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magidoggie · 1 year ago

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A LOOK INTO SHI/HIR PRONOUNS AND THEIR ORIGINS

So I’ve seen people claim that shi/hir pronouns are intersex exclusive (mostly intersex people), and others say they aren’t (mostly non-intersex people)

As an intersex person, I've been confused about this for a while, so I decided to look into it

THIS POST WILL CONTAIN NSFW TOPICS, FURRIES, TALKS OF FETISHIZATION OF INTERSEX BODIES, AND INTERSEX SLURS!

Most of the users of these pronouns seem to be non-intersex people, but there are also intersex people who use them.

I've seen a decent amount of intersex people say that shi/hir pronouns are only ours to use, as they were used against us (like a shortened version of he-she). This would make them basically slurs that only we can reclaim.

I've even seen some claims that Geoffrey Chaucer himself coined these words?? (The chaucer thing, I haven't been able to find a source for. Even so, it is most likely just an old spelling of "she/her")

I’ve seen people say it originated on 4chan. It'd be hard to verify, as 4chan is known for not keeping threads up for long. There are 4chan archives, but I've tried my hardest to look for any combinations of things like "shi" and different terms that could work with it like "intersex" "freak" or "hermaphrodite" . I don't doubt it's been used on 4chan, but I can't find much, and archival sites don't go back far enough.

Regardless, the pronouns seem quite old. One thing I did find under the search of ""4chan" shi hir" on Google, was a.. descriptive post on a furry porn website called e621.net

Okay, 13 years ago, that's a start. It certainly contains the word "herm" (short for hermaphrodite), and the word intersex used with this pronoun.

Godspeed TheShadowfox42 I hope you found the image.

Using Google's "Before:(date)" feature, I searched "shi herm before:2010", and unsurprisingly, I found a lot of furry porn.

Stories on sofurry.com, a furry website that looks to be from at least 2007, if not older. I'll spare you the details, but indeed, there, they use shi/hir pronouns for their "herm" characters. Did these pronouns originate from.. furries?? I put that though aside for now, to look further into other uses.

As it turns out, the journey does not end at 2007. Urban dictionary has an entry from 2003

No slurs here, it looks like a neutral usage. Again, going back to Google. Now, search terms "hir "gender neutral" before:2004"

Many results show up now, now articles rather than furries. American.edu (seems to be a university), Swarthmore.edu (this is a college), both from 2001. jstor.org with a journal article from 1999. Unfortunately I can't read that one, as I have to pay a whole $63 to purchase it. I even found a PDF file from 1994 by core.ac.uk

But, what I've realized now is this is not usage of shi/hir pronouns. All of these use Ze/hir pronouns. I don't know if there is any link, but the last pronoun looking the same must've obscured the results.

From the american.edu article on these pronouns. You can see the usage of "hir" alongside "ze", and below it, the usage of ze/zir pronouns, which seem to be used more today.

Shit.. Doing the search all over again with the pronoun "shi" yields.. very few results apart from people talking about Chinese words.

Wait what about those furries from earlier? The tvtropes.org article does include this:

Chakona space? Chakats? Pronouns he came up with? Admittedly I kept seeing these centaur feline hybrid characters come up quite consistently during this dive, but I had to look into it further.

Oh buddy what did I get myself into. This is from 2001 best I can tell, so we're getting quite old here. I scroll down on the page.

And lower down.

Now this is all very interesting speculative biology, but what I'm focusing on is again, the usage of "hermaphrodite" together with the pronouns "shi/hir". Did a furry artist named Bernard Doove come up with these pronouns.

It gets yet older.. New search, "chakats "shi" before:2001"

Again, Bernard Doove's art from 2000, 1999, 1998,

I find a website called yerf.metafur.org It has furry art, dating all the way back to the mid 1990's, but here, on December 23 1998, is the first appearance of these pronouns on that site.

This Bernard Doove person has been at this project, with these pronouns for a while.

From what I can tell, many of his art pieces, they seem to be quite sexual beings. Quite fetishistic of hermaphroditism at times. (or intersexuality, take your pick)

The other thing I found with my search was a website, furry.org.au/bosshoss/

My search says it's from September 14 1998.

That's certainly some information, but it might come in handy. So Chakat Goldfur provided this website? Who is that? Looking into it, that seems to be a character created by Bernard Doove, that acts as an alter ego. Further down, the person running this website lists some other websites they enjoy. One being "Proxima Centauri", which seems to be another furry artist.

"I met this one at ConFURence 8. Very interesting. (Did I mention shi is a hermaphrodite uni-centaur?)"

(For context, ConFURence is a furry convention held in 1997)

Again, the usage of hermaphrodite, and the pronoun shi. At this point, the website being linked to is long gone, but the wayback machine provides help. The website, http://www.spots.ab.ca/~unicorn/main.htm has been captured all the way back to October 8th 1997.

At this time, the website was under construction. No images are willing to load and haven't been archived, but the description is intact.

So this person uses shi/hir pronouns for their hermaphroditic character all the way back in 1997. There are links to other places where this person used to host their works, but they are all down and haven't been archived. The thread is running thin..

Back to Bernard Doove, the Chakat creator. There must be something more to this. Turns out, there was. On the "yerf" website, I actually found several art pieces that were not picked up by Google.

Febuary 22 1997. Getting yet older. In some art pieces, Bernard references "Forest Tale" and "forest tales", so I went looking for whatever that was.

1995?? you've got to be kidding. It's an adult story involving these "chakat" beings, and sure enough, down the page

Shi/hir pronouns used over and over again.

With the use of hermaphrodite.

But.. This is kind of where it ends. I couldn't seem to find anything older, and I'm not going to contact Bernard Doove over this. Even something as old as 29 years is impressive to me. Bernard Doove states his characters were inspired by other furry artists' creatures of the time, but since it's 1995, there isn't much left for me to find here. Anything before that time is probably lost.

With all the information I have been able to gather, it looks to shi/hir pronouns were created by Bernard Doove who is a furry author and artist. Shi/hir were made to be a midway between "she" and "him" in some way, to be a gender neutral word for hermaphroditic genetically modified beings called "chakats" in his stories. As an intersex person myself, I don't enjoy the use of "hermaphrodite" in such a way, as it's a slur for us. But these types of characters also seem to be very old, and we, and our struggles, were completely unknown to the vast majority of people, even moreso than nowadays.

If you use those pronouns for an intersex person who doesn't use them, it is indeed intersexist, as you are implying we are hermaphrodites.

But as for whether only intersex people can use them? I'm not sure. The original intent doesn't seem be directly linked to intersex people. You could argue that these hermaphroditic characters are fetishized versions of how many people see us, and have seen us for a long time. Afterall, hermaphrodite was, and still is, a common slur for us.

I don't doubt some people have used these pronouns as slurs against us as well, but I also haven't found anything specifically that supports that. It always seemed to be for specific fictional characters that COULD be based off specific intersex attributes

I'm not going to argue one way or the other. This was just me trying to find what I could about these pronouns and their history. Just be mindful of how you use these pronouns, and the connections they have to fetishes revolving around the common misinterpretation of intersex bodies (as in, "having both parts")

Thank you for reading.

I hope you learned something. I know I did, and I now have a headache.

#shi/hir #pronouns #history #internet #intersex #fetishization #furry #queer history #doggie barks

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yuzurujenn · 1 month ago

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[2024.12.07] Echoes of Life Official Pamphlet Interview

YUZURU HANYU Interview

Q: How did the theme and concept of "Echoes of Life" come about? A: At first, I roughly thought of using philosophy as the theme. Later, when thinking about what kind of story to tell, I came up with around seven potential ideas in my mind. After filtering them, I ultimately settled on philosophy.

Q: After "GIFT" and "RE_PRAY," how did these experiences influence the theme and subject matter of this new project? A: "GIFT" was a bit like an autobiography. Through my existence, it told the preciousness of dreams. Everyone has dreams, but they might have forgotten them, and working towards those dreams is the meaning of my existence, something along those lines. "RE_PRAY," on the other hand, was about challenging how to express something I particularly like and elevate it along with the theme I wanted to convey. When creating "ICE STORY 3rd," I felt that the game theme in "RE_PRAY" had a strong impact, so the attention to the theme and subject matter would be stronger. I thought that just having a story might not be enough. I considered whether I should use a book, a game, or a town as a medium. After thinking about various possibilities, I concluded that a novel format would be the best, with philosophical elements woven into it.

Q: This time, you can read the storybook before the performance. A: This time, I decided to write it in the style of a novel, using literary style including punctuation and sentence structure, rather than my own conversational tone. Up until now, while I haven’t written in a poetic form, I have directly organized my personal feelings or the emotions of the characters into a story. But this time, I’ve added more situational details and descriptions to the story line. I hope that, by understanding these aspects, the audience can experience the images and performances at the same time. Of course, we’ve thought about how to make the audience feel something when watching the performance even if they don’t know the story. But if they know the story, they’ll be able to understand the details of "Nova" (the protagonist) and the world more deeply.

Also, I feel that reproducing exactly what I wrote might come across as cheap or too indulgent. While thinking about how to present it as a skating performance and create the visuals, I decided to leave the textual descriptions to the text itself. It might be better if the audience reads the storybook first.

Q: How did you write this story? A: I wrote it by hand. I always write by hand, even for "GIFT" and "RE_PRAY." I scribble on loose-leaf paper or blank sheets. Although I don't record the material exactly as it is, I often accumulate the content I want to tell and quotes that have influenced me in the notes app on my phone, and then write based on that. Writing by hand feels like a more direct connection to the brain, and it's easier for the brain to give instructions. Also, when typing on a phone or computer, predictive text comes up, and I feel like my words stop being my own. I don’t want to be led by predictive text, so I prefer writing by hand. Then, as I read it in my mind, thinking "maybe I should delete this part," I type it little by little into the computer. This time, I actually already had a story written, but after deciding on the title 'Echoes of Life,' I started over and wrote a new story from scratch. From writing by hand to typing and editing, I stayed up for three nights straight to complete it.

Q: Writing the story in three days or staying up for three nights is pretty intense! A: This time, I really wanted a cohesive story, so I thought, "If I don’t finish writing it now, the imagery of the story in my mind will collapse." Of course, it’s also because I had a deadline… If I didn’t submit it soon, it’ll be a problem! (laughs)

Q: What did you base your writing on? A: For "GIFT," I was influenced by lyrics from songs I liked. In "RE_PRAY," I was more influenced by instrumental music and the dialogue from games than by lyrics. This time, I read about four philosophy books and five novels. I’m not really someone who excels at writing, and I thought I only know how to write in a conversational tone. The words that come from my heart are very close to how I speak, and I thought if I just wrote them directly as a novel, it would feel too rough. Writing in poetry allows for that kind of expression, but if I'm writing a prose, I need to first internalize the structure of an essay, so I read several novels that interested me. I'm not good at continuously reading text, so I listened to the book's narration while following along with the written words, jotting down parts that I thought, "Ah, I really like this." Of course, this time, I was also influenced by games and lyrics.

