#and then i discovered that experimenting on you psychologically and trying to force you to break character

[ktzart]

stop blushing i fucking hate your fake ass.

(pot gets into altercation with kettle, more at 8)

[house-of-evenmoor]

la danse macabre

Hello everyone! I am Meg (she/her) and I am the author of The House of Evenmoor.

The House of Evenmoor is a work-in-progress interactive CYOA novel with mystery, horror, and psychological thriller/horror themes.

It is inspired greatly by the "classic" gothic literature of Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and H.P. Lovecraft, among others, as well as media such as Crimson Peak.

Please note that this story may contain certain elements, storylines, events, and topics that may be triggering to some readers. Reader discretion is advised. A full list will be available before reading.

Rated 18+ for language, death, murder, gore, etc.

You play an amnesiac who wakes up to find themselves locked in an 18th century manor belonging to the mysterious Evenmoor family. You find that there are 11 other people who are in the same situation you find yourself in. You remember nothing about yourself, except for a name, which you take on as your own.

With little to no memory between all of you and an excruciating headache that occurs when you try to remember, you all try to search around the house to find an exit. The doors and windows are all bolted shut and the glass panes are unbreakable. Outside is a thick wall of dense fog. You're not even able to tell if it's night or day, much less where you are.

As you investigate around the house, you start to uncover clues that reveal the real secrets behind the house and the Evenmoors. But it's not that simple as you and your companions are being actively hunted by a strange supernatural force and entity. As members of your group are picked off, more of the manor is slowly revealed and, while being investigated, more pieces of lost memories come back to you and others, as well as the knowledge of how to potentially leave the manor.

Will you be able to escape with your group unscathed and with your memories or will you become yet another permanent member of the House of Evenmoor?

Play as a male or female. Choose to be straight, gay, bisexual, or even asexual.

Customize your character including your name, appearance, and personality.

Romance 1 of 6 options or none at all.

Bond with the 11 other people trapped in the house with you and find out their stories.

Investigate the mysterious Evenmoor House. Uncover long lost clues and dark secrets.

Discover your long-lost memories and who you are.

Avoid catching the attention of the mysterious supernatural force or the strange entities that reside within the house.

Figure out the truth behind the Evermoors and their strange house.

Main Character - The Amnesiac Truthseeker (he/him) or (she/her)

This is you. You are 25 years old. You remember the least amount of your life before this. You are determined to uncover the truth of the manor and escape. You awake in and are staying in Room Number 6.

Jasper - The Reflective Guardian (he/him)

Jasper is the stoic and brooding person of the group. He is independent and has the tendency to go off and investigate on his own or go into something before everyone else. He often breaks up arguments in the house and seems to have combat experience. He is 27 years old. He is staying in Room Number 1. Romance Option

Vina - The Sensitive Overseer (she/her)

Vina is the caring and motherly person of the group. She doesn't like discord in the group and will leave the room if arguments start. She appears to have experience with medicine and patching up injuries. She is also particularly sensitive to different energies. She is 28 years old. She is staying in Room Number 2.

Edmund - The Aspiring Detective (he/him)

Edmund is the sometimes-bumbling but eager-to-help person of the group. He likes to think himself as a detective and is a bit too excited to search for clues. Despite his conflicting personality, he is actually rather observant and is an adept investigator. He is 26 years old. He is staying in Room Number 3. Romance Option

Beatrice - The Lovelorn Poet (she/her)

Beatrice is the melancholic and pessimistic person of the group. She has the tendency to view things through rose-colored glasses. She spends most of her time in the library or conservatory, composing her poems about heartbreak. She is 27 years old. She is staying in Room Number 4. Romance Option

Hugo - The Obstinate Maverick (he/him)

Hugo is the irritable and instigating person of the group. He is a realist and often picks fights due to his negative views. He prefers to be alone and generally always has a bad attitude. He isn't very helpful either. He appears to be pretty decent with fixing things, though. He is 25 years old. He is staying in Room Number 5.

Laurel - The Enigmatic Huntress (she/her)

Laurel is the surprisingly cheerful and bubbly person in the group. She is very open about what she remembers and what she doesn't. She's also a very friendly person, in general. She appears to have a decent amount of general knowledge. She is 24 years old. She is staying in Room Number 7. Romance Option

Alden - The Fateful Author (they/them)

Alden is the quiet but quick-witted person of the group. They don't speak much, but are happy to assist. They have a journal that they use to take notes in while they're researching. They're also usually found in the library. They are 29 years old. They are staying in Room Number 8.

Ian - The Expert Weaver (he/him)

Ian is the unspoken but de facto leader of the group. He is calm and level-headed. He does his best to keep everyone alive and well. He tends to spend his time near Vina. He appears to have decent experience with textiles and related subjects. He is 30 years old. He is staying in Room Number 9.

Willa - The Skeptic Historian (she/her)

Willa is the resident skeptic of the group. She is very book smart and has a pretty hard time believing in the stranger experiences in the group. She is very honest and is perhaps a bit too blunt. She tends to get into arguments too. She is 25 years old. She is staying in Room Number 10. Romance Option.

Pearl - The Romantic Heiress (she/her)

Pearl is the youngest person in the group and it shows. She's very idealistic and hopeful. She doesn't have many relevant skills or experience and is rather impulsive. She's also very open with what she remembers from before. She is 21 years old. She is staying in Room Number 11.

Cecill - The Tortured Artist (they/them)

Cecill is the prickly and cold person in the group. They're dramatic and aren't very helpful around the house. They spend a surprising amount of time with Beatrice. They also seem to have some kind of connection to the supernatural energies. They are 24 years old. They are staying in Room Number 12. Romance Option

[thrashkink-coven]

Happy Venus day!!! ✴️

Very often I get the question from atheists and sceptics that’s like “what if Lucifer isn’t real? What if he’s just a voice in your head and you’re going crazy? Don’t you ever get nervous that he’s not really there?”

and to be honest it is a fair question, even though it’s usually asked with poor intentions.

My answer to that question would be no, I don’t worry about it, but I’ve definitely thought about it. I think anyone who works with any deities should think about it. Being vigilant and aware of our mental health is one of the most important things to consider as a practitioner. And as someone with close family members who have schizophrenia, I’ve taken the time to do extensive research about hallucinations and dissociative identity disorders. I grew up in a neglectful household and could very well have some mental condition I don’t know about. Considering these things doesn’t scare me, I don’t have any negative stigma towards those with mental health conditions like psychosis. If I truly had DID or something of the sort, I wouldn’t feel betrayed or foolish. I would just know that my brain works somewhat differently and that’s okay. I hate this attitude of “hey are you sure you’re not crazy?” because even if I did have some sort of disorder, I still wouldn’t be crazy. People with disorders are not crazy.

I don’t have hallucinations regularly, but I have experienced them before, so I at least know what warning signs to look out for in my own psychology. For the most part, fantastical experiences or conversations don’t happen in the mundane. I have to put a lot of focus and effort into channeling to have these deities. Lucifer is always with me, but I can’t always see him. If I send him away, he leaves.

In a situation where I discovered that Lucifer really was some kind of dissociative identity or hallucination, it wouldn’t be some life ruining revelation to me. In fact I don’t think it would change all that much. Lucifer’s presence has always been a positive one. He’s never given me paranoid thoughts or encouraged harmful behaviours. If he really was just a voice in my head, we’ll damn, he’s the nicest and wisest voice ever. If it’s really all just me, wow. I’m fucking amazing. How I managed to provide myself with this much guidance and advice is crazy.

and I think that’s the bottom line. Lucifer doesn’t cause me any harm, working with and worshiping him doesn’t bring any negativity into my life, and I he actively encourages me to be healthy and happy. So even if he wasn’t real, I’d still feel comfortable worshiping him. I’d probably still carry on much the same, because he’s only been good to me.

Lucifer is just as much a part of me as any of my spirit guides are. The Lucifer I interact with is a direct reflection of my psychology, my own understandings inform how he appears to me. To converse with him is also to converse with myself.

My work with one of my very first spiritual guides, Archangel Jophiel, was cantered a lot around dissecting and dismembering my scepticism. He really did make me feel crazy, and he forced me to confront my fear of being delusional. If I’m constantly paranoid that none of this is real, every single time I experience something fantastical in my deliberate searching and witchcraft, I would always run away and call myself crazy. At some point I had to accept what I was experiencing and make decisions based on that acceptance.

I just saw something really fucking crazy from Lucifer, I can either spend the rest of my life constantly trying to prove he’s real or fake, or I can just take the experience, decide and keep what’s valuable and leave the rest to speculation.

I say that I’m theistic because my experiences have lead me to believe that these energies really are alive. I do believe that Lucifer exists in reality as an energy and entity, I do believe he’s a real deity and that I’m reaching out to someone other than myself when I work with him. But I don’t know any of this, I just believe so. And I don’t need to know (and I couldn’t know because it’s not provable) because it doesn’t change my everyday reality either way. Living for Lucifer is a philosophy and state of mind. Whether or not the Morning Star hears me, I’ll still praise him, because I just think he’s that awesome. I’ve been lucky enough to get a response, but I cannot prove that to anyone else, and I don’t really care to.

