#this is now my outlet of my insanity and mental illness

[z0mbiew00d]

I got suspended on twitter I’m going to become violent

[ar-cadez]

Negaverse Megavolt concept!

Design notes and personality rant stuff under the cut. Warning. It's long and unreadable.

The purse thing is a generator (Ill probably design it as a prop at some point considering It does NOT look like one but portable generators are hard for me to draw for some reason)

I swapped which eye has the white in it (even though I usually draw it on the wrong side anyway bc idk my lefts from rights..)

I wanted to make the darks very prominent bc the yellows are very prominent in the original

I went with blues bc it's the only other colour usually associated with lightning and electricity.

The teal parts of his outfit are lights! They glow when he's fully charged and fade out when he's out of power.

You can't see it in this pose but his hands have outlets on the back that work the same as megavolt's chest outlet. He can power weapons with them and charge himself without the pain of straight up shocking himself

I wanted to make his hair look like it's thinning out bc of age and repeated electrical damage but I wasn't sure how to do that so it's not really present. Did give him some white hair though.

His glasses are prescription! Can't see nothin without em..

Okay now some personality stuff!

Megavolt is the hardest villain to swap bc his personality is "insane guy with memory issues but is smart" and it's kinda hard to flip that around without just making him boring? Removing his intelligence when it comes to electricity would also negate his whole gimmick which makes things worse. but I do have a few ideas. It's ironic I struggle with him so much considering he's literally my favourite character...

He was popular in high school. He was friends with negaduck and they were both pretty well liked jock types before negaduck started doing major crimes (though I imagine he was always a delinquent of sorts. Just didn't start destroying the city till he graduated) clash reunion is a whole beast on it's own bc megavolt has the most in depth backstory which means a lot of reworking for a personality swap au.

His interests, like dw's megavolt, lie in magnesium, electronics, and engineering. The difference is, despite being Intruiged by these subjects, he didn't go out of his way to learn about the. He was more focused on his peers approval back then. Not to mention the fact that negaduck was an extremely toxic friend and would absolutely make fun of him constantly for it. (He doesn't even actually care, he's just an asshole.)

Eventually after gaining his abilities he began to study electricity and start inventing things. Only.. He's pretty bad at it. Things tend to backfire on him. Quackerjack has a lot more experience than him when it comes to engineering and he tries to help him out but the guy's kinda cursed. I haven't really decided if it's more dt17 gyro where everything he makes ends up turning against him or guy am I from the Netflix green eggs and ham show where everything he makes just kinda explodes. Maybe a bit of both. Either way it's very over the top and is more trouble than it's worth, but that doesn't stop him! (Oh God someone stop him)

I didn't wanna just take away his mental issues completely because the opposite of that is literally nothing. It adds.. Nothing. It just gives him less to work with. And it's already hard enough to do this guy. (Plus it kinda implies mentally ill people can't be heroes and that's.. Mm....) So instead I decided to change how he reacts to it.

He still has memory issues along with other physical and mental symptoms of electrical injury, he just really likes to pretend he doesn't. He completely ignores his deteriorating mental, physical, and emotional health <33

I wanna flesh him out more but I'd only be able to do that if I write with him and I'm fantastic at procrastinating my writing projects <33

[thedemonsurfer]

hey uuuh im procrastinating on other things so let's write a big ol' essay about

Eclipse 3.1, and Why Moon Is Doing a Disservice By Writing Him Off As "Insane*"

*insane in this context being the definition of 'acting erratic and unpredictable with no regard to consequences' and not an actual mental illness diagnosis, I know, I wish they'd pick a different word too, but this is an essay about Eclipse's behavior, not linguistics

So! If you've only been sorta keeping up with SAMS, the current plot is someone (we still don't know who) revived everyone's favorite dusty Dorito that had been forgotten under the couch, slapped him on the ass, and pointed him at the Daycare. This has made a lot of people (in universe) very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move, even by Eclipse.

Especially by Eclipse.

Our buddy boy has magic (dunno how), incomplete memories of both the original Eclipse and the backup (no clue how he got those), and directives embedded in his code that can't be removed without killing him (¯\_(ツ)_/¯). He literally woke up in the hallway outside the Daycare and then went inside and started monologuing.

Eclipse wants to find the person who brought him back, maybe or maybe not ask some questions, and then kill them.

He reeeeeally wants to kill them.

(This whole arc honestly boils down to Eclipse grabbing various folks and shaking them while screaming "ARE YOU MY MOMMY?!")

In recent eps Moon has accused him of going 'insane', mostly due to his insistence on picking fights and threatening others, and that he cannot shut up about wanting to get the guy that made him. He very recently picked a fight with Lunar, who killed him again-- and proved at the moment he can't be killed permanently, he'll just come back in a new body.

Huh.. fighting a programmed compulsion, becoming more erratic and aggressive over time, breakdown of logic and reasoning... That seems kind of familiar...

Oh yeah! This is Eclipse's kill code. I'm calling it the 'bother code', but 'cringecode' and 'pain-in-the-ass code' aren't off the table. Unlike Moon's kill code, the expression seems to be 'be a distraction to Moon' rather than like, outright murdering people.

Like the kill code, fighting the compulsion seems to make his behavior more unstable. Because here's the thing: Eclipse isn't stupid.

Well.

Okay, Eclipse is stupid, but not... like this.

Eclipse is a manipulator. His thing has always been to recruit others to help him achieve his goal, and he's patient about it. He's willing to work for months on someone, and while he does shoot himself in the foot eventually, it's usually more indirectly than this. Moon is currently helping him search for the guy, it makes no sense for Eclipse to continue posturing and threatening.

Except-- that's his only outlet right now.

The "I need to find the guy who made me"? That's Eclipse's goal, the one he's pursing with all the stubbornness he has.

The "hey what if I killed or maimed some of your family"? That's the directives.

What we're seeing with Eclipse's behavior is him desperately trying to keep himself on track, when the bother code is trying to yank him in another direction. Threatening Moon so he'll 'work faster' is an outlet, a way for him to briefly pacify the code while redirecting it back into his own goal. He knows it's a stupid suggestion, but he's going to make it anyway because he has no choice.

I think he feels like he's running out of time as well. Because Eclipse can be patient, but he gets frustrated and short tempered the closer he gets to a deadline (this is why I believe he started being meaner to Lunar-- he was frustrated about not finding the star and had given himself only a month to do it).

So like.. yeah. I don't think he's going 'insane' or 'losing his mind'. I think he's fighting a losing battle against his own programming, and taking the frustration and panic out on everyone else. Because the kill code couldn't be fought off indefinitely, eventually the bot would crack under it. And it'd be nice if Moon could acknowledge that Eclipse's behavior isn't entirely voluntary, and he IS I think honestly doing his best-- he outright came to them for help, something he's never done before.

Idk maybe they need to let Eclipse put Moon in a stupid trap again for an ep to get it out of his system so he can chill out for a while.

A sidenote! Its interesting to me that Eclipse's behavior in the coming back ep seemed to be erratic only as long as Moon was present. Once Moon left, Eclipse changed gears in how he was talking to Solar, and had some very classic "you know you're better than this, don't you want to go apeshit?" lines. The kind of thing that we've seen from the previous Eclipse incarnations. Dunno yet if it means anything, but it's interesting!

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

"We don’t even know how the human brain works in full and you’re over here trying to diagnose (or un-diagnose?) random teens on tumblr because you think them applying to themselves a label that makes sense to them is harming any of you?" The "endogenic" label is harming the OSDDID community. Actively so, actually, by examples you provided. You mentioned yourself that some people may self-identify as endogenic because their trauma has been deeply hidden and buried within their mind. If you are diagnosed with DID or OSDD, that is a childhood trauma disorder. It confirms that there is trauma that happened in your childhood- and the best, healthiest option for you would be to find where it is being held, and help that part of you process the trauma, usually through therapy. It may be long, and grueling, but it is ten thousand times healthier than denying you have any trauma and never working through it.

Now, let's say you are diagnosed with DID or OSDD, and instead of following the recommendations, you instead say "Nope! I'm endogenic which means I have no trauma! My entire system is actually just here because God willed it! (real explanation some people give)" Despite the fact that this person has a CHILDHOOD TRAUMA DISORDER, and there is ZERO significant medical research even suggesting you can have DID without childhood trauma, you go on to deny you have any trauma and keep it deeply buried. You have switching triggers that don't understand. You blackout for days. You are dealing with constant mental anguish and symptoms of unresolved trauma, all because you have used something based on no medical science to deny that your childhood trauma disorder is caused by childhood trauma.

So yes, creating an outlet for people with a very serious and debilatating childhood trauma disorder to deny their trauma is, very much, harming us.

Okay so here’s the thing, anon. You are not these peoples psychiatrists. You are not their therapists. You do not know them. You are making blanket assumptions about their mental health based on tumblr posts. Do you realize how asinine that is?

Do you not realize how insane it is for you to say “these people are suppressing trauma in an unhealthy way because I read their tumblr bio and they used word I don’t like so I know them better than they do!”? You realize that’s insane, right?

And again, I cannot emphasize this one enough, if you have multiple guys in your brain meat, you’re a system. You can go full armchair psychiatrist and try to gatekeep plurality for… whatever unhinged reason you use to justify that, but ultimately if a person is actually people I kinda think they’re gonna know that about themselves better than you do. Attacking random mentally ill strangers online and trying to force them to unearth a childhood trauma isn’t exactly making you the hero of the story.

[angycryptid]

long ass post of all the media I enjoyed this year!

its a lot so strap in

movies:

Lisa Frankenstien: it came out around valentine's day and I heard NO ONE talking about it. it is defo in my top 10 movies of all time and if you like Heathers the musical and/or horror comedies you should go watch it right now. also besides heathers, it has a lot of the comedy and themes similar to the barbie movie, give it a watch!

Electric Dreams: 1984 scifi rom-com that is entirely avalible on youtube. if you are a Freak about 80s scifi this is the movie for you. Its about a guy who falls in love with the girl who just moved into apartment next door and is too nervouts to aske her out. fortunately his desktop computer becomes sentient and helps him out. Its super silly and cute, also automatic top ten movie for me, i think ive watched it a dozen times.

