#both related and unrelated to the problems I'm Dealing With

[somelazyassartist]

My friend introduced me to an AJJ song and it made me wanna draw these four again,,,

[fuxuannie]

Unrelated to any of the Kenji thirst I keep thinking to the moment where Kenji is real close to losing his shit because someone made the 'Where's the Japanese Version of the guy' in regards to him and like fuck it hit me hard. I'm mixed like to the point where people can't pin my ethnicity by looking at me and constantly being told I'm not x or y enough to be a member of a community by all rights I do belong to I just I really empathized with him in that moment. I'd love to see some head cannons on how he feels and deals with the "Not Japanese enough" allegations, how he feels about being back in his home country after being in America for so long just overall how he adjusts and navigates through that

❥﹒kenji sato x gender neutral reader

✦. synopsis — request (thank you so much !!)

✦. love mail — requester wherever you may be, you are loved and it’s heartbreaking you relate to such :( you and me both, but thank you for such a heart touching req 😞🫰.

✦. tags — NO SPOILERS, not super x reader focused but elements are there, based on writer’s own experiences, angst-ish (not sure?), mentions of discrimination

Adjusting to life back in Japan was.. no easy feat, really. It had been so long since he was home, it no longer felt right to call it that. He felt out of place in his own skin. No one could tell, after all – it was his charm. But after every game, after every interview, he goes home and feels more disappointed in himself with each day. His own language, it feels foreign on his tongue. Each word he says feels wrong. You’ll be there to reassure him that it’s been some time, of course he won’t be perfect. But that’s the issue; he’s not perfect. He should be. That’s what people expect of him.

Criticism came with the lifestyle, it was a guarantee. But for it to come from his own people? Ouch. It was bad enough that back in America, he was made fun of for his bare-bone English, now back in Japan it’s his barely coherent Japanese. He feels like wherever he goes, he has to feign confidence to not break down. He puts on those damn shades to hide the way his eyes start to tear up when things get too much. Sure, he had gone through shit. But how much can one man take till he starts to break? Kenji can tell you, it’s not a lot. It’s been years and he’s just had to act like it doesn’t affect him.

And if not for the way he speaks, of course they go for how he looks. Now Kenji will admit, he IS a confident man. He loves himself and his image, but he isn’t immune to insecurity, no one is. Your heart breaks whenever he cries in your arms, resting on top of you as he sobs into your chest. You try to soothe his worries, kissing each part of him that he feels insecure about, which ends up just being his whole face. It’s a harrowing sight to see. You just wished you could get rid of all his problems, because for one man to bear it all? It wasn’t fair for his poor soul.

Sometimes you’ll wake up to him watching his old games, he’ll ask you what’s wrong, but you don’t notice. Instead, you see little him and how he smiled. It confused you, the tape wasn’t even playing – it was just paused there. He had that typical smile that most kids had, full of teeth and eyes squinted because of how wide their smile was. You chuckle, he was so cute. You then look back at him, and you try to understand. “I-” He’ll start, running a hand through his hair. “I just.. I missed that smile. The people back in America.. they made fun of me so-” You ran into his arms, engulfing him in a hug that made him feel so warm and fuzzy. And he doesn’t realise it, but that moment brings back that smile. He’s just so happy with you he can’t help it.

I think that, all and all, he’s just had to become desensitised to everything. He just shuts down whenever someone says something about how he doesn’t fit in. You’ll defend him, but he tells you not to. It’s a waste of breath. You want to argue that it’s not, that he deserves to be defended, but his defeated look wins you over. He knows there’s no real way to stop them, so he’d rather focus on his practices or making you feel happy. Those are things that matter to him; not something as temporary as his appearance or mannerisms of speech. He’s accepted that, and his priority is your happiness and his. :)

For more lighthearted headcanons, if you were Japanese, you'd offer to help Kenji refresh on writing his Kanji and overall speaking, which he is more than happy to accept. Another case, if you aren't Japanese; he'll ask if you want to learn with him. He's overjoyed if you accept, it brings a positive association and motivation to relearn his language. It wasn't to just please people.

I imagine Ami had become a good friend to you and Kenji, so she offers to demonstrate all the mannerisms Kenji has perhaps forgotten (and you did too/want to learn as well) to help. You both appreciate her helpful hand, and treat her to good restaurants for dinner as thanks. :)

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia

I have 2 separate questions that are unrelated but share a subject matter.

Would a woman omega or trans man omega who was infertile/sterile be allowed at Hillview?

And 2) Have you thought or would you ever write an mm pairing where one of them was a trans man?

I'm trans masc and I find it so hard to find good trans fics that deal with trauma recovery or aren't just pwp. And I love your writing so much that if you ever decided to write a transman fic I'd literally cry from happiness.

So, I was going to write a big long world-building response to this but instead I'm gonna take it back to something personal - you're asking me to consider worldbuilding for and writing for stuff I feel pretty dysphoric over in my personal life. I go out of my way to really, really avoid writing heterosexuality of any kind for a start, so I don't want to think about all the fringe cases where I can make heterosexuality possible at Hillview or the sister site. That's just...icky to me.

As for trans folk, being that I'm also transmasc, I'm mostly team 'if you want to see it happen you can write it happening. I have zero problems with that. But there's stuff I'm not writing about either for reasons relating to dysphoria, or for reasons relating to 'this is not actually why I enjoy writing in the first place.' This is why I don't do self-inserts, for example. I don't like seeing myself in my own stories, I prefer seeing myself represented in other stories.

So -> If other folks want to write it, they can! If they want to solve those worldbuilding issues, they absolutely can! If they want to write fic about it, I'm gonna set off a confetti cannon for them in celebration.

In terms of worldbuilding, the answer would just always be: It depends. If you want to find the fringe cases then sure, there would always be exceptions! But if there was any chance of fertility/pregnancy with their companion, then no. So it would absolutely need to be not just a hormonal transition (a lot of things can impact consistent hormonal uptake and I think omegaverse hormones in the Underline universe would actually impact them a lot too), but one that covered bottom surgery as well.

Is that like, a problem in honouring someone's gender? Absolutely!! The Underline universe isn't perfect. But preventing pregnancy is their biggest concern at Hillview and the sister site. I know in regular/standard ORFs, they only care about the fertility issue, and care about literally nothing else, and yes, that can be a huge issue re: trans folk. This world is a dystopia, it doesn't pretend to be anything else.

The fun thing about fanfiction, is that other people can erase all of that with a sweep, come up with some magical contraception, and just make it happen. :D

As a transmasc person myself, I have stuff I just don't like writing. Just like everyone else does. You are absolutely welcome and completely have my blessing to imagine whatever you like for Underline, to write it in fic, to daydream about it, to bend and change the rules that already exist or to make up new ones that don't exist yet, that work for a world you want to read about.

But for me...it just comes too close to 'if I have to change or figure out these things I also have to think about how to set up 'woman omega and man alpha' heterosexuality and I just don't want to.'