Q: What books did you read? A: The books that influenced me the most this time were " The Trouble with Being Born " (by Emil Cioran) and "Underwater Philosophers" (by Rei Nagai). I combined the philosophy of life I learned in university with questions I’ve been pondering since young, like "What is life?" and "What am I?" Through this process, I realized that I needed to study more to fully grasp it, so I revisited philosophy more deeply and based the story on that knowledge.

Q: Are there new programs this time? A: Yes, there are quite a few!

Q: That’s very exciting! Why did you decide to include so many new programs? A: I just thought, "This song fits perfectly here," and chose the music accordingly. It ended up naturally turning out this way. When I worked on RE_PRAY, I arranged the songs the same way. But honestly, the theme of RE_PRAY was, in some ways, a bit bold. Since it was based on a game theme, it was very different from GIFT’s style, so if I had made it entirely based on my own interests, it might have alienated the audience that follows figure skating. So, although I had a lot of songs I wanted to use, I ultimately decided to focus on showcasing the game elements in the first half, and in the second half, I went with a more traditional style, integrating more figure skating-like programs. This ended up aligning with what I wanted to express, which was the duality of life. But this time, since it's a completely new story, I felt that using new programs was the best way to present it. Also, I seem to have become less concerned with overthinking things now. Or perhaps, because this time isn't just focused on my own interests, I thought, "This program works well" and "This song is nice too," so the song selection process went very smoothly.

Q: What is it like working with MIKIKO-sensei and the team to create ice shows? Since 'RE_PRAY' was a tour, we made many adjustments and identified many areas that needed attention. I also felt there were many aspects that required further evolution. Because I’ve spent a lot of time involved with stage direction, I’ve become able to view my performance not only from an acting perspective, but also start thinking, 'Maybe this lighting would be better,' or 'It would be better to add this program after this scene,' and even when creating the story, I think, “It should be shown this way.” I’ve really started to approach things from a more overarching perspective.

Additionally, I feel that I’ve become more reliant on others. There are many more situations where I think, 'This is not my area of expertise, so I’ll let go and entrust my worldview and concept to everyone.' On the other hand, there are places where I absolutely cannot compromise, and this tug-of-war is also a troublesome dilemma, but I’ve started to be able to think deeply about it.

Q: The premiere of Echoes of Life is also your 30th birthday! Happy Birthday! A: Thank you, but it's not actually my birthday yet (laughs).

Q: What are your thoughts on the premiere coinciding with your birthday, and turning 30? A: Of course, I have many thoughts. First, since Echoes of Life is themed around life, birth, and growth, I feel like the overlap with my birthday gives it a fateful feeling. From that day onward, Echoes of Life begins, and I think this mirrors the beginning of my own life in some way. Plus, it starts on a birthday that’s a multiple of 5 or 10, which makes it feel even more like destiny. As for turning 30... well, it’s more like the shift from “almost 30” to “in my 30s” (laughs).

Q: It's exactly 30, huh? A: Yeah, but I don’t feel like my body is deteriorating as I once imagined, and I can still skate so well! And even in this state, I am still needed by many people, and this once again makes me feel so touched, or rather, so happy. I feel that I must push myself and work hard!

Q: I only mentioned your turning 30 because it’s a nice round number, but honestly, I don’t feel your age. What I feel is that since the RE_PRAY tour, you’ve been strengthening your body again, and you seem even stronger now. A: As I got older, my expressiveness deepens, which is something that can happen in any field. But my foundation, the most important part, is as an athlete. I’ve been figure skating for 25 years, and that part of me continues to evolve even at the age of 30. That makes me really happy, and I’m able to still have hope for myself, or rather, I feel anticipation for the future.

Q: By the way, do you remember anything from when you were 20? A: Of course I do! It was during Barcelona Grand Prix Final. I was super restless on my 20th birthday, as if the world would change just because I turned 20. That’s how anxious I was (laughs).

Q: Did the world change? A: Not at all (laughs). After that experience, I feel that even if it’s my 30th birthday, a year or a day will just pass by as a commemoration, and basically, nothing will change. But after all, I am an athlete, so I will definitely feel the changes in my body more and more. DNA will continue to be damaged anyway, so I think there will definitely be changes. However, I don’t think these changes will necessarily happen in multiples of five years. Change will come when it’s time, and the opportunity for change isn’t measured in time units like years. So, I’m relatively optimistic about this aspect. I don’t think, "My body will change at this moment." When I was 24, I really felt that my body had changed deeply, and I was troubled by the thought, "I’m getting old, and I can’t do it." But once I got past that point, I felt, "It’s still early!" "There are so many things I can do—why am I talking about being old?!" "It’s just things I haven’t done yet!" (laughs). I’ve learned a lot so far, and I’ll continue to learn in the future. As long as there’s room for continuous learning and improvement, even if I’m approaching 40—an age generally associated with a decline in physical strength—I think the gains from evolution will far outweigh the losses from decline.

Q: After hearing such inspiring words, I have one more question. Do you remember anything from your 10th birthday? A: I went to Tampere when I was 10.

Q: Oh, that’s when you competed at the Santa Claus Cup in Tampere, Finland, right? A: Yes, when I was 10, it was my first international competition. After winning that first international competition, I was on the plane home, listening to Bridge of Glory and crying... I was looking out the window, thinking, “Have I really made it this far?” And I just cried there (laughs). It’s funny, right? Don’t you think it’s funny? (laughs)

Q: That’s very cute (laughs), you must have been really emotional. A: Yeah, I was really happy. It was 2004, the Athens Olympics were in the summer, so the theme song was Bridge of Glory (NHK’s official theme for the Athens Olympics). I listened to it on my MD player. Every time I hear that song, I remember being in that airplane cabin (laughs). That was when I was at my strongest.

Q: Now, 20 years later, what are your thoughts on Echoes of Life? A: Right now, there are still many new programs that need choreography, and I need to focus on creating them. As the title Echoes of Life suggests, I want to pour my soul into every part of the creation process. Even though the tour means the program will constantly evolve, first and foremost, I want to create the perfect and best performance for the premiere. I will do my best!

MIKIKO Interview

Q: How did you first encounter "Echoes of Life"? A: After finishing RE_PRAY, we started discussing the theme for the new ICE STORY, and Hanyu-kun frequently mentioned “philosophy” and having “words to leave an impression.” When I heard this, I told him, "This really sounds like your style, and it seems like it will be really interesting!" I also said, "It feels like it will be different from past works, which is great." Later, I received a rough outline of the plot, and soon after, I got the full story.

Q: What was your impression after reading the story? A: Since it was written in the form of a novel, it felt lighter to read. However, the detailed scenes and the depiction of emotions in the language were very much infused with the unique beauty of Japanese language nuances, so I thought, "This is really difficult!" (laughs) It was hard to translate it into a performance. Since I was imagining how to bring it to life on the ice while reading, from the perspective of how to express the story, it was really challenging.

Q: What specific parts did you find difficult to represent? A: For example, the line “a slight cold sweat broke out in my stomach” is interesting to read, but then I had to think about how to turn that expression into an image or a performance. Additionally, like with RE_PRAY, each team member had different interpretations of the story after reading it. While this made it interesting, it also took a lot of time to harmonize. Just like with RE_PRAY, I think we’ll only understand after the official performance, “Ah, so this is what Hanyu-kun wanted to convey!”

Q: Was there anything special in your approach to the stage design? A: Normally, I’m responsible for directing live concerts or choreography for each song. For example, when I choreograph, I want the composers and lyricists to feel that their work is being presented even better and shine even more. The same goes for directing. In Echoes of Life, the original creator himself is performing, so I think the most important thing is to understand his intentions as much as possible. However, I also have to look at the work as objectively as possible. So, I try to view it from multiple perspectives—Hanyu-kun’s perspective when he was writing, the audience’s perspective, the perspective of his most loyal fans, or even someone who doesn’t know anything about him. I incorporate all of these viewpoints into the stage design. During this process, I try to set aside my own subjective thoughts. Even though it may still end up with a “MIKIKO style,” I believe I completely stripped my own biases while creating it.

Q: Did you choreograph for Hanyu in Echoes of Life? A: Yes, I choreographed a new program and also made adjustments to others. From RE_PRAY to Echoes of Life, Hanyu has done a lot of foundational dance training. I taught him all the training techniques that professional dancers go through. I think he’s probably been integrating those movements into his figure skating training day by day. So, when I choreographed for him this time, I felt like his body had almost found a new way of expressing itself. This physical transformation left a strong impression on me.

Q: What exactly was the change? A: Last time, it felt like he was trying to somehow integrate dance into his figure skating body. But this time, it felt more like I was choreographing for a professional dancer. He’s always been great at mirroring movements, so before, he probably focused on memorizing the 'form' of the movements and then forcing his body, which felt awkward, into that 'form,' practicing it repeatedly. Now, however, it’s become more about understanding how to use the body and then adding the 'form' on top of that. This reverse approach, I think, makes it easier for him.

Q: What specific techniques did you teach, MIKIKO-sensei? A: It was really basic, foundational training. Dancers will incorporate ballet techniques, so that was part of it, along with some stretching methods. Also, as a body meant to be appreciated in 360 degrees, there’s a training method where you place a plate on your palm and perform movements without letting the plate fall. Even if the front of the body can ensure the plate doesn’t fall, to prevent it from falling from the back, you need to keep the back flexible. This kind of training helps to create a more three-dimensional body. So-called dance movements are all connected; curves and circles need to be completed in one continuous motion. If a joint is stiff in any part, the movement becomes rigid. And we try to make all movements flow as curves. I also taught him exercises to relieve joint stiffness, so I feel that now his nerves can more effectively reach every corner of his body.

Q: Hanyu has incorporated so many new things! A: He said he was originally self-taught, analysing 'to perform this kind of movement, I probably need to use my body this way.' I think his analysis has come together this time. It’s like he not only solved the current problems but also answered some of the questions he had before.

Q: This is your third time directing one of his ice shows. What is unique about the experience of directing an ice show? A: Ice shows continue to present new challenges for me. One distinctive aspect is that the size of the rink is always fixed, so the challenge lies in creating a unique visual experience within those constraints. While the fixed size can be limiting, it’s also exciting. In contrast to performances with more confined spaces, ice shows offer a generous amount of space to work with. It feels like painting on a canvas full of endless possibilities, and finding ways to transform the rink visually is a deeply rewarding challenge.

Q: You once said at the end of RE_PRAY, “I wonder what kind of work I would make next if I had the chance.” A: While working on “RE_PRAY,” I kept thinking about what might come next. From a visual perspective, I was certainly pondering that very question. As for the story, I felt that Hanyu-kun had fully expressed his own story through GIFT and RE_PRAY. So, I was looking forward to seeing if he would step outside of his own framework and what kind of story might emerge if he did. In the end, he created an entirely new protagonist, "Nova," and wrote a completely different story. I really didn’t expect it to change this much.

