#our perception of our brain internally

[babyspacebatclone]

I don’t know how much of it is the Autism, how much of it is the ADHD, and how much of it is the depression/trauma.

But I can feel my Executive Functioning Disorder.

Like, there’s this thin ceramic wall around my brain, and it’s turning slightly side to side horizontal in my skull. Not fast enough for the brain to jostle, but enough to just be - not still.

But I can’t get through the ceramic wall. It’s not crushing my brain, but I can’t get through it, either.

I’m just helplessly tapping a pin on this ceramic, wanting to get through but knowing actual damage will transfer down to the brain.

And so I can’t actually get stuff done, without damage.

I also feel hyper-emotions in my inner wrists and inner elbows. Like, they tingle.

I always took it as an anxiety symptom, but recently with my anxiety wrangled slightly it’s happening with hyperfixations! It’s so cool, something I always took as a negative, was actually just “extreme” and not valued, and now I can assign positive meaning to it!

The contraction of my breastbone, on the other hand, is always low self-esteem.

Some small motor revving, hard to tell how much of that again is what from the AuDHD and wanting to move versus wanting to stim.

But yea.

Very real physical sensations, even if they’re not 100% literal.

Does ADHD ever feel to you like a semi-physical sensation. I legit like. When I'm trying to get work done and my attention span is it's limit and I just CAN NOT do work anymore I feel a sort of tension within my body. idk. some sort of inner vibration. Not like, just tapping your foot or shaking your leg but something deeper than that. Anyways I need to write an essay but I CANNOT focus, my body is screaming at me to do something else, I need to go eat lunch

[alexthetrashyracoon]

Simon wants to marry you.

This fact was as clear as rain on his mind. You were the love of his life, he was ready to settle down with you and grow old.

So Simon prepared everything for that special day, it was your fourth year anniversary and Simon wants to ask you the biggest question someone could ask and he hoped, maybe even prayed despite not believing in any higher deity, that you would say 'yes' to his proposal.

He has planned out the whole day, from the moment you woke to the moment you would close your eyes for the night again, everything was supposed to be perfect.

Simon brings you breakfast in bed, watching your smile brighten when you see the freshly pressed orange juice and the fresh buns, still warm from the bakery. "Happy Anniversary." He whispers before slipping back into bed behind you, pulling you between his legs and stealing some of the freshly cut Mango from your plate.

When breakfast is over, you two made a mess out of each other while trying to feed each other, he scoops you up and carries you into the bathroom, telling you to get ready and that he has a lot of plans for today which causes you to become perceptive. Immediately starting to question him about his plans, but he's still a trained soldier, he withstands your flow of questions.

Another plan of Simon for today was bringing you to a fair, the same one you two met four years ago.

Here he wanted to ask you to marry him, on top of the Ferris wheel where you two had been stuck together four years ago due to a technical issue with the electronic.

But after spending a few hours walking the fair ground, having to walk back to his car once to bring Lord Otto from Otterson, the plush Otter he won you at one of the stupid and usually very rigged fair games, to safety and out of the way. You make it to the Ferris wheel and Simon's face fell.

"Out of order..." He breathes and runs a hand through his short blonde hair, staring up at the still standing wheel and the dangling cable cars.

"Damn." You curse softly next to him and scratch your neck. "Well, maybe we can ride it another day, mhm?"

"Yeah, maybe. Well, we can't change anything now." He chuckles and squeezes the velvety box in his back pocket. Keeping it safe until you two would reach the next destination.

The small restaurant by the corner where you two lived was filled with loud voice, happy laughter, children running around, not that Simon minded, he knew you were a very outgoing person and enjoyed the social interactions from such evenings.

Simon had reserved a table a few weeks ago and the waiter brings you and him over, Simon shushing the poor man who just wants to help you sit.

He is your boyfriend, bloody hell, he can do something so simple as helping you get seated.

"I know it is our anniversary, Simon," You chuckle as you put down the glass of wine Simon has ordered for you and him, "But something feels different. I just don't know what. Special..."

"Four years is just a long time, love. Maybe your brain finally catches up with... wha-?" Simon wants to be cheesy with you before asking you the question of all questions when suddenly his feet feel wet and he looks down, seeing water come from the kitchen.

His second attempt of asking for your hand has been sabotaged by a broken water pipe.

Simon curses internally as he carries you back outside, not wanting to get your feet wet and cause you catching some flu.

Well, there is only the romantic walk through the nearby park which is empty around this time of the night, so you two can walk around the pond and watch the fireflies and swans before he can go down on one knee and finally ask.

But before he even get you through the sturdy iron gates that allowed entrance to the park, his phone rang, Prices' number on the screen and everything in Simon screams to ignore his Captain for the sake of your relationship and your future.

He apologizes and takes the call, listening to Price explaining that they've got information about a certain Russian Terrorist planning an attack and that they had to meet within the next hour.

"It's fine." You reassure him when he brings you back to your shared apartment, squeezing his hand with a gentle smile on your lips. "I had a lot of fun today with at my side. And saving the world is much more important. We can celebrate another time, Si."

"You're too forgiving." Simon replies and presses his chapped lips against your forehead. "But it's not fine. I had the whole day planned out. And the universe seems against me at all, bloody hell. All I wanted to do tonight was asking you to marry me. And everything I've tried blew. The Ferris Wheel, the restaurant, even the walk..."

You cut him off before he can talk himself into a frenzy by wrapping your arms around his neck, having to stand on your tiptoes and planting your lips on his.

"Yes." You grin when you pull back. "Yes, I will marry you, Simon Riley. I will marry you."

Maybe he should have simply asked you this morning during breakfast, might have saved him from getting another grey hair on his head. But sometimes the simple answer is hidden behind the complicated ideas.

[stilljuststardust]

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

How brainrot is killing your journey

Dominant thoughts and the avoidance of self.

3D = external world, the physical world. Often called the "mirror" because it adapts to reflect the 4D.

4D = internal world, the reality which we manifest from.

This is something I have been thinking about and researching for the past couple of days.

Many people would do anything to avoid sitting with their own thoughts, can't even take a shit alone , but when our thoughts create our reality where does that leave us?

When was the last time you sat with your thoughts for an extended period? Do you only sit and think about your life when you're spiraling and upset?

A common suggestion for people on their journey is to "go within". Surprisingly, many people genuinely respond that they don't know how.

In a world where we no longer have to engage with ourselves or our thoughts because of a constant stream of collective consciousness, it is no longer a necessary part of life to indulge in your own thoughts. For the first time, your mind and your internal world are an optional part of your life.

What was once inescapable has now become something that you can numb and silence with an endless stream of Subway Surfers and Family Guy clips.

People have become so disconnected with self and their own internal world that even being told to enter it is confusing and upsetting.

You have entered a state in which you do not think you only consume you have transformed yourself from creator to spectator. The voices of others flood your mind because you no longer listen to yourself.

Our own thoughts have been drowned out by the thoughts of others in a deafening wave of voices. When we sit and we do nothing but numb ourselves the only thoughts that will pierce through are the thoughts that force themselves to the front of our brain, painful and anxiety inducing thoughts.

Our dominant thoughts are what manifest and we no longer think except to spiral.

The 4D, what you have most likely heard about over and over from manifestation bloggers, is JUST your internal world.

You have all but abandoned your internal world. If you cannot even experience yourself and your own thoughts why are you surprised that you are RELIANT on external validation and the external world.

Why can't you ignore the 3D? Because you exclusively experience it.

Your internal world isn't manifesting because you refuse to experience yourself internally.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

End

I would love to talk about the many many other contributing factors but you don't have the attention span and I don't have the time.

Such as:

I think our brains are so flooded with dopamine and near constant information that your subconscious has trouble imprinting our desires because our affirmations are literally competing with an addictive substance, brainrot induced dopamine.

You accept the thoughts of others like it's nothing

Reduced decision making and impulse control

Inability to filter information

Brainrot kills self concept

The more dopamine your brain receives the more it needs to elicit the same reward response in the brain. Problem is, we have constant inescapable streams of dopamine at our finger tips.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

Links, as always.

Reprogram your brain

How to get dopamine rewards healthily

Brainrot is holding you back, a video on how it affects your self concept from a medical professional.

From the third video:

"When you don't filter your perception and your mind is over colonized with sensory crap you end up adapting by forming beliefs about yourself as a result"

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

[ohnoitsjetster]

Didn’t Herbert West technically TECHNICALLY try to baby trap Dan in Bride of Reanimator?

Thoughts?

(Im sorry this took forever to respond to. life got in the way, of my silly little words)

technically, yes. The main intention was the same. But "Baby Trap" does not even start to explain the shit Herbert pulled in Bride of Reanimator.

thoughts? you want THOUGHTS? alright how about let me break down exactly what Herbert did here:

That man stole Megan's heart from an evidence locker and stored it in his fridge. When Dan tried to leave Herbert, He offered the heart to Dan with every ounce of reverence he could deliver without getting down on one knee.

that is to say, Herbert anticipated that Dan would leave him and saw that he loved Megan. So his reaction was to steal Megan's actual physical HEART, and give it to Dan as an offering to force him to stay.

He vaguely explained that he was about to baby trap him with it, to which Dan agreed because of his blind love for Meg, and his blind love for Herbert, and because, in the words of Bruce Abbot, "no one will ever get rich overestimating Dan's bad taste."

(This could maybe be because the world of Reanimator uses weird sci-fi logic where the heart contains the person's personality or life or whatever, and it'd actually bring Meg back (even though these movies seemed pretty brain-focused thus far), in which case, pretty good manipulator leverage! nice job, Herbie! Otherwise, its either because Herbert knew Dan would like this weird creepy gesture of love, or because Herbert thought this weird creepy gesture of love was a normal and good idea, and coincidentally Dan was that same wavelength of out-of-touch freak as Herbert, because they're just meant for each other or something. That last option is my personal favorite)

So, then Herbert goes around the hospital STEALING more body parts off corpses (former patients who also presumably received some form of care and attention from Dan), trying to create Dan's perfect woman based on his shallow perception of whatever it is that straight, allosexual, relatively neurotypical men like (maybe since Herbert can't be what Dan wants romantically, he can create it for him and earn love that way (that cannot be good for His internalized transphobia)).

so then he meticulously assembles a woman like an Ikea cabinet and proceeds to give Dan the worlds most sensual elevator pitch, using... a line that he heard Dan use with his girlfriend when he was eavesdropping on them having sex. He tries to explain why this is the perfect woman for all your woman needs! Like uhhh sex, and... sex, and lawyering? maybe murder? (I guess he thinks it'd be nice to have a woman who can kill for you and defend your crimes in a court of law. That does sound useful in their situation)

Then he watched the Bride fight Francesca like some sort of underground girlfriend fighting ring, as if the larger and stronger girl would win ownership of our poor pathetic Dr Cain. Unfortunately Herbert's creation broke down to nothing when it removed its own heart to give it to Dan in the same exact gesture with which Herbert showed Dan the heart earlier.