I'm so sorry anon. I'm going to circle this one under competing needs. Sometimes the thing another person needs to find gender affirmation, is the thing that will harm another person's experience of their own gender, even if that gender shares the same general name, even if that changes down the track. (This is how we get some trans people who hate genderbending in fic and say it's dysphoric, and other trans people who love it and say it's affirming. It's true for both, neither should impose their views on the other).

The TL;DR being: I write what I want to be writing. If I'm not writing it, and have never written it, it's because I don't want to write it. In the matter of heterosexuality: zero interest, I'll leave that for other folks. In the matter of being trans, dealing with my own gender stuff irl is already a nightmare that I don't want to have to write out a version of that again in fiction, because I can't live it twice, and I don't like writing fluffy stories.

[abby118]

I wanted your opinion on reading Thor's body language on Loki, with the touch of his hand on his neck. I have seen that when the touch is made on the back of the neck (Thor does it slightly more laterally) it is said to mean: I control and tame, the one who touches establishes himself as a guide, often influencing the choices and opinions of others. therefore it does not have a necessarily negative meaning, but it is not exactly a gesture that indicates closeness, friendship or reassurance. in fact it seems to mirror the dynamic we see between thor and loki. what do you think?

Thor is definitely more expressive and specifically more reactive than Loki and that partially comes down to his personality as well as the environment and position he was raised in.

People often wonder about the neck touching and to that I say, what do you do when you're an expressive person that conveys their emotions through touch? You touch someone and you do so in a way that they can notice and feel.

Loki is heavily armoured, as are the majority of Asgard's men (now, we won't count Thor here because he hates wearing his sleeves but generally, he would belong to this category as well). If you touch someone who's wearing layers of leather, fabric, metal and whatever materials make up the armour, they will not feel a thing. That is why he goes for the only spot that's not covered - as the fandom used to call it back in the day, 'the infamous Asgardian "insert blade here" neckline'.

But of course, that is not all, it's never that simple. I assume you mean the scene in The Avengers when they first meet on Midgard so I will talk about that one first.

In this particular instance, I did not read it as anything other than Thor trying desperately to make a point whilst lacking the emotional ability to do so in a way that Loki needed. He's the kind of person that tries to solve the problem first and deal with the aftermant and the emotions later. Hence, why the first thing he said to his brother after not having seen him for a year after his attempted suicide was a question about the tesseract's location. I would argue this doesn't mean Thor did not care; I think he really did but he didn't know how to show it + there was a problem that needed a solution first.

Thor and Loki's personalities are polar opposites; Loki is the strategist, he's perceptive and does have the emotional intelligence Thor lacks. Thor, on the other hand, acts before anything else, he deals with the consequences later, he is not the most observant and he hides behind this cheery mask that is supposed to conceal any signs of vulnerability because in Asgard, that is seen as a major weakness. I'm not even sure he, himself, knows it's a mask; we do see both of them repressing emotions which again, is a result of their world's culture with the added pressure of their position as Asgard's heirs.

So yes, I think he tried to show Loki he wanted him back and that he cared but he completely screwed it up with the way he went about it. I do not blame Loki for how he responded to that in the situation and circumstances he was in.

+ it was very much also a 'I see you‚ look at me‚ I see you' because Thor never looked at him before. He took his presence for granted.

However, fast foreward to Thor The Dark World, we see a clearer display of how Thor's frustration manifests which tends to be aggression and similar to what you're getting at. He is impulsive and has problems dealing with his anger which we already saw in the previous movies. This all culminated in the interaction on the skiff in Svartalfheim but before that, he broke Loki out of prison.

Obviously, he was trying to convince himself (and Loki) that he did not care about him anymore and that his plan was unrelated to their relation. Deep down, both of them knew that was not true but that's a different topic.

When he broke him out and Loki was having his annoying younger sibling moment, Thor shut him up by covering his mouth and slamming him onto the pillar to avoid the two Einherjar seeing them. Some might argue that was normal because he needed him to be quiet fast but I say that was him finding an opportunity to release his frustration with Loki and their relationship in general.

This has been brought up before, but that moment almost looked like kidnapping which, in a way, it was. Loki did agree to go but he was still a prisoner and essentially threatened.

But then again, it is almost childish and reminiscent of an exaggerated version of their relationship. I won't repeat any more of the points on this but I recomment you read this because I agree with some of the things stated here. (screenshotting in case the link breaks)

[superego-imagines]

OMG it was so nice to read about your blog! I'm on my knees praying to you like a god for some Polka-dot man x reader headcanons. preferably romantic or smut (whatever you feel comfortable writing) I just wanna give him the love he deserves <3

((He's my fucking MAAAAAAAN! I'm so glad other people like him!

Polka-Dot Man Relationship Headcanons SFW + NSFW

SFW Headcanons

So I’m not going to get too into the weeds of how you guys got together because I already covered that in OT3 fic. But suffice is to say that it’s gotta be slow-burn friends to lovers 30k words 40 chapters. So when you finally do start dating you’re already pretty comfortable with each other. In a lot of ways that makes things easy. But knowing when to take it slow and how exactly to transition your relationship from a platonic one to a non-platonic one takes time. You spend the first week or so dancing around each other trying to bait the other into making first moves, like him nudging his hand against yours during a movie, or you leaning in so you can “get rid of an eyelash”. Eventually he breaks and asks to hold your hand and you both hopefully learn that you have to use your words to get what you want!

Living with the virus outside Belle Reeves is difficult. He can’t go more than six hours before the initial symptoms start to show. There's very few safe places for him to expel his dots without major property damage. The safest option, albeit not the most environmentally friendly, is a backyard or a private place in a local park. Anywhere where large amounts of matter can be displaced with little damage to infrastructure. Maybe you can cut a deal with the city's waste management department lol. There's also the physical side effect. As much as he desperately wants to fit in, it can be hard when there's a big glowing hazard sign threatening to burst out of his face. It can make going out in public anxiety-producing, which doesn’t help anything. He was given a more subtle power dampening collar as part of his parole. This helps him sleep through the night but comes with its own unpleasant side effects like headaches and nausea. Not to mention that any sort of medical equipment or restraints are mildly triggering. Like a lot of chronic/long term medical problems, there's no easy fix, you just have to establish care plans, stick to what works and try to be patient when things don't work out.

For related and unrelated reasons, dates can be kind of hard. So many years of only seeing the same four walls until eventually seeing a different same four walls have left him desperate for any and every experience he can. But that can easily swing back the other direction, leaving him overstimulated from all of the noise and bright lights and people all bearing the face that haunts him. He wants to do all the things he could only read about in books or watch on TV when he was younger. He wants to try new foods and go to new places and just have fun for once. But sometimes it’s just too much, especially in particularly loud, crowded, or otherwise overwhelming places. And then that leads to a new wave of frustration and anxiety because he wants so badly to do normal couple things with you but it feels like he always ruins it. He doesn’t of course but it’s hard to not feel frustrated. Though that isn’t to say there aren't plenty of fun things to do together, you just have to work your way up to the big stuff. His favorite date you’ve been on was probably the trip to the aquarium. It was so beautiful and peaceful! Although he did insist that you just move on past the Echinoderm exhibit. Also fun pseudo/at-home dates include Mystery Meal Nights in which you try to find a new take-out place or at least a new food from one of the classics. And, while he won’t instigate it, he does really like dancing with you. He likes it in general, but unless he’s mildly to majorly drunk he won’t dance in public. So you can have little living room dance parties with just the two of you~ He doesn’t dance particularly well, but that just makes it more fun. Dance comes from the heart and that, he has plenty of.

