#unless you can destroy mental illness

[terrietont]

“Stop giving your characers a tragic backstory, it’s overdone!”

Well, then can you go give reality a call and ask it to stop giving REAL people tragic backstories so we can stop projecting our demons onto fiction to help cope? And please ask it to get rid of mental illness while you’re at it.

Cheers~

[katyspersonal]

When I figure that genuinely saying things like "Lol I hate how I am that type of a villain who is cartoonishly immature and draws mockery memes of their enemies", "My favourite thing about [friend] is how they always admire and validate me no matter how insane I get", "Damn, FUCK, why the FUCK did they do that to themselves?!" (when someone blocked me) or "Whoever hates me is either jealous or horny" is extremely out-of-character for me but then I remember that I do have DID that I refuse to organize a proper system for and I had bad memory gaps recently, so it is probably just another shard and there is hoping that this fraction of me won't linger for long

[princescribbler]

5 Common Misconceptions of ABDLs!

To be clear, these are common misconceptions ABDLs have, not common misconceptions ABOUT us ABDLs!

1. "My kink is so rare!"

Really? Because candidly, abdl, ageplay, and diaper fetishism intersect in a fascinating way. There are diaper fetishists who despise any form of ageplay or regression, there are ageplayers who get off on the Ageplay, or the diapers, or the humiliation, teasing, or any other aspect of the kink. And candidly, you can tell ABDL really isn't that uncommon when the communities that show up are this large and varied. Heck, there's entire communities on reddit with tens of thousands of abdls, and that's just one site (and not the most kink friendly space to begin with.) Add in the fact that many people are very embarrassed or worried about this kink and you've got an even better explanation for why it can FEEL very rare or isolating... but it often comes down to just being hard to find, at first!

2. "Nobody vanilla will accept me! They must all think I'm a freak" (or similar negative expectation setting)

Except.. they do, all the time, every day. I've personally avoided most vanilla relationships, but I know MARRIED abdl couples who started with one partner totally vanilla, and some of the biggest and most successful content creators in this space are well known for having partners not into ABDL.

Simply put, if you assume it'll go wrong and you'll be judged, your body language, words, and tone can be much more nervous and defensive and make your partner feel ill at ease. Try to not go in with negative assumptions!

3. "I have to find a caregiver to feel little!"

Uh... no you don't. Your kink might involve a partner, your desires might include one or more people around to care for you or dominate you or join you in diapered submission... but none of that means you can't enjoy still, and have a GREAT time. You can try to foster your own regressive or littlespace mindset, happily. And you don't need ANYONE else to enable that. If you're expecting that just having sometime else around will fix things, you're sadly incorrect! You need, at some level, to be comfortable enough to not just rely on EXTERNAL enforcement of your abdl side!

4. "I should get rid of [x] because I feel embarrassed/bad/upset!" (Or any similar variant of the binge/ purge mentality)

Binge and purge cycles happen, and can be very emotionally destructive. Try to instead put the object in storage instead of throwing it out, because often your emotional negative response will only get worse when you later regret it or judge your own reaction.

Try to give yourself the space to struggle, but don't just throw things away or destroy them if they're kink items... instead, realize you might feel differently later and give yourself the grace to be allowed to change your mind without any further fear or judgment!

5. "Everybody can tell if I'm padded/ little/ going out discretely!"

No they can't. I could stop there but truly let's consider this: you realize that incontinence is common... shockingly common. You've passed people in adult diapers, pull ups, discrete pads, you've likely even been in a room with another heavily diapered adult and NEVER realized. Because unless you're being obvious, have leaks, or make a point to wear very form fitting clothing, nobody will notice or likely even look! You're much less exposed than your brain makes you think!!

My point is this: be nice to yourself, and work hard to challenge those negative self talk moments that come up for so many abdls. Your interests and desires aren't as rare as you think, more people are ok with it than you realize, nobody can usually tell even if you are padded (and would be more likely to assume it medical than kinky even if they noticed), and struggling with this is normal too!

BE NICER TO YOURSELF: THAT'S THIS PAPI'S ORDERS! You don't deserve to feel bad about something that helps you feel good!

And as always; stay happy, stay healthy, and stay kinky!

- Scribbler

[haute-pockette]

The Doctor's incarnations have fears associated to what caused their regenerations Two acting childlike and whimsical because he's afraid of growing old again. He's scared of becoming a crotchety old man that will die alone. He surrounds himself with friends just as he much with surrogates, to help him feel like he isn't too old to be running about having adventures. Three having a lot of complex and mixed feelings about the Time Lords. He resents them for what they did to him and his companions, but also very scared of facing that fate again should cross their path once more. Four can't stand spiders. They didn't directly kill him, but damn did they play a big part leading up to his regeneration. They give him the willies and Sarah Jane and Romana always have to take care of invading arachnids while he is perched safely on the center console. Five hating heights might actually be canon, he's shown freaking out on a cliff in Castrovalva and hating every minute of a plane ride in Time Flight. Boy likes to keep his feet firmly where he doesn't risk falling. He'll get vertigo if too close to a ledge. Six being scared of getting sick. While this one is more vague, it was the fever of Spectrox Toxemia that kills, so I could see him being panicky and over compensating when it comes to illnesses. Pulls manflu pity every time: bed rest, tea, soup, hot waterbottle on the forehead, reciting rhetoric about his woes. Poor Peri and Mel has to tend to his drama. I can also see him hating bats but in a "why can't you fuckers make more than a tiny vial of milk, asshole???" kind of way. I think Seven's might also be canon (in the books at least) with the way he mentally locked away his Sixth self in fear of the Valeyard. Though he wasn't really a cause for regeneration, he certainly set the Doctor on the path to it. Eight terrified of medicine and hospitals. Aspirin is already deadly to Time Lords, anesthesia fucked up his regeneration. This boy won't go to a medical professional unless he's dragged in unconscious. He will look at broken leg twisted out of shape and claim he can walk it off. The Warrior/War Doctor scared of failing people the way he did Cass. His spirit for hope and brighter ending to the war broken when he regenerated. He became the one that got his hands dirty because he was too scared to let anyone else die under his care.