Pure heterosexual coincidence, of course. There is absolutely nothing odd about Herbert's gift to Daniel being a grotesque amalgamation of everyone Dan loved instead of him and everything those people had to offer Dan, fueled by the pumping of Megan's heart (whom Herbert had hated and competed with), a heart both stolen and offered willingly, one both frozen and thawed, both beating and dead. There Dan stays, too close, yet too far. (am i reading into it- You Bet)

Yup. Pure coincidence. And also nothing suspicious about it being a creature created of such concentrated love, reverence, devotion, and bitter fear of rejection, that at the moment of being pushed away, it entirely self destructs because its only purpose was to love Dan and be loved by him. Its only purpose was to be perfect for Dan, to be enough for him, to be some action of Herberts blood sweat and tears that could ever be wanted by him. But of course Herbert doesn't understand Daniel - understand people - as well as he hoped too. Dan is horrified. No clearer rejection than that. If we see her as an extension of Herbert, it's obviously the last straw. Herbert truly did everything for Dan, not only was he still unlovable, but repulsive, an affront to... what have you; god, nature, some simple short-sighted ideal of what a human should be. Above that Dan could see the seams of the uncanny imitation of his past loves, and the love that laid beneath was too much for him. Too loud, too fast, too raw and bloody. So it dies. The heart is given, and thrown away.

What I'm trying to say is that shit was crazy. Herbert could have done a much more cut and dry baby trap. He could have reanimated some random kid, forcing Dan to stick around and protect it. That would have been its own special kind of fucked up and is probably a good fanfic prompt. But noooo, Herbert had to do the most psychosexual, convoluted, batshit, traumatizing, bloody, gory, and frankly unnecessary declaration of love that could be achieved by one little scientist with nothing to his name but a little green potion and every mental illness. I for one think it was a fantastic idea.

No tldr, ur just gonna have to match my freak on this one. Hope my mad ramblings made some sense. Peace and love

[thechaoticdruid]

[We'll Protect Each Other]

Paring: F!Tav x Astarion

Plot: While staying at an inn in the Underdark an unfortunate chain of events forces Tav and Astarion to protect one another.

Content Warnings: Fiercely protective Tav, Tav uses She/Her pronouns, Tav is kinda feral and unhinged, blood, gore, threats of/ literal genital trauma, we are going game of thrones up in this bitch, sexual harassment, brief allusions to Astarion's trauma, violence, so much fucking violence, death, Tav is heavily based on my own Tav Winnie. Oh and a little fluff.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tav hummed as she sat at the tavern table, glancing down upon the suspicious letter she'd received last night. 

‘I'll see you soon, True Soul.’

Been a while since she was called that, almost everyone who had referred to her as a ‘true soul’ was dead now so being addressed as such was rather peculiar, but at the same time not completely unwelcome. Tav smirked slightly, the idea of a new foe to face sparked excitement. It had been so long since the human druid had a good fight.  Since the defeat of the Elder Brain she'd been staying in the Underdark, looking after a horde of hungry vampire spawn. Her days weren't uneventful in the slightest, but gods did she miss adventuring. 

Tav's lover was over at the bar getting the two something to drink. Since the Underdark has become home to seven thousand life-challenged individuals this particular inn had made preparations to feed them should any appear at the establishment. He tapped his claws on the table, waiting for the bartender to finish mixing up their beverages as an uneasy feeling coursed through his body. Astarion had felt unfamiliar eyes on him since he'd left to get him and his beloved some refreshments. His blood red eyes darted back and scanned the tavern. Tav was still waiting at their table and mostly all the other patrons there happened to be deep gnomes, all who seemed much more concerned with friendly banter. But then he spotted someone off in the corner. A tall half-orc whose eyes seemed trained on him.  Astarion wasn't exactly sure how he didn't spot the big oaf sooner, usually he was far more perceptive than this, but perhaps his hunger had him quite distracted. The elven vampire tapped on the bar table impatiently wondering exactly what was taking the bartender so long. 

Eventually the half-drow barmaid brought over the drinks.

“Sorry for the wait.” She said softly, “not used to preparing food for our night time visitors.” The half-elf handed him a cold mug of dessert wine and a warm mug of ethically precured lifeblood.

Astarion took the drinks before turning and making his way back.  The half-orc then made his move, walking straight towards him.  

“Have a drink with me, handsome?” The half-orc gave a flirtatious smile, making the elf internally sigh in annoyance.

“No, I think not. My partner is waiting for me, you see.” Astarion gave a forced smile before attempting to make his way back to Tav. A large green hand was placed on his shoulder.

“Come on! Surely you're not talking about the little rat’s nest of hair? Sweetheart, I could show you things that little human wench couldn't even dream of-”

The elf quickly slapped his hand away. 

“Oh, I highly doubt you could show me anything I haven't already done myself. Now bugger off.” Astarion growled out the last part, barring his fangs at the orc before stomping off. 

Tav glanced up as Astarion took a seat next to her. He had a look of discomfort on his face, but quickly bushed it off as he noticed her attention on him.  “I'm back, my sweet.” Astarion smiled at Tav, setting their drinks down before planting a kiss on her cheek.

“You okay, doll? You seem uncomfortable.” Tav put her hand on his shoulder only to receive a small smile as his hand covered her own.

“I'm fine, love. Just a little annoyed by the wait is all.” Astarion squeezed her hand gently, not wanting her to worry. 

“Okay….” Tav said before looked back down at the letter, taking a sip from the wine Astarion had brought her. 

“What's that?” Astarion asked, sliding an arm over her shoulders before taking a sip from his own mug and internally sighing.

Rothé blood….

“Just an ominous threatening letter left by gods know who.” Tav said casually, nearly making Astarion spit out his blood. 

“Ah darling, perhaps you should be a just little more concerned about this?” 

“I'm not afraid. Let them come get me! I've been itching for a good fight for ages!” Tav clenched her fist, a wicked grin spread across her face. 

“Oh Tav, you know what that bloodlust look does to me.~” Astarion flirted leaning closer against his love. “But maybe we should be at least a bit more careful?”

“We’ve dealt with plenty of baddies before, Star. It’ll be fine!” Tav insisted.

“Need I remind you that there are only two of us now since the others have all gone their separate ways.” Astarion sighed, “I just worry for you, my dear.” 

“I know babe.” Tav planted a kiss on his cheek affectionately before saying,”I'll tell you what, once we get everything sorted out with the other spawn we'll recruit some new traveling companions and go after that ring of the sunwalker thing I heard about.” This brought a smile to the vampire’s lips. 

Large footsteps were heard stomping over to the table. Astarion glanced up seeing the half-orc from before approaching them.

“Sorry about my behavior before sweetness. I've just never seen such a breathtaking looking creature such as yourself. So, how about you ditch the runt and i'll take you somewhere we can get you something better to drink…. Perhaps someone?~” 

“Are you daft? I told you to bugger off!” Astarion snarled, glaring daggers at the large male. Astarion kept his arm around Tav in a protective manner, but it was more so for his own comfort truth be told. The half-orc was really making him uneasy. Tav could feel Astarion shake a little. 

“Hey, no need to be like that, I just want a piece of that tight little elven as-”  The half-orc was suddenly silenced by a scimitar pressed dangerously close to his groin.

“You really don't want to finish that sentence, big guy.” Tav said calmly, not even looking up at the green bastard. “You know I’ve been really itching to slit someone's throat lately, but you….I think I might have fun with you…” She said before finally turning her head towards him, a sadistic grin spread across her lips. 

“Y-You better watch yourself y-you little b-b-bitch!” He whined out the last part feeling Tav press her blade harder against his clothed crotch.

“Oh I like this!” Tav breathed out, voice unhinged and full of bloodlust as the half-orc began to shake in terror. “A big stupid creep thinks he can push me around just because I'm small…It's almost cute how pathetic you are. I should cut you open and show everyone what you really are inside. A gutless coward!” Tav stared at him intensely. The wicked grin spread across her lips didn't falter even for a second, until eventually she sighed.

“But it'd be rude to get blood all over Lyn’s nice clean floors.” Tav said, speaking of the half-drow bartender. “So you're going to leave now and never come near my lover again, or I'll cut your cock off and shove it down your throat. Understand?” Tav spat, nearly stabbing the blade of her scimitar through the orc’s pants.

“Y-Yes m-ma’m!” The half-orc said in a high pitch tone. 

“Good boy.” Tav pulled her blade back, “now get the fuck out of my sight.” She growled, causing the green creep to turn and make a run for it, slamming the door on his way out of the tavern. All the gnomes had seemed to halt their chatter and look over to the two lovers.

“Tav…” Astarion muttered in an irritated tone, “I didn't need you to defend me! I had that completely under control!” He fussed, clearly embarrassed because of the scene Tav had caused. 

“I'm sure you did sweetie, but you can't just expect me to sit by and do nothing when some pervert keeps treating you like a piece of meat.” Tav said calmly. 

“Darling that orc was huge! What if you hadn't been quick enough!? What if he comes back!?”

“Honey, I can literally turn into an owlbear.” Tav rolled her eyes. “I know you’re capable of kicking ass, Star. I have no doubt about that. But I don’t protect you because I think you're weak. I do it because I love you.” Tav said sweetly, placing her hand against his cheek. “And sometimes it's okay to need someone to protect you…” She looked down at his trembling hands. Fear began to stir in her gut, worried that he might have been triggered by the situation. Astarion simply place his hand over hers and relaxed into her touch. 

“I know. I love you too…It's just…I want to be able to protect the both of us…” Astarion glanced off to the side.

“You can! Babe, you're so much stronger than you give yourself credit for! You practically carried our team the entire time we were worm brained!” Tav placed a second hand on the other side of his face. Astarion rolled his eyes with a slight smile.

“Gods Tav, you're such a bad liar.” 