So sort of paralleling the sensory issues I’ve already mentioned. He is simultaneously extremely touch-starved and desperate for affection, but will also sort of out of nowhere get touched-out and just kind of need space. For the first half of his life he was pretty much exclusively around family, and then was put into solitary for most of the rest of it. And now he has you! Someone he loves so so much and wants to hug and kiss and cuddle and all the other things boyfriends are supposed to do. Sometimes it’s just still too foreign and overwhelming, although the longer you two date, the easier it gets and the less often these moments occur. But on the flipside, when he does feel touchy, he might as well be made of Velcro. Every time you cross a new line of acceptable relationship behavior (hand-holding, kissing, etc.), he just adds that to the list of things he’s constantly trying to do. Sometimes he’s just so happy it doesn’t feel real, like he’s going to wake up and it will all be some crazy dream. Nothing in his real life could actually be this nice. He doesn’t articulate it when he feels like that, but you’ll know it by the way his breath shudders when he holds you close, or he holds you extra tight, murmuring an apology in your ear but not letting go. Not yet. Just in case.

NSFW Headcanons

(Under the Cut)

So related to the above, that touch starvation definitely translates sexually. While he eventually mellows out, especially early on in the relationship there's a sort of barely restrained desperation in everything he does. He doesn't ever instigate or suggest something new but the second you suggest or okay something he jumps on it. He just doesn't want to scare you off or push you, even if you want him just as badly. Whenever you're making out, he tries to press as close to you as humanly possible. His kisses are uncoordinated and a little sloppy but his eagerness is sexy in its own right. He's just been so pent up with no outlet or even privacy until now. And he was pining after you for so long. Can you blame him for trying to make up for lost time?

This man is sooooo desperate to please. He's just head over heels in love with you. You've brought so much joy and love to his life, he wants to show you how much he loves and appreciates you. (At a less sexy time, it'd probably be good to talk with him about that feeling of debt and how you love him for who he is, not what he can do for you. But that’s a whole other demon.) So that being said, he’s pretty flexible. While he’s not exactly adventurous, he is open to suggestions. If you want him to take charge, he’ll do his best! Or he’s happy to follow instructions and let you take the lead. Service-Vers. Though, while he’d never ask for it because pleasing you is at the forefront, he’d really enjoy getting to be a pillow prince every once in a while. Just smothered in affection while you take care of everything and spoil him. He’d probably die of happiness.

To be perfectly honest, he’s pretty vanilla. But that’s not a bad thing! He likes gentle, romantic love-making in a bed with the lights dimmed. While he’s not opposed, per say, to trying something new every once in a while, he doesn’t really need anything other than you to make him happy. No matter how many times you two have sex it never gets old or feels less special. If anything it just gets better the more familiar and comfortable he becomes with your body and his own. He likes missionary best but is also a fan of really any position where he can hold you close and see/kiss your face. The one sort of kink he has is praise, though I’d argue everyone likes praise a little. Please tell him how he’s doing and how good you’re feeling. That he’s handsome and good and most of all: that you love him~ He never gets tired of hearing you say it~

[feralboo-the-weirdo]

BARBIE SPOILERS. if you have not seen it and you don't want spoilers, just skip over this. Unless you would like some prior warning for it. :)

This is honestly the only summery of the Barbie movie I can give without going into a giant rant:

Spoiler: Yes. They pushed both. I just couldn't get the other meme to work.

dang, I have a feeling this is going to garner quite a bit of hate, but as a disclaimer before I go into what I will try to keep a tiny rant-- I understand there are people who did like it and I want to like it, because it's you know, it's Barbie and the old movies were wonderful, but... the movie made itself irredeemable to me.

Yes, it was satire, but it was honestly hard to tell what was satire and what they proclaimed was truth. I hated it. Every moment I spent in the theater I wanted to leave it.

why was how they broke the brainwashing reminding women how mistreated they are? Like. HOW. DOES. THAT. FIX. ANYTHING? was it satisfying for a bit? admittedly yes, the initial rant the mom gave was satisfying.... and then they dragged out the bit and it was just like "what on earth is this?" why is this what unbrainwashes them?

Also, I know people are going to get onto the "well they were white so that explains everything" No. no it does not.

Also everything they brought up they did not go deep into. like Ken being hurt by the Patriarchy too. they spent about five minutes (if that) on it and then were like "yay! problem solved, it's barbie land again." Also mental health. Was handled VERY poorly. it's not a joke. as someone who deals with mental health struggles on the daily I did not appreciate how they presented it.

The "only baby dolls" thing. This should not have made me hate this movie so much because it's (MAYBE???) satire. But still. They have not been the only doll to exist ever.

This movie hated both genders equally but tried to make it seem like they loved women.

Also. I hated the extremes they went to in the real world. Not every man is Evil. there are some that definitely should not be allowed around women or other people yes, but not all of them are evil. And not all women are good either.

No one, the barbie movie: women are so mistreated, woah is us!

Also the barbie movie: eck! we're so powerful we can't stand it!

But mostly, I just hated it because I was promised a happy movie of Barbie having a midlife crisis and Ken coming along for the ride and instead it was like Tik tok. in movie form.

This movie did not make me feel anymore comfortable with my gender. if anything it made me feel worse. I left the theater feeling like I should have been empowered, but I just felt gross. Overall, this is probably the last post I will ever make for this movie because I want it to fade into the background and be ignored. The worst insult I could give this movie is ignoring it's existence entirely.

Does anyone else miss when movies just had strong CHARACTERS instead of it being a strong gender? like it wasn't "LOOK A FEMALE WHO IS A CHARACTER!!!" and "oh, a guy character, gross." Why does it have to be so extreme? Like I appreciate there are more female protagonists out there but I also miss when they weren't all hot headed, arrogant, jerks, and when they were FEMININE. like. what. is wrong. with. being soft??? also I miss smart male protagonists. and male protagonists in general who were good characters not comic relief. (unrelated, but semi related note: I will never forgive the Harry Potter Movies for what they did to Ron to make Hermione smart. Ron is SMART TOO. My boy deserved better!)Like there was a while there where women and men both had equal roles in stories and they were good because they were good characters and now... it's just politics. and I'm sick of it.

I don't know what Barbie was supposed to be but it was not what I wanted to see when I went to see it. I had low expectations, but somehow, it failed them. failed them hard. Honestly, I don't know how anyone likes it, and I'm still to angry at it to look for reasons why people did. Maybe in a few years after my anger at what this movie was actually about subsides.