Nine scared of war. War Doctor held off his regeneration for years to keep fighting, and Nine clearly does his best to step away from the incarnation he hated being more than anything. Like he said, "Coward, any day." Ten is a bit tricky. He's scared of Daleks, losing companions. He's scared that people around him will be willing to sacrifice themselves for him. Scared of the heart of the Tardis, the very soul of time itself ripping away what/who he loves. After Rose is safe from it he was very careful to never let anyone open it again. Eleven scared to see another Time Lord again. He's heartbroken about being the last of his kind. Romana, Brax, Damon all gone. The Master's plans had gotten so much more violent and destructive and insane than they used to be. The other Time Lords so desperate to escape the Time Locked war that they'd destroy time to do it. He's scared of everything ending if the Time Lords return. I haven't really seen enough of Twelve or past that to give proper interpretations on them, but I'm pretty sure Twelve is determined not to be seen as an old man. It's like he sees this new cycle as starting over so he's trying to act like he's the young, rebellious first incarnation? idk

[menherasy]

original callout post is by @menheratic !! if you want more info, please ask them. i am merely reuploading the original callout post of ezaki. please do check out the link of the jp community calling him out in 2019 ^^ https://togetter.com/li/1327770

! The following post talks about the various bad things that Menhera-chan's creator, Ezaki Bisuko, has done.

Here a japanese summary of all the shit he did so far, including but not limited to:

• registering Yamikawaii as trademark

• sending his fans after gyaru YouTuber Usatani to harass her into a suicide attempt over unknowingly buying a shirt with stolen PPG fanart he drew

• himself buying products with stolen art, even promoting their sales, because it’s totally ok when he does it

• the reason why Usatan’s original design was changed aka it was a ripoff of Cult Party’s iconic rabbit mascot that was designed by their artist Maromika-chan

• wrote a whole guide on how to legally get away with sex work as child

• proof of him tracing art for the more detailed MCH artworks

• how he attended the Menhera Exhibit only to smear misogynist bullshit with blood on maxipads

• complaining about how anime for little girls are evil feminist agenda TM because ain’t nobody need men to be saved anymore

• boasting about being a fashion designer only selecting the finest fabrics for his merch when it’s actually made by the japanese equivalent of Redbubble

• “parody” works featuring child characters like Chibi Maruko-chan prostituting themself, the message being all women are whores regardless of age for the right amount of money

• the small “terms and conditions” shield he has at his con booths where you agree that you need to buy anything you touch

• how he setup an earthquake victim fundraiser only to keep the money

• telling his english fans they are not allowed to use any of his art for private use, like as icon, unless they pay him

• how he wants to move to the US when he turns 30 because of all the evil haters TM in Japan

• copyright claiming everyone left and right

• japanese Menhera speaking out about he keeps hurting the community

In regards of the maxi pads:

TW, CW // nooses, misogynistic text in red on maxipads

Our favorite being the second row second one, “Abortion is murder”.

Some more recent event: When he started harassing and hating on disabled people after Tokyo Fashion translated a Tweet of his because being disabled is discriminating yourself.

It’s like a trainwreck that refuses to end, now with 100% more crypto on NFT while shitting on those who warn about the dangers.

His NFT sales can be found here: https://foundation.app/@bisuko_ezaki

For some reason, after 7 years, he also decided to re-release the infamous wrist-cut bracelet to sell at events. The leader of the Neo-Decora group bought one for example:

TW // Bracelet that imitates sh, includes blood

Also keeps doing collabs with “Tokyo Uragawa” under Yamiko so Seigi (Mental illness is justice), which focuses on self-harming girls as fetish objects.

TW, CW // drawn sh

Recently, he also wrote a long-article on his definition of Yamikawaii:

https://harajuku-pop.com/67775/

Still not sure where overseas people got “this is about mental health awareness” from, might be based on mistranslations because the word for mental health and illness is one in the same, and his definition is about glorifying mental illness. In fact, this is why he was banned from Tumblr because he kept posting other people’s self-harm photos to his aesthetic blog Menherabusu.

Next up: Made suicide baiting posts over his following decreasing in the hopes of getting attention, fans sent him photos of cute animals to cheer him up, and he decided to post about destroying the pictures.

Tbh, this list could go on forever as he does this kind of bs on an almost daily basis now, but apparently people don’t care enough to stop throwing money at him.

Meanwhile the Japanese community made a whole Wiki for tracking all of his drama considering how much it is by now.

https://ezabisumatome.wiki.fc2.com/

TW // mention of shotacon

Decided to nickname himself Shotabi, the name being a combination of Shotacon and Bisuko, while using nsfw anime edits of male child characters in sexual situations as decor for his selfies.

𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐞𝐝:

Is it ok to still like Menhera-chan?

𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫:

Sure, the problem is really only Ezaki himself and his increasing problematic remarks fueled by his ego, the manga is a lot older than him being like that.

Fun fact: Ezaki actually hates Menhera-chan because it's the only thing he ever gets approached for by the media, he constantly rants about this on Twitter. If you have noticed, he barely makes new MCH content anymore (unless he gets paid for it) and mainly reposts old artworks and fanart (without permission) instead because it's the only way he can still get attention as his other works, like the misogynist Manapisu, which is just him hating on women as "dumb wh*res" as a manga, flopped badly.

Just try to not fund his bs by buying new goods.

[wifegideonnav]

for all its reputation as being super dark and depressing, harrow the ninth actually employs a type of wish fulfillment that is, in my opinion, dangerous unless you’re aware that that’s what it is.

because at its core, htn is about the vindication of grief - it’s about losing somebody and then suffering in such perfect agony that you get her back. in the universe of the book, harrow is correct to refuse to let gideon go, she’s correct to destroy herself over gideons death. she sacrifices literally everything she’s ever been or cared about, she debases herself completely, and in return, she gets gideon back.

and this type of thinking, if you bring it into the real world, is not healthy. a lot of pop culture tends to enforce this idea - that if you just hold on well enough, you’ll get what you want; or, put another way, that if you let go, you never cared in the first place. but i think it’s important to be extra cognizant of this concept’s place in htn, precisely because people find it to be such a “real” depiction of grief and loss. as readers, especially as i know many in the fandom are also mentally ill, also grieving their own tragedies, we need to keep in mind that necromancy is still just a fiction, and that there is no reward for suffering. in real life, the prize you get for suffering is more suffering.

i know it may seem silly to post this like, “reminder that magic isn’t real guys!1” but the idea of being rewarded for suffering is so entrenched in our culture, and it’s especially insidious when you have a mental illness in your ear whispering that you deserve to suffer anyway, and clearly this is all your fault, and if they stay gone it means you didn’t do everything you could, and -

i’m making this post to say: please take care of yourselves. go to therapy, or support groups, or find other ways your community can help you. strive for healing. don’t let them be a dead body you drag behind you. and never fall into the trap of believing that the more you suffer, the more deserving you are

[copperbadge]

Radio Free Monday

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Radio Free Monday!