“I'm not lying!” Tav chuckled, “I'm pretty sure you have more kills than the rest of us combined! You're so stealthily and quick! The fuckers never saw it coming!” 

“Well perhaps I could be willing to allow you to win this little debate. Granted you continue to list off all of my many talents, or you can just call me beautiful and we can head upstairs for the evening?” 

“You're beyond beautiful, my Star.” Tav purred. 

        •~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•

The night was quiet as Tav and Astarion rested on the top floor of the Inn. Both of them snug in their bed. Astarion always had a tendency to curl around Tav as she slept and he tranced. However, tonight Tav lay there, eyes wide open. Her mind for some reason wandering off to a memory brought on by today's events.

“I assume he belongs to you.” The drow’s eyes leered over Astarion lustfully as she spoke about his as if he was nothing but cattle.

“Excuse me? I don't appreciate you talking about my friend like he's a fucking piece of property.” Tav snapped, stepping in front of her companion protectively. Of course she'd see him that way. The drow treat all their men like cattle. The fact didn't make Tav any less insulted. 

“Now now. No need to speak like that. I only wish to make a trade.” The drow said calmly, however her stare seemed to harden a little. “What is your name, spawn?” 

“It’s Astarion but hold on!” Astarion put his hands up as if to keep some distance between him the drow. 

“Astarion, I've dreamt of being bitten by a vampire since I was a little girl.” She purred. Tav shot the drow a look which she ignored, red eyes locked on Astarion’s mouth.

“Let me get this straight, you want to be bitten?” Astarion asked, a look of confusion and disgust filled his face. Normally he would jump at a chance to sink his teeth into a willing person, hells part of him wanted to drain this bitch dry because of how she talked about him, but this drow pretty as she was her blood smelled worse than death itself! Just being in her presence was enough to make him want to gag! 

“To feel my life’s essence slipping away, to dance on the edge of death, yes I want it.” She said, nearly swooning. “I'll even compensate you. A potion of legendary power. It's not for sale, but it's yours if you bite me.” 

“I will have to decline.” Astarion said immediately.

“Excuse me? This is a once and a lifetime opportunity and you're squandering it!” 

“I gave you my answer!” Astarion spat. The drow woman ignored him and immediately turned to Tav. 

“Can't you talk some sense into your obstinate charge!?” She demanded.

“He said no. The hells do you not understand?” The druid snapped.

Gods, Tav couldn't help but think back to her first encounter with Araj the drow blood merchant. This incident today reminded her far too much of it. Except this time it might have been worse. The fucking orc actually tried to put his hands on him.

Tav furrowed her eyebrows and glanced back over to Astarion’s peaceful looking face. She knew he could handle himself in a fight, but the situation was different. These sorts of things really got to him. Tav ran her fingers gently through his hair. She needed to keep safe no matter what. Sleep took Tav eventually and she snuggled into her vampire’s embrace, enjoying the coolness of his skin.  And for a while the two were at peace, blissfully unaware of what lurked in the shadows.

It was probably about midnight when Tav woke up. She whimpered and felt around the bed for her lover, only feeling emptiness in his place. 

“Astarion?” Her eyes slowly blinked open and Tav sat up. She glanced around the room discovering the vampiric elf was nowhere in sight.  She tried to rationalize that Astarion was probably just up and around since he didn't need as much rest as she did, but Tav couldn't help but feel anxiety creep its way into the back of her mind.  She got to her feet before slowly feeling a dagger be pressed against her throat. 

“Nice to see you again, true soul…” A familiar feminine voice spoke softly in Tav's ear, causing her to grit her teeth as she looked back. 

“Araj? The hells are you doing all the way out here?” Tav sneered. 

“I needed to see you again. I require your help.” 

“I told you before, you aren't getting any more of my blood and if you even think of bringing up Astarion so help me-”

“This isn't about him, darling. This is about you. I am on the verge of something extraordinary, but I need one key ingredient. Your heart.” Araj slowly dragged the knife down her throat and down between her breasts.

Tav rolled her eyes before chuckling.

“Sweet, but you know I'm spoken for.” In a swift motion the druid slammed her foot down on the drow's own before grasping hold of her wrist and forcing the blade away from her body.

“You idiots! Get in here and help me!” Araj suddenly shouted, prompting the door to open, revealed two half-orc male’s and a female. 

With them was Astarion bound with silver chains wrapped around his body. Cloth was tied around his mouth, preventing him from speaking, but Tav could very clearly hear him whimpering in pain. The silver was burning his skin! 

“Now cooperate or else! I'll make sure our darling bloodsuck-” Tav didn't even give the drow a moment to speak any further before knocking the blade from her hand and slamming her fist into her face with enough force to knock Araj to the floor. Araj hit the ground with a thud, seemingly knocked unconscious from the blow. The druid’s eyes quickly went back to Astarion who was struggling and letting out muffled cries of pain, but despite this he looked far more pissed off than afraid.  That didn't calm the rage that was stirring deep inside Tav however, and the fact that the same gods damned perverted orc from before was holding onto Astarion's silver chains just pushed her over the edge. 

Without even thinking Tav dropped to the ground transforming into a huge direwolf before letting out a deep bloodthirsty snarl and lunging right for the familiar half orc. Her jaws sank right into his groin, causing him to let out a blood curdling scream.

“Bloody hells! Get that thing off of him!” The female half-orc shouted. 

“But the vampire!?” The other male orc replied.

“He's tied up you dumb fuck!” She shouted before turning to attack Tav. Tav yanked her head back hard, tearing a chunk out of the half-orc’s flesh and trousers. The half orc continued to scream as Tav spat his unmentionables out before he tumbled over and began to bleed out on the floor. 

“That crazy drow bitch better pay us good for this.” The remaining male half-orc muttered before charging at Tav alongside the female. 

Tav quickly dove under his legs before bucking him to the ground with her back and darting right for Astarion. Astarion shook his head as his wildshaped lover approached him with a doglike whine and sunk her teeth into his chains, trying to he them off him. She was only able to allow one of his arms to slip free. Astarion quickly tore the cloth around his head. 

“For gods' sake Tav! Look out!” He shouted, before suddenly the female half-orc slammed into Tav from behind, wrapping her arms around her in a headlock. 

“I've got her! I've got her!” The female orc shouted. Tav growled loudly before turning round and sinking her teeth into the orc female’s shoulder. In the struggle the two ended up tumbling down the stairs and out the front door of the tavern.  The half-orc male was about to run off after his female companion when suddenly he noticed Astarion had somehow slipped free from his bindings. The vampire’s skin was quickly healing from the burns left from the silver, and his eyes almost appeared to be glowing red. He clenched and unclenched his fists revealing sharp claw-like fingernails and the next thing the half-orc knew were icy fangs piercing his throat.

Outside the tavern, Tav and the female orc were still going at it. The half orc threw a punch to Tav's head knocking her back before she took out a blade and took a stab at the direwolf only for Tav to dart out of the way at the last second and take a bit at the orc woman’s leg. 

“You godsdamn mutt!” She yelled, kicking Tav in the face before plugging her blade into her back.

Tav howled in pain and backed up, blood trickling down her back and staining her fur.  She let out a pained whimper as she looked up at the half-orc.

The she-orc smirked triumphantly.

“Not so high and mighty now are you, druid?” She huffed starring Tav right in the eyes. Without another word Tav lunged at the orc with a monstrous growl, sinking her jaws into the green female's head. 

“GODS DAMNIT!!” The half-orc screamed. Tav sunk her claws into her shoulders as she stood up on her hind legs and dug her teeth into the orc's skull.  Then with a harsh whip of her head Tav snapped her opponent’s neck. The druid then released the orc, letting her drop to the ground.

Tav dropped back down on all fours with a sigh, panting a little from the fight. She turned her head and yanked the blade from her back. Luckily in this form she wouldn't actually be harmed. But she was honestly feeling far too tired to stay in her wildshape now. Slowly she transformed back, taking a moment to regain her strength. 

“A-Astarion…I-I need to get back to Astarion…” Tav told herself. 

“I'm afraid you won't be seeing him again.” Araj suddenly stepped out from the shadows, blade in hand. “I am not leaving without your heart!” She hissed. 

“Oh for fucks sake! Don't you ever get tired of being a psycho!?” Tav hissed, she quickly reached for her weapon, but this time Araj was quicker.  She stabbed her blade into Tav's leg making her freeze. 

“What….W-What is this!?” Tav sputtered, suddenly feeling her limbs begin to tingle and go numb. She tried to move, but her body just felt so heavy. 

“A paralysis potion I've been keeping for a rainy day. I'd hoped I wouldn't have to use it. I have no idea what affects it will have on your heart unfortunately, but I can't let you get away.” Araj stopped as she watched Tav whimper and squirm on the ground. The silver haired female wiped her blade clean off the potion before she then undid the buttons on Tav's shirt, exposing her chest.

“Now I'll need a nice clean cut. I don't want to damage your heart too badly.” The drow licked her lips before dragging the tip of her blade over Tav’s chest. “Just close your eyes and it'll be all over…” Tears began to form in the corners of Tav’s eyes, heart pounding so hard she was sure it’d burst right out before that damn drow bitch would even have a chance to cut into it.

“Get away from my Tav.” Astarion suddenly growled out, appearing behind Araj who quickly turned and struck at him with her blade. 

“Not until I have her heart!” Araj hissed.

Astarion ducked out of the way, unsheathing his own blade and taking a swing at her.  His dagger barely nicked the side of her cheek as she dodged, drawing a few drops of blood.

“Gods below, it's even more foul smelling than before!” He made a gagging sound.

“Mock me all you like! It won't stop me!” Araj took another stab at Astarion aiming right for his throat, but he quickly grabbed her wrists and pushed her back towards the ground. Now that he was free of the tadpole his vampiric strength returned and it gave him an edge in battle.

“You know darling, I think I may have had a sudden change of heart. I may just bite you after all.” Astarion said, forcing a grin upon his face. 

“What-” Confusion flickered over her face for a split second, immediately being followed by Astarion sinking his fangs into her neck, but instead of drinking her blood, he tore her throat right out.  

Astarion immediately spat out any of her blood that had gotten into his mouth before watching her drop to the ground, a twisted smile plastered over her face. “I-Incredible….” She choked out before suddenly coughing up an alarming amount of blood. 

 He quickly disregarded her lifeless body and swiftly moved to Tav who was still paralyzed on the ground. 

“My love, are you alright?” Astarion knelt down and cradled her head with one hand.

