#she was literally a severely mentally ill child with stuff I LITERALLY HAVE that was untreated by medication and therapy and probably if '

[sunkern-plus]

since i realized i’m basically “big mom but not evil”

I COULD DO IT. I COULD WRITE THE FANFIC ADDRESSING BIG MOM’S EATING DISORDER AND HOW STREUSSEN ENABLED HER BAD MENTAL ILLNESS HABITS WITHOUT WOOBIFYING HER OR TREATING HER LIKE SHE'S A ONE DIMENSIONAL MONSTER OR "GROSS" FOR OVEREATING

[lowercase for those who need it: i could do it. i could write the fanfic addressing big mom’s eating disorder and how streussen enabled her bad mental illness habits without woobifying her or treating her like she’s a one dimensional monster or gross for overeating]

[homosociallyyours]

This is a post for one of my best friends who's been going through a lot for the past few years. I'll go into more details below, but here's the heart of the matter: My friend has a serious auto-immune condition resulting from the long term after effects of cancer treatments (worsened now by the addition of long COVID to her long list of diagnoses). Over the past few years, she's gotten sicker and sicker and has been forced to change her diet from a vegetarian anti-cancer diet (she's a breast cancer survivor, and fought HARD for her health) to one that's become more and more limited as her body becomes allergic to every food one by one. She's now reached a point where one of the last 2 foods that she was able to eat safely, chicken, is causing an allergic reaction; she has to eat it anyway to survive, so is now very sick all the time.

What can you do?

One of the last hopes that she has to turn things around is something called a fecal microbiome transplant, which has worked miracles for other people with similar issues, but cannot currently be accessed through medical channels in the US for any but one (unrelated) condition. It's really easy to do as a DIY treatment though, it's just hard to find a donor: so we are putting it out there to see if one of you might be able and willing to be that person, or know someone who could do it.

Here is what she has to say about the ask:

Finding the right person to do this is difficult, but actually doing the helping is extremely easy and quick if someone was that person! If you live in the continental US and are fortunate enough to have both physical and mental good health (or know someone or have a child who fit the criteria) and are willing, you might be able to change my life! Please consider clicking through to read more and maybe even come aboard...  (For clarity: this isn't a medical procedure or anything, it is literally just donating poop, there are a few specifics but it is very much from the comfort of your home on your own time.)

You can click here to fill out a google form to see if you might be able to be a donor. The questionaire is detailed: fecal transplant is a bizarre and magical thing in which the patient sometimes can even end up acquiring personal preferences from the donor- the gut microbiome (sometimes called the second brain) is incredible! But this means that any illness, chronic issues, or risk factors you carry may also be transferred to the recipient so while it may feel invasive, getting detailed info in very necessary; I am just too sick already to take on any more problems.

A note- yes, it is possible to buy screened and processed treatments even in the US: unfortunately the cost (~$2k per round of treatment) is way outside my reach, particularly given that it isn't really any better than just getting poop directly from a good candidate (proven via studies), and that often it takes trying a couple donors/ rounds to find a match that gets results. If anyone wants to just buy me that stuff, I sure wouldn't say no to that, but given the severity of my situation (medical and financial; I cannot work due to disability) it is likely I will need to do medical fundraising at some point and I am trying to save that for an even worse point. Also if you have that kind of money to help out honestly it would be better spent on specialists or my astronomical food costs. I will cover all costs associated with this process if I find someone though, of course!

Thank you for reading/boosting/etc, please consider sending the link to possible healthy friends or family who might be a fit, or consider whether you have a child fitting the bill you might be willing to enlist- young microbiomes are the best ones, as children's systems have had less time to be ravaged by the effects of the modern world or the simple deterioration of age.

[22ayla19]

Hi! In case you accept requests for Eleceed, I would like to request Kartein recruiting a new awakened apprentice that has been through a lot (either being experimented on or his family being involved in sketchy stuff for most his life) Maybe the apprentice has trouble accepting their powers because they seem to suck the life of the one's they love (like reversed healing, it's a wild idea I suppose) and Kartein is invested in teaching them how to accept their powers and train them to heal.

I'd be really happy if you could write something on it since I really enjoy the way you write and the creative ideas you write about :D

Kartein x Child! Reader

You didn’t know who you were before you met the man in front of you. You're just an orphan abandoned by your parents, that's what they told you. Over time, you began to think that your parents were completely killed, but to be honest, their absence in your life was not as scary as what you had to go through.

Creepy experiments where they tried to create an awakened one artificially. The nightmare that you had to endure under the pretext that you were being treated for a fatal disease. You didn’t have any illness and you were sure of it. It's just entertainment for mentally ill scientists to see how you suffer.

But even so, in the heat of all this suffering, you were able to find friends for yourself and even make friends with a woman scientist who took care of you. In truth, you considered her to be your mother and she, apparently, did not mind you considering her as such, and yet, even such small pleasant moments were destroyed the moment this woman died in your arms.

Over time, you began to notice that the scientist’s health began to deteriorate and you worried about her, but she assured that it was nothing so bad, but you saw how the life was literally leaving her. And the next day, when she came to you, she fell to the floor and, unfortunately, to death. After all, when other scientists came, they stated her death.

And the reason for her death was your ability. The experiments that were carried out on you were crowned with only partial success, because the whole point of the experiment was that, with the help of feelings of hatred, you would suck the life out of people. Unfortunately, the experiment failed because you sucked out your vitality not out of hatred, but out of love for a certain person.

It was decided to kill you in order to get rid of the unsuccessful sample. Unfortunately, even here there were some problems, because the person who was assigned to kill you had a lot of fun playing cat and mouse before killing the unsuccessful specimen.

So you ended up in the forest, not far from the center where you were kept. You tried to save your life from the fate of a death sentence, hiding in the most unremarkable places. The desire to live saved you; you were able to escape from the mentally ill and anxious scientist.

You didn’t know how long you wandered, but eventually you fainted from exhaustion. You haven’t eaten or drunk for several days, the forces of the awakened one supported your body, but it wasn’t for long.

You woke up in a different place, not in the forest or even in the laboratory. The place was luxurious with warm and light colors.

- Have you woken up? How are you feeling? - Hearing an unfamiliar voice, you jumped in fright.

The man, clearly not expecting such a reaction from you, was surprised. Although the next words took him even more by surprise.

- Uncle, why did you bring me to this place? Do you want to kill me like that other uncle?..

Hearing something like this from a child, even for a man, was surprising. What did they do to you if you say such words?

- Apparently you wandered for a long time and fainted from exhaustion. I found you near my house.

-You really won't hurt me?

- I won’t, don’t worry. I'll bring you something to eat, you need strength.

The man left leaving you with your thoughts. You could take it and run away again, but exhaustion makes itself felt, it’s hard for you to stand on your feet and you want to sleep all the time, so it’s better now to accept this man’s offer.

A couple of minutes later, that man came with a tray of warm soup and tea. Smelling the scent, your stomach growled, causing you to blush in shame and turn your head away. The man was only amused by this and, placing the tray in front of you, wished you a bon appetit. You didn’t think that something might be wrong with the food, because hunger was greater than fear.

After you ate, you felt sleepy, but the man wanted to ask you a couple of questions before you fell asleep.

- What is your name and how old are you, girl?

- I turned 11 a month ago, but I don’t know my name. In the hospital where I was they called me R-023... Maybe I had a name, but no one told me it...

Anger boiled in the man’s blood. Besides the fact that you were tortured there, you were also a guinea pig for passing scientists.

- Uncle, what is your name?

- My name is Kartein. And I'm a doctor, don't worry, I won't hurt you.

- Do you promise?..

- I promise.

Since then you have stayed with Kartein. As he promised, he didn’t hurt you, and his conscience wouldn’t allow him. It took. It took a long time, but he was able to gain your trust and became an educator and teacher for you. Since you were a guinea pig in the lab, you weren't taught how to read or write, so Kartein took it upon himself to teach you. He was lucky that you caught everything on the fly and were a very diligent girl. You had a thirst for knowledge and surprisingly were even interested in medicine, which Kartein did not expect, because you suffered physically and mentally partly because of medicine.

No matter how much Kartein wanted to become attached to you, he failed. And this is not even out of pity for you, you have such an aura that you attract people to you.

- (Y/N)

- Sorry, what?

- This is your new name.

- (Y/N)... Beautiful name... Thank you.

Everything had been too good and calm lately that even Kartein did not immediately notice how tired he often began to feel. And when I noticed, I almost choked on my tea, realizing what caused this fatigue. The life force was literally pumped out of him, fortunately, with the help of his healing abilities, he cured himself, but it was not immediately clear to him what the reason was.

