#btw I am convinced that I am the only person who truly understands the field of psychiatry. or the lack of evidence to support one.

[nyanryan]

the need to have "neurotypical" and "neurodivergent" be two completely different things with no grey area in between is a disservice to both groups. i would say every single person on this earth could qualify as neurodivergent if they bothered to go see a psychiatrist. its just that only certain ppl are going to be put in a situation where they cannot function and need a label to explain it bc society

[stay4stray]

Map for Broken Compass and the Stray Kids Timeline

Recently, Stray Kids have been displaying a lot of performances with literary and/or cinematic themes - often 2 in one (Dead Poet’s society, Game of Thrones).  In the Intro to Levanter video, Chan mentioned inspiration from a book and also a poem, and of course we have the Road Not Taken, referencing Frost’s poem (oh and of course Kung Fu Panda!).  I think these are hints for us, that their MVs have similar allusions - namely, they allude quite a bit to Maze Runner.  After realizing this I did some more research and found that someone else had reached this conclusion long before I did, so watch their video here!  This really makes me want to reread the whole Maze Runner series ‘cause it’s been a while but that’s irrelevant.  Obviously I’m slow catching onto this so I’m not really gonna argue for this as its argument is already established, lucky me!  But understanding this allusion does help with how I’ve come to understand the SKZ storyline through the Map for Broken Compass that was recently released.

The main connections to Maze Runner that I’m concerned with:

dystopia

man vs. society; themes of manipulation

the plot set up as a series of trials, hidden one illusion inside of another (maaaaAAtryoshka? 👀 I kid I think)

the very beginning of the Maze Runner movie has extremely strong parallels to the Hellevator MV)

Note: This isn’t to say that the SKZ storyline is the same as Maze Runner!  It very obviously isn’t, in my opinion.  The villains seem completely different and the overall conflict is likely different (in MR if I remember correctly the overall issue was that the world had suffered from solar flares so it ended up being an environmental conflict?).  I don’t know what the overall conflict of the SKZ storyline is just yet but from Miroh they seem to be setting up a rich vs. poor conflict... Though that might not be the overall issue, just like how MR has multiple layers.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let’s go back to the Map.  At 3 am two nights ago, I made a super chaotic post about how I think it’s meant to be read, so check that out for details if need be but the main idea is that the motifs from different MVs and the way they reappear in different eras and places on the map is how we can find our chronology.

So in the map image above I’ve labeled various things.  The numbers are the motifs, in no real order, but vaguely in order of their visual placement on the map.  Some have letters, a and b, which are when motifs repeat on the map.  The circles draw attention to some things that I think are likely important but am personally still very confused about.  And then I’ve added some translated lyrics that I think are important to the storyline.

I don’t think Hellevator is the start of the timeline.  I think, like MR, it’s the start of the timeline the boys’ remember.  At that point, I think they’ve already entered their first “trial” or “illusion” - that being, they’ve been given a place to live “happily,” but they’re isolated from anyone except themselves.  The reason they haven’t left is because their way out is labeled Hellevator - in other words, they’re convinced to stay through a combination of contentedness and fear.  However, when they eventually leave, they end up in a field of flowers, which doesn’t exactly scream “Hell,” does it?

In my opinion, My Pace and I am YOU are directly connected and in that order - they almost have to be, based on the MVs, I think.  I believe My Pace is the start of the timeline as we know it - I think it is where the conflict between the boys and society starts, as the boys decide to do their own thing, go their own speed.  This is further confirmed when Jisung takes down the camera in I am YOU, which may be the significance fo the broken camera that I’ve circled in red on the map - even though it’s by the My Pace tunnel, it’s not actually broken until I am YOU!

Similarly, Miroh seems to lead to Side Effects/Yellow Wood based on the MVs.  What’s confusing is there’s a possibility that Side Effects actually happened more than once - that the part where the kids get on the bus did actually happen, but somehow they eventually ended up at the same crossroads and took the other path.  On the map, the elevator connects the two of them, which leads me to believe that Hellevator leads directly to I am NOT/District 9.  