Q: As a director, how would you describe Echoes of Life? A: I think it’s a work that can showcase greater potential. In past works, the focus was more on how to showcase Hanyu Yuzuru as an artist and how to design a performance within the framework of figure skating. This time, it feels like the subject has shifted, and the focus is more on presenting a cohesive story. It feels fresh and also makes me feel like I’m being tested (laughs).

Q: Following RE_PRAY, this time you’ll also be touring in three cities. What is the appeal of touring? A: Yes, each venue has different perspectives, so it really tests our ability to adjust once we enter the venue. But the essence of touring is that the same work can offer completely different experiences and feelings in different venues. So, I plan to fully make use of the characteristics of each venue.

Q: One of the venues is Hiroshima, your hometown. A: It’s rare to secure the Hiroshima Green Arena. Echoes of Life explores themes of life and peace, and performing it in Hiroshima, especially around the time when the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations received the Nobel Peace Prize, feels almost like a miracle.

Q: What is it like working with this team? A: While all concerts and stage performances are difficult, the mountain we have to climb in ice performances is something that no other project can compare to. When I first received the original work, I instantly felt like a very high mountain was in front of me (laughs). Facing this towering mountain, we can only take it step by step, and right now, we can’t even see the summit. We can only start climbing from here, hand in hand (laughs). We’ve been thinking about how to make the audience understand this piece clearly within two and a half hours. The fundamental theme of the work is life and the things Hanyu has always cherished, so we must approach it with sincerity. The sense of unity, as everyone comes together to face this challenge, is especially strong.

Q: You’re climbing a mountain whose peak you can’t see yet. A: It feels like starting from a place where nothing is visible, and gradually being able to faintly see a hint of the summit. And when we step onto the stage, there's this feeling of being suddenly pulled to a higher place. The feeling of everyone working together toward that goal is truly joyful. Perhaps it's through this that we experience the value of what we’re doing. People from different fields come together at this point in time. 'How to minimize costs in a short period and complete the work efficiently'—these are the demands of the times. But this work allows us to set those concerns aside for a while, to handle things carefully, and to deliberately choose the tasks that are time-consuming and labour-intensive. That’s ICE STORY. It gives a sense of returning to the original intention. Although returning to that intention is also quite tough for me, this is the essence of ICE STORY. I think this quality may stem from Hanyu’s focus and self-discipline... I believe everyone involved in this work probably shares the same feeling.

Source: https://weibo.com/6473801248/P4gBakkFHhttps://weibo.com/6473801248/P4m5t0zmHhttps://weibo.com/6473801248/P5aCiDUf7https://weibo.com/6473801248/P4ePVBkFG

#hanyu yuzuru #yuzuru hanyu #羽生結弦 #MIKIKO #figure skating #figure skater #echoes of life #ice story #interview #machine #translation

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maslows-pyramid-scheme · 7 months ago

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Andrew Thomas Hayler, 38, pleaded guilty to 28 counts of using a carriage service to cause offence [creating deepfakes] involving 26 women between July 2020 and August 2022, including his close friends, former housemates, colleagues, his best friend's sister and family members. In many instances, Hayler took photographs of his victims from social media accounts and superimposed their faces onto sexually explicit images, which he then uploaded to an Instagram account and pornography website with more than 300,000 members. These were sometimes accompanied by graphic rape fantasies and descriptions of physical violence. In captions accompanying a photograph of a woman who described Hayler as a "close friend", he described a sexually explicit rape fantasy to be enacted over the "dumb slut". In some cases, Hayler also published identifying details including the women's full names, occupations, the suburbs they lived in and links to their social media profiles. At times he invited other users to publish comments detailing the ways in which they would like to assault the women. In September 2020, he posted on Instagram a photograph of a family member and another woman with a caption asking users to choose one for a derogatory sexual act. A photograph of another family member and three others in school uniforms were accompanied by the words: "It is up to us to turn them into our sluts, we need to force them to..." Hayler sometimes used multiple accounts to reply to his own posts, creating the illusion of social engagement. As he walked into the Downing Centre District Court on Thursday morning, the ABC asked Hayler how he felt about what he had done. "I'm really, really sorry," he replied. "It was a dark part of my psychology that came out and manifested." Although Hayler was not formally sentenced, Judge Jane Culver indicated that she planned on imposing a term of imprisonment. Hayler's defence lawyer told the court her client had "said his goodbyes" and wished to begin his custodial sentence immediately. ... After listening to the victim impact statements, Hayler took the stand and apologised for his offending. "I have really done a terrible thing and I am so very sorry to them, their families, friends and work colleagues," he told the court. "It's bigger than myself and them, it's affected the community. "I was living in this weird messed-up fantasy not thinking about the consequences of my actions." Hayler agreed that he chose "strong women" whom he found sexually attractive. He said the activity had been an "outlet for part of [his] psyche [he] didn't want to bring out in public".

He's not sorry that he did it; he's only sorry that he got caught.

#i can't fathom hating anyone as much as he hates women - to systematically create post and push those videos #radblr #radfem safe #radfems do interact

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flowerandblood · 2 years ago

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A Winter Beauty (1)

[Aemond Targaryen x fem!Stark reader]

[warnings: kissing and fluff]

[description: Aemond and his family arrive at Winterfell for Rickon Stark's Name Day. There, Aemond meets his daughter, who arouses his desire. I changed some names and facts for the sake of the plot. Viserys is also slightly younger in this version.]

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Previous and next parts: Masterlist

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Viserys and his family have come to Winterfell to celebrate the Name Day of Rickon Stark, Lord of Winterfell. It was a nod to the north, a sign of respect for their loyalty and devotion to the crown for generations. Viserys decided that this visit, although for trivial reasons, would be of great political importance and would positively affect their image in this sometimes forgotten part of the country.

Neither Alicent nor his children had ever been to Winterfell before. Although his children were reluctant to leave Kings Landing, in the end they all went on this long journey. During their absence, the state was to be administered by Otto.

Aegon, Aemond and Helaena flew on their dragons. Neither of them wanted to be crammed in for more than a week of traveling in a cramped carriage or on horseback.

The king and queen were forced to take the land route. Viserys' condition deteriorated with his age, but despite Alicent's pleas, they did not turn back. Viserys knew it would be a huge slander for Winterfell, they must have been preparing for this visit for months.

When they finally arrived, the dragons made a great impression on the inhabitants, causing some to panic. The biggest was Vhagar's, landing in the great snowy wasteland far from the castle, so she posed no threat. She was visible from many meters.

When they entered Winterfell, already on horseback, the entire welcoming committee was waiting for them, including Lord Rickon Stark and his wife, Lady Lyanna Arryn. Lord Stark knelt before Viserys, as did all his family, paying him homage.

"My king. It's an honor." He said in a serious, calm tone. Viserys smiled gracefully, doing his best to hide the fatigue of his journey, and stretched out his hands to him, wanting to hug him like a brother. Lord Stark seemed embarrassed for a moment, but he got up from his knees and embraced the king, the crowd around started cheering.

After a short rest and changing clothes, everyone gathered in the great hall of the castle. In its center stood a large wooden table, arranged perpendicularly to the 6 other tables below, intended for other lords and less important guests. Lord Stark has prepared a lavish feast for the king with music and dancing.

Aemond was one of the last to enter the room, sitting on the edge of the table next to his sister, Helaena. Next to her sat Aegon, then Alicent and the king, next to him Lord Stark, his wife and their eldest son, Cregan. The seat next to Cregan was empty.

Although Aemond was initially discouraged by the expedition itself and the change of environment, he found Winterfell a gray but interesting place. The fields and forests filled with snow in the sun looked beautiful and clean, almost fairy-tale, at least compared to some streets of Kings Landing, where sewage simply flowed.

After a while, a girl came in from the other end of the room. Aemond saw her long, slightly wavy black hair out of the corner of his eye.

They weren't combed in any hairstyle, they were just thrown over her shoulders, which were bare because her dress seemed to be made so that it barely held on, creating a boat neckline that showed nothing more than she wanted. The dress was a dull soft blue that rustled as she walked. It accentuated her bright, glowing eyes. She was grinning at Cregan Stark, and Aemond thought, seeing her eyes, that she was his wife.

Indeed, she took a seat next to him. Cregan took her hand and kissed it, she laughed heartily at something he said. Lady Lyanna bent over her, questioning her with a frown - she obviously resented her being late. The girl explained something to her quickly, Cregan just laughed under his breath, and Lady Stark stepped back, smiling slightly herself. Apparently, her explanation did something.

Aemond looked away, deciding that it wasn't right to look at someone's wife like that. He exchanged a few words with Helaena, but looking at her he couldn't stop his eye from darting back to the girl sitting next to Cregan Stark.

She was talking to him lively, didn't seem to notice them at all, and didn't seem to care that the king and queen were sitting next to her. Her face was bright, warm and happy, she looked like it was the happiest day of her life.

They seemed to get along perfectly well. Aemond thought about Helaena's soon to marry Aegon, and his throat tightened. He genuinely felt sorry for her, but he couldn't help her.

Suddenly the music started. Cregan immediately extended his hand to the girl he was talking to, who gladly accepted it. They both got up and wanted to head downstairs to the dance floor, but Lord Stark's voice stopped them.

"Merciful king, I haven't had time to introduce my daughter to you yet." He said, pointing to the girl, who looked surprised at her father and became ashamed as if she suddenly realized who she was facing. "Y/N Stark."

The young Lady Stark bowed with dignity, closing her eyes. Viserys and Alicent looked at her kindly.

"What a winter beauty." Alicent said, sincerity in her voice. "I congratulate you, Lord Stark, on such a reason to be happy."

The girl blushed at her remark, pursed her lips in embarrassment. Only now could Aemond hear the sound of her voice.

"Thank you for those kind words, my queen." She spoke warmly, her voice lively, gentle and calm, full of energy. Aemond shivered for some reason. He felt his heart pounding as he looked at her. She, to his frustration, didn't turn a single glance in their direction. She merely turned to her brother and followed him down the few steps to dance.

Aemond wasn't used to situations like this. Usually, ladies, even if they feared him, knowing that he was a prince, paid him a lot of attention - which most often bothered him and which he avoided. His father planned for him to marry one of Borros Baratheon's daughters.

He had visited Storms End several times with his father, and recalled it as an ordeal. Each of his daughters was vying for his attention, but they were trying to pretend they weren't. They accidentally bumped into him during training or on walks while he was reading, so he would retreat to his chamber, tired and discouraged.

Nothing was official yet, but he knew that sooner or later he would have to choose one of them. He was furious with himself that his attention was drawn to a woman who didn't even give him a single look. He couldn't help but watch her dance, his fingers tapping gently on the table. They were talking about something with Cregan, self-absorbed, laughing. There was a slenderness and grace in their movements that he lacked in dancing.

Suddenly Cregan leaned over her and whispered something in her ear, and she turned to look at Aemond with puzzled eyes. Aemond immediately looked away to the other side of the room, his heart pounding, feeling like a fool caught red-handed stealing. He wanted to burn himself with shame. He pursed his lips and decided not to look at her again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw various lords of the north come up to her, asking her to dance one by one, and she politely agreed. He tried not to look at her, but he saw that she spoke to everyone gently and with a smile, not exceeding the limits of decency. He was mad for some reason. He thought he had drunk too much wine.

