#ive never used that tumblr live shit but im tempted to try and just like doodle random stuff and let yall watch if u want

[ratkingcorpse]

.

[hauntedkkitty]

hi systems of tumblr i need Help. i am a questioning system and i have been for a long while now and idfk what to do or think anymore

i cannot talk to any sort of therapist / psychologist about this, so please give me any assistance you can even if its just "this sounds like ____" / "this relate to this and i have ___" / ANYTHING please

warning i dump some of my trauma here but i also put red text that just gives a summary without heavy desc so you can skip the description if you dont want to be triggered or upset.

tw child abuse, mentions of death / injury

basic info about me that may or may not relate

- i am a minor with cptsd & autism

- i have a Lot of repetitive trauma. like i dont wanna traumadump it all rn but a Lot.

- i am disabled

- all my older relatives are all shitty people which i cannot ask for help with this. all my younger relatatives would not be able to help. there is no one who i trust enough to help me with this So hiiii anon tumblr blog here i am

-i have not wanted to live for as long as i can remember [and i can remember very far back].

- i had a lot of periods in my childhood where i go Blank for a while, like, memory wise. i would "wake up" somewhere else the middle of an action and have no idea what was going on or why i was there. or felt out of control of my body, i dont know if this has lessened or if i have just grown used to the feeling if that makes sense

- i am psychotic. i have been since i was little and i know how to deal with it now and do not have any Serious delusions or hallucinations anymore

-ive been questioning whether or not im a system for a Long while now but i never get far with it because i literally cannot figure myself out.

- i do not feel i have a real personality

- i dissociated a Lot in childhood and even now.

- i feel like shit went Wrong when i was meant to develop into a normal person and i am now fundamentally fucked

- i have done a Lot of research of osdd/did [and disorders in general] on and off for some years and have never found a conclusion for myself Help me

trauma dump about my experience with possible alter - scroll to red text if you are triggered by: religious trauma, suicide mention / suicidal thoughts

when i was a child [this is abt when i was around 8] i was heavily in denial about the fact that i wanted to die.

i knew my parents [abusive] would react Badly and also i was religious and raised to believe i would burn in hell for it so i just Refused to admit that i hated living.

one day i saw it on the news with my parents [it was some headline like "suicide rates rising" or sum idfk sorry] and my mother said "who would be crazy enough to try and kill themselves" and she wanted an answer back so i said "haha yeah..." and i heard a voice behind me [like Right in my ear behind me] say "you would" [as in you would be crazy enough]

this was not an auditory hallucination. i did not have voice hallucinations at the age and it was extremely different to anything i have ever experienced.

and i was fucking terrified cause as previously mentioned i was raised religious and thought this was a demon trying to tempt me into sin and holy fuck there was a creepy girl whispering my deepest darkest most sinful of secrets in my ears

the voice whispered more into my ear about my inner workings and thoughts and stuff i was in denial of

i have no clue if this makes sense but when i heard its voice i saw like a Flash of info about it. like when you suddenly remember something and the whole memory just Vwoops into your brain? some physical traits and some personality traits, along with the fact that this thing Knows me deeply and knows everything about me?

i looked behind me and asked my mother if she said anything and she said no and gave me a weird look.

i never mentioned anything to anyone because i was convinced they would hurt me if i did.

i felt its presence in the back of my mind [it didnt speak often but even when silent i could feel its presence like the way you know when someones staring at you].

i kept refusing it and saying i did not want it and ignoring it everytime possible and eventually i felt it fade [not the right word but idk wtf to say. it went In or it just disapeared or something]. i felt kind of at a loss when it happened cause i didnt know what to do.

i considered the idea that it was trying to help me but even if it was i had no clue what it was.

