right now tbh coz I’ve done so many EXTREMELY horrible things in my life, but I’ve also done almost the exact same amount of EXTREMELY amazingly genuinely GOOD things in my life at this point that it practically balances it out to 0 so I’m just all [shruggy emoji] on whether the omnipotent fate aliens would demote or promote me during reincarnation. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Man. Tomorrow may just kill me. Hell, if I don’t kill myself before I start the drive tomorrow, I have 2 1/2 hours of driving to think about killing myself every single goddamn second during the drive there...and if, for some weird reason, I don’t have my dog on the way home...... I will have another 2 1/2 hours to think every single second about killing myself. And how the fuck easy would it be to do on Blood Mountain? I’m p sure my car takes via the route that goes over Blood Mountain. People die on Blood Mountain just driving normally.... All I gotta do is push the limits a little. Not hard to die on Blood Mountain...lmao. Not hard AT ALL. I hope my GPS takes me that way coz that’s when I start recognizing where I am and know I’m getting SORT OF close-ish I guess??? and then that idea of suicide just sounds WAY better so...not a bad idea to take a BUNCH of pills in the town right BEFORE blood mountain and then speed through it when I can’t feel my fucking feet on the pedals and am nodding off at the wheel so that I drive my car right through a guard rail or over the side of the cliff OR right into the rock wall. Yep. That sounds p fucking fantastic. Ugh. I have the worst ideas regarding car deaths and I can never do it coz I don’t wanna total my car.... Lmao. The only thing that stops me from doing it is coz I don’t wanna total my car and being a med student, my mind goes through the entire list of “what COULD happen” and how slow of a death if no one finds me and this and that and calculations and blah blah blah and palatalization and amputations and blah blah BLAH and ruining dreams for if I am FORCED into living and BLAH BLAH BLAH and car suicide is the absolute WORST idea for someone who NEEDS a bright, fast, chaotic, able-bodied future if they are forced to live omg lmao BUT....I mean, I have so many other methods in my head that I know practically all the things and I’ve tried so many ways now that I just know what I can and can’t handle and I think tomorrow is gonna be the make or break. But having Echo in the car with me after being broken..........will force me to stay alive. Which will suck so badly. But I will have to also compartmentalize all my pain and my negativity so that he’s not even MORE stressed out than by all the commotion of the situation and then by this crazy car ride and by most likely throwing up in the car.

ERGH.

I need to stop thinking about this and distract myself but I also need to rest my joints so I guess I’m gonna watch a documentary.... something nice and calming but also stimulating... I just wish people didn’t talk so monotone when narrating documentaries. Especially when it’s about the supernatural and extraterrestrials and government experiments and stuff. Like COME ON, NARRATORS. GET EXCITED. GET INTO IT! FOR FUCKS SAKE, THERE’S A REASON PEOPLE GET PUT TO SLEEP BY DOCUMENTARIES AND IT’S NOT THE DOCUMENTARY....IT’S YOU! THE NARRATOR! YOU’RE THE ISSUE. GET INVOLVED. GET HYPED ABOUT THE INFORMATION! GET PASSIONATE. FOR FUCKS SAKE, IT’S COOL STUFF. FUCKING ACT LIKE IT, YA DAMN MONOTONE, ROBOTIC NIMROD. Ergh. Someone needs to sign me up to narrate a documentary. I used to speak at public rallies about puppy mills all over my county to educate the masses during high school because I was enraged about it and TRUST ME when YOU’RE having FUN WITH IT or ENRAGED BY IT or THINK THE INFORMATION IS COOL and REALLY GET INTO IT...........SO WILL YOUR AUDIENCE. It’s not the information that’s boring. It’s not the documentary that’s boring. It’s not the subject material. IT’S THE NARRATOR. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO PAY ME JUST LET ME DO THEIR DAMN JOB CORRECTLY SO I CAN SHOW THEM HOW TO DO THEIR DAMN JOBS SO THEY CAN LEARN. FUCK.

dfkhdglskagjdshlkg Omg.