In conclusion, I finally remembered why I don't go see movies anymore. I want a story, not a message. Barbie provided a message. a very dark undertone that hid under "discover yourself and your role in the world :)"

P.S. If you liked Barbie and wish to tear me to shreds, please remember I was not the target audience, I did not "get it" as those in the target audience did.

[hils79]

Hils Watches Only Friends - Ep 2

Honestly not sure who I'm more envious of. Yo and her boyfriend are both so cute

Is Boston going to be the one who catches feelings? Or maybe he's in love with Top which is why he isn't keen on their relationship

Sand might be my favourite character. He's right! Public confessions/proposals are the worst

Mew has a competence kink. Relatable.

Can't decide if Boston is trying to sabotage their relationship or if he's looking out for Mew because Top is actually a dick.

Unrelated to the plot but I'm amused that whenever I liveblog a GMM drama I always refer to everyone by their actor names at first until I learn their characters. I think I've got the main group sorted in my head now.

Someone really needs to talk to Ray about his drinking problem

Oh, I guess Mew just did

I mean he's not the only one

I will be so amused if all of the usual ships end up with other people. Like Khaotung/Book, Force/Neo, which I guess leaves Mark/First which I don't really see but the others would work.

Oh, excellent, their one female friend is also queer. Love it.

Oh, look, Sand and Nick know each other. Maybe my theory isn't that wild

OH MY GOD THEY'RE ABOUT TO BECOME ROOMMATES

I love Mew. They could have so easily made him this naive romantic who gets swept up by Top's bullshit but he's very clear about what he's getting into and what he wants (or doesn't want)

Oh, sweetie, you're in a drama. Everyone has secrets.

Apparenty selling booze to minors is less of a big deal than selling drugs to minors

Oh my god this is like a fic trope. Actually I did read a fic recently where someone hired someone to be their friend (and obv they later fell in love)

Ah of course Ray has childhood trauma from seeing his mum die

Wow they've been fake friends for like an hour and they're already smiling and laughing together

Oh no is he starting to have feelings already?

Well, I'm not exactly surprised by this development

These two just jerked each other off but when they sat up their underwear was miraculously on and in place

He said the words in english and they still censored the subs. I'm having flashbacks to Kinnporsche when Vegas said fuck in English and subs said fudge.

Are you sure about that? I was just being very asexual and thinking being horny all the time the way Boston is sounds exhausting.

More childhood trauma I see.

If you're going to snuggle anyway to help Top sleep why don't you just use the bed. He's only on the couch because you didn't want to sleep together

Thank you for saying all genders

I do not fine smoking attractive at all but sometimes it's hot when it's on TV

Well that happened way sooner than I was expecting

[schizosupport]

Hi, i have what im pretty sure are delusions sometimes but my therapist thinks its anxiety/compulsions but sometimes i am not anxious about it but its still really hard to not believe it even if i know it’s not real (like for example that was very difficult to write being like it is real, i know it is but also i know its not), im just wondering if that is a delusion or not. I mean like it hasn’t been that much off a problem recently like basically nothing at all but these past few days it has been getting worse and I just have been thinking about it for awhile and i want to be aware if it is for future reference

Hey there anon! I would like to help give you a qualified idea of what you might be dealing with, but it's hard for me to guess at anything from the information you provided, nor is it necessarily my place. I'm going to give you some general info on delusions vs anxiety that might be helpful though.

The line between anxiety, compulsions and delusions can be pretty blurry tbh. A lot of people have this misconception that delusions are always more serious or debilitating than the others, but that's definitely not always true.

Both anxiety, compulsions and delusions can have the quality you describe, of you knowing it's not real, but it's still hard to believe that it isn't.

With anxiety, this commonly does occur with a level of felt worry or anxiety.. and the concern itself is usually, while often over the top, not overly bizarre/unreal.

An anxious thought often exaggerates existing dangers - it looks at very unlikely odds, sometimes impossible odds, and inflates the risk of danger. "I'll get accidentally electrocuted from using the toaster", "I'll get stabbed to death if I go for a walk in the evening", "if my joke doesn't land, people will hate me and I'll be lonely for ever".

Anxious people are usually aware that their fears are exaggerated, but it doesn't stop them from being controlled by the fear.

Compulsions can really be a lot of things, but in relation to anxiety, it's often used to refer to the actions that anxiety may compel us to perform. This could involve checking behaviours (running back several times to check that you locked the door is a classic example), as well as more elaborate and even seemingly unrelated compulsions ("if i flip the light switch 10 times, this unrelated event i fear won't happen"). Most of the time, the person with compulsions is aware that the action is exaggerated and/or doesn't have a logical relation to their fear. Yet they can't help but do it "just in case", as it momentarily relieves the anxiety.

Compulsions are often considered to enter delusional territory, when the person with compulsions lose insight, and they become convinced that if they didn't perform the compulsive action, the bad thing would certainly occur.

Delusions in general can be a lot of things. They are often more "weird" than anxiety - classically we talk about bizarre, paranoid or grandiose delusions. The content often involves things that are not just exaggerated odds, but downright impossible/in the realm of fantasy and make belief.

There's a common misconception that it's only a delusion if the person has no insight at all, and is unable to comprehend that the reality they are experiencing isn't objective truth. Such experiences can and do occur, but it's also common for psychotic people to engage in "double bookkeeping".. where we feel convinced about the delusion, while still being able to acknowledge on some level that our reality has diverged from consensus reality, and may be in error.

Based on your ask i can't easily say which is more true to your experience, but the good news is that there is a lot of overlap, and I recommend for you to look into coping mechanisms for all of these experiences, and see what works out for you.

If your therapist is not acknowledging the nature of your experience and working with you at the place where you are at, that is an issue.

But if they do acknowledge and work with the experience as it is/aren't denying your experiences, and you otherwise have a good working relationship, then I wouldn't worry too much about what they refer to it as.

These definitions are so loose and unclear and historically shifting etc, that different professionals can have very different understandings.. and debating semantics with a therapist is usually a waste of time, since they ideally work with basis in your experience rather than the name given to a symtom or diagnosis.

Hope this was helpful!

[queenlucythevaliant]

👩🏼‍🔬

It's me! Hi! I'm the problem (too many science facts).

Since I know you like weird fish (lol), let's talk horizontal gene transfer between different fish species!

So for the uninitiated, horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the process by which genetic information moves between members of different species by methods other than descent. It's typically associated with microbes, like the ones we study in my lab, which swap DNA back and forth via a form of conjugation (I study Archaea, they're weird). HGT makes prokaryotic evolution tricky to study; the simple definition of evolution is just "descent with modification," so what do you do in cases where there's modification without descent? (Lots of math is the answer.)

But! HGT has actually been demonstrated in other areas of the tree/web/coral of life too! Specifically, we've documented cases of different fish species swapping antifreeze genes back and forth horizontally.

So there are, broadly, five types of antifreeze proteins, each of which is very diverse. There are loads of these guys, because protein sequence space is enormous and there are usually unfathomably many molecular mechanisms by which to achieve something. Broadly, they've also evolved really fast (within the last 20 million years) in response to glaciation events, so sometimes you even get radically different antifreeze proteins in closely related fish species.