TLDR: 8ish yrs old. i was in denial about my mental issues. i heard a voice in my ear very clearly wording out my mental issues in a way i could not. freaked the fuck out and ignored it even though i felt its presence for like a month and eventually i stopped feeling it there. no clue what that was

i told a system blog this experience once and they suggested that i look into bpd & aspd and that they dont know what to say as theyd never heard of something like that happening so young before

since then i have been never heard the voice behind me or any other solid voice. i dont know if it was an alter who went dormant or just some weird dream or hallucination or what.

i ignored it for all my childhood because i was scared. at some point a few years ago [covid times] i felt something similar again, not a voice but Something and i felt the immense need to try and figure it out. i did a Lot of work and all i could figure out was that voice probably Was trying to help me in some way. i was heavily in denial about most of my trauma and mental illness until like a few years ago because my family basically cult brainwashed me Haha.

also also i have had a lot of times where i have not felt Myself but have also still been there. its hard to word but i was still There watching myself do things and if i Really wanted i could try and stop my body from moving but like.... I didnt feel like i was Alone in my brain if that makes sense??? bru idk its that Feeling that someone else is there thing again.

trauma dump warning if you are triggered by: phys abuse [by father] mention, desc of me fearing my abuser would kill me scroll to red text

a time like this that stands out a lot is when i was younger [9+ -14] and my dad had just hit me and yelled at me and he pushed me down and i nearly hit my head on the stone kitchen counter but i just missed it and i was struck with this horrible fear because what would have happened if i did hit my head? i would probably be seriously injured. ive hurt myself on there before and it wasnt even that bad then but i still needed to go to the hospital. would i have died if i hit my head then? is he going to kill me now? and i was filled with so much fear i couldnt move and i had no idea how i would get out of this. i was literally backed into a corner. i completely spaced out.

i felt myself kinda Snap back in my mind for a second like idk how to phrase it but my mind Changed and all of a sudden i had a clear plan like Streamlined to my head and all emotion and desires other than SURVIVE were pushed out And like i felt So out of it and disorientated and ouguhhhhh felt weird bru idk how to word this shit was Odd and moving my body felt weird.

i saw myself run upstairs and check for injuries and try to clean up nd fix body but i did not feel like i was moving ??? like i was Out Of It and my body was just taking care of itself and i was just There like what is happening. OH I SORT OF HEARD A VOICE AGAIN HERE BUT IT WAS MORE LIKE. sudden dominant thought than voice in my ear voice. it was just telling me what to do and questioning if i had bandaids in my room.

TLDR: a time that stands out is when i was younger [9>14], i was being abused and nearly had a serious injury which i slimly avoided and was frozen with fear and spaced out. i suddenly felt myself snap back into place, disorientated and completely Weird, and felt thoughts [a plan to get out] that were not mine. i did not feel fully in control of my body and like i was being fed another persons thoughts as i saw my body tried to help itself. i felt like another persons thoughts were dominating over mine and all in all Strange.

anyway i kinda got back into myself after i was mostly taken care of but i was still Not Fully There if that makes sense??? like i still wasnt responding or thinking or talking or moving ANYTHING like what i usually do and i was aware of this and i was really confused about it and what was going on

sorry if this is worded wrong i wrote most of this late at night and again im autistic and get misinterpreted a lot and also my memory is kinda fucked up

anyways if anyone could could shed any light on this in literally anyway you could i would be super grateful.

ALSO if you think this is some form of osdd/did/plural thing Please tell me how to speak to the people in my head cause idk its weird like this i would like to know what is happening in there and not feel like im suddenly being possessed or like im insane

[permian-tropos]

hiii so im still relatively new to the pathologic fandom, i havent finished bachelors route yet but i love him. i still dont understand why he isnt in his own ending, do you mind explaining it for me? like what are the theories. also on that note, what are some of your favorite pathologic essays? on tumblr in written or on youtube anything will do, ive watched the hbomber sulmutal ragnarrox and mangaloregaming ones already. thanksss for your input <333 i really am obsessed!

Hi there anon!!! So cool of you to reach out to me! 

So the explanation about why the Bachelor isn’t in his own ending comes from an online AMA with the writer/head of IPL (who I feel obliged to mention has been recently accused of some awful shit so until that gets properly investigated -- and will it? honestly I don’t know :< -- the fandom is kind of holding its breath on this matter, or at least I am, if you’re new here I am very very sorry to break that news to you). 

