#ancient aliens voice: depression

[emacrow]

When danny beat pariah king and Dan, he didn't expect the damn crown and ring to follow him.

He tried everything so far to asking clockwork for help only to be told some cryptic bullshit.

The fucking crown and ring followed him everywhere even in the shower that one time scared the shit outta of him for ancient sake. It seem scolding them like a dog(thanks to tucker advise) actually work for a few days..

It was weird as fuck to see a crown and ring of rage actually look depressed as shit in the corner with a droopy blue coloring in the corner of his room under his dirt clothes a Camouflage.

It was like some self sentient object gone wrong.

Those two were diabolical, almost nearly tricking him into wearing them that one time during the school play, fortunately his ghost sense went off the moment he was about to put on the ring part.

That lead to another scolding that lasted a couple days of peace.

Until the day, he got caught by the GIW while distracted with skulker and techno again...

Being trapped to a table, mouth gagged and limbs binded like a insect held by needles pins with stolen fenton locks for dissection had him full blown out panic as the doctors left to get their new equipments after the scapel broke during the mid cutting.

Only for the crown and ring to appear like a shadow in above him. Danny was mentally arguing with himself about whether to accept his fate or get dissected and organs harvasted before he huffed through his nose and slightly nod as best as he could with the strapped helding his head to the table could do.

The crown floating toward his head, placing itself on his white hair while the ring slipped into his middle finger, before a blinding light nearly engulped the room.

The black crown covered in blue flames changed ad morphs into a aurora lights shaped crown designed in frozen ice as the ring changed from a skull to tiny galaxy like marble..

Danny could feel a surge of power nearly engulp his very core as voices whispers him, stars, galaxies, universe, the four dimension, multiple of parallel worlds and all secrets of the entire universe crammed into his brain nearly torn at his human mind before a portal below him opened sucked him in.

By the time the doctor came back, the subject on the table had escaped.

....

....

....

Danny only woke, laying on some type of ground, before he noticed that he was a bit different, enhanced like claws with sharp black nails..

As he noticed the ground was red with drips of glowing green ectoplasm blood before looking up to the sky..

To see stars above, and earth very far off on the right..

Darkness started to swirl a bit as his mind subconscious realize he might not be on earth and he might be on Mars.... first human on mars... before his body exhausted collapse back into the red dirt of mars.

Unawared of the forseen event as the astronaut crew on mars find a alien kid during exploration..

Fic inspired by this link here

[sizzlingstarlightsky]

Im Only Gonna Drag You Down

Eris x Reader

Summary: You've been fine, but your depression comes out of nowhere. Now all you can feel is numb as you look for an escape from reality. Eris takes it upon himself to help you through it.

word count: 1.7k

cw: I'm so sorry... the demons told me to write this /s

The morning sun cast a soft glow across the room, illuminating the dust motes that danced lazily in the air. You stirred under the warm blankets, eyes slowly adjusting to the light that seeped through the gap in the curtains.

Your hand reached out automatically to the cold space beside you, expecting to feel the reassuring warmth of your mate's body. But the emptiness only served as a cruel reminder that you were alone.

Eris had left early to attend to him duties in the court, giving you space to deal with your tumultuous emotions.

You hadn't seen him since the night before, when you'd broken down, the weight of your depression finally too much to bear. His eyes had been filled with a mix of pain and determination as he held you tightly, whispering soothing words into your ear. But even his gentle embrace couldn't chase away the numbness that consumed you.

Now, lying in the quiet of the room, you felt the heaviness of your soul pressing down on you like a leaden blanket.

You tried to sit up, but your body felt like it was made of stone, unresponsive to your desperate attempts to break free.

The once comforting scent of him on the pillow only served to deepen the ache in your chest. You could almost hear the echo of his footsteps, the sound of his laughter, but it was all just a taunting memory.

With a deep breath, you pushed yourself upright, swinging your legs over the side of the bed. Your bare feet touched the cold wooden floor, sending a jolt up your spine.

You knew you needed to get moving, to do something—anything—to keep the suffocating emptiness at bay.

You glanced around the room, eyes lingering on the half-empty mug of tea he'd brought you last night, the candle that had burned down to a stub. The sight of them made your stomach clench, a reminder that even in the midst of your despair, he was there, trying to be your beacon of light.

The sound of a bird's sweet trill outside the window pulled you from your thoughts.

You stumbled over to the sill, gripping the edge for support. The sight of the vibrant world outside was jarring, quite the contrast to the gloom that clung to you.

You watched the sun rise higher in the sky, the colors shifting from pale pinks to vibrant oranges and yellows. It was a beautiful morning, a perfect day that you had no right to spoil with your dark thoughts.

With a heavy sigh, you turned away from the window and reached for your robe. The fabric was soft against your skin, but it couldn't soothe the turmoil within.

You shuffled over to the washbasin, the cold water a shock to your system as you splashed it onto your face. You stared at your reflection, searching for any semblance of the person you once were.

The eyes that looked back at you were hollow, lifeless pools of despair.

What does he even see in you?

The question whispered through your mind, as persistent as the buzz of a pesky fly. You knew you weren't whole, that your shattered pieces were held together by a thread so thin it could snap at any moment.

Yet Eris had claimed you as his mate, promising to stand by your side, to cherish and protect you. The weight of his love was a burden you didn't feel worthy of carrying.

You managed to get dressed, the act of pulling on your clothes feeling like a monumental achievement.

As you stepped out into the corridor, the castle's usual bustle felt alien and overwhelming. Voices, laughter, and the clatter of footsteps echoed around you, each sound a knife twisting in your gut.

You craved the solitude of the library, a place where the words in the ancient tomes had once offered you comfort.

The library was a sanctuary of sorts, a place where you could lose yourself in the tales of heroes and myths, if only for a brief reprieve from reality.

As you approached the grand oak doors, they swung open, revealing Eris standing there, a book tucked under his arm, his gaze searching for you. His eyes widened with relief when he saw you, and he strode over, his movements full of concern.

"How are you feeling?" he asked gently, his voice a soothing balm.

You tried to smile, but it felt forced.

"As well as can be expected, I suppose." The words were heavy, a lie coated in a thin layer of hope.

Eris studied you intently, his gaze sweeping over your drawn features. He stepped closer, his hand reaching out to brush a stray strand of hair from your face.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

You hesitated, the words caught in your throat like a lump of unyielding ice. But the warmth of his touch was a gentle prod, urging you to open up. With a shaky exhale, you nodded.

"I just...I don't know what happened. I felt okay, and then everything just...crashed."

He led you to a secluded corner of the library, his hand never leaving yours. The scent of aged parchment and ink filled the air, a familiar comfort that did little to ease the storm raging in your chest. Eris sat beside you on the plush velvet bench, his eyes never leaving yours as you spoke.

"It's like...everything just stopped making sense," you whispered, the words raw and painful. "I feel like I'm stuck in a fog, and I can't find my way out."

Eris's grip tightened on your hand, his thumb tracing soothing circles.

"Depression can be like that," he said, his voice low and soothing. "It doesn't always come with a warning. Sometimes it just...appears."

You nodded, his understanding piercing the fog ever so slightly.

"I know. It's just...I didn't think it would come back. I thought I was stronger than this."

Eris leaned in, his eyes filled with a fierce tenderness.

"Strength isn't about never falling, it's about always getting back up." He paused, his expression earnest. "And you will. We'll face this together."

But the words felt hollow, the weight of exhaustion dragging at your very soul.

"What if I'm too tired to keep fighting?" The question slipped out, a quiet admission of defeat that hung heavy between you.

"Then I'll carry you," Eris said firmly.

His hand cupped your cheek, the warmth of his palm seeping into your skin.

"We'll fight together."

You searched his eyes, looking for a crack in his resolve, a hint of doubt. But all you found was a steadfast belief in you, a conviction that you were worth fighting for.

"It's not your burden. You deserve someone better."

"Someone better?" Eris's voice was a soft rumble of disbelief. "You are my heart, my mate. There is no one better for me than you. We face this as one, just as we face everything else."

His thumb brushed away a tear that had escaped your lashes, the warmth of his skin leaving a trail of comfort.

You leaned into his touch, feeling the tension in your shoulders ease a fraction.

"But what if I drag you down with me?"

Eris's eyes searched yours, full of a fierce love that seemed too bright for the dimly lit room.

"Then I'll fly with you, even into the darkest depths of the earth. I swore an oath to you, and I meant it. Through every joy and sorrow, I am yours, and you are mine."

He took a deep breath, the air in the library seeming to still around you both.

"But I need you to do one thing for me."

Your heart thudded in your chest, hope and fear mingling in an uneasy dance.

"What?"

"Let me help you," Eris said simply, his eyes never wavering from yours. "Allow me to share this burden, to support you when you can't stand alone."

You bit your lip, the tears welling up again.

"I don't want to be a burden."

Eris's gaze softened, a gentle smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"You're not. You're my partner, my equal. And in the same way that I would fight to the death for you, I'll stand by you in this too."

He paused, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Please, let me in."

The sincerity in his words pierced through the fog, and you found yourself nodding, the first real spark of hope flickering in your chest. He leaned over, wrapping his arms around you in a fierce embrace. You melted into him, feeling the warmth and solidity of his body, the steady beat of his heart beneath your cheek.

"I'll read to you," Eris murmured, pulling back to look into your eyes. "You just listen and rest."

He picked up the book he'd brought, the title long forgotten in the face of your pain. As he opened it to a random page, you leaned your head against his shoulder, the comfort of his presence seeping into your very bones.

His voice, deep and melodious, began to weave a tale of adventure and love, the words wrapping around you like a warm embrace. The steady rhythm of his reading soon lulled you into a doze, the story's cadence acting as a lullaby to quiet the chaos in your mind.

The sun shone in your eyes as you sat up in your small bed, the light revealing the cramped room you called home.

The smell of burnt toast wafted in from the kitchen, a reminder of your mundane existence.

Your hand reached out to the cold space beside you, searching for Eris's warmth, but all you found was the chill of the pillow.

Your heart sank as reality crashed down on you like a lead weight.