“I-I can't m-move….S-She got me with a paralysis poison…” Tav croaked out.

“Hang in there lover.”Astarion frowned, looking down at Tav with worry. He immediately scooped her up bridal-style. “I'm going to take you to Dalyria. She should be able to cure this.” Astarion carried Tav back into the tavern. Several of the patrons were whispering to each other. Some seemed deathly afraid of Astarion and his love. The vampire spawn simply ignored them.

“I don't think we're going to be welcome here any longer, Star.” Tav said as Astarion set her down on a sofa near the tavern fireplace.  

“Forget them, darling. We're leaving anyway. Now sit tight while I grab our things.” Astarion said, kissing her forehead before quickly going upstairs to get their packs. Tav sat by the fire, she could see the barmaid Lyn giving her an awfully ugly look. 

Good gods, it's not our fault we were attacked.

Tav rolled her eyes. It didn't take long for Astarion to return with their things.  Tav weakly nuzzled her face into his neck as Astarion scooped her back up into his arms. Tav stared up at him with adoration as he carried her out. 

“You did it, you know.” She hummed.

“What are you on about?’ Astarion glanced down at her.

“You protected me!” Tav exclaimed with a weak smile, “and thank the gods you did. I was sure I was a goner.”

“You give me far too much credit, my love. I still allowed you to get injured. You did a much better job than I.” Astarion huffed. 

“You kidding? You just saved my life Astarion and this isn't even the first time.” Tav insisted. “Look, from now on no more arguing over who protects who. We protect each other and that's final.” 

“You're being awfully demanding of someone who can't even move her arms, my dear.” Astarion chuckled, “but I am grateful all the same.”

He planted another kiss upon Tav's forehead before continuing on to meet up with his sister and hopefully cure his beloved’s ailment.

The two set off, leaving the tavern to deal with three battered corpses and a mysterious trail of blood…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note from TheChaoticDruid: Phew! Finally got this thing out! Honestly despite finding her a very shitty person and absolutely despising how she treats Astarion I can't help but find Araj interesting. The whole thing with blood and heck the creepy shit you find in her basement makes me want to know more about her. Kinda went a little overboard with this in terms of violence I guess, but I kinda wish there were more bg3 fics with some action in them. Also, I may have kinda ignored how silver and vampires work in DnD, but BG3 plays fast and loose with lore so I guess I will too. Hope you like it!

[greenbloods]

disco elysium-like: theon in winterfell, adwd

You stand over the parapet. All around you the crossbows are whistling in flight, nocking, tensing. Far off to the north was a warhorn sound.

LOGIC: Stannis. Our only hope, if we can reach him.

PERCEPTION: The cool air stings against your face. Time slows to a crawl.

ENDURANCE [medium: failure]: Look at you, thinking you could play the hero like the songs. You must be fucking insane. That's it, isn't it? The Bastard must have flayed your brain too.

SHIVERS [challenging: success]: The snows whispered in the autumn air, falling like ash. Like tears. Somewhere, deep beneath the bowels of the earth, the dead kings stand vigil over stone tombs, the swords stern and sturdy in their hands. In the heart of the woods the weirwood waits with its knowing red eyes.

SUGGESTION: Reek...reek....

INLAND EMPIRE [trivial: failure]: It rhymes with Mozambique.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [easy: success]: What the fuck is Mozambique?

A bolt passed within a foot of you, shattering the crust of frozen snow that had plugged the closest crenel. Holly and Frenya were as good as dead. There was no sign of the other spearwives.

HALF-LIGHT: If they take us alive, they will deliver us to Ramsay.

COMPOSURE [formidable: success]: You feel Jeyne in your arms. She was the only warmth in the world.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [challenging: success]: You've only seen Bran climb these walls a hundred times. It's just like that, see? Just the other way round. All you have to do is fall.

PAIN THRESHOLD : Just like Bran.

DAMAGED MORALE -1

LOGIC: There's nothing else to do.

INLAND EMPIRE: No chance, and no choice.

Jump.

Jump.

Jump.

-1 Internalized Dog Motif. -1 Missing fingers. -1 Life is not a song. +1 The old gods know your name.

⚅⚄

SUCCESS: LEGENDARY

VOLITION: Deep breath in, out.

PAIN THRESHOLD: This is going to hurt.

You grab Jeyne about the waist, and fly.

[waitmyturtles]

4 Minutes, Family, and Perceptions of Reality

Last week, before episode 6 aired, I was itching to pen some thoughts about breaking down family ties in 4 Minutes and how I thought themes like intergenerational trauma and filial piety (I stay so typical here on this blog) were affecting each character.

I'm glad I held off, and it's still probably just too soon to write this kind of analysis without knowing the entirety of the story. But this post by @cookie-kat777 about Great and possible present depression has me thinking at least about family, the way we are raised, and how our upbringings at least contribute to how we see the world as adults.

In this past Friday's episode, with @cookie-kat777's post on my mind, Great struck me as lonely and sociopathic -- and did Bible Wichapas ever do a HELL of a job acting out Great's generally questionable reactions as compared to everyday, normal social expectations of behavior surrounding INCREDIBLY intense and traumatic exposures to literal murder and/or death. At least we see him taking meds, but those giggles at the dinner table with his family were clearly off-putting and indicated that Great is not quite “there” in the head.

Even if Great didn't know about the illegal gambling business that built his wealthy lifestyle -- the choices, separately, that his father and his mother made to ensure their existence as a wealthy and important family certainly had brutal impacts on Great as he grew up, as well as, we assume, their emotional neglect of him during his upbringing.

(And, if I can bring up an example from the previous timeshift of earlier in the series, we know Great's parents used money to literally buy him happiness by way of toys that had no emotional meaning to him. Money may have bought him protection from consequences, but we've known from the start that it's never brought him happiness.)

Great's perception of what's SAFE and morally/ethically RIGHT, or at least, ACCEPTABLE, in the wider world, versus his own internal world, are UTTERLY OFF. While @cookie-kat777 absolutely lays out how that mental state could affect Great internally vis à vis depression, I'll also posit that it was Great's family environment -- his mother, his father, and Korn growing up knowing that he'd inherit at least some of the family business -- that also is fucking up his perception of the expected binary of "right" and "wrong" of society. We don't know quite how his mother clawed her way to Great's father's side, without Korn's mom present, but I'm going to guess it was brutal -- especially, as we see in this latest timeshift, Great's ability to walk away from death multiple times, and his father's angry ease in making death "go away," as it were (and let's throw Title in there, too).

A child's understanding of the world, how to go about in the world, how to interact in the world, how they relate to the external world, comes so much from their upbringing. An upbringing of a child creates relativity for that child. As children, we see the world as our caretakers interacted in it, and we're inclined to repeat that behavior -- until we are challenged by external forces to change our behavior and our viewpoints. Just as the four minutes from the time oxygen is cut off to a brain creates a new sense of perception, a specific upbringing of a child -- by parents, by grandparents, by a foster family, by an orphanage, etc. -- will have direct impacts on how that child grows up to relate to its world as an adult.

Tyme is the person that offers a challenge to Great's understanding of and relation to the external world and, subsequently, Great’s internal world as well. In this new timeshift of episode 6, I appreciate how Tyme seems so much more bitter, transactional, and "real" in straight-up using Great -- all while Great admires Tyme's tenacity to fuck with Great's family, as if Tyme were doing an action that Great has longed to do against his own family. Great ultimately does something, a one thing, in saving Tyme, but Tyme still walks away from Great, and Great is still left alone.

But in that process of being left alone, AGAIN, this time by someone who challenged him -- Great then moves forward to challenge his own existence and upbringing, confronting, finally, his parents for their decisions, and driving away from his mother. ...

... only to get shot by a grieving person in Tonkla, someone seeking revenge for a murdered brother that Tonkla simply loved. No matter where this story goes, at least we know that Tonkla loved Dome, to the extent of murdering others on Dome's behalf. While this storyline also isn't fully revealed, the Tonkla/Dome storyline narrates back to us, in another strange way, how family and familial ties can drive a person to go utterly haywire in their existence to survive and understand the world.

And, finally -- we learn that Tyme's parents were possibly the kingpins of the Sriwat illegal gambling business. How Tyme sees the world, in whatever timeshift he's in, has now also gotten jacked up with this piece of potential truth. What is his new reality vis à vis what he's been told? What is his capability to survive, especially after being saved by Great?

Like I said before, ha: I think it's too early to write this post without knowing if we'll be given a final, central narrative line about how all of these timeshifts link up. But I am LOVING, in this FABULOUS show, how we're being shown that the truths of how our families lived their lives can have such great impact on the way WE live OUR lives as adults, and I'm taking that theme away as something this show is commenting so very sophisticatedly on.

[celestialtarot11]

Common Cards for Healing in Tarot 🌴🌺

Hi friends! Today we’re looking at different cards you can receive in tarot when it comes to healing + what they mean. As the pisces season wraps up into Aries, I thought this would be suitable!🌹 please like, comment, and reblog to your hearts content! 💗

8 of cups 💨- When tarot drops this absolute banger it’s an indication of leaving or walking away from something we once idolized, or put on a pedestal. It involves discipline, seeing the truth, and grief is associated with this card. Mourning the current circumstances but knowing a better future awaits. It hurts since it’s something we once cared about. Known as the phrase, “grief is love in a heavy coat.”

Judgement 💫- The card of truth despite the ego. A card of tumultuous shifts and changes all leading the reader towards themselves. Something unavoidable, and undeniable. Whatever the reader has been running from will eventually catch up to them. It’s time to shine the light onto what has been hidden. Associated with third eye openings and upgrades. Usually the perception of self and the circumstance shifts heavily.

3 of swords reversed 👻- Releasing the ex, but not always is it related to a person. Releasing baggage in a situation or circumstance, finding inner truth and salvation, resting. Expressing emotional pain with unconditional acceptance and clarity. Journaling frees the mind. Releasing mental control of a situation, because if its out of our hands it deserves to be out of our minds.

The Hermit 🌟- Going on an inner journey to heal and recover. Associated with heavy thinking into the past, being analytical of one self, digging deeper to find out an emotional truth. Being reserved to protect one’s energy and self. Social media breaks and disconnect. Coming out with awareness and understanding that one did not have before.

5 of pentacles reversed 💅🏻- Finding safety and security, repairing situations or finding refuge. Support and protection is offered, and the person feels comforted. Release of heavy baggage and grief. The grief is easier to accept and put down now.

