#i feel distracted all the time like im not quite dissociated i dont think but i just dont feel all there 100%

[spinecutter]

bros i am not doing too hot

[dahniwitchoflight]

Homesquared Chapter 14 part b

Alright time for more reactions to Homesqaured- oh jeezus

the last one of these I did was from october last year, hoo boy alright brain time to get back on the time train things are happening fast

we last left off with me thinking they just fucking hilled Harry but I remembered the wrong house so Harrys fine, John not so much

Yeah, John sad but ooh Karkat shows up!

They seem to have a mutual conversation about lost youth and stuff, really makes these characters feel oold

“JOHN: jeez, i'm sorry karkat.

JOHN: i had no idea how much time had passed.

JOHN: i must have gotten a bit distracted by my house being blown up.“

Oh man, John thats a whole ass MOOD

lol at sburb allocated blow job

yeah Karkats right tho, John does kind of need a kick in the pants to see how he might have been useful here, but Johns still stuck in this rut of not seeing anything around him as Real real, so hes blind to all of the consequences of inaction

John its called derealization and depersonalization, you can get help for that yknow

But I mean, cant really blame him, hes being smothered by the fires of Doom all around him

Its interesting to see that Karkat, a Blood player, is more comfortable navigating through things that constrain them and tie them down, since constraint is something Blood and Doom have in common, Chains and Barriers and Laws and etc

Whereas John the Breath player, just gets bogged down, hes totally out of his element

so it ends up being like John: “Id like to cling to some funny moments of my youth pls and try to lighten the situation up a bit because I cant do anything when so heavy”

versus Karkat being like: “BUCKLE UP FUCK TITS THIS SHIT IS YOUR LIFE NOW GETS USED TO WADING KNEE DEEP IN THE SHIT LIKE THE REST OF US GROWN ASS ADULTS”

John: ):

Hmm, both Vriskas have been captured, but Annie basically rescued herself, knowing Vriska Prime she probably has a plan or an idea about that, see well see how that goes

“KARKAT: JANE'S PLAN FOR THIS CONFLICT HAS THUS FAR CONSISTED ALMOST ENTIRELY OF KIDNAPPING VARIOUS HIGH PROFILE CHILDREN.

KARKAT: IT'S BIZARRE.

KARKAT: AS THOUGH WE ARE FIGHTING A WAR OF ATTRITION, WHERE THE MAIN RESOURCE BEING UTILIZED IS THE OFFSPRING OF THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE ON THE PLANET.KARKAT: IF IT WASN'T ONE OF THE CORE TENETS OF HER FASCISTIC PHILOSOPHY, I'D BE TEMPTED TO SAY THAT CURBING REPRODUCTION MIGHT HAVE BEEN A GOOD IDEA, IF ONLY TO PREVENT THIS KIND OF FUCKSHIT NONSENSE FROM HAPPENING.

Oh. Well I guess that was Dirk’s “plans” for Jane all along. Obviously he was using Jane as a vehicle to gather “players” for his eventually next session, interesting

But who has Jane kidnapped in total thus far?

Does Tavros count? he was certainly trapped with her for some amount of his life, but I dont know if that counts as a kidnapping, John certainly tried to kidnap HIM though from the epilogues

Annie certainly counts as being kidnapped

Vrissy has JUST been captured so that counts, and Harry so far is still fine

Which bodes so well for Harry’s future Im sure

Yeah, Vriska should have been able to not outwit any capture attempts, but my guess is either Vrissy got capture and Vriska dove in, OR, Vriska’s doing an inside job so to speak and got caught on purpose, dragging Vrissy along as well

I guess we’ll see when we see their “prison”

Anyway John, don’t get so down on yourself, you’re just ignorant to everythiong around you! thats why nothing makes sense and you can’t connect to anything, easy fix! Just try to learn more and care more about stuff lol

Man does this feel like a strong metaphor between people who are into/care about politics and people who feel like they can’t get into it though

Crossing that hurdle from one side to the other is rough

“KARKAT: BUT NOTICING THE PROBLEM AND MAKING MEANINGFUL PROGRESS TOWARDS SOLVING IT ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS.”

yup

man, this is all feeling startlingly relevant to the current times, I should have read this sooner

“ KARKAT: PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME YOU JUST HAD ANOTHER EMOTION THAT WE NEED TO DROP EVERYTHING IN ORDER TO DISSECT. “

hah, oh wow, Karkat when you phrase it like that, it’s almost as if you’ve become self aware of your tendencies to Moirail people out of their problems

Not really that out of character for a Blood player to end up being the Therapy Friend though lol

Just don’t burn yourself out on that though

JOHN: karkat, we still haven't spoken about *you*!