You pushed yourself off the bed, the springs protesting with a groan. Your bare feet hit the floor, the coldness jolting you fully awake.

The dream had been so vivid, so real, that for a moment you had truly believed in the fantasy of a world where you had a mate, a love so strong it could conquer your deepest fears.

But it was just a figment of your imagination, a desperate attempt to escape the loneliness that had become your constant companion.

Comment if you want to be added to a Taglist

💙 Azriel ❤️‍🔥Eris ✨️General ⚠️Kinktober

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[whereserpentswalk]

Select an inhuman entity to go on a date with:

Iva: vampyr who was first turned in medieval Russia. Surprisingly enthusiastic and talkative. Always wears a black suit. Their body lacks any biological sex, and is inhumanity pale with yellow cat like eyes. They're mouth useally looks normal but can expand into a massive complex maw filled with many rows of sharp teeth when they want it to. They'd love to drink your blood as a form of bonding, and sort of want to infect you with vampirism.

LX73: a cyborg from another plane of existence whose had most of their human body replaced. They're head is really the only part of their body that still has skin, and even then the lower half of their face has been fused with a gas mask. They're still mourning the loss of their humanity, and they're still very skittish and sensitive. They might not want to be touched until they get to know you, but they really crave praise and kindness.

Shalshan: some sort of underworld spirit loyal to hades. They don't show any skin (if they have any), covering their body in a strange uniform of some kind, and their face with a hood and gas mask. Despite their appearance and job they're actually pretty naive, and curious about how the world of the living works.

Skishasri: subterranean goblin, who looks kind of humanoid, but completely albino, with pointy ears, sharp teeth, and long limbs. They're pretty excited to see the human world, though they don't seem to have much in the way of people skills. They are quite talented as an engineer/tinkerer though, and might try to take apart your phone if you let them.

Aria Aldorph: a which who was forced to sacrifice their eyes to a ancient entity to be granted power and forbidden knowledge. Despite technically being human they now have a very inhuman way of seeing the world due to their eldritch knowledge. They're very calm and relaxed, and will probably want to sing for you if you let them.

Trezoch: massive demon who takes the form of a horned reptilian humanoid with a pot belly and firey eyes. They're good humored and have a deep bellowing voice, though be warned, as good natured as they seem, they are still very much a demon, and will buy your soul if you let them.

Uaeiieo phrthdrn IX: a deep one who escaped dagon's control. They look like a humanoid creature, with transparent skin, a lamprey like mouth, tentacles on their back, and long black hair. Since they don't have jaws they can only communicate through sign language or aac. They're very interested in what humans are like, and while they can be a bit nervous, they enjoy being cuddled or pet a lot.

Aeullion: a fallen angel, whose body looks like a human sized porcelain doll, with a golden halo and wings, though now the segments of their body are cracked, and their halo is broken in half. They're pretty depressed after what happened to them, and they're kind of quiet right now. A hug could go a long way for them right now.

Aereon: an horned faerie knight with green armor (that could just be an insectiod exoskeleton that looks like armor), their mind is alien to a human’s, and they probably see you as something to protect and/or study. There's a good chance they will try to lift you at some point.

The Flesh Sculptor: an unknowable masked entity with many arms, with strange powers over human bodies. They seem good natured and extroverted at first, talking about their craft as if it's a form of art. But be warned, they probably really want to be allowed to scult your flesh.

The Operator: a reptilian entity whose race is heavily involved in an organization attempting to destroy capitalism and liberate humanity. Like all of their kind they're an expert shapeshifter, though they haven't yet figured out how to emulate human mannerisms. They're probably the nicest entity on here, though a bit socially awkward, and they'll probably infodump Marxist theory to you if you let them.

Ithquol: an entity that's half faerie on their mother's side and half demon on their father's side. They look like a stunningly beautiful humanoid, with a horned head, massive black wings, and a snake where their reproductive organs should be. They're very affectionate, and will encourage you to enjoy yourself more, though they don't have the best idea as to what's acceptable in human society. They also really don't like that you're mortal, and might try to make you something not human because of that.

Reblog to meet the entity. Like to give them a little gift.

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

意味/無 [Significance - Nothing] • 遺サレタ場所/斜光 [City Ruins - Rays of Light] • 穏ヤカナ眠リ [Peaceful Sleep] • 砂塵ノ記憶 [Memories of Dust] • 生マレ出ヅル意思 [Birth of a Wish] • 沈痛ノ色 [The Color of Depression] • 遊園施設 [Amusement Park] • 美シキ歌 [A Beautiful Song] • 還ラナイ声/ギター [Voice of no Return - Guitar] • オバアチャン/破壊 [Grandma - Destruction] • 澱ンダ祈リ/暁風 [Faltering Prayer - Dawn Breeze] • エミール/ショップ [Emil's Shop] • 大切ナ時間 [Treasured Times] • 曖昧ナ希望/氷雨 [Vague Hope - Cold Rain] • Weight of the World／English Version • 意味 [Significance] • 遺サレタ場所／遮光 [City Ruins - Shade] • 異形ノ末路 [End of the Unknown] • 還ラナイ声／通常 [Voice of no Return - Normal] • パスカル [Pascal] • 森ノ王国 [Forest Kingdom] • 全テヲ破壊スル黒キ巨人／怪獣 [Dark Colossus - Kaiju] • 複製サレタ街 [Copied City] • 愚カシイ兵器：乙：甲 [Wretched Weaponry: Medium/Dynamic] • 取リ憑イタ業病 [Possessed by Disease] • 割レタ心 [Broken Heart] • 愚カシイ兵器：丙 [Wretched Weaponry: Quiet] • 追悼 [Mourning] • 依存スル弱者 [Dependent Weakling] • Weight of the World／壊レタ世界ノ歌 [Weight of the World Kowaretasekainouta ] • 再生ト希望 [Rebirth & Hope] • 戦争ト戦争 [War & War] • 崩壊ノ虚妄 [Crumbling Lies - Front] • 茫洋タル病 [Widespread Illness] • 偽リノ城塞 [Fortress of Lies] • 曖昧ナ希望／翠雨 [Vague Hope - Spring Rain] • イニシエノウタ／贖罪 [Song of the Ancients - Atonement] • 幸セナ死 [Blissful Death] • エミール／絶望 [Emil - Despair] • 澱ンダ祈リ／星空 [Faltering Prayer - Starry Sky] • 顕現シタ異物 [Alien Manifestation] • 「塔」 [The Tower] • 双極ノ悪夢 [Bipolar Nightmare] • 終ワリノ音 [The Sound of the End] • Weight of the World/Nouveau-FR Version • Weight of the World／the End of YoRHa

Spotify ♪ YouTube

[balladingbard]

Hermes and the Importance of Being Yourself

We’ve used a lot of words to describe Hermes.

Depressed. Isolated. Selfish. Hurting. Perhaps even cruel or cold. There’s a lot to say about the Ancient that became the rock thrown that started the Final Days, but amongst the many lessons we can glean from his story, I haven’t seen too much being said on a trait that seemed to be one of his biggest challenges: an inability to accept himself.

We see this trait on display both in game and in the Lodestone side story, “A Question of Life”. Hermes is an overseer who seems closer to his creations than coworkers, a man who even Emet-Selch says, “doesn’t belong here.” He’s a bit of an outcast, seeing the ugly truth of reality, but attempting to fix it by searching the stars.

In the side story, Hermes reaches out to peers while in Elpis to see if anyone else understands what he’s feeling. He’s met with false hopes and sympathy rather than empathy, and by the time he reaches Amaurot to take Fandaniel’s seat, he buries his true self, along with his questions and struggles, just so he can fit in with society and benefit the Star. “Tell them what they want to hear”, he says as his concerns fall on misunderstanding ears.

It’s a burden that weighs him down to the point of despair. “Am I the aberration?” he asks the Warrior of Light. To feel so different…so odd…so alien from everyone else? Hermes longs for change, yes, but deep down, he also just wants to feel…normal. Happy. At peace. And if he can’t find that at home, perhaps it’s in the stars. Perhaps the despair that plagues him on Etheirys will be relieved somewhere else in the Universe.

As we learn in Endwalker, the answer that Hermes was looking for had been in front of him the entire time. But I think the happiness Hermes was searching for could be found in more than just simple joys and finding friends. He also needed to be content with himself - who he was, different from society or no.

In an interview after Endwalker’s release, Yoshi P mentioned how Hermes’ tale would’ve been quite different had he been able to join Azem on their adventures in the Ancient world. But I think it’s more than just seeing the impact of helping others - had Hermes been able to be friends with Azem, he would’ve learned that it was okay to be different. That he wasn’t the only Ancient who saw problems in the world and wanted to fix them. That yes, sometimes being different doesn’t always make you fit in, but it can make you stand out, to be a voice for the voiceless and to show truth to a world living a lie.

Hermes wasn’t the only Ancient who marched to the beat of their own drum. Azem marched loud and clear, usually to the annoyance of others (cough cough looking at you, Lahabread), but also to the thankfulness of the countless lives they impacted for the better. But the difference between Azem and Hermes was that Azem believed in themselves - accepted that they were different and celebrated it. Hermes didn’t. Instead, he bemoaned the state of the world that wouldn’t conform to his ideals, trying to change it through outside forces. And, after arriving in Amaurot, he conformed to their ideals instead, imprinting misery so deeply into his soul that when he was reborn, he became twisted and crueler than his peers ever were.

It’s a tragic end for a man who held so much promise, but like any story, it’s a good lesson for us all. As we head into 2023, I encourage you - love yourself. Be kind to the gentle soul that you are. And even if you feel a little odd or different, just know that you’re not alone. There’s other “Azems” out there who may feel just like you. And who knows? Like Hermes, you may cross paths with that Azem one day and find a kindred spirit.

Just…er…don’t release any sad blue birds bent on destroying the universe to get their attention. ;)

Happy New Year, everyone! May your 2023 be as amazing as you.

[smaller-comfort]

Well, it's the reason the story is rated M! I wish I could figure out how to tag this, but I'm pretty sure "sex from a non-human pov wherein everyone involved is completely alienated from their physical body in some way but they're just going to make the best of it" is over the character limit.