Cregan Stark approached Helaena and asked her to dance. His sister accepted the offer with a smile. Aemond saw Aegon get to his feet and, encouraged, moved toward the young Lady Stark. She looked at him, surprised, and smiled when he offered her a dance. Aemond's jaw clenched at the sight.

To his surprise, in front of his father and mother, Aegon at least pretended to be able to behave. Aemond watched tensely to make sure his hand didn't go too low. He would whisper something in her ear sometimes, and she would turn her head away in embarrassment mixed with amusement, but she didn't seem discouraged and looked at him kindly. On one of the turns, he saw her look at him again, this time with curiosity, and he looked away again, burned. Compared to Aegon, he always felt deficient.

Although his mind was more receptive, full of knowledge, enthusiasm, humility, his body was more efficient in combat, he knew that first impressions count. Aegon, when he wasn't lying in his own vomit between the whore's legs, could pass for a very handsome, interesting man.

It was very easy for him to talk to the ladies, to make contact with them, to flirt with them, which Aemond couldn't. Even though he had a lot to say, he couldn't put it into words.

The dance ended and Y/N and Cregan returned to their seats. Out of the corner of his eye, Aemond saw her bare arms glistening with sweat and exertion, and felt the heat of his lower body. He felt remorse for thinking that way about a woman when his mother and sister were sitting next to him, and he only took a sip of wine, as if he wanted it to wash away all impure thoughts from him.

The rest of the feast passed peacefully, the guests slowly dispersed to their chambers. Y/N and Cregan soon said goodbye to everyone. Aemond's heart leaped as he saw that before she could get through the door, she turned toward him, her gaze bright and warm.

Aemond promised his mother that he would watch over Aegon. So he obediently stayed with him to the end, tearing him away from the kitchen wench and leading him to his chamber. He made him lie down on the bed, and after initially struggling, he gave in and fell asleep, snoring.

Aemond closed the door to his chamber and stepped out into the cloister, heading for his own room. He froze, seeing her figure slinking by with only a candle in his hand. She was already dressed in a long white nightgown, over it she had a white night robe tied at the waist. With her fair skin, dark hair and eyebrows and white robes, she looked like a ghost.

She looked around as she walked barefoot to see if anyone was seeing her, and when she saw him, her eyes widened in surprise. He wondered if she was on her way to see her lover. They stared at each other for a moment in silence. Aemond felt he had to speak to her, that if he didn't do it now, he never would.

"Should a lady go unattended alone at night in a castle?" He asked, there was an involuntary coldness and indifference in his voice, in which he tried to dress his words so as not to show how much his heart was pounding. To his surprise, Lady Stark smiled as if she was about to laugh.

"She's allowed if it's her castle." She said carefully. Aemond pursed his lips at her remark. She saw it and smiled even wider. "Will you accompany me, Prince Aemond?" She asked, a sudden shudder ran through his body. He felt the heat and tension in his lower body again, and he wondered what she was implying. She didn't let him think too long.

“I heard you love philosophy and history. You may be interested in the crypts of my ancestors. I was just on my way to pay my respects to my grandmother. Today is also her name day." She said embarrassed, as if she felt that what came out of her mouth earlier could sound very ambiguous.

Aemond swallowed softly, feeling relieved and disappointed at the same time. He just nodded his head, letting out only a quiet grunt of approval. He would went to see anything with her, as long as he could look at her up close.

Lady Stark led him down the stairs to the underworld. Her candle was the only source of light. He wondered if she was cold, but she didn't seem that way. She moved through the dark corridors with remarkable ease. They passed sculptures of her ancestors, staring at them solemnly and menacingly, the shadows on their faces disturbing.

Finally, they stopped in front of a statue of a pretty woman holding flowers in her hand. Y/N lit other candles from her candle, standing at the feet of the sculpture, the corridor slowly began to be flooded with their light. Aemond stared heart pounding at her profile.

He wondered how she could trust him so easily. Go underground with a strange man, where no one would hear her cries for help. If she had come down here with Aegon, she would have been lost by now. He himself was battling some wild, alien desire that now possessed his body.

He was completely bewildered, always able to control himself perfectly, also when it came to his sexuality. After an adventure at the age of 13 in a brothel served to him by his brother, such matters did not attract him much attention. Now, looking at her, he felt hunger.

"Is it wise to go down to the crypts with a strange man, at night?" He finally asked impassively, looking at her tensely. She looked at him surprised, as if she didn't even consider the possibility that anything could happen to her. She smiled calmly.

"I didn't come down here with your brother, so I guess I'll be fine, my prince." She spoke calmly, though her voice trembled slightly. Aemond's pupil dilated in shock. She had to watch Aegon at the banquet and see how closely he spoke to the servants.

Aemond swallows silently, looking away. They stood in silence for a moment. He could smell her scent in his nose. A mix of lavender, flowers and herbs. He felt like his head was spinning and that he should go back upstairs because the tension in his pants was unbearable.

"You never dance, my prince?" She asked suddenly, looking pensively at the figure of her grandmother. Aemond looked at her in surprise. His eye traveled down her body, he saw the faint outline of her breasts and thighs. He swallowed, feeling his heart pounding.

"Never." He said indifferently. He didn't know what else to add. "I can dance, but I don't enjoy it." He finally exhaled.

Y/N looked at him surprised and smiled understandingly. She nodded, looking down at her legs. Aemond pursed his lips. He thought he couldn't stand it.

His hand involuntarily reached for her soft cheek, grabbing it. She gasped at his touch, jumped in surprise, and looked at him with wide eyes. The words stuck in her throat as he turned her face towards him and stepped closer to her. He pressed her forehead against his, they could feel each other's breath on each other, breathing raggedly, loudly.

He didn't hold her roughly, he wanted to give her the feeling that she could pull away at any moment and run from him. She looked stunned for a moment, her eyes expressing terror, uncertainty and something he couldn't describe. They looked at each other in silence.

He felt a huge shiver run through his body as her hand touched his scarred cheek. They both took a deep breath. He wondered what they were even doing, what his mother would think if she saw him. But he couldn't think about it anymore. He had been frustrated throughout the feast, watching her dance and touch every man but him.

He leaned over her and pressed his lips greedily against hers, and she moaned softly in surprise. He kissed her lustfully, and after a moment, to his delight, she opened her mouth, allowing him to caress her. He moaned low as she started kissing back, her hand tangling in his hair.

He thought they must be crazy, that the wine had gone too far into their heads, but he couldn't tear himself away from her. He held her in an iron grip, the wet sounds of their mouths echoing down the hall, pausing sometimes for a moment to catch their breath, but neither of them could really stop, they continued kissing, moaning into each other's mouths. He held her close but kept his distance so she wouldn't feel what was going on in his pants. He didn't want her to think he was trying to take her by force now. He wouldn't be able to refuse her, if she offered it.

They finally broke apart, as if remembering who they were, where they were, and what they were doing. An expression of uncertainty and embarrassment crossed their faces, and they took a few steps away from each other, terrified. Aemond thought she could hear his heart pounding. He had never felt so much desire before. He prayed to the Seven to give him the strength to turn around, climb the stairs, and not touch her.

"Forgive me, my Lady. I didn't mean to scare or embarrass you. Let me go to my chambers." He said, and with the last of his willpower he turned away, heading for the stairs, leaving her in the candlelight.

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Between the first and second part of my regular series, I also started writing something else, in the subject of HOTD. I'm curious what you think and if you'd like a little mini-series out of this! If you want to be tagged in the next parts, let me know. ~

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the-hydroxian-artblog · 9 months ago

Note

I love your animatronic toy OC guys so much, they have so much personality to them and their colours are really good (especially umbra)

Thank you! The funny thing about Umbra's design was that while I was developing it about two years ago and had some colors in mind, I described in text what I already came up with to an image generator for fun (shitty unconvincing old kind, vs now where it looks like shit but in a somewhat more convincing way) and it produced something so silly that I made her design better than what I would've settled with out of spite.

More details of my process and anti-AI ranting below the cut, so the examples given won't show up on search results. Google Images is getting polluted too much with slop to begin with.

Let's begin.

In 2022 I was drafting up Umbra's design with mostly concrete details. At this time image generators were newer and much less convincing, and I was a bit less aware of just how unethical they were, so I fed one a text description of what I had drafted for her design out of curiosity. Something along the lines of, "doll of an anthropomorphic owl librarian in glasses, blazer/suit jacket, skirt, corset, high heels, sitting on a bookshelf" and probably a few more terms. Really specific, lengthy prompt.

I try to be open-minded and give new things a shot, but the results were Not Great. Ideally, I'd want to not share the AI pictures at all on-principle, but I feel like it's useful, transparent, and necessary to show them. Both as a means of not hiding anything, but also just to appreciate where the design is at in spite of it.

Outside of this particular collage of Weird Owls, no other pictures on this blog are AI-generated. AI Image Generation is harmful, and I am against its usage.

But hey, two of the generated pictures look close, right? The top left is the closest, and bottom right is second.

That's because they started out worse, and I had to actually erase chunks of them and have the generator fill in the blanks to get anything remotely close to what I wanted. Misshapen limbs, unrecognizable anatomy, fever-dream clothing details, etc. They didn't even have a corset or proper legs until I slapped the generator in the face enough times to make it produce them. I was just using it to photobash, which was such an annoying process, I just went "this is dumb" and stopped. They're literally posed like that because I kept erasing and regnerating their limbs until they looked vaguely in-character. It literally only looks passable thanks to STRANGLING it with human input.

Before I used the image generator, I already drafted her to be night-themed with yellow eyes and something like purple, dark blue, or sky-blue as her main color; the generator making one owl yellow-eyed and purple was a happy coincidence, and the only thing the generative AI "came up with" that I didn't already have in mind or included in the prompt was the light blue shirt, which I did adapt into her cyan shirt and stockings/socks as well. That was a good call. You get One Point, Mr. AI.

...Which still meant that at its absolute best, it was a largely redundant step in the creative process if its contribution was worse than what a randomized palette generator or character creator could come up with.

That's already putting the ethics of it aside, like carbon emissions, data pollution, using artists' and photographers' work without credit or permission, the incentive to plagiarize, flooding sites like deviantart with slop, Willy Wonka Shit, etc etc etc. When people say "you can use AI as a tool though", this ordeal was enough to convince me that it's more trouble than its worth, even in its most ethical usage. I feel gross for having even tried. I wish I knew what sources went into the creation of those Weird Owls. It'd be better for research if the right people could be credited.

Nothing else on this blog is AI-generated or ever will be. The art below is purely my own (2022 vs a few weeks ago)):

Actually drawing Umbra and solidifying her design was far more rewarding than having an image generator vaguely approximate my own ideas. I wanted her to look really special, so I used a black cape and pants, gold highlights and buttons, and blue undertones to make something more distinct. Also, neck floof. Very important. I wanted the head in particular to look distinct and original, going with bold black streaks to really help her look distinguished.