However! There are three very different, distantly related fish species (herring, rainbow smelt, and sea raven) that all encode extremely similar antifreeze proteins. They're so similar that convergent evolution just can't account for it: work the same way, unique disulfide bridge patterns, 85% amino acid identity across the board and higher in coding regions. For reference, they did a big survey of other antifreeze proteins when this was discovered (2008, I believe) and they couldn't find any homologous (related) proteins with greater than 40% amino acid identity. This was a highly conserved protein in both intron and exon regions.

like

Source

These three random, unrelated fish have darn similar homologous proteins. I said in a previous post that there are more possible proteins 100 amino acids long than there are atoms in the whole universe. So what the heck?

Horizontal gene transfer, baby! Between vertebrates!

Proooooobably this happened via viral infection? But we're not totally sure yet! It's an ongoing area of research and I, for one, absolutely cannot wait to read the textbooks in another thirty or fifty years.

When I first encountered this in a class several years ago, my response was genuinely just like. It's a miracle.

See, I get why YE Creationists talk about the odds of evolution occurring via random chance so much, all those piles of silver dollars covering Texas in which you just happen to pick the right one. It's compelling, in a way: these are crazy long odds we're dealing with.

Except no! When glaciation happens and one fish has a useful antifreeze protein, and then that fish gets some weird virus and it ends up infecting other fish and altering its eggs, who now have access to that same useful antifreeze protein which keeps them alive long enough to procreate... That's providence, baby! That's God looking out for our silly little fish buddies!

AND it's the power of natural selection! Because the fish that ended up with the useful protein DOES have a reproductive advantage now! And so of course these proteins spread like crazy, of course they do! It makes a world of sense.

It's just. It's so cool dude. HGT is awesome, and I mean that in the classical sense of the word. HGT is sublime.

[aksannyi]

tw: death of a family member

ok so my mom texted me today, i'm in my 7th period block, students are working, i check my phone and the message is basically that my grandfather is dying. (my last living grandparent, not that it's super relevant but maybe it is? idk?) he's going into hospice, they're gonna make him comfortable. no idea how long.

my immediate thought is, shit, i gotta fly up there, can i afford it, etc. these are the thoughts i had at 1pm when my students were all doing their thing, i was also trying to keep them working and not show them anything was amiss bc it isn't their business unless i share it and also if any one of them gave me even a shred of sympathy i would have lost it and i don't want to do that, i will cry on my own tyvm lol

anyway. i look at flights, reasonable for flight + car. reasonable-ish. and i texted the ...w/e the hell he is bc someone would have to stay with the dog since he works 24h shifts

had an appointment today, did some errands. whatever. then i'm sitting here at home, listening to some music, just sitting there and thinking and thinking and thinking:

i don't want to go.

and it sounds selfish, and it feels selfish, and it feels shitty.

and anyway there's history here. so my first grandparent to go was my mom's mom in 1993. shittiest saturday morning ever. my 2nd grandmother died in 2017, right after hurricane irma, and my dad flew me up to say goodbye. i was at her deathbed with family members, it was hard, also my family was being racist (which is totally irrelevant but it still pisses me off how they got mad at me cussing but it's cool for them to just fucking say the n-word) (assholes)

then last summer, 2022, my dad texted me that my grandfather (his dad, obvs) was dying and he had like 24hrs. not enough time for me to have gotten up there to see him, so dad told me to call and then put me on speaker phone and i said my goodbyes to him that way. i'm crying thinking of it now, hardest fucking phone call i ever made.

and then i got fucking covid so i couldn't even go to the funeral, and my mom. this person. she makes a guilt-trip post on fb because both of my brothers could make it and i couldn't, and she's convinced she will never see all 3 of us together again (and she never ever lets us forget it) because two of us live at literal opposite ends of the country - PNW and florida, and the one who lives up there is in the northeastern part of the country so it's like almost as far away as you can possibly triangulate 3 people in the continental US. and it was like wow mom fuck you, like i wouldn't have come up if i didn't have LITERAL FUCKING COVID, no i was not going to drive 1200 miles or infect an entire fucking airport, i'm not an asshole. and also i just felt like pure crap, tbh. like physically.

anyway.

i'm struggling. i know that he wants to see me. he called me, when i sent the blanket (which some of you might remember, (this post: https://www.tumblr.com/aksannyi/722322909005299712/aksannyi-my-grandma-passed-in-1993-october-to?source=share) and he said how much he misses me and wants to see me because he knew then that his time was running short. it's very hard for me to get up there, and i generally just don't like it up there due to a number of factors (completely unrelated to him, but definitely related to other family members, like my mom and a psychotic aunt and several shitty uncles) and just the damn drama of everything that goes on up there that i moved away from for a damn reason.

and i'm like. i should go. i know objectively i should go. i should go because it's the least i could do for him, the one thing i can actually do that would make him happy. like fuck my mom, fuck my brothers, fuck my aunts/uncles and the entire goddamn stupid small town i'm from, just to see him. but the problem is that i wouldn't just be seeing him, and i don't want to Deal With Them. all of them. collectively.

(and also i don't wanna see him like that... when i went to see grandma, she had been on the decline for years. she wasn't fully coherent, didn't always recognize me. every time i went up there while she was still alive i assumed it'd be the last time i'd see her)

(my dad's dad, on the other hand, knew me right up to the end. he'd be absolutely thrilled to see me. every time. but he was also in his upper 90s and so i also had made peace with the fact that he wasn't gonna be around that much longer)

and like it isn't like i didn't know this was coming, like i'm not stupid, obviously. he's had a lot of health issues, mom would text us about his doctors diagnoses and shit so we knew it was coming. he's 86 now. it was inevitable. and that's like. ok. i have made peace with that. but i'm struggling now with this incredible guilt because i don't want to go.

i can afford it. it'll be tight but i can manage it. i can do a whirlwind weekend trip. i'll be tired as shit for work next week but whatever, wouldn't be the first time. but i just. i don't want to. and that's what's fucking me up, it's that i don't want to and i feel like shit about it. because i know i should. and do i suck all that shit up and just Deal With It dot com...??? i do, don't i. i need to. fuck me, this sucks ass.

well if you read all of this and you have any advice or anything i guess feel free, i just needed to kinda get this out and deal with it. i know either way i'll be fine, but like do i really wanna deal with my mother fucking guilt tripping me for the rest of her life (and probably mine bc she'll fucking haunt me when she goes istg) ugh. ugh ugh ugh ugh uGH. ugh.

ok fine whatever time to look at flights (it is too far to drive unless i take time off work and ngl i will need my sick days, for like actual sick days.)

[samanddeanloveeachothersomuch]

Opinion #35

I am going to write about three separate things and they're not going to be related at all.