The wild robot: I'm a sucker for a sympathetic robot enough said

Dr. Strangelove or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb: Love me a cold war era dark comedy. its got an awesome vibe to it, and is kinda just nice for if you're working on a craft project. Everyone in that movie is freaking insane

Alphaville: niche 1965 scifi movie, kinda absurd to watch but i absolutely loved it. It is a french film noir, and it kinda has the vibe of an hour and a half long twilight zone episode, so it is DEFINITLEY not for everyone, but if ur into that stuff give it a chance

Raggedy ann and andy a musical adventure: perfect movie for a cozy night in, its just a fun 70s animated movie, i dont have much more to say than that!

Evil Dead: I finally got my hands on a dvd of the first movie (not evil dead 2, the first one). Besides Cabin in the Woods, probably my favorite version of the 'college students go to a cabin in the woods and get killed' trope. classic horror vibe and just overall fun to watch.

Rockula: can you tell i like horror comedies. Awesome comedy musical with a really fun cast of characters!

Books: (I pretty much just read sci-fi so if you loathe scifi, skip this lmao also i have no other outlet for this so this'll be a lot)

Full Novels

Space Odyssey series - Arthur C. Clarke: I re-read these books this summer because I hadn't been reading for a while! probably my favorite book series, and HAL 9000 is one of my favorite fictional characters ever. No one ever talks about the sequels, just the first one and usually the movie which is such a shame. Its a beautiful story about space travel and the whole peaceful yet scientific and observant vibe resonates with me a lot personally.

I, Robot - Issac Asimov: I've been meaning to get into Asimov's book series for years and I finally just sat down and read this collection. The book was enthralling and kinda felt like a series of thought experiments about robots and AI. plus the reoccurring characters are very fun!

Galapagos - Kurt Vonnegut: One of my mom's favorite authors, and ive been meaning to read some of his books for a while. As a zoology student the way that evolution is used as social theory in this book is very well done, and is a sucker punch for anyone expecting social Darwinism. the third quarter of this book is a bit of a slog, but the ending makes it entirely worth it in my book, and the pacing is super unique due to the narrator straight up spoiling most of the plot for you within the first few chapters.

1984 - George Orwell: I never read it for school but GOD DAMN. this is my favorite book I've read all year and possibly my favorite book of all time. Winston is such a unique yet deeply relatable character (for me, i know i got mental illness shit goin on tho so like whatever). All of the political theory in this book was eye opening and so so so well written, and the final section of the book ripped me into shreds. If you haven't read this book I would sincerely recommend, and it's a tragedy this got watered down to 'hehe literally 1984'

Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir: I'm only halfway through this one but this is such a chill and fun read! The sci-fi concepts are on point too, super fun ideas being brought up. Rocky my beloved. This may be up there with 2001: A Space Odyssey as a comfort book.

-Novellas, short plays, and short stories

I have no mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison: my favorite short story of all time. Discovered it in Senior year hs when i was going through a lot and it changed me as a person. I revisited it this year (and also played some of the 90s point and click adventure game adaptation) and i holds up just as well if not better. You would be surprised just how much is slammed into an 11 page story, this is my roman empire.

EPICAC - Kurt Vonnegut: read this bc i found out electric dreams was loosely based off it and I wanted more movie. Im now seriously considering getting one of the quotes tattooed. absolutely beautiful

LOKI 7281 - Roger Zelanzy: Wonderful little short story, quite silly honestly.

The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas - Ursula K. Le Guin: My friend recommended this to me as thier favorite short story. Gives off the vibes of one of those short stories you annotate in High school that fucks you up for like a week, good story.

Adam Link - Eando Binder: Short story series about a robot from 1939-42, somehow still deeply relatable.

17776 - Jon Bois: Digital novella about satellites watching football. Started out as a comedy and had me near tears by the end, the sequel 20020 is wonderful too

All Tommorows - C. M. Koseman: kinda the opposite of 17776 vibeswise, starts out as a serious horror novel and ends with a surprisingly uplifting and beautiful message of community

RUR - Karel Capek: Weird and baller play about a robot uprising, named my pet crab after one of the characters

Albums:

White music - XTC: very goofy, upbeat, and synthy pop album. super fun to listen to

Hip to the Javabean - Lemon Demon: super strange, comforting, confusing, and cathartic album to listen too. Lemon Demon is my favorite artist and this is his album that meant the most to me this year. (also if you've never heard it, I'd recommend his album Spirit Phone to anyone)

Wild Planet - B-52s: Very fun album, B-52s are my favorite driving artist and this album is so fun to sing along to. super silly and goofy.

Monarch of Monsters - Vylet Pony: Very good album, only came out 2 weeks ago and ive listened to it 3 times. Super impactful and is cathartic for all of the ugliest emotions inside (yes I found this artist through mlp fansongs, they are peak and i am cringe and free what about it)

Girls Who Are Wizards - Vylet Pony: Super chill album to just vibe out, perfect to draw to.

Starlight Express Soundtrack: Insane musical, the og 1984 soundtrack is super groovy and just fun to listen to.

TV: (I dont watch a ton of tv so this'll be short)

Andromeda: 2000s star trek style show. fun for like 70% of the episode until you think about the implications and then it becomes absolutely insane, like one of the main characters tries to kill like a few hundred children in like episode 3 absolutely wild.

Dungeon Meshi: super comfy tv show, nice to just chill out with. It's like a combo of high fantasy and a cooking show. all the food looks amazing

Malcom in the middle: One of my comfort shows and probably my favorite live action sitcom. Just an absolutely insane family that loves each other.

Bojack Horseman: NEVER BINGE THIS SHOW IN 6 DAYS DEAR LORD. Super good show as long as you actually think about the themes.

if you read all this based as hell

[philsmeatylegss]

Are any other phannies like… periodical phannies? Or like subconscious phannies? Like I don’t engage with content unless it’s new and I’m not often engaging in talking about them like 24/7. But like I’m still totally in the phandom like my heart still drops when they post and i drop everything I’m doing to watch it. It’s hard to also have been here when the phandom was at its peak popularity and just watching it slowly decline. And then watching yourself slowly decline it’s like emotional

I’ve been open that I’ve watched dnp pre being suicidal, being suicidal, and post being suicidal. Like I started engaging with their content when I was 11 and I turn 20 in two weeks. And half of my teenage years was spent extremely mentally ill as in coming home from middle school and wanting to kill myself and I would watch dan and phil videos to distract me

Like they were one of my few positive outlets and one of the few things that gave me happiness at that period so I’m still the same now. I get that serotonin boost and excitement I got in middle school.

And they symbolize so much to me that I’ll never not be a fan. They’ll never be a moment where I won’t rush to see new content. But idk. Don’t get me wrong, the phandom has the best written fics that I spend hours reading, but other than that, I’ve slowly been growing out of that intense fixation and it’s so hard

It literally just is me growing up. I know it is. And I’ve healed so much that I don’t need to obsess over something so I’m never alone with my thoughts. It’s a good thing. And I don’t plan on not watching them anymore or not screaming the second they do some dumb shit.

As the average age of the phandom gets older, I think it’s something I’ve seen a lot of us go through. Where we’re not actively engaging in phandom content unless it’s new. And it’s still always there. Like you engage in other content, but that connection is still there. But idk… it’s kind of hard to watch myself go from being an obsessive fan to just a big fan.

Yes, it’s a sign of me growing up and healing, but considering all they’ve done for me, not being obsessed feels like I’m betraying dnp. Which sounds fucking insane and I get it.

And it’s so hard to find new fandoms and I’m really specific in the content I can get excited to talk a lot about. I’m chasing that high I got when I was 14 and would see they uploaded something the night after I cut myself and being able to watch it and talk about it with people like me. It was such a 0 to 100 that I cannot replicate now that I’ve healed and it sucks and is amazing at the same time.

[grenadineghost]

hi juuuuune :) tell me about 1, 6, and multiples of 11!

YESS HI ty for enabling me :3 lots of these so under the read more

1) Uzumaki by the Scary Jokes

listened to this song 200 times this year. i knew itd be my top song. its just so fucking good and dreamy and tough and powerful. the incorporation of guitars into a scary jokes song is so fucking cool?? and the ENDING OUGH. it goes crazy fucking insane, its such a good spiral it ends in. its on london and izzy's playlists! its also just very perfect for my year. i spent a lot of this year balancing my friendships and wound up losing a really close friendship in a horrible falling out, and this song is about that kind of relationship. also its a really good song to kiss someone to. who said that

ok someone already asked for 6 so ill give you 5?

5) No Leverage / No Pleasure by the Scary Jokes

another scary jokes song! another one of my favs of all time! ough im obsessed hi. this was on the chapel playlist for those feelings of obsession and destruction and love. those were also feelings i spent a LOT of this year grappling with and this song is such a perfect outlet for them. this song just... rips up my heart. its so fucking good i adore this song hi. i have no doors ive torn through the walls ive ripped up the floors laid waste to it all

11) 8 now by food house

YES! A FUCKING JAM! i got to see this song live and it was so much fun - everyone went fucking crazy during IT GIVES YOU FUCKING MENTAL ILLNESS ough i adore this song. fraxiom was so fucking funny during the live show kghjl they asked the audience if we had done our homework and cleaned our rooms and washed our pronouns. anyways. this song is just so fun and silly. it's on my dnd character amy's playlist bc she's a stupid mischevous teenager lol

22) Hëłłœ Kįttÿ by Alice Longyu Gao

another hyperpop song i saw live that's on amy's playlist! this song goes CRAZY FUCKING INSANE hyperpop song in 3/4 thats just fucking relentless its fucking amazing the energy is so insane its not a song that most people would like but its so fucking good i made my dad listen to it. CIAO BELLA CIAO BELLA BELLISIMO! on amy and izzy's playlist for the contrast of hello kitty as a cute fem figure and INSATIABLE KINDA INSANE VIOLENCE BITING BITING BITING

33) Saddest Summer by the Drums

oh. i don't even know where to start with this song. its really important to me because it's a song i associate with my family - the name might be saddest summer but its super upbeat and i associate it with really wonderful summer memories. and its so fucking lovey! and this summer i was really missing my friends and put this song on a playlist for them - i kept saying it really was the saddest summer, bc i had a wonderful summer and also a really yearningpilled one.