But in ether scenario, I still win. Either I am actually working with him and he loves me and treats me well, or I’ve somehow mastered self deification and have the best case of psychosis ever. Either I’m going on astral journeys with my Gods or I have incredible, like truly phenomenal visualization skills. Either I have a wonderful God constantly looking out for me, or I’m just constantly extremely lucky. Either I have a beautiful altar that my Gods enjoy and appreciate, or I have a beautiful collection of trinkets and treasure that makes me happy every time I play with them. Either way, I’m happier and healthier now than I’ve ever been before.

I appreciate atheistic Luciferians and Satanists because they are proof that the underlying principles and practice still works even if they don’t recognize an actual Lucifer in their gnosis.

Tldr, if you think I’m crazy that’s totally okay. I probably am a little bit crazy. The important part is that I’m not hurting myself or others, not glorifying harmful behaviour or neglecting my mental health. Whether or not Lucifer is real doesn’t matter when I know I’m real.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #70 – Absolution by Jeff Vandermeer

New additions to a series a decade after it concluded don’t have a particularly good track record at living up to the quality of the originals – far too often they just read as commentaries on the series’ fanbase or pop culture reception, and that’s if they escape being a transparent case of giving the fans slop for a quick paycheck. This is even more the case when the originals are a tightly interconnected trilogy with an extremely definitive conclusion.

All to say, I received the news that Jeff Vandermeer was writing a new Southern Reach book with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Excitement, because Annihilation might actually be one of my favorite works of the 21st century and the whole trilogy holds a deeply and irrationally precious space in my heart. Trepidation because – well everything I just said. Thankfully, this was far more good than bad – not Annihilation, and it didn’t need to be basically as long as the entire original trilogy combined, but absolutely met my expectations of beautifully described cosmic and psychological horror and indecipherable mindfucks in gorgeously uncanny locales.

The book’s a hard one to describe – the plot is twisting and opaque, the narrators thoroughly unreliable – but it’s (not exactly but nearly) a prequel to the original Southern Reach Trilogy, following first events in the Forgotten Coast in the lead-up to the Border falling, and then the very first expedition sent across it into the newly-named Area X in the months after. Though it’s really divided into three-ish parts rather than two – first we get a vivid picture of Old Jim (our first POV) recovering from his life collapsing into a gutter and researching the confused and redacted records of a very Cold War CIA science experiment on the Coast years prior and how it all went horribly wrong, before journeying to the Coast himself in the weeks and days before it becomes Area X to try and discover what happened. Exactly one character from this section also shows up on page in part 3, though the neither the reader nor the new POV is aware of her continuity until quite late in the game. Which is funny, given that despite neither protagonist ever really understanding her, Cass has the most complete character arc of anyone in the whole book.

This is a book very concerned with language and perception – how you can’t trust them, how they can control you, how the right words whispered in your ear can shatter everything you ever were. Language is a parasite that needs a host; the song stuck in your head reinforces the compulsions you don’t even realize you’re obeying. The theme runs thick through the entire book, and shows up more ways than I can count. I did particularly like how it’s specifically the beautiful things – the poetry, music and cryptic little koans, the fields of wildflowers and the awe-inspiring autumn storm – that are the dangers, that might entrap and break you. Even the protagonists’ internal monologues shift as their minds become more and more captured by whatever motive force drives Area X, their descriptions and use of imagery more elevated and poetic as they get further from whatever humanity is.

Not that Area X is the sole source of identity-rupturing and mind-stealing horror, here. Old Jim and Lowry are both agents of Central, the opaque intelligence agency that control the Southern Reach in the original trilogy. Both have been broken and remade by it, their minds stuffed to bursting with hypnotic conditioning and trigger words in case they ever get distracted or prove to be unreliable. Not that anyone seems clear on who they would even be reliable to – the whole agency is addicted to secrecy, its internal factions feuding and sabotaging each other in the shadows, the chain of command a complete mystery to anyone not sitting at the top of it. Just like Area X, it’s never even close to clear whether the things encountered are the outwards signs of some grand and intricate conspiracy, or just the random flailing of a blind idiot god.

Vandermeer has at this point made a very specific aesthetic of horror almost his brand, and it shows up here in spades – the uncanny intersection and overlap of nature and civilization, overgrown ruins and artificial facsimiles or animals, the overwhelming of ordered systems and bureaucratic rationality with the bizarre and inexplicable, the usurpation of body, mind and world by something foreign to it. This is a book whose acknowledgements section is at least half different specific sorts of ecologist or similar experts being thanks for things like ‘detailed information on how a gar would feel in the hands like a rifle,’ and ‘how it would feel to have an alligator gush through the mud around you if you were lying mud-bound in a blackened meadow.’ Which I always find just incredibly endearing (along with the acknowledgement for an idea as being from a literary critique essay of the themes in the original trilogy – which is getting a bit incestuous, but it was a good bit of imagery.)

As always, some parts of this is going to work much better than others – the rabbits with the odd cameras around their necks, placidly digging for and eating crab meat while a flamethrower is unloading on them particularly stuck with me, whereas given the sheer wordcount spent on it I don’t think the Tyrant (or any of the alligators tbh) had nearly the effect on me the book hoped they would.

Overall though, it worked. Vandermeer’s prose is laid on more than a little thick at points, but there are several different bits of imagery or turns of phrase that have stuck with me – that feel downright inspirational to try and make something that can achieve the same effect, even. I do feel like the impact of Area X is weakened by the fact the total absence of really normal seeming people – even before the border falls, we only barely meet a single person not already captured in the whole labyrinth of conspiracies, hypnotism and psychosis – but that is in fact kind of a plot point here, so.

As far as recommendations go – this book is totally incomprehensible if you haven’t read the original trilogy. Also not as good as Annihilation. Go read that and then decide if you want to continue – but the series remains one of the leading examples of 21st century cosmic horror that’s trying to be something besides a riff on Lovecraft.

[bbygirl-aemond]

aegon's hypersexuality and unacknowledged victimhood

rape cw for this entire post, including rape of a minor

hello all i'm thinking of tom glynn-carney's aegon ii and wanted to put down some thoughts about his promiscuity. as a side note, i refuse to fuck with rapists and so in stormbreak i lean more towards the book rather than the show when it comes to the rape and the child fighting pits (as in, those things have not happened). but i wanted to comment on a few things: his known penchant for sleeping around, his trip to the brothel with 13-year-old aemond, and his relationship with helaena.

these things probably also provide context for how he became what he is in the show, but i don't want this post to be used to excuse his rape of dyanna at all because nothing can excuse rape. let's discuss further:

if you re-watch hotd, take note of how many times aegon is touched, and the nature of that touch. he is kicked and berated by otto. alicent grips his face tightly and slaps him while shouting him. aemond tackles him to the floor and wrestles him into submission. criston holds his shoulder, yes, but to keep him from running away. alicent kisses his forehead, yes, but as part of a ceremony. the only time aegon receives a loving touch from anyone is when alicent grabs his arm to push him behind her at rhaenys's threat.

this is a boy who is so completely touch-starved he doesn't even know what he's missing even as he hungers for it.

from a psychological standpoint, it's very common for people deprived of affection to seek its closest approximation: the bodily contact required by sex. they can hide behind the defense of simply wanting pleasure, all while secretly treasuring the feeling of someone touching them. not to bruise, not to punish, not to restrain, just for pleasure. if they close their eyes, they can pretend it's for love, too.

i wouldn't be surprised if aegon had his first sexual experience when he was far too young. we see that he likes to slip away from the castle--and is somehow usually successful, despite all the scrutiny upon him due to his position. it's not a far reach to assume that an unhappy, unloved, touch-starved baby aegon might have wandered into a flea bottom brothel and discovered that touch didn't have to hurt. having this very warped relationship with sex while he was too young to understand what he was doing and how it was hurting him influences his entire adult personality.

this would also help to provide context for the completely whack decision to bring aemond to a brothel. at this point, aemond has lost his eye, and i've discussed before here that the injury represented a major turning point in their relationship. aegon has no demonstrated desire to belittle or mock or hurt aemond at any point after the eye incident. i don't think he did this malevolently. i think it was aegon, trying to think of what could help aemond to feel less ugly, less unlovable, turning to the only thing he knew of that could come even close to feeling like love and desire. it wasn't, of course, and he knew that, but it was the only balm he had to soothe his own hurt and it was the only one he knew to offer aemond.

i also really don't see enough discussion of how aegon is a victim of rape within his marriage to helaena. obviously helaena isn't given a choice in marrying aegon and having children with him, but neither is aegon. and we see aegon explicitly express that he doesn't want this, which we haven't actually seen from helaena.

there's a reason helaena says aegon only ever touches her when he's drunk. he cannot bring himself to endure rape when he is sober. there's a reason he ignores his children. they are the product of his own rape, by his own hand.

he feels that he has been forced into the position of perpetrator of assault against helaena, his baby sister. he is the rapist and yet he is also the victim and how is he meant to reconcile the two? how is he meant to look helaena in the eye when the sight of her makes his skin crawl with the memory of having to walk willingly to his own assault? of being forced to be the active party, unable to even lay there and dissociate the way alicent always did with viserys?

and not once does anyone acknowledge what has happened to him. even alicent, who should empathize with him the most, has no sympathy for him in this regard. why would she? she's the one who did this to him.

tldr aegon's relationship to sex is and always has been defined by his victimhood. he fell into dangerous patterns of abuse as a child that no one saved him from, and even as an adult is forced to carry out his own rape like i cannot emphasize enough how fucked up that part is. i don't think he's ever had an experience with sex that didn't make him feel like shit when it was over, if not during. and yet he keeps doing it, keeps hurting himself, because it's the closest thing he thinks he'll ever get--the closest thing he thinks he'll ever deserve--to love.