Based on motifs, namely the shopping cart and the couch (both of which are in both IAY and the Hellevator MVs btw), Hellevator is up next.  Notably, the Hellevator motifs are placed near the District 9 bus, so we could reasonably say that I am NOT comes next, based on that as well as the elevator.  I mentioned before that their hideout in Hellevator is a place meant to make them complacent, which is supported by the fact that some of their things, the shopping cart and the couch, were taken from their initial I am YOU hideout.  It reminds me of when you move a pet from one place to another and keep their toys with them so that the new place still feels like home.

Based on the 1.5 moon motif, though, Yellow Wood is up next!  Either that, or Yellow Wood came before I am YOU, which I don’t think is the case.  My thought is, Side Effects represents choosing to blend with society or choosing to rebel, so perhaps at one point they chose to go with society, but they eventually realized they were unable to fit in and rebelled, ending up at Hellevator in the end either way.  That’s also why I think the I am NOT part of the map has the Side Effects drone - it’s another point at which they had to make that choice between society and freedom.

From Hellevator, as I’ve mentioned, we go to I am NOT, video-wise this means the I am NOT trailer and the District 9 MV.  From there, we have the bottle of flowers and the field of purple flowers from Hellevator replicated near Levanter... which we can’t say too much about until tomorrow!  But it should lead to Miroh based on the eagle motif and the walkie talkie motif there-- which, people have probably said this already, but the eagle itself likely represents SKZ while the lion represents society (think Young Wings for the eagle and for the lion, it’s attached to things like the City Jungle and the bus driven by the Miroh dude so that checks out imo for more than one reason).  My suspicion is that the use of so many previous motifs in Astronaut represents Hyunjin getting lost and having to remember the way back to where the rest of the group is... This could mean literally having lost his memory or it could be a more figurative form of losing his way.

Anyway, from Miroh we end up at Yellow Wood, based on the elevator on the map as well as the MVs, and this time it’s more literal than the previous encounters with YW - this time they chose a path and throw away the key, never looking back.  They won’t go back to Yellow Wood again because they’ve made their final decision to truly rebel, there’s no going back (which I think may be why Hyunjin was so stressed in SE).

We find ourselves once again at the Levanter part of the map, with the eagle representing running from Miroh’s City Jungle.  And that’s pretty much all I’ve got, at least until tomorrow!

I will say that I think it’s possible that SKZ infiltrates society a few times before fully rebelling, in order to free more people like themselves and build up their forces.  I think something similar happened in Maze Runner as well.  A part of me wonders if SKZ plays themselves, but also other like them in a sort of metaphorical way (if that makes sense?).

It’s also possible that someone else helped them escape from District 9 - the drone that broke in that Chan found, for example.  Where did it come from?  It could have been their past selves, who anticipated their being stuck with wiped memories!  It could also have been other “stray kids” who’ve already escaped.  Maybe it’s I.N’s “twin?”

Okay yeah I think I’m really going off the rails here so I’m gonna wrap up really quick with one final section here!

Things I don’t know what to do with:

keys - my suspicion is that they are part of yet another illusion set up by society (meaning, society wants them to think that the keys will help them escape but it’s all just another trick/trial), and that’s why SKZ has discarded some of them - for example, taking down Miroh will probably not grant full freedom, because freedom is outside of the map, so maybe they discarded the key to return there.

marbles - I’m guessing they have to do with memories somehow but thus far they have only showed up in Astronaut so it’s really hard to see patterns with these just yet.

elevators - I mentioned that they might show direct connections between MVs, but I’m very uncertain about this, actually.

“ghost” I.N who stayed behind in Astronaut - though I will note that he seemed to have a clone or a twin or something in District 9 so that could explain how one I.N went with SKZ and another stayed behind?