44) Foreign Object by the Mountain Goats

WHY ARE WE GETTING EVERYTHING FROM IZZY'S PLAYLIST we're reaching the point where this isn't associated with specific memories its just a jam. i love the way this song casually sings about violence hehe and the end... the way it feels so beautiful and celebratory of this violence is REALLY fun

55) money machine by 100 gecs

the first song here that isn't from a playlist, i just listened to it a lot because its good! idk what else i can say its just a fucking jam. feel so clean like a money machine... this song was my introduction into hyperpop and i fucking love it the synths are just so fucking perfect and it has this persistence to it that i adore

66) Cheerleader by Sir Babygirl

SIR BABYGIRL! oh i love cheerleader so much. i could write an essay on why this is on amy's playlist - we're really hitting a few specific playlists huh - but the general idea is just this cute feminine aesthetic on the verge of complete collapse, and urging to be cheered on... its so fucking good. the "cmon, cheer me on!" part drives me crazy insane, its really fun and builds such a vibe

77) Cyber Stockholm Syndrome by Rina Sawayama

listened to this a lot this year because i had a final last semester where i wrote about cyborgs and we read Donna Harraway's Cyborg Manifesto in another class and also so there's this robotgirl who said that. ive also been planning a metamorphosis character relating to video games and obsession (the tetris effect) and so a song about obsessive love with cyber aesthetics? yes

88) Starstruck by the Scary Jokes

gotta get one more scary jokes in there. also from the chapel playlist, because that had most of burn pygmalion on it! im actually really surprised i didn't put this on the playlist for my friends considering that i call them my starlings. i mean ive been thinking about remaking that playlist now that our relationship has evolved a lot so, maybe this'll be there! its just such a fun cute cozy song :3

99) Feelin' So Matryoshka by (once again) the Scary Jokes

this was from emilie's playlist! i don't really have anything to say about this song other than it being a fucking jam lol its just GOOD it has the perfect beep boop bops. and i love how the scary jokes does lyrics ough its such a fun song

[yakultii]

I ain't scared, I just thought I might get the most best answer this way..I'm wondering what poet or poem you read (or were read in your childhood) that had you looking for more and aspiring to write your own? If it was a traumatic event, I feel you there. .it can really help to read a complete stranger's words of pain, when they harmonize with our own. I admit, I have only read a couple of your poems but I love your voice, keep on keepin on ☮️ 🕉 💛

HAHA DW I LOVE ANONS <33333 I encourage it.

HONESTLY no poetry inspired me to write poetry (IRONIC) I thought I hated poetry!!!! I’ve written many things since I was a kid but always been more of an essay kinda dude..I attempted to read poetry a few times over my lifetime and mostly it made no sense to me..I thought it was just a bunch of pretentious ppl flexing their advanced vocab (which honestly I lack bc of a whole other story I won’t get into and maybe I was just jealous) - the only time I wrote a poem was back in final yr of highschool lit class when my brain was malnourished af and writing it made me want to kms plus I had major imposter syndrome (and then my lovely grandma went and sent it in to a poetry magazine without me knowing and it got published and still I didn’t think poetry was for me) only in more recent times I no longer have access to a psych who I can send weekly 3000 word emails to and I needed to do something so that I would stop driving myself completely insane bc I also live alone 4hrs from family and no friends so have noone to save me but myself so I started writing every day on wattpad like a digital diary entry(today was day 118 in a row) then I started to see others who had written poetry and combined w the fact that I’ve come very far over the yrs in terms with perfectionism (as in not needing to be) I found myself in a place realising that poetry didn’t have to be “good” and that I could just make it work for me. I could just write for myself. To get things out (even tho it’s only like 5% of my mind). It didn’t need to look impressive for others etc like what I used to think poetry did… so yeah basically poetry is just my budget therapy now and a tool to prevent me from ending things :))))) everything I write about (so far, at time of writing) is from real life experience and I love using it as an outlet to say the things that wouldn’t be taken so well if they were said out loud.. cause everyone has some sort of darker side whether they are exposed to it or not and whilst I do hold onto a lot of hope I love being able to have an outlet to get the rot out of me or at least create something with it so it’s not completely useless and all consuming. ALSO I think it’s cool that poetry allows you to turn your words into art. I’ve always loved art and ppl consider me arty or whatevs but I can’t draw or paint (well - not that it matters) so this is kinda something that comes more naturally to me! (I’ve only been writing poetry for 4 months now so hopefully I can only get better)… AND THANK THE LORD in the meantime as I have come to write my own poetry I am now able to appreciate other people’s poetry, I can understand it more, I can be inspired by it, I can admire it. I get it now. Or at least I think I’m starting to get it…. But to answer ur question l wouldn’t say it was a singular traumatic event which inspired it but rather a combined experience of like 20 genuinely traumatic events combined with being neurodiverse & a lifetime of various mental illnesses which I wouldn’t say are all treated etc. and quite honestly having read NOTHING in the past which resonated with the depth of my own experience so I thought you know what I know I can’t be the only one feeling this, I’m gonna try write my own! If I can’t read it I’ll write it and hope I can be that for someone else I guessss

SOZ FOR RANT IDK HOW TO STFU AND THANK YOU FOR READING A FEW OF MY POEMS AND THANK YOU FOR THIS QUESTION ILY HAVE A LOVELY DAY <33

[twslug]

gonna answer all the q's of that one post i rbed like two days ago or something, answers below break if u gaf (really not groundbreaking info)

answers start here:

that i don't have to do a lot of things (both academically and in my personal life) that i don't want to do but pressure myself to do anyway. a lot of things really and truly Do Not matter

isolating myself due to anxiety or aimless frustration that i don't have an outlet for,,, big fan of Being locked in a room for hours

fav self care is skin care/workout and good music, i'm listening to my girly pop playlist post-workout (current song is toxic by nico rosberg aka britney bitch, so just envision these mentally ill answers with fergie and britney and katy perry and rihanna in the background)

most vivid memory is definitely not a visual memory, i've got some memory loss so i don't remember much of anything about my life. HOWEVER i have an echoic memory, so i really latch onto peoples' voices. i looove f1 with all the different accents and languages (lowkey linguistics hpfx) so i can have drivers narrating my thoughts. charles's voice is super imprinted on my brain because he has a very unique (imo) speech cadence and choice of wording in english, same for max (both verstappen and fewtrell), lando, and other random celebrities or youtubers or irls or characters etc etc.

would like to recieve some emotional/social support, was kind of pushed to the side because my brother is more extroverted, better at school, had asthma and ocd and several food allergies, but i was left to my own devices because i was much quieter and in the background.

have always wanted to be able to take academics into my own hands, as per the last answer, i am very quiet irl and have a hard time asking for help so i spend a lot of schooling teaching myself, so i've mastered the ability to put my head down and succeed by myself but at what cost yknow, i cant even speak to professors or other students

apathy. chronic, neverending, borderline infectious apathy. im very stubborn so if my brain has become apathetic about something then you will never get me to care about it, even if i myself want to

rly gets to me when people are mean to people i like, for an f1 example, idk i like a lot of the drivers but seeing people be blatantly mean to them (criticism and affectionate jabs are Fine) really makes me feel upset and/or almost ill, i get rly anxious for some reason like i'm the one being insulted

no i don't cry. not really (back to the playlist, family ties by baby keem just came on TURN THIS SHIT UUUPPP) anyway i dont really cry, lots of apathy, forced to be the quiet kid etc etc

have done lots of improvement on my body image and having confidence in what i say/believe, esecially in a family setting, lots of my problems are from childhood and being overly quiet/shy, so i rly struggle(d) with speaking my mind but now Nobody has anything on me, my moms dad was a county sheriff and i openly rip on cops in front of her like fuccckkk off u made me like this

was very mentally ill at the time (was also during covid, so i was really mentally unwell), and they had their own problems, ended up having a rly toxic relationship. neither of us had redeeming qualities, said some things we shouldn't have, like mutual punching bags

wish i could connect to my new roommates for this upcoming college/university semester, again: very bad at talking to people, maybe it will be better when we all live together (copium)

POLITICS TIME: i get irrationally angry at people who know nothing about the US south, i live here and it pisses me off when most political "hot takes" about american southern conservatism are boiled down to classism and/or racism, drives me fucking insane

i only like affectionate teasing if i know you rly well or the jab isnt something im insecure about, but im a bit of a hypocrite because i playfully insult people all the time, good rule of thumb i follow is just never go for appearance, all makes u look like a dick

prefer to be numb, because even though its one of the worst things to ever happen to my Cranium, i have a really easy time letting things go and not being upset over things i should probably be upset about. its kind of peaceful when u come to terms with it

talent ive overlooked/lost is ,,,,,,, i actually dont know, i think ive honed the things im really good at, i was really good at being a stage manager in school theatre (was assistant director and stage manager for les mis in 10th grade, bitches love my organizational skills), maybe i pick that up again somewhere

call me seb vettel the way i really liked dark blue in the but switched to loving bright bright #ff0000 red, like the brightest u can get... good shit... Also british racing green forever and always

my stuffed animals :-) no harm in keeping them, i suppose

well this ones easy because i dont like talking about infodumping about the innerworkings of my Psyche but here we are, i feel a bit bothersome, hence this entire post being hidden under a page break ..