KARKAT: ABOUT ME?

JOHN: yes.

KARKAT: ABOUT *ME*?

JOHN: about you.

KARKAT: WHAT THE FUCK ABOUT ME.

JOHN: well...

JOHN: you know, how you feel!

KARKAT: HOW I FEEL.

I know Karkat has probably matured past misunderstandings like this now given he’s really come into a great understanding of his Blood aspect, but by golly do I wish Karkat would misunderstand this as John’s attempts to be Moirail-reciprocal sdkjfhwlijebr

What a perfect way to continue their relationship, on top of more misconstrued romance quadrants XD

Spades is old Hat, Diamonds are in now babey

Oh

this started out funny, but Karkat’s emotional rant just ended up being depressing not funny ):

I have to say though, it is REALLY interesting to see John’s depression manifesting in a very breathy sort of way

Karkat in these panels was more closer together, connected, but as John gets more and more depressed over the course of Karkat’s rant when he realizes Karkat doesn’t know dave died, the panels get seperated by lines of blue, and slowly drift off away from John and from eachother

but thats basically been hows its been manifesting all along

the more John feels Disconnected and Seperate from the reality he finds himself in, the more he finds his will untethered, the more depressed and unable to act he gets

and right now its so much so that even a fuller fledged Blood player is having trouble grounding him back down

I don’t know, I always viewed the depression metaphor as a dark watery void to sink into and feels heavy and encapsulating (but probably thats just my Light-y interpretation of it)

so its interesting to see the depression metaphor as this floating disconnection instead, so much that it leans towards derelaization/depersonalistion/dissociation as well

I wonder if John will start dealing with bouts of actual full blown dissociation as this gets worse?

I mean, Breath aspect has given the literal ability to ghost around wherever he pleases in all other ways, why not literally and physcologically as well?

So John seems to be fully overembracing his aspect here, to a very unhealthy degree here, which I see you asking “aha Dahni, but hes doesn’t have overblown self esteem here, quite the opposite, is this not an inverted state instead? or something else because hes acting like hes inverting to Breath?”

and I say not so! reader, for overembracing is the idea that through your aspect, your will is overwriting the wills of others, and in someone like Vriska, this manifests in a very selfish and over self esteemed way

but is not John’s will overwriting Karkat’s here? Through Breath? And isnt John also being a little selfish here? Considering how he feels about things, more important than how anyone else feels? How Karkat feels?

John is too dissociated to understand that this reality is Real and has Consequences he needs to care about, and Karkat is trying to fight against that, trying to instill his belief that no, this shit is real and it Matters Why Don’t You Care, trying to ground him, trying to give him that dose of Blood he needs

but John’s overembracing Breath is just, blowing that all away, its becoming too strong

Roxy in the epilogues dealt with this as well, when John was really in the shits with it and started to believe Roxy’s whole personality was somehow fake and his own construction, because he convinced himself Roxy would never choose to do the things she did, but Roxy was able to snap him out of it and make him understand and respect it was her own choices that led down his path, not the idea that John’s choices are somehow overriding everyones

But man, John sure is riding that Breath train way too hard, and he keeps snapping back into it as well

Further and Further

[vynnyal]

dumping my random thoughts, comic ideas, and wildly misinformed theories abt hk onto my victims: part 2!!! p clear what I was doing in some of these, lmao

btw if you have any input im very, super interested please feel free 2 share

"So who's the mother?" Grimm: "Mother? No, there was no mother." "Then how--?" grimm: "Mitosis, obviously." Cut to two panels of the person dissociating over what they imagine the process to be.