I also have certain inevitable Hydroisms for Fancy characters like her; most apparent in these designs for Chasey and Kaita from even longer ago, which were more of an influence than anything else. (Old art of mine from like 2021, Kaita ref looks wonky but Chasey still holds up nicely):

Most of Umbra's other design elements were already commonly used with established ocs like Kaita, like her shape language, corset, skirt, heels, etc. It was my previous work with Chasey that inspired the use of gold buttons and highlights.

Umbra is also now a bluer shade of purple partly to distance the current design from that ordeal. All things considered, I'll probably make her more indigo next time. I already wanted her to have a wide color range from the get-go (Featured below is, again, purely my art from 2022:)

I may use a different colored shirt and stockings in the future. I like to think she has many different shirts and clothes based on the different stages of the night sky, from dusk to dawn, and the painting I made in the top right there was an exploration of her range in different lighting.

All in all, it's frustrating. I'm proud of her design, but explaining all of this is annoying, because it's technically all relevant to showing how her colors were picked and how the design was made. I still technically have AI to """Thank""", in the way you thank a bad experience for encouraging you to make things better out of spite.

#Umbra Beatrix

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zgvlt · 2 years ago

Text

sending your crush a survey form hcs part 4 second years x reader (separate) -> kalim, jamil, silver

general tags: gn reader, fluff + attempt at humor, sfw, not beta read, mix of text and images (for images, alt text/image description available)

other parts in this series

character: KALIM AL-ASIM premise/trope: sending your best friend a crush form. it's mutual but everybody... sort of just assumed that the two of you were already dating already

HOW HE (AND JAMIL) REACTS WHEN YOU SEND THE FORM LINK

Kalim's amused by many things, music one of the more significant interests he has. So, when he learned that he could customize the ringtones and notification sounds he has for all of his friends, he spends a lot of time assigning a tune for each person in his life.

It's why he immediately jumps up and searches for his phone when he hears the song he specifically chose for you.

Jamil gets it for him the second he recognizes the song playing because he's heard it so much it's ingrained in his memory.

(Kalim does not mute his phone unless specifically asked to. Usually for emergency purposes but Jamil doubts messaging you 24/7 qualifies as such).

Jamil checks the message briefly to make sure you're not getting hacked (it said you sent over a link and, well, there's been an increase in MagiCam accounts getting hacked lately...)

Jamil wishes he never checked it. When he gives Kalim his phone, he wants to walk away immediately. He does NOT want to be on the receiving end of the gushing, no way, absolutely not.

Even if it is a little cute, like some kind of fairy tale that he might have liked in his youth, he just wants to have some peace, and peace did not include Kalim yapping about how lovely and cool and amazing he thought you were.

Kalim's talking about how much he loves you and Jamil's immediate instinct is to sigh and ask why he won't tell you instead. You're his significant other or some other label anyway, right?

Kalim blinks in confusion, his fingers pausing the sticker spam he was inevitably doing.

"We're not dating though?" Kalim says. Jamil pops a blood vessel. "I wish we were! We could go on all sorts of cool dates, we could go visit my family, and then..."

Jamil tells him they literally already do that. They go on cool dates all the time. His family knows who you are (partially his fault, he let them know who Kalim spends all his time with these days, but obviously Kalim's fault for talking about you, too).

Jamil exits the room and tells Kalim to read the questions properly. He also says congratulations in advance.

Kalim's not dumb by any means, so when he realizes what the form is all about he's cheering and giggling to himself, like he wants to get his flying carpet to take a quick ride while, simultaneously, go get his drum kit so he could play his sudden excitement out.

His answers are equally excitable as your questions. Though it's mostly just vibes, he does get some really sweet answers out there about how much he likes you.

HOW HE ANSWERS THE QUESTIONS

AFTER HE ANSWERS THE FORM

Your relationship had been a long time coming... At least, that was how you and Kalim saw it. The two of you were so intertwined in each other's lives that spending your futures together just made sense.

For everyone else, they had thought the relationship was already there in the first place, so imagine their surprise when Kalim announces that there was going to be a party, a party to celebrate his new relationship, with you as the guest of honor.

They call Jamil a traitor for not telling them you and Kalim hadn't actually been dating all this time. Jamil wants to explain that even he didn't know, but he decides it's more fun to pretend he was the outlier who knew the truth all along.

He's planning a celebration for you, actively participating in the creation and setting up process because it's important to him that you would enjoy. He's taking into account what food and drinks you enjoy, how much people you want to attend and who should be in attendance, the music you want playing, even the colors of the decorations.

Initially, he wanted the party to be a surprise but he can't resist calling you. He wants this to be a perfect gift for you! He has to make sure you like each and every thing, so he calls you every few minutes to ask about even the tiniest of details.

It also probably helps that he just... really likes talking and listening to you.

Speaking of talking... While he keeps many of the specifics to himself, he's also talking about how nice and great and cute you are for confessing to him that way. It becomes the talk of the dorm, and Jamil won't be surprised if it becomes the modern day love story of their homeland.

Kalim's the one who seeks you out too, picking you up from wherever you said you were to bring you back to the dorm. He's so excited that he's (finally!) your partner!

The two of you spend a few minutes gushing about each other, and then he says,

"Alright, let's go!" He pulls you along with him, grasping your hand in his. "Let's celebrate the start of our love together!"

character: JAMIL VIPER premise/trope: sending your boyfriend, who you miss very much and is very busy, a crush form to remind him that your feelings have not waned one bit

HOW HE REACTS WHEN YOU SEND THE FORM LINK

You're wonderful to him, really, so you have the decency to send the link a little later into the evening, around the time you know he'd have less chores to do, more academics in turn. It's a time you know he'll allow himself to check his phone, and you know your message will go read.

You tell him you don't have to open the link immediately, to only do it when he's free.

Jamil sees the form file name and title and, well, he thinks it's time for him to wrap up his evening immediately. If he's to abide by your request, that is, to answer the form when he missed you... That would mean answering as soon as possible.

JAMIL : I don't know how to react. Should I call you corny or sweet for pulling a stunt like this?

He tells you that, but the reality is that his body has already decided how to react for him. His face feels too warm for comfort (which says a lot, considering he's rather used to the heat already).

He's hiding his face with his hood on the way to his room, and even when he's in the privacy of his quarters he can't help but want to cover up his face a little longer.

Conflicted between immediately getting back to you (at least, sending in his answers before you go to sleep) and preparing for bed, he ultimately decides to save the best for last, getting his heart to calm down as he undoes his hair and takes off his jewelry.

When he reads through the questions, he goes from being ready to pass out to doing leg kicks in bed and burying his face in his pillow (because he changed from his uniform, therefore no more hood).

Jamil answers the questions a little bluntly (with some quips aimed towards you here and there), but since it's something private, something he's sure you won't share with anyone else, he's comfortable giving you the affection you seek (and which he, too, misses giving and receiving).

(He also, just, has a thing for imagining you as flustered as you make him, so he likes to flirt a little bit. Oops 😊😁🤭)

HOW HE ANSWERS THE QUESTIONS

AFTER HE ANSWERS THE FORM

Morning come, everybody notices that Jamil is in SUCH a good mood, so good he can't even hide it.

It's surprising that he's acknowledging anyone at all considering, upon closer inspection, Jamil's eyebags looked... well, noticeable. Especially since he hadn't put on any makeup yet.

Kalim's usually the mood maker in Scarabia, but Jamil's genuine smiles are infectious, and soon enough everyone else is smiling, too, even so early in the morning.

Though they do wish he would talk to them a little bit more instead of spending his time on his phone (another rarity), but overall they're just happy that Jamil is happy.

(They all consider making some kind of prayer or offering to the Sevens now. Whatever or whoever is making their vice dorm leader having a wonderful morning, may it continue to do so forever)

As for Jamil... He knows he spent a good amount of time talking to you last night, but upon waking his natural instinct is to greet you immediately.

You're his treasure, his love, so if he goes to sleep thinking of you instead of dreading the morning come, and wakes thinking of you instead of the pile of work he'll inevitably face, who can really blame him for being visibly content?

JAMIL : I know I said I'd be too busy this week to commit to a date, but I don't think I can wait that long to see you. JAMIL : I'll find an excuse for Kalim, so... JAMIL : Shall we go on a date tonight?

character: SILVER premise/trope: sending Silver the form should have been relatively uneventful... if not for his well-meaning but nosy family

HOW HE (and the rest of Diasomnia) REACTS WHEN YOU SEND THE FORM LINK

The thing is... Silver's asleep when you send the link. That's not your fault of course, nor is it is. However, the two of you just have the most unfortunate timing. Maybe you shouldn't have sent multiple follow up messages, then it would not have alerted anyone else.

Silver's phone has multiple beeps and, well, his fae companions are a little more sensitive to sound than others. It's inevitable that they'd either be annoyed or intrigued by the constant notifications.

Sebek just wanted to mute it, really! However, the screen lights up when he puts it in front of his face, and he sees your name, and he instinctively says it out loud, and then it's all over.

Lilia and Malleus are taking peeks at the small device as well, trying to make sense of the cut-off previews of each message you sent.

Sebek is... trying to be a good person so he's doing that thing where he covers his face with his hand, but leaves a gap between his fingers for him to read the texts.

They want to wake up Silver because SILVER'S LOVE LIFE IS ON THE LINE WHAT IF YOU DELETE YOUR MESSAGES AND DECIDE YOU REGRET YOUR (admittedly unique) CONFESSION.

Lilia's talking about taking one for the team and he activates the face recognition unlock on Silver's phone. He's not going to look through what you sent or anything (yet) but he does send you a text to let you know that Silver's still asleep and to not worry about why he's not responding.

Well, that stops the message influx.

Ironically, it's the silence that wakes Silver up, and he's immediately suspicious when he sees three fae crowd over his cellphone.

When he finds out you've been sending texts he's very apologetic to have kept you waiting, and when he realizes just what you sent he's extra apologetic... and flustered. Not only did you send him such a thing, but his father, Malleus, and Sebek all got a glimpse of it, too.

SILVER : I'm sorry for taking so long. I feel asleep again. SILVER : I have control of my phone now, in case you were worried about... the others being overly curious again. SILVER : I'll answer what you sent and get back to you as quickly as I can.

Silver's answers are serious and straight to the point, but not to the point that it lacks affection. Rather, he manages to weave in his perception and feelings for you rather seamlessly.

HOW HE ANSWERS THE QUESTIONS

AFTER HE ANSWERS THE FORM

He just meant to let the trio outside his room (he knows they're there, they are not being very discrete) know that he was going to meet up with you for a little bit, maybe talk about the next steps of any relationship you could cultivate in person.

However, they're bombarding him with apologies for snooping (he's already forgiven them, honestly) and questions about whether he's finally having his first romance.

Even Sebek, once he says his piece about making sure to allocate enough time for training and academics, gets pretty into it.