Just a reminder, I do these every once in a while -- except in specific cases, unless folks fill out the Radio Free Monday submissions form, I generally don't put anything not submitted via form into RFM. Partly this is to ensure I even SEE the request (tagging me on tumblr has no guarantees, I'm afraid) but it's also to ensure that I have all the relevant information. The form is linked in the bottom of every RFM post, as well as in the header of my tumblr; if you want me to see something that's the place to put it, or if you want to direct someone to Radio Free Monday, giving them the link is super helpful. Thanks all!

Ways to Give:

webkinzcode is a disabled artist and unable to work at the moment; he's raising funds to cover rent, and currently accepting donations and offering commissions. You can read more, reblog, and find giving and commission information here.

Anon linked to a fundraiser for Ola, a grad student and teacher in the faculty of science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, whose life is one of many turned upside-down at the moment; she's raising funds to cover basic needs like food and water for her and her family. You can read more and support the fundraiser here.

chibifukurou has a friend who has vertigo and EDS, and is raising funds for a second-hand Alinker (a foot-propelled mobility device); following an illness they are at an increased fall risk, and a recent fall subluxed the shoulder and collarbone on their crutch arm. You can read more and give via paypal here.

a-hackneyed-premise is raising funds for a car that is suitable transport for her disabled son; he is neurodivergent and frequently has mobility issues, and they need to be able to get him reliably to and from transport to his school. You can read more and support the fundraiser here.

Anon linked to longhorned's fundraiser for Laureae, a small Native farmer who has built up her farm over the last five years and was recently served an eviction notice; she had been promised by the land owner that she would be given a purchase agreement, but the land can now be sold off and both her and her tenants like Longhorned removed. You can read more and reblog here or support the fundraiser here.

liminalweirdo is raising funds for emergency vet fees for their cat Quintin; you can read more and reblog here or support the fundraiser here.

Anon linked to a fundraiser for Pillowfort, which needs to meet a $5K goal to keep in operation beyond December of this year; they're currently at just over $3K. You can read more and support the fundraiser here.

Recurring Needs:

thegeeksqueaks's school district has shorted her on her summer teacher's budget; she can't afford her own bills much less stocking her classroom for back-to-school. She's raising funds to get her students school supplies and personal support -- food and hygiene tools for underserved kids as well as various aids for neurodivergent kids. You can read more and reblog here, give via DonorsChoose here or via paypal here, or purchase from an Amazon wishlist here.

onedollopofsourcream is raising funds for food and medication for their family including young children; they need medication that is important for family mental health. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

chingaderita's family was recently impacted by a house fire that destroyed their home; their partner has been unable to work and is now ill. They're raising funds for basic needs such as food and water, as well as medication for their partner and other family members. You can read more, reblog, and support the fundraiser here.

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can post items for my attention at the Radio Free Monday submissions form. If you're new to fundraising, you may want to check out my guide to fundraising here.

[peachfreak1750]

✨Red Engineer head cannons✨

Killing comes easily to Dell because…Well he grew up killing. His dad made him kill farm animals and dogs before he was even able to hold a shotgun up. His dad also made him kill people who were considered a “problem”.

Dell has a mom but he doesn’t talk about her because she was lobotomized, I’m thinking about it like Honey Sugarman from Bojack Horsemen. I don’t think he remembers what she was like before the operation but a lot of his fears and mental illnesses come from her.

He’s scared of the dark because when he was a kid he was locked in a room with a corpse and it was pitch black. If he tells the story he swears it moved and spoke to him. Dell was a strange kid and used to see things and the dark made that worse.

He loves the rain but hates lightning, the flashing sends him into a state of panic but he is very good at hiding it.

When Dell was a kid he was really skinny especially compared to his twin brother who was a beef cake. Dell eventually caught up with him but he was not originally the strong one.

Engineer is not a romantic and he doesn’t like feeling like a teenager with dating. Engineer likes romance but it makes him feel awkward and he likes feeling sure of himself and his emotions so he rarely does super romantic things.

He is an atheist and he doesn’t care what anyone says.

He took off his own arm to replace it with the gunslinger and he tells the story to show how serious he is about his work but what he doesn’t say is that when it happened it was mental breakdown gone very very wrong.

Engineer is the dog of the administrator and she literally owns him in every way.

The U.S government initially rejected his respawn tech and to prove that it worked he shot himself and came back moments later.

He loves poker and chess, he was also on the math team and fucking destroyed people in rugby.

He is a twin and has a younger brother. He acted like the eldest. Engineers twin brother was originally the one who was going to continue the family name and business but when he was paralyzed it fall onto Engineers shoulders. Dells younger brother was a con man and was the father to Pyro, after the house fire that was caused by Dells brother Dell took Pyro in and his brother was put in jail.

I think his right eye was taken out in battle and he replaced it with a mechanical one that isn’t noticeable unless it’s dark then you can see how it glows.

Strangely I feel like he loves opera? Idk it’s just true!

…I love him ♥️

[miffyscreams]

ranting abt public perception of ed’s just want to get it off my chest bc tbh im livid

i think its actually shocking how little the general public knows about eating disorders especially se-anorexia and the way they speak about people with long term restrictive ed’s is genuinely so frustrating

people with severe and enduring ed’s are almost always more open to treatment than people with shorter term/“less severe” (ridiculous imo all eating disorders are severe and you can die at any weight) because the reality is people know they are dying and their bodies are literally destroyed beyond repair and they WANT TO GET BETTER. the issue is that barely anybody is qualified to treat long term anorexia because the mentality is completely different and it doesn’t respond to treatment unless the underlying conditions are addressed and its almost always either bpd or cptsd which psychs have decided are Incurable And Fatal and refuse to treat.

and the way people with se-an are shamed and made fun of for “not getting help” but then nobody wants to help people who are earlier in their ed or at a higher weight or suffering an ed that isn’t restrictive. you refuse to help people while they can still be helped, in fact you MAKE IT WORSE, and then blame people when they’re too sick for the help they should’ve been able to access years ago to work. teenage girls who aren’t skinny on tiktok talking about their anorexia/bulimia get bullied and shamed and told they don’t look sick enough. literally everybody with bed is called lazy, unmotivated, told they lack self control. every single person at a higher weight is looked at differently and given snide comments for eating and gets awful comments on their social media and told from every single angle of society that they’re not enough. and then when these people are finally “sick enough” they’re TOO sick, they’re “refusing treatment”, they’re viewed as dramatic, they’re told to just eat. you fucking idiots they DID EAT. the same people telling others to Just Eat are literally the reason so many people stopped in the first place.