Dean is extremely protective of Sam and usually hurts anyone who hurts Sam in any way. Cass has hurt Sam though and Dean doesn't kill him. I think you could argue it is mostly because of Chuck that Dean doesn't hurt him since once they were entirely free Dean hadn't seemed to care about Cass very much. There are definitely certain things Dean should have gone after him for like letting Lucifer out of the cage and rendering Sam's sacrifice useless or breaking Sam's wall. (Dean did ask Death to kill Cass technically but later used him to heal Sam and then left him in the mental hospital. Also, saving the trench coat is not a big deal. Neither is Dean giving him a mixtape which is unrelated but I've seen people write things on it.)

Dean knows how much Lucifer scares Sam and I have no doubt he was mad that Cass had let him out. He was also worried for Cass just not super worried. Besides Chuck's influence, one Dean does care about Cass to a point but two Cass is useful. He could save Sam or Dean if they are ever hurt when he has his powers. So Cass sometimes does get a free pass because if Sam or Dean ever got hurt he's their get-out-of-jail-free card. I also think because Cass is technically a supernatural being they let any betrayals roll off their backs easier than they would each other because to a certain extent they expect it from everyone else.

Other times I can think of are Walt and Roy, Cole, and an episode early in season 5. I think the reason Dean didn't track them down was pretty much they hadn't been a threat after they came back from Heaven. At the time they had bigger problems since they were both okay. Obviously, if they had ever gone after Sam again he would have murdered them but they didn't go after Sam again and in season 12 he wouldn't have done it when they needed help from them to kill the British Men of Letters. I don't think Dean would have let Sam go to the British Men of Letters base if he thought Walt and Roy would be a problem.

Cole was such a small part of season 10 but obviously, Dean was a demon so he wasn't really Dean when Sam was abducted. (Would have loved to see what would have happened if Dean had really been Dean at the time.) Later when he met up with them and they became kinda friends I think Dean probably sympathized with him to a point for wanting revenge on the person who killed his father. I don't know if Dean even remembered Sam being taken hostage when he was a demon. I think it's possible he didn't want to remember because he would see it as failing to keep Sam safe. Again, if Cole had gone after Sam again or even if Dean had been reminded of it he would have killed/hurt him but he hadn't been threatening Sam in any way during that episode. (I don't know why they let him call them Sammy and Deano. Didn't care enough to correct him I guess.)

In the season 5 episode, I think it was because Dean didn't really know what was going on but if he had known for a fact Sam was hurt despite their relationship not doing well at that time he would have gone to him.

Despite the situations I have explained Dean has always protected Sam. That doesn't change because of the few times I have detailed above.

The second part is I know Dean said some awful things to Sam in seasons 4 and 5 and I've also seen people say 7 but he was always there for Sam when it counted. No, I am not saying that the panic room was the best way to handle it because it definitely wasn't and I'm sure Dean felt guilty about that and wouldn't repeat it. He wasn't trying to treat Sam as if he wasn't human and he would have let him out I just think neither he nor Bobby had any idea what to do. He obviously still cared about Sam though because he was upset when Sam was calling out for him. Despite saying those things to Bobby and saying things to Sam as well (he didn't mean any of them he was just angry but still) he told Sam he was sorry in the real voicemail. Sam and Dean got back together in season 5 and Dean told him they keep each other human. He took responsibility for his part in the apocalypse even though in reality the apocalypse was neither of their faults. He told that doctor in season 5 when they were trying to get into the mental hospital that Sam wasn't evil he had just been high. (Which I know is supposed to be funny but I really do believe he meant it when he said Sam wasn't evil.) He was teasing Sam about trusting a demon and there didn't seem to be any bad blood at that moment. In Dark Side of the Moon, Sam didn't understand why he was in Heaven and Dean told him he had thought he was doing the right thing. In Point of No Return, he didn't say yes to Michael because he didn't want to let Sam down despite having said awful things to Sam since he had been feeling hopeless. He told Sam they weren't going to let Anna kill him when Sam asked Cass if that would work. He told Michael to fix Sam when she did kill him. He didn't agree with Sam when Sam was putting himself down and didn't agree with Bobby when he was being harsh either. He told Sam that he would have faith in him and that they would make their own destiny. He lied to Death about letting Sam jump and thought he would be able to bring Sam back. He collected 100s of books trying to get Sam out of the Cage and was a wreck that entire year. He decided to not let Sam die alone and let Lucifer beat him up on the off chance he could get through to Sam. Then in season 6, he told Sam clean slate so Sam knew that Dean had forgiven him for everything that happened. I know Dean said some awful things to Sam and wasn't super nice about everything because that's how Dean gets when he's angry and hurt or feels hopeless but he was always there for Sam when it counted. I also know things were brought back up in season 8 during the cursed coin thing and even the finale but the cursed coin thing had been at a time when their relationship wasn't great and it is my believe he was just being facetious during the finale because of course then we have the church scene.

As far as season 7 goes there was so much stuff weighing them both down in season 7 but he had been worried about him that entire season and I'm sure the most pressing matter on Dean's mind was Sam because it always is. He didn't know what to do and like I said when he feels hopeless he tends to lash out. They had also been fighting so anything said during that time he probably hadn't meant. He does trust Sam and was there for Sam because he helped Sam figure out what was real and then got Cass to fix him. Also little things like putting on a soft rock station to try to get Sam to sleep.

Another thing. Whatever Lucifer did to Sam in the Cage would have taken out all of the extra demon blood Sam had ingested. Sam was ripped apart atom by atom and then put back together. All the demon blood was gone except the tiny bit that he had as a baby which I assume was taken out of him all the way by the trials although since he never finished the trials I don't know for sure.

Also, Dean tricking Sam into thinking Amelia was in trouble a bad move but I'm glad they got through everything in that season and any other time they were fighting and actually came out stronger because of it.

For the record, I am a Sam-leaning bibro but most of all I am a fan of their relationship so I am going to defend both of them.

[lilyblackdrawside]

I quite like Hidden Star in Four Seasons. It's not really flashy somehow, but I can't explain why.

The music is mostly just alright, but it has really good Stage 6 and Ex Stage themes. Stage 6 themes have been especially good in recent games. MoF's Grave of Onbashira, SA's Hellfire Mantle, DDC's Exaggerated Castle Keep, LoLK's Sea Where One's Homeplanet Reflects and then HSiFS's Into Backdoor. The sixth stage is always fairly short and relaxing on the challenge. It'll have tight enough attacks to make you waste a bomb (or an overly zealous maid to get you to use one) but it's just a prelude to the final boss, so the themes themselves are always short as well, but they've been getting really good and memorable.

Satono & Mai are a great boss pair and I've always been a fan of duo-/trio-bosses. Okina isn't the most challenging final boss, but that's because HSiFS's Stage 6 isn't the final stage, that honour falls upon Ex. I like how much her non-spells resemble Yukari's, both in her projectile choice and the way they're built. And speaking of that Ex Stage, while I like it as a stage, I'd've preferred if we'd either have a second phase to Okina's Stage 6 fight with some dialogue between to wrap it up there and have something unrelated/tangentially related in Ex as per usual or just have a 7th stage instead. There's a specific character who really should've made an appearance in this game, no matter how small. She could've done what Yuyuko did in TD and shown up as the stage 1 boss, but it didn't happen and I'm definitely not still cross about it. I'm so over it. She should've been the Ex Boss.