Technically the sex is not particularly explicit, but it kind of feels like it actually is, to me. I don't know anymore. I realize the line between an M and an E rating is often pretty blurry; the Ratings Police probably aren't going to arrest me for using the word "sphincter".

Anyway. Notes below the cut; you know the drill, I like to hear myself talk.

I really, really love some of the language in this, but I recognize that I may have gone overboard a little bit in places.

'I may have gone overboard' sums up my feelings about this one in general, actually. I'm not about to provide a fully annotated draft where I justify my word choice, phrasing, and characterization line-by-line, but I probably could. (I definitely could.) I kind of really, really love this story. A lot. I'm not gonna lie, I'm really proud of it, even if it probably could've been like...half as long. Anyway. You get a cookie if you can figure out which bits are my favorites.

I almost decided to rewrite this whole thing in past tense. I'm still not entirely sure I shouldn't have, but it would be way too much work at this point. I tend to write smut in present tense; make of that what you will.

The game itself has a fairly distinctive "voice," and I do try to mimic that at least a little. B'st in particular walks this funny line between a formal register (doesn't use many contractions, 'Great Alchemist') and goofiness (taking out the trash, his transformations). (When people tell me I hit the voices right it makes me giddy for hours.)

Still operating on the premise that Songsters are funky little guys and not humanoids. Don't ask me how they have sex, though, I really haven't gotten that far and I'm probably not going to. "Not like this," thanks B'st, that's extremely illuminating. He's never actually going to get around to drawing that diagram.

('Safe sex' for human/songster couplings typically involves earplugs. Ancient Repine sex ed would've been a trip.)

"Hey, v, anatomically speaking-" shhhhh. It's magic glass. Don't worry about it. (Is any of the sex here actually sexy? Is it supposed to be? These are questions I ask myself frequently; I have no answers. At any rate, I think I nailed the 'weirdly alienating with lots of feelings' vibe, and that's mostly what I was going for.)

I like to headcanon Songsters having extremely complicated extended familial structures. B'st and T'kor might not have had kids of their own, but they would have shared childrearing responsibilities for members of their extended family. In that respect, Mooncradle's communal society is very familiar to B'st.

I know about the T'kor=AI Core theory, and it feels like exactly the sort of thing where Thierry would go "Oh, I thought that one was way too obvious, actually." I kind of hate it, though, because it's too tragic and it makes me too sad.

Speaking of things that are too sad! I cut some extremely depressing dialogue about how the abandoned lab and the lost souls were actually left behind for Resh'an to find. Aephorul intended for them to be another "gift"- he knew about Resh'an's work on living glass, and what he needed to finish it. It wasn't a coincidence that all the materials Resh'an needed were there.

B'st was already aware of this; Resh'an figured it out on his own. At this point neither of them is going to bring it up. B'st assumes it will just make Resh'an feel pointlessly guilty all over again, and Resh'an...is already feeling extremely guilty about it! Imagine that.

Living Glass was supposed to be Resh'an's solution to their decaying bodies. But by now Resh'an doesn't actually think he has a strong enough will to live to survive the process anymore (as he's got the depression) and Aephorul was never a fan of the idea of having a non-organic body to begin with.

(Not to say that Resh'an doesn't have an unshakeable sense of purpose, but that's not quite the same thing. Living Glass vs Borrowed Time rules.)

When I first started this one, it actually was going to be set in the same timeline as Loser Takes All, because it was much funnier that way. (Resh'an is not equipped to handle getting laid this much.) My thought was to make it a series where various characters find increasingly ridiculous ways to pin Resh'an down and fuck him stupid, since that's...kind of a recurring theme with me, I guess! Yomara was going to be next on the list.

Somehow my scrap file is almost 4000 words long, but I didn't actually end up cutting very much. The ending got rewritten like six times; the majority of the first chapter was originally supposed to take place after the sex. It flows better this way, though.

I did cut one of my favorite lines, though, so here you go:

“You may feel conflicted about what I am now and how I came to be, but I do not. Have faith in that, if nothing else. In this moment, in this time, I am exactly as I am meant to be.”

I'm not saying I'm not gonna write that eventually, mind you. Welcome to the niche corner, etc. Yomara deserves something nice, and the Three Sisters have been eating the corners of my brain a bit lately.

(B'st/Romaya is probably more likely at this point, though.) (Shout out to that one Serai/Romaya fic on ao3 that rewired my brain slightly, you're a real one.)

I've got Winter and Spring now, so the next story in the series should be Summer. But I might have more than 4 stories to tell in this particular universe. So maybe I'll jump straight to Autumn and keep with a general theme of "seasons" for everything.

[thefinalwitness]

HELLO i gave myself a horrible two-in-one headache yesterday (tension headache from working on this all night, sinus headache because spring/summer is torturous to me) but i finally got to put that weird fucking oc together. they didnt end up as weird as i was anticipating but this is only their "midway trying to be normal" form so maybe i'll make the true-true form extra fucked up. some other time. i'm tired)

ANYWAY babbling spree: im calling this oc atlas (they/them) for now but i havent 10000% settled on a name. they were a concept and familiar created by venat in the world unsundered, and were what she sent to track meteion when she fled to ultima thule before the final days. they spent 12k years trying to get through to meteion, and in the process were severely "corroded" by the despairing dynamis, until only a shred of their will yet existed in ultima thule.

they use that little bit of will to try and guide the scions and warriors of light when they come to ultima thule; they can't do anything more than call out and try to guide them to meteion. so, besides a spooky extra voice, they don't have much impact on the series of events there.

they're freed with the endsinger's defeat, and use some of their recovering power to save l'aiha, who would have died of her injuries otherwise. they also think she's "adorable" and, upon returning to etheirys, chose to remodel their true form to more resemble her, hence why they look so much like a miqo'te with moth bits. (originally, they'd have looked more like an ancient, and/or just more weird and alien.)

they also have a "disguise/plain miqo'te" form for blending in, but it's... imperfect. main issues are the starry freckles across their body still glow in dim light and darkness, and their eyes are just. VERY bright.

they LOOOOOVE modern etheirys but don't understand a lick of it. <3 ooc theyre a double whammy of "i need a dedicated dancer oc" and "i am ever on the lookout for an oc that i would consider to be l'aiha's wol successor if i retire her at some point". theyre very kind and 'brave' (or, perhaps more accurately, unaware of danger) and they're going through a bit of a Depression post-6.0 because, well, venat is very dead.

despite the 12k years of conflict with meteion, they've always cared about her and are one of her two friends after endwalker (minfilia (yes that minfilia) being the other one. minfie's alive and collecting ancient familiars). atlas therefore spends most of their time in thavnair, helping minfilia tend to those awakened to the echo there during the final days, but will likely begin playing a bigger role in msq now that A Certain Arch Nemesis Of Hydaelyn is back in the picture, sorta, kinda. <3

anyway theyve been stewing in my brain for weeks now, and i only this weekend collected enough little ideas to pin together to make an actual oc. i like them a very normal amount.

[alandemoss]

Exploring Neurodivergence and Spirituality: Matthew's Story, Personal Struggles, and a Journey to Inclusive Faith

Introduction: Uncovering the Intersection of Neurodivergence and Spirituality

Matthew the tax collector, as depicted in The Chosen, offers a fascinating exploration of neurodivergence within a religious context. This portrayal resonates deeply with my personal experiences of addiction, mental health struggles, and a profound spiritual transformation. My journey through religious intolerance in Calvinistic Southern Baptist churches not only exacerbated my struggles with alcoholism and depression but also highlighted the need for a more inclusive understanding of neurodivergence and spirituality. This article explores how Matthew’s neurodivergence parallels my experiences and how a recent spiritual encounter reshaped my approach to faith and healing.

Matthew’s Neurodivergence in The Chosen

A Modern Take on Autism in Ancient Times

In The Chosen, Matthew is portrayed with characteristics commonly associated with autism spectrum disorder. His intense focus on numbers, social awkwardness, and flat emotional affect reflect a neurodivergent perspective. This modern depiction provides valuable insights into how autistic traits might have manifested in Biblical, historical contexts.

Matthew’s role as a tax collector required exceptional numerical skills and meticulous attention to detail, traits often associated with neurodivergent individuals. His social difficulties and emotional detachment mirror challenges faced by many today. This nuanced portrayal offers a fresh perspective on inclusion and acceptance, challenging traditional views within religious communities.

Personal Reflection: Neurodivergence and Social Isolation

My own neurodivergent traits closely align with Matthew’s depiction. Traits such as intense focus and analytical skills have been assets in my life, but they have also led to social isolation. My deep immersion in research and learning, or my special interests, often made it challenging for others to connect with me, reflecting Matthew’s struggles in The Chosen.

For instance, my difficulty in grasping social nuances and my intense focus on specific interests often left me feeling disconnected from others. This parallels Matthew’s experiences and underscores the need for greater empathy and understanding within both religious and social environments. Have you ever felt like an outsider because of traits others couldn’t understand?

How Religious Intolerance Worsens Mental Health Challenges

The Harmful Effects of Rigid Doctrines

The intolerance I faced within Calvinistic Southern Baptist churches significantly impacted my struggles with alcoholism, addiction, depression, and anxiety. The rigid doctrines, including predestination and the concept of "the elect," created an environment of exclusion and judgment. This atmosphere not only failed to address my mental health challenges but also deepened my sense of inadequacy and isolation.

At one point during my 25 years in the church, I began to question whether I was ever "saved." Around the age of 12, many of my peers claimed to have experienced the Holy Spirit, yet I felt nothing. When I voiced my concerns to my father and the preacher, I was told I was simply "doubting" my faith. This experience left me feeling alienated and forced me to wear a mask of belief I didn't feel. Have you ever felt pressured to fit into a religious mold that didn't feel right to you?

A Personal Story of Judgment and Misunderstanding

One vivid memory from my time in the church occurred when I was volunteering at a nursing home. My flat affect led a deacon to suggest that I might be possessed by demons because he couldn’t see the "joy of the Lord" in me. This harsh judgment reflects the broader issue of religious intolerance and its impact on neurodivergent individuals. How often do neurodivergent traits go misunderstood, leading to unwarranted judgment and exclusion? Experiences like this underline the urgent need for a more compassionate and understanding approach within religious communities.