2 of cups 🍵- Therapy and opening up about the past in ways the person may not have done before. Confiding in someone who they are learning to trust. Trying to find themselves in therapy, having a soundboard. If not therapy, meeting like minded people who sees the reader and understands them deeply. Feels safe, trusting, and free.

Queen of cups ☕️- Knowing your emotional truth, having better boundaries this time, and leveling up. Emotional abundance, security and feels at peace with what they created internally.

4 of swords ✨- Mental rest, healing and peace. Meditation to find ease. Trusting the path. Listening to intuition. Taking breaks to reconnect with self. Journaling and brain dumping. Breathing out and feeling calm.

6 of swords 🌹- Emotional abundance, moving on from the past. Moving towards a better future. Releasing stuck or stagnant energy. Transitioning from something painful to the light. Seeing the way out.

The Sun ☀️- Happiness, joy, clarity. Comfort and peace. Feeling carefree and safe to be oneself. Lots of laughter and meaningful moments. Truly connect to oneself.

10 of swords 🗡️- Complete stop, ending of a cycle or circumstance. Usually a lot of guilt or regret is followed by this card, and exhaustion. Mourning over how something went or the choices that were made. Mental unease, overthinking and overwhelming thoughts.

The World 🌴- At one with the universe. Connected to mass consciousness. Moves with awareness and presence, and feels fulfilled inside and out. The ending and beginning of a chapter. New experiences await.

The Tower 🌟- The end of something shaky. Shaky relationship, friendship, circumstance. The falling down to rebuild stronger and better. Now, better choices can be made. There’s room for awareness and improvement.

Death ⌛️- The end of a painful cycle and into the new. Doubts are still present and anxieties. Slowly, the reader will find themselves able to understand those fears and work through them. This card is felt very strongly in a spiritual sense. The endings ripple internally, as it’s not just the death of a circumstance but the ego.

The Star 💨- After the Death comes The Star. Reborn, rebirth, transformation. The hope after all was lost, or what one thought was the case. Reinventing oneself, new patterns, new beliefs, planning manifestations. Planting seeds of success.

Thats all I have for you friends! Enjoy and feel free to like comment and reblog 🌟❤️ Its always appreciated! Your support means a lot to me.

Paid Readings 🍵💫

[ms-scarletwings]

This Single Oversight Will Bring Irken-Kind to Its Knees

I have a little riddle for you.

What does an ant nest, a computer, and the ancient city of Troy have in common?

While you ponder the significance of this question and consider your answer, there’s a few things I want to analyze about the worldbuilding of Invader Zim.

We may have heard it said before, least I have (and agree), that the fate of the IZ universe appears to be a rather bleak picture.

Through our lens of focus, being upon Earth and an oh-so specific nutball waging his battle upon humanity, we often don’t do as much thinking about the larger cosmic war taking place meanwhile. Not between the Meekrob and Tenn, not between the Tallest and every dumb luck threat they are thrown against, but between the Irken Armada and all life in the entire universe, sentient or not.

Their intentions will not be made any more clear, between outright eradication or eventual enslavement of every lifeform they set their sights on. While they have alliances and neutral treaties, those agreements seem few and far between, as well as born from temporary conveniences. The cards have already been dealt, and all available evidence has indicated that every planet they are aware of is doomed from the moment The Massive was operational.

Though littered with inefficiencies and incompetency that could suggest an empire in internal decline, the development of the control brains and other centralized command crutches of the species suggests the Irkens can still keep a well oiled machine running, no matter how many mishaps happen along the way. At least, that machine and their plundered resources will definitely outlast the survival of their enemies, for sure.

To speak of their enemies, there has not been a single competitive race within the show that demonstrates any credible threat to Operation Impending Doom II- only those that can resist the conquest a little bit longer than others, or those who survive by appeasing Irk (or evading its detection). The fall of Vort, which stood as the homeworld of the only aliens with the technological ability to match the armada’s firepower is…. Really bad news. That’s to say the least of comparatively primitive, TINY planets like Earth or Blorch, standing zero chance in the way of what’s eventually coming. This is a war that has continued despite the death of two.. FOUR Almighty Tallests if you follow the movie’s events… and Irkens wholly are still thriving for it across the Galaxy.

So, given all of these facts, and the perception that the Irkens (like any invasive species or colonial force) don’t seem to be a society that will make responsible and/or sustainable use of their ill-gotten territory… it seems like this is how life across the universe ends in Invader Zim one day: Not with a bang, not with the whimper of heat death, but through screams muffled under the bloody boots of a dominant predator- a predator that is, itself, doomed to cannibalize its own once it hits the carrying capacity of all existence.

Bleak, concrete, and horrific as that may sound, there’s still a “however” here to consider!

Yep, that’s me about to point one of my big fat fingers to the sky and protest- Irk just might be,

Not so Undefeatable, after all!

And not only have I figured out exactly what sort of countermeasure you need to destroy these invaders, I have reason to suspect it’s a plan already long ago set into motion.

Let’s break it down,

An Irksome Achilles’ Heel

True, individually, the bug bastards are irritatingly tough to kill through conventional means. True, collectively, they are nigh impossible to outmatch. And more than most anything else, they owe this tenacity to two things: numbers, and R&D. Possessing some of most state of the art pinnacles in transportation, communications, and military equipment, the Armada found a knack for being able to steamroll most lesser planets before it.

The genius of the individual PAK unit grants each and any one Irken a theoretical path to partial immortality itself, by route of consciousness archiving. I strongly believe that kind of cybernetic progress was also one of the stepping stones that led to the creation of the Control Brains. Nonetheless, this very same strength of the Irkens’ has also proven to be the source of their greatest vulnerability.

Paks, Paks… Oh Paks. The entire race’s civilization revolves around such technology the way we do around our own brains, our own hearts, and our communicative network. For all intents and purposes, and as I’ve gone on about ad nauseum in my other spills about the show, a PAK is all and at once

• Synonymous with the holder of their soul, consciousness, being, whatever you want to call their personhood.

• Able to have their data repurposed by future generations, in the result of an Irken’s permanent death.

• A universal necessity shared by the entire population.

• Susceptible to alterations, sometimes by intelligent enough individuals (as demonstrated by the Zimvoid comic arc), but usually by a Control Brain, directly.

In addition to that last quality, there’s another way the code in a PAK can be changed, for better or worse- Via evolution. Though I am talking about digitized neurology, the actual data in a PAK is a lot more comparable to biological DNA or a “self-learning” AI than it is a rigid computer program. By this, I mean that its code is subject to certain changes over time, perhaps both directed and completely random, particularly during the recycling of its information back into the Smeeteries.

And this is actually good design on the control brains’ part, the same way not reproducing Irkens as genetically identical clones was. Genetic and digital diversity are desirable goals to keep in mind if you want a healthy and versatile stock of workers, engineers, soldiers, and everything in between. We’re talking about highly sentient, highly intelligent, and emotional organisms here. A static drone mindset is going to offer them inadequate ability to adapt to their lengthy life experiences or be unique persons. How else would social mobility have purpose in their world? How else could the cream of the crop rise so far above their peers? That positive was deemed worthy of an obvious risk, however: computational errors.

When the Bugs Get Bugs

 IZ does not clearly lay out what it means for an Irken to be defective, but it gives us a general idea. Defectiveness is not something diagnosed from a code scan for this missing value or that incorrect variable. It’s not judged by one specific character trait or quality that’s abnormal for an Irken to display. “Defective” is a judgement stamp, wielded by the Control Brains when they gauge the total sum value of a life’s contribution to the species. And it’s not one given to Irkens which are merely incompetent, no. Anyone proven to be unfit for their standing is given generous opportunity for redemption or simply reassigned a more suitable occupation. If it were based on likability, we’d have seen Skoodge sent to Judgementia years ago.

Rather, it’s given to those who are viewed as so twisted that they are proven to be an existential danger to their brethren. Irkens that are so destructive to the essence of the collective that their memory must be purged from the record and their identity erased.

I adore the enthusiasm behind fans who want to view this as an analogy for disability or neurodivergence against a conformist society, but the metaphor I’m seeing is one of extreme antisocial behavior. A defective Irken screams less “adhd/autism” to me than they do serial murderers (of their own) or outright traitors. Pardon the use of a gross phrase, but it’d seem we were talking about an Irken equivalent of what the outdated gens would have dubbed the “criminally insane”. No one on screen has ever shown Skoodge or Tak the sort of concern that would get them sent to the Spike of Judgement, but when Zim was in that hot seat? NO one was doubting what his verdict would be.

^ courtesy of “The Trial’s” transcript

I think about the 40 shmillion mistakes a lot.

It’s such a vague quantity. But it sure sounds like a hell of a big one. And what mistakes��� what did the lil squirt even have to compare them to? There’s no standard one person an Irken can be. Every presentation of the flaws in that code to the control brains hasn’t ended up a flaw to him.

I only started writing this because I really couldn’t stop thinking about the 40 shmillion. There’s no chronological room for bad self-modding to add up to that so quickly.  DNA replication, nature’s own sloppy and random process of creating new life, can be excused around 120,000 hiccups when duplicating with a 6 billion pair-long protein. But this kind of shuffling is under a futuristic AI’s precise eye. Yes, defects happen, but as bad as him? From birth??? How could you possibly get that many detrimental deviations from the mechanical fucking god-queen(s) of their entire homeworld?

And then it hit me.

You don’t. Not from Irk.

The hot take I’ve been charging for this entire time is thus.

Zim is not defective by any random accident. In fact, I smell the tampering of foreign sabotage.

Not only is this guy the thing his kind fears more than any else, they have every right to be shaking in their stance.

That puzzle i posed at the beginning of this journey, have you seen what I’ve seen yet?

Because the answer I was looking for as to what similarity connects an anthill, a PC, and a city from Greek legend was a most effective tactic for taking them down.

Do you know the best way to deal with a bad ant infestation? Cuz you can lay down all the raid and crushing action you want, but you won’t really be getting anywhere unless you target the pests directly at their queen. To that end, liquid ant baits are marvelous inventions- a sweet substance hiding a small amount of slow acting poison. Poison to be peacefully delivered by the stomach of an ant to the rest of her colony, poisoning her kin, who sicken more members, on and on until the queen is destroyed and the entire nest perishes. An insidious toxin to do all the work while its user never lifts a finger, pretty ingenious.