What I remember from the screenshot I saw of it was that apparently the Bachelor doesn’t “belong” in this “weird world” he’s helped create, and that it was intentional to not show him among Maria Kaina’s worshippers during the Utopian cutscene. So that’s what I’m working with.  

Daniil is a pretty complicated guy, especially when he’s the player character. I feel like you have some leeway, not just in choosing which ending, but even why he chooses various endings, including his own. He can be skeptical and concerned about a lot of aspects of the Utopians, even while he falls more and more in with them ideologically. Not helped by the fact that the Kains are, to my mind, lovebombing the hell out of him in the end, he’s just... very conflicted I think? There’s a lot of dialogue options he can take that suggest he admires the Polyhedron for what it is currently -- a place for children to explore their dreams together and express the wonder and creativity of their youth. You can have him be concerned at the idea of the Kains kicking out the kids so that they can take the Polyhedron themselves. But he thinks it would be awful to destroy the Polyhedron even if it’s about to be used by some very weird and very Sus people. Because to him it’s irreplaceable. 

So... I think his relationship with the Kains is fraught. He sees the nasty sides of the other two ruling families early on and believes the Kains are the most sensible rulers of the town... but once the Kains know he’s hooked, they reveal their extremely absurd, grandiose, and rather ominous plans for Utopia for him. And he’s kind of in too deep to get out by then? He’s been through so much that I can see how it would be tempting to hope that the Kains are just being melodramatic and that they’re not actually evil... hopefully...? That the world they create will at least be beautiful and interesting. Maybe unique. 

But he isn’t as enthusiastic about actually living in it himself as them. He has more rational reasons for seeing the Town destroyed -- underneath it, in the soil, is a dangerous biohazard. He thinks that preventing people from inhabiting this land is the only way to stop this plague, which is his job. It’s like if he found out they were atop a nuclear waste disposal site -- abandon it and put up a sign saying This Is Not A Place Of Honor.  There’s not just one way to interpret his choice at the end but if you believe dialogue he has about seeing the Polyhedron as a way to preserve childhood innocence... he knows he’s past that point. He’s not innocent, he’s been destroyed by this plague, and whether you imagine him leaving the town in disgrace or even ending his own life, an interpretation where he walks away from the “weird world” is one where he has given up on himself.  He’s one of the few fictional characters out there who pursues a dream of defeating death while never once suggesting that he wants to live forever. I’ve always found that really interesting about him. He may be a very flawed guy, but he isn’t really coveting ultimate power or even ultimate happiness for himself. 

Except the one indulgence I would argue he does allow himself is constantly scamming and lying to accumulate more and more guns (seriously he can do this over and over in his route it’s so funny) and if you want to take that to be a metaphor for being transmasculine bc guns are phallic symbols, be my guest xD /j

------ 

And regarding essays... UmmmMM well there’s a few off my personal collection on youtube that I’ve enjoyed that aren’t the big ones you’ve already mentioned:  The Youtube channel Shmowder Productions has quite a few wonderful video essays on Pathologic.  There’s also @loquaciouslore who has made a lot of awesome videos centered on various characters and mechanics of Patho 2 mostly. This is an analysis specifically of the plague in Pathologic 2, trying to come up with scientific/historical explanations for it (despite it defying explanation). It’s a fun time. Also big mood for Bachelor stans, trying to use science on the magic plague.   I have a soft spot for this video essay on the Bachelor and his Suffering TM because it uses a comment that I made on reddit to talk about something the essayist found personally relatable. This one is I almost feel essential viewing, it’s about the relationship Pathologic 2 has to avant-garde movements in theater.

Hope you like this collection! 