eating disorders are MENTAL ILLNESSES NOT PHYSICAL. if someone is engaging in severely restrictive eating, regardless of weight, they can and often will die. your bmi could be 50, it could be 30, it could be 20, it could be 10. guess what. starving the body of nutrients, vitamins and essential macros impacts your organs regardless of weight. the body stores fat, not protein, not iron, not vitamins. there’s a reason people that are considered overweight or obese still get hungry and its because the human body needs food. people don’t understand how common it is for young girls with binge eating disorder to snap one day and fall into full blown restriction. it is better to be fat than to starve. there’s a reason the “overweight” range is so much bigger than the underweight range, and it’s because your body can handle excess weight, it cannot handle not having enough.

binge eating is not a moral failure restrictive eating is not a moral failure purging is not a moral failure having disordered thoughts but still eating a normal diet is not a moral failure. every single person with disordered thoughts is sick. not just the ones who are already too far gone because you refused to acknowledge they were sick to begin with

i haaate society i will delete this soon definitely but ugh

[verdemoun]

jumping ahead in the timeswap au because i am the captain personally i headcanon jack not making it to 20. i think life had well and truly defeated him and he was too tired to keep running, and he ended up hanged for ross's murder.

side tangent a) imagine the emotional devastation the VDLs in modern era would feel reading that. there's a grainy photo/sketch and they can almost tell what jack looks like, how much he looks like john, how old he already looks at 19, and then there's the noose sitting on his shoulders waiting for the trapdoor to be pulled. the article portrays ross as a poor elderly man of honor killed by jack marston, outlaw, a dangerous sociopath

side tangent b) john and jack being reunited. john really struggling not to be angry because he wanted/expected so much better for jack: knowing he was never an ideal father (or even a good father) but how much he didn't want his son to be like him, how clear he had been to never become an outlaw. then, the grief. it's only been 3 years but being able to see how much those three years have changed jack, physically and mentally, just by the way he carries himself and that dead, destroyed look in his eyes. jack struggling not to be angry for a lot of the same reasons because at 16 he was left taking care of abigail as heartbreak and illness killed her, and a ranch they could barely take care of together. jack realising his mom, dad and little sister got to play happy family in current day without him.

well now that that's out of the way: dues-ex-isaac morgan

isaac morgan deciding jack marston is his personal responsibility. sure, the whole recipe of staying in a house for a few weeks slowly learning about the current day slowly works for most VDLs, but isaac understands that not only is jack 19 (a teenager) but the culture shock isn't quite as severe going from 1914 as it was 1899.

isaac throws rocks at the window until jack sneaks out his first night in modern day. he forces a helmet onto his head and gives a vague warning that 'it's going to be faster than a horse', before setting off at very illegal speeds on his motorbike

jack immediately loves it. it's very much what he needed: the adrenaline, feeling like he's rebelling, seeing the chrome and crowds of city as a blur become more and more recognizable in outdated suburbs until they're pushing 100mph on the highway

isaac strategically takes him out to the desert, because the desert really hasn't changed that much, and pulls out a bottle of whiskey. they lay down and trauma-bond about how fucked their lives have been (isaac, who experienced the timewarp like a child moving house and had to teach things to his 19th century mother, jack, who grew up in the chaos of the VDL gang with his mother as the only constant: deadbeat dads taken to the metaphorical extreme).

'there's only two things you really need to know: you can't buy alcohol until you're 21 and cigarettes are actually really bad for you' 'cigarettes are BAD??????'

isaac introduces him to cliche teenage emo music through a dodgy bluetooth speaker. jack marston actually listens to music for the first time

arthur getting a frantic phone call from john saying jack snuck out

charles offering to help track them down, because they immediately know isaac is involved

charles and arthur finding a drunk isaac and jack air guitaring to mcr in the middle of the desert

isaac and jack are instant best friends. instead of the coddling most of the gang do when something is new and initially intimidating, isaac laughs at him and it's honestly more comforting. like yeah, traffic lights take a hot second, but jack does feel dumb for not realising that the changing lights and loud beeping meant it was time to walk/run.

isaac literally doesn't hold his hand unless he has to, meanwhile jack has had months of living alone as an outlaw in 1914. they balance each other out in the worst ways. isaac will say they shouldn't walk through a dark alley and jack is like pfft if someone tries to mug us i can take them

their hangouts go from jack bookworm marston helping isaac study at college to isaac being the one calling his dad because 'heeey we might be in jail' in 3 hours. all parental figures involved are going grey with stress

[bojackandherb]

Hard take but I think it’s better that Bojack did NOT die in The View from Halfway Down.

Him dying would go against the whole theme of having to live with your mistakes. Also it would’ve just been too depressing, especially for people who relate to Bojack’s struggles. What would him dying accomplish? What message would that send across? “Sad horse guy tries and fails to become a better person and to get better while struggling with mental illness, trauma, and addictions, then he finally starts making real progress and just dies.” That’s just depressing. And I know the show Bojack Horseman is kinda depressing, but there’s always an undercurrent of hope. Bojack dying would destroy that hope. Because yeah, Bojack did a lot of terrible things, but he always has the potential and the desire to get better. And maybe you hate him, that’s totally fair. Maybe you think he crossed the point of no return long ago. But the show says no, he actually can get better despite all the terrible things he’s done. And no, it doesn’t undo any of the terrible things he’s done or the pain he’s caused, but it does means he can at least stop hurting people so much, and maybe even help some people. And we do see him helping people and being a lot nicer in season 6, even though he still has a lot of flaws and ends up backsliding. He always has the potential to get better again, unless he dies.

What do you want Bojack to die for? His mistakes? The people he’s hurt? Because him dying wouldn’t undo any of the terrible things he’s done, and I don’t really think it would the people he’s hurt much peace either. In fact, considering a lot of the people he’s hurt have complicated feelings about him, I think him dying would actually give them less peace. Especially if they knew he died by suicide. Because while he’s alive they can cut him out of their lives, maybe tell themselves they hate him and that he’s a terrible person, and just be done with it. But if he dies, then there’s always these kind of thoughts like “is it still okay for me to still hate him? I may have hated him but I never wanted this. Was I too hard on him? Was there something I could’ve done better? Was I in the wrong for cutting him out? …why did it all have to go wrong?”

And yeah, it is possible that some people would get peace from his death. But probably not most of them. Especially not Hollyhock, who already knew about all the mental health struggles he had dealt with and already had a penchant for blaming herself.

And what of the people still actively in his life at that point? Todd, Princess Carolyn, Mr. Peanutbutter, and Diane. His death would’ve done nothing but hurt them, especially Diane. She was affected badly enough when she thought he might be dead but it turned out he actually wasn’t, imagine how badly she would’ve been affected if he’d stayed dead. I can’t think of any way his death wouldn’t helped anything or anyone.

