#to find out if I really do suffer from delusions. to figure out how to save myself from maladaptive daydreaming. to confirm the possibility

[niko-jpeg]

Someone brought it up in a server I’m in and I think it’s funny that there are symptoms of my condition I’m entirely too afraid to confront because I’m afraid people won’t like me anymore or view me as less or unstable. I fear I will never find a safe place to divulge this stuff for fear of being shamed because that’s just kind of how it’s happened before.

[vimesbootstheory]

am vidding the alex rider tv adaptation between drafts of baby's first novel and I am never over how interesting I find it specifically as an adaptation

I have to cop to not ever having been a fan of the books, I think when I was in the intended audience, I wanted to read them but never got my hands on them. and now, well, I tried the first one a couple of times but they're just too young for me by now. which is fine! the books are for kids, I shouldn't expect them to entertain a 34-year-old

but I loved the tv adaptation. I've watched it through multiple times, it's a go-to comfort watch. and for a long time I couldn't figure out why I love the adaptation so much, since it's so unusual tonally, and I kept asking myself "who is this FOR"

fair question. it uses the over-arching plots of 90s/00s kid power fantasy fiction, the whole "James Bond for kids" thing, the child clones, insidious video games being leveraged to steal nuclear launch codes, endearingly silly shit like that. it doesn't take that stuff out

while the tone is more... like a john le carre adaptation? lots of dark, clean, muted colour palettes, lots of serious people having clandestine meetings and speaking through several levels of abstraction, lots of quiet, reflective character moments

again I ask: who is this FOR? aside from the obvious answer: me, 'cause I love it

I love it because it's an adaptation that knows perfectly well that it's adapting material whose initial audience are adults now, but not in a nostalgic, nudge-nudge, self-referential way. it seems to assume that you've put away the books for a while, and it's returning the story to you, saying, what if we took this at face value, what if we considered this as adults? what does a kid power fantasy look like from an adult pov?

it does this without really taking away the kid power fantasy aspect. alex is a bad-ass, he's half my age and four times as impressive, his parkour stunts are cool as hell. and then it keeps following him AFTER he does all that cool shit, and is like, but how's that kid doing. what did being press-ganged by the british govt into undercover work, and all the crazy shit that resulted, what did it do to him, how's he dealing? and the answer is NOT GREAT. the poor kid's going to therapy but it's not going amazing, he's got some paranoid delusions going on, some hallucinations, some trust issues. he's hiding his symptoms, his grades are suffering.

and it does all this without feeling like a kind of tumblr-ass take, like, 'isn't it bonkers how we all found it so normal that teens were being trusted with saving the world? and now we're so world-weary about it and know better!'. like it doesn't question that alex CAN do it, it's just very aware the whole time that he's a teenager with a teenager's coping skills, and expects the audience to be on the same page

[nunalastor]

I have been struck by an idea for Angel Alastor AU

*Alastor's POV*

A couple months into his stay in Hell Alastor finds and figures out how deals work, as well as their roll they play in maintaining this realm. He is excited to try it out and finds out he is really good at it. BUT!! After awhile the people he takes under his care collapse into shows of light. He doesn't get it. What is he doing wrong! the only 2 thralls not leaving are Nifty and husker.

Let's see he takes in children and women who did what they had to do to survive. Check! Give them free housing in the forest he grew with his magic. Check!! Employ the women as either teachers/caretakers for the kids or writers for his radio shows. CHECK!!! Basically build and maintain a self sufficient community that doesn't have to worry about the stress of hell while he get to have his fun. Check fucking CHECK!!!!

No matter how many years pass in hell it keeps happening. It's confusing but that's ok, he only did it because all the most respected Overlords of hell run and maintain communities. His new bestie Rosie, Carmillia, Missi Zilla, Zestial and even that pathetic picture Box that got a lucky hit to his forehead with an angelic dagger ( thankfully Alastor bashed vox's face in before he could back up the memory) has one. Well the Princess is opening a hotel i hopes of rehabilitating sinners should be fun. He just hopes that the letters he wrote for Guy, Emily and his Mom and that they forgive him for his selfish acts.

*Heaven's/Micheal's POV*

It has been years since the one so loved by Heaven went missing because of Adam's carelessness when something miraculous starts happening. The souls of women and children damned to Hell start appearing before the high Seraphim Sera. Despite all the struggles the souls went through and endured, they had one thing in common.

Alastor

When Micheal is filled in on what's happening he doesn't rushes to the observation orb within Heavens Court house. With the help of the very souls Alastor redeemed he lays eyes upon his beloved for the first time in years. The sight is both comforting and devastating as Micheal watches Alastor rub at a nasty scar along his temple.

Of course. Everything makes sense now. His beloved wouldn't abandon everyone he loves on a whim. He didn't know it was possible for the love he has held for his deer to grow deeper because even when trapped in hell under the delusion that they're a demon Al still went out of his way to help others. After many apology's to Guy, Emily and Al's Mom for the deceit Sera decides the best course of action going forward is to call a meeting with Lucifer.....OH, Lucifer sent his daughter in his place. WAIT! She's starting up a redemption project that's perfect we can give her support through the search party now led by a talented exorcist by the name of Vagatha And his beloved's best friend Guy who's a detective turned therapist.

Charlie: "wait uncle, you know redemption is possible?"

Micheal: "Well yes, but not how because my boyfriend the saint who figured out how to do so, got trapped in Hell due to a tragic mistake some years ago suffering a horrible head wound. We were finally able to find him but we don't know how much he truly remembers."

*Lilith POV*

Lilith who has spent the last couple of years getting faded off champagne on a beach: "I feel like i'm forgetting something important" -the unopened letters Alastor asked her to deliver sitting at the bottom of her luggage- "If i can't remember, probably not a big deal."

-sleep deprived Anon-

P.S. the thought of Alastor finally finding joy in his after life only to have it be ripped out from under him because he is unintentionally being really helpful is funny and the growing unhinged perspective of Micheal as he searches for his beloved, is absolutely delightful for me

P.S.S. I had to write this down twice so it's a lot longer than it was originally so here's this wall of text-sorry not sorry

👀

[emperorangel]

Deleted scene from: The Out Of Time Man (wip, working title)

Aki Hayakawa x GN!reader | fluff, no warnings apply

After a good few seconds of hovering your hand over the doorknob, you step into Aki’s room as silent as you can. But your efforts were in vain. Aki would wake up from the sound of rain on his window, of course he would shoot up when he heard a creak of the door. He looks in your direction, eyes wide before he notices it’s just you. “Fuck, you scared me.” He says breathlessly, falling back onto his pillow. 