Silver clarifies that he's going to meet up with you specifically to discuss what the two of you should do with your mutual feelings, and then they're talking about what courtship offering he could give and what attire he should wear and what song he could perform ad he loves them, really, but it's a little bit too much.

He lets them know he'll leave as he is and that he'll be back for dinner. Lilia jokes that he should cook something special for the occasion and to bring you along to dine with them.

He runs before he can be pressured into agreeing. Malleus and Sebek look like they want to join him instead of facing Lilia's cooking.

You're talking to a bird when he sees you. The sight makes Silver smile.

"The birds have a great eye. Those colors suit you," Silver says. He makes sure the stem has no thorns before he tucks it between your ear. "Perhaps the forest critters have taken a liking to you, too."

masterlist | end notes

[ 1 ] Compared to the previous crush forms (aside from Floyd's), these ones sort of have the theme of getting people involved in the process. I feel like if I were to make or receive one, I would be sharing them or letting my friends take a look, so it felt realistic enough to have some characters actually tell people about the form and not just keep it to themselves

[ 2 ] I don't think I have to say this, but don't violate people's privacy with their phone in real life HAHAHAHA this is for plot purposes only

< special tags >

@merotwst here bestie ito na yung tag mo HAHAHAHA surry napatagal ng post hihi

If anyone wants to be tagged for when a specific character's form gets posted feel free to let me know :> I can tag you too

#twst x reader #twst silver x reader #silver x reader #jamil viper x reader #kalim al asim x reader #twst headcanons #twst hcs #twisted wonderland x reader #nathya twst writing #twst #twisted wonderland #twst imagines #twst silver #jamil viper #kalim al asim

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plague-karm · 1 year ago

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Right time to analyse this shit because god dammit I have been silently making theories about this show the second I saw the premise I’m about to become the most annoying person on the planet on god so LETS GOOOOOOO-

First things first the animation looks fucking phenomenal (let Kevin Temmer cook, that man can do no wrong). Also Caine the guy ever, he is the silly and I love him wholeheartedly, he’s just a fucked up little guy who’s living his best life fr.

And also NEW CHARACTER HELLO.

They do be circling though.

THE SILLIES ARE HERE LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOO 🎉🎉🎉

Smiling Gangle spotted ten seconds before disaster, no thoughts head empty indeed.

ALSO I WASN’T EXPECTING STUFF OUTSIDE THE CIRCUS BUT IT’S A WELCOME SURPRISE WHOA

They have come to steal your credit card information.

The thoughts I had of Ragatha being the lone brain cell keeping everything together were completely correct I CALLED IT- (it has been said by Gooseworx that she has been there the second longest so she’s probably gotten used to the zaniness by now…maybe)

A door that leads to a void?

Maybe it has something to do with this room in the teaser trailer? Possibly.

Tumblr sexyman spotted.

''If there was a way to leave I'm sure we'd have all left by now''

They're ✨suffering✨

This caught me off guard when I first saw it lmao (holy FUCK I love Zooble's design, they're everything to me).

''Welcome to your new home...AND your new body...''

So they're aware that they were human before they entered the circus? That's interesting considering what happens in a few seconds (I'll get to that soon). It's also worth mentioning that Gooseworx has stated that their clothes ARE a part of their bodies.

Case in point...

At the end of the character introduction compilation Gooseworx posted to their YouTube channel Pomni is heard saying something along the lines of

''How do I...take this...headset off?!''

I saw a few people theorizing about her talking about a VR headset and that was how she entered the circus to begin with (I had the same thoughts until very recently). However, considering how much of the visuals and character designs are based on old media (also a teaser image was set up as the menu screen for a retro game), I'm beginning to think that this isn't the case.

So it's incredibly likely that Pomni is actually talking about her jester headpiece since she can't take it off.

This scene is probably the first time Pomni sees her new body, pinwheel eyes and all.

''I'm fine with whatever, as long as I get to see funny things happen to people''

I love him he's so unbothered.

I'm sad that we didn't get to hear any dialogue from them but I can't wait to see them in the pilot! Kinger is love, Kinger is life.

''After a while you start to realise that you really can't leave, and constantly chasing an unattainable goal will start driving you a little crazy''

She's a little fucked up actually wow who saw that coming.

It sounds like Ragatha tried to leave a few times and just resigned to her fate after a while, her description DID say that she was the ''sweetest little optimist in the digital circus'', so maybe she's told the others that escaping is impossible and that they should make the best of their situation instead? (Also the framed picture of the right looks like some kind of void, a lot of void imagery here).

Also, Gooseworx released this image a short while ago and it has the same background that Ragatha had while she was talking so she's DEFINITELY talking to Pomni here.

''OH GOD! WHY CAN'T I REMEMBER MY NAME?!''

EXCUSE ME? Okay time for some more speculation. I knew that their names definitely weren't their real ones but I wasn't expecting them to forget them!

Now, since the premise is said to be centred around Pomni and the others getting messed with by AI and their traumas, maybe instead of forgetting what their names were, they actually REPRESSED their memories from when they were human due to the trauma they went through? (Which would include their names)

I don't buy that they've COMPLETELY forgotten who they were (Zooble is aware that the body they're in isn't the one they used to have so I'm guessing everyone else knows that too.)

I'm guessing that their human lives absolutely SUCKED and they've now repressed their trauma to the point where they can barely remember who they were in the human world, this is just speculation.

''Thank goodness this is all a dream, right Pomni?''

What a sassy little guy (it's so weird hearing Michael Kovach sound so reserved, he's normally feral as hell playing these kinds of characters). The little mannequin symbol on the door is probably there for when new people stumble into the circus.

She's definitely seen some shit, I wonder what it could be though?

OH MY GOD THERE'S MORE OF THEM 😭

Wow this background looks...oddly normal. The only thing I can think of this being is Pomni witnessing a flashback of her human life before she showed up in the circus.

''You completely lose sight of who you are and why you're even alive and when you reach your breaking point something REALLY terrible can happen''

OH? Okay speculation time again. This is the closest hint we've gotten to what exactly one of the gang's traumas could be. Ragatha may have forced herself to stay positive in really shitty situations during her human life which likely lead to a lot of negative thoughts which eventually lead to her doing...something, I'm not sure what though, maybe it lead to her losing an eye? (Maybe her new body represents that?) I'm not sure. Maybe this is why she's been in the circus for as long as she has, instead of dealing with her feelings and existentialism, she instead continues to try to be someone who's more adjusted than they actually are.

Again, this is all just speculation, maybe it's just an Infinity Train type of thing where they can't leave until they learn to accept what they went through and how to work through it healthily idk.

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? Well, I'll tell you what I think it is.

I think it's this weird tar like tentacle thing from the teaser trailer, I don't see what else it could be.

And I'm 90% sure that whatever it is, it's connected to this room, and I think that THIS is gonna be where we'll be seeing what the gangs traumas are (Ragatha looked TERRIFIED when she was grabbed so if this was the case I wouldn't be surprised). I'd also like to speculate that this could possibly be another AI. There's Caine, Bubble, and whatever the hell those little shape creatures are, so it's very likely that other AI does exist, we just haven't seen them yet.

But who knows? I'm probably looking too much into it.

Woah new background, he is angy.

I would go into another theory I have about how their designs may hint at what trauma they have but I've spent over an hour writing, compiling trailer screenshots, and speculating every individual frame while suffering with chest pains I wanna go to bed

Holy shit that took WAY longer than I thought it would. I cannot WAIT to watch the pilot, this show has become one of my most anticipated projects of the year over the last few months and I can't wait to see what it has in store.

TL;DR: The trailer looks fire 10/10 can't wait for the inevitable Pomni plushes.

#karm rambles #the amazing digital circus #damn this is long #tadc #i'm so normal #glitch productions #gooseworx #i have gone insane

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misscammiedawn · 10 months ago

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Derealization in Night in the Woods and Metal Gear Solid 2

This post contains discussions and descriptions of severe dissociation that may be triggering to those who experience those symptoms and details themes of abuse, war and alcoholism please be kind to yourself when reading. Full game spoilers for NitW and MGS2.

In my Media, Myself and I series of posts I've been talking about depictions of Dissociative Identity Disorder in media. Highlighting good representation because I think it's easy to tear down what doesn't work, but showing what does is a very teachable moment. Best way to increase understanding and tear down stigma is to show understandable and relatable examples. Even if they're imperfect.

To that end, I wish to take a mild distraction from talking about identity focused symptoms of dissociative disorders and do some posts on elements of dissociation which aren't highlighted as often, particularly not well.

Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder is on the dissociative spectrum and the symptoms are experienced within forms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Dissociative Identity DIsorder.

To borrow an info-graphic I utilized in my Hypnosis and Dissociative Disorders essay a while back

Source: Mayo Clinic

The brain processes the world and our association within that connects the concepts of "Me" and the concept of "Reality" and integrates them so we are able to process external reality and express our internal reality.

When we look at our hand we can look at it and understand "this is my hand", the shape of it, the sensation of proprioception, the knowledge that we are able to move it and it will move based on our innate intention. There is no process of "I want to move my hand, I am going to move my hand, my hand is moving" it all happens as part of one seamless process.

A practice within hypnosis for creating a sense of dissociation required for trance states is to have a person look at their hand and turn the phrasing from "my hand" to "that hand". Gradually having a person look at a thing until our brains stop processing it in relation to our surroundings until it "detaches" as a way of temporarily removing critical filters in an effort to lead a person to an altered and suggestible state.

A good example of this one can experience without assistance is to stare into a mirror for an elongated period of time. Our brains are always attempting to process a large amount of information and presents context to you that changes "those images on the mirror's surface" into "my reflection", it's why we are able to feel familiarity as a sense. When we perceive something that activates those associations the relevant information automatically filters in our mind and presents the concepts associated with the stimulus.

If we stare at the same reflection for too long those associations begin to disintegrate and we begin to view them divorced of the contexts we hold for them.

For those who suffer dissociative disorders, this is the root of why someone with DID will not "recognize" their reflection or why a person may not feel familiarity with something/someone they are aware of.

Dissociative amnesia is a topic I wish to cover in a future essay but it is also included in this process. Essentially when we dissociate our minds lose the ability to effectively filter what we are perceiving and relate it to our selves, our memories and our experiences.

Derealization is what happens when that critical filter between the external world and our internal perception breaks down. It's when we are not processing the world as being something we are engaging with. This may present as a disconnection between our perception and our understanding, for example "my hand feels like it's larger than it looks" or it can be a complete disconnect from what is happening in your present reality causing you to feel like you are in a dream. In extreme cases you lose your ability to relate your actions from consequences.

Let me tell you, having this happen while you're behind the wheel of a moving vehicle is terrifying and I hope no one reading this ever has to experience that.

I should also note that these symptoms tend to get dramatically worse the more you focus on them. In my own life, if I have a sensation that parts of my body feel incompatible with my inner perception of them then the vague dysphoria can blossom into full dissociation if I try to examine the feeling in any depth.