LAST ONE (current song playing is dancing in the moonlight by king harvest, for those of u following along athome), i believe people think im much kinder than i think i am. if that makes sense. i know the things ive said to other people, about other people, about myself, etc, and i just feel this kind of imposter syndrome whenever people say they think im rly kind or fun to be around because i know deep down i am miserable and evil and nasty... And dont even hit me w that "bad people dont care that theyre bad so u caring makes u not bad" no no no, thats the thing, i dont care . i am Evil... ebil,,,,,, Deomn evil

[magg0tkid]

If you'd asked me like six months ago I would've said the romanticization (I have no idea how that should be properly spelled) of mental illness and the desire people have for mental illness to gain internet points/win suffering olympics is one of the stranger and more idiotic things to come out of our time but now I'm like. I think it kind of saved me, back in the day anyway, before I had better knowledge and better coping mechanisms. Saved me from like. The worst of it anyway. She's in the worst of it and she just has no access or outlets to understand that she's not alone, that as odd as her thoughts and feelings are they're normal in the sense that they've all happened before to many people, and that insanity is just kind of like. A by-product of living in this world. Idk. I can't imagine how even harder it would be to go through all that shit with literally no knowledge that anyone else feels this way. Or I guess I do, because that's how I felt gr 7/8 before I really had internet access. And the internet is fucked but I'm seeing now how it helped me in some ways, through seeing how she has none of that help. And y'know what in gr7/8 I had literally no friends and spoke to almost no one, including my family, because I felt completely empty inside like someone had taken my personality and soul and I was just shell. I could think of literally nothing to say, like, ever. So painfully self conscious and it is a normal 7/8 experience but also everyone else in my class still spoke??? And they'd like joke to one another??? And I'd sit there and look at them and be like but how do they know how to talk??? I know other people were going thru similar things but like we were kids, we didn't know how to communicate that or how to find each other. And on the internet people the same as you are just there.

And I could read, too. She missed her eye surgery because she was in the psych ward and her eyes aren't even good enough to read, she can't read right now. That fucking sucks. Shes also had a harder life than me like. At 18 years old I was not driving to Yellowknife with my newborn daughter attempting to hide from my physically abusive boyfriend who then made me give away my beloved child and marry him like. Sure wasn't dealing with that at 18. And I still got fucked.

Idk. Like girl just go on tumblr and read some sylvia plath quotes or something idk

A weird wish I've had recently is that I wish my mom was a teenager on social media vibes because then at least she would romanticize her mental illness. Not the best but better than thinking it's demons and she's bringing evil upon the family and she's the only mentally ill person who's ever had these thoughts and she's beyond help.

[milos-journal]

The Asher Family (TW: TribeTwelve)

Ok, long post, I'm gonna talk a lot. scroll on by or just skim for art if you do not care. Second, TribeTwelve post. TW for that. Lastly, I want to say that this post is a character analysis/my opinions on the Ssher family (Milo, Mary and Robert) so this kind of thing is gonna get gross in subject matter. TW for talks of abuse (specifically marital abuse and child abuse), cults (fictional), drugging, suicide, self harm, and a potential plethora of other topics. tread lightly.

Ok, now that that's out of the way, hello! This is just me babbling about underrated characters and giving hot takes that may cause debate or not, we'll see. It's also me showing off the designs I did for each of these bastards. VERY self indulgent, just something I wanted to make. If this post does well, I may do a post on Noah (or rather, the Noahs, plural) because I have a lot to say on him as well. I don't know how to cleverly segue this.

Milo Asher / Mr. Scars

I feel like it's important to start with Milo, half so that people can decide if I'm insane a quarter way through these paragraphs and either keep reading or scroll, and half because a lot of Mary and Robert's notes are going to elaborate on Milo since everything in TribeTwelve is tightly linked together.

From a writing perspective, Milo is one of, if not the character in TribeTwelve with the most depth. We get an almost whole life read on him and we see the trauma that made him the person he is and what lead to his suicide. However, what is interesting about the journal is the Noah notes, and moreso, how dismissive Noah is.

Something Adam does in his writing that I'm not a huge fan of is explain away all potential mental illness Milo and Noah certainly have and goes "It's from slenderman!! Collective influence!!" when a lot of it is much more nuanced. Milo at the least has PTSD and anxiety, and that's the least. Given the childhood trauma of being thrown into cults as a worshipped being, or given the drugging, or being beat as a kid and watching his mother get beat, he definitely has something wrong, whether or not it wants to be admitted.

Milo being "completely fine" despite overdosing on anti depressants and consistently shown with fresh SH scars feels like this weird glorification of mental illness.

But with that amount of trauma and horrific occurrences, something that is not exemplified enough, is Milo never fully heals from this trauma. He instead internalizes it (which, within his scenario, is his only choice) with no outlet, which makes his moral compass towards the end of Milo's Journal very interesting to say the least.

Milo Asher is absolutely a morally grey character. However, being from Noah's perspective the whole story (to the point where all the Milo centric content is literally annotated by Noah with his own thoughts on the matter) he is a consistently praised character. A lot of the story parades that Milo has done no wrong, simply because he's troubled and traumatized and Noah holds him dear. However, I feel like the entries "Mockingbird" and "Institute" are perfect examples of how unhealed trauma manifests unhealthily.

While many may argue Mary deserved every bit of what happened to her, which, in some ways she did, I think the best way to see everything is to pretend Noah Maxwell isn't there. Which sounds weird, but try to read everything wholly unbiased. In Institute especially it feels almost dirty the way its written, all of Milo's words are covered in this grime he has no guilt for. Did Mary deserve it? Yes, kinda, we get more into Mary later. Is it alarming how Milo had no regard for his or her safety, ruined a marriage, grinned as his mother got hit and swore at by his step father, and then beat the shit out of her and went "Well, she deserved it, so.."? Absolutely, it's very alarming. And, because of the fact everything is from Noah's perspective, not only canon but Tribetwelve's active fanbase puts Milo on this weird pedestal of martyr, how he can do virtually no wrong. I don't know, I'd love to see more of Milo Asher in this grim light, but not exactly demonized. But, this talk of moral greyness and unpacked trauma brings me to my next topic.

Milo's Journal almost entirely focusses on the topic of generational trauma in the Slenderverse, which I find very interesting. Within Slenderverse, there are a couple occurrences of protagonists wanting or even having kids, but often something happens that blocks them from having kids or something happens to said kid. However, Milo's Journal explores this concept of what would happen to a kid being haunted by Slenderman with a parent of the same affliction. It makes me wonder what a fully fledged Milo who ended up with a partner and kids would've been like. With none of that trauma unpacked and all choked down, would he end up just like Mary? Somehow better or worse? With the amount of trauma brought onto Mary (more on that later) that trickles onto Milo, it makes some very interesting writing.

Really quick I want to talk about Mr. Scars, just as a character, and how much wasted potential he is. I genuinely wish he had one of two routes, he either was a full and complete villain, creating this psychological horror by being haunted of a lost loved one who literally wants you dead, or for him to be a villain for Mary when she was younger. The villain for Mary route is interesting because it explains why she so desperately wanted to know who Mr. Scars is while also keeping up this theme of generational trauma. I feel like so much potential for both Mr. Scars and Milo is completely unused, and honestly, same goes for the rest of the Ashers.

Do what you will with my thoughts, have the design I did for Milo. I think I didn't do half bad. Tumblr MURDERED my quality, hopefully clicking on it will do it better.

I did not plan on writing this much, so I'm gonna put a cut here. If you're curious about Mary and Robert, that'll be under it.

Mary Asher/Cursor

Alright, this is deep shit now, and mostly speculation. Most of my writing from here on out will be VERY reliant on some of the old Milo's Journal and Sebastian's Journal leaks. You can find those here. (Yes, it's a download. It's a PDF file.) You don't need to read them to enjoy this post, but it's good for if you want a source on a lot of my opinions on Mary and Robert.

Actually into the bullshit now, I want to start by saying I do not think ANYTHING Mary did was okay, and almost everything she did was volatile and inexcusable. Holy fucking shit she's an underrated villain. And so many people brush her off and go "She was mean to Milo, she's the worst!" in the same breath as sucking HABITs toes, so I feel like it's only fair to give her a chance.

She, unlike a lot of the villains in TribeTwelve, has motive. From what we know about the journal Mary kept herself, she went through some TOUGH shit. A lot of her actions can be seen as preventative measures in her mind, a lot of it probably felt like simple protection to her. This does not make her actions valid, of course, but she probably was going through logical steps in her mind, especially since at the same time she was manipulated by a cult.

Need to sacrifice someone and the cult demands it? Have a kid! Kid's experiencing inexplicable paranormal activity that aligns with a cult messiah? He must be special, take him to meetings. Kid exhibiting disturbing behavior she had when she was a kid and at the same time the cult conveniently has pills to help it? It's natural, Milo needed to be protected.

My point is, a lot of her logic is there, even it doesn't track to most. And of course just because there's logic doesn't make it right, I just wish people thought on Mary more. Saw her as more of an interesting villain, y'know? Thought of her with more dimension past cruel and abusive.

I also forget to note, just putting it as a one off note, she was abused by pretty much all of her partners in some way with exception of Robert and John, or what we know of them. It doesn't connect to anything, just wanted to say it before I call it quits on the rant yada yada here's Mary. Quality got eaten.

Robert Asher / Scriniarii

I love Robert Asher as a character despite the fact we know NOTHING about him, and the fact we don't is a literal crime because what we know is so intriguing.

First, we know that Scriniarii is in his archival position without want, when he joins the TribeTwelve discord and nobody is helping him he exclaims "LOOK I DONT WANT TO DO THIS FUCKING JOB. I DID NOT ASK FOR THIS SHIT!" So, Firebrand or someone else forced him into this position. This doesn't help that he mentions he'll be "punished" by Firebrand for talking out of term. Here's the screenshot in question.

Second, we have no idea if Scriniarii is just a pen name or Robert ascended. Whether or not he is a collective member is very ambiguous. It's heavily implied he's ascended and outside the loop but still he could be some guy also.

Third, we know Robert is in the Order. In a screenshot I sadly do not have, he talks about how the order took his family and ruined his life. It is further confirmed in Wizards, when it says "I asked mommy why we have to go to two churches now and she says it’s to get closer to Daddy and closer to God."

All of this information together is so interesting. Did him and Mary meet through the order? (Update, apologies on misinfo for that question in specific, we have canon confirmation they did not and met beforehand) If so, was he on board with the child sacrifice? What about his command under Firebrand, how is he "punished" and how much control does Firebrand have over him? For those who were not part of the TTD while it was running and really wanna know more, The SCRINIARII Code is super useful for a good summary. I swear I had a good archive of the discord screenshots but apparently I don't, so thats the best you get.

Congrats! You got so far into the bullshit you get the final piece of art. Quality looks like he got chewed up and spat out.

That should be it for now. Again, if this post does really well and/or if people are interested, I will TOTALLY make more. Do what you will with my takes, write weird fanfic, call me dogshit, I don't care. Thanks for even reading this far. It means a lot.