FUCKIN... ASEXUAL PRIDE GRIMM

Hornet yelling shaw instead of yeet or koby.

Hornet yelling git gud at inappropriate times in place of like... Actual Advice. Alt: jdghghf or when she gets nervous, as a distraction.

Her thinking of something cool to say while waiting outside the black egg temple. alt: her thinking so hard she almost misses her cue, making her flub; aka the reason she says somn more like "geddun" in-game. alt alt: thk and ghost sharing a blank look (mid-battle) and thinking "she flubbed" in disbelief.

Hornet and something with the "spidersilk paper" lemm mentioned, maybe using it to """document""" her day when she has time to spare. She insists it's not a diary, so don't even try.

Hornet grieving the little weavers.

(speedrun) "You wanna fight? Huh? Huh? Well I dont, bye"

Zote "I only saved you for the money" joke.

Quirrel pretending not to understand modern slang.

Quirrel... Dad jokes... Holy shit

FUCKIN... DAD BOD???

conifer appearing in increasingly absurd locations.

Quirrel playfully commenting on the uh... "information"... The tablets display. alt: he can actually read it just fine, but is coy abt telling ghost what it says.

rather than just appearing, Quirrel and ghost walk through the archives together, the mood bittersweet.

Hollow knight passing the time in the black egg lightheartedly.

Wyrm and root trying to argue but the height difference just makes them both laugh.

ghost appearing before Root, expectant, only for them to slowly realize she doesn't actually... care about them. or any of the vessels, really. she expects them to do their duty, her claims of shame apparently not deterring her away from the fate they were created for. alt: she acts like that not out of any kind of malevolence, but out of pure ignorance. It doesn't occur to her how much it costs the little vessels... Or that they even have anything to lose, at all.

Cut to the future after the bad end, as yet another fragile vessel appears before the queen, far too late to save anyone now.

Godmaster traitor lord battle, ghost walks in looking very nervous. Traitor looks smug, asking if they're afraid (of him), only for the next panel to show ghost sweating profusely as they have Fragile Flower Flashbacks. alt, they're imagining/being pressured by the ghost girlfriends glaring at them/wailing "WAIIII" in tendem.

Ghost asks how thk got so big, only for them to reveal their body is still the same size, and they're just controlling a big suit of armor like false knight. Jdbfjfgjr

its been pointed out the bee knight doesnt... actually have any wings to buzz with. the noises are entirely vocalized. The reason buzzy baby makes buzz noises is because he felt left out when he was a kid; the queen, seeking to comfort him, explains how he can create his very own buzz sounds using an alternative method, instead. Despite his battle prowess, his mind never matured, continuing up to his very last moments to make the habitual noises of his childhood.

(godmaster) having soul left over and fuckin SCREAMING in the faces of the nail masters just before the bench.

Defeating bee boy by one mask, relaxing for a sec, before realizing the bees are stILL COMING ACTUALLY,,,,

The aftermath of the sheo fight, ghost just DRIPPING with rainbow-colored paint.

ze'mer and her lover meeting in their dreams.

flower lesbos hanging out with the thorn husbos (nailmaster/sheo hfshh)

Team cherry hid the gays behind some of the hardest missions because, let's be honest, no homophobe would put that much effort into anything.

Quirrel saying "I've only had ghost for a day, but if anything happened to them I'd -" Cuts to ghost, shade over their body Quirrel: "..."

Messing with the hot springs... geysers? Idk 3 heads things. whats in there? How were they made? By the ancient civilization, maybe pale king? alt: finding quirrel relaxing casually inside one of the eyesockets instead of in the spring, lmao.

"I'd sure like to be a shade, like heck- they can fly, they can do that weird teleport thing, and they have-", turns to it, "- ALL MY MONEY!!!"