No okay now I’m gonna get angry at a documentary narrator for not doing their job correctly. Lmao. Gotta watch something uh.... Passionate. I guess. But that doesn’t require too much focus. But doesn’t numb my mind. Star Trek. I always default to Star Trek. Jfc. I guess I’mma pop on some Weyoun heavy episodes while I wait for the “all clear” on my joint timer thing so I can get up and exercise and do some fucking research and maybe pleasure-read for a bit before more joint resting because long drives and lots of heavy lifting is a big no-no and I’m not supposed to but things aren’t gonna pack themselves. Things aren’t gonna sort themselves?? LIKE??? Fuck it’s gonna be SO hard leaving majority of my material possessions that have so much personal value to me. :/ Argh. I don’t even have the ability to take them in order to sell them. I don’t even have that kind of strength or time. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

EDS is a fucking bitch, man. Fucking BITCH. T-Therapy better fucking cure EDS. Like. They’re all on board with it. 4 of my specialists are. And I’m meeting with my HRT doc next week. This coming week. So.... we’ll see. She cordoned off 2 appointments for me for all the things. Sigh. 

Oh right. Yes. Joint rest.

I’m bad at this. I hate resting. I really do. I hate being stationary. I hate not being able to do stuff. I HATE THIS AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH EDS is a fucking killer for people with former suicidal depression who had had it all their life and it had apparently been fixed by meds and now suddenly it’s back like WOW fuck EDS. Ugh. And I’m getting all these phone calls from my docs as my tests come back telling me I need to change my diet to avoid this and that and change this and that like whole HUGE lifestyle changes but adding “We’ll go over the full thing at our next appointment, but I STRONGLY ADVISE...” I’m like, “Well bitch as long as you tell me it’s just advise and not a MUST, I want a damn biscuit okay. Fuck your no gluten.” But then again, I have a stomach ulcer so I can’t really eat ANYTHING right now so wah. [whines]

FUCK. KILLIAN. LIE DOWN. STOP TYPING. I NEED SOMEONE TO FUCKING WHACK ME WITH A FUCKING RULER OR SOMETHING LIKE THE NUNS USED TO DO IN MY PRIVATE, CATHOLIC SCHOOL. LMAO.

[stops now...for real this time...but reluctantly and rather bitterly]

[everybodys-therapist]

Bipolar Q&A

All credit to @loloren69 but I never get asks so I’m just gonna do it even though no one asked. YAY!! Read under the cut for the rest.

General:

1. Type 1 or type 2?

Type 1

2. Self-dx or professional dx?

Professional Dx

3. Are you currently hypo/manic, depressed, mixed, stable, or not sure?

Bruh I don’t even know at this point. Pretty sure I’m stable though.

4. Do you have any other mental illnesses/disorders?

I have some pretty intense GAD (generalized anxiety disorder)

5. When did you first start having symptoms?

It really hit hard when I hit puberty so at like 14.

6. When did you realize/learn that you have bipolar?

I was professionally diagnosed when I was 18, before that I didn’t really think much of it.

7. Have you ever received a misdiagnosis?

LMAO yes and it was arguably the worst experience of my life. They diagnosed me with Major Depression when I was 16 and put me on meds. Anyone who knows how depression meds affect bipolar....I hit mania HARD and never came down. 

8. How self-aware are you on a scale of 1-10?

I mean right now probably an 8 but I’m pretty stable night now.

9. How many people know about your bipolar disorder?

I’m not sure. I don’t actively try to hide it from people but it’s not something I’m like HELLO I AM BIPOLAR. 

10. Are any of your family members bipolar?

My aunt suffers from bipolar 1 too and she went untreated for 40 years. She has been hospitalized, arrested, and had her kids taken away before. I’m hoping I never get to that level. 

11. Name three fictional characters you relate to and/or headcanon as bipolar.

Even Bech Næsheim 

Ian Gallager (seasons 1-4)

Hypo/mania:

12. When hypo/manic, do you get euphoric, dysphoric, angry, creative, social, or several of the above?

pretty much all of the above. never dealt with dysphoria though.