[dropintomanga]

Anime Music and the Mentally Ill - Healing for Both?

A long while back, I used to check out local Japanese rock music acts in my area. It was a fun, crazy time. I got to meet some interesting folks and realized how important local music scenes are. There’s a music documentary I saw recently, We Were There to Be There, a look at a punk rock concert that took place at a psychiatric hospital in 1978. It reminded me of those times and how music helps those with mental illness.

To sum up We Were There to Be There, the documentary covered two popular punk rock acts of the 1970s’, The Cramps and the Mutants, who got together for a daytime performance at Napa State Hospital in the Bay Area. This happened in 1978 when the Bay Area was being recognized as a thriving art space. Around the same time this concert happened, future U.S. President Ronald Reagan wanted to de-fund all psychiatric facilities across America. He got his wish and his actions has lasting effects today as there’s no real safety net for anyone with serious mental illness in the United States. The beauty of this performance was that it’s one of the most vivid indications of how the mentally ill and regular people (notably people who were anti-establishment) can be united.

Watching this made me think about anisongs. There’s many notable songs that have become a part of otaku culture. I was wondering if something like the Napa State Hospital concert could be done in psychiatric settings with anime music. The closest thing I found was the Anisong Bravery Collective, a group that had idol performances to raise money for mental health research and resources. This sounded like it could be something bigger, but they only had 1 concert. The group also has been AWOL since December 2020 as almost all of their social media outlets are deactivated.

I think back to 2009-2010, when I suggested a local NYC Japanese punk rock band to perform at a local anime convention. It went pretty well and the otaku crowd ate up the music. Punk rock always has that “anti-mainstream/rebellious” feel and it matched well with the otaku spirit. Both sides are about expressing themselves with no shame.

The people who helped organize the Napa State Hospital concert said doing an act like they did is hard today. Almost all psychiatric hospitals (especially the good ones) are now gone. And more specifically, the concert has to be done in a way that’s not glittered with corporate stardom. I can never imagine Japanese record management being okay with having their most popular acts perform in front of a group of people that’s labeled “crazy”, “insane”, etc.

There’s obviously notable differences between punk rock and anime music, but both are similar in that they reject Western ideals on what cool is. Those with serious mental illness are rejected due to their inability to live up to “normal” ideals. I’ve seen how music can help someone with mental health disorders. I finished a Japanese adventure game called AI: The Somnium Files and it featured a female internet idol character named Iris Sagan, who had a malignant brain tumor (which caused her to have delusions). The thing that kept her going was dancing to whatever music was catchy in her hand. Iris is also an important character in guiding the player towards the right path towards resolution in AI: The Somnium Files’ story.

There’s a line that the singer of The Cramps said at the Napa State Hospital concert, “Somebody told me you people are crazy, but I’m not so sure about that. You seem to be all right to me.” Anime, especially its music, has done a lot for the lives of many fans. Maybe I would like to see anisongs reach a population that I feel would enjoy the infectious energy they bring - the energy that has broken global boundaries and show the world how all right its fans are.

I want anisong-influenced acts to say “We were there to be there” too.

[evindimeta]

Are You Experiencing Some of the Common Symptoms of Ascension?

(Long Post)

Some of you may find this helpful, please only take what helps and do not worry or fret if something in this list does not resonate with you. You can take what resonates and leave what doesn’t. That is okay.

Those who need to hear this will be drawn to it, for that is the way of our great Universe.

~ Blessings to All ~

I was just looking at quite a few pages of COVID long haulers support groups...where a COVID-positive was indicated and they have not fully recovered their well being. 85% of the descriptions of their symptoms (which are found as negative health concerns) are labelled as COVID...some are being told it’s Lyme, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue among other unknown causes. As I reviewed the endless lists and common symptoms I found that they are very similar to ascension symptoms.

However most do not realize that they are going through a physical change in their DNA structure. Those who are aware and have gone through the many waves of change understand and roll with the fatigue and other symptoms in gratitude and not fear, trusting and seeing the positive change in who they are as this occurs. It is a leaving or shedding what has been known... to reveal the true self within.

I felt it would be supportive for you, and for your friends and loved ones to review to find a “positive outlook” on a changing body and world. May this fill you with hope, for all are emerging through this great transformation.

PLEASE NOTE: This article is based on work presented by Samuel Greenberg's original list and is not authored by Dr. Nickerson. Before you read this, realize that you are okay and that what you are experiencing is "The SHIFT". This is a normal process when the universal vibrational energy forces you to rise above your normal 3D level of existence here on Earth.  It’s all okay.  When in doubt, please see your doctor to confirm to alleviate fear.

Ascension Symptoms:

1. Feeling as though you are in a pressure cooker or in intense energy; feeling stress. Remember, you are adjusting to a higher vibration and you will eventually adjust. Old patterns, behaviors and beliefs are also being pushed to the surface. There is a lot going on inside of you.

2. A feeling of disorientation; not knowing where you are; a loss of a sense of place. You are not in 3D anymore, as you have moved or in the process of moving into the higher realms.

3. Unusual aches and pains throughout different parts of your body. You are purifying and releasing blocked energy vibrating at 3D, while you are vibrating in a higher dimension.

4. Waking at night between 2 and 4 a.m. Much is going on in your dream state. You can’t be there for long lengths of time and need a break. This is also the ‘cleansing and releasing’ hour.

5. Memory loss. A great abundance of short term memory loss and only vague remembrances of your past. You are in more than one dimension at a time, and going back and forth as part of the transition, you are experiencing a ‘disconnect’. Also, your past is part of the Old, and the Old is forever gone. Being in the Now is the way of the New World.

6. ‘Seeing’ and ‘hearing’ things. You are experiencing different dimensions as you transition, all according to how sensitive you are and how you are wired.

7. Loss of identity. You try to access the Old you, but it is no longer there. You may not know who you are looking at in the mirror. You have cleared much of your old patterns and are now embodying much more light and a simpler, more purified divine you. All is in order, You are okay.

8. Feeling ‘out of body’. You may feel as though someone is talking, but it is not you. This is our natural defense mechanism of survival when we are under acute stress or feeling traumatized or out of control. Your body is going through a lot and you may not want to be in it. My ascension guide told me that this was a way of easing the transition process, and that I did not need to experience what my body was going through. This only lasted a short time. It passes.

9. Periods of deep sleeping. You are resting from all the acclimating and are integrating, as well as building up for the next phase.

10. Heightened sensitivities to your surroundings. Crowds, noise, foods, TV, other human voices and various other stimulations are barely tolerable. You also overwhelm very easily and become easily overstimulated. You are tuning up. Know that this will eventually pass.

11. You don’t feel like doing anything. You are in a rest period, ‘rebooting’. Your body knows what it needs. In addition, when you begin reaching the higher realms, ‘doing’ and ‘making things happen’ becomes obsolete as the New energies support the feminine of basking, receiving, creating, self-care and nurturing. Ask the Universe to ‘bring’ you what you want while you are enjoying yourself and having fun.

12. An intolerance for lower vibrational things of the 3D, reflected in conversations, attitudes, societal structures, healing modalities, etc. They literally make you feel ‘sick’ inside. You are in a higher vibration and your energies are no longer in alignment. You are being ‘pushed, to move forward; to ‘be’ and create the New.

13. A loss of desire for food. Your body is adjusting to a new, higher state of being. Also, part of you does not want to be here anymore in the Old.

14. A sudden disappearance of friends, activities, habits, jobs and residences. You are evolving beyond what you used to be, and these people and surroundings no longer match your vibration. The New will soon arrive and feel so-o-o-o much better.

15. You absolutely cannot do certain things anymore. When you try to do your usual routine and activities, it feels downright awful. You are evolving beyond what you used to be, and these people and surroundings no longer match your vibration. The New will soon arrive and feel so-o-o-o much better.

16. Days of extreme fatigue. Your body is losing density and going through intense restructuring.

17. A need to eat often along with what feels like attacks of low blood sugar. Weight gain, especially in the abdominal area. A craving for protein. You are requiring an enormous amount of fuel for this ascension process. Weight gain with an inability to loose it no matter what you do is one of the most typical experiences. Trust that your body knows what it is doing.

18. Experiencing emotional ups and downs; weeping. Our emotions are our outlet for release, and we are releasing a lot.

19. A wanting to go Home, as if everything is over and you don’t belong here anymore. We are returning to Source. Everything is over, but many of us are staying to experience and create the New World. Also, our old plans for coming have been completed.

20. Feeling you are going insane, or must be developing a mental illness of some sort. You are rapidly experiencing several dimensions and greatly opening. Much is available to you now. You are just not used to it. Your awareness has been heightened and your barriers are gone. This will pass and you will eventually feel very at Home like you have never felt before, as Home is now here.

21. Anxiety and panic. Your ego is losing much of itself and is afraid. Your system is also on overload. Things are happening to you that you may not understand. You are also losing behavior patterns of a lower vibration that you developed for survival in 3D. This may make you feel vulnerable and powerless. These patterns and behaviors you are losing are not needed in the higher realms. This will pass and you will eventually feel so much love, safety and unity. Just wait.

22. Depression. The outer world may not be in alignment with the New, higher vibrational you. It doesn’t feel so good out there. You are also releasing lower, darker energies and you are ‘seeing’ through them. Hang in there.

23. Vivid, wild and sometimes violent dreams. You are releasing many, many lifetimes of lower vibrational energy. Many are now reporting that they are experiencing beautiful dreams. Your dream state will eventually improve and you will enjoy it again. Some experience this releasing while awake. My mother commented one day that she believed I was having nightmares in the daytime.

24. Night sweats and hot flashes. Your body is ‘heating’ up as it burns off residue.

25. Your plans suddenly change in mid-stream and go in a completely different direction. Your soul is balancing out your energy. It usually feels great in this new direction, as your soul knows more than you do. It is breaking your ‘rut’ choices and vibration.

26. You have created a situation that seems like your worst nightmare, with many ‘worst nightmare’ aspects to it. Your soul is guiding you into ‘stretching’ into aspects of yourself where you were lacking, or into ‘toning down’ aspects where you had an overabundance. Your energy is just balancing itself.