And when it comes to computers, we also have ways to attack entire networks at source, from quietly and far away. “Trojan” was a category of malware responsible for 64.31% of all cyber attacks on Windows systems in 2022, and they still make up a majority of active malware hits today. The concept is deviously simple. The malicious code is hidden within an innocent looking program, maybe even within a legitimate software that does what it’s supposed to. Once the stowaway is invited into the system, it can get down to it some sneaky, nasty, destructive work on your device. As for what those acts could look like, well, malware exists to do all kinds of things. Mostly something involving trying to get money/information from you or hijacking your computer for whatever its creator wants to use it for. And some of them will just up and wreck your shit, disable your antivirus software to open you up to more infections, disable important operations, wipe your data. Use your imagination.

And as for Troy.. well, where do you think Trojan programs got their name? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, Irkens have their Armada, bionic drones, and homeworld- in other words, the thriving swarm of army ants, the billions to trillions of computers they so rely on, and their nigh untouchable fortress, always at war.

And some damn crafty bastard(s) in the stars said

“Here is their sugar-bait,”

“Here is their cyber attack,”

“Here is their wooden horse.”

And one particular race is going to be getting the last laugh before long.

Nerds That Are GOATed With the Sauce

That’s right, I thought about this all the way through to finding our prime suspect. And let me tell you, NO ONE in the Galaxy reeked of fish like the Vortians did. Get over here and lemme show you my whiteboard with all the red circles and polaroids on it.

- The Means

In a way of tragic irony, Vort has contributed more than any else to the same Irken conquest that turned on them in the end. A natural talent for cutting edge engineering and technical development actually does not seem to be what Irk already came into the ring with. For how mighty and superior they view themselves, the greatest achievements of their military can actually be owed to Vortian outsourcing. When we would have gotten a look at Tallest Miyuki’s very own “finest minds” during her reign, notice something interesting about these guys below,

Zim there is the ONLY Irken to be found! Yes, transferred there because of the punchline explanation of ‘he breaks everything he touches so maybe he’ll have an affinity for weapons research’ but damn right he actually did! And still does; I don’t want it to go unsaid that Zim has shown MUCH more technological skill and innovation than near any other Irken we’ve seen.

Another fun thing to note about this is that Lard Nar was also part of this lineup, and in the transcript he was in the process of working on the blueprints for The Massive. (which leaves you with the cursed knowledge that Zim, Prisoner 777, and Lard were all familiar coworkers long before the events of the show) And that brings me back to what I’m saying about the real reason the Vort natives were enslaved and imprisoned instead of outright sweeped after conquering. The Armada needs their skills, because Vortian advancement is something their own scientists couldn’t come close to. Left to their own devices, Vort could have easily outmatched them at an earlier point in history. It’s a people that figured out infinite power sources and potentially wormhole technology, while PAKs were something a disfigured human tween with a lot of time on his hands was able to crack. If anyone could outpace and outsmart the defensive measures of the Control Brains, it’s going to be them. And what better, cleaner way to sabotage the enemy than from within. 

The very same strings of inserted code that cursed Zim with his delusions, paranoia, lust for destruction, and horrible tactics may also have blessed him with a determination and intellect higher than almost any creature alive. The saboteur gave Irk the most powerful racecar in history, and then fitted it with bicycle brakes. No matter how hard Zim tries to conform to what will give him admiration, no matter how competent he is at keeping himself alive, it’s as if he is instinctually compelled toward whatever actions will cause the MOST damage to his allies in the process. Dib may think he’s the bulwark against the invasion when, ironically, he’s fighting against the one being that’s predetermined to be the arrow that strikes Irken leadership right in their dumb, green heels. (There is also an instance in the comics where Dib figures out that Zim is the ace in the hole for total Irken eradication but that’s another fun story.)

Oh, oh HO HO, and that’s only what he’s capable of doing before the empire’s actual immune system against defects like him wakes up and notices!

Three planetary blackouts, two dead generals, and a whole swath of dead invaders was just the fucking warm up, babey! All that is merely the kind of loud disruption that you need in order to fulfil the real thing this Trojan horse exists for in the first place.

What a celebration of hubris the Spike of Judgement was. Yeah, let’s take our method of filtering the corrupted data from the hive mind, and completely centralize it on a single planet! As well, let’s have the very purging agents also be the same ones to perform the evaluations themselves, I’m sure that it would be unthinkable for any outsider to design a worm that could make it through the brains’ firewalls. Goddamn spectacular. Like inserting an infected USB into your laptop, the Tallest never realized what kind of beast they woke up by plugging that PAK into the Spike’s mainframes. Those brains were meant to handle an expected spectrum of deviation when it came to defective Irkens, never a sleeper virus of this complexity.

From here it probably won’t even matter if Zim survives much longer on Earth, his virus has already spread to the very thing relied upon to keep things like him out of the data pool in the first place. With the Judgementia brains corrupted and no higher authority to overrule them, the firewall is effectively broken, and you know what that means? Bigger cracks for future defectives to start trickling through, both spontaneous and artificial. The ideal scenario is one where a degenerating and glitched population accelerates the incompetency of the empire to the point where it just implodes on itself; nevertheless, even a disease that only slows down Operation Doom could be a game changer, by giving the rest of the little guys more time to band together a coalition strong enough to strike back when the time is right.

- The Motive

The history of these two races’ alliance is something I lament us not having more lore to pull from- how far back it goes, what the character of the Vort was like during that time, what the Irkens had offered in return- a few among dozens of questions it rears.  The implication behind how it ended lies in Zim’s creation that slayed Tallest Miyuki. Interestingly, the Empire never received the memo of what exactly went down, or, perhaps, stubbornly denied the account of the other scientists who were there that day. Neither Red/Purple nor the Judgmentia Brains had any idea that Zim’s actions led to the death of a Tallest. So, makes sense that the Vortians became the unintentional scapegoat (no pun intended) for the incident, and the rest is history.

Note: It’s also in the realm of possibility that Vort was actually the one to withdraw from the alliance instead, given that the same blob that devoured Miyuki (purely the fault of their Irken transfer) also went on to cause untold amounts of devastation. Red’s reaction to the real story stuck out to me as more telling, although.

But why am I even talking about this? Zim was decades old before war was declared on them, and either people’s regard to each other seemed strangely… respectful, if anything.

But, was Vort really a monolithic bunch? Irk was already an empire by this point, and diplomacy with those they needed something from did not mean they weren’t otherwise an aggressive force in the universe. For all we know, the alliance itself might have been coerced, or result of depraved leadership among the Vortians.  Any citizen with a conscience who could see the writing on the walls would be disgusted by giving so much aid and brown nosing to such a menace, no? I know who would have seen that writing before anyone else. Brainiacs who are smart enough to build something like The Massive and all its bells and whistles would know better than anyone just what it was all capable of in the wrong hands. The collateral damage against your own people might be a sacrifice worth making in the face of the alternative.

- The Oppurtunity

So.. that’s all well and good, yeah? A why, and a what, yet this is actually the tricky part of saving the galaxy,

Sneaking your StupidifyIrk.exe file onto the assholes’ homeworld without alerting either them or your own treacherous, weak, collaborator superiors to your actions. Infecting and releasing a random Irken alive would be far too dangerous, far too noticeable to the point where they could just be destroyed outright before given a chance to wreak real havoc.

But what about releasing a dead Irken? 🤔

PAKs are only screened for criminal flaws when errors begin to affect their body’s behaviors in destructive ways. A fully competent scientist, or soldier, or navigator performing a lifetime of loyal service to the empire and then meeting an unfortunate end? Their minds’ shadows can be accepted back into the data pool no questions asked. That’s only business as usual.

That almost makes new smeets something of a reincarnation of their ancestors. Personally, I see it kind of like replaying a video game and re-rolling your stats, even if you’re reusing your character’s name and general play style.

Either way, we come full circle to my theory about Zim’s actual origin. Maybe not “our” Zim, but the previous iteration of data that was shuffled to create his person. Whoever they were, I’m convinced that they were also an exceptional individual. They were probably pretty arrogant, but it was a more earned confidence, and they were a prodigy genius, the likes of which that was drawn to work alongside Vortian allies, as another researcher. Then, an untimely demise befell them. I couldn’t say they fell victim to some unfortunate accident, considering the cockroach durability of their body. No, I find it a lot easier to imagine they met their end in one of the more embarrassing ways for an Irken to die- A PAK stolen, disabled or forcefully detached by an assailant they might have allowed a little closer than they should have. To the homeworld, it’s a small matter. One more PAK recovered by the natives of the friendly planet, brought back home to be repurposed by the smeeteries, right?

Well, that’s what one smartass might have been hoping for.

And they really were a clever cookie, because that scheming seed is fruiting beautifully.

[avoidantrecovery]

my thoughts on rejection sensitivity, fawning, criticism and how i want to get better about them

these are just some notes/me thinking aloud/me writing notes to myself and putting things into perspective/connecting some dots. maybe others can relate.

✦ abandonment/rejection based trauma leads to... ✦ needing to be accepted and liked by any- and everyone (fawning) to restore safety/ensure feeling safe which leads to... ✦ due to being stuck in trauma response/having a trauma rewired brain: strong sensitivity and fear of any kind of rejection or criticism, which leads to... ✦ responsibility for your emotions and self-perceptions are outsourced (for the lack of a better word) to (random) third persons (who are not even aware of this). which leads to... ✦ difficulty to interact and communicate with people without crushing hypervigilance, anxiety, numbing, strong emotional reactions... leads to... ✦ random third parties and their reaction to us (be it via facial expressions, tone, conversation, action or inaction, etc...) now makes or breaks our emotional state ✦ a positive reaction gives us (if we're lucky) positive emotions (dopamine, safety, elation) a negative reaction however leads to the exact opposite -> we are at the whims of random people ✦ inevitable negative feedback then leads to severe negative emotions including anxiety, shame, self-devaluing and self-abuse ✦ this becomes a cycle of wanting others to reflect that "we are good" back to us in places where it's not relevant and will lead to negative feedback and rejection, isolating and then doing it all over again.

what to do instead?