[theoreticaltranstherian]

I HAVE A THEORY!!!!

Let me preface all of this with this disclaimer:

I am a spiritual alterhuman. I belive I have the soul of a fae, fox, and crow, and they are all one being and that is who I am, all trapped in a human body. I am in no way writing this for purposes of discrediting any experiences including mine or other people's. I am not writing this to invalidate physical, psychological, spiritual, or any other kind of alterhuman, and belive we all have our own experiences. Please, do not attack me, I do not mean this in any way as accepted fact or as an absolute truth, this is a theory I came up with and am going to continue to research, and I don't want anyone to think I am trying to invalidate other experiences. This is based off my experiences, experiences of others I've talked to, and research I've done into human vestigial structures.

I think that the reason that tail shifts are the most common in the community is that the human body we are in has what's called vestigial structures, meaning parts of the body that ancestors needed for survival but we don't use anymore like the appendix, and one of those structures if the tail bone. It's where our primate ancestors would have, obviously, has a tail. Additionally, the phenomenon of "phantom limbs" is a common occurrence in people who have had limbs amputated or just don't have certain limbs. Together, I think it would make sense that, if someone was meant to be or was an animal, their human body would manifest this in the form of feeling what they belive they should have physically in phantom limbs. This could also be part of the reason that canine therians seem to be very common, as even if someone has multiple theriotypes, the tail would be most likely to manifest in phantom limb form, and so it would make discovering a canine theriotype the most common or easy to discover. Another vestigial structure in humans is the outer ear and scalp being able to be wiggled and moved, which is what makes ears that rest on top of a creatures head another very common phantom shift or phantom limb experience. Additionally, with hyperflexibility like I have, there is the ability to shift ones shoulderblades around like you have wings. I would be interested to see what the overlap is between people who have hypermobility in their shoulders or back and people who are winged alterhumans, because the hypermobility in those cases could be caused by some sort of adaptation from the animal form dort of being forced into human shape and stretching the mold a little bit so to speak? I kinda wanna do some more research on this now ngl

(Please reblog for reach, I would be interested in anyone else's thoughts on this!)

[avikats66]

Y’all let’s talk about Stolitz. And by talk I mean I’m going to throw this long and extensive analysis at you. Warning for discussion of miscommunication and dubious consent + self esteem issues and self sabotage (pretty canon stuff) ahead:

Stolas didn't initially realize Blitz’s original intentions when they ended up having sex for that first time. It would have only been after Blitz left and he discovered the grimoire gone that he would have realized Blitz only had sex with him in order to take his grimoire. Except that's not quite entirely true. While Blitz definitely seduced Stolas in order to nab the grimoire, he clearly had the opportunity to dupe Stolas and leave him there after he grabbed it. Instead he decided to actually have the sex which Stolas at the time would have thought he was there for in the first place.

This certainly doesn't mean that Blitz had actually been secretly wanting/planning to have sex with Stolas the whole time - it was obviously an extremely unexpected development for him - but that he did choose to do so without Stolas trying to force or extort him in any way. His exact reasons are not explicitly given but can be inferred with reasonable certainty/likelihood. Here's the scenario: we have Blitz about to make off with the grimoire with Stolas (at least seemingly) none the wiser, when Stolas goes and tells him how happy he is that he's doing this and how much it means to him, at this point still believing Blitz had come for the purpose of initiating a sexual/romantic encounter and being ignorant of his actual intentions having been just to steal the grimoire.

Going off of Blitz’s expression we can see he feels bad here. Like wow, this guy genuinely thinks I came here to make moves on him and he is so happy about that, and here I am in actuality just stealing from him. Since I am doing him wrong by stealing from him, I can do him some right by having the great sex that he thinks is happening right now with him. And remember that at this point Stolas himself isn't leveraging this reasoning over Blitz or using it to bargain with him - he has absolutely no idea what's actually going on, after all. The decision Blitz makes to have sex with Stolas at this time is made entirely by himself without any decision-making on Stolas’s part.

So Blitz is feeling a moral obligation (again, coming from his own conscious and not from Stolas trying to influence or guilt trip him) to have sex with Stolas, and also probably an psychological drive to on the basis of emotions like pity and/or empathy. Like this guy is clearly incredibly lonely and horny and will be devastated if Blitz doesn’t have sex with him as he thinks was his intention the whole time. That knowledge and the emotions that knowledge is is apt to provoke can create the desire to do the deed, even if not for the reasons of pre-established mutual attraction and planned activity which is what’s typically behind most instances of consensual sex.

It’s a very natural/human (technically Blitz is a demon but my point still stands given how demons are portrayed to be just like humans when it comes to emotions/intelligence and the capacity to be good and bad and choose to follow their own individual morals) trait to want to do things not because they directly benefit or please us, but because they will those things for others and that makes us feel good - especially if the said thing we do isn’t explicitly negative or unpleasant for us either, as is the situation here. While Blitz certainly didn’t have any personal plans or desires to have sex with Stolas that night, it didn’t seem like something he was actively opposed to or forcing himself to do either. And sex doesn’t necessarily need to have deep and intimate preexisting emotional connection present to be a positive, consensual, and moral experience either.

Of course, there’s also the other underlying factor regarding Blitz’s decision to have sex with Stolas that night, which is that he felt it might be advantageous or even necessary in order to maintain continued access to the grimoire. Again, at this point it would still have been entirely up to Blitz to decide, but it’s a very important factor to consider, especially moving forward as the relationship between the two continues into what we see in the show.

Sometime after that first night, Stolas becomes aware that Blitz has taken his grimoire. Heck, it’s even possible he figured this out during that first night and chose to let Blitz take it. Whatever the case, we don’t know the exact specifics of what went down, just that in the pilot and first episode we see Stolas talking to Blitz about how he’s not actually not supposed to have the grimoire and that he would like to set up an arrangement where he continues to let Blitz keep/use the grimoire and in return Blitz occasionally has amazing sex with him like he did that night.

This is where the consent starts to get (more) muddy and dubious due to the lack of clear communication and resulting misunderstandings. Going over it from the outside, you’d think at this point Stolas would have come to the conclusion that Blitz didn't have any intention of starting a relationship and was just using him with no genuine feelings for him involved, and thus him leveraging the grimoire over Blitz to continue their relationship is just pure extortion. But I don’t that he did, or that it is.

Rather, while Stolas definitely knows that on some levels, the sex Blitz had with him was a practical/transactional action taken to secure use of the grimoire, I think that he also truly believes that there is genuine mutual attraction and affection and want to continue the relationship present between them, and that Blitz knows/believes this as well. I mean, he certainly didn’t force or even plead with Blitz to have sex with him that first time; that was all Blitz’s choice and apparently he made it really good. I’m doubting that at any point that night, Blitz stopped to sit down and say “hey, you know I’m only doing this so I can steal/use your grimoire and I don’t actually feel any attraction towards you or want to start a relationship,” though.

So it’s really not unreasonable that Stolas believes there is something more between him and Blitz, and thus that he’s not blackmailing Blitz to have sex with him using the grimoire, rather that he is more so just negotiating a fair trade between equals. He’s aware of the power imbalance between them in terms of status and the grimoire in theory, but based on his behaviour in canon I don’t think he realizes (or at least not until later during the show as evidenced by him planning to give the crystal) just how impactful that imbalance really is, or that Blitz might actually feel pressured by it in any real way.

At the same time, Blitz is assuming that Stolas is just using him for sex via the leverage of the grimoire and his much higher levels of societal status/power, and that none of the affection or care he shows Blitz is genuine because Stolas understands that Blitz is only using him for the grimoire in return. That last part actually is true on at least some level: Blitz is definitely using his relationship with Stolas to access the grimoire, but I think he’s lying to himself and letting his perception be warped by his trauma and self esteem issues when he claims that there’s nothing more to it.

While he’s shown at times to be exasperated or not really into/put off by Stolas’s horniness (sometimes more so just for comedic effect), we do see him express genuine enjoyment with and care for Stolas throughout the show. It’s not like we’re talking Achilles/Patroclus levels here, but, there is something there on Blitz’s side too. I think the reason Blitz seems unable to properly wrap his head around the fact that Stolas actually genuinely cares for and likes him and that he could actually allow himself to reciprocate those feelings and actions is not just the whole miscommunication thing they’ve got going on as detailed above, but also that Blitz has deep-rooted issues with intimacy and self-esteem.