His hair is loose, and if you weren’t so distressed you might have felt a bit flustered, admired him. Seeing Aki vulnerable like that was a rare treat. 

But you were kind of preoccupied right now. Still standing in the doorway you feel a strange deja-vu, as if you’re 5 years old again and about to announce that you threw up. “Sorry, I, uh.” Your voice trails off, embarrassed by your situation. Now you truly felt like a child, what functioning adult gets upset by a- “Nightmare?” Aki sits up and rubs his eye with one hand, resting on his elbow. “I get them too.” It never dawned on you that your more experienced colleague would also suffer under this career. With how calm and collected he always seemed you just assumed he knew what he was doing. That the daily horror of working in public safety never got to him. But it did, he just admitted that it did. And for a second you’re not quite sure what to make of the world.

Can I stay with you? 

The question lingers on your lips, but you’re not quite brave enough to utter those words. Would it even be appropriate to slide into his bed? You’re co-workers, you’re only sleeping here because it was convenient after working overtime. The stretcher in the living room was soft enough, it felt just fine even though you kept nudging your pillow off of the mattress by accident. 

I mean you were already wearing a shirt of his. He gracefully lent that to you and the fabric hung loosely around your body. It smelled nice. Freshly washed mixed with Aki’s scent.

But a shirt was not enough. Your legs and feet were getting cold and to be honest you were also starting to feel tired again. 

You told Aki goodnight but were stopped from closing the door by his request. 

“Do you want to stay with me?” He asked, like he read your mind. Your heart skips a beat, but after some consideration you realised he did the same with Power and Denji when they were feeling unwell. Or were just bored and wanted to bother Aki, even in his sleep. 

It wasn’t romantic. Psh, of course not.

You shuffle through the room, only lit by the moonlight creeping past the curtains. It takes a bit, but once your eyes get used to the dark you find your place next to Aki. His bed could be considered big, it was just a tad bit smaller than a two-person bed. This meant, however, that there was little room between your bodies. You could practically feel Aki breathing and felt the warmth emanating off of him. It was relaxing. You didn’t want  to admit it but it was, very.

Aki’s pale blue eyes met yours and you didn’t know if it was your fuzzy brain feeding you delusions or the fact that it was just very dark, but his gaze seemed softer than it usually was. 

After a soft “Goodnight” Aki shuts his eyes. A few strands of hair trickle down his face, cascading across his nose and framing his jaw. He looks peaceful like this.

You inch just a bit closer, bringing your knees to your stomach and wedging one hand between your head and the pillow. And you watch, just for a bit longer before falling asleep.

A/N: I tried really hard to keep this in the main fic, but I just could NOT find a way to make it fit logically. Nonetheless I still enjoyed this scene and figured it could work as a standalone.

[guilty-gear-hot-take-hellhole]

Ya know, I was procrastinating on reviving this old blog instead of lurking through Tumblr for a while, and I can’t believe that Bridget discourse pushed me to do it. VERY long rant ahead because boy do I have some opinions.

The other day I saw a tweet (I don't remember where) saying how glad they were that a queer character was getting a bunch of spotlight in regards to the new Bridget figure; then after that I IMMEDIATELY saw someone punching down on people asking for other characters and bringing up Anji specifically, and it's like holy shit, either you're genuinely ignorant or an idiot.

There are 3 other canon queer in Guilty Gear, yet people only want to focus on Bridget, and I could honestly go on about it.

Testament obviously suffers the least from this, but it’s still noteworthy how people will ignore them being queer since 1998, and before anyone says, "They used he/him and were only GNC." 1. That was a botched localization, & 2. There’s a queerness in gender nonconformity, which makes it devastating that Baiken has been made less nonconforming for the sake of sexualization.

In a similar vein, Anji's queerness is often ignored by a good chunk of the fandom, which is in itself a can of worms considering he's a GNC man who is treated normally (unlike Bridget who was essentially a gag character while she still identified as male) and bisexual, which seems to really stir up shit when said bisexual character shows attraction to the opposite sex, which is probably why people don't acknowledge him.

Lastly, there's Venom, and I'm gonna preface this by saying that I'm a lightskin before I'm queer, so I find it very interesting that they wrote out an explicitly gay POC out of the story. Don't get me wrong, I love this series, but once I noticed that fact, it didn't sit with me well, especially since Venom being gay is an integral part of his character that can't be hidden.

And that's what pisses me off the most, the fact that people aren't realizing that the reason Bridget is the only being pushed because her queerness isn't blatantly obvious at first glance and she fits the mold of a popular, fair-skinned, and cute that figure distributors love. I want ya'll to realize that Bridget being trans is overshadowed by her being a white girl, which is a real shame because it means other queer characters won't get attention because they don't fit this standard. The worst part is that people just ignore this, which makes it painfully obvious that they don't care for queer characters; they care for Bridget.

I this isn't everyone, but I ask that Bridget fans slow down on mindlessly buying merch of her because all it does is show distributors that you guys are cashcows ready to be used at any moment and PLEASE don't punch down on people asking for other characters. Seriously, some of ya'll are way too comfortable mocking other people because you got what you wanted. As for the other characters, show them some support and buy their merch if you have the means to (god knows I don't). Even just picking up the character can show that people care about them and want to see them more. I know it's little more than delusion on my part, but it’s at least something.

Tl;dr: Don't be pretentious about a queer character getting merch if you only care about Bridget and support other characters. Sorry about this being so long.

Yeah I think I may know the tweet you’re referring to…

Another tweet I saw on the topic also featured a family guy meme about thanksgiving

Anyways ON GOD !

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Five Fics Friday: January 12/24

Happy Friday everyone!! I hope you had a wonderful week, and are ready to enjoy some more fic recs to get you started on the weekend! Enjoy!!