[shidiand]

How do you imagine Tenco's Story ending in your head?

that is a GREAT but UNEXPECTED QUESTION freshlybaked "spider" bread and i'm really happy to have the opportunity to try and answer this ageless question that has burned within all of us in the tenco's story iv waiting room community since 2013. it is an incredible coincidence (or is it? 👀) that i was just talking to Risa about tenco's this (edit: yesterday) morning so i am extra double super in the mood to talk about Tenco's Story today. so excellent of a coincidence is this that i am tempted to refer you to them in case you wanted to hear their thoughts on the matter that would probably turn out super cool, but that is neither here nor there; let us talk Tenco's Story.

i of course must mention my unadvertised and modestly detailed commentary on tenco's i-iii at https://shidiand.tumblr.com/tencos, presenting slightly interesting facts in an unwieldy and difficult-to-use format, but as it dates back to june 2017, i want to take some time to understand my feelings about the series once more.

tenco's story is a series that has a lot of meaning to me.

i took on my current name of shidiand in november of 2013. i was still in 11th grade at the time, 4th year of high school, and a very socially isolated person. i should say i was introduced to touhou in 7th grade, 2010, so i was still working through a 3 years-strong phase of trying to simultaneously both find an outlet for and bottle up an endless wellspring of awkward weeaboo-gamer nerd energy at the time.

i had my first real foray onto the internet in 2010, tried out twitter, followed some RPers and other people who had Cool Touhou Usernames. didn't really go anywhere. i had maybe 50 followers, i dont really know the count but it was definitely a) double digits and b) pretty low. didn't know what to tweet about. didn't know how to hit it off with others. i think there was basically maybe only 3 other people i ever properly interacted with. oh shit i was playing league of legends at the time. oh my god. i really did play league of .. oh my god. let's move on.

aw shit im super digressing amn't i. well.

this is just how it goes when i write essays on tumblr.com.

i'm afraid you're just along for the ride at this point so please do your best to enjoy it.

i got kind of tired of twitter at the time because i didnt know what to do with it. didnt know how to interact with people and didnt find the people i was following interesting, so i ghosted on out of there by the end of 2012. didnt deactivate it until like 2015 but at that point that was just burning away my dark history. anyways. november 2013.

--im taking a lot of time here trawling through old files on my computer, my tumblr blog, notification emails still lying around in my gmail inbox from twitter, the dropbox i didn't actually use but it had several tenco's story pictures on it but i deleted them so this was useless, ... to trace the timeline of this story and im really seeing a lot of remnants of dark history here you know? did you know i wrote a letter to a girl i had a crush on valentine's day 2014, slipped it into her locker, and anxiously hung around nearby at lunchtime to see how she reacted at lunchtime? i certainly didn't, or at least i made darn ass sure to forget about this incredible virgin incident and not remember it, ever, until i came across the records of it that i thoughtfully preserved for the me of 5 years later today. ok well now i have to read the letter to see if it was as bad as it just sounded there brb

ok so the good news is that it was actually very focused on being positive and full of admiration for the cool things she did instead of being a confession letter so i am very glad i was able to be a respectful chad 5 years ago, but the bad news is that the jokes, the actual sentences i put together. oh my god. but i mean. well. at least i got the spirit. its certainly a step up from this other person in my grade, WEEABOO ANDREW, YOU MAY RECALL THIS STORY AND HIS NAME FROM PREVIOUS STORYTIMES, THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND who came to school on halloween once cosplaying kirito from sword art online and got very possessive about people asking if they could hold his black replica plastic sword, and probably worse, dropped a "will you be my girlfriend" letter into the locker of my homie and fellow trombonist samantha, who was a little bit nerdy, hung out with the anime-likers who were actually sociable and fun to be around so you can imagine why weeaboo andrew was into her, which had i) a direct quotation from SAO chapter 16.5 (origin of the famous "glopping noise" line), and ii) a condom. jesus christ. i dont want to talk about this any more. next topic.

i also put this drawing of iku nagae and her skarmory (actually an albinoss from 18 DRAGONS) on the other side of the letter because it was the coolest thing i could think of drawing at the time. and i completely agree with 2014 me because it IS super fucking cool. hell fuckin yeah

https://shidiand.tumblr.com/post/76301993387/iku-nagae-ft-that-thing-that-supposedly-is-a

alright that was a fun little trip down memory lane but lets get back on track. november 2013. i started anew as shidiand. still awkward, still learning how to express myself and looking for my place among others. i followed some touhou bloggers, hung around r/touhou a lot as well. in december i got my first tablet for christmas, a wacom bamboo splash. i still use this thing! the usb cable disconnects if you bump it so i have to find just the perfect position to sit in whenever i want to draw, but its served me well. anyways. i was just starting to play around with digital art but i remember, probably just before new years, for some reason i wanted to find out more about tenshi hinanawi (i don't remember why. tenshi wasn't even one of my favourite characters at the time) so i went googling and right there on zerochan i found this:

https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23525572

this was during my dark souls phase so i just went BANANAS at the sight of this. this was literally the coolest image i had ever seen in my internet life. That image alone made me want to draw in hopes that I could make something as cool as that someday.