Kartein didn't ask you about what they did to you in the laboratory. He didn’t want to stir up old memories and wounds, so he didn’t even think that it was your ability that was taking away his vitality. The moment of insight came only when he felt sick in your presence.

- (Y/N), do you happen to have an awakened ability?

Kartein expected anything, from questions about what it was to denial, but certainly not your crying and apologies.

- *whining* Sorry! I didn't want you *whine* to get hurt by my ability! *whine* I don't know how to control her! Sorry!

Questions can wait, Kartein thought and began to calm you down. It was painful to see how you see yourself in everything, although the monsters who made you the awakened one are to blame for all this.

After you calmed down, you told Kartein everything you knew about your ability, or rather what you heard, and that the woman who took care of you and the other children died because of your fault.

- That is, your ability takes away the lives of those people whom you love very much... It is problematic, however, but there is a way to get rid of it.

- Is there really a way to get rid of this ability?

- Not really. You see, every awakened person has a core, or rather, a source of power from which the strength of your ability is drawn. You can destroy the core to get rid of the ability forever, but this is an extremely painful process and I, as a doctor, do not recommend such a procedure. But there is another alternative: changing the target of the ability. For example, your ability is activated not to the person you love and appreciate, but to the one you hate. With good control of your emotions, an ability like yours should not cause problems.

- But how can I make it so that it is activated only on those that I hate? I don't even know how to hate...

- Strength of will. When you really want to, your own will will help you change your ability.

[weirdestcornelius]

AUGH i have THOUGHTS on frosty. genuinely shes one of the most tragic cometkids to me. like.

what do you mean she has tuc. what do you mean her wings are frozen and shell never fly again. what do you mean she has the same memory problems as polly. what do you mean she struggles to Feel things so she forces herself to be Happy. what do you mean SHE HAS TO FORCE HERSELF TO BE HAPPY????

she is a child. she had to be told she could never fly again- severing her one connection to her unicorn heritage. and she can't feel sad about it. she physically cant. her illness robbed that from her. she chooses to be happy. she chooses to Exclusively Feel Happiness.

i cant imagine she actually cares about anything anymore. her hobbies are all efforts to pantomime normalcy. her emotions are a cost she pays to be seen as pleasent to be around. they give her routine. or is it more about making her family happy? because thats something shes supposed to want?

shes a little kid. shes so young. maybe i only see her that way bc of how old i am but. fuck. shes 15. she is 15 years old. she makes me so so so sad

OH MY GOSH THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SAYING THIS. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Frosty is so important to me. I'm sorry if this is a bit personal but I kin them so much. I love her so much.

On their toyhouse, it specifically states that Frosty loved to fly as a younger kid. When Frosty wasn't even that OLD, they started having TUC symptoms and were diagnosed with it. Later their wings froze and he was told that he would never be able to fly, one of the things she enjoyed most. And like you said, they couldn't even be sad about it. Any emotion they feel is a conscious decision, their emotions aren't even natural.

Frosty is so special to me because they connect to my own fears. Because of my eye issues I've almost become blind multiple times. I can't even imagine losing my eyesight completely because of my love for art, but can you IMAGINE losing such an important bodily function (flying, since it was important to Frosty) at such a young age. And not being able to even feel anything about it. Imagine being Frosty. Imagine being the same as your other siblings, feeling emotions like other people, flying because of your unicorn heritage. And then one day your parents have to explain to you that you have a chronic illness that will NEVER be cured. That you'll never be able to fly or experience normal emotions again. One day you feel like any other kid your age does and the next you can't feel anything. You've been stripped of everything that made you who you are, your physical abilities, your emotions, and you can't even bring yourself to be sad about it because you're no longer mentally capable of feeling anything.

And it doesn't even stop there! Kc has said that Frosty's brain has suffered because of TUC as well, apparently they've even formed a sort of schizophrenia from it from just how COLD their brain is. Imagine having a chronic illness that is so bad that it's literally freezing your brain. Imagine having that at 15! A piece of art on Frosty's toyhouse shows how she's upset with Polly for giving their issues to her because Polly is the reason she hss TUC, not because she gained it through something. I want to see that explored.

I hope we also get Frosty content. I need more stuff about Frosty, Marco, Chem, and Cream.

[lime1991]

My dsmp Tubbo and Tommy canons (I can do whatever I want and these are canon facts to me)

Tubbo:

-smoked cigarettes a lot during the Schlatt administration to get away from all of the… everything. Fundy was the one who started this for him.

-hates alcohol because of Schlatt and Wilbur. Before being part of Schlatt’s cabinet he had to deal with Wilbur being drunk and mentally ill too.

-is Wilbur’s adopted brother, calls Phil by his name instead of “dad” even though he was literally raised by him. Also doesn’t call Wilbur his brother unless it’s brought up in some way.

-Tommy is his best friend. He is Tommy’s favorite person. Their conversations are very monotone.

-has breathing problems due to smoking. Has tried to quit, but can’t. Instead smokes weed every so often because it’s better than nicotine.

-has bipolar disorder, when he’s manic he wakes up at 5 am and does yard work. When he’s depressed, he can’t get out of bed for days. He knows he’s bipolar, many people do, but it still was a reason his marriage fell apart (not his fault)

-he did not get custody of Michael when he and Ranboo divorced, because he didn’t fight for it because doesn’t think he can really raise a child with all his personal issues (in a “I would never have kids because I’m too mentally ill and traumatized” way)

-bonded with Quackity during the Schlatt administration, is maybe the only one who knows to what extent Quackity was fucked up by Schlatt. They have a weird relationship that’s similar to a mother and son. Don’t question it.

-I’m a fan of dadschlatt so in my brain Tubbo is Schlatt’s biological son, and they only find this out when they’re working together and Schlatt grills him on his family history and it strangely matches up with that one time Schlatt decided to leave the girl he accidentally impregnated and fully skip town. So when Schlatt and Quackity get married Quackity is basically Tubbo’s stepmom.

-he and Wilbur are like 12 years apart, when Fundy is born, Wilbur is 20. When Fundy and Tubbo meet for the first time, Fundy is 8 and Tubbo is 16. And, yes, Tubbo went to live with Wilbur when he turned 16 for reasons and was like “Wil who the fuck is this child” and Wilbur is like “oh that’s my daughter” ???

Tommy:

-trans girl.

-met Wilbur before she met Tubbo. They lived in the same place. When Tubbo went to live with Wilbur he was immediately bombarded by a strange hyperactive fifteen year old.

-Tommy’s parents left her. She didn’t believe that they did at first, but they did. (By the way I’ve decided L’Manburg was a commune) Because her parents have left her alone on the commune, she’s sort of raised by all of the adults and herself. This is how she knows Wilbur.

-has bpd and severe abandonment issues. Originally attached herself to Wilbur before meeting Tubbo and becoming close with him. During the Pogtopia era, Tommy goes insane and completely attaches herself to Wilbur again.

-When Wilbur dies during war, Tommy’s whole personality switches and instead of being majorly depressed she pretends that it didn’t happen and stays completely delusional for like a month.

-during Exile, she had time to think about herself and her identity and it’s when she comes out to herself as trans. Dream is also the first person she actually comes out to. And I can’t decide if Ghostbur is a hallucination or not, but Tommy doesn’t know either it’s ok.

-very delusional. Like, schizophrenic. Genuinely believed during Exile that Dream was her best friend and wasn’t like beating her and destroying her stuff every single day. Dream doesn’t understand if she’s being serious when she’s like “hi bestie” so he keeps doing worse and worse wondering how much it’ll take to break her.

-gets therapy and takes antipsychotics now. Always brings up the stories of the wildest delusional episodes she’s ever experienced. During exile she was certain she had like 5 girlfriends at once.

-when she ends up trapped in jail with Dream she almost kills herself before Dream does it for her. The pain of being trapped with him again was worse than emotional. Worse than ptsd.

-has complicated feelings towards Quackity, will never forget the time she watched him and Schlatt argue. She’d never heard a “loving couple” sound that angry before. Though she doesn’t know every little detail about the relationship.

[0rinthered]

I am so passionate about Orin, like no it isn't fair she doesn't ever get the chance and Durge doesn't help her or care after the fact. Ironically what Orin did saved everyone and got Durge freedom if they chose it. The fact that all you can really do is insult her or call her stupid besides the "you've been abused and used option" which is a high roll to even convince her is so sad. I don't like mocking her knowing the whole context and why she's doing what she is. It's not a choice really. It feels wrong to me. She's a victim of so much abuse and grooming from all these awful men. I mean Saravok is a creepy ass misogynist who r worded Orin's sister/mom and people mock her about that in way that's really messed up.