Ngl I still don't fully understand the relationship between ghost, their shell, and their shade, and should prolly read up before blabbing, but what is it that separates ghost's body from their shade? Or their shade from ghost, themself? We see in the dnm ending they can very much "control" their shade, as they voluntarily rip off their shell to release it. Or... Oh shit am I dumb? Did ghost kill themselves right then? Oh fuck did ghost die to let their shade kill the radience. Please tell me I'm wrong I'm really upset now yfjfihrufhgi

Gonna be honest the previous one was me trying to contextualize the concept of ghost being able to fly like shades do but now I'm just thinking abt ghost, fuck. Still. Imagine ghost n thk just, like, hovering towards people with their funky tentacle legs. Or better, no tentacles, they can just Do That. Establish your dominance, little vessels.

Ghost doing the superman "ripping off your shirt to shift into super-mode" thing except they just tear apart their shell. Alt: hornet: "that looks painful"

Broken vessel was stuck. Out of all the dead vessels we see- the one in greenpath, those hung in nosk's den, the floor of the abyss, even ghost themself- not one retained their body after death. Except, that is, for broken vessel. Something, somehow, was anchoring their shade to their shattered shell and keeping it there, unable to seep away and reunite with their siblings below. They weren't just another corpse. That was ghost's sibling.

Just what is a vessel's coak? From what I've seen of the sprites, it's clearly attached to their shells; some in nosk's den are even hung from them, with their shells dangling below it. It seems biological- by which I mean, not some sort of clothing or ambiguously god-based substance- which makes its selective decay rather odd. On one hand, in greenpath, nosk's den, and some specific corpses within the abyss, their cloaks have stayed firmly attached. On the other, we have countless shells left naked all over the place- even ghost's shell is like this. Of course we have to keep in mind ari prolly just didn't wanna animate that, but that's no fun. I don't really have a prompt or theory here, as nothing I come up with quite fits the bill... Just more of a thinkpiece, I suppose.

Nyooming past quirrel at blue lake, freeze frame of ghost and q sharing a startled look.

Ghost distracting sheo by making him gush over his artwork. alt, "winning" the battle by showing him something they made, and/or just having a paint-off. Ghost wins no matter what, obviously.

Ohhh... Ghost learning to express themselves through art...

Lurien secretly has multiple eyes, fit neatly in the one socket.

Appreciating the genius of the mimic grub room (the real grub's location is hard-coded. im still mad)

Hearing Hornet say "get down" instead of "git gud" and the connotations of that. alt: hearing "git gud" when she's actually saying "get down", being offended or otherwise reacting to that, before being promptly smacked in the face by whatever she was warning them abt.

Hornet doing weird, obscure spider things.

Ghost: WHAT is THAT?? uumuu: uumuu emoji face

Where does the shade get its sword? Is it a void-sword? Did they scavange it? Did they make it???

The actual guttural horror of falling into the centipedes in deepnest.

The irony of feeling incredibly sad and hurt at thk's pain, but absolute bloodlust for pure knight.

What was written upon the journal found with the corpse in ash at hollownest’s edge. Alt: h. how did ash even get up there.

[misc-merde]

do you ever have a bad stretch that goes for a Hot While and then it ends and you come out of the worst of it and youre just like “thank fucking god” but then after a day or two you realize that youre not really in a good stretch and if it didnt come right after the Bad™ stretch you just had you would probably say that this now is a bad stretch but in comparison its still a massive improvement so you just feel kind of drained from the last week or so of Bad™ and sort of numb from the new round of bad and you dont really know what to do you just know that nothing really feels super real and you dont have energy for jack shit

[thatunhealthysideblog]

My Mental Health

I will start off by saying this: please keep in mind that I am not yet diagnosed regarding my mental health. I do have background (schooling) that informs me regarding certain patterns in my behaviour or my perceptions, but I dont claim to be equipped to diagnose myself or others.

I started to think there was something really wrong after I started college, around November 2015. I think I havent been entirely “normal” for most of my life, but things became very apparent around this particular time. I started to experience episodes of what could be depression (again, Im not yet diagnosed so I cant really say for certain that they are depressive episodes). Small emotional matters would hit me much harder than I know they should have: I remember times of hardcore crying, practically weeping, for extended periods of time, extreme thoughts of guilt, self-isolating behaviours. These episodes were extremely physically draining. I also started to notice that I frequently would feel hopeless, socializing was taxing, sleep was evasive, and motivation to do even enjoyable things was low. Since then Ive had seasons where these symptoms havent been so bad... more like an undercurrent, manageable. But there have been seasons that have hit me very hard.