it wasn't immediately after but i soon discovered tenco's story, and it was love. kannnu was my very first artistic inspiration, and for a long time, my only one. i absolutely idolized them at the time. since then, ive found other artists to look up to, in a more healthy manner, but to this day i still look up to kannnu, still admire their work a lot.

i played around with drawing, followed the lives of people on tumblr, started reading touhou fanfiction, made a new twitter. i met a lot of new people along the way. some people i havent stuck with, some i cut ties with, and some people i still keep in contact with today. over those long 5 years of being shidiand, i found a name (i used to use shidian and then shid, but someone called me shidi once and i realized that was a lot better), how to reach out to others, how to express myself, places that i could feel included in. this is why i owe a blood debt to evelyn, who permitted me to kneel at her throne and was like "yea ok you can join my discord server u seem cool". evelyn, if you were confused by me ominously mentioning this blood debt/blood oath in a tumblr reply 1-2 years ago, this is the context. those 5 years were like a coming of age of sorts, that i never had when i was in high school.

and my love for tenco's story, that inspired me to draw that day, has been with me since almost the very beginning of my time as shidiand. from the beginning, i have always encouraged people to READ TENCO'S STORY, like the kin of those who cry PLAY MELTY or WATCH SYMPHOGEAR. i think my very first sidebar description was something akin to a prayer, written in very choral language, hoping for the day tenco's story iv was completed, ..., "meanwhile, furious shitposting". kannnu's work, finding delight in whatever they chose to draw, has been at my side, all along. my true mentor, my guiding moonlight...

so that's why i still to this day love tenco's story so much.

let's talk about tenco's story.

tenco's story is a story told through single pictures. the plot is vague, and details are sparse. dialogue is rare. we only know what has happened; we seldom know why. furthermore, there are many gaps between scenes that the reader is left to fill in for themselves; we see only snapshots that form an hazy outline of the events that occurred, and must imagine the rest. motivations and explanations fail me. but even with a barebones plot, tenco's story has themes, and if nothing else, those have to be carried through.

the main theme, of course, is journey and travel, but there are also other ideas, too. i actually think they start to change as the series goes on:

book i, where tenshi runs away from home, is about striking out on your own. it's a very fun and unpredictable journey, together with a friend.

book ii, where tenshi and iku are separated, forces tenshi to find and rely on companions of her own even more. but they do so, and they are able overcome hardships, and there is food and festival.

book iii marks a climax, reasserting tenshi's goal of finding the sword of hisou. i feel like the journey shifts from a travel (visiting) to a path forwards (making your way through). perhaps this is just something i get from knowing the locations from dark souls (Anor Londo, New Londo Ruins, the Great Hollow), but the locations start to give more of a sense of verticality, like they're emphasizing tenshi's climb to the summit. the hardships and enemies are the greatest they've been yet, and right when they near the top, tenshi and iku start to bleed. the book ends on an uncertain note.

if i had to describe the type of journey and travel that tenshi and iku undertake, there's this sense of wonder at discovering new places, wandering from vista to vista in delight, but also a sense of conquering, making it through a difficult patch. the sequence from pages 2-44 to 2-51, taken together, convey this sense of overcoming the best. it's one of my favourite parts. again, although the tone definitely starts to lean towards struggle in book iii, i think tenco's sense of wonder really is the heart of the series. there's no map of the world, no predicting where tenshi and iku will end up next. and through their travels, though they come across many enemies, they also find friends -- places of refuge, places full of life, people who will look after them for a few days, companions who will stay with them for the rest of the journey. at the end of book iii, we see a long haired tenshi with purple hair being impaled by the sword of hisou (3-33, see also this extra illustration that risa pointed out to me http://sinnnkai.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-195.html), and regular short haired tenshi continuing on her journey (3-42). if we ignore the out-of-story images where tenshi has the sword of hisou, tenshi has actually only ever used her sunlight blade (2-24, 3-26, etc), so i think that the long haired tenshi on 3-33 is a different person altogether. (if i had to guess, she might be the purple haired woman in the top left of https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35443328 as we have never seen that woman appear anywhere.) she probably has something to do with the flashbacks at the end of book ii and she might somehow be short-haired tenshi at the same time, but this is just speculation.