The only person who even seems to show a bit of empathy or at least understanding of her is Minthara when she is a big victim of her. Orin punishes people because she's punished by Bhaal, I saw people post the dev notes the tragic context they should have made clear in the game. That she would have even tried to resist Bhaal before and when she did she got killed for it. In a fucked up way Minthara is the closest thing to showing her "love" or at least care, like I know it's not love but just someone like not being horrible to her or looking down on her for existing. She even says they had similar situations and upbringings so you save her that kind of fate. She said she saw herself reflected in Orin broken too. Sad about all the content they didn't give us because I know they said they wanted more Orin/Minthara stuff but I think ti deserved more than a few lines.

Orin's father is literally a child r*pist and apparently has a line where he says he likes her the same way he does her mom? LIKE WTF? and wants her to make babies with durge? I don't know if it is confirmed if he assaulted her or not but he obviously would if he wanted. He shows a lot of hate like he didn't effect what happened if he's mad about what Orin did to Durge. Felt so horrible killing her in the scene after you tell her the truth because she's totally a slave in body then too. It broke my heart. I don't like that they didn't make her background more of the forefront and just let people see her as this crazy one unless you think about her or find tidbits. She felt like a throwaway to me when she's so tragic and she's just mocked and hated by everyone. I hate abused children/women being painted as "crazy psychos" to make fun of. She's severely mentally ill. Ketheric is not a more sympathetic character, he chose to do all he did. Gortash is given more dignity and choice than her. I think Ketheric and his performance are overrated honestly, he just got more screentime and got to be more fleshed out so they say he's better. That's why people go "orin is just an unhinged boring murderhobo" SHE AND AZULA DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER

Yeah it's pretty frustrating - a lot is implied with her but man you really have to look for it, which a lot of people don't bother to do. Orin in my opinion is the most interesting of the three.

I know the general opinion seems to sway to Ketheric, and I really like him, but I think it's pretty ah... shallow? For lack of a better word. Maybe surface level? Like it's very straight forward in my opinion, which doesn't mean it's any less than Orin or Gortash but I think it's easier to absorb if that makes sense?

Whereas with both Orin and Gortash you really need to sniff around, Orin especially. Minthara is the companion she is attached to, as Gortash is Karlach (While it seems like the only connection Ketheric has to the camp is Shadowheart, but that's through Dame Aylin and Isobel strangely enough. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. But he has an entire act to himself so...). But with Minthara, she is so so so easy to miss and thoughtlessly slaughter (ironically enough) so that's a whole bunch of Orin content absolutely nuked off of the bat.

So I suppose the bizarre pacing is to blame for Orin and Gortash kinda farting around, and Orin not being treated fairly compared to how the fandom treats durge. Again, quite "fitting" I guess. Orin doesn't get that privilege of pity and a chance at life whereas Durge gets two chances. The first being actually having a life outside of the temple, and the second being the tadpole. Why? Idk.

I don't even want a redemption for Orin. I think the choice should be there, and I think the choice should be made by her. Only her.

My ideal world would be Orin can escape, stay (what we currently have), or escape in her own little Orin way. To elaborate on that... I think Orin should be able to continue slaughtering people, but I think she should do it for herself. Not for Bhaal, not for the temple. But because SHE wants to. I do however think the ""novelty"" of that for her would vanish pretty quickly once there's no unholy purpose to it, but that's just part of the growth I guess. So she rejects Bhaal, and skitters away into the shadows. She isn't going to have a character arc in like a week and dye her hair white - despite Shadowheart and Orin's similarities - I unfortunately think it'll take a lot lot lot longer and might never happen.

Still, the main point is that she has a choice, something she has been devoid of her entire life. What she chooses to do with that is up to her and that's the beauty of it.

I could go on and on and on about it and how she should actually be given lots of choices but that would just be me rambling even more than I already am LMFAO

Anyway, Orin I love you pookie boobookeys, remember that there's more to life than pleasing someone who never seems to want to please you.

[somekindofsentience]

katya and dmitry (my beloveds), or discussing mutation motifs in texts from a biological and psychological standpoint

CONTENT WARNING: DISCUSSIONS OF MENTAL ILLNESS AND HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION.

READING-THIS WARNING: I MISINTERPRET STUFF A LOT, THIS IS PURELY MY INTERPRETATION OF THE SERIES. SORRY IF I'M WRONG. :(

When I first watched through Parties are for Losers and its respective songs, my brain was already whirring. Come on. I'm a Vocaloid nerd, obviously I have to look into it, and I know something is up, which means the analysis brain begins. I really enjoyed the Evillous Chronicles, and it seemed as though this was similar. Unlike it, this was actually in English (being set in Russia), and the narrative felt inherently more understandable, although that may just be because it's only 13 songs, compared to Evillous' 82.

AND it covers topics of biology and its affects on psychology. it's perfect. why have i never heard of this before??!?!?!?

There's a lot of aspects to explore within PafL, but I want to specifically focus on Katya (KT) and Dmitry, and their mutations, taking a biological and social approach to their current mental state. I will refer to Katya by her full "name" because it feels a little more humanising, and our baby girl deserves that.

Human experimentation/mutation is a fascinating topic to explore, because it questions the essence of humanity itself - how could you do that to another human being, a child, no less? End and Save is one of my favourite webtoon comics because of this. The abilities that these children gain typically have significant disadvantages, due to the inherently unethical nature of the creation. In some ways, the mutation itself explores corruption.

Biologically, genetic mutations are a natural occurrence, resultant from selection. We are nowhere near the current level needed to cause significant mutation like that of Katya and Dmitry's, and despite what most people think, there's actually no real intention to head in that direction. Therapeutic gene editing (LITERALLY MY SPECIALISED INTEREST. LIKE I WANT TO GO INTO THIS IN THE FUTURE. THIS IS PERFECT.) strays away from eugenics, and focuses on curing genetic disease. It's a fascinating topic of research, and one I hold dear to me. CRISPR my beloved

Katya's mutant ability is directly related to stress. It causes the extensive growth of tissue when she's in a stressful situation, and she has limited control over the flesh. This then has to be cut off, leaving serious wounds to heal on her skin.

art by Ferry

Taking this biologically, it would have to be mutation related to extreme cell division in tissue - in more simple terms, it's not unlike cancer, where a cell does not consider the required markers for division, and instead rapidly divides. Katya's seems far more controlled than cancer, sticking only to particular sites, and also significantly more extreme. Considering the stress required, it may actually be related to an influx of hormonal changes during stress sequences.

As a result of this, Katya is hypersensitive to the emotion of others and can tolerate a high amount of stress, with inherent optimism. She's relatively simple, and tries her best not to let her abilities weigh her down. In the end, she resigns herself to undeserving of true kindness, suggesting she has some well-hidden low self-esteem.

Dmitry's mutant ability seems more controllable, and therefore powerful, than Katya's. He has the ability to pick up anything, with vague limitations on weight, provided he knows specific location and it is within a 15 metre radius.

art by Ferry

Telekinesis from a biological standpoint? I'm not opening that can of worms. I'm not even gonna try. Make it up yourself. I'm pretty sure A Certain Scientific Railgun couldn't even really explain Kuroko's powers, and I'm one small scrawny rat.

Dmitry suffers severe physical consequences as a result of this ability, even using it regularly - severe headaches, loss of consciousness, and dizziness, which can been seen when he attempts to save Anya. Dmitry is significantly more cautious of the outside world than Katya is, and he's somewhat more hostile, threatening Yura and Sanya when he is blackmailed. However, he's practical, likely from the skills taught to him through use of telekinesis.

Dmitry and Katya were set out to have a negative relationship, due to the power dynamics between the two of them making them inherently different people. Dmitry was used for several years as an "assistant" to test Katya's abilities, and seems to hold a grudge with her over that. They have differing opinions on the outside world, particularly due to the way Dmitry's inhumanity was repeated to him often, as the lab researchers began to fear his power. He's not so pessimistic that he acts as contrast to Katya, but the clashing elements still causes them to go their separate ways in KT's Guide.

I couldn't find any specific links between the use of GUMI as KT and Fukase as Dmitry, but I'm sure there is some when considering the different Vocaloids used as a whole. I just wish I could understand what it was, but I don't quite know enough about Vocaloid as a whole for that. Alternatively, it could just be because of gender and the fact that both sound good with the style of the song.

song i wrote this listening to (after PafL, of course): sleep thru ur alarms by Lontalius

it's been a rough night, okay? i needed this as a distraction.

thanks so much to powercoreact for the suggestion! i genuinely really enjoyed this, and you hit my secret hidden love for vocaloid right in the feels. can you believe i watched this like an hour ago??? i feel like i've known it for years.

[mint-berry-crunch]

HENRIETTA:3333

OOH was not expecting this one, but still, I love it!