The sub-season system is really nice. Not quite the different shot-type options of older games, but combining a character's main shot with a sub-season to either complement their strengths (like using Winter on Aya or Marisa) or make up for their weaknesses (like using Winter on Reimu or Cirno), but their different Releases are even more interesting than them just acting as extra Options.

I used to mostly use Summer, since you can use it up to six times in a row to create gaps in attacks. This is very potent, since you hardly ever need to clear the whole screen, just enough to slip through a formation. As an extra shot it's worthless, but that's fine.

Never did much with Autumn. The release is good, but I can never remember what it does, since it's functionally so similar to Spring's. It's pretty much Reimu C's bomb from SA, which makes it quite good. As a sub-shot it's alright, but I'd probably prefer if it was fully diagonal.

But then recently I found that Spring is really good. The sub-shot is whatever, it does its thing (which isn't damage), but the Release is just amazing. Strangely enough, the Release deals a lot of damage and since it clears a huge area all at once, you get a good amount of season items back, getting you up to level 2 or even 3 if you clear a lot of bullets at once.

I'd like to use Winter, because the damage it enables is really good and you get a long-lasting barrier that you can just sit on and it's even meaningful as a sub-shot, but it has a very unique problem, that's present in the entire game, but especially with this sub-season: The season items cause confusion as they fall around with the bullets. This isn't something that I experience in any other game, but I often find myself having to double-take whether something's dangerous or not or some projectiles escape my sight outright. It's a bit of a shame.

It's also nice that Aya got her turn to be playable. I like her. LoLK opened the gates on playable youkai, but after HSiFS it hasn't happened again yet.

[shawnjacksonsbs]

Filp a stronghold to work for you. How 'bout them apples? 9-7-24

"A “stronghold” is a thought-pattern that controls us. It could be fear, greed, inferiority, lust, etc. It’s a “stronghold” because it holds us strongly in its grip." - J.D.

I know . . .a few people who write. I'd say like me, but for real, I don't know that to be entirely true.

What I do know is it's mostly for good, positive reason, influence, and/or togetherness.

So much knowledge about how to deal with our everydays is at our fingertips and can be washed ashore by taking the time to read another's thoughts, especially those who've similar . . .respects(?).

It's not always that they're like me, or even reaffirming my place in my own life, but I catch a lot.

Some missed messages, some forgotten, and yes, even some new ones.

I read a friends written piece, then I Googled a couple things. I found this,

-[A stronghold in a person's mind is when a thought which is usually easy to dismiss evolves into a reinforced combination of entangled thoughts that become "firmly entrenched and difficult to change, acting like a fortress that guards negative beliefs or patterns of behavior.]

and between his writing and a little research, my entry that follows flowed.

Getting caught in addictive negatives isn't always drugs or alcohol.

Lots of people have "smaller", or more socially acceptable struggles. Things that may not even be deemed a struggle by a lot of others.

Maybe, just needing new ways to look at things, new ways to stay positive are less intrusive if intricately woven into someone else's "win(s)".

I find plenty for myself everywhere, all the time. Some I intentionally seek out, and some I stumbled upon, but both were there for me to find because someone else shared a piece of themselves.

It helps to have an open mind, too. So as not to close off people in areas of my biases that may have good insight to other, and even unrelated . . .things.

Most of everyone who knows me knows where I stand on subjects related to religion, but man, have I found some good stuff, from a few religious persons over the years. Even good, foot notes or messages from inside their "belief system and books".

My point is, we don't all have to agree on everything, but some of us can agree on different pieces that can keep us whole as we try to get to where we're going, even if the places we think we're headed are different.

~

I have routine. I believe it's important also, but I have an open mind too. I may not be up for random, spur of the moment road trips across the country, but I'm always willing to see if a change might benefit me by instilling it into . . .my problems, or just my life. It can become a part of the regular process.

I do love routine though.

Man, if "young man Shawn" knew that I'd be here. . .he'd shit himself if he could stumble out of denial long enough to see that I am him. 😆

I am happy.

I am grateful.

I want others to see me this way, and I wish the same joy for most other people.

Wash, rinse, and repeat as desired.

Be kind as always you can guys. And, share your love and your laughter with the world around you.

Imagine the best naturally occurring feeling of anything good you've ever felt. Wouldn't it be nice if you could share that with others without yours losing its intensity?

I'll never stop trying unless I lose the ability.

Until next time;

"Discipline doesn’t bring immediate joy, but it brings lasting joy later on." - J.D.

[giratinazero]

I am so uncomfortable in my body right now it's insane

there's two spots on my stomach that look like bug bites but idk how they got there bc they're. right in the center of my stomach. an area that's always DOUBLE covered because I tuck my shirts in so there's two layers of fabric between that area and the outside world. and I have no other bites or similar marks literally anywhere on my body. and my anti-itch cream has not done a goddamn THING over the course of like two days

I've also had, for at least a couple of months now, this weird,,,,,, idek what I'd call it, hives, a rash, whatever. popping up on my face. on both sides of my face. in the exact same spot on each side, and seemingly completely at random. at the start of the week it was on the right side of my face, today it's on the left side of my face. it's completely inconsistent. not related to my period. there's been no changes in my diet or medications. it seems entirely unrelated to my shampoo or conditioner. it happens whether I do or don't wash my face. I've been using the same stuff to wash my face for over a year so it'd be weird as hell for me to suddenly start reacting to it now. and it itches like HELL

and then idk if anyone remembers, but when I hurt my back around my birthday last year. I've been dealing with that pain on and off, actually, bc we figured it's my ~hip flexors~ apparently; my dad had almost the exact same issue awhile ago, so he gave me the same stretches he got from physical therapy, and those have helped clear it up every time it acts up. the problem is it keeps acting up. my hips are visibly out of line, and it feels like the joint is fucking grinding in the socket on my left side. GRINDING. MY BONES

everyone else in my family sees a chiropractor fairly consistently, and a lot of the adults in my life [I say, as if I'm not 25] swear by it. but I hate being touched and I don't believe in chiropractors anyways. "ooooooo come gimme a ton of money so I can TOUCH YOU A LOT and then tell you to come back next week and pay me MORE MONEY so we can do the same thing forever." NO!!!!

I've also never in my entire life had a good experience with doctors. NEVER. the one I'd been seeing my entire life until I was 17 tried to fake test results bc she didn't want to be wrong about my blood sugar condition. the one that gave me anxiety meds for once didn't even entertain me when I tried to say adhd. the dermatologist got snippy when I told her I hadn't kept up my prescribed skincare because I BROKE MY FUCKING WRIST IN A CAR ACCIDENT. I hate doctors I hate doctors I hate doctors. I don't wanna pay them money I dont fuckin have so they can tell me I'm lying, stupid, and getting knocked up would fix my issues. I HATE doctors.