In conclusion, Bojack staying alive in TVFHD was for the best, and his dying would’ve been bad for both the characters and the overall narrative of the show.

[felixcloud6288]

PMMM episode 9-12 recap

Mami's story is about how being a Magical Girl is tragic. Sayaka's story is about what happens when a Magical Girl cannot handle the despair of their life. Homura's story is about clinging to hope even in a hopeless situation.

Prior to this point, the Magical Girl system was presented as flawed and broken. Girls are chosen to protect the world from witches and in exchange, they are granted a wish to fulfill some great desire of theirs.

However, being a Magical Girl is an ultimately thankless job fraught with peril both from witches and other Magical Girls of dubious morals.

But with the reveal that Magical girls are just juvenile witches, we learn that the system is neither flawed nor broken. It is working exactly as intended. And now the mask comes off.

If I had prior knowledge of the series, it would be more appropriate to include episode 9 in the previous recap because episodes 5-9 are a whole arc to themselves. But I guess that's what happens when you do blind discussions.

Sayaka and Kyouko's arc is focused on the duality of hope and despair. Both made a wish to bring hope to someone only for that wish to bring them despair. And they had opposite reactions to it. Kyouko decided to shut herself away and live only for herself while Sayaka doubled down and continued to let herself be hurt in some vain attempt to say her life has meaning.

If I were to make an allegory to any real world aspects, Sayaka and Kyouko's story is about suicidal depression and episode 9 is when it reaches that point where the victim has decided to go through with it.

Kyouko's entire strategy to save Sayaka essentially boiled down to bringing the people who care about her together to help Sayaka recover from her heartbreak and sorrow. But when that fails because everything has become too much for Sayaka to handle, Kyouko chooses to stay by Sayaka to the end so that she won't die alone and think she wasn't loved.

With each episode, Kyubey becomes more and more open about how the entire system is intended to exploit girls rather than help them. And he ultimately intends to abandon humanity to be destroyed by the witches created by this system when he has everything he needs.

It's kind of like a corporation coming in saying it will boost the local economy so you should let it do as it pleases. And over time, it drives out the local population because people start moving in to work there, land is torn down to make more room for the corporation, and the soil, air, and water become polluted because the corporation controls the system and can do what it wants.

But all the money goes to the executives and when there's no more value to be had, the corporation abandons the area leaving behind destroyed land and a destroyed community that will now die because of what the corporation did.

Kyubey's remarks that his species calls emotions a mental illness just adds even further to the exploitative nature of the system. The system is meant to target beings who by his definition would be more vulnerable.

And his method of only giving half-truths or withholding information unless explicitly asked is an aspect of this exploitation. He's deliberately presenting things in a way that preys upon human vulnerabilities. He even admits that his species studied humans and found that young girls going through puberty were the ideal targets and then catered the system specifically to target them.

Kinda like how games with gacha elements are designed to exploit people with gambling addictions.

And since the power that is made from a magical girl becoming a witch is tied to her role on fate, Kyubey is really only interested in targeting people born into high positions or with great skill. Basically, Kyubey is propping up those who exist because of survivorship bias.

I'd wondered why he didn't just go to some war-torn nation and offer a contract to every girl about to die, and I guess it's because they would offer so little power that Kyubey deemed them worthless.

Meanwhile, girls from prosperous nations have far more potential to have an impact on the world, so Kyubey hangs around nations like Japan where he can look for big potential targets while also getting some decent secondary targets.

Anyway, I'm going to move onto Homura. I got really into talking about episode 10 and how it recontextualizes the entire series so I'm going to focus more on episodes 11 and 12.

Everything Homura is doing is to save Madoka. At first, she wanted to restart when she met her so they could fight side-by-side. But then she discovered the truth of the system and fought to save Madoka from her fated death or transformation after the walpurgis night.

And since hope and despair exist together, the more Homura fought to save Madoka, the more aggressively Kyubey tried to make Madoka a magical girl. With each new timeline formed, Madoka's potential grew because every timeline tied back to her.

Homura's story is about her fighting against the despair that comes with being a magical girl. She tries to cling to hope in a situation that is hopeless. Each time she fails to save Madoka, she tries again, only for the next attempt to become even more difficult than the last one. She always managed to push back the inevitable, but in the end, she always lost.

And at the end of this story, Homura still never achieved her goal. She never managed to stop Madoka from becoming a magical girl, and it ultimately resulted in Madoka vanishing from existence. This should be the moment of ultimate despair for Homura where all her efforts come to nothing.

Madoka struggles with feeling inadequate. She initially wanted a rather tautological wish. She was going to become a magical girl by wishing to be a magical girl. She thought being a magical girl would give her the chance to help others, make the world better, and ensure her life mattered in some way. And her wish ultimately is an extension of that. She wished to be helpful to all magical girls who ever did and would exist by becoming the hope that drives them and chases away despair.

In the new world Madoka created, Mami, Kyouko, and Sayaka still became magical girls; and Sayaka still despaired over how her wish turned out. But instead of becoming a witch - a being that represents despair - Madoka took Sayaka from the world and showed her what happened to Kyousuke because of her wish.

Madoka showed Sayaka that her life mattered in some way.

Homura's wish and desires ultimately can never come true. But instead of giving into despair as she would in the old system, she's been given a new hope and purpose. Madoka became the very embodiment of hope thanks to Homura's efforts. And as the only person who will ever remember Madoka, Homura is now able to start the next phase of her life where Madoka's words echo in her ears and she shows that Madoka's life matters.

Homura should try spreading Madoka's name around as the patron saint of magical girls. Madoka is literally the goddess of hope who protects magical girls in this new universe.

back

[morlock-holmes]

I mean, yes, I would like to reassert control over people coming into public places and destroying things or threatening people or (as happened here recently) taking out their fucking gun and firing randomly into a crowd because they got into an argument. I can try to solve the underlying problems involved all I want but I'd still really like to be able to do something to control people who act in flagrantly antisocial ways.

For mental illness, deinstitutionalization was finished by the early 90s at the absolute latest.

In California, they just overturned the Lanterman-Petris-Short act of, wait for it...

1967.

Were you also adamant about the need to control the severely mentally ill in 2010? 2000? Did it seem like an unspeakable crisis to you in 1995?

Were you even alive before that act was passed?

The current narrative in California is that we passed that act, and then all the unmedicated schizophrenics waited patiently and took their medicine *for the next 50 years* before suddenly going crazy again in the 2020s for no reason, leaving us no choice but to commit them all against their will.