Alright, so, Henrietta, in my opinion, was always somewhat into the goth subculture. Even as a little kid, she was never scared of the monsters that might be under her bed, and she preferred Uncle Scar over Simba or Mufasa, The Evil Queen over Snow White, etc. In fact, one year, she went as Maleficent for Halloween. Because these unusual interests of hers, her parents were worried. The first place their minds went was that she had some sort of mental illness because she wasn't "girly." (As nice as her parents are, they're not too smart.)

They got her tested, but the things they tested her for all came back negative. They made sure to test her empathy levels just in case, and, although they were just a tad lower than the average child her age, the doctor assured her parents that they were not abnormally low, and that other than that and liking "strange" things, she was a typical 4 year old girl.

She first tried on black lipstick in 3rd grade, and she instantly loved it. Over time, however, she transitioned it to a dark purple lipstick instead.

I think she's probably a demi-girl, Voidpunk and uses it/she/they pronouns. They're also omni. When it came out to it's parents, her dad brushed it off, saying it was "too young to know." Her mom, however, panicked and took away her phone, thinking that the internet "made her that way." Little did its mom know, however, it had a secret phone and just pretended to be pissed about not having one.

Her favorite author is Edgar Allen Poe. Obviously. She used to LOVE H.P. Lovecraft's books, but when she found out about all the... questionable... things he did, she was heartbroken and angry. She went cold turkey on all his books and to this day refuses to acknowledge that she ever liked his stuff.

Let's see, what else... I think she had anger issues, as evidenced by her explosive reactions to things that would make most people angry, yes, but not to the extent she gets.

She despises that her last name is fucking "Biggle," and the only people who know are Michael, Pete, and Firkle.

As of the canon timeframe, she's only got her ears pierced, but she definitely wants more piercings and tattoos in the future.

She GETS her piercings and tattoos in the future! She gets more ear piercings, a nose rings, and several tattoos, including a yin and yang, a skull covered in moss, and dolphins, as they're her favorite animal.

(Link warning!)

I couldn't find a clip of just my favorite moment of her, and idk how to edit it on computer, so I'll just say it. When Henrietta's mom walks into her room, she tells her to shut of and calls her a "conformist bag of demon jizz," which, has GOT to be my favorite insult I have literally ever heard /srs

Overall, I think Henrietta is a really interesting character, and should definitely be explored further! She's not as 2-dimensional as she seems and actually have a lot of depth! I really hope they do more with her in the future, as she's probably in my top 15 favorite characters! Thank you sm for the ask, as I really got to get all my love for my little blorbo out!

[qllie]

wtf is wrong with this guy he groomed a minor and in his apology he's like "even Kasane Teto won't forgive me for my actions" DUDE YOU COMMITTED & ADMITTED TO A CRIME BE SERIOUS!!!!

Like it's just disrespectful to put a ridiculous reference into your apology for a crime. These are extremely serious allegations and making such absurdly self-pitying remarks is just awful it's sickening. I mean obviously there was absolutely nothing he could say in his "apology" that could make his actions okay, but this is sickening it's just awful.

The Teto thing is just so tasteless. This isn't about Kasane Teto at all, this is about you GROOMING A CHILD. Like saying "Oh no the fictional singing robot will be disappointed in me" like you should be worried about THE REAL ACTUAL PERSON WHO YOU HURT NOT ABOUT A FICTIONAL CHARACTER'S OPINION OF YOU.

His apology also completely minimizes what happened. He says that "it's all because of my selfish strong desires that I just went too far..." like no you told someone you knew to be a minor to send you explicit pictures of themself and sent them explicit pictures of yourself as well. That's not simply just "reacting to strong desire" that's GROOMING A CHILD. Like just say that's what you did don't dance around the issue with such vague terms.

Also this section is just disgusting. It essentially blames all his negative actions with the excuse of "mental illness." Like it's not simply just "mental illness." Like even if he did have some mental illness, you still have control over your actions. He could have deleted his discord server if he really couldn't resist his "strong desire," he could have seeked help, etc etc. He still hurt an EXTREMELY VULNERABLE CHILD no matter what the reason is. No one is feeling any pity for him over this. This just seems like an attempt to deflect blame while including self-indulgent "Oh I'm sooooo terrible I'm soooo bad woe is me." Like just say that YOU did it don't blame "mental illness"!

Honestly it's good that he demonetized his videos and deleted his patron at least. Because yeah he should not be making money off this... Like at least he's gone (hopefully permanently) because so many people who do this type of stuff just deny it and come back....

And the people saying "IDC about the grooming please keep making covers and put your videos back up" are so irritating. Like

The grooming and the covers are actually related? Like he groomed this person using his influence from being a relatively popular UTAU cover artist and having his own discord server. So these things are directly related, so it's necessary that he stops having an online presence so that he stops being able to use his power to groom people.

There are a million other Teto covers, song USTs, etc. Yes obviously every single person has unique covers/tuning/etc, but it's not as if this persons work is completely irreplaceable? Like people saying "I need Kasane Teto" when she's literally the most popular UTAU character (and her SV is one of the most popular voicebanks rn). There's no shortage of Kasane Teto, literally just look up 重音テト on youtube and you'll find a million covers and original songs. There is absolutely no reason you specifically need to listen to a child groomers covers. (Additionally, IIRC he usually covered songs that were pretty popular? So you can probably easily find several Teto covers of those exact songs).

Grooming is actually really serious? This guy took advantage of a minor??? I don't care how good someone's tuning/covers/music are it's not worth supporting them grooming a child!

That kind of attitude bothers me so bad because it's just showing callous disregard to someone who was hurt just for the sake of what??? "TETO'S GROWL GHOST RULE"????

[altocat]

Most people care about looks let's not kid ourselves here. You have people ripping into Aerith as a character because of her looks over Tifa and vice versa... though i blame that mainly on the shipping fuckery. You got people saying they'd let Scarlet step on them because she's hot, people saying Sephiroth didn't do anything wrong because he's hot and so on. Now why i do believe there's people like you who are interested in the layers of a character rather than their looks, the majority of people value looks before anything else.

Pretty privilege is a real.

The vast majority of people I've met across this fanbase are genuinely interested in dissecting these characters based on their goals, flaws, personalities, and actions. Sure, you'll have a lot of people thirstposting. That's a given in ANY fan community. But that's only a segment of the fanbase, not the big picture. Hell, Genesis is an extremely attractive character by FF standards and is still mostly loathed by the larger community. Jenova is a slimy headless alien abomination and people are still trying to dissect her motives. Hojo is a greasy sadistic weirdo but he still has plenty of fans, as well as several sympathetic or nuanced portrayals in fan comics and fics.

For characters like Lucrecia, who were clearly (albeit poorly) written to be more morally gray and "sympathetic-leaning" (again, Dirge kind of bungled this), I'd say there are plenty of reasons for people to feel for her beyond her looks. She wasn't written the way lots of other Shinra characters are where you can dilute them into simple villain tropes in order to give the player a pure-evil camp bad guy to fight. When you have a character begging to see her son, having multiple breakdowns, and apologizing repeatedly, chances are statistically there's going to be plenty of people who find themselves empathizing with her. It doesn't make her right. But it makes her human. And not everyone latches on to the same moral thought processes when it comes to judging a character's culpability and worth. People have subjective, varying personal levels of forgiveness and empathy.

And good lord, I've honestly seen more people TRASH Lucrecia across this community than sympathize with her. The pretty privilege argument makes no sense to me because all I have ever seen has been nothing but saying how Lucrecia is the literal antichrist, how she's worse than Hojo, how SHE'S the biggest villain in the franchise, etc.

Lucrecia isn't my favorite character. She deserves a good rewrite. But she isn't a monster. And I'd argue that the people who feel bad about the situation between her and Sephiroth is more than just "she's pretty, I simp". It's a separated mother and child. It's a severely mentally ill woman who harmed own son, doesn't know how to fix it, and can't let go of her guilt. It's a son who only ever wanted to meet and know his mother, to have a familial connection to tie to his identity. That's heavy stuff. Extremely heavy. And it deserves more weight, empathy, and examination than just boiling everything down to Lucrecia's looks.

[pluralismajestatis]

Stuff and things. We haven't been writing in a bit, and I don't know if it's because brain empty no thoughts or because we've been busy otherwise or what, but there's a whole backlog of shit that's tiring and depressing and it's kind of hitting T hard. He seems to be the guy who's hoarding all of the mental illness we had before our DID diagnosis, and I think it's unfair to leave him to deal with it, blaming himself for what's going on with him. He's not bringing us down, we're placing all of the weight of everything the rest of us are blissfully unbothered by on him. And it's a long list, so let's start with something.