I am fucking miserable sdfghjmk,l.kjhgf

[1nfine77]

hhahahaha i disappeared again. woops.

scripting/worldbuilding wrt dr ramble under cut. no promises for this making any sense.

anyway - i've sat down and properly started getting to grips with my script, now that i'm done with exams, and the sheer amount of worldbuilding i want to do first is... oh boy.

shifting to a modded version of a video game universe, particularly mc in this case, is an... experience in trust when you leave it all alone, i want to say, because of how many mods do not integrate with one another. you'll get add-on mods and you'll get mods that acknowledge one another or will use one another's components, but in terms of the story or base mechanics of each mod, you tend to end up with a lot of disparate parts with their own separate and unrelated progressions and ways of dealing with base game things. in order to progress through two progression-based mods, you need to do them at the same time or else you'll be at end-game with one and then returning to square-zero in order to do anything with the other.

(better yet, you'll get mods with conflicting storylines or progressions, where trying to build a world where you focus on one will, on an in-game story level, lock you out of another, or where doing two mods at once will essentially mean you're tokyo drifting across what are essentially two very different belief systems without ever really trying to cohere them. which is whatever, but it does me in.)

or you'll get one mod completely overpowering another in terms of what it can achieve, and i want to level the playing field a bit and make some things more powerful and others less in order to counterbalance this a little. or at least have one be a natural progression of another, or have this one thing be useful in this case but in the general case, this other thing is preferred, etc etc.

and since i'm here with notion in front of me, i may as well grapple with the problem i have just noticed and shape a solution for it myself rather than leaving it up to chance.

(i also have like... ten separate 'magic systems'* i want to try to develop as different explanations for and beliefs surrounding the same or similar sets of phenomena**, each with their own key figures in their development, but... fuck, that's a task, i've realised lmao, especially because i am dealing, in the dr, with a truckload of forgotten and lost history due to the nature of the dr.)

i essentially need to deconstruct every single component of what makes up my dr and decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether to synthesise it with a previously unrelated part of a different component, dismiss it entirely (either because i don't like it or because it doesn't fit), treat it as its own phenomenon or adjust it so that it no longer leans on cr-related, and therefore dr-foreign, concepts.

and again - there is technically no need for me to fight with this. but i'm here and i may as well, and having the extra bit of knowledge of where i'm headed is likely going to help.

honestly my entire script sucks because of these... major oversights. sure, i have changed major mechanics on the way, which doesn't help, but then there's things like this that are genuine sandpaper to my brain. i visualise myself doing a specific thing in my dr and get taken completely out of it by the hard-clash of that thing and some other fucking thing from another fucking mod, both of which apparently sit comfortably in the same universe from which they both originated (anything that can be explained from 'idk it came from outer space/another dimension/etc.' is being left that way thanks).

this is a long-winded way to say that i may as well write a book at this point if i am going to be this fucking bent on logical consistency in a god damn fantasy setting. if i get too in the weeds with this and start going down the rabbit hole of conlangs, and then trying to make creole languages out of those conlangs, then i guess i better give up and admit i'm subconsciously trying to be tolkien.

*oh - and i finally realised, after four fucking years of being bent on the same exact dr, that no, the laws of physics and reality will be different there than they are here, and so what i am seeing as a magic system may well be equivalent in sense and rationality (with regards to explaining external phenomena) to. idk. physics. wards - as in, physical unopenable doors and literal invisible barriers - may well be as common and usual as fucking gravity, and it's my cr headspace - and the way these things are treated in the mod, honestly - that's making that complicated for me.

**i do have some 'magic systems' that touch on, like, specifically plants, or specifically astrology, that i can pretty much leave alone because they have their own... spheres of influence that other systems don't really interact with, but even with these i want some mutual acknowledgement.

[gabrielwoj]

A little warning regarding the idea of Earmuffs + Earplugs

Hi everyone, I just want to make a post in regards the use of both Earmuffs (Ear Protectors) and Earplugs at the same time. You may have an audio sensibility due to autism, and, someone may be unwilling to lower the volume or something, and you just can't do anything of your day with that sound on. For me, not only I have audio sensibility, but I have difficulty in focusing on things, and a weird phenomenon related to associating things that are completely unrelated, causing me to be scared in associating them in things I like to do. I'm in the process of trying to eliminate that association problem, however. For a long time in my life, I had to deal with very loud speakers coming close to me, and, I had nothing to do. Asking the person to lower the volume wouldn't resolve it (said person would turn off their phone speakers, and a couple hours later, turn on again in the same volume). Even worse, the audio was related to a topic that I particularly do not like, causing me anger whenever I was able to listen to. So, after searching a lot online and everything, I used to have an Earmuff + Earplug par to combat that noise, after I saw a couple websites regarding the idea of using both. Earmuffs:

Earplugs:

However, one thing I want to point out is perhaps a potential danger in using both of them. I don't have any scientific proof or anything, but I remember back in the day when I used to wear both for longer periods of time, I would later have ear pain for the remaining of the day, and even last for a couple days after I wore them. Although nowadays this doesn't happen as much (that person turning on that specific topic that I don't like on high volume speakers), changes on my routine related to when to have dinner did change, and, I had one day where this was once again a problem, as the person was with the phone turned on with such topic. So I relied on the combo. But, now, a couple days later, I'm still having ear pain. I know that this pain eventually stops, as it has happened in the past and it did eventually stop hurting too. The pain is not that painful, but it is a little annoyance, paired with my usual audio sensibility, and other problems. The last year I mostly relied on noise-cancelling headphones (which is something that helped me a lot), but, due to the constant use, the cushions started to tear off, so right now I can't use them. I also wouldn't like to be dependent from them as much, as the person who basically made me purchase these finally stopped putting their smartphone at the highest volume with topics I did not like, even though sometimes it still happens. If you use this combo, the earmuff with earplugs, and you are wondering having ear pain and not knowing where it is from, maybe it comes from this. Although I understand it can be difficult to talk to someone in regards to our audio sensibilities, I think it's worth a shot to ask them to lower the volume as opposed to have to feel ear pain for a couple days later. This could be different from person to person, so, maybe you use these two all the time without feeling anything, but, I just wanted to point out, because before using them, I haven't seen any websites that mentioned the potential of ear pain from wearing both of them. My anxiety also makes things even worse, because I keep thinking that if I'm going to have ear-related problems in the future. So far, it seems that's not the case, but any sorta of pain, even the slightest one, can cause me to start thinking on the future and how maybe I will have to stop doing X, Y and Z, if I'm going to have health-related issues in regards to 1, 2 and 3, or if I will no longer be able to enjoy A, B and C. Lastly, if I also wear the earmuff (alone, without the earplugs) for a long time, I may feel dizziness as well. The noise-reduction headphone I mentioned is a BOSE QuietComfort 45 (QC45). I think it's a phenomenal headphone, especially for us with audio sensibilities. I do want to point out that, in the first days, I did feel a "piercing ear pain" from wearing them, but, that eventually stopped happening a couple weeks later. Stay safe everyone.