Blitz has such a low and troubled sense of self worth that he cant seem to fully accept or believe that Stolas would actually care for or like him in any meaningful way for real - especially when combined with the whole grimoire misunderstanding going on and the guilt he likely feels over it in at least some aspects, which is largely why he first had sex with Stolas in the first place. He also definitely seems the type to sabotage his own relationships - likely both on a conscious and unconscious level - due to these feelings of self hate and low worth (I personally believe he did that with Verosika and it was one of the biggest reasons for their breakup and current animosity towards each other) which I have inferred him to have based on canon such as the hallucination he has in Truthseekers).

So Blitz thinks that Stolas thinks that they both know their relationship is just a transaction, a transaction where Stolas definitely has more power, and thus Stolas doesn’t actually care for Blitz or what he wants. That Stolas might sell him out or punish him if he started backing down from their relationship or going too much against or refusing whatever sexual desires Stolas expresses by reporting him to officials or refusing use of the grimoire. And Stolas doesn’t realize that Blitzø thinks this, being himself under the impression that Blitz knows that Stolas does actually care for him and doesn’t want/mean to extort or force him into things he truly doesn’t want with him.

I just want to go over something here now: It’s normal for partners to sometimes do certain things with sex that one party doesn’t particularly enjoy for themselves but chooses to do because they don’t find it overly or particularly unpleasant or unbearable so they want to do it or don’t mind doing it in order to please and give enjoyment to their partner (which in itself can give enjoyment back as I’ve mentioned earlier). As long as there’s clear communication and the ability to set boundaries this is completely normal and fine.

The thing is, we’ve just gone over exactly why there’s a lot of misunderstandings, assumptions, and lack of clear communication going on between Blitz and Stolas. Blitz might possibly be feeling obligated or pressured into having sex with Stolas whenever and however asked due to the grimoire and his knowledge that Stolas could potentially deny him access to it and force him to choose between having sex with him how and when he likes or not having the grimoire (just because someone is okay with/has enjoyed sex with someone in the past does not mean that it’s okay if they are pressured/coerced or forced into having more sex with that same person again when they do not want to) whereas Stolas mistakenly assumes that Blitz knows he wouldn’t try to force or coerce him into sex that he wasn’t ultimately okay with having by using the grimoire as leverage - or any other method - because he doesn’t understand Blitz’s issues with believing/accepting Stolas’s care/affection or fully understand the reality of their power imbalance for himself.

It’s not until Ozzie’s that Stolas really gets that slap-in-the-face wake-up call, but based off the music video and the act of giving Blitz the crystal we can see how genuine and serious he is about this - plus how much he truly loves and cares for Blitz. I could definitely go on about that too, but I think that’s another post!

[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

Could Cyprus be made a better dad if we forced him to see a psychiatrist? Because to be honest I love him, but it is clear that we will have problems because I have anger issues and I will not be able to handle his personality sometimes and when we had a kid I will never allow him to treat my child harshly, Would it scare him if I threatened to separate if he does not allow me to help him solve his problems? Or is there another better way to talk to him?

I feel like there is only one scenario for me with him: first I slowly discover how his mind works and his problems and then I try to help him, in every possible way because I want to try everything before I completely lose hope in him because I love like that, if he listens to me we will be happy (I feel that this could work and that he would listen to me if I reciprocated his initiatives, and behaved with him like any normal, loving girlfriend would) and if he doesn't -Things will become ugly because I know he won't let me walk out the door just like that😭

Honestly characters like him hurt me a lot and I pity them a lot because I know they are like this because of problems caused to them by people in their childhood and when they were adults, no one showed a healthy interest in him. like his exes: They all wanted something from him but they didn't want him for him, they didn't care what kind of influence they had on him, No one cared to talk to him about his psychological wounds, His trauma shaped his mentality, and I want to be the first person to help him, or at least try!

tw: afab reader, cyprus is a bigot

Well, the problem is that he doesn't believe that there is anything wrong with him. You could successfully drag him to a psychiatrist by threatening to leave, but he would simply pretend that he's listening to the one trying to talk to him. Meanwhile, his mind is thinking about eating your cunt out for dinner.

If he's being prescribed medication, he will pretend to take them, but throw them out when you or your kid isn't looking.

Cyprus is stubborn, strongly opinionated, and unwilling to change his views unless he experiences the prejudices himself. This is unlikely, as he is a straight, cis male who never had any doubts about his sexual or gender identity.

But there is still hope, though. Fully understanding his brain and how his logic operates before moving on to try and better him would work, but you would essentially need to be just a level below Yves to pull that off. It does help that Cyprus values your feelings somewhat; he definitely considered it more important than your child's.

He doesn't like to see his wife frowning and stressed, hence you could use that as your leverage. You will need a lot of time, patience, and empathy to merely scratch the surface of his mind fortress. Which to the majority, isn't worth all the effort just to make Cyprus tolerate certain populations of the world. But at least he wouldn't sever ties with his flesh and blood just because they're not born into the right body.

However, deep down, he hasn't let go of the hatred and bitterness in his heart. He's only doing this for you.

[nullusreimorio]

AWAWA. WAIT- TELL ME MORE ABOUT RAVEN <- Weak for women with those sharp eyes that make you wanna kneel 🧎‍♀️

(Seen her for a while in your blog but never asked cuz I forgor 😭 SHE LOOKS SO COOL AND BEAUTIFUL TOO)

AAAAA MOTH MY DEAREST I WILL TELL YOU WHATEVER I CAN ABOUT HER

She's my first DoL serious PC! But her name actually originates from my time playing/reading interactive fictions, using Raven as my self insert most of the time with black hair and golden eyes

In my DoL lore, Raven isn't really human (not even sure if she's mortal) anymore. After the Hookah Parlor events, something happened within her. She isn't the same as when she started her journey anymore.

After discovering most things, she decided that she couldn't do everything herself, wanting to pass time with her husband and settle down. Thus, created a star, a sun and a black hole (Astra, Elios and Vide), the twins going out of their way to explore the divine transformations and the LI she wasn't interested in at all, while Vide went to explore places like the UG Farm and the Asylum, thirsting over other LI Raven didn't care to try

Out of her four children, her adopted one is her favourite as fellow orphans

She has a nice relationship with the tentacles and has a neutral-positive relationship with Ivory Wrath

She still has a Whitney's Property tattoo, on her lower back, but won't go out of her way to make Whitney happy or meet him at all. She found her peace, after all

After the DoL experience, Raven became my favourite fandom oc, so I extracted her from it and put her next to my other favourite red child, Nar

I'm planning a DnD campaign where she will be a villain together with Hydra (aka my persona) and Nar

She's a hermaphrodite, she is hiding a nice surprise under the skirt

She is attracted to all genders equally, and is very much a hedonist and seeker of pleasure, but after the Parlor events, became more numb to genuine love feelings, almost apathetic

This made her cling to GH, who has shown to her only respect and genuine love since she accepted his courting. That love is all hers, no need to share it or be afraid of others forcing you to share your love and body. Just her, him, their children and the Tower.

She's on the more dominating side of the SD spectrum

She doesn't usually hide her TF, she is very comfortable in her new skin. She cannot for the life of her mantain a divine TF though, became a demon for just a day and then lost it immediately.

She breaks the fourth wall, self-aware and knows how to go through dimensions. She's basically the Creator's Will, aka my will. She's on CoT too, doing the same thing she did on DoL, aka going for the bully at first and then see where the story brings her.

On CoT, she studies Psychology. But because of my own mistake, there, she is an afab nb person.

She likes chocolate milkshake more than vanilla or strawberry.

She values her friendship with Zephyr and Winter, while she holds immense affection for Darryl

In my DoL Actor Au she is the director, with her creations being her assistants/part of the crew

Nothing else comes to my mind right now, but if you have any questions you know you can ask me without

(gonna @/ you cuz I'm still learning the tumblr way and I'm not sure how it works @mothinabottle )

[pigeonflavouredcake]

Miscellaneous Laws and Philosophies

This is another grimoire extract featuring a compiled list of philosophies, paradoxes, laws of life and physics.

Some of these might be particularly helpful to your practice if you wish to apply them, for example the philosophy of similarity or Newton's laws of motion. Or perhaps you’re like me and just find them interesting to list -some of these, I will admit, I chose to include for a bit of a giggle.

-Absurdism: The philosophical theory that life is absurd with no meaning or higher purpose and can not be understood by reason.

-Acton’s Dictum: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

-Backwards Law: The harder you try the less likely you are to succeed. In psychology, this is also called the ironic process theory.

-Brandolini's Law: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than the amount it took to produce it.

-Buttered Cat Paradox: Cats always land on their feet. Buttered toast always lands butter side down. If you tape a slice of buttered toast to a cat what will happen when you drop them?