First - that fucking Canadian law. Never had a decision made on the literal other end of the globe hit us so hard and make us feel so hopeless on sight. We first heard of it some months ago on Reddit, which is the shittiest place on earth to be first hearing about anything on, mainly because its userbase consists of unrepenting voluntary sociopaths. (Something's climbing the cabin's wall. Sounds like a magpie but might be a squirrel. We're holed away someplace a stone's throw away from the Russian border in the arctic circle. It's atmospheric. Coincidentally also where T first became aware of being here, since I was talking about him earlier. None of this has anything to do with the euthanasia law, but suddenly hearing something scraping against your hut's outside wall is like, okay, cool, WHAT IS THAT?)

So yeah, Reddit. Knee-jerk reaction. Wrote in disbelief; this is unethical. This is not right. Suicidal ideation is such a common symptom in mental illness it's literally right there in most of the diagnostic manual entries. Literally right there, and now you're saying that instead of treating the people who experience common symptoms of mental illness, you're just going to kill them instead? How is that not eugenics? How is that not genocide? (It is.)

Got hit by a wave of forementioned Reddit cynicists. "You're the real monster," we're told. "You're denying people their right to end their suffering."

Brother - and I use this word with the utmost disrespect in my tone - I am these people. You might perceive that from just the way I mostly referred to myself as "we" in the text so far, but let me specify: we have been suffering of treatment-resistant, delibilitating, excruciating severe mental illness since we were children. We were neurodivergent before puberty and that was difficult enough, but by the time we started school, our father had turned into a violent monster who took his anger out on us, a child of 7 years old, while unemployed and our mother worked 8 to 4 every day. Sometimes she was out on business trips that took a week or maybe even two. She'd ask for her friends to babysit us, and they'd ask her why not just trust our father? She told them he had violent rages, they told her they couldn't believe that about such a nice guy, but because they were her friends, they'd do what she needed of them. Nobody ever believed us.

There's more than that, obviously. Not the point of this story. When we turned 11, our homeroom teacher responsible for most of our classes and all education outside of subject classes, had to take leave due to breast cancer. She was replaced by the meanest, most hateful bitch I've ever met. She targeted us because we weren't normal and she could smell it from miles away. By the second half of the semester, we would sit in our dark closet crying and wanting to die. We stopped doing our homework, and once that routine was gone, we could never pick it up again. By 12 years old, though she was gone by then, replaced by a creepy old guy who liked massaging the shoulders of girls while rocking into their desks with his hips and would make "checks" of the girls' showers after gym, we no longer could attend half of the semester at all. That period of unattending became longer and longer with each passing year, to the point where we'd go to school after summer vacation for about one month, and then drop out again.

We got placed in a group home, severing the last remaining friendships and connections we had at home, and leaving us in the middle of people with genuine behavioural issues and frequent clashes with the law, while our only problem was that we were desperate and could not keep up with routine.

We never did get better. A year after that ended, we entered voluntary hospitalisation for two months. The staff proceeded to ignore us, we were never even given our permission slip to exit the ward even though at the point where we were doing so poorly we demanded to cut the stay short, they wanted to act like it had been known all of the time that we didn't have to stay indoors under supervision. Guess what? Our name was not on the permission slip. Our mother made them check. The head psychiatrist of the ward was another insane control freak, I don't want to talk about her. Her deal was humiliation and arrogance, and her parting words to us "I'll see you back in a couple weeks when you're carried back here in an ambulance wearing a straitjacket." (She did not, in fact, see us back ever again.)

We moved out from home at 18, because living with our mother was impossible. She's never understood what mental illness means and cannot stand our neurodivergency. For just short of ten years from there, we were outpatients living on partial everyday assistance; we had an attendee from the social services who'd help us buy groceries, attend our appointments, and occasionally clean up the house though most the time we were too depressed to move a muscle if we didn't have to.

In 2016, we had a psychotic episode that didn't just go away like the prior ones had. I don't actually have much memories from any of our twenties, but they were miserable; we were either constantly in a permanent state of existential fear of our own impending death, or trying to hurry it along through suicidal fits and overdoses and self-harm. We were (mis)diagnosed with BPD around 27, after similar misdiagnoses of bipolar disorder earlier. The gist was that nobody knew what to do with us, and nobody was actually invested enough to figure it out. Our psychiatric contacts - doctors, nurses - dropped us on a yearly basis. The period of establishing trust got longer and longer each time, to the point where when they'd leave, we hadn't started to feel comfortable working with them yet. Constant abandonment, constant giving up, constant "you can't be helped." The years between our 25 and 29 were more or less spent trying to get a consensus on whether insurance would cover "real" talk therapy for us or not; every time one person told us to apply for it, the next person would tell us it was pointless because we were too ill to be approved, and would have to cover the whole cost ourselves, which obviously living on disability payments was not physically possible.

This all ended at the bend of 29 to 30, when we coincidentally met someone we for the first time told about our dissociative symptoms. They urged us to look into it more, which we did, and it immediately became glaringly obvious that the symptoms we'd obsessively protected and never uttered a word about in fear of some catastrophe or divine punishment raining down on us were actually clinically so significant that we needed help not yesterday, but decades ago. As a result, after failing to put us into involuntary care, our clinic kicked us out as untreatable, with nothing but a list of therapists to contact.

None of whom were dissociation specialists, and none of whom were taking patients, and only few of whom were covered by insurance to begin with, that is, if insurance would have ever even covered us to begin with. Again, untreatable. Turning to our mother, we hopped continents, got a trauma/dissociation specialist from the United fucking States of America instead, and with some cooperation between her and our local psychiatric unit (as they were ending our patientship with them) finally reached a consensus on what was actually wrong with us. Not BPD, which was scrapped, but DID.

So, how does any of this relate to Canada, and Canada's eugenics laws? Have you heard already about the patients who are recommended assisted suicide by their "care" teams? Do you see what I'm implying here?

This fucking disaster of a law is a glaring reminder that no matter the fact that we're doing better - marginally, not good enough to be anything but disabled, but still better than ever - we'd still be on the chopping block here? Not only do we have a disorder that the psychiatric world is inherently biased against and fearful towards, that most of it doesn't even want to try to understand, we are and have already been a lost case since childhood. There's no full recovery for us. There's no return to baseline functioning. Even as we are now, we are so vulnerable, teetering on the sharpest of edges, that it would be more of a surprise if, given the opportunity, our health "care" professionals wouldn't try to convince us into "assisted suicide."

It's the starkest of reminders that the world does not care about us, that we're treated and seen as nothing but burdens, that society wants us dead for reasons ranging from saving money to discomfort and embarrasment and fear.

How can you even keep trying to be better with that knowledge? Every time we open up about it, there's some self-appointed devil's advocate ready to ask us if it really wouldn't just be better, if we wouldn't actually be happier if we could just die. Not if they'd be happier if we'd just die, making their world more comfortable to live in as they don't have to contend with the concept of sick and injured people - but if we don't actually, secretly, still just want to be dead. And if we don't want to die then that's selfish; selfish because we're draining society's money, selfish because we're denying other people the right to be murdered by doctors who supposedly swore an oath to never do harm, selfish because we don't let them feel the self-assured comfort of being the good guy who lets the unfit to live take their own lives.

Suicidal ideation used to be a serious symptom that meant the patient was crying for help, crying to be seen, crying out to have people notice and care and show them that they're not alone and that there's always hope, someone who'll take their hand and help them walk forwards.

Now, apparently, this fascist shitshow of a society has decided that it's actually just the patient rationally showing that they agree with the mainstream view of it being better for everybody if they just died off.

And you want me to be okay with this? Just go on like it's fine? Just act like this isn't personal? Just accept that not only should I let other people be killed, but that I, and everyone else in this fucked up little head of mine, would actually be better off dead ourselves?

I have no fucking words left.

[oceankat8]

Hello! I just saw your sticker of Ethan and Evie (it's gorgeous btw, I love it immensely) and saw you wanted some fics where Ethan adopts Evie. I have a couple for you that I bookmarked, so I hope you enjoy them <3

To belong I will bleed

51k, WIP with 5 chapters, take place just after RE7. I don't think there are any warnings other than canon typical stuff? I'm pretty sure there are warnings in the fic itself if there are any though. Sorta Mia critical/unfriendly, though she doesn't really show up past the first chapter or so.

Short summary: mutants more closely resemble supernatural beings and thus are called specters. Ethan, new to all of this, goes from widowed husband who just discovered his dead wife is actually alive to spiritually divorced single father of two specter girls. They are also on the run.

Our family never fit the mold

15k, marked complete, but I think there might be more coming? 2 chapters, takes place mostly pre-RE7, post-RE7 and just at the beginning of RE8. Again, I don't think there are any warnings for this.