I think I have always been sensitive and overly anxious. I worry quite often, too much. I ruminate even more so; I think about the past for what I could have done differently, I think about the present for all the things I could be doing, and I think about the future and too often get stuck in a cycle of what ifs and unrealistic expectations. I play out whole scenarios with people in my head, sometimes upsetting myself with the outcome of those hypotheticals. At times I hold myself to a very high standard. I feel stress very acutely. There are times even when I feel a sense of urgency or restlessness for no apparent reason. Im just on edge and honestly, that drives me nuts.

I have extreme anxious reactions to certain things (i.e. people yelling) such as fast shallow breathing, shaking, high emotional response, and of course actually feeling anxiety itself. Involuntarily ruminating on those experiences is also quite common for me and is very emotionally distressing.

I sit there and think about how Im thinking, how my body is reacting and wonder “why am I like this? why am I responding like that?”. Its a very weird experience, observing yourself so intently and questioning your own behaviour as it happens. I dont know if anyone else does that, or does it as regularly as I do, but I find it odd.

I will intentionally mention that I am not suicidal. I have thought about suicide twice in my life, but not seriously enough to consider acting upon it.

I do not typically self-harm either. I would say the closest I come to self-harm is beating my fists against my thighs or against each other repeatedly, but not with enough force to make bruises - honestly I dont know if that is considered to be self-harm. Its certainly emotionally harmful because its unhealthy behaviour, but Im not causing myself physical harm.

I also think I may dissociate? For as long as I can remember, Ive been able to daydream quite easily. In my teen years, daydreaming usually occurred when I was listening to music: Id just slip into “the zone” if you will; aware of my surroundings to an extent but more focussed on whats happening in my head. This happens on a daily basis still, usually when Im listening to music and performing a simple repetitive movement such as rocking or walking. But it goes beyond that. Around this time last year I started to experience something else... the best way Ive been able to describe it is almost like when playing a video game - things are happening but you dont perceive them as real. Reality itself wouldnt seem real to me. Sometimes this would be triggered by a stressor that I could pinpoint, sometimes I would be just out walking to the local grocery store and suddenly my surroundings wouldnt seem real. Sometimes it would happen for several minutes and sometimes for a couple hours. It wasnt really distressing in the moment, but it does concern me now that it has happened frequently.

I think this dissociation (if that is indeed what it is) is a symptom of an underlying mood disorder... Im so overloaded with mental/emotional stimuli that it alters my perception of things around me, or sometimes myself.

Anyway, I have spoken with my doctor about it and will continue to. They believe there is a mood disorder of some kind at play, but because I still continue to do my work with minimal distraction from my mental health (they say I am “high functioning” - Ill probably address that in another post) I will likely not be diagnosed for at least several months and also likely not be put on medication. The last part is fine with me; I take enough medication for my other health problems as it is!

[glowwormcave]

k vent time

i've been so fucking sad recently. like.

we, the system, had a short period for like a week where we genuinely could not feel hunger or thirst and a bout of like chronic fatigue or something idek. this started before the announcement of techno's passing and it's just. it was like the calm before the storm honestly. that was the calm. ida was fronting at the time and chalked it up to like. romance or something idk she's weird (/lh) but it carried over to me.

ida left front the moment that technoblade video got uploaded. like at first we were all really excited and saw the video title and just assumed that he would be leaving content creation. shit, we weren't even aware that it was his dad because like. so excited we weren't even seeing clearly. and then i saw i was like. that's not technoblade. that is not technoblade. that isn't him. and that's when it hit me. i'm switching between we/us and i/me because like we were sort of blurred around that time and thoughts were going wild. but it wasn't technoblade. and i just. like. my heart sunk.