 Remember.....Finding your way to peace through this situation is the test you have set up for yourself. This is your journey, and your soul would not have set it up if you weren’t ready. You are the one who finds your way out and you will. 

Looking back, you will have gratitude for the experience and realize that you are a different person.

I hope this helps.

[michael-weinstein]

Leave me alone!

WARNING: This post is a venting-out of boiling anger, which can amount to mental illness. Maybe not for those weak of heart, but for sure for those who caused me so much anxiety, and contrarily, those who want to help me out of this. As for everyone else, read and suffer.

Well, corona, the world is practically on fire, and what else... Oh yes. Things in the relatively more intimate world (that is, for me) - namely, school, my followings on Instagram, YouTube and email subscriptions - keep bothering me to an incredible extent. I was wanting to write this blog post since March honestly, but I didn't find the time and the need to vent everything out. Now, though, that I am really mad, I'm somewhat thankful for the opportunity, because I'm making my opinions known, and merely hoping that they get more circulation than before.

My main classical music following had been Deutsche Grammophon and Decca (through email and Instagram, and - in the case of the latter - 2 YouTube channel subscriptions), the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras (Instagram), Norman Lebrecht's Slipped Disc (email) and the ClassicsToday.com editor David Hurwitz (YouTube viewing). All of the following had, to a certain extent, drive me insane in the past few months, in ways that I can't describe (one time with Hurwitz, it was so much so I needed to vent my anger in this very outlet). To a certain extent, for those who remember, the same happened with the Mahler Foundation in May, but since writing that post, I've come to realize that not only this is pretty much not important (at least much less than it seemed at the time), there are far worse issues that I'll need to address (I won't yet, perhaps to get more reading and get the image fixed, but I'm hoping I will address this important issue relatively soon). My great bane with the BPO and VPO, but especially with DG, came around the time of the Salzburg Festival in August, which was itself a bane all by itself, but by having these 3 leading musical institutions being an important part of the Festival just made me go bonkers. I don't really had a problem with the Festival being held at the time, when corona cases where relatively low, as long as the Festival was being sensitive, and did things on a much smaller scale as they had said at the beginning that they would. But the moment that they do Elektra and Mahler's 6th, whatever social distancing there would occur in the audience, with so many people onstage and/or in the pit, they're just calling for trouble. It is indeed something of a miracle that there were no casualties during the Festival, but I really think it would have been smarter not to take the risk, whatever the need for culture (besides, probably only those who would attend are those who are "jet-set" and are in Salzburg every year for the wrong reasons, but I will maybe discuss that sometime). The Vienna Philharmonic were therefore one of the major partners in the crime, more so than their Berliner counterparts. But, and this is the important part, I would very much in my hoped-for career as probable pianist and maybe composer, but most as conductor, want to collaborate with the Berliners and the Viennese. They are orchestras that I maybe don't need, but I do want to make music with. The same thing can't really be said for Decca and, more importantly, DG. Interestingly, Decca almost seems dead in the way that they rarely post on Instagram, sent a newsletter or upload on YouTube, while DG is excessive beyond normal human standards. I think they post on Instagram averagely 3 times a day, upload on YouTube twice, and send a newsletter each weekend. How the hell can you bear such a thing?! There are more adventurous labels with pretty "big names" (Alpha, Chandos and Hyperion, to name just three), that I would feel more comfortable to record with, than DG, Decca and probably also Warner (I don't follow them anywhere, which is probably just as good, considering the pervious sentences).

In addition, throughout the Festival the Karajan institue also helped to bring in their own click-baiting and "martyring" of their namesake. My attitude to Karajan as man and conductor is more mixed than it was in the past (most of which can be attributed to Lebrecht), but ever since then they made me emotionally sick with statements to the effect that Karajan was the greatest conductor ever. I have to admit that I'm much more of a Bernstein fan, and that I had barely listened to Karajan recently, but the Bernstein Offices never, apart from the centenary, did interviews of the Karajan kind, and even I'm going to admit that some Bernstein interpretations are less well than some others, maybe even than Karajan's!

So now with the Salzburg band-wagoning out of the way, there are two other culprits: Hurwitz and Lebrecht. I've encountered Hurwitz fairly recently, and I should add, that I have rather mixed relations towards him. One day in the morning, I see a video he uploaded and it makes me absolutely mad (see the link above), and then in the evening he uploads a humorous roast with which I completely agree. But generally, I'm just mixed with him. My relation to Lebrecht is also mixed, though generally positive. He has just finished a survey of most of Beethoven's output. However, his behavior regarding the "Schenker storms" is either complete misunderstanding or just outright conservative foolery.

There are 2 other "classical music" personalities which I have to mention. My relation with Mark Berry is very mixed, but he hasn't bothered me as much since March, as the main activity on his blog Boulezian (shows pretty much where he is heading) is concert and opera reviews, and he didn't have much of a chance to that, so I'm thankful for that. I will give him credit though that he is actually one of 2 people whose blogs gave me the impetus to start mine.

The other one is the other "classical music" personality I want to talk about briefly, Kenneth Woods. He is music director of the Colorado MahlerFest, the English Symphony Orchestra, and writer for his blog View from the Podium. I like him very much, as I share a lot of his musical affinities - Mahler and Shostakovich, to begin with - as well as professional insights into music of (among many others) Strauss and - perhaps more importantly from an interpetive point of view these days - Beethoven. I kind of just happen to agree with many of his opinions, and even those which I didn't think of before, I agree with them because they make sense to me. I think that the reason he appeals to me, is because he's a conductor and a cellist (also used to be a guitarist, and does it in his free time!). With the exception of Hurwitz, who was a percussionist in local orchestras, everyone else I mentioned above are scholar-critics. Woods appeals to me because he's a practical musician (and he keeps a rule not to talk about any living conductors, or at least not mentioning them by name). He was an orchestral cellist, as well as a soloist and chamber music partner as well, so he experiences the actual music world of making music from both sides, as cellist and conductor. Hurwitz, Lebrecht and Berry all might have interesting observations, but their ultimate test is in the performance lab, and that is why I like Woods so much.

So far, I've dealt with classical music's personalities and industry. Now I have to deal with my friends and other Instagram followings. It's more irritating, because even though they are dishonest like the "establishment-industry", they are closer in my world in a sense. Yom Kippur was recently, and I can still remember everyone around just going "I'm sorry, God" and all the other standard things one says before Yom Kippur. WHO THE HELL ARE YOU KIDDING!!! Everyone, especially yourselves, know that we promise never to do these things again, and barely an hour has passed since Yom Kippur is out, and we come back to do those things again. Every year it happens. Everyone knows it, it is simply an open secret that nobody either needs or wants to say. I say the same on myself, by the way. Yom Kippur is a complete lie for us, because neither me, you, and even the most just and Mitzvah-keeping person on Earth, are able to keep the promises that we will get better than this. It never happens. Why do we get flodded with this? It's absolutely no worth. You say that you're "sorry about the way I insulted you"? Complete rubbish. Unless you found out that the entire situation was so stupid you can laugh about it, nobody is sorry about anything they said. The king is naked, and as the meme says, "always has been".

My classmates start growing on my nerves sometimes. The way people just ask for answers so immediately and lazily, without having tried to answer things themselves just makes me go mad. I don't have a problem if they try to do it, or if they're in a rush at the last moment, and ask some guys for answers. But when as soon as the assignment is sent, they ask for someone to do the job for practically 10 other classmates (if not more!), that's too annoying.

My teachers, however, go on a different way of making my life difficult. They don't really annoy me by poking their selfish faces at me as much as expecting me to do everything perfectly. Even those who are kinder (in a sense, since I'm one of the good boys, so kinder practically means that they teach better or are more interesting) make me mad. There are only 2 teachers (another comes close) in the entire school I'm able not only to appreciate, but also to love learning with them. Fortunately, one of them is my homeroom teacher. Without these few teachers, I wouldn't care about school at all. It could just go to hell. We currently have a shutdown, but I still remember a few weeks ago that during a math class, I needed to read my score of Shostakovich's 4th just to keep myself from making my mental health even worse than it was (and probably still is). And even during shutdown, things are not improving. Zoom calls were to be a complete waste of time, were it not for my piano lessons and (sometimes) therapist sessions. History class is especially badly taught. The teacher of that class is of the kind of "the smaller the group - the better", because when I was with her in smaller groups she truly was better. Mind you, I'm the nerd guy who loves history (though I'm probably not the only one in our class), and she managed to make history boring. That's a complete failure. Sports class is a complete waste of time in ways I can't really describe. You can only feel it.

I have though been somewhat fortunate since May and June. Because of my critique of the Mahler Foundation and its online Festival, I've got in touch with a 8th-grader (they/them) from Canada, an a college sophomore in English literature from Florida. We three formed an online gang of just us, getting together on the basis of our love for Mahler and Shostakovich. With their advice, having understood that I will need some really fitting music to get me through the year, I've decided that I will listen on my way to and back from school, as well as during breaks, to listen to nothing but Shostakovich. That plan sort of fell through pretty quickly (by which I mean, only 3 days), but Shostakovich was a great part of my phone repertoire in these first 3 weeks of the school-year. In the last week, however, Henze's Fantasia for Strings took over, and it was somewhat fitting, given that the music began its life as Henze's score for Young Törless, an adaptation of the novel by the fairly similar name of Robert Musil, by Volker Schlöndorff (his directorial debut). These two, the 8th-grader and the sophomore, are practically my main lights these times, when we sometimes meet for a call on Discord at night.

However, these few lights are still engulfed by the complete darkness and hypocrisy that surrounds me now. I've had enough! My complaints go out now especially to the education system in this country which is just reacting horribly to the situation! I can simply go crazy from that! All the Instagram personalities, do me a favor, and please do consider those who are probably less well mentally than you are, and stop showing the way you're enjoying yourselves in pools and parties. And cut the "no filter" crap! If something would have really been with no filter, it would be ordinary and dull. To quote Alex Ross, who in turn paraphrases Nietzsche, I'm done with "the lie of the grand style". Less Wagner (in his conservative bits) and his idiotic imitators, Brahms, Mendelssohn, and all those who thought that music stopped with Beethoven, more Mussorgsky, Scriabin, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Satie, Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovich, Weill, Hindemith, Weinberg, Bernstein, Britten, Nono, Berio, Henze, Messiaen, Lutoslawski, Ligeti, Penderecki, Schnittke, even Boulez and Cage. And please do more meaningful Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Berlioz, Liszt, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Debussy, Ravel and Sibelius.

