#Life/experience as them... And i so rarely feel others do that for me. Im used to being heard but not listened to... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thegreatyin · 6 days

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Your posts about Fallen London are slowly tempting me into playing it- do you have any tips to start or is it best to play it completely blind?

i have a few tips and tricks! mind you im far from a veteran and i basically got my hand held by tumblr for most of the game so take everything with a grain of salt. you can and should do whatever you want always. i don't personally play it blind, but you may get more enjoyment out of it if you do, and that's awesome and im super happy for you. this is what i can say from experience:

take your time with it. this is like. the numero uno fallen london tip. it's not a game where you rush to the end in a week. it's a game where you do 10-minute-intervals of a marathon to the end in maybe a few months if you know what you're doing. spending money on action refills usually isn't worth it when you can just mosey on through neathly life one storylet at a time. a vast majority of the game's content is completely free to everyone, and while the monthly subscription options are pretty neat and let you play some exclusive story stuff (that can be pretty fire- cricket anyone basically defined the scoundrel's entire character) none of it is required and 99% of the time you aren't missing out on anything by just taking your time and exploring the neath at your own pace.

you need to raise all of your skills eventually! this is, uh. something im horribly guilty of not following myself. you can (and probably should) pick at least two stats to focus on for your character (most of the time these will be your main ambition stats, aka the closest thing FL has to a main story questline) but eventually you Will be expected to have them all at around the 100 range, minimum. for certain Super Late-game Story Content, watchful 200 is mandatory to start it, so if you have trouble choosing i'd recommend leveling that bad boy first. don't neglect your other stats though!!! don't be like me. don't be like my poor poor neglected shadowy and dangerous. it's too late for me. save yourself.

friends are fun and free and you are legally mandated to exploit them for fun and profit. okay you really aren't mandated to exploit your FL friends list but you totally should anyway just for goofy sillies. to be less jokey about it, while fallen london is primarily a single-player gaming experience, the playerbase is super friendly and super open to helping each other out (especially new players!). go on reddit, ask around on tumblr, get yourself a few buddies and use them as resources to gain items and stats and menace reduction i mean. valued companions that im sure you will treasure forever and definitely not backstab to publish that inflammatory newspaper article you've been cooking up.

on a very loosely similar note, the fallen london wiki is your best friend. yes, we're following stardew rules with this one. this is the kind of game best optimally played with a wiki article or three open in the neighboring tabs so you can follow along and know what is what. there's tons of guides on basically every part of FL, and it's no shame at all to reach out to either it or the wider community if you get stuck or feel lost at something.

if an in-game storylet has bold text, it will never lie to you! except for when it does. but that's very very very rare. you can always trust the bold text. it is always your friend. i prommy. which brings us neatly into our next bulletpoint,

seeking the name is ill-advised because it's the only storyline that can permanently brick your account at its conclusion. don't worry, the ease at which you can avoid this is practically comical, and the game will Always give you multiple chances to opt-out if you somehow accidentally start it anyway. most people make a dedicated alt character entirely for the purpose of sacrificing them to the well of doom. unless you're playing with your eyes closed for multiple months straight, you'll never run into SMEN without deliberately chasing it, and if you somehow get to that point honestly man just ignore this entire bulletpoint and see how far the rabbithole goes. go on. it's friendly :)

batfucking is always the right answer to any problem ever

echoes/the game's standard currency should always be thought of as a method of gaining items rather than a strict hoard of video game dollars. money-making can be super difficult in the earlygame, but it gets exponentially easier as you go further on. you shouldn't be afraid to sell anything you don't need, though personally i'd recommend keeping an "insurance stock" of the most basic items just in case. this includes rostygold, moon-pearls, honey droplets, etc. by-and-large, these are the easiest items to get in a pinch, and it usually isn't worth buying them from the bazaar when you can otherwise get them naturally through other methods around london. once you've got a good lodgings setup and feel decently familiar with the earlygame zones and their options, you should aim to have at minimum 1,000 of these bad boys on hand at any given time, then feel free to sell any excess you make for some quick cash in a pinch.

menaces aren't as bad as you may think, but be wary of specifically suspicion! the four main menace qualities you'll encounter in the earlygame are nightmares, wounds, scandal, and suspicion. when one of these menace stacks reach 8, you'll automatically be trapped in a unique location corresponding to whatever menace you raised too high and will have to spend time working your way out. some (nightmares and wounds) tend to fly-by rather quickly, while others (scandal and suspicion) tend to take a bit longer to get out of. none of these mean the end of your playthrough or your character, and some quests even require you to visit certain menace-exclusive locations! there are tons of items and ways to reduce menaces and keep yourself out of Situations such as these, but suspicion in particular is probably the only menace you should avoid maxing At All Costs. when your suspicion gets too high and you get sent to its special menace zone too often, you build up a criminal record that makes it harder to reduce suspicion in the future. fortunately, suspicion is the only menace with this gimmick, and before this record gets too high it's just as easy to keep row as the rest of the lot. TLDR, death from wounds is easy to escape from, but avoiding the strongarm of the law is substantially more annoying and inconvenient.

or you could be like tumblr user @with-bells-upon, who's apparently avoided death at all costs and apparently hasn't died once in the entire several months they've been playing. i don't even know how they've gotten this far without doing that. it's kind of impressive, kind of funny. especially since their ambition is one the few requiring you to die to proceed. this isn't a piece of advice i just wanted to affectionately call them out because what the heck

speaking of ambitions, pick the ambition that's right for you! ambitions are the biggest overarching questline in the game, and their requirements and rewards span the entire neath and occasionally even beyond. all four ambitions are meant to be started early and last well into the mid and late game. outside of a certain special situation regarding the light fingers ambition (the only ambition that explicitly lies to you in-game when describing its premise) you can't change your ambition without spending money, so choose carefully and choose well. they're all (mostly) equally rewarding and equally fulfilling adventures that will define your player character and your journey through the neath. there's tons of advice and spoiler-free summaries of each ambition online, so i won't cover it all here. just do your research (or don't, if you prefer) and follow your heart. maybe playing the world's most high-stake poker game ever speaks to you. maybe you want to commit a murder. maybe you want to commit a murder in the name of justice and/or revenge. maybe you just want a really really big really really shiny rock. all can be found in the neath, and all shall (eventually) be well.

if you buy 400 lucky weasels you get a special achievement. i don't need to say more.

make up a guy. this is another legal mandate if you're a fallen london player. you have to make up your own little sicko victorian london guy and roleplay them while you play. trust me. it's fun. it's free. they're going to haunt you forever. the scoundrel got a nickname like 4 months ago and ever since my mind has never known peace.

and probably most important of all, fallen london might not be the game for you, and that's okay. it includes a lot of reading. and grinding. and i do mean a lot of reading and grinding. particularly the latter, which tends to throw people off the most out of anything. it's a very niche game for a very niche audience and getting into it can be an acquired taste at the best of times. but when you do get into it, it's some Really good writing and Really in-depth worldbuilding and the most fun you'll ever have imagining sicko victorian guys running around building train stations and railway tracks directly to hell. take your time, have fun, and most important of all, always look to love.

anyway yeah that's my fallen london tips and tricks list isn't it really short and comprehendible

#im not really good at writing advice. hope this helps u out regardless #ask #fallen london #long post

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kittycatboyhalo · 5 months

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I have some lowkey demon lore that I’ve been revolving around in my head.