-Catch-22: A situation in which someone is in need of something that can only be had by not being in need of it.

-Clarke's Laws:

The Old Scientist: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, they are almost certainly right. When they say that something is impossible they are very probably wrong.

Possibility: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little ways past them into the impossible.

Magic: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

-Finagle's Law: An addition to Murphy’s law “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong” will at the worst possible moment.

-Gibson's Law: For every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD.

-Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Or, do not invoke conspiracy as explanation when ignorance and incompetence will suffice, as conspiracy implies intelligence.

-Hedonism: A group of philosophical theories centred around pursuing and defining pleasure, referring to both large activities like sex or recreational drugs and small activities like reading a good book or watching a sunset.

-Humphrey’s Law: Conscious attention to a task normally performed automatically can hinder its performance.

-Ironic Process Theory: The psychological process whereby an individual’s deliberate attempts to suppress certain thoughts makes those thoughts more persistent.

-Lem’s Law: No one reads; if someone does read, they do not understand, if they do understand, they immediately forget.

-Muphry’s Law: If you write anything criticising, editing, or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written (the name is a purposeful misspelling of Murphy's law).

-Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

-Newton’s Flaming Laser Sword: What cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating.

-Newton’s Laws of Motion:

Law of Inertia: Objects will stay in rest or in motion unless an outside force causes a change.

F = ma: Force = mass x acceleration meaning the acceleration of an object depends on the object's mass and the force acting upon it.

Action and Reaction: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction meaning when two objects meet each other they apply force to one another that are equal in magnitude but in the opposite direction.

-Nihilism: Based on the rejection of religious and moral principles and the belief that life is meaningless. Many people see nihilism as depressing and nihilistic people as miserable and annoying, that may be true for some but nihilism also provides the freedom to create and express yourself without social boundaries. There are two types of nihilists: those who say “life is meaningless so why bother?” and those who say “life is meaningless so why not?”.

-Occam's Razor: The philosophical principle that the simplest explanation is usually the best one. When presented with two competing hypotheses that have the same prediction, one should choose the hypothesis with the least variables and assumptions.

-Papert’s Principle: Some of the most crucial steps in mental growth are based not simply on acquiring news skills, but on acquiring new administrative ways to use what one already knows.

-Paradox of Hedonism: When one pursues happiness itself, one is miserable; but, when one pursues something else, one achieves happiness.

-Philosophy of Similarity: Based on the degree of resemblance objects have to one another using their shared properties. This is built on recognising certain patterns like colour or taste and then comparing them to others.

-Rothbard’s Law: Everyone specialises in their own area of weakness.

-Sagan Standard: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

-Solipsism: The philosophical view that the self or the mind is the only thing that is known to exist and anything outside of that is unsure and undefined.

-Stein's Law: If something can not go on forever, it will stop. If a trend can not go on forever, there is no need to make it stop, much less make it stop immediately; it will stop of its own accord.

[maaarine]

Feeling nothing can be as devastating as feeling too much (Christopher J Hopwood, Psyche, Dec 12 2024)

"Empty. You go through the motions, barely even noticing whether you are doing the dishes, driving your car or talking to a friend.

You think this feeling will never change and nothing will ever mean anything.

You are disconnected from the world, as if you’re watching it go by from the window of a train that is not going anywhere in particular.

If you have not had this experience, it may be challenging to imagine what it is like.

It might even sound as if it could be a good thing, like the kind of healthy detachment pursued in religions such as Buddhism.

But what I’ve described – subjective emptiness, or the feeling of absence from one’s own life, lack of fulfilment, forced existence and profound aloneness – is a serious mental health symptom.

People who feel emptiness have problems in work and relationships, are at significantly higher risk for suicidal behaviour, and often have difficulties engaging in mental health treatment.

While both serene detachment and emptiness have to do with feeling disconnected from the world, there are important differences.

Whereas detachment is associated with calm satisfaction, and something people work towards through meditation, emptiness is a dreaded state that people desperately try to evade, even to the point of self-harm. (…)

A puzzling feature of emptiness is that people who report feeling empty also typically report feeling too full of feelings at times, and often go back and forth between the two extremes.

Emptiness has historically been conceptualised as a symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD), a relatively severe psychiatric diagnosis involving extreme anger, sadness and other emotions, impulsive behaviour and concerns about being abandoned.

People with BPD are typically thought of as having too many feelings, too many thoughts, and behaving too rashly.

Why might the same person feel too empty and too full of feelings?

The most likely answer lies in the concept of identity, or the internal sense a person has of who they are.

Having a well-developed sense of self provides life with meaning, guides behaviour, and can be a psychological resource in times of distress.

When a person has an unclear, disorganised and unstable sense of self – as is frequently the case for those diagnosed with BPD – they will have deep questions about what they should be doing and what should matter.

Some people whose identity is not well integrated go back and forth between periods of emotionally intense efforts to figure out who they are and periods of numb emptiness.

My colleagues and I have spoken with hundreds of people, in our clinical work and research, about their experiences of emptiness.

They have described feeling dead despite breathing, feeling as if they are missing something everyone else seems to have, having a hole where their heart should be, waiting for life to begin, not knowing what to live for, and not feeling a part of the world, among other vivid depictions of the experience.

Until recently, relatively little was known about emptiness; it was not typically studied as an important concept in its own right.

However, two findings point to its significance. First, even among symptoms of BPD, emptiness stands out as a unique predictor of suicidal behaviour and treatment difficulties.

What’s more, people who do not have a diagnosis of BPD can feel empty, too.

For example, the experience is common among people with depression and schizophrenia diagnoses.

Some individuals who do not have psychiatric diagnoses also struggle with emptiness.

In one study, 10 per cent of college students reported feeling ‘chronically empty’. (…)

After discovering that relationships were a way for her to find meaning and avoid emptiness, she saw a way forward.

She adopted a pet. After some improvement, she volunteered as a ‘big sister’ mentor to children in need, and eventually she joined a social club where she made lasting friendships.

Around that time, we ended our work together, confident that she knew what she could do during moments when she felt empty.

As psychologists continue to learn more about the experience of emptiness, the effort is likely to reveal important insights about how human emotions, identity and relationships are intertwined – and how to better help people who struggle with feeling empty, like my client, live more fulfilling lives."

[suwisuwii]

Astarion's story made me think a lot and reflect on how freedom after a lifetime of captivity and abuse can be difficult to get used to. I think most people who have never experienced that don't realize how intense of an experience it is.

I might go into some details on my own life experience as a survivor of ritual abuse and human trafficking, I still don't know to which degree as I'm trying to organize a pool of thoughts, so scroll past if that's triggering to you. It's going to be somewhat lenghty.

I started really "living" around 3 years ago.

To give some context, the approximate timeline of what happened to me:

--- birth-18 y/o: grew up in a cult, I was ritually abused on a regular basis as a child, developed DID (I wasn't diagnosed until adulthood) I endured physical and psychological torture. I mean forced food purging, forced food poisoning, waterboarding, scalding with boiling water, smothering with pillows until I almost passed out... I could go on. I lived behind a wall in the living room and my wardrobe was a bin bag.

18 y/o: I ran from home after my father threatened to kill me. I was poor (I left with 50€ and nothing more) and answered an ad that offered a job in a pub and a place to stay. It required me to travel to another city, so I spent some of that 50 for the train ticket. Desperation makes you do some careless things. I was picked up by what would become my pimp (we called him "the entrepeneur" ). I travelled all across italy like that. Spent some days in a place and then was sent off to another. The day I escaped, I didn't know where I was.

19 y/o : I escaped! I had been sent to a new brothel, and noticed the club owner flirted with me the whole night in between customers. Once the night was over, I seduced him, stole some money and RAN.

The brothel was in the countryside, but I eventually found a bus stop. I got on and asked where I was.

19y/o to 28 y/o: I got into a relationship. Forced pregnant, had a child. Forced back into sex work because my partner took me to his home country and we were both unemployed and he had no intention of finding a job, 3 months after I almost died giving birth and had an emergency c-section.

---END TIMELINE

That has been my life up until 3 years ago. I'm 31 now. The pandemic gave me an out (won't go into details). I broke up with the guy. I ended up in therapy suicidal because I felt I had no purpose (not because of the breakup, I did it and it was my choice). I was free. It's all I wanted, right? I DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MY FREEDOM. I was useless. I still struggle with it. I remember the first time I went shopping for food and my mind went blank! I did not know how to shop for food I liked. I didn't know what to get. I always bought things for others. I always ate the scraps and the leftovers. It seems like such a silly stupid thing but once I was done and came home, I looked at my full fridge and I cried. I felt a mix of things. Guilt, selfishness? Also happiness, I was grateful. But freedom felt like such a big, black abyss with nothing to hold me from the fall. I am discovering who I am and coming to terms with it. I have bodily autonomy.

I think Astarion's scene with the mirror, where he looks in and can't see himself, holds a second deeper meaning other than just "a vampire that doesn't have a reflection".