[angry--tiresia]

Why I’m fucked up [part 1]

REBLOG WITH YOUR OWN ‘WHY I’M FUCKED UP’

YES THIS IS ME OVERSHARING

There’ll be 3 parts I think;

1) I always feel stupid

2) I always feel ugly

3) I always feel unwanted

So;

1) Me feeling stupid. In primary school I was bullied, nothing big, a beating here and there but mostly just threats and repeated public humiliation. This made me hate everything to do with school and I don’t think I ever studied for a single test, however it was a rich afrikaans school, and this is an incredibly important point, being in a good school makes it hard to do badly. So even though I did terribly in comparison to my classmates, compared to most people from worse schools I did great. That obviously didn’t matter and I was constantly laughed at for my marks. 

Then I decided to change environment to an artschool, started acting classes a week before the audition, and I got in. This school used to accept 10% of applicants based on their audition and every other person in my class had been acting for years and had usually starred in at least one piece of commercial media - I was totally out of my depth and had a lot to catch up, and was again, continually humiliated for my inability to just know what to do. But by the end of the four years I kind of knew what I was doing and it was acknowledged, but by then I’d had years of insecurity buidling up. 

Now this school was amazing for the arts, heck even Charlize Theron went there, but in every other aspect it was truly horrible, with teachers blatantly lying to students. For maths, I could count the number of problems we did in a year on one hand. I was best friends with someone who worked 8 hours every day, so they did well, but from primary school - [and an initial month or so in the begining of high school where no teacher would translate single words in test questions/content because I was learning the language] - I knew that I was too stupid to ever reach that point. So they too humiliated me nearly every day, sometimes with a bit of a crowd, for how stupid I was. In grades 10 and 11 my maths teacher called me in at least once a week to tell me that I really don’t have enough intelligence for pure mathematics, and I should rather do mathematical literacy.

But I wanted to become immortal, to get to a point where I was better than I am now, and to do that I’d have to do biology, at a good uni, so I needed maths, and in matric my dad finally convinced me to do some work and I ended up getting the second best marks in my class, with my best friend [whom I was obviously inferior to] got the best marks of anyone in years. 

So I got into a good uni for science. But I wanted to prove to everyone for once and for all that I wasn’t an idiot, so though I did biology I also did pure physics and pure maths. And here’s a part to understand, for the past five years I’d been taught crap for maths. And doing maths trains your brain to do maths, it trains you to think in a certain way, and not only was I in class with people that had come from schools that had reputations and were significantly better than mine. And not only that, but the vast, vast majority of them had taken subjects in high school that I had never heard of, ones that had covered essentially the entire first year of mathematics. Throughout this year I was repeatedly laughed at and called an idiot. And even my closest friends would make jokes, for years afterwards, about my stupidity, the only comfort for 3 years being from my best friend [and fp for those that understand bpd] ; “It’s not your fault you made friends with clever people”. 

In second year I decided to do physics instead of biology, but at that point the people in my class had again, done applied mathematics in first year, something that was not required but was assumed knowledge for physics, and again, I cannot emphasis enough, it trains their brains to solve that kind of problem, and be more malleable to learn solve those kinds of problems. Objectively at this point I was years and years behind everyone else. It was during this time that my best friend again made a joke that for some reason goes in the book of things that people have said that completely change the way I see the world, myself and the way I act - it was that moment that I was finally convinced that, yes, after almost 14 years of being told I was stupid on a near daily basis, that I was in fact stupid. Even before this, the opinions of people outside my field didn’t matter to me because all my degree was was a mask to hide my stupidity, and I knew fully that any of them could do everything a million times better. 

I have tried to fix this, but it’s impossible, I’m to this day seen to be the stupidest person in my friend group, most recently we were at a restaurant and someone made a comment of “who would be the most likely to invent teleportation” and everyone pointed at my best friend, [except said best friend who pointed at me, n’caaw]. Someone said “But [referring to me] has a degree in physics” To which the response obviously is “But [best friend] has the brain for it”. 

And my favorite thing is to hear people say “You shouldn’t care about what people think” when they’ve been showered with affirmation for years. The best I’ve gotten is my room mate saying “No, you’re not stupid”, in the same way you would tell a dog “Oh you’re a good boy” and my best friend [only in the past year and a bit] saying “I think you’re smart”. And my parents, and I can’t deny the solid base they gave me, but a solid base can only take you that far.