Despite Bad, Tina, and Mouse all being demons, they’re not the same at all which led to me to start world building a bit in my head.

Irl there’s different types of demons, but stepping back from demonology or religious sources and into Minecraft, I think Demons would be more of a taxonomical catagory, specifically a phylum. Im way too into biology and genetics, so I’ll spare all the science talk, but underneath that phylum of demons, there’s different classes and families. I think what defines the Demon phylum would be having infernal blood, which is different from being warm blooded, mammals birds and such, and cold blooded, reptiles fish etc.

That choice also made me start thinking of that means people like bird hybrids aren’t mammals or if some players who are cold blooded would be reptile, but that’s something to think of on a different day.

I think infernal blood is something a lot of demons are born with, but my running theory is that certain spells, experiments, or spending enough time in hell chemically, magically?, transforms a persons blood to become infernal. Or they die.

I don’t know exactly what type of demons Tina or Bagi are, but I think Bad would be a fallen angel. Fallen angels are somewhat rare, they’ve had to be cast from some pantheon to burn. Many of them die but those who make it have many struggles. They remember a life outside of hell, and often do whatever it takes to claw their way out, a painful and tedious procedure. Once they make it through hell and out of the nether, they find that humans and those in the over world tend to fear them. They’re powers that once protected and created now kill and destroy when they try to use it. I think they also have a bad reputation amongst other demons due to mistrust of them once being holy.

I don’t watch much of Tina’s pov, so forgive me and pls correct me if she already has lore, but Tina gives me the vibe of somebody who was once a human that was forcefully transformed into a demon. She gives me strong “girl raised in country village vibes who was subjected to the horrors”.

I feel like she was greatly content, with a happy upbringing. One day she gets kidnapped, dragged to hell, and transformed. They underestimate the kind village girl, and she kills her captors. She still looks very human, but now she has two horns and some unholy power running in her veins. She returns to her village only to be chased away with pitchforks, forever scarring her physically and psychologically. Humans can’t get past her horns, sharp teeth and claws, so she hides them.

Mouse is the only demon out of the three to have actually been born in hell. Not just born in hell but into royalty!! For a demon, she is kind, patient, highly educated, but naive. She’s always had power and protectors. When she’s visited the overworked she is simply too strong to recognize any attacks against her, though being royalty, she’s protected and somewhat above that. While she’s used to assassination attempts and crime, she’s never quite gone through discrimination for being a demon. She’s so confused as to why Bad and Tina hide what they are.

Other little things: holy weapons like crosses, holy water, and blessed items only hurt bad. Most demons have weakness to things like silver but they’re all very strong.

if anybody has more thoughts, pls lmk. I love to hear what people think!!

#qsmp #badboyhalo #qsmp badboyhalo #tinakitten #qsmp tina #ironmouse #qsmp ironmouse #demons #qsmp headcanons #worldbuilding

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johannwolfgangvongoethe · 7 months

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Some Personal Thoughts on Disability in Enstars

disclaimer: disability is a very broad term that covers many different experiences. i will be talking about physical disabilities since i feel most comfortable doing so/have experience with them. obviously that ignores a Huge part of what disability and chronical illness is and can be. but i think it is beyond my capabilities to talk about experiences i don't know much about.

alt caption: i think ritsu is a good character and im trying to explain to myself why

this is sort of a long post, sorry.

content warnings: i talk about ableism and touch on related topics such as dehumanization and objectification and such below. individual parts of this post have their own cw's.

Enstars Writing, Beloathed

to get this out of the way; it is bad sometimes. this is discussed very often. it doesnt depend on the authors either, in my opinion, some writers will hit you with something really troublesome only to (seemingly accidentally) invent human emotion and compassion in a different story. i dont want to repeat what others have said eloquently but there is a fair amount of imperialist worldviews, xenophobia, just racism really, transphobia, ableism, and copaganda to be found in enstars. this isnt about x character being x thing, but about how it is very noticable when the author of a story holds these worldviews and they bleed into their stories.

so that is not the greatest foundation if youre looking for well-written disabilities. but i wouldnt be reading enstars if i didnt think it genuinely is really really good sometimes. in my opinion, the way disabilities are portrayed is a mixed bag overall but there are some extremely worthwhile bits that touched me quite a lot.

What I personally understand as Well-Written Disability

the way disabled people suffer often goes unnoticed, and disabled people dont have a platform to talk about oppression. a lot of life-changing issues can go unnoticed to those unnaffected by them, even if they are in broad daylight: underfounded or entirely lacking healthcare, the way many healthcare systems are marketbased and ethics are prone to suffer bc of this (even under 'welfare' capitalism), a lack of equal marriage, the inaccessibility of the most basic and necessary facilities, financing care and the dependency on family/loved ones (both a logistical and psychological problem), the huge stigma against disabled people, etc, etc, you get me....

we need to write about people who need care, to keep them in mind at all times. disabled people are not a minority in a mathematical sense but in a hierarchical sense. it is naive to think of them as "a substancial percentage" of populations. as we age, we inevitably all enter the stage of needing care at some point. SO to an extend, i want to claim its a topic that affects every single person. yet disabled people are rarely a central topic anywhere. it is not enough to acknowledge them, we need to plan and think with them in mind. and Write with them in mind, i guess.

SO when i see fiction grapple the topic, i am usually really happy, even if the portrayal isnt ideal. (critical, maybe, but generally speaking very happy) pointing out "badly" written disabled characters is obviously not as easy as calling someone out for uncritically saying "i think eugenics are a good idea!!!" through fiction. people with that sort of facist mindset exist of course but ableism does not end there.

if i were to single out things i see often: i think the most disappointing thing a story can do is to - mention a disability without it ever having an impact on people in the story (-> the disability is basically nonexistent, has no impact or relevance, outside of a theoretical mention) OR - uncritically use a disabled character as a mere plot devise, without granting them the ability to speak (-> dehumanization, a lack of understanding that disabled people are, well, People. they do shit.)

and then of course there is fetishization, both in a literal sense and in an inspiration porn sense and the problem of turning disability into a caricature for jokes (either to other disabled people for their behaviour/body or to create a sense of satisfying superiority by laughing at them) but i feel like those problems explain themselves.

to apply these to very basic examples: i think often something like a robotic sci-fi prosthetic is not a good way to represent a disability because it fails to represent what people go through irl and provides a "magic fix" without repercussions. here is a really good post about it. about the plot device issue... i think it is similar to what people often criticise as "manpain". a disabled person will never appear or speak, they are demoted to being the reason an able-bodied character acts a certain way, like a lifeless accessory. this doesnt always have to be bad, esp if its just a sideplot! but it can get tiring if the audience never gets to learn about other aspects of the unseen character in question and we are only introduced to their suffering.

all of this to talk about gacha idol boys. it is how it is. anyway, this is roughly my mental state when i tackle enstars.

disclaimer 2: i am really just a kogaP. this influences which characters i encounter when reading. there are tons of stories i just never looked at and there is SO MUCh lore i just dont know about. please lemme know if you have additions to stuff i say/understand a character better/have related story recommendations! tl;dr the sakuma bit will be long.

disclaimer 3: i genuinely adore every single character mentioned below and am always excited to learn smth new about them. if i criticize writing, that has nothing to do with that character or their fans. it is about the writers.

the most obvious example. Eichi (content warning for brief mentions of self harm and suicidal ideation)

everything eichi does, he does with the knowledge he will most likely die young. that is a truly dramatic setup.