RECENTLY BOOKMARKED

Spare Parts by Raina_at (E, 63,497 w., 10 Ch. || 24th Century / Futurism AU || Post TRF, Pre-TRF Relationship, Case Fic, Mutual Pining, Estrangement, Reconciliation, Science Fiction, Reunion, Nightmares, Angry John, Cybernetic John, Emotional Discussions / Heart to Heart, POV John, Scars, Past Drug Use, Forehead Touching, Emotional Lovemaking, Kissing, Apologies, Kidnapping, Rescue Mission, BAMF John, Bed Sharing, Top Sherlock) – Two years ago, Sherlock Holmes jumped off the roof of New London Hospital. Two months ago, he walked into John's clinic as if no time had passed at all. John hasn't seen him since. But then Sherlock knocks on John's door with a case he can't say no to, and while figuring out why the biggest manufacturer or synthetic limbs in the System is going after veterans, they also need to find out whether there's a way to fix what's broken between them. Part 1 of Realigning Gravity

Fade To Black by twistedthicket1 (M, 93,389 w., 29 Ch. || Split Personality Disorder / DID, Action, Romance, Violence, Implied Rape/Non-Con, BAMF John, Fluff and Angst, Baskerville, Human Experimentation, PTSD, Implied Self Harm, Trauma Amnesia, Past Child Sexual Abuse, Protective Sherlock, Smoking, Meddling Mycroft, Past Victor/Sherlock, Gay Sherlock, Sherlock’s Past, First Kiss/Time) – John Watson believes one day he'll just fade. That he'll drown in the black spaces of his mind, and that one day he will no longer exist. It's always been like this, the dark spots marking out moments in his life he can't remember. Where for just a moment he's someone else. Having a Dissociative identity disorder, he can't even be entirely sure he's really who he says he is. Then he meets Sherlock Holmes. A brilliant detective who when he looks at you can read your entire life story. John is immediately fascinated and afraid, half-wondering if maybe Sherlock can see the other personalities in him and half terrified of the thought of him finding out. Becoming his flatmate seems at once to be a wonderful and horrible idea. Yet as John's Blackouts become more and more severe and his other personalities begin to truly awaken and show themselves with Sherlock's help, the two soon discover that sometimes even the kindest person can harbour a demon best left untouched inside of them. Because not all of John's other personalities play nicely and some may be hiding secrets best left undisturbed...

MARKED FOR LATER

Hand Me the Salt, Love? by topsyturvy_turtely (G, 554 w., 1 Ch. || Fluff, Pet Names, Flustered Sherlock, Cooking, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Fluff Without Plot) – John is cooking. Sherlock is not helping. Until...

Locked Room by Calais_Reno (T, 8,346 w., 2 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting AU || Pool Scene, Mystery, Near Death Experience, Drug Addiction, Serious Injuries, Temporary Amnesia, POV Alternating, Love Confessions, Happy Ending) – John wakes up in a locked room, unable to remember how he got here. The last thing he remembers is his hands covered in blood, trying to keep a soldier from dying. His roommate also seems to be suffering from amnesia, and has decided that John is a delusion. Part 33 of Just Johnlock

Walk of Shame by 72reasons (E, 14,355+ w., 9/? Ch. || WiP || Alternate First Meeting AU || Meet-Ugly, Bisexual John, Gay Sherlock, Alternating POV, Sad John, Suicidal Thoughts, Casual Sex, Strangers to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Threesome, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Frottage, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex) – John is just back from the war and wanders the city wondering what he’s going to do. One of his distractions is having casual sex with a beautiful, but annoying, woman. Sherlock usually refrains from sex, but in trying to stay sober he indulges in it now and again. Sherlock meets John on the street and sparks fly. Casual sex is one thing, but what about something more?

[shilo-sumac]

New Pinned Hello Hi!!!!!

last edited 5/16/25 (Small edits for clarity + links to arcs)

Shattered Echo Part Two Summary done~

Part Three start date: *shrugs*

im Shilo hiiiiiii hello hi hi! she/they please! im somewhere in my 20s i think. welcome to my blog, i hope we can be friends!!!! :D im a ride or die guy if we become friends you can count on me forever n always!!!!! sometimes i give nicknames to people so that i don't risk forgetting them. heres my roommate alistair!!!!

... Why have I been dragged to the Computer. She did not tell me what I was to write here. An introduction I presume? I suppose I can try? I am called Alistair. I do not plan on talking much. I owe Shilo and help when I can. The Pokemon do not like me much, so usually that entails me going on shopping trips. He/Him. Just some boring Man. Is this Good enough Shilo?

... yeah thats fine, okay continuing my about:

originally, this blog was just going to be about my rehabilitation center, but interacting with other people was just too fun! plus i suck at keeping my mouth shut.

sooo about me, i guess! after winning the sinnoh championship, i got my pokemon science degree and "retired" to rehabilitate pokemon for a living on a private island off the coast of sinnoh, i nurse abandoned or injured pokemon back to health and help them return to the wild or find their forever homes 💜 hmu if you ever wanna adopt somn!

i love infodumping about pokemon facts. please ask me how to take care of pokemon ill love you forever.

oh uhm, i should probably warn ya... i may get mood swings... and im really sorry if they bother anyone, i uh... might have a mental illness or two.

Here's My Trainer Cards! [Old and New, respectively]

Urtle, Monarch, Bess, Gadzooks, Bane and Bianca!

Rin, Spooky!, Bianca, Gadzooks, Bane and Mym!

Hello hello! Welcome to my oc's blog. They really needed a new pinned since the old one was really long winded. I'm Ri! No pronouns or it/they! I admittedly still am figuring stuff out here but I think I'm doing well! Follows and likes will come from @ridragon. Pleaaaase come talk to me if I ever do something you don't like or accidentally break a boundary, I won't know unless you tell me! I love interactions of all kinds, feel free to send asks and reblog with comments. Or send me compliments. I like those too. :3c Always open to make new friends here.

NOTE: Shilo's blog will have themes of death, delusions, depression and injuries (both self inflicted and by others), doubt of personhood/humanity, and disassociation.

Shilo suffers from delusions and therefore is not a reliable narrator when it comes to information about herself, her mental state, or her physical well being. Something doesn't quite line up.

FURTHERMORE: The line between delusion and what's actually happening to her can and will be very thin at times.

Her mood swings may cause her to go from sillyblogging to rage and threats to depression and back to silly again, though she's mainly my silly gorl it's fun to explore on occasion.

Things tagged as "memento" are plot or character relevant. ;3

Boundaries: Uhhhh, can't really think of much atm. I have good friends who are minors who I don't wanna alienate, so no explicit nsfw (jokes are alright, which will be tagged as "suggestive.") This section may be updated if I realize something makes me uncomfortable in the future. Mod and muse are both adults.

Links to important things:

[World Info and Muse Trivia]

[Frequently Used Tags]

[Finished Arcs w/ Linked Summaries]

List of Pokémon + Minibios

Reference!

[schizosupport]

Hey, I'm only just recently figuring out I have schizophrenia (or something on the spectrum, but that seems to match me the most), and the post about how we define delusions is helping me a lot and helped me get the words for a problem I've been having with this. Sorry if it's basic thought I'm getting wrong/restating poorly. Like I said, still new to this. I just hope it's actually related since I'm not. Very good at telling if things are related it seems.