i'd had suspicions for a while that something wasn't right. he had gone too long without an update and his likes on twitter hadn't been updated in a substantial amount of time, he hadn't replied to anyone, and he isn't usually that inactive on twitter. but i left it alone, because i was like, that's kind of parasocial he's probably busy like having cancer or something (which he was) and getting all that removed. like maybe the tumor had grown again and he was getting his fuckin arm amputated or whatever like that was catastrophic but it was like, logical to me? technoblade dying isn't a logical outcome of any scenario so it kind of barely crossed my mind. and then he like. starting unprivating all his videos and i was like... now what's going on there. that one-off upload from like 2015 also... that was suspicious to me. but i kept the hopes. i was sure he'd be fine.

and then. the news. and i was set to go on vacation the next day. the next morning i had lessons for horseback riding or whatever not that crazy i do it all the time but like. i guess it was the combination of the dehydration and the starvation and the heat and the incredible dissociation but i couldn't do it. i quite nearly passed out cold onto the arena sand. i had to sit that session out because i couldn't lift the saddle without needing to take a break.

but after that it was a 12 hour drive, and i couldn't focus on anything but our health. cue an entire weekend of running around denver hanging around family and i was literally unable to process anything. it just simply wasn't real to me. technoblade can't die. technoblade never dies. it is strange and illogical to suggest such. it's simply not congruent with the laws of the universe. there is like, a law of physics broken. right next to every action has an equal and opposite reaction, it is that technoblade is alive.

i got home a few days ago. it's. i'm not quite sure what to do with myself. i think i've gotten myself so stuck in front that i can barely hear anyone, or nobody is talking to me. i was going to write soem sot ov let. sorry it's taking me literally minutes to get this sentence out i'm so distracted and literally struggling to just stay grounded in reality like. i've just been sitting here staringand ica n barely move my fingers. i was going to have someone write a letter becuase i wcouldnt. but nobody else could eiter. aybe ill writeone a month after the video was relelased. and. schedule it. but im . i just. i guess i'm still hoping this was. all a prank. or a lie. i don't know how to live in a world that does not have technoblade. it does not make sense.it's upside down. it's weird. and foreign. just.

i'm finally getting time to rpocess and to grieve. and i'm still so, so confused. i don't udnerstadn. i can't focus on anythign. i dont understna.d and i can't hear anyone. and i feel so al;one. but i'm not alone. but it seems like everyone has moved on and nobody is talking much about it anymore but i'm still not done. im still not finished . technoblade made me who i am today he accidentally inserted himself into my vocabulary he structured my sentences and influenced my accent. my way of thinking, my way of speaking, my way of playing the game i grew up with has been partially made by him. it's like a piece of me has just died.

dont' stop posting abou him. please. don't stop talking about your grief. please don't. some of us just aren't done yet and we need to stick together bc i don't know how i wil get through this. i know i will. but i don't know how. and i don't want to brute force it alone. and i don't want to be alone. i don't get it. i'm going to cry again. i've been watching so many of his videos and he's right there. he never left. but he's gone. and i still have so many questions that will never, ever get answered. so, so many questions.

i keep coming back to the thought. what if he knew? i'm watching old, old vidoes, from wheni started watching him. 2017, 2018. i keep going back. what if he knew he was going to die in 5 years? would he have done anything differently? what if i knew? would i have appreciated and watched him more? what if i could go back in time and warn him or something? i dnt know. idk.

i miss technoblade. im crying now . i guess it will start to hurt again in 6 months when i realize he's never coming back. but until then. i guess i'll just cry at 2:30 in the morning some nights. like i am right now.

i'm hungry. i keep telling myself. that i am doing it in his memory. that i'm carrying on. that i keep. going. for him. even though i was just some random fuckin person on the internet that he probably never even saw. but i've been part of that 10 million since it was only just crawling into 6 digits and i'll never ever forget the impact he had on me.

i'm gonna go eat. and drink water. hearing skeppy saying that when dream delivered the news all the pain went away is just . so funny. because when techno's dad delivered the news i don't think i've ever been in more agony. emotionally at least. i don't know. the world was still. the world was silent at that moment. for a moment earth stopped spinning. and then my dad yelled at me and i realized that life would never stop for anyone or anything.