but before i get back to that thought. it always felt to me like eichis illness(/es) lack a certain sense of conciseness? i do not think you need to put a name and diagnosis on it for it to be relatable and real to readers, tbh!! though to achieve believability, there needs to be a good amount of consistency. what i can recall off the top of my head is the following:

he breaks down/straight up blacks out frequently due to weakness and dizzyness

measures were taken to secure his safety in those situations (the infamous Eichi-kun Gauge as seen in Element)

his stamina is seriously low

he coughs a lot

we saw him cough up blood (Daydream)

he relies on long hospital stays because his health needs to be monitored and/or supported this closely

he stays inside a lot (hinting towards problems with his immune system?)

being healthy enough to eat unhealthy food is a big deal to him, so there are dietary restrictions/it was necessary to precisely control what he eats

his grandfather, who died recently, is considered an outlier for how long he lived (so it IS hereditary)

which..... could be a lot of things...? or, more likely: a culmination of many things at once. if you have headcanons on eichis health, please lemme know!

but in addition to eichis terminal illness, there is a second quality to him that seperates him from most disabled people: he is extremely wealthy. and his wealth is fundamentally important to stories. usually illness and poverty go hand in hand, since incame is tied to the ability to work, which worsens an already bad situation. no matter how limited eichis actions are because of his body, the possibilties offered by his wealth make him a central figure in every overarching plot. in addition to this, his family is well aware of his consitution and he is a patriarchal leading figure to them, the head to their coporate hierachy. eichi is free of the things that usually rid the chronically ill of their safety and power: society (he is an idol and popular) and money (he is the richest boy in japan). if youd ask me, i think that while being chronically ill is of course physically taxing, the worse problem is the economic state it puts you in. eichi simply overcomes this? yes, he is terminally ill, his situation is terrifying. but he has an extraordinary amount of control while he lives. more than a poor yet able-bodied person may have.

his unique circumstances enable him to be incredibly active. this is so fun to read about in my opinion. its a fascinating setup to me. without casting any sort of moral judgement on his actions and the antagonistic role he plays; he is, excuse me for my phrasing here, a disabled power fantasy. (at least to me)

this is a double-edged sword to him. because of who he is as a person (ambitious, cunning, ruthless, diligent)

he lives in relative safety but his strong ambition and financial ability to fulfill his dreams tempt him to go past his limits. because his remaining lifetime is uncertain, the need to preserve the body he is given seems uneconomical (a mindset his upbringing and education as an heir to his family would have enforced imo) he is bound to break down sooner or later anyway. i think he begins to see himself and his body as a tool to achieve his goals and neglects spending time on anything BUT working towards them. so the moment he runs out of goals (like at the end of Element), his reason to "remain" becomes futile.

it really struck with me how he appears in Blackbird - emaciated, pathetic, purposefully neglected because he chose to be neglected and weak in an act of self harm bc denying medical attention (something that couldnt have happened otherwise) wataru has to remind him that no one died and the obvious connection to make is that the eccentrics are physically unharmed and starting over, that they should not be a source of guilt to eichi. but i think this is just as much about eichi himself. he might have expected to die since he left the hospital and overexhausted himself at school and as an idol. he didnt die though. it was a real possibility and seemed likely but he didnt. the neglect and indirect self harm here point out, to me, that he saw the "role" he gave himself as fulfilled at that point and waited to die.

eichi stands over economic or social factors that could ostracize and dehumanize him but funnily enough he manages to do so himself by treating his body as a tool and his happiness as an option that got overshadowed by a need to succeed.

this vulnerability makes him, despite how vague the descriptions of his illness are and despite how unrelatable his wealth is, a very satisfying character imo. it is engaging to me. certain limits are removed for him but he created new ones, specifically because he did not see himself as something worth sustaining once he becomes useless. imo, eichi applied the idea that a lifes worth can be measured in its ability to function in an industry to himself. and spiralled over it, entirely inverting his uncanny amount of bodily autonomy. it is clear how the situation he is in worsens his mental health like that. and how his mental health in turn worsens his physical health. it is inseperable.

i cant really get into !! era eichi because i genuinely just dont... know enough. the fine tradition of having a weekly H-Day stands out, though. after all, eichi has new bigger ambitions and is, once again, inviting his own ruin through overexhaustion. so his friends (the new addition of having friends is essential) had to forcefully make him stop for at least one day a week. that is pretty big. i think.

this is true for many marginalized existences so it of course applies to disabled people: if neither your surroundings nor yourself permit you to feel human and therefore assign your person an inherent worth and lovability... sometimes you need a friend to do so!!! social circles are the best support structure for your health.

The Sakuma Family

(i will get into ritsu and rei seperately later on. there are just a few concepts i want to get out of the way that apply to both of them.)

so... to get a little theoretical; the concept of "disability" relies on the concept of a "normative" human existence. "disability" is an otherness and can therefore easily be seen as a "monstrocity" in the eyes of ignorant people, something that instils fear. (there is a reason why a lot of horror exploits disabled bodies as a source of terror and uses mental hospitals as settings) from an able-bodied point of view it seems "desirable" to be a "normative human", yet the disabled person knows that is not a possibility and knows their worth and place as a human in human spaces. at least ideally. able-bodied people sometimes lack this understanding. there is nothing to be desired about an able body or fixed about a disabled body, beyond what medical care can do for ones quality of life.

if you have read operetta, this is all very familiar;

operetta, chapter 17 and, well, here we are. vampires. a very basic truth about the sakuma family that i hate to see denied is that they are human. there is nothing supernatural about them. they are just disabled. or, to turn the idea around, if one was to assign them vampiristic traits and such... is vampirism not a disability and should be taken seriously as such? if you consider the limits a vampire has while coordinating through their life, is that not... strangely just a disabled experience? (MINUS THE KILLING PEOPLE OBVIOUSLY but much modern fiction is sympathetic towards vampires instead and does not display them as violent)

anyway, to hear it from the horses mouth (the horse is rei):

operetta, chapter 19 the sakuma family is a curious case. their condition is hereditary though the severity varies from person to person. it comes up in many stories but for the most part i am thinking about operetta, resurrection sunday, and devils right now. how did this all start? what made an entire family turn to live as vampires, with blood ceremonies and all that? what bizarre kind of generational trauma is this?

(and, while it does not play a role as important as it did for eichi, they are rich. this is important to mention. many normal experiences just dont apply to them because wealth makes them immune. ... how did the sakumas become this influential anyway.)

for an unspecified but long time, an entire family managed to mentally entirely seperate themselves from the rest of humanity because of their chronical illness. personally, i have no doubt this is the result of a world that othered them first. whether the main motivator at play here is a defensiveness towards a society that cannot understand you or an internal need to turn hardships into an identity that can be carried with pride. it takes a considerable amount of emotional strength and planning for the "hey we are human actually" declaration in operetta to occur.

they are, weirdly, what people mean when they talk about a "toxic anti-recovery mindset". (an expression i struggle with because this sort of rhetoric is often used to discriminate against disabled people who speak up for themselves or ask for accomodations. but that aside) it is an amount of pride that leads to internal self destruction.

of course, as is the case with every single character i write about in this post, a lot of it has to do with aesthetics and being chuuni to sell gacha cards. so we know the reason behind the reason. but it makes for some bizarre in-universe implications.