I'm not sure if there's a word for this, but I also feel like I have been delusional about things that are true. Like some stuff that is verifiably real and other people would agree with can give me the same experience as delusions. It's very strange and makes me feel like a precise definition of reality doesn't really help when it doesn't have to be a false reality for my brain to wrap around it.

I also have a bunch that are just from an (extremist) christian upbringing. Sure, it's a belief from a subculture, but all of that shit can still fuck me, even though many people wouldn't recognize it as a symptom. It's frustrating, really isolating, and I don't really know what I can do to work on it.

It feels like delusions, but definitionally isn't. It makes them harder to identify and also significantly harder to get help from my friends.

Sorry if this doesn't make sense or it's too long. I overexplain a lot haha.

Hi there!

Don't worry, this made sense to me! I'll try to respond.

So the first question is about things that feel like a delusion while being objectively real. I think depending on the exact experience, those may be obsessions, where you can't stop thinking about the thing and it feels like the most important thing ever. Or it could be a type of black and white thinking perhaps. Where it's objectively true, as such, but your brain is refusing to entertain any nuance. I'm not sure, because it depends on what a delusion feels like for you, for me to be able to guess what flavor of thinking you're referring to.

As for the extremist christian beliefs you grew up with, I do think that it can sometimes be a type of delusion, or best described as such, when you've left the subculture and believe these things against your own better judgment. Certainly on an experiential level, that's very similar to double bookkeeping (where you know your belief is delusional, but you still believe it). I think it's valid to think of those beliefs as delusional, because you are not a part of that culture in a way where it's an accepted belief within yourself or your current culture anymore. But I also think that even if it didn't get the label of delusional, it would still be considered a real issue, born of trauma, that you deserve help for.

In terms of validity of suffering, psychiatric labels really don't mean much. The distinction in this case about where the belief comes from would be relevant in a therapeutic setting, perhaps, but even with regular delusions they often have an origin that it can be relevant to explore.

I know several people who are dealing with the double whammy of having grown up in this kind of subculture, and also being psychotic. And it will inevitably interact in spicy ways.

I hope you can find community and support, because you are definitely not alone!

Hope this helped :3

[skaruresonic]

Remake!James is such a prick, I hate him so fucking much.

In the In Water ending, his justification for driving his car into the lake isn't that he no longer has anything to live for without Mary, but that he can't forgive himself for what he's done.

That in and of itself wouldn't be so bad---a lack of self-forgiveness is also implied in the original version of In Water. But the real odiousness lies less in what James says and more in the implications underpinning his sentiments.

Bloober cut the original dialogue between Mary and James - the scene where he admits his mixed motives, that he both hated her for taking away his life and that he also wanted to end her suffering, and where Mary notes that he looks sad despite his shame - and instead has James monologue at Mary's corpse.

What was originally a dialogue between two parties - or, more figuratively, two sides of James making equally valid points - becomes, instead, a one-sided soliloquy where he prioritizes his wishes over those of his dead wife because "you're dead anyway, what do you care."

And no, I am not kidding. Bloober has removed most metaphorical and figurative exchanges in this game in favor of a more literal, "realistic" interpretation of events.

Here, James is quite literally talking to Mary's corpse in the back seat when he says:

...and everybody clapped because omg "'Mary's corpse was rotting in the back seat the whole time' theory confirmed, In Water must be the canon ending now." shoot me.

"I tried. I really did. But I can't... I just can't go on without you. I can't forgive myself for what I've done. I know this isn't what you'd want. But I guess it doesn't matter anymore. You... You're not here. Are you?"

So Mary's wishes would only matter to you if she were alive to protest, huh, James? You wouldn't abide by them out of honor for her memory or on general principle because you, idk, loved her?

You know for a fact that she wouldn't want you to kill yourself, so you're not even going to try? Your wish to die matters more than her wish to see you live? Because you didn't exactly give her a choice in the matter, either.

In fact, I'm sure Mary would be pretty angry to hear how you value life so little that you're just gonna throw away yours out of an inability to deal with your guilt. You should feel guilty, and you should have to live with that guilt and find a way to work through it, because you murdered her.

This would be a shitty thing for James to say even if Mary had died naturally, but the fact that he murdered her makes him saying "well you're not here anymore, so fuck it" a hell of a lot skeevier. He is not going to even attempt to own up to his guilt aside from a token "sowwy, I can't fowgive myself uwu"; he can't even admit the truth, that he might have done it at least partially out of resentment. The original's nuance is eroded in favor of making In Water seem more like a classically "bad" ending, when it reality it should only be one plausible ending among multiple.

There's a reason we don't just toss people into ditches once they kick the bucket because "they're not here anymore lol." Have some fucking decorum, James, you selfish bitch.

And if you, dear reader, are thinking I'm being inordinately vitriolic towards James, I'm really not, because he maintains a self-centered attitude to the various deaths he witnesses.

He has nothing to say, zip, about Maria's first death or Eddie's death. Can't even be bothered to drum up the basic decency to offer a perfunctory "Damn, that was fucked-up."

At least Original!James was horrified at the prospect of murdering a "human being" in Eddie, a horror which jostled him into wondering whether Mary truly died three years ago (hence why the letter's writing disappears from the inventory; his delusions are slowly fading away). At least when Maria died in Brookhaven, he lamented that he "couldn't do anything to help."

The way he speaks in the remake, on the other hand, centers everything around him. It's all about his image, his ego, his feelings, and rarely, if ever, about Mary, let alone others.

This is not the first time Remake!James flaunts his ego, but it is exemplative of his attitude throughout the game. Bloober characterize him as an egotistical jerk via his dialogue and general attitude, and sometimes in the things he chooses not to say even when he should. And I cannot figure out for the life of me whether that was intentional, to push some gender-essentialist Men Bad(tm) message, or if Bloober are so shit at writing that they don't realize they've made him 100x more unlikable than before.

[idk-atlasreads]

Thoughts without a thinker - psychotherapy from a Buddhist perspective, M. Epstein, excerpts from intro and chapter one.

Personal context first:

I began reading this book in March, I’m taking it slow because there’s a lot to process. While I don’t subscribe to buddhism as a religion, I do find it valuable as philosophy and a therapeutic tool. I find the use of metaphor so intrinsic to buddhism very approachable and beneficial for how I process concepts.

I’ve taken to reading this specifically with dissociation in mind, so that is the lens I am processing most of the book through. I also take it with the understanding that this is just one author’s thoughts and nothing is gospel. I’ve felt for a long time that western psychology misses an important layer when approaching mental wellness and recovery from general human experience and complex trauma, and I find that buddhist philosophy helps fill that gap for me.