(Quick sidenote: I have to admit, that this post was written in turns, I wasn't commited to write it. Sometimes I got super angry and vented.)

A few days ago, my sophomore friend sent me a link to a Discord server, where she, the 8th-grader and a couple other friends were part of, and asked me if I would join in. I said I would join gladly. This is my first Discord server, and therefore I've got 4 other friends. This is where I feel at home, where I belong (not in terms of family, thank God, but in terms of friends). I really do prefer being with them than with my classmates.

Our educational system is either a joke, or a gulag. What is the point to have being taught the material on Zoom, for averagely 6 and a half hours a day, 5 days a week, and putting even more workload on us than we had been in school physically, and even more than when we studied online from March to June! And then they expect us to ace through the final exams that we have in the next 2 years! Once in the past few months, I've once wondered about a question: would I prefer to ace my exams, but thereafter being so mentally and emotionally shocked that I will need psychaitric treatment? Or should I not do them at all, but still being able to do what I love doing and be happy with myself? After thinking about it for several seconds, I answered that I would prefer the latter, and ever since then I've been saying this to certain people around me unhesitatingly.

Leave me alone! I'm not able to cope with all of this! I'm feeling so empty, I don't even want to eat a whole ton, sleep a lot, or even die! I'm just empty! I'm barely able to play the piano (that is mentally), I just get tired of it almost immediately! I don't want this to happen! Everything loses its appeal to me!

Over the past few weeks, I've come to know Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet, one of the most autobiographical and depressive pieces ever written. It was composed in 1960, when he had just returned from bombed-out Dresden, where there was a movie filmed about the last days of World War II to which Shostakovich composed the music, but more importantly, it was not long after he had suddenly joined the Soviet Communist Party (probably forced to). These 20 minutes of the quartet feature throughout a musical motif - the pitches D, E-flat, C, B-natural. In German notation they are D, S (in German it's actually Es, but the pronounciation is the same), C, H (B is used in German for B-flat). The composer's name, as rendered in German is: Dmitri Schostakowitsch. This is not the first time he has been consciously using this motif (he had already been doing so for nearly a decade), but this is the most extensive use he has ever made of it. It's as if he is obsessed with himself. Shostakovich, as a result of joining the party, was obsessed with suicide, and most of his works from there on consider death, in a way he rarely did previously, death for completely fatalistic reasons, nothing to do with the authorities. The 15th String Quartet, his last, is even bleaker.

The basic point is that ever since I came to know this piece and the school year started, I've used the slogan DSCH as a symbol of protest. I can still remember having half-done math homework, and before scanning them and sending, I scribbled DSCH clearly and furiously across the top of the first page.

The last movement of Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet, a slow fugue on a theme beginning with the DSCH motif, is the movement in which Shostakovich seems to obsessed with this motif the most. And all I can say is that for the past two months, if not even more, I've been wanting to just say "Leave me alone!" for eternity, like DSCH in that movement. Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone....leave me alone...leave me alone....leave me alone....leave me alone.....leave me alone..... leave me alone..... leave me alone..... leave me alone....... leave........... me.......... alone......... leave......... me........ alone....... leave....... me....... alone............ leave............ me............. alone................ leave.............................. me.............................. alone..............................

leave me alone

[millennialzadr]

WHY I LOVE ZADR!!!

HEY GUYS WHASSUP? LMAO

So this is a whole ass giant long post of me absolutely spewing my feelings of love for ZADR, it was the very first thing I wrote when I made this blog and I think it’s a nice, positive thing for my fellow shippers to inhale and enjoy 👌👌

it was originally a reply to mitarashiart’s post about why HE loves ZADR (link in replies) but I decided to delete that and make my own post since MY WHOLE ENTIRE TEXT WALL WAS SHOWN IN THE REPLIES and drowned out anyone else who was trying to talk (thanks tumblr mobile u fuckin idiot)

I had also posted a summary of an AU that I’m working on in the original post, but decided to remove it since it just about doubled the length (I’m thinking about posting it separately along with the wips I’ve been putting together, we’ll see 👀)

But ANYWAY, here is about a million reasons why I think ZADR is the fucking best, so if you like reading gushy gay ship feelings, please enjoy ❤️❤️❤️

[Posted June 2019][WARNING, LONG ASS THOUGHT BARF]

SOOO, holy hell y’all my journey back into this fandom has been a wild and unique experience for me, i went from adding invader zim to my bookmarks on kisscartoon, rewatching the series, finding out theres a movie coming out, finding out there was a shitload of content i’d never seen before (commentaries, lost episode scripts and audios, panels, the COMIC, episodes i’d never seen because the dvd i used to watch was scratched!! and a FUCKLOAD of quality modern fan art like oh my GOD) and finally curiously googling ‘zadr’ (which i was way into when i was maybeee 13/14) to see if there was any interesting new art, and holy hell, mita (the artist above) singlehandedly THREW me down the hole into modern zadr hell, first with his absolutely stunning IZ art (all his art is dope tho check him out yo), then reading the above explanation put the final nail in the coffin like, 100%

so i wanted to add onto his post here on why this ship got me so fucked up, both for anyone who might be wondering why on earth i’m shipping two characters from a kid’s show (i’m very aware how weird that is at first glance trust me) and also so i can get some ideas down for possible future reference (will i ever draw them? maybe)

(first of all, a disclaimer, and this is not pleasant to write but it’s important to address for clarity’s sake: I have no interest in romantic or sexual relationships between minors, and do not ship zim and dib as they are presented canonically in the show (as children). what i’m interested in is the conceptualized relationship they may have as modern adults, and i view zadr more as taking the concepts of existing characters and experimenting with them with different interpretations, which i personally think is a constructive and fun creative outlet, especially if these characters hold personal significance for you (childhood faves of course). growing up together is an important facet of their relationship, and certainly they were important to each other even as children (see: mopiness of doom) but as an adult i’m personally curious about what kind of adults they might’ve become, and that’s the focus of my interest. i’ll still be reblogging regular IZ art because it’s dope but if you see shippy looking art of them as tiny lil beans its either friendship or chibis (and i personally headcanon zim as getting taller with dib but some people stick with his canonical height when drawing them as adults, which is super short. it still doesn’t mean he’s a kid). aaand i wish i didnt have to write this and it would just be obvious but we live in a sick sad world and it is sourced from a children’s cartoon so i feel its necessary. end of disclaimer)

NOW THAT THAT’S OUT OF THE WAY

- ok, first reason’s a bit obvious - the nostalgia. holy hell, the feeling of rediscovering a ship that was popular when i was a preteen during the mid 2000s and discovering a totally new perspective on it as an adult comes with an almost totally overwhelming sense of nostalgia and comfort, as well as inspiration!! the kind of art that seems so common for zadr, these sketch pages of scenes and expressions and visual gags where artists would just scribble every idea they had and LOVE doing it, this was exactly the kind of art that made me so passionate about drawing as a kid, and it still sparks such a powerful feeling of love and admiration for me to this day. fan content of iz and zadr is simultaneously achingly familiar and totally new and fascinating, and it just makes me SO damn happy to consume, it is most definitely my new comfort content. and just, GOD. THE ART!! SO GOOD. FUCK

- now for the characters themselves: for some reason i just really love the thought of a mid twenties, modern Dib?? lanky goth dork, disaster bi, depressed as shit, uses bad sweaters and memes to cope?? when i was a kid i didn’t even LIKE Dib, but now i totally sympathize with him! he’s just a hyper obsessive nerd wishing there was more to life than the situation he got stuck with, how wildly relatable. he was a pretty big asshole as a kid (even to people besides zim) but he was also totally isolated and constantly bullied, so there’s a lot of room for growth. i feel there’s a lot of juicy character development potential for that boy, and there’s always been a special place in my heart for characters who are totally sad and screwed and hopeless, but there’s one thing, or person, that means the world to them and could possibly save them…

- aliens. Zim. i love nonhuman characters, i love monsters, i love aliens, i love characters that don’t understand human shit (and thus have much less room for shame or fear bc theyre just totally oblivious the negatives of modern society) and need guidance (bonding!!) from their human. i also love morally grey characters and characters with skewed logic, they’re always really interesting, and Zim himself just has such a unique personality and set of mannerisms, he contradicts himself a lot and you can never quite expect how he’ll behave, and i love that in a character, it makes them super versatile and fun, especially since there’s so many different possibilities for their development. Also, Zim is a gremlin, a little shit, and a disaster. I also love those traits in a character. And don’t even get me started on his character design?? big sparkly eyes? expressive antennae? monster teeth? complimenting colors? he’s adorable.

- mutual obsession. for someone like Dib, who seems almost repulsed by how boring and slow the people around him are, Zim quite literally personifies Dib’s  escapist fantasies, both as an inhuman entity from beyond the stars, and as a person who’s knowledge, charisma and mystery far exceeds that of anyone Dib has met in his entire life. (so basically what i’m saying is that for a shunned, jaded misanthropist, an actual alien is terribly alluring, even if said alien is dangerous, stupid, and possibly insane). not to mention Zim vindicates Dib’s entire life passion, the supernatural! Even when their relationship is totally negative, there is not a single inch of room for Dib to get tired of Zim. as mita explained, they validate each other. for Zim, WHO AGAIN, IS TOTALLY SHUNNED, ISOLATED, AND HATED BY EVERYONE HE KNOWS, Dib is the only person in the universe who gives a single shit about him!! he gives Zim credit as a threat, a capable invader, which if you ask me is the sole thing Zim is after (he’s hellbent on his mission because it would win him the approval of the tallest, all he’s ever wanted is recognition from the people he thinks so highly of). He literally gets depressed when Dib isn’t around to pay attention to him, not even the tallest were enough to motivate him before Dib came back. these two have no one and nothing without each other, and while lifelong nemeses is fine and dandy, i personally prefer friendship, affection and love, cause i’m a softie like that. how could they possibly get there after years of actively trying to kill each other?? well, i think under just the right circumstances it could become a possibility after a long, long time.