but in any case, the fact that their identity as false vampires is something they have always carried, that modern society sees as "mystical and sexy" has a hilarious side effect: their disability becomes marketable under the guise of vampirism. it is hard to recover from that.

so again, we have a double-edged sword: to present ones medical condition as a "persona" declares it as a performative act, something that is done to bring joy to an audience. personal detriment is not considered here, since it stops being a part of ones being and starts to become "work". the time and place of ones symptoms has to overlap with the time and place of ones performances. or people will hate you for your uncontrollable illness. however, rei and ritsu are both also able to carry their condition with a sort of playfulness. it is almost something like the act of "reclaiming" when they purposefully choose to larp a little for fun. usually, when a scene mentions their disability in the context of comic relief, they have control over the situation that unfolds and even initiate it and invite others to laugh alongside them. this can be a slippery slope to getting harrassed of course.... but i am rather baffled by the amount of dominance they have in social interactions. so it just reads as a healthy amount of dark humour to me.

this, and the consistent writing of their symptoms, and the ability to easily compare it to real existing illnesses, easly make them my favourite instance of written disabled people in the series. their illness has an impact on their behaviour and it is detrimental! and they are both very human in the way they attempt to cope. there is a certain realism to it. idek.

many people seem to headcanon them with myalgic encephalomyelitis, which is a really good explanation, and i personally want to suggest narcolepsy. the point being, there is room to accurately assign them a realistic relatable and understandable condition, even if nothing is ever named in canon. and of course they are mentioned to have an iron deficiency.

bear with this slightly "out there" theory for a moment: have you or a friend ever tried to get a compensation for your disadvantage at school or uni? it can be really hard to do, if it is possible at all, even if it is something very simple (more time, a slightly different enviroment, the ability to drink or sit, etc) yumenosaki is a school for performance arts, mainly idols. bold statement: it might genuinely be easier to get/explain an accommondation for your "idol quirk" (something that would be actively fostered), than for your disability. not that yumenosaki is very strict or asks for a lot anyway, its just something that has been on my mind.

here is another funny thing i have been thinking about: both of them crave juice, soda, and fruit - sugary yet fresh stuff. i feel like this is not uncommon for people who suffer from excessive tiredness and fatigue, the body subconsciously wishes for some sugar intake to "wake up".

Inventing a Guy to Cope. Rei

funny title aside... he... did that... ? rei is a curious example of how different mostly unrelated traumas can overlap. he had no childhood, thanks to his family that considered him "mature" at a very young age and his early status as a child star. and his bad health is a miserable addition to this. it is quite scary to image how pressured to do right he felt growing up and how that resulted in the fragmented distanced way he views himself; reinventable, and ultimately unknowable. (to others AND himself)

despite his bad health he has always been working and performing "well". he was praised for his remarkable talents but rarely had the chance to stop and patch himself up. whether this was a result of a pushy enviroment or his personality as a people pleaser who cannot show weakness and imperfection is hard to tell. maybe both.

the state he is in in Crossroad is fascinating to me. he all but directly lists the criteria of depression to keito when he attempts to explain his sorrows. he is restless, rowdy, mentions later on that he enrolled in yumenosaki against his familys wishes. he is very much searching for joy and his own identity in the middle of a health emergency. this has to do with the way he was raised, only knowing how to exist for and serve others, how he was made to sell a made-up version of himself, but i also believe it has to do with the fact he has started to exclude himself from his familys traditions and values. he started to cast away the uncertain "monstrosity" existence of his family (as well as the false idolhood others assigned him) and instead embraces humanity as a chronically ill person.

crossroad, i forgor which chapters

this of course marks a starting point of change that later results in him making up the wagahai pronouns persona - something he specifically created with the intention of looking vulnerable and weak. because he yearned to do less, to recover from years of exhaustion.

in a way, i want to say both, the ore pronouns persona and the wagahai pronouns persona, are attempts to cope with expectations he cannot handle physically or mentally. one relies on masking, on appearing stronger than he actually is and therefore invulnerable, and the other relies on exaggerating his weakness, in an attempt to finally let others recognize it. i think as a disabled person, both are performances one has to learn in order to "function" in everyday life, while remaining safe from serious harm (doing badly at ones job or classes, angering others that hold power over your life). since ones circumstances are often hard to grasp for someone who does not share the same illness, there is no choice but to simplify and exaggerate until symptoms become tangible concepts or to just brave through it, at the cost of ones health and future time.

rei in particular, for better or for worse, is incredibly capable when he needs to be and unfortunately that means others will often not take his health seriously because they saw him function just fine the other day. this is a general problem but an obvious offender in that regard is koga, who comments on reis fatigue constantly and loves to create a bit of a high expectations toxic work enviroment (and, to be fair, rei terrorizes him too. kogas hostility towards rei is sometimes ableist but not really rooted in ableism. after all koga is highly aware how performative the wagahai persona can be and is a huge motivational and inspirational factor in reis life. its a whole complex)

!! era holds some positive changes. his mental need to please other people remains a persistent source of trouble for him (and others) but he seems to really let his body recover and lives a more nocturnal life. both kuro and kaoru mention that he looks more healthy (in succession match???? i think??) since he finally stopped enforcing a normal day/night cycle on his body just to comply with social norms. you can indeed be very human even if you break human-made rules.

(additional comment: "becoming human" is of course a theme for each of the eccentrics and not uniquely tied to disability, it very much has to do with the objectification one goes through as a public figure. but this is a post about disability and it really fits in well. so here we go)

Literally Just a Realistic Teenager. Ritsu

ritsu, while not really being among my favourite characters, is my favourite instance of a disabled character in enstars. partly because of his writing and partly because my personal experiences overlap with his so much it sometimes is painful - but always extremely satisfying. just had to get that out.

ritsu is perhaps the most visibly ill. he blacks out and sleeps where he stands, everywhere, without control and often requires other peoples (well, mostly maos) assistance in order to remain safe when this happens. he also repeated a year of school, specifically because of his disability.

he is painfully aware of this. that he looks ill, that he behaves ill, that he is an underachiever compared to others of the same age, even to people younger than him.

ritsu developed unique behaviours to deal with this: he is very dependent and clingy and often asks others to do things for him, unapologetically. that does not mean asking for help doesnt hurt his pride, just that it is the most viable strategy for everyday survival that he ended up with. other than that, he clings more to the vampire identity than rei does. either to defy his older brother or, and this is important imo, because it is the one safety net he has to fall back on that makes him feel "normal" and like he is a regular being. albeit not human. no matter how much others might blame him for his shortcomings or how much he is a failure in the eyes of society, he is very regular for a "vampire". under the logic developed by his family, he is just a child, and the world at large is to blame. it is an easier truth to accept than facing systematic injustice and prejudice in a human world.

the stories i mentioned in another part above aside, i really love what ensemble band does for him; ritsu gets extremely irritated with mao in the prologue, seemingly out of nowhere. his character is allowed to express this sort of anger and to take it out on others, even if it is unjust and misguided. it is not pretty and it isnt good behaviour but it is a very heartfelt emotion to me.

its obvious that he cannot compete with others and that this will always been seen as his personal fault instead of a circumstance he cannot influence. and more than that: no one appreciates the real efforts he makes. for instance, getting himself out of bed in time for classes is difficult for regular teenagers and straight up hellish for ritsu. but he manages to do so a lot later on. instead of acknowledging that this is a real accomplishment on his part and possibly really exhausting and bad for his comfort in the long run, this is seen as doing the bare minimum.