(Disclaimer that I’m still figuring out how I want to format things I post here, so this isn’t the final form. I gotta figure out the best process for me so that it’s useable and enjoyable. Right now I’m trying out a bullet list of quotes without much context, which will likely vary over time. I also did not get a formal education to learn standard or proper ways of formatting and quotation, so don’t judge, please.)

Keep reading for the list of quotes, it got long and I don’t wanna dash clog.

* We do not experience any of the realms with clarity, teach the Buddhists; instead, we cycle through all of them fearfully, cut off from a full experience, unable to fully embrace them and afraid of what we will see. Just as the thoughts in our minds keep endlessly chattering as if beyond our control, so we slip from realm to realm without really knowing where we are. We are locked into our minds, but we do not really know them. We are adrift and struggling, buffeted by the waves of our minds, having not learned how to float.

* ..it is our fear at experiencing ourselves directly that creates suffering.

* We cannot find our enlightened minds while continuing to be estranged from our neurotic ones. … In each realm of our experience, teach the Buddhists, we must learn how to see clearly.

* ..release from suffering is won through a change in perception, not through a migration to some kind of heavenly abode.

* If aspects of the person remain undigested—cut off, denied, projected, rejected, indulged, or otherwise unassimilated—they become the points around which the core forces of greed, hatred, and delusion attach themselves. They are black holes that absorb fear and create the defensive posture of the isolated self, unable to make satisfying contact with others or with the world.

* The fabric of self is stitched together out of just these holes in our emotional experience. When those aspects that have been unconsciously refused are returned, when they are made conscious, accepted, tolerated, or integrated, the self can then be at one, the need to maintain the self-conscious edifice disappears, and the force of compassion is automatically unleashed.

* To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be one with others.

* They do not recognize their torturers as products of their own minds, however. They believe themselves to be tortured by outside forces over which they have no control. At the same time that they are completely dominated by their rage or anxiety, they are cut off from those same emotions.

* ..suffering can only be alleviated by seeing the unwanted emotions in the mirror. When so recognized, the emotions themselves become healing.

* When we refuse to acknowledge the presence of unwanted feelings, we are as bound to them as when we give ourselves over to them indignantly and self–righteously.

* ..Hungry Ghosts are searching for gratification for old unfulfilled needs whose time has passed. They are beings who have uncovered a terrible emptiness within themselves, who cannot see the impossibility of correcting something that has already happened. Their ghostlike state represents their attachment to the past. … The very attempts to satisfy themselves cause more pain. …unable to digest nourishment; attempts at gratification only yield a more intense hunger and craving.

* Just as the emptiness of the Hungry Ghosts must be experienced in such a way that reparation is no longer sought from impossible sources, so the Western student afflicted with such feelings must make the emptiness itself the object of his or her meditation. Only then can self-loathing be transformed into wisdom, a task in which both psychotherapy and meditation may well collaborate.

* ..the aggressive nature of ego is not seen as the problem; this energy is in fact valued and is necessary in the spiritual path.

* ..redirect their aggression, destroying and assimilating the unawareness that keeps them estranged from themselves. In just this way, meditation practice seeks to kidnap the various ego functions, reorienting them away from attempts at possession of “things” and toward the achievement of discriminating awareness. In order to accomplish this, however, the ego functions themselves must first be freed.

* ..fantasies of gratification of unfulfilled needs must be understood as fantasies in order for actual gratification to be appreciated, ego functions must be freed in order to use them for spiritual, as well as worldly, purposes, and ego boundaries must be temporarily relaxed in order for confluence to be understood as a natural outcome of satisfying contact instead of some kind of unapproachable heaven state.

[run-muse-dot-exe]

Hi howdy I see you have a headcanon ask game going on, is it okay if I ask you many headcanons about your daughter with anger issues (Surge)? 👪🧡😶 😴 annnnd 😨. If you don't want to answer all of these that's fine :D

thematic headcanons! - accepting (please specify muse)

oh anon you just made my whole day (i literally shot up from my doomscrolling cackling like a madman)

👪 a family-themed headcanon

Surge remembers nothing of her family. She resents them, whoever they were, as has been stated in the past. She doesn't care what their reasoning is for their abandonment, there had to be some reason Starline got ahold of her that has something to do with her having been vulnerable. And no self-respecting family would leave their girl in such a state if they cared, in her eyes. Are they dead? Did they sell her? Leave her to fend for herself?

Does she consider the kid family? Maybe. Might cop to it if pressed.

🧡 a friendship-themed headcanon

She doesn't really have traditional friends. Wouldn't really know where to start, to begin with. She was a subordinate to the doc, and the level of hero worship Kit suffers from kinda means their relationship has to be defined... differently.

She knows she respects people who go for what they want. Appreciates directness. She'd probably be a pretty bad friend, in reality. Being blunt and rude and not above violence means that the majority of people she's interacted with don't have many nice things to say about her, and that's fine. Hammer chick and sheep girl seem chill, though. Tough. Nice t' see.

😶 a headcanon about a secret they know of / keep

He's gone, right? And she hated the bastard, so Surge should want nothing more than to spend a good amount of spare time airing the doctor's dirty laundry. For some reason though, she just... hasn't. She remembers how he likes to take his stupid tea, for gods sake. How he wanted his eggs cooked for breakfast, still has every dumb meal vlog somewhere in Kit's file stash. Could get hours of laughter out of that stupid mug he had, but...

Best she can come up with is that it's easier to admit he fucked them over if he seems just as menacing and intimidating as he tried to appear. Pretty pathetic to have been so subservient to a dude that watched old Eggman footage as a passtime while sighing like a teenage groupie.

😴 a sleep-themed headcanon

This chick can sleep like the dead and runs like a furnace. She throws every extra blanket and pillow she gets landed with at Kit, since she finds she sleeps way worse touching anything warm or soft. The kid's probably figured out that something is up, maybe some of her processors run wrong when she's unconscious and it causes overheating, but she isn't very fussed about it at all. She also snores. Maybe Kit burying his face in those pillows isn't just out of instinct.

😨 a fear-themed headcanon

Surge doesn't like being extorted. She folds weirdly fast whenever someone, anyone has something to lord over her head. Her issues with authority are made clear in her attitude, her style of dress, everything about her, but always in an abstract manner. Never direct.

If anyone gains any kind of authoritative tone towards her, she caves. Boiled down, she's so terrified that she can't ever seem to stand up for herself minus the most token complaints. Flinches, even, falls apart and hates herself for it. Thus far the only one still around that's ever seen these breakdowns is, of course, Kitsunami. She doesn't count the hedgehog ever witnessing any of her power-induced delusions. That didn't happen.