For an everyday version of it, think about the sensation of Deja Vu and how it feels like you have already experienced something which is happening in the present. During that state you are dissociated enough from processing your present reality that it "feels" like you've already experienced it, despite the knowledge that you are currently in the moment.

All of this is to give a vague view of what Derealization is and what it feels like.

Today I want to share two pieces of media that include a character overtly experiencing these symptoms and how the fiction displays the character experiencing this internal experience so that an external audience may understand.

Night in the Woods is a 2017 narrative driven adventure game by Infinite Fall. It follows two weeks in the life of Mae Borowski, a 20 year old cat suffering from severe anxiety who has dropped out of college and returned to her childhood home, an impoverished Western Pennsylvania mining town named Possum Springs.

There she moves back in with her parents and reintegrates with the rural community of Possum Springs. She spends time with her childhood friends, talks to the locals and tries to solve the mystery of a severed arm found in town. All while having vivid dreams on a nightly basis and dealing with the an ambient level of judgment from her parents, friends and community over her perceived irresponsibility.

Where Mae is trying to solve the mystery of the severed arm and the secret cult that hides within Possum Springs, the audience has some other mysteries to solve attached to the attitudes of some of the residents. Mae's parents and friends constantly pressure her to explain why she felt it necessary to drop out of college when so much was sacrificed to get her there. There is also "The Incident", a mysterious event in Mae's past, ominously hinted at when Mae's next door neighbor warns...

"No one's forgotten who you are and what you did, you know. Small town polite's all you got, kid."

The player is left in the dark as to the circumstances that paint Mae's reputation in town and throughout the course of the two weeks we begin understanding more about Mae's past, the circumstances behind her return to Possum Springs and the reasons those around her harbor a mild resentment towards her.

There are some potential supernatural elements relating to Mae's dreams and the nature of the cult but I feel it is best to stick to the grounded elements of the plot for the sake of this essay.

The Incident, it is revealed, is that 6 years before the game Mae beat another kid with a softball bat. Seemingly unprovoked. It earned her the nickname "Killer" and shaped much of the way people in the town, including Mae's own parents, view her.

"Why did you beat Andy Cullen?" and "Why did you drop out of school?" are questions people constantly demand of Mae and it forces her to become defensive and prickly to those around her. There's even a sequence involving a heated argument between Mae and her mother when the latter drops her kindness and patience over the matter and demands answers that Mae refuses to give.

To give the game away without fanfare, Mae suffers from extreme dissociation.

She's ashamed of it, afraid of it and the local town doctor, who I will discuss shortly, has no meaningful way of helping her deal with it. Mae is left to journal about her feelings with no meaningful way of understanding her symptoms or preventing them from crippling her. It is not even referred to as dissociation within the plot of the game, though those who are familiar with derealization will recognize it easily.

If you wish to see the conversation where Mae confesses her condition, it is about 4 minutes long and will provide some context, though I will brush over the description if you do not have time/ability to watch and listen.

youtube

Mae describes a time when she was playing videogames and felt an intense empathy towards the characters on screen. She felt like she knew them intimately and at a certain point something "broke", she came to understand that the characters she had been so connected with were not real. She was not actually connected with the events happening on screen, it was all a game.

And in understanding that she felt alone and abandoned on her side of the screen and the sensation spread out to the view outside of her window. The trees blowing by in the wind were as fake and distant as the characters in the video game. She had memories and attachments and associations with that tree, but looking at it from her window she could see that it was just a tree. Just an object.

"Just shapes"

This disconnect spread into every aspect of Mae's life and all of the associations she had built between herself and the world around her had vanished and she found herself in a world that she no longer felt attached to in any meaningful way.

"Just like this meaningless bulk of... stuff."

She felt alone. Abandoned. Overwhelmed by the simultaneous enormity and emptiness of everything.

The next day during the softball match she cannot even remember how it happened but she ended up ontop of the mass of shapes that was Andy Cullen and... that was The Incident.

Mae's family lost a lot of money paying off the medical debt for Cullen's family and everyone's attitudes towards her turned cold. She was sent to Dr. Hank for therapy... and this is where I take a break to discuss the causes of dissociative disorders and how badly Mae was let down.

The root causes of DPDR are the same as other dissociative disorders in that extreme abuse, neglect and continued stressful situations cause the mind to put up barriers and break associations to protect the self from harm. To boil a complex idea down to a few words consider the mind saying "This is not happening to me." as a way to prevent pain from an experience.

Where identity based dissociation focuses on the words "to me" and removes the self from the harmful events, derealization focuses on the words "this is not happening" and rejects the events outright, refusing to process the context behind what is happening.

Much of the game's story is told through implication and one must peel back layers in order to get a full story. At first glance Mae may seem like a normal young woman from a rural community in the rust-belt and question what could have been enough for her to develop a dissociative disorder.

First off, don't do that. No one owes anyone a justification for their condition and there is no such thing as "traumatic enough" to be valid for a diagnosis. What a person experiences is what they experience. But Mae is fictional and the core of her character is having an under-treated dissociative disorder. Half the reason I wanted to write this entry was because her depiction of it is deeply relatable and can be used well for teaching what goes into a person developing PTSD and dissociative disorders; most depictions seem content with sexual abuse or violent deaths.

For Mae, it's a lot more subtle and all too human. At least, for a cat in a world of anthropomorphic animals.

Mae's mother, Candy, never went to college and always regretted it. She feels like her life hit a dead end and she has remained in the mining town of Possum Springs decades after its mining industry faded out. She works as a receptionist at the local church, spends all day reading True Crime novels and had a number of miscarriages before finally giving birth to Mae, her "miracle baby".

Mae's father, Stan, was working with the mine when it closed down and has since been bouncing between job to job trying to keep his family afloat, especially after the medical expenses from The Incident, the subsequent remortgaging of the house and Candy's dreams of sending Mae to college. Stan tries to be a good father but hates his job, is always working and it is revealed he used to be an alcoholic.

Lastly you have Mae's Grandfather. He is dead before the game starts. Mae loved her granddad very much and his influence can be felt throughout the whole game. He would read to her, pay attention to her and teach her things. One of the game's DLC chapters even involves him reading Mae a bedtime story.

Also grandpa Borowski was a union man and collected the teeth of an employer who tried to abuse the workers. That doesn't really play in to my essay as Mae does not discover this fact until the events of the game but I am not going to go without hyping up a man for taking teeth.

Mae misses him so much that even 6 years after she was asked to keep a journal by Dr. Hank the first page reads "RIP Granddad" and as the game goes on the following can be found inside:

This information is drip fed to us through organic and relatable moments. For instance, Mae reveals her father's alcoholism while she is drinking too much (sidenote, she is underage for the location she lives) at a party.

The idea is to give a full and rich view of Mae's life and show that she may not even recognize the trauma for what it is and was.

For instance, we know from the start that Mae has crippling anxiety. This could easily be linked to the expectations of Candy putting her hopes and dreams of college on her "miracle baby". Before Mae was even born she had expectations placed upon her for being the long wanted child of a mother who wanted her baby to do all the things that she never could.

For neglect you have the fact that both parents are forced to work in abundance to maintain their lifestyle and pay for Mae's college in an economically depressed community. Mae spent a lot of her home life alone, feeling pressured by her mother and literally scared of her alcoholic father.

Both parents are good and loving and kind parents. But they failed in some regards. Sometimes you can want the best for someone you love and do everything you can to provide the best life and a failure to listen, adapt and accommodate can do more harm than anything.

Her grandfather eventually passed away, taking her positive links away in her home life and after The Incident she was ostracized from the community and forced into further isolation. Socially anxious, outcast and without her supportive grandfather, she eventually is given an opportunity to go to college. Something her childhood friend would have literally killed for an opportunity to do in her stead.

---and she drops out.

---and upon returning no one will get off of her case about it.

This damned statue did it.

A statue so loathesome to Mae that it appears in her nightmares and she relives the fantasy of smashing it to bits with a baseball bat.

If you watched the above video (or have played the game) you will know that the statue was made up of several shapes and was installed at Mae's college.

The sight of this statue terrified Mae to the point of which she would spend entire days holed up in her dorm room either not eating or gorging pizza and sleeping for days at a time.

Being away from the familiar sights and people of her home town made her dissociative symptoms go into overdrive. At home she knew that The Tree that had lost all meaning and association to her was still the tree that she played with when she was young. She knew that her parents are the people who raised her. Even when she saw them as "dead shapes" the memories persisted and she could endure.

At college it was nothing but strangers in a strange land and a statue comprised of shapes reminding her that everything was shapes.

But they sent her to therapy, did they not? Why wasn't she being treated?

Dr. Hank is a small-town doctor he is the physiologist, he is the dentist, he is the psychologist. He is the doctor. The only doctor and he has no idea how to treat someone with severe symptoms like Mae.

In town Mae can talk to a character named Selmers every day. Selmers is a self-styled poet with depression and also being seen by Dr. Hank. In discussing both mental healthcare treatment and depression with Selmers the player can learn that Dr. Hank treats all forms of mental illness the same. Essentially "journal until you feel better". The town lacks the structure and framework to provide help to someone like Mae.

In other words she has been untreated this entire time and removed from her support network and sent off to college, she could not handle things. Of course she was going to fail under those circumstances.

The game does a remarkably good job of displaying how DPDR can impact a person, especially as it is linked to anxiety and depression, and creates an empathetic narrative about what it must be like to live with that condition.

Sadly it offers little in the way of answers for treatment. In reality treatment involves psychotherapy and creating a structure of coping mechanisms for how to handle episodes and ground oneself. This can come in the shape of breathing exercises, kinesthetic sensation fixation, identification exercises ("name all of the blue items you can see" "name all of the items that begin in A") but above all else, getting a grip on what emotional triggers one has and learning to resolve them will help.

For Mae, being away from home is a trigger for her. Home isn't going to be the same place and people forever. She needs to be able to get on top of her symptoms in order to cope. Dr. Hank was not helping her with that.

The game ends on a bittersweet note that Mae may end up spending her whole life in Possum Springs purely from fear of leaving her zone of familiarity.

Unfortunately the narrative is about clinging to a dying town and how unsustainable it is.

We do not know what will happen next. The structure that failed Mae has only gotten worse in the 2 years since she left for college. Her parents may end up selling the house because they cannot keep up on the payments and on a long enough timeline Gregg and Angus will move away (should their relationship survive the effort to escape) leaving Bea and Mae to watch Possum Springs continue to decay.

Part of Mae's journey is accepting this inevitability and not fighting it, but choosing not to abandon the town regardless. After all, she can't stray from it without a risk to her mental health.

The game offers no answers. It simply shows a slice of hard reality for those who live caught in the trap of decaying towns, economic collapse and mental illness without support structures and treatment. but it does a very good job of providing an empathetic case that an audience can relate to and sympathize with the symptoms of.

But what about a game that tries to make the audience feel the same way that the character does...?

Metal Gear Solid 2 is a 2001 self-proclaimed tactical espionage action game developed by Konami.