Short summary: Ethan has been a bioweapon since childhood. It doesn't change much, he still marries Mia and goes looking for her at the Baker farm, he still goes through everything, but instead of killing Evie, he adopts her and gives her a place to be a child

Through The Valley, To Life

51k, WIP, 7 chapters, takes place in RE7, during the end of the main game and during the Not a Hero dlc. The only warning I can think of is about Evie's body and how she doesn't see it as hers (Evie being mentally still a young girl while her body is Old)

Short summary: Ethan Winters, instinctive parent, Raccoon City survivor, and That Guy who the Gods just cannot seem to let die, does not kill the severely abused, mentally ill child bioweapon he finds in Louisiana. Instead, he takes her, and runs. To say this changes things is an understatement.

Mycelia

18k, WIP, 5 chapters, takes place during RE8, warning for brief character death (the end of RE8), possibly body horror. Time travel fix it

Short summary: Ethan dies blowing up the megamycete, and ends up back in the snowy world where Eveline was. Turns out the megamycete was also there and wanted a do over. She sends Ethan back in time to the crash, and now Ethan has three daughters

Black Roses Blooming

36k, WIP, 8 chapters, takes place during RE8. I don't think there are any warnings for this one, but it's been a while. I should read it again.

Short summary: Ethan Winters was a simple man with simple wants. All, literally ALL, he wanted from life was to be happy with his wife and daughter. He was doing his best to heal and recover after everything that happened in Louisiana, with Mia at his side. But when she started acting strangely once again he just knew that there was something happening. It didn't take long for his life to once more be turned upside down and shattered. Now, without his wife, his daughter missing, and a hauntingly familiar apparition following him, Ethan must traverse the Village and do what needs to be done.

That's it! I hope you enjoy them o7 o7

!!!!!!!!!

[creaturebehavior]

damn i have so much unhealed trauma

every time a natural disaster strikes i’m flooded with thoughts and memories and emotions and when i see people talking about it so freely it makes me angry for some reason because after the fire happened i didn’t have anybody to talk to about it and i still am carrying it around

i have not even talked to meagan about what happened.

the fire put this huge wedge between me and my family, me and my friends, me and my life.

i never talked about what happened with anybody, because i knew they wouldn’t understand

what i have shared in therapy didn’t even feel like it did much. i dissociated through it. and they didn’t understand anyway and it’s painful to have gone through something that people don’t understand.

they don’t know what i saw. they would never be able to even picture it in their heads if i described it to them

what happened was beyond words. it was beyond video.

i took video of the town burning down in flames around me but i hesitated to show anyone the video because in the video, the camera made the fire to appear to be farther away than it was in person, and i didn’t want someone to see the video and think i had been through anything less than what really happened. i think my dad forced me to show him the video though and the whole time i had to tell him it was worse than it looks. god i hate my dad so much

the first thing that happened when i got to a safer area was my dad screaming at me and throwing a mattress across the room and telling me that. You know what i can’t even finish this post

what happened that day fills me which such pain and anger, that at times when i remember what happened, i wish death upon my dad. That’s how angry i am at him for treating me the way he treats me.

We have not spoken since 2020. I do not plan on ever speaking to him again, if i can help it. unless i have a change of heart.

but he really drilled the nail into the coffin. i think he made his bed and he should lie in it.

i will never have children, because i know what it’s like to be raised by a severely mentally ill parent, and i refuse to inflict that on any child.

trigger warning CSA in this paragraph. i am tired of being the product of 3 severely mentally ill parents. every day of my childhood, multiple times a day i would say i know my dad is abusing all of us, but his parents abused him worse, so it’s okay. Bullshit. fuck him. And the only reason i knew about how badly his parents abused him is because he would tell us all the time. how his mom would beat him with a switch and with sticks and his father would beat him with a belt and how his mom would beat him as a baby every time he cried until he stopped crying and all the stuff his parents would say and do to him like the time he almost drowned at camp when he was four because his mom lied about his age and said he was six and said he could swim and then when she came to pick him up he didn’t tell her about it because he would have gotten in trouble and just all kind of shit like that and how his teachers would beat him with a paddle and how his sister and her friends would molest him. he would tell me and my brother this when i was as little as 3 or 4. it felt like every day there was a new horror story with gory details and he would scream at us and then cry and force us to hug and console him. I’m tired of carrying the weight and the burden of his childhood. i didn’t get to have my childhood because i was so worried about his.

i hate my dad so much for so many reasons. i can’t feel bad for him anymore. i literally don’t have the capacity. i have to stay no contact with him because i go into the fawn response around him because that’s the only way i know how to keep myself safe. i decided to cut off all contact with him until i am strong enough to hold my boundaries in his presence, and i swore to myself i will not talk to him if i’m not ready. fuck his excuses and his fake medical emergencies. i don’t care anymore. he has no idea how exhausting it is to grow up taking care of a grown man.

it’s the kind of abusive relationship that you know probably will not be over until the both of you are dead. i can cut off contact all i want but he’s going to continue to try to get in contact with me. he never leaves me alone. he won’t respect me or my boundaries. god i hate him so much.

i had one more thing to say but i forgot it because i am just stressed out writing this vent post and i think i’m beginning to dissociate oh yeah my arms are numb bye

edit: i remember what i was going to say.

my dad instilled in me a fear of life and a fear of trying new things.

every single time i tried something new, there was always a warning of the worst case scenario. i felt so scared to try anything new. every activity came with a warning of how dangerous it could be. and this has been ingrained into me. to always look for the worst possible scenario, to be on high alert, just in case.

i didn’t even try anything before developing an opinion about it, because my dad’s opinion was so strong. he’s one of those people that never shuts the fuck up. he’ll tell you the same thing multiple times in a row and not shut the fuck up. (pot calling the kettle black here, probably) now imagine being 6. imagine being 8. imagine being 2. or 3. and having your dad tell you every single thing you should worry about when doing something fun with your friends. Guess who was the friend that was afraid to participate with the other kids when they were doing something completely normal.

it’s my life’s goal to break free from the programming he drilled into my brain. and i hope i never speak to that man again.

[docnomore]

Thinking about the differences Mrs. Doc and I had to work through over the years. Our childhood years were dramatically different. Her father was the VP of the wealthiest bank in the US. That translates to, a father never present. Up before dawn, gym bag, brief case and suit in hand. Home by 5, locked away in the study, drinking martinis and doing paperwork. Unavailable until 8 PM when he was sufficiently numb and time for bed. He did everything he’d been taught: he was a great provider. Mother, went to school, got her M-R-S degree, did finishing school and all of that. She graduated to become the consummate, bored to tears housewife. Always dressed in pearls, always at the ready with starched shirts, impeccably clean house and the meal at the last minute when he’d call to inform he was bringing a client home. Mrs. Doc did the private school, the riding club and country club with the parents. She and her friends hung out at the pool. Mrs. Doc from an early age would slip into her father’s study and eat the very “wet” olives from the martini. By 9-10, she was an alcoholic. Mother decided she wanted more. Took up stage acting. That was not befitting a banker’s wife. They soon divorced. She met and married a Harvard man. A socialist, Kennedy man. Given her options, Mrs. Doc chose to stay with mom over dad. That essentially cost her her inheritance from her father. Mom left an inheritance of $2 million but step dad remarried and divided that up between the new wife and her brood. Mrs.Doc’s step brother being the executor saw what dad had done and made attempts to make things right. She received nearly. $70,000. Staying with mom also meant moving as a late teen to Colorado with the whole John Denver movement. She married and her alcoholism caught up to her. She married a second time to a guy who was a total manipulator. He was a long haul truck driver. Together, they had a daughter. Not exactly sure, but there’s a strong possibility that he molested her. By this time, Mrs. Doc was a recovering alcoholic but still had her vices - namely cigarettes and work. She was managing a corporate chain restaurant and was averaging 12+ hours a day. Closing one day and opening the next. Her daughter in tow, the child had no idea what stability was. That marriage failed and then came me.