while it is not correct, the malice ritsu sometimes treats others with comes from an comprehensible place. able-bodied ignorance can appear as purposeful slights made by those more privileged than him.

yet he learns to conform. his friends are important to him. knights success is important to him. (thought mental health probably played a role here too and made things even harder prior to his third year of high school) and yet;

seven bridge, chapter 24, but its really just an example i had at hand

the remarks stay the same. his peers still cannot help but brand him as "just lazy", even if they are kind and understanding otherwise and habour no ill intent. so i would like to ask: how long can he keep this up? how hard is this on him?

i dont think i need to explain just how common and hurtful it is to be accused of "laziness". probably the single most irritating comment someone with fatigue will hear every single day.

however, on the flipside, ritsu has perhaps the most people who care for him in comparison with other characters, though they sometimes complain (communication is hard, care is hard, everyone in enstars is very young and i cannot bring myself to see those comments as malice. its a mixture of ignorance and ones own burdens) there is mao, obviously. tsumugi is a very funny example. knights, of course, in particular naru. (at least based on my humble knights readings)

quite interesting how he just decided mao is his caretaker, now and in the future. i shared a few of my thoughts on caretaking here. this is.... a huge responsibility to just put on someones shoulders, to say the least. he shouldnt be doing this but i think it speaks for itself that this is a problem that is on his mind. ITS IS A REALLY IMPORTANT TOPIC TO BRING UP, especially since, the younger you are, the harder it is to get insurance to pay for your care. yes, he is often just teasing mao, but ritsu is looking for ways to get through life. by learning to be as independent as possible, whenever possible. though often you really just find yourself at the mercy of friends and family.

Inter-Sibling Violence

apologies, i will be done with the sakumas soon. i didnt know how to fit this in at the start.

the relationship between rei and ritsu, as people with the same disability who experiences different symptoms and challenges, is worth thinking about. infighting within people of the same disability is very common since experiences can be so different, there are no universal truths or opinions. with different lifestyles come different expectations for what is "normal" and sometimes pressure and social norms can cause someone to shift blame onto others who have no achieved the same things in life.

rei and ritsu are said to have been very close as small children and likely depended on each other a lot. i can see how reis fostering nature and ritsus needy nature developed alongside each other and enforced each other.

time and time again, rei says that he is a "less severe" case, that ritsu has it worse. he jets around the world because he feels forced to do so, when ritsu just wanted emotional support from him to begin with. ritsu stayed alone at home, sheltered and likely caged by their families convictions. but! i want to suggest the following: as much as it hurt him, it was important for reis health to be away from his family, too. i dont think staying there would have been good for him. his absence and the experiences he made away from home were an important catalyst for the positive family development we see in operetta.

of course, rei means well. he cares. he is trying to have a positive impact. yet from ritsus point of view, all of this must feel terribly condescending, especially with how much rei babies him. there is just one year between them. this is barely anything when it comes to sibling inferiority complexes the brain can make up. rei, who is successful and famous and beloved and, most importantly, proclaims to have it "easier than him", is trying to find a cure for him. from ritsus point of view this must be unbearable. their lives are so different when they basically started at the very same point of origin.

more than that, rei shoulders the sketchy blood rituals himself, out of love of course, but if one was more jaded, one could assume he doesnt think ritsu would be able to stomach the responsibility.

you will always compare yourself to your siblings in unhealthy ways but ritsu is just doing this on hard mode, i fear.

HHHRAGAHHHH GHHH ghgghrhgh. Niki

nikis writing is... driving me up a wall sometimes, to say the least. dont get me wrong, i love him. to an extend i understand that his single-mindedness and shallowless has purpose to it. in fact, i adore these character traits. he really seems to be behind four mental barriers at all times, unable to let deeper thoughts touch him, lest they make him succumb to despair. (yet nikis specific flavour of menhera cannot quite shine since... well, he has to stand next to himeru all the time)

the descriptions we get of nikis illness are nonsensical, at least to my knowledge. you could imagine he has something like hyperthyroidism. this never really gets explored though. at some point ENGstars mentions he has "gastroptosis or whatever" (the "or whatever" is part of his dialogue - niki really doesnt give a fuck), which makes no sense at all. weirdly enough, it would even be strangely in character if this was just a misconception.

so, can anyone take niki to a doctor? has this happened and i just wasnt there for it? there is no excuse why no one is considering medical care when it comes to him. except that he often is the butt monkey of jokes the writers want to make and has to stay available for it. more than that; his parents just left him alone like this? as a child? did he get an allowance at least? this cannot be legal, right? i wait for the day this comes up as a topic but i fear it is in vain. (please tell me if it actually did. i dont follow niki that closely) this is an unbelievable thing to do to a healthy child, yet alone one with a severe illness. we are basically looking at denial of assistance.

so many things surrounding nikis story are designed to make him as miserable as possible. i cannot help but feel that he exists purely as comic relief, for funny bickering, and superficial drama. i dont really like that at all, his misery just gets exploited.

EVEN SO... his self-image is actually really fascinating. as rinne likes to point out again and again, niki has no self-worth. he works two jobs, one of which he hates, he constantly gets into dangerous situations, and he will do anything just for some crumbs, and quickly forgets when others treat him badly. and of course, the worst bit:

es!! main story, please dont make me go find it

to some degree, he just accepts this as something he deserves. there is no consideration for his own quality of life, somewhere along the lines it seems like he got conviced just surviving is all he gets. he internalized self-degredation to a dangerous degree and i never see anyone mention this mental affliction specifically as a comorbidity of his disability. to me, there is without a doubt a relation here. sure, maybe he would still fight with this otherwise, just because he had to witness his fathers fall from grace as a child and knows there is a stigma attached to his name now. but i think you can tell it is more than that, from the way he is ashamed to beg (even in a life or death scenario, as seen in hot limit), as if his condition was his own fault.

this circles back to the point i made earlier for eichi; how much nikis life is worth, is measured in his economical value.

of the characters i have spoken of so far, nikis is financially the most accurate to real life. there is no safety net for him, no convenient family wealth.

(at this point it feels important to mention that somehow rinne manages to be the only person entirely aware of the danger and desires to change nikis mindset, YET he is a huge strain on nikis health. i dont know how those two function.)

Just a Lamb. Tatsumi

tatsumis specific trauma is a unique one: while most other characters struggle with conditions they were born with or developed as they grew up, tatsumis injury is the result of strain and violence. those are two different pairs of shoes, though the outcome may be similar. whether it is worse to be born into circumstances you cannot escape or to have to live with having something thrust upon you unfairly is up to personal judgement. pain is not really quantifiable. its just important to keep in mind, i think. under the circumstances tatsumi grew up in, he has his own burdens. it is very easy in many ways to compare and contrast him with eichi. of course this applies to how they used their bodies too: as an expandable resource. they had ideals for their school life (and beyond) that just seemed far more important and they both ended up in hospital because of this. (+ we know tatsumis surroundings were purposefully manipulated to destroy him)

and, of course, tatsumi got attacked later on. he never really talks about it directly but his legs seem to talk for him, in ways.

the story does not quite make it clear whether his occasional weakness and pain are the result of old injuries or entirely psychosomantic, and i dont think there is a real need to know, as a reader. in fact, in a certain light, i think it can be considered good that we dont know for certain: it would be relevant for tatsumi himself, sure, since it would influence which kinds of treatments and help he can seek out. however, i think the ambiguity may foster a certain level of sympathy in readers.

often psychosomatic problems are not taken seriously enough in real life: they cannot be proven physically and they dont fit into the neat little boxes that the ICD wants you to believe exist, so they cannot be defined on paper or easily explained to doctors or insurance providers.

to foster empathy with his situation requires his character to be lovable and for the narrative to treat him with care as well. which is thankfully the case. alkaloid are dear with him and, despite the fact he cannot perform in his work enviroment all the time, he is very respected for his other skills. he is a well-rounded person.

all that aside. it is absolutely worth to mention tatsumi pre-injury, too. he came up with a form of small-scale universal income among a semi-union at school. without getting too much into all that. (obbligato really seems like required lecture in the realm of enstars stories) the entire concept strives for social equality and is extremely anti-discrimination. it fundamentally goes against the idea that someone needs to "deserve" care, and is the opposite of the mindset i described with eichi and niki above. he never had to make first-hand experiences with disability to be extremely compassionate. this seems really rare among people in real life, even those who preach altruism.