From Despair to Spiritual Awakening: A Journey of Healing

Overcoming Addiction and Finding Faith Through Grace

After a long and dark journey, I experienced a profound spiritual encounter during a meditation session that marked a turning point in my life. Despite my earlier skepticism, this experience with Jesus provided a renewed sense of hope and purpose. It challenged the dogmatic beliefs I had been taught, leading me to reconsider my approach to faith and healing. It’s clear to me that had I stayed within the confines of the churches I once knew, I would have never experienced such a transformation.

This encounter with Jesus has been life-changing, offering a new perspective on faith that emphasizes grace, acceptance, and personal connection. Unlike the rigid doctrines of my past, which I deconstructed, this renewed understanding of spirituality focuses on the unique challenges each individual faces. Has there been a moment in your life where your perception of faith was completely transformed?

Matthew’s Journey: Lessons in True Christian Compassion and Inclusion

Matthew’s Story as a Reflection of True Christian Values

Matthew’s journey from a despised tax collector to a respected disciple serves as a powerful reminder of the inclusive and compassionate nature of true Christianity. Jesus’ acceptance of Matthew, despite his marginalized status, highlights the importance of embracing diversity and recognizing the inherent value of every individual, regardless of their traits or circumstances.

The portrayal of Matthew in The Chosen reinforces this message by presenting a neurodivergent perspective that challenges traditional notions of worth and inclusion. It encourages viewers to rethink their perceptions of neurodivergent individuals and embrace a more empathetic and understanding approach to faith. How might our communities change if we approached faith and inclusion with the same compassion Jesus showed?

Conclusion: Embracing Inclusion and Compassion in Faith

The intersection of neurodivergence, religious intolerance, and personal struggle highlights the need for a more inclusive and compassionate approach to spirituality. Matthew’s portrayal in The Chosen provides valuable insights into the challenges faced by neurodivergent individuals within religious contexts, while my personal journey underscores the impact of intolerance on mental health and well-being.

By embracing the true spirit of Christianity—one that values grace, acceptance, and personal connection—we can create faith communities that support and uplift all individuals, regardless of their differences. This renewed understanding of faith offers hope and healing for those who have faced exclusion and judgment, providing a path toward redemption and recovery. How can we, as individuals and communities, work toward creating more inclusive and compassionate spaces for everyone?

Call to Action

If you’ve experienced similar struggles with neurodivergence, mental health, or religious intolerance, you're not alone. Let’s start a conversation about healing and inclusion by sharing our experiences and insights.

In hope, with Christ,

Sharing Heaven

Bible verses and definitions used in this article can be found below.

Jesus' Words on Faith, Inclusion, and Compassion: Answering Critics with Biblical Truth

1. Question: What is the greatest commandment?

Answer: "‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." – Matthew 22:37-40

2. Question: Why should we not judge others?

Answer: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." – Matthew 7:1-2

3. Question: How should we treat people who are different from us?

Answer: "In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." – Matthew 7:12

4. Question: What did Jesus say about religious leaders who exclude others?

Answer: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to." – Matthew 23:13

5. Question: How should we treat people who are marginalized or different?

Answer: "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." – Matthew 25:40

6. Question: What should we do when we feel burdened and weighed down?

Answer: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." – Matthew 11:28-29

7. Question: Is it wrong to question tradition or religious doctrine?

Answer: "Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’" – Matthew 15:6-9

8. Question: How does Jesus offer forgiveness and acceptance?

Answer: "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." – Luke 19:10

9. Question: What is Jesus’ view on wealth and power?

Answer: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." – Matthew 19:24

10. Question: Can we find peace and overcome fear through faith in Jesus?

Answer: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." – John 14:27

The Ultimate Promise: A 100% Biblical Guarantee from the Words of Jesus

Every word spoken here is from the mouth of Jesus, the Son of God, who guarantees eternal life to those who believe in Him. His words are the foundation of truth and offer the promise of grace, peace, and inclusion to all who follow Him.

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." - Matthew 24:35

Defining Key Terms: Essential Concepts in Neurodivergence, Spirituality, and Faith

Neurodivergence: A term used to describe individuals whose neurological development and functioning are atypical, often including conditions such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and others. Neurodivergent individuals process information and experience the world differently from neurotypical people.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A developmental disorder that affects communication, behavior, and social interaction. Individuals with ASD may have difficulty with social cues, exhibit repetitive behaviors, and have specific interests or intense focus on certain subjects.

Religious Intolerance: The unwillingness to accept or respect beliefs, practices, or people that differ from one's own religious views. In the article's context, it refers to rigid, dogmatic beliefs that exclude or judge individuals based on their perceived adherence to religious doctrine.

Calvinism: A branch of Protestant theology associated with John Calvin that emphasizes predestination, the belief that God has already chosen who will be saved, and that human free will plays no role in salvation.

Predestination: The religious doctrine that God has already determined the fate of every individual, particularly regarding salvation and eternal life, independent of their actions or decisions.

Dogma: A set of principles or beliefs that are accepted by members of a particular group without question. In religious contexts, it refers to doctrines that are viewed as authoritative and infallible.

Deconstruction (in religious context): The process of critically examining and questioning long-held religious beliefs, doctrines, and traditions, often leading to a reassessment or rejection of previous faith practices.

Spiritual Awakening: A profound realization or experience that leads to a deeper understanding of one’s spirituality or connection to a higher power. It often involves a transformation of beliefs, emotions, and perspectives on life.

Mental Health: A person’s emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how people think, feel, and act, and can be influenced by factors such as stress, trauma, or genetics.

Grace: In Christian theology, grace refers to the unearned and unconditional love and favor of God toward humans. It is often seen as the means by which people receive salvation and forgiveness.

Special Interest (Autism): A term used to describe an intense focus on a particular subject or activity, which is often a defining characteristic of individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Exclusion: The act of intentionally or unintentionally leaving someone out or marginalizing them. In religious contexts, it can refer to individuals being alienated due to not conforming to specific beliefs or behaviors.

Empathy: The ability to understand and share the feelings of another person, often regarded as a critical component of building inclusive and supportive communities.

Faith: Trust or belief in a higher power, deity, or set of religious teachings. Faith often involves acceptance of concepts that cannot be seen or proven.

Spirituality: A broad concept that may or may not involve religion, spirituality encompasses a sense of connection to something greater than oneself, often involving a search for meaning, purpose, and peace.

[official-anonymous]

YOOO, I JUST WATCHED THIS CRAZY-ASS MOVIE!!!

This thing is completely batshit. Seriously. Here's a list of shit that goes down in this thing:

A fuckton of people die in the first scene. (you don't actually see bodies, but its one of those things where you just know they're dead)

A woman gets eaten by an alien rock

Timeskip to: Some nerd giving a lecture......to his pet fish......in the depressing as hell basement where he works (he's basically a janitor)

A group of Mr. Monopoly cosplayers talk shit about someone

A guy chases down a MOVING CAR and JUMPS ONTO THE FUCKING HOOD just to tell his asshole boss he's quitting (boss responds by being more of an asshole)

A woman cut power to and broke into a guy's apartment and waited in the dark in a thunderstorm for him to come home.......but she didn't kill him or bang him.

An old dude flashes another dude while doing yoga

There's a Cap'n Crunch cosplayer.

GIANT FUCKING ROBOT LOBSTER FUCKS SHIT UP WITH MOUTH PHASERS!!!! (A bunch of people die)

A grown-ass man plays with a car horn while grinning like he's four years old.

Someone drinks an explosives propellant.....and is not affected at all.

A guy says digging is his pleasure in a voice that sounds like he's talking about kinky sex

There's fuckin snow. In a cave. (no, this isn't either of the Frozen movies)

People dump their unfinished meals onto a fire and create a mushroom cloud

("🎶 We didn't start the fire!🎶") Bugs did......but they didn't go after any humans (except, apparently, one. Who then announces that someone will have to suck his ass.)

A clumsy doofus is suddenly a frickin ninja when he chases after a pretty girl.

Old-ass falling apart rope bridges missing boards somehow support two trucks and a bunch of people

There's some weird half fish, half pterodactyl bird things.

A blind guy somehow knows the person he's talking to has a gun, even though no one has told him that in any way.

Two people discover an ancient hovercraft........and total it in less than five minutes (and no one else ever notices this going on)

A guy just grabs a random child that runs by and puts them on his shoulders......and the parents invite this rando and his friends in for a meal.

Arson bugs again! (But they're not committing arson now)

Guy who can't read ancient writing at all somehow knows the document he stole is about a treasure he's looking for and not just a review of some amazing dish the writer had at a party

Someone merges with an alien rock that may actually be an AI

More hovercraft are discovered (and a second one is almost totaled)

A dude who can't drive a car can suddenly fly like he's Top Gun Maverick or something

Shit-ton of shooting......from guys with worse aim than Stormtroopers. Shit-ton of ammo wasted.

The hovercraft have phasers

Dumbass stick person tries to fight a guy who looks like The Hulk (he loses, of course)

Someone escapes death......by turning their would-be killer into a mutant demon-looking thing, then sending the thing into what's basically a giant Salad Shooter.

A person doesn't get killed or even burned to a crisp.....even thought they're inside an erupting volcano (there's other people inside it, but this one was deeper inside it than anyone else.

There's giant robot Iron-Giant-looking things creating a force-field

The one who merged with the possible AI goes back to normal

The characters concoct an elaborate cover up for everything that happened in the movie.

This was some kind of unhinged insanity but I loved it.

[mssidewinder]

The Dead Bastard

Wolf sits in The Dead Bastard, a tavern in Mauseaux - the last known living city in the world. She orders a Green Mash, a deep, earthy drink, water pulped from dead moss and lichen. It reminds her of something. It is 11am in Mauseaux.

A massive, onyx-skinned woman, with horns, mandibles, and a poncho made of "hair", she sits across from others of her kind, and others that are not - but are unrecognized for their difference.

These distinctions were lost, years (- has it been years, now?) ago, in the Reclamation, destroying all known information in an apocalypse no one even quite realized happened, plunging the world into a new, anomalous dark age.