My second favourite thing to hear is, upon asking for help [which takes nth level courage btw] “I don’t know any better than you” when they’ve literally already made the most perfect decisions or answers for that exact question and you’re entirely lost cause you don’t have 4+ years of direct experience in that field/thing because this is the first time in your life you’re seeing it. 

And logically I can see why I feel the way I do. The moment I get good at something I drop it to throw myself into a field that I know nothing about. At the end of high school I auditioned for the new york film academy, and at the time they had no bursaries for South African kids, but they wanted me so badly they sent a million letters to a million sponsors to try get my tuition paid for, but my audition had been live and no bursary came. At the end of my physics degree I went to one of the professors that I thought wasn’t too horrible, and I pitched an idea to him about how to model the fundamental forces in a more unified manner, to which the response was ‘It sounds amazing and innovative, but I simply don’t know enough to be able to tell you anything more’, and had to send me to an expert in the field, who liked the idea enough to want to make me do a project that would lead into it for a masters project, unfortunately I couldn’t. Or my current supervisor, upon hearing my ideas on the possibilities of time travel offered to write me a recommendation letter to the most prestigious theoretical physics institute in the world.

But instead of pursuing any of that I’m throwing myself into software engineering, again, a field I know nothing about, where I will be laughed at and humiliated for not knowing.

And what’s shattering about it all is the way it changes the way I interact. Earlier this year a friend said “I’m going to see a Wagner opera - you’ve probably never heard of him” and instead of replying “No, actually I know Wagner’s work pretty intimately, I can’t agree with the directing style he pioneered, nor his style, however his concept of the ubermensch really inspired me for a while”, I said “yeah, I don’t know much. I think I might have heard his name before” Because, lets be real, they almost definitely know so much more than me. 

Or last year I was on set with friends and someone was constructing a grid and they simply wanted to know that if they had [say] 20 tiles and the grid had to be 4 tiles wide, how many layers deep the grid would be. They were 100% in arts and honestly didn’t know how to do it, and in front of a small group of people they asked me, as they knew I was a final year astrophysics - physics major. But in that moment I was too insecure to be able to lift my voice to divide 20 by 4. So I rather said “No, ask [this friend] they know better”

I’m terrified of giving my opinion because I know chances are that it’s wrong, because I’m stupid, and the person I’m telling will know better, and they will see my mistake, and they will make fun of me. AND  when I do gain the confidence to give my opinion, usually only to the people very closest to me, they will stop listening to me halfway through my sentence, and I would end it with “Oh, you’re right, no one cares”, and not a single person has ever noticed. Most notably [because I suffer from jealousy when it comes to this person] was when me and my best friend were out, but she was talking to this guy on her phone [someone I’m jealous of for the attention she gives him - I’ll get to his in the ‘unwanted’ section], and eventually she clearly felt bad for straight up ignoring me [lol this is actually seen as abuse towards people with bpd] she said that they were talking about the ethics of supporting a politician who’s personal life contradicts his policy - and, other than being totally jealous of the ability to have such a conversation - she asked for my opinion. So I gave my first point of his policy affecting more people than his personal life so I’d vote for them, to which she responded that ‘he can’t be trusted to stick to his policy if he doesn’t believe in it’. I was a full sentence into my reply when she looked down at her phone and started to message him, and it was just, once again, such a thorough “Lol your opinion doesn’t matter cause you’re stupid and who cares, but his on the other hand” As a safety check I again ended with “Oh yeah you don’t care” with no response. And this also, not from her spesifically, happens about once a week, perhaps once every two weeks, but if we’re going with this week I think we’re going on 3 already and it’s monday.

So, my final note is, why would I feel anything but stupid? On some logical level I want to say that I know I’m not stupid; but it never feels like that, and in addition to that, what evidence is there that I’m not stupid? There is literally none, and significant, 14+ years, worth of proof that I’m an idiot. 

Also sorry for grammar/spelling typos, I’m really tired. 

REBLOG WITH YOUR OWN ‘WHY I’M FUCKED UP’