While we are Here. K.... Kaname

as mentioned, i spoke a little about kaname before. so i wont get into the complex of caregiving.

it is extremely satisfying we got to meet kaname, if only for one event story. he does not have to remain a faceless motivation behind himeru and tatsumis lives, he thankfully became humanized.

the entire conflict around kaname at the moment is a matter of bodily autonomy. how much of your person can be in anothers hand, ethically? there is no excuse for the theft of his (idol) identity through himeru but the damage is done now. ideally, you dont want any part of yourself to depend on others but the disabled reality is that this is very often impossible. especially for kaname. there simply is no one else who could be responsible for him right now and, to be fair, at least when it comes to medical care, himeru seems to behave very responsibly.

repeating what has been said in the other post but i am worried for kanames seemingly inevitable reintroduction to the story. he has been in a comatose state for a year. if he wakes (since this is fiction, it is possible to exchange 'if' for 'when', realistically it really would be an 'if' though) he would most likely be confronted with permanent neurological and physical damage and years of rehabilitation. at least logically. (not to mention the psychological shock) would this be written with compassion and a sense of realism? it makes for a compelling source of conflict and emotional hardships that could be extremely worthwhile to explore. i just cant entirely bring myself to trust the writers with this one but i would love to be convinced otherwise.

that is, of course, if they dont somehow just skip rehabilitation entirely and declare it a miracle healing.....

imo, the in-game discourse between characters is just as important as his future development. i just really hope autonomy and recovery will be large topics.

He doesnt go here, but. Adonis

so bringing him up just really feels necessary within the context of this post because of his interests. one of adonis hobbies is sign language and accessibility.

this is, i think, maybe the best thing they ever did with his "protector" persona. it just fits so well, it is a direct conversion of ideals to actions. knowing undead songs have been translated for a deaf audience in canon is extremely wholesome and uplifting, even if it is entirely inconsequential for the story and just something that gets mentioned.

(now that sandstorm is out on engstars, you can check that out too for further mentions of this! if i could wish for one thing, it would be for the stories to acknowledge that there are tons of independent sign languages and i would love to know which one adonis and rei speak... you ever think about how adonis speaks like four languages fluently. at least.)

nightless city live, chapter 3

everyone in undead loved that and supported the vision. to see koga, who is usually against anything but musical performances and wishes to express art freely, praise the idea really puts deaf identity and accessibility in a great light. it is a very positively radical forwardthinking idea.

so, i just wanted to mention that. adonis is treated horribly by the narrative a lot, it entirely fails to grasp his identity and is insensitive towards foreign cultures, but i would die for him i think.

finishing thoughts

like mentioned, please absolutely let me know if you have different related ideas or recommendations. or corrections, or worries over something i wrote!!! learning and improving is always great. i am sorry i could not get into so many other characters, the ones i wrote about are those that i feel confident enough to comment on. in the future i would love to meet maguro!! i just havent really read any mama stories at all :'''3

i feel like i barely said anything at all and barely engaged with text enough since i didnt get into any character specifically. i would love to write another post about ritsu or rei or both. a draft for it has been sitting around for ages (as did the draft for this post, lol) but i hope someone will find an interesting thought in here somewhere.

all in all, enstars is actually... surprisingly nice to read for the disability in there??? even if it is disappointing in handling many other things. of course, the writings not always ideal (i read hidden beast just the other day and the ableism in there took years off my life) but often its really nice. nothing hits quite like seeing real emotions and experiences through some metaphorical stylized anime lense, you feel.

anyway thank you for listening. i am actually for real done now.

#enstars #ensemble stars #enstarsposting #did i overreact and write too much..... ah... nay......

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sadie-bug345 · 23 days

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dallas and a reader who is unbelievably nice to everyone (maybe a bit shy too) basically the opposite of him

YESSS i love this. dally is actually my husband so this is just hypothetical ofc🤓🫶

i feel like he’d really like you cause you’re more like johnny

except even sweeter and not at all “hardened by the world”

you’re so empathetic when dallas does share his feelings with you (which is so rare im so sorry😭) but you perfectly describe the way he’s feeling and just like feel that with him and he’s like 🧍‍♀️ oh.

cause dallas’ whole thing is he cannot express his emotions well

hes super repressed so even when he does love johnny he can’t show it for the life of him

the way he experiences grief over johnny is through not experiencing it at all and just giving up

TANGENT BUT ANYWAYS

hes like “uhm what is this warm fuzzy feeling” whenever you hang out with him

cause your vibe is just so contagious

your smile is like the cutiest thing and he’s such a sucker for it

dallas doesn’t change for you

cause that’s also dallas’ thing is he refuses to change. sure he can “become tough to handle anything” or whatever but he’ll never change for the better. period

when he first gets arrested at 10 it’s givinggggg “the old dally can’t come to the phone rn…why? oh..cause he’s dead‼️😔🕊️🪦” LMAOO

i keep getting side tracked

WHICH is what happens whenever you and dally go on long drives or just have any convo

like you’ll start talking about your day and it’ll just morph into anything that comes into your mind and your eyes light up whenever you switch to a new topic like “oh! that reminds me…” it’s so cuteee

one thing that came to mind is like maybe one of your girlfriends is going thru a breakup or a hard time and you’re like “dal, we should bake some cookies for her and drop them off at her house” and he’s like “NUH UH NOPE🙅‍♂️🙅‍♂️”

and you’re just like whatever and start doing it yourself

and then he pulls up to your house and he bought a sweet card for you to fill out and give to her along w the sweet treats cause WHO DONT LOVE A SWEET TREAT WHEN YOURE CRYING⁉️

anyways he didn’t really chip in other than that. he also stole a cookie which you pretended not to notice

he’ll drive you to her house and you ding dong ditch her house w the goodies and then he SPEEDS away cause he says “i can’t be seen being a wuss to some girl who got broken up with”

and then you say some super wise thing abt how the strongest of us stand with the weakest or smth and he’s just like

“sooo…wanna go to dairy queen?”