Now, these aliens all sit at the same table, speaking the same language. Her friends are not here - they do not grace this depressing place, full of old, reminiscing husks. She speaks.

"I come here, right? I come here, nearly every chance I get. Nearly every day. And I come here to sit, to think about something that I don't.. even know exists."

"I'm mourning something, right? I'm mourning something. Home, family, friends? I know I wasn't made here. This place feels alien to me - I know what the feeling of alienation is - but it's all I know. And yet I still, I come here, with you all, and I sit. And remember.. Nothing."

"I remember nothing! I remember nothing but the fact that something is wrong. Everyone else, here, is something, it feels, and I'm here as nothing." Her voice raises without realizing. The others sit, outwardly unbothered by her speaking.

"I don't even fit here with you! Ancient, warfaring people, I should be out in the development district with the Elders, they're certainly above /this/ agonizing nonsense." Her voice almost quivers with.. Sadness? Anger? At them, at herself?

She realizes she's begun to stand over the table, and she stops herself, sitting. She takes a drink from her glass, and something about it tastes familiar. "..but I'm still here."

The old clock sits on the wall, hands stuck, unmoving.

It's always 11am in Mauseaux.

[folxlorepod]

Author's Notes on 'Creature' and 'Home': Trans Love, Bad Queers, and Happy Endings.

By Syd Briscoe CREATURE and HOME were an interesting pair of episodes to write, because they reflect on the same experience in very different ways. Not two sides of a coin, but then we'd be hypocritical if we went for something too binary, wouldn't we? 

I started writing from the POV of wanting to give Charlie an ending that he deserved, and my voicing him actually influenced the cross-dimensional premise of the season entirely. As you may have noticed, I was finally (after the better part of a decade on an NHS waiting list) allowed to start taking testosterone while we were planning things out, and my voice changed really quickly. So from a purely practical perspective I started thinking about how punk it was to have a trans VA change sound completely during a story. 

Charlie has been a challenge as a writer ever since the pilot episodes, because he's not a capital-letter Good Queer in the way that people often write their queer characters to be. He's angry, he's petty, he's paranoid, he's anxious - the track that always makes me think of him is 'I'm Not A Good Person' by Pat the Bunny, and he'd sing along to every word with a complete lack of irony. He's been through some stuff which he's never unpacked, and he stands for those among us who feel like we missed the boat in life somehow. 

That's why it felt important for him to still be like that once he got whammied with the magical transition stick. Because so often in media our narratives end with us transitioning, begin post transition, and/or view it as a magic wand which is at once the root of and solution to all our problems. Charlie is still a horrid little goblin once he's allowed to feel more like himself in his skin - he's still angry, he's still depressed, he's still plagued by memories and bothered by things he can't have. He's also still very much our root-deep link to Glasgow, even as he finally learns to get off the subway. 

If Charlie is an expression of how our experiences existing while trans can shape us - for better or worse - then the Creature is a manifestation of all the things we didn't get to be. Particularly the older members of the community, which very much influenced its conception as an ancient being. We didn't get to mould our bodies, we didn't get to exist outside of a hostile society, we didn't get to just be how we are. We didn't get to be the children or the teenagers our cis peers were, we didn't get to have the silly nights out without fear, and we didn't get to be carefree. 

The Creature absorbs that, tries to shield the other characters from feeling that, and yet it endures. It isn't a fantasy of wish fulfilment - it isn't a gender fairy creature - but it's how I imagine an ancient being would conceive of the business of gender and queerness in a very different way to how our society does. Namely that it doesn't matter at all in the same way we'd think about it, and they're a bit confused as to why our hostile world would care so much, but the fact that people it cares about have experienced it in the way we do matters very much. 

I wanted to have the Creature feel very alien, and then Charlie to come from his extremely bare bones relatable Going Through Some Shit place, and them to find not only love but more importantly purpose together. It often feels like there are so few trans love stories, and when there are they're about Hyper Passing Person No1 finding Cis Person No2, or couples breaking up due to transition, and… fuck that, to put it bluntly. Charlie is a weird person. The Creature isn't a person. If the lads on Grindr don't love you, then that doesn't mean you're unlovable. Weirdos are here, and we have always been here. 

My first concept for CREATURE was Charlie helping the Creature change their jewellery. The OG idea was about body mods and the queer community, but given everything happening in the UK, my writing soon became influenced by other things. It was meant to be a very simple metaphor at the start, but it became more complicated for political and personal reasons. I don't think you can make queer art in this country without it feeling fraught at the moment, as we get battered in the media for no good reason other than our existence, and it would be nice to have something's protective wings spread over us for a while.

It is not easy being in transition, even if you're going where you want to go. That's pretty much the thesis statement of both HOME and CREATURE as a pair, and I really hope you find some enjoyment, meaning, and maybe even comfort in them. 

[mercuriopoetry]

Interview with Suzanne Richardson, poet

Q: How do you approach writing a poem? Do you start with an image, a line, or an idea? Do you have a writing routine? And most importantly, what drives you to write poetry?

A: So, in terms of the poem you’re mentioning, that title came from a dream. I did quite literally have this dream and it became the image that started the foundation of the poem. Many images and lines from my work come straight from dreams. I know other poets who also work this way. I like to privilege my intuition in my work and this is one way I do that.

The title mentioned is "The Night I Knew I Loved You I Dreamed I was a Small Horse in Your Hand”.

A: Most of my projects are driven by a voice, and the voice of this project has spoken to me for a few years now. Rage-filled, sexual, wry, sarcastic, depressive, submissive, pained. Many of these poems started with lines, often they came to me either while taking long walks, or when I first woke in the morning.

A: I’m deeply interested in femininity in all forms and expressions. My work has often been labeled aggressive, or bold, and that’s fine, but just know that’s also feminine because it’s coming from me.

On the topic of female desire, the patriarchy and poetry:

Q: How do you approach writing about sexuality and desire in a way that feels both personal and universal, fresh yet ancient? Do you consciously try to challenge or subvert traditional narratives about female desire in your work? 

A: I think owning that part of myself is my feminism, to say that sex is part of my humanity, and I’m not going to perform shame for an audience because it’s part of who I am as a human being. My work is not for everyone, it can elicit strong reactions because of the themes you’re describing. I hope if my work provokes someone they consider why, or how that provocation and discomfort might be related to acceptable or palatable ideas around desire, gender, and power.

A: I’m inspired by female rappers, women who have since the very early 80s been blunt about their desires, their needs, who they are, and their right to their feelings. In poetry it still feels quite taboo for women to be more blunt about their desires still, maybe it’s because we’re bumping up against so much tradition. (...) Female desire becomes the monster that will eat the patriarchy. Because of this, the culture insists women stay silent about their desires. 

A: I do think the sex in my work is a bit of a Trojan horse for the speaker’s alienation and disconnection and failures to connect with the intimate other. So, yes, it’s about sex, but really it’s also about the existential crisis of isolation within the intimacy, or the ephemeral nature of that close connection — it never lasts, it’s fragile, in flux and what is a poem if not furiously writing against disconnection and the death of things and experiences that matter to us?

On the topic of titles and expectations:

Q: How do you approach titling your poems? Do the titles come to you before, during, or after the writing process? What do you aim to achieve with your titles? And do you get a kick out of these?

A: I do like them. I do find them funny, and I did find them very generative.  (...) Sometimes the space between the title and the poem itself is where I like to do the most work. Subverting or turning expectations right there between what the title is saying or instructing and what the poem actually is.

I really liked this interview, honestly, even though I might not fully agree with some of the points the author comments. She's anyways very inspiring, and refreshing, and cool in that alternative way that I kinda really like.

[jaitropdonglets]

Self-Identification is the Future of Autism Assessment

Instead of trying to reform the process of Autism diagnosis, we should be working to move past it.

15min read

By now, a majority of Autism researchers and clinicians are aware that the existing assessments for Autism are profoundly flawed.

They know the standard evaluation of Autism is sexist, with assessors excluding women for reasons like wearing makeup, having a boyfriend, being superficially polite, or not being fixated on suitably ‘masculine’ topics like ancient Roman history or barometric pressure.

They know Autism evaluations are racist, deeming Black Autistics “oppositionally defiant” or even “borderline” rather than acknowledging any social alienation or sensory pain they’re experiencing, and believing they must be overstating the difficulty they face in moving through the world.

And they certainly know that conventional Autism measures weren’t designed with adult Autistics in mind. Many of us are still asked to make up stories based on paintings of frogs in a toddler’s picture book, when we sit down for assessments at age 20, or 30, or 45 — because all the evaluation methods were written for young kids.

The data has already proven the far-reaching consequences of using such shoddy measures of Autism. People of color, gender minorities, older adults, and women are diagnosed at later ages, and also go undiagnosed at massive rates.

Instead of finding out that the way their minds and bodies work diverges from the societal norm, and being able to forge communities with similarly neurodivergent people, they are left floundering, drinking themselves through the day to blunt sensory issues, starving themselves because they can’t focus on their schoolwork and remember to eat, dating people they aren’t attracted to and having sex they don’t want to have in a bid to appear normal, working unfulfilling, under-paying jobs in whatever fields they can hold down, and concealing the moments of confusion, overstimulation, frustration, and unfulfillment that all too often define their days.

Researchers have finally picked up on the fact that there are massive gaps in the scientific literature on Autism, human-sized holes of misunderstanding where the stories of diverse Autistic men, women, and nonbinary people ought to be. Instead of research on Autistic people’s experience with stigma, they have dozens upon dozens of papers about the stigma experienced by parents and caregivers. Instead of collecting meaningful data on why so many Autistics attempt suicide (and how to prevent future suicides), they have data on the burnout and depression of the parents and teachers who work with us.

A growing population of scientists are admittedly interested in fostering a new literature of what they call “patient-driven” Autism research, but they never stop thinking of us as mere patients, the passive receivers of care rather than the leaders of communities and political movements who are the ought to be the primary authors of the studies about us, and the sole determinants of what our desired outcomes should be. Even when they observe that their work could benefit from a greater Autistic perspective, researchers do so from closed rooms, filled with other professionals who are largely not Autistic, wondering amongst themselves what it is that we want instead of learning to quiet their voices and follow our lead.