✸ realize that this is a cycle that is happening and why (trauma) ✸ be mindful and have self-compassion for your past (fawning) behaviour to avoid shame and self-hate (you were stuck in a trauma response, not doing it on purpose) ✸ realize that minute reactions of all people doesn't have to matter to you. this is something you have to practise day in day out, because your brain is stuck in this mode. ✸ it's fucked up that we often have to deal with people who are outright hostile and having a negative reaction to that is normal and healthy. however, everyone who has ever felt the overwhelming crushing sensation of rejection sensitivity knows there is a difference between that and "a healthy negative reaction". ✸ we shouldn't have to internalize and emotionally tattoo every minute thing someone else says or does to us, esp. if they are hostile ✸ it shouldn't control us for the rest of the day, week, month or even longer ✸ there is nothing we can do to control others behaviour (even by prostrating and fawning to the max), it is not even our responsibility, but we can try to better manage and process our own emotions to ensure we are not constantly dysregulated. ✸ use "the levels method" to sort to what degree someone's feedback matters to you ✸ realize that you will probably fall back into old behaviour patterns because "nerves that fire together, wire together". meaning it is through repetition that we form new habits and it's by reducing "firing" old behaviour patterns that we are able to eventually let them go.

the levels method

✸ level 1: random strangers on the street: 0.5/5 ✸ level 2: random people you see daily (neighbors, barista, etc...): 1/5 ✸ level 3: work/school people 2/5 (only professional/educational stuff matters, do not take things personal or internalize professional critic as personal critic, i know this is hard and often unfair) ✸level 4: acquaintances and friends: 3/5 ✸ level 5: family and good friends: 4/5 ✸ level 6: your own selected loved ones 5/5

☞ i just came up with this little method that i will try to use to weigh my emotions and how seriously i have to take people's reactions to me. again, it's not easy and it's something that has to be practised to get right. however, the idea is to get away from processing the random reaction of a stranger, or even of a co-worker or client, with the same intensity and seriousness of selected loved one whose feedback i obviously care about a lot.

what if i don't have loved ones?

✸ this is one thing that has been bothering me ✸ i think for some people the "outsourcing" of emotions onto other people and that whole cycle, is intensified by not having any selected loved ones due to isolation etc... ✸ it's likely that you will, perhaps without being aware of it, begin to look for emotional feedback (to feel safe due to trauma brain) from people who fall within level 1-level 3 or 4. ✸ people need social contact and if there is nobody else around we might look to have our emotional needs met by people who aren't even aware or responsible for that ✸ i am currently in this situation and all i can do for now, until i do find new selected loved ones, is to be aware when i do it and steer away from it when it happens. ✸ if you are in contact with family or friends, this can be a better outlet as random strangers or classmates/co-workers

(not medical advice, just thinking out loud)

[drbased]

i am highly spiritual, and yet we have almost identical beliefs about humanity, religion and its organization, etc. save for the conclusions it brings us to. just found this really interesting, honeslty.

In the nicest possible way: no, I don't think we have almost identical beliefs. Or rather, I think we have one primary difference in perception that changes the entire nature of our beliefs.

One of the accidental problems with language is that it can make connections and associations between concepts that aren't really real. For example, we have tras claiming that aspects of your personality, mannerisms, hairstyle etc. are all an expression of an internal sense of gender, which is retroactively justified as real through the existence of those characteristics. It's a tautology, but it's a potent one, because those characteristics can add up to something deeply personal and individual, which isn't communicated easily. One person's 'qu**r identity' can be entirely different from another person's 'qu**r identity', but due to the simple existence of the term they can find a percieved similarity of experience that wouldn't exist without it.

This relates to spirituality because I think what's happening here is that the word 'spiritual' is being used like the word 'gender'; that is, an extra layer of meaning is added to the human experience that is retroactively justified by the existence of those human experiences. In this case, the nature of spirituality seemingly being discussed is a sense of profundity and awe.

The primary dispute is one of perspective: as an atheist, I say that actually, the concept of 'profound' is an entirely human construction. Things aren't built with a natural sense of 'awe-inspiringness' that we as humans simply tap into - but rather, the emotion is generated inside us in response to the neutral things that are already there. It's a seemingly minor shift in approach, and many would feel is a nitpick, but I think it's accidentally become the crux of this whole argument.

This is why many spiritual people think that atheists 'hate humanity' and 'are cold and unfeeling' - they percieve the world to be inherently spiritual; that is, consisting of an inexorable quality that humans should be able to experience, so anyone not claiming to recognise this quality is simply denying their own humanity, their own senses, as well as denying the profundity of being: the two are inexorably interlinked. I can see where this argument comes from - we, as humans, tend to naturally feel 'cleaner' after a wash, we tend to fell happier after having laughed etc. etc. and if we don't feel these things, either there's something supposedly 'wrong' with us, or we're denying those feelings so we get to feel superior in some way. And don't get me wrong, the classic 'reddit atheist' is like this - the kind of guy who says that your pet cat don't feel love when they nuzzle you in the morning. There are definitely people (men especially) who want to feel above any and all sensory-based human emotional response.

But.

My primary argument is that things external to us (and some internal) do not have any inherent emotional quality; any emotions I generate in response to them are my own personal, fallible and fragile appreciation for them, generated within my brain in response to stimuli. This may sound less magical, and that's the point: laughter generates happiness because it's an evolutionarily important pro-social tool. Washing makes you feel 'cleaner' because it's evolutionarily important to avoid disease. There's no intrinsic nature to these things that we tap into; the emotions and subsequent meaning are generated by us. If someone managed to figure out what 'love' is in humans and found out that animals don't show 'love' as we know it - well, regardless of how much of an asshole he is, that atheist above would be right. But it shouldn't be earth-shattering because 'love' does not need to be some quality inherent to nature to have meaning and value - our version of 'love' is purely human, and whatever our pets do may not be 'love' by our standards, but something speciifc to them.

This argument is ultimately immaterial unless we can demonstrate for faith-based thinking can result in harm. And unfortunately, this is how people end up getting manipulated by churches and cults. The sense of awe you feel in a crowd of thousands of people listening to music and services doesn't exist in the ether - it's deliberately manufactured explicitly to generate that feeling inside you. So this isn't just an argument about correctness; this is an argument about harm.

Why do you think churches are built that way; it's easy to think of them as just inherently magnificent, but that is just the limitation of the way our language constructs adjectives - 'magnificent' is given the same linguistic weight as, say, 'squishy' or 'spiky'. But 'magnificent' is a value qualifier, not a neutral adjective; it's something that requires an internal sense of judgement - but due to the power of emotions it can feel real, perhaps more real than pricking your finger on a spiky thing. Religion has a tendency to place reality into a secondary level of importance; god/the universe is what's more 'real' than us. This is a hierachy; it places our subjective experiences and values as merely a conduit for something more real and meaningful than we could ever be, than we could ever imagine (and, if you think my argument is cold and male and misogynistic, then I like to remind you which of the sexes loves hierarchy). And this is hierarchy that is absolutely ripe for exploitation.

No, I do not think that spiritual/religious belief is a guarantee of exploitation, nor is it the only source of exploitation - but a tendency to see your emotions as merely a conduit for some universal truth means you will be much more easily persuaded to into believing things based on your emotional perception, and the kinds of people who want to persuade you are typical doing so to gain something; not always something sinister, but it certainly can be.

Too many spiritual people want to have their cake and eat it too: they want to skirt over arguments of correctness and harm and jump straight to accusing us of denying our senses - when what they actually mean is that by denying our senses we're denying reality. But when we claim that actually we're perfectly capable of listening to our senses, we just call these things 'awe' and 'profundity', they turn around and say 'that's just what spirituality is! you're just like us, just in denial!' When we say that our emotional experiences are not spiritual we mean it; this isn't 'agreeing on most things' - this is an entire shift in perception. My senses are mine, and the meaning I generate from them is mine. Those sense are a fallible product of evolution, and the meaning I generate from them is also a fallible product of evolution. But that also means that the profundity has a new origin, and this is ultimately less safe and comfortable than from some external source I can rely on; the profundity comes from the terrifying realisation that these things just are, with no invisible connective tissue outside the bare reality of cause-and-effect. That isn't inherently profound, but I make it so through my own human ability to generate meaning. And as that meaning is mine, therefore the responsibility for it is mine.

[ladyshinga]

while half-awake last night my brain just... launched into this weird internal monologue about art and why humans are MADE to create, that we NEED it. all i can remember about the out-of-control thoughts was "humans create art to fill in the gaps between reality and our own limited perceptions of it", and... well, good point, half-awake brain. This barely felt like my own thought but it's true. The universe is huge, beyond any human understanding, and our own perceptions are so limited that our brains NEED ART in order to make sense of it not just to ourselves, but to others. We write poetry about it, we draw, we paint, we make music, all to seek answers the universe cannot give us. You don't make art to get popular, to make money, to make "content"... you create because you're human

[bayesic-bitch]

How could consciousness possibly not be real? I'm here perceiving shit and having internal experience all day. Surely you are too. So is "consciousness isn't real" just semantics, playing with the definition of "consciousness"? Or what?

So, this comes down to two main arguments: 1) I don't have to explain consciousness, I just have to explain your perception of your own consciousness and your belief that it's real, and 2) consciousness being real but not acting on the physical world does nothing to explain the former anyway -- odds are you're categorically wrong about what your own experience is.

We talked about 2) last time this came up. But to recap, basically the idea is that Chalmers and other modern epiphemoninalists avoid the problem of dualism breaking physics by taking this position: the world can create internal experiences, but internal experiences don't act on the world. Physical events can cause qualia, but qualia cannot cause physical events. This is necessary because if qualia could cause physical events, then you could observe that effect scientifically. Once you observe it, you can study it, quantify it, and then you would have to make a place for souls in the standard model. Very few philosophers think that's likely. But if qualia can't cause physical events, that poses problems too -- namely you saying "I see a red apple" is a physical, observable event, so it can't have been caused by qualia. So under this view, all your reportable beliefs about your own conscious experiences have no causal relation to your actual conscious experiences. And while it's conceivable that your beliefs about your qualia just so happen to line with your actual qualia despite there being no connection, that seems like an absurd coincidence -- there's no reason to believe that you are correct about any of your qualia, ever, and we know for sure that our conversation here is causally isolated from both of our actual experiences.

And all of this is something Chalmers & co are willing to accept, because at present it seems like this is the only way to make substance dualism work and not contradict physics.

@nightcore-nasheed mentioned that there's a similar argument for property dualism, but I'm nowhere near as familiar with it, so I'll leave that aside.