TYSM to the person who requested this! this was so much fun to write!! cause i looove me some dally x reader stuff and just matt dillon in general. OK BYE MY INBOX IS OPEN🥰👇

#dallas winston #dallas winston x reader #the outsiders #outsiders #matt dillon

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catboybiologist · 28 days

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hi, i have one like, question for you regarding transgender healthcare. beacause. like there are people to whom dysphoria brings immense distress/unhappiness, and any healthcare system should absolutely take care of that, for free.

but theres also people who dont feel that strongly about gender and or dont experience dyphoria, but still prefer getting/removing their tits/penis/vagina. and thats also okay, like, infromed consent and all. but im not sure where the line should be on what we (as in, taxpayer) actually pay for. like, idk, i dont have a strongly formed oppinion on this. so id like to hear yours

I know you're not from the US, but unfortunately my perspective on this will have to be amerocentric because that's my experience- so I'll talk about that perspective first, and then try to generalize it.

The American healthcare system is so wasteful in how it bars people from procedures its insane. More money is spent figuring out how to reject people from receiving monetary payments for healthcare than would be spent if you just approved the overwhelming majority of them. And this isn't even considering other ludicrously wasteful forms of spending the US government does, like the insane portion of our defense budget that just disappears into thin air every year.

So how much additional burden should the taxpayer pay? Ideally, none, because any significant reform of the healthcare system would make all of these questions moot.

But, not every country is in this situation. And there is still a question embedded in here- what is the line of providing medical care from the government/taxpayer? I don't have personal experience with it, but this is exactly what countries with socialized healthcare deal with all the time, well beyond just gender affirming care. I tried to make the parallel with abortion because its a similar category of thing. Let's call it like... "semi-elective" procedures- medical procedures with the potential to significantly improve someone's quality of life, but won't kill or severely incapacitate them if they don't get the procedure, leaving it up to them to decide whether the medical context for the procedure fits for them (I'm NOT trying to lessen how life changing these procedures are, I'm calling them 'semi-elective' as a way of denoting that two people faced with the same situation can make different decisions about it based on their personal considerations). This can apply to a lot of things, some of them almost entirely cosmetic- surgeries to mitigate a mild disability, breast implants for cancer patients after a masectomy, procedures for conditions like cleft lip, facial reconstruction after severe injury, and on and on. To me, gender affirming care falls in this category- its not cancer treatment, but it is life changing in an overwhelmingly positive way.

In my mind, it should be the priority of any government to prioritize and expand the healthcare they're able to provide, including for these semi-elective procedures. Many wealthy, developed nations have the ability to cover most or all of these kinds of procedures, even though they're entirely "elective". But yes, budget and resource concerns are very real in many places, so yes, priorities do have to be made on a national scale. This is a very delicate and interesting question, actually, and there is a lot of room for well-intentioned debate on it.

But I'm not going to answer it.

Because I think you should ask yourself something.

Why is this a question so frequently applied to gender affirming treatments, yet rarely, if ever, applied to any of the other procedures I listed above? I'm not jumping on you, because you asked a genuine question, and I'm glad you asked it. I'm speaking to anyone reading this, not just you, because this exact thing is so frequently brought up when discussing gender affirming care. And that's a double standard through and through- there's no way around that.

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rodentbrains · 4 months

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one of the things fhr does so wonderfully, which i’ve rarely seen popular media deal with at all, much less well, is where the need for control can stem from. the version of it shown in fhr connects so deeply to my experience as a autistic person.

control isnt shown to come from an almost giddy desire to have other people under your thumb, but complete and utter fear and panic. the kind that feels like your life is deeply in danger because you do not know how people will react and what they will do. thats the crux of it, their autonomy means that they are completely out of your control and therefore can leave in you in a state that is unsurvivable to you! in this sense, the fantasy of telepathy, the idea that i can make sure i will survive my encounters is so tempting. something like that would make me able to live more, make me feel like a real person. which i never feel like (much like sidestep.)

its obviously very immoral, but the desire driven by fear is sympthetic. the intensity of this experience is perfectly enhanced with sidesteps reality as ‘non-human’ and the very real physical danger they face due to their illegal existence. their fear of literal torture and death echos my emotional experience of stepping out into society and i say this without exeggaration. you also get to see ortega react to it. someone who loves sidestep doesnt necessarily understand them by the virtue of that love. the same way a lot of neurotypical people cannot understand autistic experience, and there is something so comforting about seeing that. about seeing a character, who obviously does have a deeply distorted sense of reality, but is still correct in their understanding of aspects of that reality!

sidesteps fear of the farm is incredibly legitimate, despite it being something that a lot of characters in the story do not understand. many of them have the initial reaction that sidestep is exaggerating, but they are aren’t. its a reminder that there are also incredibly real aspects to my fears. that autism isnt just a distortion. when sidestep breaks down and shows the overwhelming terror they experience over not being able to read/control ortegas mind, they are horrified. naturally. it is horrifying considering the abilities sidestep possess, im not understating that. its however also clear to us, the audience, that this need comes from being petrified. from not knowing any other way to stay safe, stay human. the fear of losing autonomy they fought for so hard is another element of all of this, and unsurprisingly, being robbed of autonomy is a common autistic fear too. but thats a whole other post

#i lost my mind over the autism sidestep parallels at 1am again dont mind me #fhr #sidestep

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y2khaos · 1 year

Text

ive been watching a lot of mental health vids today and i got to thinking while talking to a friend..... i think a good way to balance self deprecating and self enabling tendencies is to mostly acknowledge that thoughts are...just that. thoughts!! esp w self deprecation, a healthy way to deal w that is to take a step back and examine the negative feelings u have abt urself. and then u just shrug ur shoulders and say, "so what?"

- feeling stupid? so what, ur still smart enough to acknowledge there are things u need to improve!

- feeling ugly? so what, the only people who will actually call u that to ur face are elementary school bullies. (if there are ppl who do that aren't in elementary school, resorting to criticizing you over things you can't control makes them no better than an elementary achool bully.)

- feeling generally undesirable? so what, there are plenty of ppl out there who are willing to deal with what u personally consider mediocrity!

as for self-enabling tendencies, i think a good way to handle them would be......smthn like, "will this actively contribute to my satisfaction in life, or just give me a brief hit of dopamine?"

whether it's food (esp stuff u know will leave u on the toilet later from issues like lactose intolerance or things particularly aggravating for ur ibs), impulse purchases, or saying smthn rude in the moment you will later regret (i know i need to work on this on the rare occasion im irrationally angry LMAO), u need to think stuff like:

- will this food item make me feel better after eating it, or do i know from prior experience that it makes me feel sick?

- will this purchase be smthn i will display in my home or wear or use often and be happy about seeing every day, or will i leave it to rot in the closet or garage or basement?

- is this comment something this person needs to hear for their own wellbeing, or will it just upset them and make us both spiral into a pointless argument?

obviously recovery is a long, arduous road. but it's all worth it in the end to feel better abt urself and others. u deserve to feel that. i don't want any comments or reblogs abt how "oh this applies to everyone but me": actually, it ESPECIALLY applies to you. believing you're not worthy of basic positive experiences in life is, in fact, a very harmful form of self deprecation.

i don't care how "toxic" of a person you think you are. truly toxic people don't care about the negative effect they have on others whatsoever. they don't dwell on whether they're good people or not. meanwhile, good people make an attempt to get better. sometimes, maybe even often, they will falter, and it's natural. it's natural to make mistakes. it's natural to relapse on occasion. again, the road to recovery is tough. but i promise that you deserve good things. 💚💚

screenshot this post, print it out, set it as ur lockscreen, whatever you need to do to remind urself that you're worthy and deserving of love - whether it's from others, or yourself.