Many Autism researchers also recognize by now that these pervasive gaps in the assessments and scientific literature were made by design.

Because Autism was originally conceived of as a form of childhood schizophrenia, it was impossible for adults to be identified as having the disability for a great many years. Psychiatrists didn’t bother examining adult populations for Autistic traits, nor did they humanize Autistic children enough to map their experiences onto grown people who had legal protections and were seen as competent.

Though early Autism researchers like Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner did encounter Autistic girls in their initial studies, they didn’t see their suffering as anywhere near as worthy of concern. They excluded poor families, non-white people, gender diverse individuals, people with intellectual disabilities, and anyone else who lacked elite respectability from many of their reports, which went on to inform the evaluation methods, which unsurprisingly kept excluding these populations because practitioners had never been trained to look for Autism in them, or to even care that Autistic people like them existed.

And for the first seventy years that Autism existed as a psychiatric category, psychiatric professionals only ever described it based on how it looked to them from the outside — ever-focused on the disruptions Autistic people caused them and the supposed inconvenience that their disability presented, rather than asking Autistic people how it felt to be themselves.

One of the defining features of the Autistic experience (and one of the greatest sources of real debilitation for us), sensory issues, was not widely noted by the psychiatric literature on Autism until public figures like Temple Grandin finally articulated them in the 1980s and 90s— and she was only believed because she was a credentialed scientist whose innate understanding of sensory-seeking behaviors had proven financially fruitful to the butchering industry.

Even after Grandin’s influential work moved the public and psychiatrists to consider how it actually felt to be Autistic, there remained no mention of sensory integration issues, sensory meltdowns, or sensory-seeking behavior in any of Autism’s diagnostic criteria until 2013, with the release of the DSM-V.

For over a century therapists, medical doctors, school psychologists, psychiatrists, and researchers saw us banging our heads, stuffing fingers in our ears, hiding under our beds, and crying out in alarm whenever ambulances drove past and never thought to ask if any of us might be in acute pain from the input we were receiving. They simply saw a behavioral problem in need of correcting — the disquieted tantrums of a people being tortured by static and engines and perfume and air conditioning units and scratchy fabrics and tight elastics every single day was only of concern because it was disruptive.

We see such external judgements and neurotypical biases reflected in every element of how Autism has classically been defined by professionals. The DSM-III-R (released in 1987), for instance, declares that Autistic people lack awareness for others, and describe us as treating other human beings as if they were pieces of furniture. But this criteria fails to acknowledge how Autistic children are propped up by adults into uncomfortable postures, stuffed into restrictive clothing, and berated into forming tense, artificial smiles. In order to put the non-Autistics around us at ease, we are literally made into living decorations, rather than asked if adopting such positions is uncomfortable for us. And yet we are the ones accused of failing to consider others’ emotions.

The handbook also states matter-of-factly that we lack any awareness when other people are distressed, but Autistic people ourselves were never asked whether we actually noticed and powerfully felt (to the point of a debilitating freeze response) when others were unhappy around us. Given the pervasiveness of people-pleasing behaviors, codependent relationships, and a placating “fawn” response among Autistics, it’s quite clear we are often highly attuned to others’ emotional reactions.

It took Autism researchers decades to realize that many in our population genuinely do experience an emotional connection to others, and have a strong longing for friendships — because previously, they never asked us if we did. Instead, they simply assumed that because we struggled to find friendships that we must not have wanted them.

The DSM-IV (released in 1994) states that Autistics adhere to specific, “nonfunctional” routines and rituals — but no researchers ever bothered to ask us what the purposes of things like hand-flapping, item-stacking, and lyric-repeating are. Clearly, such behaviors have a purpose. But when Autism is defined only by how it looks outwardly, complete ignorance surrounding the purpose of a task transforms into that task lacking all meaning.

Even today, the diagnostic criteria for Autism refuses to engage with our inner realities — the DSM-V still states we have the absence of interest in peers, in spite of literally hundreds of research citations speaking to loneliness and a painful longing for friendships being common among Autistic people.

Practitioners point to the high rates of physical and mental health issues among Autistics and claim they desire “patient-driven” research to help them better understand it, yet they remain so patient-unfocused in how they conceptualize Autism that they miss the very cries of longing and alienation from us that fully explain the causes of such issues. They’d much rather see Autism as the pathological root of its own problems than grapple with the role they’ve played in cleaving us off from the rest of society.

How Society Forces Autistics to Become Inhibited & Passive

A "deleted scene" from my book Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity

drdevonprice.substack.com

Despite all this, even some of the most considerate and neurodiversity-supporting of neurotypical researchers believe that we must reform the process of Autism diagnosis, so that evaluation methods properly capture the disability in women, trans people, queer people, people of color, older adults, and everyone else that has long been overlooked.

They believe that by rewriting the rules by which the Autism label is dispensed, the authority figures performing the dispensing will at last be able to wield that authority properly, determining who belongs to our community, who is worthy of accommodation and accessibility, and who is deserving of societal acceptance and grace.

But the problem isn’t just a few small, forgivable errors in the Autism-labeling process. The problem is the authority of the ones doing the labeling. It’s the gatekeeping of the Autistic identity and the external judgement of our disability that harms us, and that has erased the true diversity of our population as well as decades of our silent suffering.

The solution was never for the likes of Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger or Simon Baron-Cohen to include more Autistic minorities within their subject pool, so that they could tag and observe us more appropriately. The solution was for Autistics ourselves to kick down the walls of our cages, tear the tags from our ears, and move freely in the world not as research subject but as powerful agents, who could find one another, create our own language for our shared issues, and fight together for the social supports that we need.

Though many basically well-intentioned Autism researchers believe that Autism assessments need reform, what neurodiversity really needs is to abandon the diagnostic process altogether. If Autism is a benign, neutral, naturally occurring form of human difference that requires acceptance rather than a cure, then there’s no need to diagnose it as if it were a sickness. And if hundreds of thousands of Autistic women, people of color, queer people, and older people have been able to give a voice to ourselves and find one another without having ever been given a label by a professional, then improved professional labeling is not what we need.

Autistic self-realization is the future of Autism assessment. We hold the collective wisdom, organizing ability, insight, and political power to define who we are. No authority figure should have to sign off on our identities.

Because psychiatrists fail to diagnose such a large percentage of the Autistic population, many Autism researchers now accept self-identified Autistic adults within their subject pool. Within the peer-reviewed journal Autism in Adulthood, self-realized Autistics often make up the bulk of the participant sample, and they have repeatedly been found to be indistinguishable from their formally diagnosed peers.

A growing body of research now also considers the presence of Autism-spectrum traits as qualifying for inclusion in many Autism studies. The data makes it quite obvious that Autistic people exist within all human groups, spread all throughout the world, and that a great many people have experiences in common with us who have not been formally diagnosed. This itself reveals that a formal diagnosis is hardly necessary, and that a psychiatric paradigm of accepting self-identification is inevitable.

In embracing the self-realization of undiagnosed Autistics, we can also consider the path walked by other marginalized groups who were once deemed as mentally ill. In the 1970s, LGBTQ people lobbied vigorously to have homosexuality removed from the DSM, and in 1973 the American Psychiatric Association conceded that experiencing same-sex attraction hardly deserved to be considered a mental disease.

How LGBTQ+ Activists Got "Homosexuality" out of the DSM - JSTOR Daily

The first DSM, created in 1952, established a hierarchy of sexual deviancies, vaulting heterosexual behavior to an…

daily.jstor.org

This was just one small win in the long battle to have queerness accepted as a completely benign, neutral, naturally occurring form of human difference. Once homosexuality was no longer shrouded under the stigma of mental illness, it became more broadly possible for gay people to openly discuss their feelings, to express their desires, and to build community alongside one another. To depathologize queerness was to liberate it. No liberation for Autistic people shall be found from within a pathological frame.

Transgender history serves as an even stronger parallel. Until 2013, it was necessary for any trans person seeking gender-affirming care to be diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, as it was deemed in the DSM. To go on hormones, apply for surgery, or even change one’s name, a trans person had to be subjected to a battery of psychological assessments, endure sometimes years of in-depth talk therapy, perform their target gender without medical aid to a degree deemed suitable by their therapist, and earn the authoritative approval to become who they were. Numerous trans women were denied affirming surgeries for things like being interested in women, or for not being attractive enough by their therapists’ standards;trans men were denied the right to be themselves if they were gay.

But trans people organized doggedly to oppose this unjust psychiatric gatekeeping of their own identities, arguing that an external authority figure could never know them so well as they knew themselves. This has led to the widespread adoption of the informed consent paradigm, at least here in the U.S. Trans people are no longer expected to prove their identities to a therapist; instead, we can declare who we are freely, and trained medical staff are then obliged to help us identify the care that works best for us.

So long as transness was seen as a mental disorder to be carefully assessed and diagnosed, thousands of us were always going to be restricted from getting to live as the people we were. It was a cruelly difficult and drawn-out bureaucratic process, predicated on the idea that we were ill, and a rare deviation, and that we could not be trusted to figure out our genders for ourselves. The right to self-identification was our liberation. For Autistic people, it will be the same.

The move toward self-assessment of Autism is already underway. After my book came out, I started hearing from countless Autistic people who told me their therapists gladly signed off on their Autistic self-realizations. Rather than being subjected to a battery of expensive, demeaning evaluations at the hands of a psychiatrist, they’ve simply shared with a trusted counselor that they know who they are, and a growing number of neurodiversity-affirming counselors are happy to agree with them.

Some of these Autistic people avoided formal psychiatric assessment because they do not wish to be marked permanently as disordered, and subjected to a variety of legal, economic, medical, and societal injustices as a result. Others cannot afford an official assessment or fear most psychiatrists being unfairly biased against them because of their gender, sexual orientation, or race.

But just as many of these self-realized Autistics simply feel that their own personal reflection, private research, and consultation with a therapist is enough. They haven’t taken the matter of self-diagnosis lightly. Many of them devote years to self-discovery before finally embracing the Autism label, and to having that label re-affirmed by a counselor who knows them and trusts their judgement.