Does that narrative make any sense to you? Because to me it seems like total gibberish.

Is there is any time in your life where you felt that the mentally ill were better controlled then they are now?

Because odds are that time was *also* a time when it was difficult to involuntarily commit people, unless you're thinking of 1966 or earlier.

If we were doing okay before without involuntarily commiting people... Why don't we just do whatever it was that was working back then, rather than actively trying to make it easier to confine people against their will?

Look I'm not a bleeding heart about this stuff; I don't like being hassled on the street. You're still allowed to arrest and confine people for shooting others; no act of American law has ever prevented that.

But I'm talking about repealing a law from 1967 as though that law was the reason 2024 doesn't feel as safe as 2000.

I'm also talking about congregate shelters with strict curfews that make it difficult to hold a swing shift or night shift job. I'm talking about Oregon talking about recriminalizing drugs when the voluntary treatment centers are so full that some of them are turning away fully half of the people applying for drug treatment.

I don't like drug addicts passing out in front of my work or fucking with me on the street.

But if that drug addict went to a voluntary treatment center and got turned away this morning, and then the cops give him a ticket or throw him in jail...

Hey guess who's still an addict?

The best way to get that guy to stop hassling me is for him to be off the drugs. Proving that I can hurt him or force him to do things is meaningless if he's still an addict sleeping on the street at the end of it.

I don't even mean that just in a bleeding heart way, I mean it in a "In a month I'm going to have to chase him off work property again and I don't want to do that" way.

[gordon-freeman-phd]

honestly, how do any (or all!!!) of your OCs feel about Gordon? You have a lot of interesting, multifaceted takes on how Gordon is perceived in the HL2 world, and I’d love to hear how your peeps fit into that

wishing for all is like a monkeys paw on your part, cuz i have quite a few, god speed with reading all this o7 ill be going in order as they appear on my master post of ocs, ill pu tthis under a read more since its soooooooo long

Brock Fuentes: previously knew of Gordon before the rescas, got piss scared of him during the res cas when he refused to help gordon open some doors becuz he was to scared to leave his hidey hole so gordon man handled him and slapped him around a bit. so by the time of half life2, hes had people around him who believed in the messianic nature of gordon which is quite the departure from his memory of both the up-tight asocial man he heard about and the violent forceful deranged man he met. if he were to see gordon acting much the same now or hear about people having that pure image they had be shattered hed feel a bit vindicated

Richard Montague: He roomed with gordon before the rescas and thought he was a pleasant roomate if not somewhat intimidating due to his serious and minimal socialization, but by the time the rescas happened, they were amicable sorta friends. At most during the rescas he might have heard that gordon was killing swathes of soliders which would be terrifying knowing how much he was struggling to survive in comparison. BY half life 2, gordon is mostly a memory and he had been mostly innundated from resistance culture, having spent most of his time working for the combine using his background in biology to help with xen infestations, so he heard more propoganda against gordon freeman if anything. he doesnt really believe it but it sticks around mentally and mixes with his knowledge of fondness for gordon. eventually when he teams up with the resistance after fleeing the city, he hears more about gordon from their point of view occasionally, which sits better with him, but ultimately, what the perspective of gordon is doesnt matter much to him since hes more focussed on not dying. then when gordon comes back and people start talking about how he acts its concerning and sounds unreal so he doesnt really believe its actually gordon unless he sees him for himself since it sounds so unlike the man he knew.

Jill Pobst: she sadly doesnt make it out of the rescas, but she knew gordon during it, at that point he was still mostly mentally present, and was still learning the curve of combat so she helped him out before her death. he was just a lab coat who was less of a coward than most and didnt talk much

Isiah Poole: he worked at black mesa before the rescas, his sector of work was far removed from sector C, but he wouldve heard of gordon thru the newspaper. post rescas, gordon wouldnt have likely come up where isiah is existing in anyway that would have a permanant impact on his psyche

Knipex: as a borrower in black mesa, they arent super clued in to the personnel and any drama that arent posing a direct threat to the colony and post since theyre with isiah most of the time, they also arent going to hear much about gordon post rescas

Timmy Ridgewell: grew up under the combine so for most of his life, he wouldve heard only the propoganda about gordon and the resistance in general but as he gets older hell start running into the resistance and slowly hearing more about gordon as a messianic figure, but he is rather ressiitant to the concept since it just doesnt make sense, so hes more of a distant saint figure than some greater power who can actually help anyone, and hes almost sore about gordon coming back in hl2 and being real, but also disappointing his friends by being less than stellar personality wise

Bagels: Behind the guise of just a cat, Bagels is actually a controller, and harbors a great deal of resentment towards gordon for destroying everything the nihilanth had built to escape the oppression of the combine, and is smug over everything gordon did failed to protect his people in the long run, but still is willing to work alongside the resistance so that the combine is toppled, the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all

Angus and Ed: also only knew minimal second hand knowledge of gordon through the newspapers, and have been living in xen since the rescas (and one of them is just dead) so their knowledge of gordon never updates with time

Galvanizer: just a lil rollermine, isnt sapient, nor has audio receptors and never meets gordon to form an "opinion" of him

Fred Otten: didnt read the newspaper or socialize much with people who wouldve known gordon while he worked at black mesa so he didnt know gordon really existed, and post rescas, he is willing to whore himself out for the combine for a variety of reasons, so even if he doubts one man could do anything that big, hes willing to accept the propoganda idly however and when gordon does return hes very motivated to kill him for the reward and any rewards unofficially that he can et his hands on even if he is terrified of what gordon is capable of based on the years of propoganda hes internalized

Robert Briggs: he knew gordon through Richie, met him a couple times, he thinks hes somewhat rude sometimes but ultimately kinda harmless and nice in his own way. he doesnt survive the rescas so his opinions of gordon never changes

V-8751: during the rescas it knew that gordon exitisted and that he was a high priority target, but never ran into gordon and was isolated from people who would know of gordon for most of its life post rescas even during hl2 before it made friends with cicada who both has their own experiences with gordon and access to the rest of the knowledge and opinions of the rest of the vorts thrut he vortessence, so learning about what happened to the nihilanth whats happened to him the variety fo opinions about gordon, kinda confuses it and its just a lot fo conflicting information so since he isnt important to the life its living, V-8751 so it sorta lets all that information settle without much concern, at best is glad he killed the nihilanth, and regards the way fletcher treats him as kinda strange