[unstablemotions]

having nightly nightmares about my cousin dying from medical maltreatment. i spend hours every morning to get over these nightmares trying to figure out if it happened or not, since my dissociative disorder makes it hard for me to tell the difference between dreams and reality. it's really hard because i have no idea what i can do to help her. i've tried reading up on the law, but what i find is bleak. it says that if a doctor has judged you to be psychotic, they can decide if they can use force to treat you. my cousin has an ME diagnosis, but it is from a private practitioner whom the public health care system are preventing her from seeing making all sorts of excuses, such as it costing too much money when they are not the ones paying. it is a common thing here that you get punished medically by the public healthcare system if you go private for some of your treatment, sadly. idk why, since the only reason people go private is the long waiting lists or being rejected treatment

i want to just travel to the place my cousin is and stop the psychiatry from entering her room, but that might just make it worse, since they might then involve the cops and it could stress out my cousin more. also she's too sick for visitors and she's also struggling with texting. i've tried to ask her if there's anything i can do, but so far she's just given me a link to a petition. i don't know if medical personnel here is gonna take it seriously since they are already so quick to reject the diagnosis from her private practitioner and also reject the recent psychiatric evaluation where they said she was not psychotic

when i studied psychology, we were taught that is was important to first rule out any somatic explanation for symptoms before giving a psychiatric diagnosis, but here it seems like they are just calling her psychotic, because they don't believe in ME being an actual disorder. i am so confused because i've grown up with a psychotic mom. i have psychotic friends. my cousin is not showing any of the same symptoms that they have - especially not enough to take away her freedom and forcefully treat her with strong medication and electroconvulsive treatment. she has seizures already. how tf is inducing a seizure gonna magically cure her?? i really hope they won't give her ect, but they've mentioned it to her so im scared. she can't fight back other than say no. even if she could fight back, if you're diagnosed psychotic, they can just sedate you and give you whatever treatment they think will help you by force. i know many people who've been forcefully treated either by being restrained or coerced. the psychiatry is horrifying

like i get that they think they are saving my cousin or whatever, but like why tf aren't they listening to her doctor or to her or her family/friends when they say that she's been improving through the treatment the private doctor gave her? yes, it's slow, but she's severely disabled with multiple things, so ofc she's not just gonna magically not be disabled and go back to work and uni. don't they think that if she could, she'd be out of bed? i get that delusions can make you think you can't do things that you actually can do, but you can't just call someone delusional before making sure that they are not suffering from a physical illness and actually cannot fucking walk. yes, some conditions get better if you push yourself, but not ME! lots of physical conditions get worse if you push yourself. but they won't listen to her. they won't listen to her doctor or the scientific consensus on ME. it is horrifying. she's not the only person i know who's been medically maltreated for their chronic illness - especially not if you're a woman and you experience chronic pain. they do not take you seriously. someone i worked with almost died from appendicitis because they didn't take her pain seriously. she's sterile now because they only took her seriously when her dad came and shouted at them. my mom was not taken seriously when she suspected she's got diabetes ii and was then fatshamed when they finally agreed to properly test her and it turned out she was diabetic. i know more chronically ill people, who've been struggling to be taken seriously. im so lucky i was taken seriously only because it's a fairly common genetic disease that runs in my family and it is recognised as real in my country, but so many people receive medical maltreatment and it is sometimes permanently damaging to them if not lethal. it is at the very least traumatising and takes years away from their life where they could have taken an education, got work experience, saved money for a home, build a family, ect.

this is just a rant for my own peace of mind really. i just need to get this frustration off my chest a little by screaming into the void. i have no idea what to do to help my cousin. all i can do is say i'm here if she needs me

[minquiec]

My 5k word essay on why I like bringing pain and suffering to the two idiots I love dearly (A thesis)

[alternative title being: me ranting abt jipunk for 2 hours straight im kiddingg]

So like

At this point I'm pretty sure most people can tell I enjoy pulling angst out of nowhere for absolutely NO reason necessary other than pain heeheehaahaa well it ain't gonna stop 😁 CAUSE TRUST THAT I will make sure every au I ever make of these two end in numbingly tragic angst one way or the other 🦅 jkjk they won't all be that bad it'll just have varying degrees of sadness

Anyways

I actually do have a reason for never giving them a happy (canonical or implied) happy ending ☝️ the thing abt me is every detail or like choice I make in character design/relationship/etc is that it's always intentional (most of the time) like there's always some kind of corny reason behind it bc I'm jwndkwjd insane and just think too hard abt two characters that don't even exist.

So like so like

I am an absolute loser for tropes like 'in another life' or 'in every life' or just anything among those lines. Like genuinely it does smth irreparable to my brain it's not even funny.

And basically the thought process for jipunk was like they're LITERALLY from different universes which quite literally means they can't end up together bc it's just not possible. But tbh the whole multiverse logic and how it works is up to interpretation cause y'know it's just a movie but personally I see it as smth pretty impossible for lore sake and stuff HAHSHA

So because the 'original' jipunk (atsv versions) can't end up together, I decided to go and think

"HMM."

"WHAT IF THEY ARE THE EPITOME OF 'ill find you in every universe" BUT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM END IN THE SAME WAY (never ending up tgt)"

Cause for the different au's each of them is technically a different reincarnate in different worlds with different lives.

And like going back to when I said varying levels of sadness: what I meant was in some aus they'll be literally universes apart (which in itself is already sad asf) but in other aus they could live in the same world but their lives are like perpendicular lines because they'll meet and then never cross paths again (BECAUSE this is what their fate is supposed to be if we base it off their atsv counter parts: they were never meant to be bc they're from different universes)

BUT DONT KILL ME YET BC

technically

teccchnicaalllllyyy

In the long run they do have a happy ending

(longass run bru)

So there isn't a proper timeline for which universes 'happen first' bc that just doesn't make sense but

The modern au where it has the convenience store

Is their happy ending

Endgame au fr

Cause if you think abt it right (this is a headcanon), hb isn't the type of person to fall in love based on looks.

Yet in the modern au he ends up crushing on a silly little employee of the convenience store he goes to.