however, in 3-43, tenshi's hair is rather blue, so i don't know if this is the purple haired woman or not. if it is, tenshi is probably still fine and closing in on the summit, but if it isn't, then it's very worrying to see a picture of tenshi without any of her companions. it's very ominous.

meanwhile, iku, while climbing the red carpeted corridor, is stabbed, and disappears for a few pages. there's a black page, a shot of a shrine that strongly resembles the hakurei shrine, and a picture of iku standing behind someone in a tux, with the line "In the past, I was saved by the lady I was serving, you see?". and then iku wakes up in a field of flowers.

i think what this scene makes clear is a theme that has continued to appear and reappear throughout every book of "being saved, being aided by someone's kindness".

i think another theme that is implied and has to be addressed by this story of running away from home is "return". something im imagining is that the reason tenshi makes finding the sword of hisou her goal is because she wants to have something to prove herself with, to vindicate her when she comes home. but i don't think she needs to prove anything, and i ultimately think that she would be happier spending the rest of her life exploring.

so i think this should be what happens in the ending.

open on iku's journey, and give her a long sequence of travel without seeing tenshi. underline her newfound resolve. she climbs to the summit with albinoss, and finds the rest of tenshi's companions fallen. and in the last room is sword of hisou tenshi, who has lost herself, and it comes down to iku to bring her back. after a difficult battle, when both of them are on their last legs, iku is unable to stand any longer. but at this moment tenshi sees her companions struggling to get back up and reach her, and that's what brings her to her senses. and iku gets to see how many friends tenshi's been able to make on her own, and they finally and properly reunite. together, tenshi and iku carry each other out of the last room.

i don't think it's necessary to return to heaven. as a conclusion, dedicate some time to tenshi and iku travelling together. they're on their way back, revisiting old friends who helped them along the way, enjoying the journey. their last stop is the house of the elderly nawis (1-42). tenshi shows off the sword of hisou; she decided to keep it not as a trophy to show her family but as proof of the bonds of her companions. surrounded by friends, tenshi and iku decide to part ways with each other, knowing that the other will be alright. iku drifts among the clouds once more, and tenshi sets off for the horizon.

that's the plot that i'd write/just wrote. i don't really expect tenco's story iv to ever come out, though. i mentioned my first sidebar description earlier in this essay, but of course, you can see that it's been changed. 2 years ago, i read my hopeful prayer once more and was struck with a terrible melancholy, so now it reads this: "having come to terms with the fact that tenco's story iv will never be released, i can still live, knowing that the spirit of the journey will live on through kannnu's original works [...] meanwhile, furious shitposting".

on one level, tenco's story is a story, but in the process of following it, i came to think of the work itself as a journey too. you can constantly see kannnu's improvement between and even within each book. they have always drawn whatever they liked; what plot matters in the face of "I wanted to draw a beautiful sky." "I wanted to draw a fantastic battle." "I wanted to draw Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and Pokemon and Brave Fencer Musashi and Bokura no Taiyou and Touhou."

its not really kannnu's style to go back and tie up old ends. they just draw whatever makes them happy. so as i watch them continue to draw beautiful places and fantastic creatures, new characters heading out on journeys of their own or just enjoying their everyday lives, it's as if tenco's story never ended. the limits and consistency of that world ignored, and a new one springs up; in a way, the world of tenco's, which had such thin boundaries, just gets bigger.

but even so, having said all that, i still see them draw that short-haired tenshi from time to time. it makes me happy to see them remember tenco's story with such fondness. often crossing over with orion or roar or elweiss, you can see tenshi on another journey.