Now we can return to 1). At this point, we've proposed a view of consciousness that "takes consciousness seriously", but this does nothing to explain our belief in our own consciousness. Dennett in particular wants to say that this is the only thing we need to explain. I don't have any direct, voiceable evidence of my own qualia. I know I feel things, and I know other people also say they feel things, and those are the things I need to explain. The solution is then to turn this into a psych/neurobio problem -- why is it that we have persistent beliefs in our own consciousness? Is it evolutionarily helpful to have such a belief? There's a couple not-absurd answers you could have here. For instance, when the brain is Turing-complete or nearly so, it is necessarily impossible to deterministically model our own thought processes (because of the halting problem). We must necessarily view our own minds as being irreducible to themselves, even if they are physically reducible. And extending this notion to others simply involves generalizing from our own experiences.

If this seems unsatisfying, well, yeah, a bit. But as we said before, substance dualists are also committed to a position like this, because they hold that the brain acts purely independently of input from qualia. To an epiphenomenalist like Chalmers, consciousness is still an illusion in the brain, it just also happens to be correct for unrelated reasons.

So the position of Dennett and other more-or-less reducible physicalists is: why do this? why add the bizarre complexity of an extra-physical realm with no evidence to support it, if it doesn't even explain why we say we are conscious? Better to just accept that our belief in our internal experience is incorrect and try to figure out why than to add all these extra hoops to jump through. Besides, our conversation would be causally isolated from both of our qualia anyway -- since they can't affect our conversation no matter what, it's categorically impossible to learn anything useful about them by talking about them. So what's the point in even discussing this view in the first place?

There are other positions taken by non-reducible physicalists, but personally I've never found the explanations for why physical systems can be non-reducible particularly convincing. So for the time being I'm stuck with the reductive physicalists. I can't say I'm happy about it, but I don't see a better option. In reality, I feel like this is one of those problems that's better dissolved than solved -- somewhere along the line we probably made a mistake formalizing this problem, and eventually neuroscience will come along and render the question moot without actually resolving it. .

[thefeastandthefast]

Hands down, favorite scene of this whole drama and one that made me feel something more than just different degrees of amusement:

Princess Wanning tossing her hair back to dance for the king of Dai, dressed in pristine white silk, helpless rage which cannot be vented cracking through the studied blankness on her face. Such a sharp and elegant recontextualization of all the aggressive swishing and twirling we see her do in the previous episodes.

Following closely in second place would be the scene of her wading shivering into the milky blue river surrounded by fiery autumn foliage and the red of her blood seeping out into the water all around her. The physician refers to her numerous miscarriages, but her grim, expectant, tearless face in that scene implies that they were abortions done with whatever means she could manage (likely the only assertion of agency possible in her position).

To be completely honest, Wanning's storyline is the only one in this drama that consistently triggers genuine emotion for me, even before we got the brief flashback of her years as a hostage to an enemy state. I am obviously extremely well-entertained by the production's commitment to the pulpiest of melodrama rendered with the lushest of visuals, but the lack of even the possibility of actual danger and failure for our protagonists takes much of the tension out. Yes, Xue Fangfei has trauma responses to her experiences, but we know that her commitment to vengeance carried out with morally clean and justifiable methods will still succeed in making every last villain in her path pay. We're assured of her eventual happiness and success before the story even begins because of genre conventions.

The protagonists live in the fantasy world of 爽剧- a genre meant for the purpose of the viewer's visceral, lizard brain satisfaction. The noose of the drama's world and its rules will always loosen for our female lead Xue Fangfei because this type of narrative demands it.

I went into the drama knowing this was the genre, so it's perfectly meeting my expectations... but I think if Xue Fangfei was forced to operate within the same social strictures as her female opponents instead of having her endeavors facilitated by the pulled punches of internally inconsistent world-building, this drama would have been elevated to something ultimately much more satisfying and enduring. The Story of Minglan is still the pinnacle of historical drama 爽剧 for this reason.

But Wanning doesn't live in a 爽剧; she's in a psychological horror, one where every single one of the inescapable rules of a ghoulish feudal, patriarchal world compounded to get her into the situation she ended up. For all her seemingly limitless power and privilege once Wanning returns to Yan, they are insufficient to undo the permanent damage to her status as a virtuous woman in her society and her own perception of her womanhood in such a paradigm.

I'm speculating that the king of Dai probably died painfully at her hands at some point (I'm still at episode 36, so I don't know if it's addressed later!) But in the end, Wanning's righteous fury has very few easily embodied targets for righteous vengeance, unlike the wrongs done to Xue Fangfei and those she takes under her wing- wrongs which neatly trace back to specific villains to be eliminated. And of course, XFF’s personal beef with these villains just so happen to align perfectly with the noble goals of king and country.

Even when Wanning playacts her sick little romance with Shen Yurong, a brutal emotional clarity always breaks her immersion. She has a complete lack of illusion about the world in which her story operates. She was sacrificed for the noble goals of king and country, for peacemaking, and so she knows she will get no satisfaction from those who permitted and benefited from that sacrifice. So, for me, watching her do whatever the fuck she wants in response to that unrightable wrong and indulge every selfish, horrifying, nihilistic whim is more 爽 (viscerally satisfying) than anything else in this show.

[alpaca-clouds]

Let me use Astarion as an excuse to talk about CPTSD

You know what? I think this might be a good moment to talk about CPTSD and how Astarion really is a textbook example of someone with CPTSD (though it is very likely that basically our entire main cast of characters in BG3 is suffering from it to some degree, they just are less textbook in their presentation).

Let me start with a simple question: What is CPTSD?

CPTSD is the shortened version of Complex PTSD, or rather Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. So, to dumb it down: It is like CPTSD, but it sucks a lot more.

While normally PTSD is caused by one traumatic event (like having a car accident, seeing a loved one die, being subjected to random violence at some point), while CPTSD is caused by a traumatic situation that goes on for a while or repeats several times. In the western world, we see a lot of CPTSD in survivors of parental abuse or intimate partner abuse. Aka, traumatic situations that went on for a longer while. You will also find CPTSD in some people from marginalized groups, as the traumatic situation of discrimination is constantly repeating. And of course you will find it in survivors of war or similar ongoing events.

PTSD will often lead to having triggers related to the trauma, showing avoidance behavior towards possibly triggering situations. It might also lead to flashbacks, nightmares, and a raised awareness/carefulness, often especially regarding relations with other people (though this might depend on the traumatic event it stems from).

CPTSD will have all of that, but often in more complex ways (as a longer experience will allow for complex triggers to develop - and a lot more situa´tions to become triggers as well), but it will also lead to a difficulty to regulate emotions, a general mistrust towards other people, inability to have healthy relationships, prolonged moments of dissociations, a generally negative perception of the world and events, feelings of worthlessness and internalized shame.

It should also be noted that in many cases the symptoms of CPTSD only start showing, once the traumatized person is removed from the traumatizing situation.

Neurally the reason for CPTSD is basically, that the nervous system is put into a prolonged survival mode. Which is also why the symptoms often trigger after the survivor is removed trauma inducing situation.

And, oh look, it is Astarion lol

Looking at the character from this perspetive, you really see pretty much all the symptoms in him.

Does he struggle with regulating his emotions? Fuck yeah, he does. He tries to regulate them, but he very often fails at it.

Does he get triggered by some situations? Yeah, it does. (You get that especially when you play his origin.)

He is super mistrustful towards other people - which is also why he does not intermingle with other people that much.

His view of most things as negative is also fairly clear - I also would argue that his "let's kill some puppies and kittens" behavior is also very closely connected to this.

And that he struggles with feelings of worthlessness and shame is again something that is found in the text.

He really is a very textbook example of CPTSD, which also brings me back to what I already talked about this week: Both CPTSD and PTSD will permanently change the nervous system. Which as far as we know will never quite go away. (Like, not to be a nerd, but there has been some recent research, that has shown that certain medication might permanently eleviate some symptoms - but not heal it totally.) It is basically scars from a nervous injury, if you wanna think of it like that.

You can however learn to live with the symptoms and learn techniques to regulate them. If you have read any of my Tavstarion stories (like this one), I bring some of those techniques into that. Stuff like breathing techniques or techniques to get your brain out of a flashback spiral (like consciously perceiving your surroundings). But to learn to deal with it, you also need to confront the trauma, which is probably the hardest thing to get Astarion to do, because he seems to be very avoidant. Like, his entire "I need to ascend" thingie is all avoidant behavior. Basically, he wants all that power that comes with ascending to prevent him from ever ending up in a situation that would be in any way similar to his trauma again.

But even if he does not ascend, there is a good chance he will still show a lot of avoidant behavior in the future.

When I write him, there is a reason that I do not have him leave home for a good seven months outside of what he has to do (like feeding). Which is very typical avoidant behavior.

The thing is that often trauma and especially CPTSD is not always the very big reactions - though those might be there too - but a lot of those more muted things. Avoiding going outside. Avoiding new situations. Being just a bit anxious. Feeling that nice things are done with bad intentions. Things like that.

Just, you know... A heads up.

[moonpool-system]

Dropping "out of front" as a P-DID host (and, I imagine, a lot of non-disordered systems too, but I wouldn't know) feels less like disappearing or leaving for headspace or something, and more like... stepping back and falling half-asleep while the other person does things using the body. We have extremely bad adhd, so it's the only way I can rest and escape the constant barrage of my own thoughts. I don't lose consciousness completely, but instead of their awareness being filtered through me, it's the other way around, and by giving them control of the wheel, the brain focuses on their influence and sets mine "in the back". Being able to switch like this is the closest I'll likely ever get to being completely out front, due to the way our trauma manifests. It's taken a long time of practice to even get this far, and it's one of the most important things we've learnt for our internal privacy and teamwork.

This is why it's even more important to establish that it's generally considered rude to constantly ask for the host when interacting with other system members. Many systems aren't able to switch on command, but there are also systems that struggle to switch and are barely holding onto front, or systems that can switch on command but desire privacy and rest, or systems that could technically switch but it would cause their host great distress. A system does not need to switch for others to be comfortable. Yes, sometimes you had prior plans to attend to, but it's better to talk about what to do about this with whomever is in front at the time instead of just immediately asking for the host.

Being allowed to Not Front by others socially is a matter of privacy and respect, and the idea that the host should always be available plays into the host-centricism much of societal perception holds. If someone you're not used to is in front, there's a reason, no matter how small, so please consider both the feelings of the current fronter and the host before asking. Is the fronter comfortable with leaving front? Is the host comfortable with being in front? Is this really a circumstance where you'd need the host specifically, or are you just used to having them around? Treating all system members as equals goes a long way.