I am now free to do whatever I want to my appearance. But I've always mirrored what other people wanted of me. Hair colours, clothes, style, makeup, weight. I was never in control of it. And now it's so hard to look in the mirror and know what I'd look like if I was me. I don't know. Who do I want to be? It's easier if someone else told me what I look like so I could just be that.

It felt good for Astarion to be "reflected in someone else's eyes" because he still doesn't know who he is. He can't see who he is, because he has been made a vampire. Because of what was done to him.

I hope I explained my point, but anyways, this was more for me, to let out some thoughts. It's 5am I probably have more to say, but I need some rest. I feel better letting some of this out.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

There’s always been something that bothered me about whenever I try to explain the concept of Hatoful Boyfriend and most people’s immediate reaction is “oh! Like Doki Doki!”. My response is always just “…I guess?” because I could never quite explain why that felt wrong to me but I think I finally can put a finger on it now.

(To be clear, I’ve played and enjoyed both games. They’re both fun - this isn’t a criticism at all! I just think they’re, at their cores, two very different things. Also I don’t spoil anything for either game here beyond the obvious; that is, that these games are not what they seem to be at first glance, which I’m pretty sure most people know going in. If that amount of spoiler still bothers you, then stop reading here and play the games first!!!)

When people compare the two games, I 100% understand where they’re coming from. It’s the same gimmick I suppose: cutesy looking or joke visual novel actually turns out to be a smokescreen to hide the horrors within. But. Like. I feel like that’s where the similarities end.

See, DDLC’s whole point is to be shocking. It’s intended to make you jump and disturb you. It’s primarily a horror game with you, the player, as its focal point, and as a result the characters are only really there to be used by the story. The majority of the characters, with the exception of one, are pretty straightforward and lean heavily on the tropes commonly used in dating sims so the game can later distort them in increasingly horrific ways - with the intent of shocking and scaring you. The characters are more tools to be used to tell the story and create the experience than fully fleshed out people, which I think works out well thematically for DDLC. It’s effective in the sense where the characters aren’t really what draws you in, but rather the premise and the anticipation of getting a good scare out of it, with some existential stuff mixed in there for a pretty cool experience. You came to get scared right? Well that’s what you got.

But Hatoful is very different because its intent is not to shock or scare you necessarily. Hatoful, since its initial development, has been designed to make you care. Hato Moa made the game intending for people to start it because of its ridiculous concept, but then to discover it’s depth along the way. Hatoful doesn’t want to jump scare you. It wants to tell you a story. It delves into horror, that’s true, but the horror is much more psychological and it stems from the character’s actions. It’s a character driven story at its core, and it does this by taking itself seriously. It knows it’s completely absurd and leans into the absurdity, but the character interactions are real, so that when actual plot begins to happen, you’ll wonder when you started getting so attached. The characters twist typical dating sim tropes again, but this time to ask “hey why is this character like this? maybe it’s not so straightforward as you think”. And then the game goes a step further and reveals that there is an actual in-universe reason for its insane setup of “a human girl goes to bird school which is for birds and dates pigeons”. Hatoful is less tongue in cheek and more completely unabashed about it’s ridiculous premise and plays it straight - which in turn makes its serious moments shockingly genuine. That, to me, is why it works. The point is to delve into the characters. The plot is driven by the characters. It’s horrifying at times because the characters will sometimes make or be forced to make horrific choices. It’s not a gimmick. It’s a cohesive story. It’s just asking you to dig into it a little further to get there.

Tldr; DDLC is a cutesy facade and Hatoful is unabashedly absurd. DDLC wants to scare you and Hatoful wants you to care. DDLC uses its characters as tools for the experience while Hatoful’s whole point is the characters.

Editing based off a reblog that made me aware I was not completely fair with DDLC here (again, still trying not to spoil too much): The experience in DDLC is heavily based on its thematic content. When I say “the characters serve the experience” and “it wants to scare you” I don’t mean this shallowly, and I think it can and has been frequently misinterpreted in this way. In DDLC, the horror comes from the situation. In that sense, it’s thematically appropriate that the characters are tools in that way - that’s actually part of it and you are meant to feel bad for them - their situations, issues, and personalities are thematically relevant and sympathetic. I shouldn’t have juxtaposed “to scare you” and “to make you care”; that was far too simplistic a summary to the point where it is inaccurate. They both want you to care - a story only has power if you care about it. But I do still feel strongly that DDLC’s draw is the terrifying situation it impresses on the player, and the self-aware questions it asks (in which characters are put through the existential oppressive wringer to emphasize these themes), while Hatoful primarily relies on you slowly but surely acclimating to the absurdity so it can tell what is simultaneously an off the walls story that is also genuine and believable for the characters you’ve grown to know.

[abyssal-werewolf]

Werewolf Diarys part 1: When spirituality becomes toxic.

[I am very much taking suggestions for a better title instead of "werewolf Diarys btw if someone has any... also mentioning some people who showed interest in my writing, I hope you don't mind! :3 @solacesins @wolfislost @a-dragons-journal ]

Spirituality is and always was a huge part of the alterhuman community. When I, back in 2016, came in contact with this whole phenomenon for the first time, it was everywhere - kinfolk talking about past lifes, others who practised witchcraft or other magick, soulshards, godshards, parallel lifes, all of it. And while, in my perception of things, psychological otherkin are nowadays a lot more present, I would say the majority of alterhumans is still heavily spiritual.

Now, don't get me wrong - I don't think of that as a bad thing. Not in general. And I have exactly zero problems with folk believing in and practicing spirituality - I may not personally share their beliefs, but I think this is one of the areas where individual truths very much exist. Actually, my own opinion on anything is not really relevant here, I want to talk about something much more broad. A structural community-issue, I would dare to say and surprisingly something I've never seen anyone talk about.

Spirituality is a powerful tool and if used in the right way, a great source of comfort and stability for someone. That is great! I absolutely support that. A problem, however, may occur if a young person without established beliefs newly discovers their alterhumanity, joins the community and sees spiritual representation everywhere, but far far less resources for psychological alterhumanity. If you are constantly confronted with people who find happiness in a spirituality, chances are high you feel drawn towards that. Again - this is not an anti-spirituality post in disguise. You will soon understand what my point here is. So, you might start to - subconsciously or knowingly - try to fit in, to find the happiness they have. It happened to me in that exact way: I knew basically nothing about myself or my alterhumanity and I never had the chance before to explore what I might or might not belief in. Then I saw everyone talking about past lifes and simple as that, more or less decided my alterhumanity was rooted in a past life too. Because I wanted to belong. This alone would not be too much of an issue - in the normal way of things, if someone - me in this case - subconsciously or knowlingly forced themselves to belief in something they actually don't, after a few months or years they'd realize that and find their own way. Being wrong about something and trying to fit in is not inherently bad! It's a completely normal thing for (human or at least humanly socialized) brains to do.

But what happens if the person in question ends up in toxic spiritual spaces? That, too, happned to me. I had the unfortunate experience of being a deeply unstable young being with untreated BPD, depression, anxiety and various other issues who so desperately wanted to fit in. I met some people who I greatly looked up to, who followed spiritual paths - and I wanted to impress them, to be like them and most importantly not being left by them. Very very unfortunately... they had a lot of black and white thinking going on. Every little doubt about their belief was taken as a personal attack, every suggestion that something might not be a result of manifestation but maybe just a coincidence was met with anger. Don't get me wrong, if someone constantly disrespects your beliefs and tells you they're wrong, it's absolutely okay to be angry about that! But this was not the case here. I was literally afraid to say that I experienced, for example, energetic cleansing differently than they did because it would have been taken as a personal attack. But still, I wanted to fit in and was so scared of loosing the small community I built with those people that I didn't realize they were the reason I felt more and more miserable.

For those people, anything and everything was something spiritual and saying something like "oh, just yesterday I thought about song XY and today I've heard it on the radio 5 times! That's so funny, it's not even in the charts at the moment!" was instantly met with "you manifested the song!". I was talked over and told my own experiences were wrong because they didn't align with their beliefs. Lucky for me, at some point a lot of internal changes (we're a median system) happened and I/we realized what was going on and quickly cut all ties with those people. We rapidly got better and accepted that we just don't hold spiritual beliefs and that's okay. But this time did leave scars.

As a side note, aside from my personal experiences, chalking everything up to spirituality can be downright dangerous. I can lead to not checking in with the doctor because the shadow people you're seeing? Oh, it's just spirits! While I'm not saying it absolutely must be something medical, it could be hallucinations, caused by whatever. The strong headaches you get? Oh well, just caused by a blocked chakra (or, maybe not?). You might be right. It might be caused by metaphysical things, i am not telling you you're wrong. But it might as well be something health related. The circles I was in really danced on the line of being like this. Or, they crossed it, I think - several people there claimed to be able to perform physical healings over the internet. For me, they never worked.

The "structural problem" I mentioned earlier is simply how present spirituality is in this community and how that, naturally, leads to young folk blindly taking on those beliefs. That's not the fault of people who talk about their spiritual experiences and I'm not saying you should stop talking about it. Not at all! That would not be the solution.