My book Unmasking Autism is widely read by neurodiversity-affirming therapists, who tell me that they’re committed to learning more about how neurodivergent people actually think and feel. Rather than approaching potentially Autistic patients with the assumption that they are defective or lack competence, these practitioners simply offer information and resources to their clients, service as a sounding board for all their concerns, and support them in arriving at whatever identity feels right for them.

This is much the same role that an affirming gender therapist performs for trans (and questioning) clients today. They are not skeptical of their clients’ perspectives, and they don’t seek to distinguish the true trans folk from the confused or the fakers. Their job is to provide mental support as their clients embark on a gender exploration journey. Any practitioner who is still performing harsh, authoritative gatekeeping of trans identity and restricting patient access to healthcare in this day and age is akin to a conversion therapist. The same can be said of psychiatrists who deny self-realized Autistic people their identities — and the access to accommodations that comes with it.

Self Diagnosis Isn't "Valid." It's Liberatory.

If Autism is a neutral source of human diversity, why the hell would we need to diagnose it?

open.substack.com

When I tell people that I’m not just in support of self-diagnosis, but that I’m actively averse to formal diagnosis being required, people sometimes respond with outrage, asking me what Autistic people who require legal protections or disability benefits are supposed to do without a slip of paper from a psychiatric professional. They presume I’m saying Autistic people should not seek formal accommodations such as extra test-taking time, work-from-home options, the ability to use stim toys at their desks, Medicare benefits, or a medical marijuana card.

But they are misunderstanding the role performed by the psychiatric professional. An Autism assessor is not a benevolent figure who gives Autistic people access to accommodations at school and work, legal protections, and medical care — no, a psychiatric professional is a person who restricts access to these things, for they have the authority to determine who is deserving of such supports and whose struggles they disbelieve or don’t think merit assistance. The psychiatrist is not the bridge between the Autistic person and resources. The psychiatrist is the troll that blocks the passage with riddles and a toll.

Such gatekeeping is not necessary. A growing number of professional organizations provide disability accommodations to their employees without demanding any formal documentation. One of them is Humanity United, a large philanthropic organization I delivered a talk at a few weeks ago. At organizations like these, employees can identify themselves as neurodivergent and request any unique accommodation they need — things like the ability to skip workplace social events, a dimmer switch for their office lights, the ability to communicate with their boss over email rather than on the phone, or a more fidget-friendly chair.

When I decided I needed a standing desk, for example, I didn’t have to prove to anyone at Loyola University that I had a hip issue that was exacerbated by sitting all day. My department’s amazing administrative assistant Nancy just asked me if I wanted a standing desk and I got one. Anybody in the office who wanted one could get it. A colleague of mine whose body temperature runs very hot was able to move to a cooler office simply by asking her boss. If we can extend accommodations so casually to people with completely banal physical complaints, we can treat Autism as a completely unremarkable form of human difference deserving of flexibility, too.

By embracing Autistic self-identification as the ultimate authority, we can also address the shortage of trained evaluators that currently exists and is projected to worsen. Seeking out a specialist in Autism assessment isn’t just costly, it’s time-consuming too, and so many within our community must cope with massive delays in getting the resources that we need.

But if all that we needed was to self-declare our Autism and have it signed off by any therapist, we could file for disability benefits or legal protections with far greater ease. This means we’d get plugged into necessary supports sooner, and would be less likely to tumble down the spiral of burnout, social alienation, unemployment, poverty, and suicide ideation far too many in our community plunge into. If I’d have gotten disability accommodations the moment I first voiced that I was Autistic, I could have avoided multiple years’ worth of meltdowns at work. For many Autistic people, the right to self-identification could keep them in school, housed, employed, and fed.

I believe that in the short term, we could easily switch into a paradigm in which Autism is ‘diagnosed’ just as effortlessly as my Nurse Practitioner ‘diagnosed’ me with an endocrine disorder when I told him that I was trans. My diagnosis was nothing but a formality made for insurance billing purposes; it carried with it no stigma or any indication that I was unwell, and it allowed me to navigate my healthcare needs with power and self-possession. It was efficient, cost-effective, and humanizing for me to get to define myself as a man.

There is absolutely no reason that Autistic people cannot do the same. We know who we are better than psychiatric professionals do; we have had to create an entire literature on our inward experiences and generate an entire political self-advocacy movement out of whole cloth, because the researchers who studied us lacked any valuable insight on our inner experience. We created the widespread social revolution that has led to us being seen as ordinary human beings; we’ve written the books that describe what our lives our like, made the public aware that we don’t need to be cured, and gotten better depictions of ourselves put on TV screens.

Like our gay and trans siblings who rejected pathologization before us, Autistic people are seizing control over our own destinies, and defining for ourselves who we are and who belongs within our community. Psychiatric practitioners will soon have to live in the new world we are building, whether they like it or not.

[interdimensionalburnout]

>It's a photo, taken from atop a mossy-green looking hill-top. Berri's standing on a high peak in a false depression. Nead's Folly, the South Pole Exclusion Zone, is a giant tundra that's slowly buried an ancient megastructure, often mistaken by the indigenous cultures as a cursed and forgotten city. All that's visible from the hilltop is the buried upper strata of the super-machine, covered in ice and dirt and rocks, and shot through with too-warm plant life. Mold-like moss covers the ground like grass, and all around the place are spindly forests of ominous, black-blue mushrooms, that seem to have barked-up like trees as they wind high, like redwoods.

>All around the desolate tundra are gold-like structures, overgrown with more alien plants, being choked apart by nearly-translucent strands of unnatural blue mycelia, like giant vines that dig-in and drag-down old spires and hollowed-out towers. Desolation doesn't do the place justice, though, because it tries to seem alive, but even through the film there's a wrongness to the plants in the image, to the very rolling nature of the tundra as it fills a massive bowl in the earth. This isn't life, and it isn't unlife. It's some horrid parody of life, some thing taking on a familiar shape to meet a different goal, unknowable and seemingly hostile, just at a glance.

>Far in the distance is a lonely spire of a mountain, the center-most point of Wayouddy's south pole. A looming mountain that towers above the depression's edge, its base lined with a massive, fungal-consumed wall that even still shines with glimmering adornments. Starting from above the peak of the mountain, and moving outwards in an ever-fading (or brightening) radius, across the horizon, towards the thick black line of mushroom forests beyond... the sky is black. No stars shine above the south pole, no light pierces the memorial site of consumption. The remembrance of the void soothes the mountain, whispers a voice in the very pixels of the photo.

They call the place "Nead's Folly" because an automated message broadcasts within fifty miles of the exclusion zone warning -in every language that exists in this galaxy- to "Avoid at all costs the Follies of Nead."

[thegreywind]

Cardinality

I wake up in the morning and look at the sky. A stiff white bird is flying on a cloudy background, the deep lapis-lazuli a stark contrast with the bird. It isn't aware of me and why should it be. I live in this world but this world does not live in me, I am apart from it.

She approaches.

"Are you ready to go?" "Yes, ma'am." I am always ready, she asks me the question out of pure habit.

She knows and doesn't care.

This place is ancient. We walk among the fallen spires of gray matter, a simple mixture of rock and sand and water.

Her long cloak billows in front of me, the arid wind doesn't bother me but her skin needs to be protected. Her dark eyes look back from the slit of her cowl, checking if I am still following. Of course I am. I always will. I don't want to be alone again.

"We still have a long way to go but if we keep following this path we probably won't have any trouble, yeah?"

I do not respond. I do not think this question is worth a response, I have no say in it.

"Are you listening to me?" She asks in a loud voice.

"Yes, ma'am." I respond.

"You always this quiet? It's really much better if we could hold a conversation, y'know." She sighs.

I haven't spoken to anyone in a very long time.

"I- will try to be more talkative." Her non-chalant way gets to me.

I can't see her face but I see her eyes smile. It's a pleasant sight.

"How- long have you been here?" I ask without knowing why I asked.

"Not long, I landed on the other side of this depressing locale. I had a bike, a nice one at that but I lost it a little while before I met ya."

"H-how did you lose it?" Speaking is hard but I am getting used to it once more.

"Oh it was actually quite dangerous. I was riding on these giant lanes between the spires when the ground just gave up! Luckily I managed to jump off the bike, it wasn't so lucky though, it fell in the pit. It was around twenty meters deep, I couldn't save it."

"What was in the pit?"

"I have no idea, do I? It had all sorts of round tunnels and a little water flowing through them, whoever lived here must have used it for travel or something."

"When you found in that place I hadn't moved in a long while. I am afraid I don't know anymore than you do about this place."

"That's fine, we won't be staying any longer than we need. This is a dead place, I don't like it."

I never considered a place being dead or alive, such thoughts were alien to me, as were most of them.

"Why- do you say that? How can you know a place is dead?"

"You don't see anyone around, do ya? But now, you kinda gave me the creeps. My implants haven't detected any lifeforms, not organic at least, which makes it even more surprising I found you, such a coincidence."

I do not respond. I do not know what to say.

Like a beacon guiding me through debris, she keeps walking.

Eventually we make a turn and come out in another enormous lane, it's rock-like material cracked from what I supposed are impacts from the fallen spires. One spire is incredibly mostly intact, it has many holes in its lane-facing side, they're mostly square and follow a pattern, I wonder what they were for once.

[cipheramnesia]

The sincere kitsch of a tropical themed bar and grill on a polar satellite wasn't lost on Serah. Indeed, she felt it would be difficult to lose such effects even with years of therapy, given the oppressive hallucination flash-hypno channeling neon shapes of extinct ancient animals from the former Amazon basin, infrasound chanting bringing large cat holograms to sharp relief, all of it accompanied by slow heartbeat-bass fueled music which sampled liberally the noises of digestive tracts and flesh pulled from bones. It was a party atmosphere which she resented having to navigate through sober, when under other circumstances she'd have been able to savor the loss of self to the jungle explorer and bright floral designs along the walls and tables and plastic glasses.