And like it's just this pull he can't understand for the life of him??? Cause it feels so shallow to him to like someone bc he thinks their pretty

Little does he know

So after they get tgt in the modern au, I'm thinking of this one moment where he kind of figures it out/sort of/not really but he is just like

"idk what it is but it feels like I've spent lifetimes with you"

BECAUSE YOU HAAAAAAVE@)$()2(# AAAAAAUEGEGHHEGEG JM SOBBING

HE SAYS IT BC HE REALIZES HIS SOUL IS JUST SO COMFORTABLE WITH HER PRESENCE ALMOST LIKE ITS GOTTEN USED TO IT SINCE A LONG LONG TIME AGO

And I realized just now but omfg the comic I made where he drunk confess and goes 'I liked you first'

HES LITERALLY BEEN LIKING HER FIRST IN THEIR FIRST LIFE (ATSV) IM GOING TO FUCKIGNNEF THROIWN UP

Soulmates idc idc IDCCCC

Took the quote I love you in every lifetime and RAAAAANNNN WITH IT

I enjoy tragic love stories tm

This isn't delusion anymore this is derangement

They r so dear to me

They are my kdramas, they are my bridgerton, they are my therapy this is how I cope.

[fugengulsen]

It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous. Resign yourself to be the fool you are.

You will find that you survive humiliation And that’s an experience of incalculable value.

That is the worst moment, when you feel you have lost The desires for all that was most desirable, Before you are contented with what you can desire; Before you know what is left to be desired; And you go on wishing that you could desire What desire has left behind. But you cannot understand. How could you understand what it is to feel old?

We die to each other daily. What we know of other people Is only our memory of the moments During which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same Is a useful and convenient social convention Which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember That at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.

There was a door And I could not open it. I could not touch the handle. Why could I not walk out of my prison? What is hell? Hell is oneself. Hell is alone, the other figures in it Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from And nothing to escape to. One is always alone.

Half the harm that is done in this world Is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle To think well of themselves.

There are several symptoms Which must occur together, and to a marked degree, To qualify a patient for my sanitorium: And one of them is an honest mind. That is one of the causes of their suffering.

To men of a certain type The suspicion that they are incapable of loving Is as disturbing to their self-esteem As, in cruder men, the fear of impotence.

I must tell you That I should really like to think there’s something wrong with me — Because, if there isn’t, then there’s something wrong With the world itself — and that’s much more frightening! That would be terrible. So, I’d rather believe there’s something wrong with me, that could be put right.

Everyone’s alone — or so it seems to me. They make noises, and think they are talking to each other; They make faces, and think they understand each other. And I’m sure they don’t. Is that a delusion?

Can we only love Something created in our own imaginations? Are we all in fact unloving and unloveable? Then one is alone, and if one is alone Then lover and beloved are equally unreal And the dreamer is no more real than his dreams.

I shall be left with the inconsolable memory Of the treasure I went into the forest to find And never found, and which was not there And is perhaps not anywhere? But if not anywhere Why do I feel guilty at not having found it?

Disillusion can become itself an illusion If we rest in it.

Two people who know they do not understand each other, Breeding children whom they do not understand And who will never understand them.

There is another way, if you have the courage. The first I could describe in familiar terms Because you have seen it, as we all have seen it, Illustrated, more or less, in lives of those about us. The second is unknown, and so requires faith — The kind of faith that issues from despair. The destination cannot be described; You will know very little until you get there; You will journey blind. But the way leads towards possession Of what you have sought for in the wrong place.

We must always take risks. That is our destiny.

If we all were judged according to the consequences Of all our words and deeds, beyond the intention And beyond our limited understanding Of ourselves and others, we should all be condemned.

Only by acceptance of the past will you alter its meaning.

All cases are unique, and very similar to others.

Every moment is a fresh beginning.

~T.S. Eliot -  The Cocktail Party

[therevelationofjohn]

"Tasha Yar." From the Book of Revelation, 13: 5-8.

John says it takes forty two months to exhaust the laws and tenets and enter a state of Tycho. In the prior frame God says to do it much faster than this, like a leaping deer, fast, very fast.

Forty two months =the concoctions, the lies, the fabrications need to be run up the flagpole. In this section we are going to discuss how all truth must be tested in the mind, even this Revelation before one can enter Tycho. John says this is necessary if we are to release the beast, our inner leopard and show off who we really are.

In Torah time, it takes as long as it takes, like college credits. You may earn your 125 hours of required credit in four years, another person might need six.

5 The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months. 6 It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. 

7 It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. 

8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.[b]

Everyone has a right to look and feel sexy and attractive and engage in adult past times. We have lately started persecuting if not executing persons for trying to be lovely and loved in the way that is best for them. This is not God's way. John says everyone gets to worship the beast, everyone. Tests of this theory prove societies are better off when they eliminate prejudices and let people live their lives on their own.

Recent studies show including the entire population in human affairs expands business opportunities and the revenue and tax base well past the top tier which is actually a minority. So as God told John, DEI must be reinstated until all social inequalities are addressed.

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 5-6: The beast was given a mouth. The Number is 12096, קךץו‎, kechatshu, "hammer downward, on the asphalt."

=

The origins of the relationship between God and mankind.

v. 7: It was given to wage war. Wars argue against the cruelty and wickedness of mankind. God created flamboyant people to ensure everyone sees what reality looks like. The Number is 12704, יבן‎ד‎, ivan d, "knowledge of God charges the particle."

v. 8: All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast. The Number is 11291, יא‎ר‎ץא‎, yar tsha, "one who hurries through the forest from all that worries to all that is enjoyed."

Recall our goddess went into the forest for 1,260 days after the Son of Man was born. While he is reigning, testing his limits and she is finding herself again, the leopard man is learning how to grow up, not to suffer fools, least of all himself.

The Catholic Church and others are lying to you. They have been lying to the human race for thousands of years. They do not possess nor understand the legacy of the Jewish people called the Son of God they have never, ever properly understood it. Continue to study the Revelation with me and we will figure out how to do it.

We know God is a radioactive Spirit that permeates life. He is not in love with us, He does not want a personal relationship or acceptance, He is not in need of any of these things. He gave us the Torah and the rest including this Revelation because war, violence, tyranny, and all the manmade causes of suffering usurp His authority. We are capable of destroying this entire planet, we have seen to it. This is not why God made man, he made us to complete His vision. We have decided to rebel against it and can easily suffer the world to cooperate instead.

As John says above, there is a stage of Revelation that includes a stern argument against all delusion and despair as this the path to renewal of the asphalt of our current lifetimes. I just checked the news. The Russian army has not withdrawn from Ukraine and neither are Donald Trump and his cabinet on their way to prison. I simply do not understand. Why won't you wake up?