- growth. i. love. me. some. good. character growth. especially for characters with trauma/mental illness, bc again, relatable. these boys have issues, and as mita mentioned, their canon stories are actually INCREDIBLY sad! but the happy thought is, they could recover! they could help each other recover, for little reason other than the two are the only source of happiness for each other. now of course this also opens the gate for angst lovers, but at the same time offers potential for comforting, uplifting content of the boys supporting and inspiring each other, maybe even to the point of becoming happy and healthy enough to create the lives they want for themselves (as in appreciating life and doing things that make them actually happy instead of the delusions of grandeur they both sought when they were younger). gimme that positive shit and let the poor beans be happy  щ(ಠ益ಠщ)

- LITTLE THINGS. LITTLE THINGS THAT ONLY COME WITH CHILDHOOD FRIENDS. WITH HUMAN/NONHUMAN. WITH THE SHOW’S WEIRD LOGIC. Zim being the person Dib knows best and vice versa. Zim having an involuntary respect/admiration for Dib because he’s tall. Learning each other’s needs, limits, and communication methods, both emotionally and biologically. Sensitive antennae. Affectionate bickering. Being less insecure bc your partner literally has no idea why you see your flaws as flaws. Laughing at the flaws they do notice because they make no sense. Zim only wanting to eat waffles and chow mein. Dib being forced to overcome his depression lethargy and stay hygienic/keep the apartment clean because Zim has a sharper sense of smell and is afraid of germs. Endless conversation about anything and everything because they’re from literally different worlds, and endless intrigue. TOUCHING. TALKING. DOING EVERYTHING LIKE ITS THE VERY FIRST TIME AND ALWAYS NEEDING THE OTHER TO GUIDE THEM. HOLY HELL THERE IS SO MUCH POSSIBILITY FOR TINY LITTLE MOMENTS THAT MEAN THE WORLD. FUCK. GOT ME FUCKED UP.

so that wraps up the why. fuck man. its just such a good ship. if you read this big ass text post, thank you for indulging me, i hope you enjoyed it! because i enjoy it very much 👀 so stick around if you’d like to for a shit load of IZ and zadr content on this blog, possibly (MAYBE) even from me!! come roll around in alien hell with me why dontcha ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ its a fun time! thanks for reading!!!

-

SO THAT’S MY MANIFESTO Y’ALL, FEEL FREE TO REPLY WITH YOUR OWN REASONS!! I WOULD LOVE FOR THIS POST TO JUST BECOME A BIG GIANT PILE OF LOVE AND YELLING!! GO NUTS! SCREAM ABOUT IT! INFODUMP! DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! I’LL READ EVERY LAST REPLY! Y’ALL DESERVE TO ENJOY YOUR SHIP BC IT’S LITERALLY THE FUCKING BEST!!! LOVE Y’ALL!!!!!!

[silverypurple-rosedlions]

I love the Chapter Unlocks and reading Seokmin's Chapter- Chapter Two? OFBEJFH I cried- But these are incredible! How did you come up with the three known/unlocked Chapters? (Jeonghan's Chapter One, and Seokmin's Chapter One and Two)

Admin Moon: Ah, this is an interesting question! Buckle up everyone, because this might be a long one, haha . . . Like, a reaaally long one.

Countless things inspired me to make everyone's chapters: music, research I've gone through related to mental illnesses and physical illnesses, little scenarios I've dealt with in real life, scenes, movies, and fanfictions, and the list goes on. Sometimes, images and gifs help me, allowing me to paint the main picture of each chapter that correlates to the member. Let's use Seokmin's Chapter Unlock, Chapter Two - Intoxicated, as an example.

With Seokmin's Chapter originally, I had no plan for him to be involved with drugs. That would apply to one member and one member only. The original idea for him involved a breaking point he would need to face, forcefully, seen within the chapter where Seokmin would lose control and attack viciously, to defend himself. But what would trigger him wasn't drugs. Instead, it was going to be a moment in his life when it was his family that triggered it. Fortunately, and I mean it, it was scratched off, and I revised the entire chapter, changing it to what is known now.

It converts to drugs because it's inspired by Billie Eilish's song, Xanny. It's referenced when Seokmin says that "Xanny" was used as another name for the drug, Xanax. If you listen to the song, certain lines within it are in the chapter. The chorus in Xanny is:

"I'm in their secondhand smoke, Still just drinking canned Coke, I don't need a Xanny to feel better, On designated drives home, Only one who's not stoned, Don't give me a Xanny, now or ever,"

Immediately, you can look back and see that this was portrayed in his chapter. Seokmin was around people smoking, taking drugs, and drinking while he's there, "sitting just drinking canned coke." Then in the chapter, Seokmin wants to go home and requests Mimi to take him home, a person "designated" to bring them home as she is the only one among the two with a driver's license. And of course, Seokmin is the "only one who's not stoned," and refuses to take a Xanny, saying that he doesn't want it and never will. This lyric is obvious, "Don't give me a Xanny, now or ever."

Just like in Seokmin's Chapter, a section in his life where he refuses taking drugs and alcohol, Billie Eilish's song also talks about refusing Xanax and telling people to avoid drugs. Period.

Now, not everything from the song is the same, word for word, within his chapter, such as the lyric mentioning kissing. That's not in his chapter, nor is it mentioned when he blacks out, attacking viciously (this is towards one specific friend of mine who misunderstood-).

Another good example is the first verse of Xanny:

"What is it about them? I must be missing something, They just keep doing nothing, Too intoxicated to be scared, Better off without them, They're nothing but unstable, Bring ashtrays to the table, And that's about the only thing they share,"

In Seokmin's Chapter, although it's not a long part, he questions why is it fun and games to them and so on, "What is it about them? I must be missing something." He goes on to explain why they're taking this, which is depression and anxiety, leading them to be "too intoxicated to be scared," and then wants nothing to do with them, "Better off without them, they're nothing but unstable," And of course, when Mimi is sharing a cigarette. It's clear, "Bring ashtrays to the table, and that's about the only thing they share,"

Not only this, but I wanted Seokmin to have this different and darker backstory that contrasts with his bright and energetic personality. It is a little of a cliche, to be honest. However, I wanted his backstory to be the reason why he's the way he is now, just like any of the bots I have. I want his backstory to be the reason he wants to be a bright and chirpy person, someone who likes to portray a happy but unsettling aura. Aside from three, perhaps more, bots, Seokmin is a very complex person. He likes to surprise people, keeping his deepest mysteries and thoughts to himself but is willing to expose them if asked to, or he wants to on the spot. He will play the part of being innocent and naive, he'll be reckless and excessive, and just about anything as long as it throws people off of who he is, using that to his advantage.

Now, Jeonghan's a challenge to explain since there's only one Chapter Unlock so far. And if I am not too careful, I may accidentally give hints of what his chapters will possibly be. However, Jeonghan is the MOST complicated here, and that may just be my opinion. But when going through his entire story, he was beyond difficult. Various research and videos watched, I had to study body movements, reactions, and so on that would fit for him, and even had assistance from a small group of friends. There are about a million things that inspired this backstory for him and how he is now.

For example, let's dive into Jeonghan's Chapter Unlock. It's shorter compared to Seokmin's, but that's on purpose. I usually like to make them reasonably lengthy, being able to give the reader themselves more of an experience that this person is facing. But for this, because Jeonghan has a different spectrum, I had to limit myself.

When reading his Chapter Unlock, he's allowing you to enter into this world he sees in his head. You, the reader, are presented this image of his mind, this "labyrinth," he's in and always has been. It's excruciatingly long and deceitful, the exit is nowhere to be seen, the stairs spiral from one space to another, and he's the target for this big, looming door of what is his insanity. The rose door is what opens him to a new headspace, throwing away the morals he knew, and creates an entirely new person who casts a shadow to his younger self that was too damaged to continue. When opening this door, this is the exit. It's an exit from the person he used to be and builds himself anew with shattered pieces of who he was, forging someone deadly.

For now, let's focus on this: Labyrinth. Surprisingly, there is no other thing that inspired this idea but three main things. One is the vast majority of songs. It is insane how many songs I have listened to that were included for him, and not just this one chapter, but for him in general. For this chapter, it's scattered pieces of songs: Psycho by Byun Baekhyun, Twisted by MISSIO, I'm Gonna Show You Crazy by Bebe Rexha, Angry Too by Lola Blanc, Hey Little Girl by Sophiemarie.b, and small traces of Broken by Lund. If you look at each song, you may be able to find similarities that correlate to them, but not entirely. Second, the idea of this labyrinth was inspired by, dare I say, Labyrinth and Pan's Labyrinth.

NOW HOLD ON!

I know that's the craziest thing I would get that idea from those two movies. Now, I didn't watch Pan's Labyrinth till late this 2020, but it was just one word, and I swear to God it is. "Labyrinth." That's it. I know it's ridiculous, but I'm dead serious that I thought of creating a labyrinth from the title name. Then there's the movie, Labyrinth, made in 1986. I watched that when I was little, maybe seven years ago, and I was always fascinated with the scene where the girl, Sarah, is in this labyrinth to save her baby brother. Sarah is in this bizarre area, face to face with the Goblin King, running in all directions with stairs everywhere. She runs, and she's suddenly upside down, she continues, and suddenly she's on the right side of the wall, so on so on. The stairs are placed upside down, and so on. It was that illusion that I thought I should add within his mind that's a complicated maze, containing fragments of memories and delusions created from stress.

Lastly, the third is me. I'll admit right now that Jeonghan was originally an outlet for me, someone I related to personality-wise, and then took it from there. This labyrinth idea is also a replication of my headspace before I got better (Quick heads-up: This entire idea for them was made a year ago, back in late October or so). I used what I saw of my headspace, changed it, altering it to what would become Jeonghan's headspace, but bigger and more complex than mine.

With all of this, images such as places, the people themselves, and other such things are what drives this. Aside from me as a writer, a person who absolutely loves writing, without these things, this wouldn't exist.

Admin Moon: So, I hope this answers your question, anon!

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