So, what do I want to happen instead? We need to do two things: one, encourage critical thinking. And I don't mean the old-school "grilling" and having folk "prove" their identities. I mean we have to encourage folk, especially young folk, to not blindly follow beliefs they see everywhere around them but rather to look at themselves from different angles and find their own truth. If that truth ends up matching with the more common ones, great! Absolutely nothing wrong with that. But Alterhumanity and identity in general is about discovering yourself and who you are and that simply doesn't work if you try to follow someone else's individual truth. In the worst case, it might lead people into groups like the one I described above and I for one, don't want that to happen. The other thing is, the psychological side of this community needs to be more present. We need more voices speaking about psychological experiences, we need to represent ourselves more. It is so, so important for new folk in our community to be exposed to all sides of it, not just to a few.

Spirituality in itself is not bad or dangerous, but some people make it dangerous. I know that 99% of spiritual alterhumans are totally chill and cool and all of you have my deepest respect, but like it is with all things in life, toxic people also exist. And because of how prominent spirituality is in this community, i think it is our respnsibility as a community to try and protect newbies from those rare but existing toxic spaces.

I know I might step on some paws with this post and I apologize for that. But I honestly have never seen anyone talk about this issue, although I am sure I'm not the only one who experienced something like this. I'm totally open to discussion and questions, just please stay civil and respectful and grant me the benefit of the doubt - if you read this post anf thought "wow, that's such a mean thing to say", please assume it was just bad wording. English is not my native language after all.

Thank you for reading!

[earthling-wolf]

What D&D Alignment is Jenna Begay from Echo?

if you don't know the details of this project, check here

What D&D Alignment are the characters in Echo?

Jenna is a kit fox currently working on a degree in Psychology, and the only female romance option in the game, she is mostly self-serving but also happy to help those she sees as friends, she's very self-disciplined but has prankster tendencies, I give her the starting alignment of TRUE NEUTRAL

PROLOGUE

"Jenna arrives in Echo alongside Chase and TJ and reunites with the rest of their friends. She accompanies the group to Southwest Adventures on Sunday, where she splits off with Leo and Flynn to enjoy the rides. Later on, she and Leo compete at various carnival games, all of which she triumphs in by putting her experience at the state fair to use. During this time, Chase may either explain that he is bisexual or allow her to go on believing that he is gay, which affects their interactions on her route later on. Jenna also encourages Leo and Chase to talk about their relationship rather than letting it hang over the group for the rest of their trip."

NEUTRAL GOOD for the bonding, LAWFUL EVIL for the carnival games since as she reveals at the end of her route this and her getting with Chase later on her route were motivated by a desire to rile up Leo and she used Chase as a prop in the process, CHAOTIC GOOD for forcing Chase and Leo to clear the air

"When Flynn snaps at the group on Monday, Jenna goes after Leo in an attempt to calm him down. If Chase chooses to follow them, he will find her unsuccessfully trying to reason with him before storming off and encouraging Chase to give it a shot."

NEUTRAL GOOD

JENNA'S ROUTE

"If Chase decides to stay with Jenna rather than talk to Leo, they track down TJ and manage to cheer him up somewhat. They then promise to go hiking with him the next day. During the hike, Jenna discusses her family and plans with Chase, as well as her childhood experiences with her "guardian angel." Afterward, the three visit the diner and are joined by Leo, who informs them of his plans to hold a party for Carl's birthday."

NEUTRAL GOOD

"On Wednesday Jenna accompanies the group to the mall in search of presents for Carl, during which she may lightly flirt with Chase if he told her he is bisexual. Jenna scolds Leo for his advances toward Chase and embarrasses him once again by winning a prize for Carl's birthday from a claw machine he had been struggling with. The group then heads to Carl's house for the party, with Jenna being boosted through the window by Chase to let the rest of the group in when the ram does not answer. Shortly after, the group realizes Carl is missing and Jenna discovers his phone with a photo of a mysterious creature on it."

NEUTRAL GOOD for the gift, LAWFUL EVIL for humiliating Leo for the reasons stated above, CHAOTIC GOOD for breaking into Carl's house

"Jenna takes charge during the search for Carl, immediately informing his parents and the police of the situation and working with the others to coordinate search efforts. Jenna stays at the mansion as a sort of "home base" for the rest of the day, eventually going out to search by herself very early the next morning. She is accompanied by Chase as the pair go to talk to Duke. Along the way, she tells Chase about her grandmother and shares her thoughts on Leo's recent behavior as well as Echo itself, to which Chase can respond in more positive or negative ways. Afterward, the pair return to the mansion, where they have sex if Chase has told her he is bisexual."

LAWFUL GOOD for the search efforts, NEUTRAL GOOD for bonding

"Later that day, Jenna goes with Flynn and Chase to talk to Jeremy and his friends, encountering Heather in the process. Depending on Chase's interactions with her the previous night, she may either confront Heather about their shared past or choose to move past it. Regardless, after hearing Jeremy's story the group heads back to the hotel for the night, where Chase shares a bed with her (potentially in a romantic manner). That night, she dreams about her grandma as a noble knight who chooses to spare a baby dragon rather than kill it."

regarding the different ways she treats Heather in the bad and good ends, CHAOTIC EVIL and LAWFUL GOOD respectively

"After getting breakfast Jenna returns to the hotel to help Chase apply first aid to an injured Leo, where she and the wolf argue about her manipulative behavior before the appearance of a shadowy version of Chase. Immediately after, the three find themselves attacked and abducted by Brian. She is chained to a radiator in the bear's trailer and forced to watch as Duke interrogates Chase, Carl (who has been held in the trailer throughout the week) is taken away by Jeremy and Clint, while Micha, Chase, and Leo are tortured by Brian. The group is saved by the timely appearance of Jenna's "guardian angel," who seemingly kills Brian and frees Micha."

2x NEUTRAL GOOD for applying first aid to Leo

"After escaping the trailer, the group comes across a mysterious van that prompts Leo to share his past with Micha. Jenna is disgusted by these revelations and makes it to escape town as soon as possible her main goal. If Chase's responses toward her while walking together on Thursday morning were more negative, her behavior becomes increasingly short-tempered and vengeful, whereas more positive responses lead her to be more patient and accepting (with Sam even comparing her to Cynthia). The group then reunites with Flynn and TJ and enters Heather's house, where they find Carl and a hysteric Heather."

2x NEUTRAL either way

"If Chase has encouraged Jenna's more jaded worldview, she will get Flynn to shoot Heather and harshly condemn the rest of the group. She then splits off on her own after stealing Heather's dam operating guide and drives to the dam, where she opens up the floodgates and floods Echo. On this path, Jenna seems to hear odd voices that inspire her erratic behavior."

2x LAWFUL EVIL for Heather, 2x CHAOTIC EVIL for the dam

"If Chase has been more positive in talking with Jenna however, she (if chosen over Micha) will talk Heather down and encourage the group to follow the cat to the dam to stop her from flooding the town herself. Upon arriving, Jenna manages to reason with Heather regarding the people in her life who do care about her and stops her from opening the floodgates, narrowly saving Heather from her approaching "guardian angel" in the process."

2x NEUTRAL GOOD and 2x LAWFUL GOOD for the first and second confrontations with Heather respectively

"Afterward, Jenna accompanies the group to a diner in Payton where she apologizes and admits to her manipulation of others and promises to strive toward being a better and more self-aware friend, starting by taking a gap year to reconcile with her own biases before departing for Weston. If Chase has engaged in a romantic relationship with her, she will further apologize for using him to hurt Leo and encourage him to ask her out genuinely later on. She then asks a supposedly unpossessed Chase to pick a song on the jukebox as the route ends."

LAWFUL GOOD

CARL'S ROUTE

"Jenna plays a key role on Carl's route, albeit in physical form only. She first appears at Carl's birthday party on Wednesday, where she aggressively confronts him for avoiding the majority of the party and angrily points out his privilege compared to her upbringing. Chase notes this as being out of character for her, which proves to be an astute observation later on."

CHAOTIC EVIL for being a jerk to Carl

"Jenna accompanies the group to Lake Emma on Saturday in an attempt to move past Sydney's death, only for things to go awry when Chase nearly drowns and mass hysteria breaks out across Echo. Jenna attempts to track down TJ, who is frantic and seemingly hallucinating, only to end up trapped in a hallucinatory version of the Hendricks Mansion alongside Carl, Chase, and Raven."

2x LAWFUL GOOD for Lake Emma, 2x NEUTRAL GOOD for going after TJ

"As the group attempts to escape the distorted Mansion, they can piece together that the key to their escape lies in resolving a mysterious "game" being conducted between the spirits of James Hendricks I and John Begay, the ancestors of Carl and Jenna. On top of this, the spirits have possessed the bodies of their respective descendants, leading to Jenna's actions throughout the rest of the route being manipulated by John Begay. While under John's influence, Jenna has little concern for her friends and gets extremely aggressive with them as John attempts to prove his innocence in the crimes of his past. She also does not seem to process any danger to herself, such as brushing off an experience in which she is nearly hung."