Fletcher Lamb: spent time in a variety of places before leaving the purview of the combine, so heard a variety of rumors about gordon before he left the sphere of influence that gordon has reputationaly, so she holds him in regard as a sort of icon but only loosely treats him religiously, she treats his name the way that people treat a piece of candy that supposedly keeps a computer system running, it comes up when things get rough and is kept quietly in place to be effective but isnt a main focus of his life until something goes wrong

Cicada: was nearly killed by Gordon and had many friends killed by him as well so is rightfully afraid of and dislikes gordon, even if they knows in teh past present and future that gordon frees them, but because of thier hyper connection to the vortessence, much of their personal opions are muted and mixed with the wider consensus on gordon (and most things) in a way that can be confusing and more uncertain than most vorts are perceived as

Felix Kessler and Alexis: prior to hl2 as metrocops, they both didnt really care about gordon as a figure in propoganda since he wasnt anything that could further thier careers since eh wasnt real, at best Alexis was annoying enough about his job to learn as much as he could about gordon to better identify what he thought could be secret organizational code talk which did result in innocent people getting killed or punished, during hl2, they are both very annoyed that they werent put on the case to kill gordon, and felix in particular is vying to be deployed near gordons predicted path since of the two hes the less despised of the pair

Antoine-Valery Veilloux: travels around a lot so has seen a lot of different interpretations of gordon and has even met people who knew him, so he doesnt really buy into him as a god or saint like figure, but knows he did a lot of the things people claim he did, just not as bombastic, thinks he was a bad ass guy but uses his name as a expletive for fun (ie, freeman damnit, oh for freemans sake)

Damned Crows: didnt pay much attention to anything the human residents of white forest say outside something they find funny, but once gordon is on his way to white forest, they pick up on his arrival and mostly watches since things seem tense. from a distance they can tell that gordon is respected by most if not all the humans of white forest but also they think hes kinda scary and theyd rather not tangle with him

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Kes

By Ames

Star Trek: Voyager may have only had Kes on the show for three seasons, but that’s actually a pretty large percentage of her Ocampan life! And in that time, she definitely made her mark. It was just a mark that struggled to hold a candle against the character who swoops in and takes her place (more on that next week!). But we here at A Star to Steer Her By came to really appreciate the short show life of the short-lived character, even if the show rarely gave her much to do.

Kes is one of those nuanced characters (boy, Voyager sure is full of those), who you may not notice unless you’re looking for her. She’s compassionate, curious, and clever, and her eidetic memory really makes sense for someone who needs to grow up licketty split. Was the quick lifespan a good idea or a terrible one? You decide as we compile our Best and Worst Moments for Kes below and listen to our chatter on this week’s podcast episode (jump to timestamp 1:32:15). YOLO!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

I’ve learned very well. I saw the sunlight. The very first thing we learn about Kes (other than the fact that she’s dating Neelix) is that she’s left the safety of the Ocampan homeworld, a stagnant culture subsisting almost entirely under the eye of the titular “Caretaker.” This young prodigy has greater ambitions though, and she seeks to encounter more of the universe while she’s got the chance, and we give her credit for it!

What crop has sprung from the seed you planted today Immediately after joining the Voyager crew, Kes shows some initiative and starts up an airponic garden to supplement the ship’s rations. It’s only her second episode in “Parallax” and already we start to see her not only as a nurturer and someone who shows compassion to her fellow shipmates, but as someone who can take charge of a task and handle herself.

One lung to give While overall our opinion on the Kes-Neelix relationship is that it’s cringey, the two of them clearly care for each other. So Kes’s offer to donate her lung to Neelix in “Phage” is quite touching. She doesn’t even hesitate in the moment of crisis when the EMH is floundering, and then gets to carry it through when the Vidiians are able to perform the procedure.

He’s your Medical Officer. He’s alive. The EMH may complain and complain that no one gives him the credit he deserves, but Kes has always had his holographic back. We get to benefit from her outside perspective in “Eye of the Needle” when she requests that the crew treat him more nicely. And she also advocates for his existence in “The Swarm” before they risk losing him by restarting his program.

Someone was walking your grave When the show remembers that Kes has telepathic powers, she is frequently at her best. The way she learns whatever the hell was going on in “Persistence of Vision” depicts how she’s learning to master her mental capabilities while also keeping firmly in reality. Everyone else has succumbed to their delusions, and Kes is able to save the day by keeping a cool head.

Get down with the sickness Like how Torres insists the Doctor not take shortcuts in creating his holo-family in “Real Life,” Kes makes sure his Levodian flu is just as unpredictable as normal illnesses in “Tattoo.” How is the Doctor supposed to feel vulnerable if he always has control over his virus? Kes sneakily adds two hours to the ailment to show him how uncomfortable and stressful working while ill can be.

Use the Force, Kes! It was obviously too good to be true when Kes met a batch of hyper-powered, slightly longer-lived Ocampans like Tanis in “Cold Fire” offering to teach her their ways. When their caretaker, Suspiria, is trying to destroy the ship, Kes uses her new abilities back against Tanis in a display of defiance against their corrupted ways because she’d never hurt others willingly.

I don’t know how to say goodbye to Neelix and Tuvok No matter which side of the “Tuvix” debate you fall on, you’ve got to admit Jennifer Lien nails the scene with Janeway in which she breaks down over being caught in the middle of things. Even if you’re pulling for Tuvix to keep existing, you feel for Kes. She’s put into such a devastating position, admitting that while she doesn't want Tuvix to die, she wants Neelix back.

I can’t wait to see if Blaine’s twin brother is the father of Jessica’s baby She may barely be in any of the two-parter “Future’s End,” but Kes might be in the funniest moment. She and Neelix are scrutinizing the televised feeds from Earth in the past, and they immediately get addicted to soap operas. It’s quite a cute little moment. As Kes says, “There's something to be said for non-interactive stories like this, being swept away in the narrative.”

I walk through mindfields Jennifer Lien doesn’t get a ton of episodes to stretch her legs and show her range, especially since Kes herself is typically such a reserved character. So it is a delightful surprise to see what she can do when Kes is possessed by Tieran in “Warlord.” And it’s an even better surprise to see Kes fighting back in her own mind with a ferocity we’ve never seen from her before.

Kes has become unstuck in time Every so often, you get glimpses of just how intelligent Kes is, as Ocampans need to have eidetic memories and amazing deductive reasoning to develop mentally as quickly as they develop physically. So when she’s traveling backwards in time in “Before and After,” Kes is able to put together the out-of-order puzzle and keep from getting winked out of existence.

Something to remember me by Kes’s final episode with us (or really, what should have been her final episode with us, as you’ll see in our next section) sends her character off in a very satisfying way. “The Gift” does a great job completing her arc, as Kes’s mental powers improve off the scales until she uses them to send the ship ten years closer to home. It’s yet another selfless act from the ship’s sweeting.