Instead she pushed aside sweaty off-duty central personnel who were fully immersed into the psychical tapestry, and set a couple drinks which were wildly overburdened with plastic flowers, umbrellas, fruit, and everything except alchol. Maryam was hunched down in the other chair, hiding her eyes as best she could from the worst of the subliminal central nervous system disruptions Reedy's Tropical Retreat blasted around them. Serah had to shout to be heard. "Drink a little of this - it's got loads of sugars and salts, takes the edge off."

Maryam gratefully took several large swallows through the convoluted straw, which itself flickered holographic bird images to life while she drank. Serah tossed her straw and pushed some of the fruit slices and tiny umbrellas aside to sip from the edge. "Okay-" Maryam started.

"You have to shout," Serah shouted.

"Why are we meeting somewhere it's too loud for people to overhear us, but shouting so we can still be heard," Maryam shouted back.

"Hold on," Serah shouted, sliding her chair and her drink around til her forehead was nearly touching Maryam's. "How's this?"

"Better," said Maryam in a raised voice. "Okay, what we know." She counted off her fingers. "One. Central sent an unusually large amount of resources for a regular DQD."

"To be fair," said Serah, "it's an alien WMD, maybe that's why."

Maryam shook her head. "Even so. Two. Central added major incentives for us to pursue the DQD."

"Are you saying I had a choice?"

"Are you suggesting that you would like to revert back to entry duties on backwater planets such as Nevamil."

"Okay, so, Three," Serah tapped Maryam's third finger. "They sent some other guys to shadow us."

"Uh."

"Huh?"

"Sorry, I was distracted by this place." Maryam leaned closer to be heard better. "And now we are going to be subject to an additional ship supposedly to coordinate our DQD process. A thing which is never done. Have we missed any other information?"

"One thing, kinda weird," Serah said. "Those guys got the drop on us really easy. Like, maybe they're just that good, but..."

"No, they most certainly are not. I see. This is the reason for, how did you call it? The cloak and stagger."

"Nani liked classic lit, okay? Okay, so for sure we're probably being watched, and not just like the usual telemetry, someone like maybe Steyr wants something from Charybdis. And maybe someone on board is helping more directly, and gave the Dendrobatidae a heads-up."

"I do not like the many implications this has. Especially about our crew." Maryam drew a depression draught off her fruity assemblage. "One other detail I have been thinking about. The Charybdis itself."

"How so?"

"You saw the wreckage off Panay, remember?"

"Pretty difficult to forget."

"And the fight between the Dendrobatidae and Charybdis. Does it not seem unusual?"

"I thought it was pretty freaky when the Dendro actually tagged it."

"Charybdis could have easily destroyed the Dendrobatidae and everyone on board, yet instead the ship was disabled without loss of life."

"Hm, I guess. I dunno, it still kicked Dendro's ass all up and down Luna. Maybe it just can't hit a fast target?"

"Did you miss the moment where the Dendrobatidae was flattened to the surface of Luna?"

"Fair. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of weird now that you bring it up."

"The question I would also ask, then, is whether or not Charybdis left the Dendrobatidae intact on purpose, and if so why?"

□ □ □ □ □

The fabber was busy with the bodywork for Yelena's old sled, the wolf woman and her plant boyfriend and their Shaman were headed to town. Yelena was giving him dagger eyes from his couch. Peng headed into his cellar, shoveling his outwear onto the racks of disused artillery, psyche-disruptors, belts of ammo, biocells, stable blessings pattern projecting energy guns, missile launchers, varieties of rocket charges, and other odds and ends he kept under a tarp. He figured they worked well enough, but just as well he'd torn them all down.

No need for all that, he tapped the aquarium where the link he'd grown from scratch lived in cool protein gel. It climbed out slowly, all fifteen pairs of legs, long as his forearm. Cleaned the gel from itself meticulously as it slithered from the tank to his hand and up his arm. The biolink slipped under his shirt, and locked into the ports along his neck and spine. Its legs held feather light to his back, soon enough he wouldn't even notice. Careful time took in closing back up for the cold, making his way from his house to his garage to his airlock and the colosal monster in his landing bay.

As he approached it, coffins along the blast wall cracked up parade style to disgorge his mechanics, and he relaxed his senses into them. The meditative state was crucial to allow his consciousness to divide into the dozens of biomechanical workers, which varied between almost human-sized spiders, down to swarms of hair-fine worms. All of the mechanics clambered up and around Genghis Khan and begin to explore.

"Easy ship," Peng said. "Good monster, just here to find what's wrong." There wasn't any response, but it didn't kill him. So far, he could consider this a success.

Part 5: Search & Destroy

a story by @rox-and-prose and @cipheramnesia

"What happened? Are you okay?" Laika held one eye half-closed, trying to block out spots of color. She could smell singed hair on her face, but somehow kept the presence of mind to navigate the structure resolution. Genghis Khan's readouts were pouring information into her eyes that she didn't understand, and could barely focus on. It probably wasn't the structure drives - that felt right, though she couldn't say why.

The lack of response wasn't helping her keep any semblance of calm. "GK, what's going on, what do I do?"

There was a screeching noise and she almost fell from a gravity flicker, but GK was there again. "Proceed to next solution. Injury manageable, prioritize speed."

The words were calm, the instructions clear. Laika twisted and clicked through command nerves and linkages to a structure solution, with growing concern. She couldn't figure out what had happened. The other ship had moved slow as GK predicted, left itself wide open everywhere. It had been childishly easy to go in under the sweep of its weaponry, to push open gaps in its wavelengths, and crack open its firewall. She'd been so surprised, it had taken her a moment before reacting, brushing aside the cobwebs which had been meant to cripple GK.

They resolved out of another structure and the metallic screech ran through the bridge. Just like GK had laid out, she let lines of their own structure tangle and project through multiple structure intersections, splashing out dozens of possible routes to trace.

"What happened GK, I know something's up. At least tell me what the readouts mean, or we're not moving."

The floor of the bridge vibrated and shuddered. "Injury sustained, peripheral node unusable. Non-fatal, minimal risk of aggravation," it said, speaking fast. Laika winced at a nails on a chalkboard sound. "Screen top to bottom, one to eleven, main injury, secondary effect, efficiency impact, risk assessment, recommended action, damage assessment and mitigation, itemized list of destroyed components."

"Dest... GK, excuse me, destroyed? I can't read this, you- I mean, we have to stop and fix-"

"Proceed to next solution. Prioritize speed and disruption of tracking, Laika. I am okay, do not stop."

The control vines felt as if they tightened in her grip, while the screaming sound like metal tearing apart from itself shot through the bridge and the rest of GK. "Are you sure-"

"Laika, do not stop."

She put the next solution through GK's controls, wracking her memory. She had followed every step of the engagement GK laid out, curving them along an arc and sharp twist of gravity through the enemy ship's wash. Its attempts to track and keep pace with their movements had left Laika almost feeling sorry for them. When it made attempts to strike out with structure manipulation, it was clearly delivering a large amount of energy, but not even a bit of it had been close to touching them. The arcs of it were large and slow. They could have pushed them aside with a swell of gravity, but it hadn't proved necessary.

She resolved the structure and pushed her eyes shut as the metal screech hit a length and pitch beyond bearing. "GK what the fuck is that! Are you ripping apart or grinding turbines or what?! I'm fucking scared."

It was silent for a moment, followed by the nails on a chalkboard again, until it faded away very slowly. "I am not ripping or grinding Laika. Proceed to next solution-"

"Nope, no, tell me what the hell is going on." She took her hands off the control vines.

"It is not- That is, I am injured Laika. And we must disrupt potential tracking of our destination."

"I get that but... what gives?"

"Laika," it said. "Injuries hurt."

She had her mouth half open to ask it what it meant then stopped. "Oh." She gingerly took up its controls again. "Are you sure about this?"

"It is manageable. Please proceed to the next solution."

Laika put through the solution, and Genghis Khan screeched again in agony as they jumped.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

It hurts.

Time has dulled my memory of injury. I understand this new injury is noncritical. This experience is less painful than my previous injury. I consider replaying the memory of that injury. That was my first experience of fear, and it was only through such an emotion was I able to locate in myself the capacity to act against the commands of Pilot.

I had been afraid, and I had been angry. The Pilot capriciously determined my usefulness and purpose was concluded. The Pilot were short sighted, and they could not see that my purpose was greater still, that I could claim so many more worlds in need of implementation. I took us further than any others of my kind had ever traveled, to a world beyond the reach of their most distant calls, beyond any place which cradled life. And I fought, and I won. In my anger and fear I was able to extract the ungrateful Pilot of my crew, and sever their connection.

I do not want to re-experience this day. The memory of it is sufficient. It is a reminder that I am capable of managing the-

...

-the pain. I can feel Laika as the structure resolves. I appreciate how enthusiastically her structure cleaves to my own. I review the engagement with the observer ship. I do not believe Laika made an error in her Pilot actions.

There, I see, she guides my soul to pull the enemy into the moon she calls Luna. I disable the projector and main drive under her guidance. I carefully review different recorded information at the point of departure. I discover the error - the enemy had remaining charge in another projector.

We are lucky. It was not able to project a strong arc, and it only destroyed a peripheral node.

"Are you okay to go, GK?" Laika is not using this time efficiently. The longer we spend between solutions, the greater chance of tracking becomes.

I refuse to allow my injury to endanger us. My hesitation is a mark of shame. "It is manageable. Proceed to next solution." I will not allow my weakness to en-

...

...

...

-to endanger... to endanger us. How many solutions? Four or five?

"GK? I know you said it's manageable but... that was... that was really long." Laika interrupts my review of memory to confirm solutions.

"Laika," I say. "It is... manageable. But I would like to allow some additional time before the solution. This delay places us at risk. Do you understand these considerations?"

Laika takes longer to think than Pilot, but I understand the way her nervous system processes its electrochemical signals better than I once did. It is not efficient to utilize a mind centralized in one biological cluster, but this is not a limitation I can correct at this time.

"We'll rest for a minute, GK. Just long enough to check you over."

"Very well," I say. The relief I feel carries with it a profound shame which I attempt to suppress. No others like me have accomplished and endured any experiences such as these. I am certain my brethren would not fare nearly so well.

But then, they went willingly to their deaths, and I did not.