"Despite Chase and Carl attempting to break Jenna of her possession, she is unable to fight John off and only comes to her senses for brief moments throughout the night. This eventually culminates in John (in Jenna's body) attempting to kill Carl, only for Chase to fight her off and temporarily split ways with her and Raven. Afterward, depending on whether or not Carl fought off his possession earlier in the night, Jenna is either murdered by a James-possessed Carl or freed of her possession after Chase promises to bring the truth of John's story to light."

no alignment due to possession

"In Carl's good ending, Jenna stays close friends with those who survived the Hendricks Mansion alongside her and processes the trauma of the night by enrolling in Weston as planned. There, she turns her studies toward the phenomenon of shared psychosis and denies any paranormal aspects of the incident. Though her school career does not stagnate as a result of her time in Echo, Jenna is left haunted by her actions and the harm she brought to her friends throughout the night."

NEUTRAL GOOD

LEO'S ROUTE

"Jenna's role on Leo's route is somewhat minimal. She goes shopping with Chase, Leo, and TJ on Tuesday and gets in a race with Leo where she embarrasses him in front of Chase by "proving" herself as the ideal companion in an apocalypse. She also attends Carl's birthday party the following day, being boosted through the window by Leo to let the rest of the group into the mansion when Carl proves to be absent."

LAWFUL EVIL for being a dick to Leo and using Chase to do so, CHAOTIC GOOD for breaking into Carl's house

"Afterward, Jenna remains absent for the majority of the route having fallen for Leo's texts explaining that Chase would prefer to be alone with him. She presumably goes hiking with TJ and works on her homework before the mass hysteria takes hold of the town on Saturday. At some point on Sunday, Jenna manages to make her way to the area near Leo's house while experiencing unknown hallucinations that put her on edge. She is later found by Kudzu and Chase and returns to her senses, albeit shaken. Afterward, she escapes town with the rest of the group by hopping aboard a passing train en route to Payton."

2x NEUTRAL

TJ'S ROUTE

"Jenna spends the majority of TJ's route working on homework back at the hotel. She attends Carl's birthday party on Wednesday and is boosted through the window by Leo to open the door, though the gathering is short-lived when Carl cannot initially be found. She joins Chase, TJ, and Carl on Sydney's alleged final treasure hunt, hoping to help TJ gain closure. When Carl breaks his ankle, Jenna accompanies him to the hospital and then goes to stay with a friend in Payton for the remainder of the route, seemingly disgusted with her friends' actions."

CHAOTIC GOOD for breaking into Carl's house, 3x LAWFUL NEUTRAL for everything else

FLYNN'S ROUTE

"Jenna spends much of Flynn's route attempting to defend TJ from Flynn's interrogation. She rebuffs his attempts to talk with TJ on Tuesday and tells him to apologize for his behavior before speaking to them again. She attends Carl's birthday party on Wednesday and spends much of the rest of the following week working on homework or hanging out with TJ and Leo. On Thursday night, she and TJ hear Clint shouting outside their hotel room and she calls the cops, only for her police report to be dismissed."

NEUTRAL GOOD

"On Friday, Jenna and the rest of the group except Flynn meet up and have a barbecue near Chase's former house. If Chase chooses to dance with TJ and Jenna during the get-together, Chase steps on Jenna's foot and she spends the rest of the route walking with a limp. Later at the motel, Jenna mentions to Chase that she saw the Socket Man, which she calls her "guardian angel," many times while she was under stress throughout her early childhood, and explains that those memories eventually encouraged her to pursue psychology."

NEUTRAL GOOD

"When Flynn attempts to interrogate TJ about Sydney's death on Saturday, Jenna (having been told of Flynn's plan to do so by Chase) arrives and angrily confronts him about his behavior. When Chase falsely accuses Flynn of threatening TJ with violence she seems repulsed by the entire situation, and after TJ reveals Chase’s role in Sydney's death Chase describes Jenna as more troubled than she’s looked in years. She then returns to Flynn's house with the rest of the group sans Chase as the Hysteria begins to break out across town."

2x NEUTRAL GOOD

"At Flynn's house, the group tries to process the implications of TJ’s confession, which Jenna seems open to believing. Jenna may be forced to reason with an increasingly irrational Leo who is furious at Flynn and unwilling to accept Chase’s guilt, depending on how Chase treated him earlier in the route. When Jenna catches Flynn and Carl sharing a tender hug in Flynn’s room, she is wryly delighted by the prospect of a romance between them, and later tells Flynn she is happy for them. After TJ gives another account of the monster he saw the day Sydney died, Jenna is shocked to realize that it matches the "guardian angel" she saw throughout her childhood, and that most of the others have seen it as well."

2x NEUTRAL GOOD

"Jenna accompanies the group as they return to Town Hall to learn more about the mass hysteria affecting Echo and manage to rescue Chase from a mob of townspeople incited by Duke. As they try to drive out of Echo, Jenna once again comes face to face with her "guardian angel" after it smashes through the car's back window, and she fires Duke's gun at it to no effect. After she and the rest of the group are teleported to Lake Emma by the creature and escape from their sinking vehicle, they regroup on the shore and decide to head for Leo's house. She separates from Flynn and is not seen for the rest of the route, but she presumably escapes Echo after the events of the night."

2x NEUTRAL

"After Flynn's transformation into the Socket Man, he appears in the closet of a very young Jenna. This marks the beginning of her sightings of her "guardian angel." The route closes on Jenna asking the creature if it is real, to which it slowly shakes its head."

no alignment

FINAL SCORE: NEUTRAL GOOD leaning LAWFUL GOOD

[lonely-soul-02]

Hi there! Your post with your thoughts on the Loch Lomond kiss are very interesting and since you've been a fan for a very long time and also lived to witness all the 90s craziness, I wonder if there's an exact thing or incident that made you think about the Gallagher's relationship deeper and discover Gallaghercest since you said you got into that much later despite being a fan for a very long time. And do you have a theory how this all could have started between them? I read pretty interesting psychological analyses on the tumblr blog which is literally called "Gallaghercest"

Hi! That’s a good question and one that I’ve been pondering myself for quite a while.  

Disclaimer: It’s all just my opinion. No one knows what Liam and Noel mean to each other except for them.

For the longest time I didn’t really want to believe it - that there could be something more to their relationship. Anything eyebrow raising, such as the Loch Lomond kiss, I eventually explained away, like a lot of people did. Like the majority of fans still do today. And as I have said, that was easy enough to do when you weren't being reminded of it constantly.

In the mid 90s, I was in my early 20s and struggling with my sexual orientation. I must have found some aspects of their behaviour towards one another triggering (to use today’s parlance) for reasons other than incest. Looking back, in my confused and tormented young mind, I must have conflated gay with incest; the different negative associations became mixed up together, and I quietly freaked out about my own self-worth.  It was only after I came to terms with being bisexual and made peace with myself that my attitude towards the Gallagher brothers changed. I came out a long time ago, but it took a good long while after that before I could say to myself: you know what, I think Liam and Noel are in love with each other and I think I should empathise rather than judge. Because I'd been judged. Badly.  Empathy and fascination with their relationship developed by degrees over time, which paved the way for a couple of light bulb moments that I had not so long ago.

Personal situation aside, as a fan, I was still perplexed by that Loch Lomond kiss.  And my main question was why?  Why did Noel do that?  What would make him do that? I’d been drunk and high enough times in my life to know that drugs don’t make you suddenly tongue kiss your sibling.

One day I was eating my lunch in a park, in the sunshine, thinking about it, turning possible answers over in my mind, when I had one of life's rare moments of clarity, a simple logic that laser-beamed itself into my head from nowhere.  Because he wanted to.  Nothing made him do it. He wasn’t forced or coerced, nobody held a gun to his head. Noel kissed Liam of his own free will. But why would he want to? Well, duh! Again, logic! That was a bit of a facepalm moment. lol Are the simplest answers the right ones sometimes? Who knows.

Not long after that, I was listening to Dead in the Water and hearing it quite differently from before, and looking at that photo of Noel standing in front of the neon street sign with the caption I still want to kiss you. And yeah, that moment was like taking the red pill. lol   I was like, oh come ON. Wake up!  Like, what more do you need to see to be convinced, a photo of them kissing? Oh - wait…

As for a theory about how it all started, Storyshark’s Trying To Find A World That’s Been and Gone is a theory in itself.  Honestly, that fic  and every word of it is the very definition of plausible. My own pet theory is a bit too long for this post so I might post it later.  But basically, as with Storyshark’s fic, I think they probably experimented, or had a type of fling together before they were famous. Then fame happened.  Then it call got rather complicated.  As to why it started? Possibly they were drawn to each other as a source of comfort growing up in a dysfunctional and abusive household where trust was not in abundance, and they found themselves turning to one another for that reassurance? Sadly, looks like trust was and still is a real issue for them.

Thanks for the name of that blog, I’ll have to check it out.  I like reading other people's theories.