It tells the story of a secret military operations agent code named Raiden who is attempting to save the US President from a terrorist group called Dead Cell. There is much more to it. But I am attempting to be brief.

Metal Gear is absolutely frustrating for me to write about in this essay series because their research tends to be fairly good but their sensitivity often comes off as actively malicious at best.

In terms of conditions, symptoms and sensitivity to emotional triggers, Raiden is on paper a fairly decent representation of dissociative disorders developing in those who grew up in war. In practice he has a murder alter named Jack The Ripper who breakdances with 3 katanas.

I promised I would stick to positive depictions only and so I will stick only to the final 2 hours of Raiden's first appearance.

At this point in the game the president is dead, we have learned that the terrorists were really after a giant battleship that houses a powerful AI which is going to be used to censor the internet to control the flow of information and control the populace. Raiden has met up with protagonist of the first Metal Gear games, Solid Snake, and has managed to install a virus into the AI system that will corrupt the data and prevent it from controlling the internet.

In order to get on the battleship, Snake betrays Raiden and hands him over to the terrorists.

Thus begins the final act of MGS2.

It is imperative to understand that these events happen in rapid succession right after the AI is infected with a virus.

Neither the audience nor Raiden are given an opportunity to truly process all of the rapid fire information that we are hit with.

MGS2 has a metatextual narrative about the nature of sequels and audience expectations. Many of the events happening within the story are intimately playing upon our familiarity with the series, recreating circumstances from both Metal Gear 2 and Metal Gear Solid. Part of the critique is that players are looking to simply recreate the experience of the first game and the narrative goes out of its way to punish Raiden (and thusly the player) for trying to "be" Solid Snake. Much of the game has been mired in failure and any wins we have received are either negated in a cutscene following our gameplay victory or are displayed as being ineffective next to Solid Snake who is forever being displayed as the better protagonist.

So when Raiden wakes up in a torture chamber directly designed to look just like the Shadow Moses Island torture chamber from Metal Gear Solid 1 (and both dialogue and graphics of that cutscene are displayed briefly) we, the player instantly assume familiarity with the concept. To drive that point home the player is forced to survive a button tapping mini-game which is sprung upon us out of nowhere (there is no tutorial. The game expects your familiarity with the concept and thusly does not need to explain it - as a side note it is impossible to die in this minigame, so a lack of familiarity does not impact gameplay, only narrative experience)

All while the only surviving villain from the first game directly says in dialogue "We're also inside the memory of Shadow Moses"

The cutscene also has Raiden face to face with the main villain who recognizes Raiden as a child soldier he helped raise to fight in an African conflict. For the first time we are able to view Raiden, view Jack as his own man outside of his similarities to Solid Snake. We find out he is a child soldier with an impressive kill record who was raised with other child soldiers, drugged and forced to kill in a conflict that he had no personal connections to. He claims "I was given a gun and told to shoot, if I refused then I was the one who would be shot."

Throughout the game, Raiden has been getting phone calls from his girlfriend, Rose, who serves as the mission analyst. When the villain, Solidus, reveals Jack's history she calls him to ask more about this and Jack at first pushes away the memories, claiming that "they" wiped his memories and that he experiences nightmares only to give a vivid and emotionally description of his experiences as young as 6 years old killing for no reason other than he was told to.

Rose attempts to comfort him, to say that she wants to share the burden of his past, Raiden refuses, blocking everything out and pushing Rose away, claiming that he cannot afford to start a family.

Children are a huge emotional trigger for Raiden. This is displayed heavily in the future games of the series.

Overall this is an extreme example of a backstory that would give an adult severe PTSD and forced to confront his past, Raiden is emotionally primed to have a complete dissociative break from reality.

But presently I am not writing about how Raiden experiences derealization. I'm writing about how the player experiences it.

We know that Raiden has been trained in virtual reality to prepare him for this mission. When we see cutscenes describing this we are shown footage of the previous Metal Gear games, particularly the virtual reality training missions from the PS1 game.

The implication is very much that Raiden has played the same games that we ourselves have. The Metal Gear Franchise has an interesting meta-narrative going on that displays games are released in order of declassification with an early conversation in MGS4 mentioning that the events of MGS3 (which takes place in 1964) were declassified recently in the game's present of 2014.

Raiden has played the Metal Gear games. We have played the Metal Gear games.

And the game itself is overtly recycling moments from earlier entries of the series and trying to highlight this fact.

Right after we put a virus into the AI.

Things got really weird from the moment we insert the disc to infect the system.

Escaping from the torture chamber our character is completely naked and runs to the next area. We are given a loading screen.

Ominous music plays and we receive a phone call from Campbell, the mission control from both this game and the previous Metal Gear games. He speaks with a distorted voice. He stutters, telling you that you must proceed with your m-mission. He notes that in your current condition you will not be able to attack or "enter the hanging mode"

He continuously spouts the mission objective and says your role is to take out the terrorists. Raiden demands to know why he keeps saying "role" and Campbell replies

Raiden then notes that he has never met Campbell in person. He has only spoken to him over long distance communication.

Should you return to the torture room the title card will be switched with the name of Japanese rail stations. If you pause the game you are treated to a "map" of Arsenal Gear:

The image is from Glauben, Wissen und Kunst der alten Hindus

All while Campbell calls you every few steps to order you to turn the game console off, recycle further lines from previous Metal Gear games (as well as show footage from them) and your radar is replaced with voyeuristic footage of a young woman sunbathing.

The enemies are now wearing thick armor with no humanizing characteristics and they fly about with inhuman power while wielding katana that can block machine-gun fire.

The floor has scrolling text floating across the surfaces something that the series uses for the VR stages to signify you are in a training stage.

The game is pulling out all of the stops to make sure you are confronted with the reality that you are playing a video game while the character within the video game is experiencing the same information.

He meets up with Snake who reveals he has the unlimited ammo bandana from completing MGS1, all but confirming this is a video game. Much of the information in this segment can be justified in-game. I literally cannot sidestep the fact that a flesh and blood man pointed at a piece of headgear and said "Unlimited ammo". I almost wanted to skip over it as it's devastating to my point about how the game tries to pull you and Raiden out of reality.

See to Raiden, he can no longer be certain if any of this is happening or not because of his experiences with VR. With everything collapsing around him, it feels reasonable to assume that the AI Virus is breaking down the universe around him. With full knowledge of the plot, we the audience can know that everything is happening and the virus has infected his augmented reality elements that make up the in-game HUD. But Raiden doesn't know that and the player on first playthrough cannot fully know it either.

It's almost reasonable to assume that the entire game is taking place within a VR Simulation.

Virtual Reality has long been studied as having links to DPDR with a number of scientific studies examining the link.

The connection is very much there though typically VR only influences a mild sensation of derealization when playing, though to those prone to dissociation they may experience more rapid and powerful effects with prolonged exposure.

Raiden tells Snake what is happening and how his grip on reality is falling apart, going as far to doubt whether his girlfriend, Rose, was ever real either. Snake has no idea how to verify for Raiden that the things that are happening are real and tells him to just keep moving forward and figure it out. He also provides Raiden with a sword.

In the metatext, this is a symbol for Raiden gaining his own unique playstyle. As long as he is emulating Solid Snake he cannot succeed but when he accepts himself as his own person and embraces his unique gameplay mechanic he is able to break free from the narrative and actualize as his own person.

In the sense of the derealization episode, it gives Raiden an opportunity to mow down the wave after wave of "Tengu Soldiers" who come after him and Snake.

Metal Gear is a franchise that doesn't like it when you kill people. Here it has handed you a sword and told you to go to town with an unlimited supply of anime ninjas. The game lightly insisting "it's a video game, it makes no difference how many people you kill" and to flaw the game's philosophy for a moment, the only penalty is a ranking when you beat the game. MGS3 is the one that actually hits you with consequences for in-game murder.

As Raiden stands on a platform with Snake the game continues to devolve and a custom Mission Failed screen appears, mimicking the standard game over.

Gameplay continues inside the small box that typically displays where you died, you can die on this screen.

You then fight 25 copies of the giant mech in a recreation of the photo area from the Metal Gear VR Missions and the world's most convoluted plot reaches its crescendo point with every character betraying everyone else before Raiden has to kill a cybernetic US politician with a sword for the first but not last time.

The sequence takes about forty-five minutes to an hour thirty depending on your play style. The plot is too much and has a layer of metatext on top of it regarding the nature of audience expectations and sequels along with a haunting premonition of what the internet would become.

There are a lot of reasons to praise and a lot of reasons to hate the ending of MGS2. Personally I adore it. But one thing that truly cannot be stated enough, especially back in 2001, is how the game intended to make the player feel during that final section.

It's not enough that Raiden was having a complete dissociative episode, losing grip on his reality, it's that the game was designed to make the player go through those emotions at the same time as the character.

I was going through a really rough patch at the time. It was a few months before I was kicked out, my ties with my mother had been cut off, my dad was in a ward and suffice to say where my head was at the time? The immersive dissociative experience this game offered worked like a charm. Though external factors had a lot of influence.

DPDR is weird in the sense that everyone dissociates. It's a natural and normal thing, but disorders that are born from an excessive amount of disconnect between the self and reality tend not to be relatable experiences. Displaying a character losing their grip on reality is not an easy thing to do.

When we see someone say "I don't know what's real any more" in a piece of media we have empathy for their situation but it's not easy to have the audience in the same mindset as them.

Another hauntingly good example is Perfect Blue which I will likely not discuss in detail in this essay series because the content is a little too dark and the depiction of Dissociative Identity Disorder is not flattering in the slightest.

But the movie does depict an actress whose reality is blurring in with fiction by having a series of interactions happen one after another and revealing that the entire scene was part of a television shoot, with every subsequent scene piling on the confusion between what is happening on camera and off camera.

I can think of other examples of characters experiencing derealization episodes. Some even have fairly good depictions of how someone can be driven to that point, such as the slowburn of Bojack Horseman Season 5 where a number of circumstances pile on until the title character has an episode. The problem is... every single depiction that is coming to mind right now ends in either stigmatizing depictions or violent outcomes.

Heck, even Mae and Raiden up there had violence attached to their dissociation.

If there's one thing I want to make clear as I go through these essays, it's that those who have mental illnesses featuring dissociation are usually trauma survivors and are far more likely to be the victim of violence than the perpetrators of it.

I'm happy with the two examples of derealization I've written about today, NitW for the realistic depiction of the origins and impact and MGS2 for taking the player along for the ride; but I'd still love to see an example where a break from reality did not end with blood.

Please send me an Ask if you can recommend any.

So... that about brings it to a close for my little ramble on DPDR. I've a few other entries in the essay series on the back-burner. Next will likely be a breakdown on how Umineko handles recontextualizing memories. I've gotten a few paragraphs of that drafted out already.

These essays are really a bit of self-indulgence for me, though so they happen when they happen.

Thank you for reading.

#dawn posting #night in the woods #nitw #metal gear #mgs #mae borowski #raiden #media myself and I #what a thrill #DID #watch me post my trauma in public #derealization #DPDR #unreality #media essays #Youtube

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