The Torah is not an outspoken case for the cause of the Jewish people but for all people. God sent His gods and angels in all the directions and they spoke in every language to every nation in order to bring them closer to what we have, an age of modernity that leaves not one problem unsolved. Our mission now is to rid the world of war and obscene persons in the government and abroad and bring the benefits of this most recent age to everyone and every place.

One can speak of this from the points of view of different saints but this is what has to be done. Fast, very fast, not slow. You simply must not tolerate a man who has sex with little kids in the White House or in the Holy See.

The Revelation will continue.

[spotsupstuff]

I'll try to explain my idea of what the Ascension is in two ways.

I'll start with putting the whole situation into our world: In Buddhism, the core idea is that physical life is always suffering (birth is pain, death is pain) or it will somehow always end with suffering (a game session with people you love with come to an end, you will eventually die and you or they will leave you behind). Existence is torture, but unlike the pessimistic emos on the internet that claim to be "realistic", they go: ,,So let's see how we can fix this!"

The journey to enlightment could be equaled to any self-bettering journey people in the world take through other means (such as gathering experience by yourself, delving into psychology as a patient or the doctor, so on). The point of it is to become authentic, free, unburdened by all that could pull you down to the bottom and hurt you, back into the cycle of suffering (this is that Saṃsāra).

Imagine that in our world, it becomes solidly proved that Buddhism has the right idea, that there really *is* a Nirvāṇa, it's an escape from all the pains in this world you have experienced and you could experience. The only catch is you need to actually work on yourself, aim to be a good person, listen to those Buddhist teachings and try and apply them to yourself.

Now imagine our world's elites hearing about this new shiny, very desired thing. Let's take, idk, Jeff Bezos- first that comes to mind. He doesn't wanna work towards it, but damn, does he want this enlightment and liberation from Saṃsāra (RW's Ascension). Everybody wants it! It's the new best thing in the world, better than money. It's a new top priority for everyone.

There are also some whisperings about a physical something that can erase the physical existence. So there Is a way to circumvent the whole "learning in order to become a better person" process?

Ah, but apparently it is dangerous. But it still proves there are other ways (according to what has been, what is hypothised, so on). What is he going to do then. Well, let's give this as a prompt to, idk, ChatGPT for it to figure out how to give him the end result without having to work for it.

The ChatGPT are of course the Iterators. The erasing thing is Void Fluid. The point of it is that the Original concept and way towards it was good, because it promotes *becoming* good, to others, to yourself. Shedding the heavy parts imposed by physical reality, perhaps evolution itself, in order to become something better and freer, that can move on from here.

However, someone came and essentially industrialized/bastardized this for the sake of selfish personal comfort. The most important part of it is stripped away for the sake of convenience and laziness.

Indulging in anything else than the original way, including the Void Fluid way to a degree*, I would actually call suicide. The same way crazed cults commit mass suicides. Because it's violent, possibly not own choice, doesn't bring any good if the point after the suicide doesn't exist.

*The point is the journey, so if someone goes and takes a bath in Void Fluid without ever trying to better themselves, basically guaranteeing a creation of an Echo, it's *sort* of a suicide? Don't know a better word for it. It's forcing of something that can't be, because of a delusion. Survivor's plunge into the Void Sea I would not classify as "suicide", because we see through its dreams that it is actually on a journey towards a betterment.

Survivor's biggest burden is the Third Hindrance- it lost its family and that weights it down- that is the plot of its own little story. It is still searching, clinging to the idea of finding them, putting more thought into the act of searching than trying to focus on the here and now and make sure currently it will have a chance to prosper.

In the dream where it's lying with its family and they fade, it realizes they are gone. It is alone in the world, this a fact. It has to look out for itself, find a way to be alright. After visiting Pebbles, making its way to the Void, it goes through the journey of accepting aloneness, unburdening itself from clinging on to something, because clinging to something means being terrified of losing the subject and then the fear dictates the life and interactions with the subject, instead of a simple and easy-going love for it.

Survivor ascends, knowing how to be strong and good in aloneness, but not having to be strictly lonely.

Basically, Survivor demonstrates what a real and proper Ascension is supposed to look like, with the Void serving as a sort of threshold that makes it possible for it to get out of the cycle of rebirth. To not make that journey, go straight for the escape out of the cycle, is to destroy oneself.

(hii Spot been awhile) Something I think that's interesting about the observation about how Slugcats are getting so much attention nowadays is that its almost a 180 from how things were in the pre-downpour days, iirc.

Though I am glad we're getting an AU like yours it's so interesting compared to the usual

Im eating with a fork

Yeah, the fandom was not particularly strong back then, but I think there was more Iterator content. My suspicion as to why slugcats are so much more popular now is because the general "cat appeal"*. Downpour brought in wider audience which mostly consists of people that go wild over cat videos on the internet.

Not my intention to throw shade on it, because after all what does my opinion matter to anyone, but I find the whole "cuteness cult" of the internet annoying and, when applied to Rain World, frustrating. There's a whole silent worldbuilding in basically every screen of the game and the only thing that people seem to take away post-DP is "cute sluggy go wooo :3 the Ancients were such cultist pricks Dx". Which like alright, but expand a little on the latter please? Try? There is So much fun to it when one moves past the "religion only BAD" mindset.

DP also I think didn't care much about the Ancients and the culture they left behind (and therefore the root of Iterators). "But there's Saint!" Saint is almost everything new that wasn't heard of before, can be taken as another fact of monstroid mad religion and, of course, it Has to be wrapped in a fluffy cat package. The undergrowth Echo also feels like a spit in the face to the lore/religion than an addition, to me. My *guess* would be the original intention was showing an individual who failed to ascend because of the Fifth Hindrance but it doesn't *feel* like it. If that was the intention, I think the author didn't understand why a desire to live/survive could ever, in any form, be bad

It's interesting as well in the sense that when there was only Survivor, maybe up to Hunter- the slugcats felt like a vehicle that brings the player to the story. The player saw the world through their eyes and got to experience the world's rules, abiding them- the original campaigns were still subject to the lore/religion of the world.

DP made the slugcats characters, the main focus, in some cases a rebelion against the lore/religion (forever beef against new route for Survivor and Monk). So people had an easier time latching onto them.

That is my theory at least. Fact is also when I first watched RW I almost didn't get into it as a creator because I felt like I had nowhere to hook to and work with. Characters are great anchor points for people to latch on to and then work with/through, so it's not like I blame the fandom for quite literally getting slug infested. It's natural and logical and I'm well aware of it as someone who's trying to be a writer. Still frustrating.

Either way, at least there's a vacuum for me to fill with something I'm actively actually passionate about. It's kind of a sweet bonus that people are somewhat interested, too.