Six months older than Mrs. Doc, she came from one side of the state, I came from the other. Dad was illiterate and always searching for work. He had many jobs. A friend from school got him a job as a pit crewman on an Indianapolis 500 race team. They won in 1949, 1951 and again in 1952. He also worked a printing press, driving a fire truck and as a TV repairman. Things were always tight but they managed to make it work. Mom had a mental illness and could never tell the truth. We grew up believing we were direct descendants of frontiersman Daniel Boone. Dad continued to work Indy for several decades and as soon as we boys were “old enough”, would take us to the track. People with a little money, do crazy stupid stuff. And at Indy, the infield gets raunchy and wild. Dad would take us around the track and taught us both to drive race cars there. I’d been driving since the age of 12 on the neighbor’s farm. They had a Volkswagon Beetle with no doors. When it was time to bring the cows in, we’d drive them in using that car. In ‘75, things got really hard. A fire retardant known as PBB was mixed in with the cattle feed and everyone’s herds had to be Slaughtered. Using a bull dozer, someone from the government would order a trench dug. The cattle were herded in and we sitting up on the sides would open fire. We were paid 22 cents a bullet. Dad was working a factory job and that factory closed. More government policy gone bad. Literally, we were left to starve. Mom had a job at a doctor’s office. It wasn’t enough to keep the creditors at bay, they lost everything but the house. As kids, we hung out in the back pastures, having bonfires and a keg of beer until the cops showed up. It would always turn into a free for all of underage drinkers wildly driving through corn fields trying to lose the cops. More of dad’s driving lessons put to use. Come the next morning, the chief of police would show up at the coffee shop, lay an ear of corn in front of dad and tell him hame had to go square up with the farmer whose field we tore up the night before. I was a lousy student, in part because dad never allowed homework to be done at home. “School is for school work. Home is for home.” He would say. Report cards would go home and mom and dad would have their arguments. Mom would slap us around a bit and life went on. Like my sister and brother before me, I graduated to essentially nothing. I worked as a dishwasher, a banquet porter, room service and as a cook. Factory work had left the state and farmers had lost their farms. I floundered for a few years then ended up in the military. I’d never been “college material”. In the military, everything is premised on rank and rank is premised on the amount of education one has. Having nothing more than a high school diploma and ranked at the bottom of the class, I was literally little more than cannon fodder. I began as a deck seaman on an ammunition supply ship sailing the Pacific. I got orders to attend Hospital Corpsman school while docked in the Philippines. I still wasn’t much for education, but sitting in a classroom for 13 weeks sure beat working Deck. I and another guy teamed up with a merchant mariner expat living in Manilla. He had a van, and we chipped in for gas and we drove across Luzon to get from Subic Bay to Clark Air Force Base. We hopped a C-141 to Travis AFB. Somewhere over the Pacific, that plane blew an engine and we found ourselves on Guam. We talked our way into first class tickets aboard a PanAm 747 to San Francisco. I attended HM school in San Diego, where my immaturity nearly go the better of me. I’d skip out of school around noon, change into a swim suit, grab a cooler full of beer and a surfboard and would spend the day and night surfing and getting drunk. Hung over, I graduated and they sent me to Camp Pendleton where I learned how to work with the Marine Corps. After that, Chicago, where I met a girl and married her. We hardly knew one another. Soon after, she was pregnant and she lied to get out of the Navy. That marriage failed.

[lexpressobean]

I've been thinking about these 3 alot...

... and how much they seem to really respect Shino. I know it's a filler, but, like... Why does it seem like Shino has a knack for finding children who have wondered off away from school? Like, he's just taking a walk, making his way around the village or surrounding forest, and then there they are. Kids playing hooky or some shit. And Shino just takes it upon himself to approach them and steer them back to where they should be, while getting them attached to him somehow in the process??

But honestly. If this was just one of many times this had happened, I'd say Shino does this not out of his knack for teaching or having a way with kids. Rather, he developed a way with kids and easily applies that to his teaching because he has a strong desire to simply protect children. And it's not even from some paternal instinct as much as survival, because I think it stems from the developing trauma of losing Torune to Danzo. And I don't think it's all subconscious either.

Like I know the novel and anime frames his desicion to teach as a sort of a new goal in life as the war has ended for a couple years already and a noticable Peace has been achieved by the Blank Period and well... He's an Aburame.

Like, the Aburame are literal living, breathing, walking bioweapons. With no fight to utilize that, what else is there? Well, much like the Nara have the Nara forest and Pharmacology specifically, The Aburame most likely have a historical stake in the area of Konoha, perhaps it was simply in their Ancestral Home. Idk, but they're here to stay, they ain't budging. They're Clan Culture is very Martial and I'd argue Spartan in nature, but otherwise, they do other things too. I think they'd do well as major players in the conservation and research of native species of animals and plants, but definitely insects too. I bet they play a huge part in the general area's ecosystem, especially due to the fact that the Kamizuru clan attacked with a whole clan's worth of non-native Hymenoptera that could very well have become and still are an irritatingly and consistent problem as invasive species tend to be. And as a far as goods go, why not put some of them to use and handle an apiary? Honey is a great good to sell. All of this is great as a clan that no longer needs to fight. But, what about individual members in general, and so Shino?

Well Shino is the Heir of this clan. This Noble Clan. This "ready to throw hands at any moment" clan. It's future is in his hands, so to speak. So I doubt Shino would completely sever his connection to Shinobi life all together. And so, teaching at the Academy would be a great way to keep that connection. Teachers have to know their stuff, after all.

But what if in order to ensure teaching was his calling, Shino did his absolute best to make Jounin ASAP so he could take on a Genin Team. And. And by chance, it ended up being these three?? And they are absolutely STOKED!!! And they also pass Shino's genin test, which... would probably be a feat in it's own right. But they already know Shino, and Shino has bestowed upon them some wisdom they actually took to heart! Yeah, well, in reality they might be just a tad too old to be Shino's first official genin squad, but they were still his squad one point in a sense, right?

Kon Nohara, Tano Ikemoto, and Aoki Kobayashi

I even gave them names help Imagine these three are already chuunin at least and decide they want to pay Shino a visit and even volunteer to help Shino during class time on a collective day off because they admire him so much (T~T)

But even then if not these three kiddos, maybe these three li'l shits lol

Even in times of Peace, Shino's special set of skills seem too useful to waste, and being a Jounin teacher would definitely have been a way he could still go on missions, but also definitely commit to becoming a Sensei at the academy once he was 100% sure and got older. Kurenai became a Jounin/Genin Squad Leader in her late twenties, but in comparison I see Shino doing that more mid-20s. (He needs some time to travel and find his big bug friend and generally live a little?)

Kurenai was a Genjutsu Specialist who manned a Tracker/Sensing based team. This sounds like it was a highly beneficial combination, even if she ended up being somewhat sadistic lol. Asuma was bound to Team 10 by Tradition as InoShikaCho and Sarutobi have that Pact together. Kakashi's team was literally Cherry Picked for him specifically by the 3rd Hokage. And Gai, a Taijutsu Specialist, had a team that Specialized in Taijutsu and Physical Offense.

Of all four teams, Kurenai and Gai were very suited to their teams, Gai in a complimentary way and Kurenai in a Challenging way. In that same vein, I think Shino would imitate Gai. Shino as a Shinobi himself has a general set of skills, but the way he goes about them are very niche. But, he was always very stealthy, and could sneak up on nearly anyone. Gags aside, he could go unnoticed as long as he wanted too, and by the time he was noticed or was ready to attack, he has you quite literally surrounded. Honestly I can see why Search and Destroy would be an Aburame's forte, but when there's no need, a person with a personal skill of high quality stealth could probably man a team with an emphasis on Reconnaissance and/or Surveillance, even Bodyguarding. I feel like Shino would probably put an emphasis on Stealth and Tracking too, utilizing his insects as sort of assistants that keep tabs on his students (Stealth Test) as well as to encourage just enough fear during too much down time in his students to inspire quality training opportunities, so maybe Kurenai rubbed off on Shino more than they all realized haha

(Plus I'm sure his students would be be smart and thoughtful enough to eventually understand what Shino and his bugs are: a complete unit. They realize just how strong and dedicated Sensei really is to be the way he is, and they all learn more in depth about Kikaichu and it's like WOW SENSEI YOU REALLY ARE RISKING BEING EATEN ALIVE EVERY SINGLE DAY, AREN'T YOU? But he's still here, because THAT'S how strong he's become over the years and the confidence to manipulate the Kikaichu while having to think of current chakra level, the most efficient use at any given time, how many he actually needs, how long usage will last, ect. They are high maintenance, man!)

Shino would no doubt produce highly skilled Bodyguards and Masters of Stealth. Maybe the type that would end up being in high demand for the eventual Celebrities that start to pop up as times change, but still very much needed when it comes to Criminal Activity, like in Sora-Ku?

But as time passes and he decided to teach at the Academy, he'd feel very at ease to do so. He'd be happy to be put in charge of all these children, because he would be able to help teach them things they need to know to defend themselves and others in a world where adults like Danzo had and will continue to exist. Maybe while he's at it, he'd use his stance as a Noble Clan Heir and accomplished Shinobi to push for changes in government with Sai's help and with Naruto and Shikamaru's cooperation? Like, the truth does come out, everyone on the Council were actually horrible and had too much power. So HERE are some ideas and REASONS why these ideas should be implemented because Shino's not going to let his brother's life and death be in vain!? HELL no, we WILL make some changes around here. Shino sees his students and just wants a future where no kid ever has to live in fear of being completely taken advantage of by the very system that was supposed to keep them safe and they pledged allegiance to.