—

Worst moments

Chekov is finally redeemed Firstly, is the wig we see Kes in for early episodes like “Parallax” worse than the one they put on Walter Koenig when he first joined TOS? We’re willing to give Walter the benefit of the doubt since it was the 60s and wig technology wasn’t where it was in the 90s. So what’s Voyager’s excuse then? Why does Kes look like she’s wearing a lhasa apso on her head?

I saw them burn. Their bodies ashes where they stood. The main complaint I can muster against the Kes character is how criminally underused she is throughout Voyager. The couple of times we lauded her mental powers above are just that: a couple of times. Most of the time, like in “Time and Again” when she senses Janeway’s presence in the other timeline, exactly nothing comes of it and it’s a huge wasted opportunity!

I felt like there was someone in the room with me Another episode where Kes’s telepathic powers could have benefited the story is in “Cathexis” when Tuvok is being possessed by the Komar. The entity sees that she could pose a threat and knocks her unconscious for the whole episode. It feels like such a tease! Remember how Kes has superpowers? Well, we’re not going to actually use them for literally the whole first season.

Then I guess our marriage is over Look, I’m grasping at straws because Kes doesn’t get to do much, let alone bad stuff. So it’s not technically Kes as the Doc’s wife in that weird fakeout scene toward the end of “Projections” – it’s another layer of holodeck malfunction. But I still don’t like it because it’s an unnecessary twist. And when the EMH is back to reality, it’s just as weird that Kes acts like maybe he’s not?

Kes, you’re baby crazy Can we just say all of “Elogium” here and be done with it? No? Ugh. While we can’t blame Kes for experiencing Ocampan heat, we sure can blame her for how she acts during it, hormones or no. And we also can blame the writers for making this forced pregnancy plot a thing in the first place because it turns a huge personal decision into a cringey couple’s squabble.

That green-eyed pus hog called jealousy It’s been said on the podcast so frequently that you’re probably over it that Kes and Neelix would have made better friends than romantic partners. But you love who you love, so who are we to judge? What we can judge is how Kes stayed with Neelix during his jealous, clingy phase, and barely even spoke up in “Twisted” when he basically accused her of being the town pump.

A watched Tuvok never boils As one of a couple episodes that remembers Ocampans have mental powers, “Cold Fire” really gives Kes a lot to do when Tanis and the other space-venturing Ocampans try to teach her their ways. And in the typical Kes fashion of someone who barely has any experience in the world, our girl immediately goes and boils Tuvok’s blood. Slow down, girl!

Help people, hurt them, give life, kill, it’s all the same Even when she’s gotten a [slightly] better handle on her powers later in “Cold Fire,” Kes still plays the innocent as she trusts these rogue Ocampans. Anyone watching the show could tell you right away they are trouble. But this young emancipated woman becomes so obsessed with her newfound powers that she nearly leaves with Tanis and crew, whom she’s only just met!

Caution: No Kes Allowed What on earth, or whatever stupid planet this is, makes Kes think she can wander off from her tour group and go trespass in these people’s sacred temple in “Sacred Ground”? Even though she didn’t know it would knock her into a coma, you’ve got to think someone as respectful as Kes usually is of other people wouldn’t think to go anywhere without asking permission first.

I think we should be possessed by other people Like last week when I included the omission of a scene that we desperately needed for Neelix to not seem like an asshole, we’ve got another scene that never happened for Kes. Kes never actually breaks up with Neelix! Tieran does it while possessing her in “Warlord,” and that guy’s an asshole! So why do we never actually get acknowledgment from the real Kes of what their status is?

Suffering from severe FOMO Kes is indeed back on the market after that nebulous breakup, and she’s already found herself a new boy in “Darkling.” Zahir seems perfectly nice as far as Mikhal Travelers go, but Kes is ready to pack her bags and get whisked away right after meeting this guy! I guess when you live as short as she does, you’ve got to follow your heart. But Kes is too quick to trust cute strangers.

You blame Captain Janeway, but the choice was yours But possibly the worst moment for Kes is whatever the hell happened in “Fury.” The episode feels like a “fuck you” to Jennifer Lien for leaving the show. Instead of the character we loved, the Kes who returns has been rewritten as a bitter, jaded, apathetic husk. And worse, there’s no good reason for it except that she forgot how good she had it on the show- I mean the ship.

—

And we’ve reached the end of our very short Ocampan life, so let’s hope we transcend into energy beings or whatever. Next week, we’re replacing our Ocampan sweeting with the show’s sex symbol, and I don’t mean Sandrine! So keep tuned here for more character spotlights, finish off our watchthrough of Enterprise with us over on SoundCloud or your favorite podcast app, reach out to us with your minds over on Facebook and Twitter, and thank you for changing out that wig!

[drpuppetsgame]

[ DANGANRONPA: PUPPET’S GAME INTRODUCTION ]

Danganronpa: Puppet’s Game is a non-profit fanganronpa created by @minjeungsno1fan centred around the theme “Forgive vs. Forget”

But… what does that mean?

Have you ever been hurt by somebody? Of course you have. How did you deal with that pain? Did you forgive the one who hurt you and move on or did you choose to forget them and the incident altogether? Did you choose something in between?

Puppet’s Game follows a cast of sixteen students attending the recently built Hope’s Peak University. All sixteen of them have been hurt in their lives, and follow some form of forgive/forget mentality. Half of them are characters veering towards forgiveness, and half veer towards forgetfulness.

The protagonist, the Ultimate Journalist Kiyoshi Suzuki, is the meaning of the word forget. He suffers from a brain deformity that destroyed his long term memory and rendered his short term memory almost completely obsolete. He is incapable of remembering anything for more than twenty four hours unless repeatedly given the information for an extended period of time.

On the flip side, the Ultimate Tennis Player, Sonja “Sage” Floros, is forgiveness itself. While cold and rude on the outside, Sage is a caring young woman who forgives everyone for everything simply because she does not have long enough left to hold a grudge. She’s suffering from several terminal illnesses that have capped her life expectancy at 25 years old.

These two plus their fourteen classmates aged 15-21 are the third class of Hope’s Peak University. They are abducted on their orientation day and forced to participate in a killing game by a… little girl..?

MonoPuppet is the mascot of the killing game, a puppet programmed by “The Puppeteer” to orchestrate the slaughter of Class Three. They look like an ordinary eight-year-old child, except for the colour-changing ball joints and the split-coloured hair.

You can read the prologue here: Danganronpa: Puppet’s Game