13. What has been your longest hypo/manic episode?

From what I remember I was in an INTENSE manic episode because of those meds in high school for at least a month and a half or so. I’m talking full on psychosis and everything. Full 9 yards.

14. Have you ever had a psychotic episode? What symptoms did it include?

Yup. Many times. Usually it involves vividly remembering things that flat out didn’t happen. Hearing voices. Paranoia. I once mourned the death of these kids I read about in the newspaper because I was 100% sure we had gone to school together and we were friends and stuff. In actuality they didn’t even live in the same county as me and they were like 5 yers older.

15. What kind of impulsive decisions have you made?

Spent tons of money on hockey season tickets for me and my friend. Bought a shit ton of arts and crafts painting shit because I was determined I was going to become an artist. Went for a walk through downtown alone at 3am because I wanted some cookies and the only store open was a couple miles away. 

16. What’s the most money you’ve spent in a single day while hypo/manic?

If I remember correctly about $1,500. In one day. When I was like 16. It was seriously all of the money I had saved up for YEARS and I dropped it all in one day. 

17. What’s the longest you’ve gone without sleep?

Consecutive days without sleep I’d say 4, but I’ve gone weeks with only a couple of hours of sleep a night. 4 days without sleep and you’re fucking tasting colors. 

18. Are you a creative type? Have you ever made a poem/song/other artwork about being bipolar?

I wrote a spoken word poem about it once. I was pretty proud of it too. It’s on here somewhere. 

Depression:

19. When depressed, do you get suicidal, bored, anxious, guilty, or several of the above?

ALL OF THE ABOVE and also apathetic. 

20. What has been your longest depressive episode?

I would say my longest episode of being at my lowest of lows went on for about 3 or 4 months. 

21. How do you cope with depression?

Not well. I cry and sleep mostly. If we’re talking about bad coping mechanisms I’ve done that too. I often binge watch tv or something mindless.

22. Are you a sleep-all-day depressive or an insomniac depressive? Do you overeat or lose your appetite?

I’m a sleep-all-day depressive and an overeater. I lose my appetite when I’m manic.

23. When is the last time you cried or had a breakdown?

Bruh last time was like 3 days ago haha

24. Have you ever self-harmed?

Yup. 100%

25. Have you had problems with substance abuse?

Nope

26. Have you ever attended AA/NA/etc?

Never had a reason to

27. Have you ever attempted suicide?

Yes

28. Have you ever written a suicide note?

Yes

Other symptoms and treatment:

29. Do you ever dissociate?

Yes

30. Do you ever have hallucinations? If so, what are they?

Yes, it depends. A lot of time it’s auditory hallucinations. 

31. Do you see a therapist? Do you feel like it’s helping?

I did for a while but often I left more anxious and on edge than when I started so I quit.

32. Are you on any medications? Do you feel like they’re helping?

Yes I’m on 4 different medications right now and I can’t begin to tell you how much they’re helping me.

33. Have you ever been hospitalized?

I was taken to the ER a couple of times, but never made to stay over. They often gave my parents a choice if they wanted me admitted or not and they always said no.

34. Have you ever attended group therapy?

No

35. Have any of your symptoms gotten worse over the years?

I would say they haven’t gotten worse as much as they’ve stayed the same and my situations have changed. For example I now have access to far more money and power than I did as a teenager so mania can get a little dicey.

36. Have any of your symptoms gotten better over the years?

Not by themselves, but the medication has helped.

37. Do you have a favorite coping method?

Music is always a good way to try and keep yourself grounded. Especially if you’re dissociating or something like that. Having something to focus on is always helpful.

38. If you could choose to be neurotypical, would you?

To be honest I don’t know. I would love to get rid of the terrible parts, but all in all they’ve made me who I am and they’ve gotten me to where I am now. I’m sure my bipolar disorder will fuck up some more things for me before I die, but I’m actually not sure if I would want to be neurotypical.