I cannot help but think of the quiet but absolute fear little Shino was harboring for the years to come after Torune was taken by that strange man and Father Shibi didn't even attempt to stop him. His own father didn't dare beat the shit out of this strange man who came looking for him, and the only solution for Shino to stay was for Torune to make himself look more desirable as an asset and be taken instead. I bet there was a lot of misplaced resentment there for a while, and talks that just didn't happen. Maybe a classmate doesn't show up to class one day and Shino is IMMEDIATELY stressed out and just... takes it upon himself to look for them after class. And he's relieved when he see they're simply at home with a fever. Shit like that just fucks with Shino, because theres people taking kids and no one is doing anything about it?? And then as Shino grew older he realized exactly what happened and how slimy the machine of Konoha really is and it was never completely Shibi's fault that Torune had to leave. He grows mentally at a faster rate than most of his classmates, and knows more than a kid really needs to know.

Shino doesn't want that for any other child. Shino is the kind of person who hears kids screaming outside of his house and he can't tell if they're playing or being murdered and it's stressful to the point he'll check through his window and he sees them for himself. He get stressed out seeing a kid in public unattended and WANTS to approach them to help if need be but also maybe he's overthinking it and the parents are there somewhere and he'd just end up looking suspicious. Like, that's what I kind of figure for Shino. He's so hyperaware of the power dynamic between kids and adults and seeing a kid so ready to fall victim to that makes Shino feel ill the more he thinks of what could happen. And he wonders if watching the kid in the market until they finally reunite with their parent so he could move on with the rest of his day causes him even a fraction of the the utterly disgusting flurry of nerves and fear that Shibi must have felt all those years ago. It goes along with his desire to spare every single little insect's life he can. It goes a long with the fact he only gets violent unless absolutely necessary. Like he wants to be strong but he doesn't want to go mad with power either, less he becomes the very thing that hurt him and his family in the first place.

Originally Shino wanted to become strong to be able to defend himself because at a very young age adults failed him and Torune. But then that changes to defend not only himself, but others as he grows on a team, and realizes trust is important. And then he figured if there must be adults out there that would hurt a child, it's only logical that he should become one that would only nurture and teach one to be strong as well.

Anyway, yeah. Had some feelings. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. The trial happening right now bothers me because we get to see how Thanatos and Echo reacted to this, but Demeter and Persphone don’t know and I know why they don’t know yet. However you think that would tie some more stuff up together

It was Minthe, Thanatos and Thetis who whistle blew on Persphone. Meaning Thanatos would probably be called to trial and would have to face persphone and I would hope say something to her BUT I kinda doubt that’s gonna happen.

But the other thing to this Minthe is a plant who can’t testify. Are hades and Persphone hide the fact she’s a plant and pretend she’s missing or are they gonna say “yeah I still don’t have control over my powers but I’m queen now” HOWEVER I truly believe RS is just gonna not address these two plot points until way later.

FINALLY Eros and Psyche KNOW the last person Daphne was seen with was Apollo, did they chase after her after he got shot by the arrow? We don’t know. We don’t even know what they’re doing about Psyche. Did Eros and Psyche even see the Daphne tree? Are they going to try and sneak in to tell Persphone?

I know the plots gonna focus more on HxP secret marriage at the court trial rather than the actual consequences and the fact people are turning into greenery left and right. (It’s not Persohones Faullt Daphne is the way she is but RS needs to focus on other plot points I feel)

2. like, age gaps, height differences, and power imbalances dont always have to be bad, the issue to me is that the way rachel does it is hyper-focusing on how young, small, and child-like/unexperienced persephone is compared to the old, giant, and all powerful/mature hades is like ... yeah obvs people are going to find it creepy? how would they not?

3. i honestly cant stand the "theyre immortal gods the age gap doesnt matter!!" agreement because like??? ok??? then she could easily be 300 years old then? she shouldnt be so borderline underage then?? like the immortality aspect actually makes the age gap worse, not better??

4. i realize getting nitpicky over unimportant characters in lo having american names is a bit dumb, but it does speak to just how lazy rachel is and how little care she has for greece and its mythology. there are countless english names that are also greek, yet even that's asking too much of her. percy jackson isnt a perfect series, but even the characters (who are in america) have greek influence and meanings put into their names and characterization, something rachel doesn't even attempt to do.

5. ok but thats a good point, because rachel seems to be taking physical wounds to matter more over the mental ones, when thats not how trauma works. her writing on zeus is reflective of her writing minthe, where she confirmed she has a severe untreated mental illness and that's linked to her evilness, and thus what she should be punished for. meanwhile persephone own mental issues can be bastardized as a "yass queen" thing?? somehow?? its just bad writing all around.

6. i kinda wish lo fans would listen to their own logic and give the same leeway to the other characters. theyll scream from the rooftops that hades and persephone and hera can be awful people all they want because thats ~realistic~, meanwhile minthe and zeus and everyone else are held to such extremes they can never meet and are hated and despised for nothing in compared to hxp or hera. either hold your faves accountable or let off on hating characters who do the same as them.

7. i see a lot of lo fans excuse how everything drags as "thats how a slow burn works" and its like ... no? because most of that slow burn isnt even hxp, its rachel forcing in more plots we dont need, and when its hxp, you look at the timeline and how they act and its actually neck-breakingly fast? like if as much time had past in LO as irl time then yeah, four years is a slow burn, but its only been maybe a month in comic? so its not slow for them at all, but it's a drag for the readers.

8. See, the difference between Lo!Hades and Punderworld!Hades is that PW!Hades has so much personality, he and Persephone are literally bustling with life (even though one of them rules over a realm of dead XD) AND their interactions are so cute with their awkward attempts at flirting and failure at doing so. Persephone is still somewhat sweet and “pure” but she’s also a bit of a spitfire, she’s not easy to surrender, she has wants and dreams and that little differences makes her character likable!

We NEVER get to see anything like that with LO!Hades and Persephone, we don’t see them have these sweet interactions, these heart-fluttering moments, because there’s no base or foundation for those sorts of moments! It’s always these very out-of-character unrealistic scenes expected from a married couple, but they just met! It doesn’t feel natural, it feels forced and rushed and so slow at the same time.

Although Punderworld makes Demeter overbearing, i love her characterization i really do, waAAAY more than LO!Demeter, because we actually understand her reasons for her overprotective behavior and we get to see her in a more sympathetic light/manner in the newer chapters, we see her as more than “mean mom hates bf”

9. Daphne and Thanatos were adorable. Like, Daphne was a sweet, caring girl with genuine interest (and power/agency) and Thanatos was a shy, awkward guy who was just doing his best (and not pressuring her). They weren't perfect, but it was something! Why couldn't LO be about them?

10. What I find funny is that Minthe and Thetis have a more defined friendship than Persphone and other female characters.

Minthe and Thetis ARE TOXIC don’t get me wrong but both characters are aware of each other’s motives. Minthe knows not to trust Thetis fully and is straight with her on her opinion of Thetis. But the readers clearly know their relationship as well as the characters.

Persphone is in gray areas with most her female friends. The beginning of the story we are lead to believe Artemis and P are besties with the dress sharing and the way in P’s mind they’re holding hands with Hermès. But clearly now their relationship is a question mark and they’re both more detached than we thought. Artemis was just being nice to P letting her stay with her because they’re both in the TOGeM but they’re probably more like acquaintes at best.

Daphne and P we know they’re friends but P isn’t straight with her. Like Daphne is P’s only named friend, but did P think of her as the other overbearing nymphs? We don’t know because they’re all pink and some of them are dead. Despite being told they grew up together we don’t even know much about their relationship what do they like about each other? Does Daphne agree with Demeters parenting or P’s need to leave? When did Daphne get to move to Olympus? I feel like the plot just says “these two characters are friends “ but doesn’t elaborate much. Why did P let Daphne in her room at Hades mansion and not the other nymphs? P told Daphne that Apollo is dangerous, but it was a little too late. Also why didn’t P have her phone number when she got to Olympus? Wouldn’t she know to contact her on insta or something? P was like “omg I know no one except Hermès “ but that’s not true! Daphne! I could go more but I think we get the picture that Daphne’s plot point is having the readers be told Persphone has friends but she doesn’t but she does.

Were shown that P and Meg are getting along because P was nice to Meg, despite Meg being silently jealous of P, but what about Meg now? Is she ever gonna tell P that she’s jealous of P that she had a mad crush on Hades, even her journal? Or is that all gone now? Does Meg even matter any more or is she now here just to support HXP?