#neo.txt #mental health #actually autistic #ptsd #depression #recovery #self harm #bpd #did #osdd #npd #ocd #positivity #aspd #ed #adhd

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nicosraf · 7 months

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hi! im not sure if you answered this question before and i was js thinking about it but what made you write ABM? were there moments in the bible with them in it that led to write it?

I think I've answered this once or twice, and each time, it's kind of difficult to answer. it's a mix of personal reasons. and theology questions mostly. here is a super long explanation, re-stating what i've said before but adding some new things.

sorry this is very long but i am stuck in a car. also cw for f slur use:

personal reasons - ive mentioned this sparingly but i had a conversion therapy experience when i was much younger and was raised in a very christian community (where i still somewhat remain). i struggle horribly with mental issues related to that and other traumatic experiences related to where i was raised and by who. i needed to write about it a little.

theology reasons - after i went crazy in 2021, i read the bible and i got really stuck on this question about what "made" the devil so evil. Paradise Lost pins the blame on god creating humans and asking angels to bow for them with Lucifer refusing (and many christians seem to believe this) but that's borrowed from Islam. (The Dante levels to hell, and most of the concept of hell, too, are borrowed (stolen?) from Islam). I looked for what the Bible really said and I saw that it just... didn't say anything. A lot of the lines about Lucifer are only dubiously about Lucifer, such as the lines in Ezekiel 28 that make up the epigraph for ABM. Most theologians will just say, oh well Lucifer is more of a mythological figure, and i agree. but Revelation makes it clear there was a rebel angel, the devil was an angel, so if we want to treat the bible like it's coherent, we have to take those dubious lines to be about lucifer/satan/the-devil.

but those lines only say, you became proud on account of your beauty. and they also say You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created ; innocent. beautiful and innocent.

Lucifer is beautiful, or handsome, in all his depictions — at least in his depictions as an angel. but it's rarely the focus. and it was the "blameless" part that got me. innocent. in a lot of depictions, lucifer is born wrong, or lucifer's goodness is so delicate that he might never have been good at all. but if the bible says lucifer was a beautiful and innocent angel - what happened? the bible says he became proud on account of his beauty; he was so beautiful that it ruined his innocence, so beautiful it "spoiled" his "wisdom"

but what is the power of beauty in heaven?? angels are not supposed to marry. what do you do with beauty. just admire? and why would god make an angel so much prettier and perfect than the rest. his favorite. the "anointed one" , anointed one for what?

there's only one line Michael says in the bible; he says "the lord rebuke you" to the devil. i started thinking about them; i had seen so many Michael defeating Satan statues all my life. michael never looks happy in them. usually, his face is solemn. i started asking the people around me about michael and lucifer. people told me that they were friends once, they really loved each other once. this isn't in the bible; i dont know why everyone just had this feeling of them

i read through ezekiel again, closer. i reached that part about Jerusalem and saw all the language of beauty and corruption again:

Your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign Lord. But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. You took some of your garments to make gaudy high places, where you carried on your prostitution. You went to him, and he possessed your beauty (Ezekiel 16)

my confusion about the Ezekiel 28 Lucifer lines was that i just couldn't understand how beauty led to corruption, and here in Ezekiel 16, the answer was sex and unfaithfulness and a jealous, violent god.

i was also having a lot of thoughts about angel gender and sexuality, just because of course i was and because of reading Paradise Lost. christians like to treat angels like these non-sexual things, but the story of Sodom is about wanting to have gay sex with angels, Genesis still holds the remnants of the Book of Enoch and its story about angels having sex on earth, Jesus denies angels marriage (and thereby sex) in the New Testament, and angel Gabriel is the one who tells Mary that she's going to carry god's child through immaculate non-sex conception. there was just... all this weird forbidden sexuality attached to them. they can't have sex with the men in sodom, they can't have sex with the women in enoch, they can't have sex with each other. John Milton says they do, but i think he just wanted to be kind to them.

In paradise lost, raphael says, of course we have sex with each other. of course we love. because "without Love, no happiness"

but moving onto the series as a whole, i just thought how weird all biblical events must feel for angels. everything bad is happening because one of your own was so beautiful that he went crazy, and now you all bow for these weird, human men. and the bible mentions that angels cheered when the earth was made, so surely there was a time of angels before man (if u will) that they must all remember so sadly now

but these are all huge thoughts i had in my head and idk why i wrote them down. i kept hunting for someone who had written an essay about this, or a book, or made a movie. i thought it was weird there were no 1970s homoerotic movies about Lucifer (that i found). he's alway been associated with sexual deviance, gender deviance. (he's always been a fag), so where were the gay books about him? i wondered how lucifer invented sexual deviance at all, what was going through his mind, what he was trying to do.

and Michael - ahhkj he's such an archetype for gay male desire isn't he? just this image of strength and power and masculinity. of course Lucifer falls in love with him, what fag woudn't. and how could michael resist god's most beautiful creation?

before, during, and after ABM, my feelings were/have-been "i wish someone else wrote this." i didn't feel qualified to write it, but i thought that just expressing the idea was what mattered. i needed to get on a podium and shout "lucifer and michael were in love and all angels are genderqueer homos" and see what happened.

#i can really go ON and On because the story of its conception and development is a surprisingly long one i think #didnt get too much into the real life aspect of things #also ive never mentioned this but i was working on another book at the time that i dropped and have yet to pick up again cause of abm sksk #mine #ask

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sewercentipede · 8 months

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Hello i want to try ket and probably will as soon as i get a chance, if you would like can you please give me some tips for using safely because im unfamiliar with ket entirely

yes absolutely! ur approach to this being specifically with harm reduction in mind is so wonderful i commend you

I’ve written up a super detailed guide for this very thing for another anon in the past but tumblr ATE IT I can’t find it at all😭 soo I’ll try to do the same for u—that means it’ll b VERY long so i apologize in advance.

Also to any of my mutuals or followers or whoever have experience with ketamine and want to add any advice I haven’t covered please please do so in the replies!!!

1. Acquire ketamine from as trusted a source as possible. if u can get literal (and legit) medical vials that’d be the ideal but for most ppl that’s not a realistic option. so (I assume, since I do not know ur situation) you will probably be getting it in crystal/rock form or crushed up crystal form (it should look like very sparkly pure white powder when crushed up). PLEASE buy fentanyl test trips from dancesafe.org and follow the instructions that come with them to test your ketamine. This step is IMPERATIVE as in life or death. it’ll mean youll have to turn ur ketamine to liquid with water in order to test the entire amount of ketamine for fentanyl and fent analogues. to turn it back into crystal to snort, literally just pour the liquid in a large glass pan or pie dish, and let it evaporate. If ur impatient u can use a hairdryer on it or cook it in the oven on the lowest oven setting (while it’s in the glass pan ofc) and monitor it the whole time, until it is hardened back into crystal. It shouldn’t be gooey at all but should also not be any color other than pure white.

2. Go to erowid.com and go to the ketamine vault and read everything in the basics, effects, health, and dose links .Erowids the best resource. . Here’s some pics of the dose guides, durations, and expected effects. These dosage recommendations are accurate and I highly recommend going by them when you first start. After you do ketamine a few times you’ll get the hang of it without rly needing to measure so precisely .

Some of those negative effects aren’t even negative, but some sound scary I know but the scary ones are honestly really rare, and happen when people do like a ton of ketamine at a club and hole by accident, or mix ketamine with a bunch of drugs or otherwise take it irresponsibly. If you follow my recommendations and the recommendations on erowid, you shouldnt have anything to fear. Ketamine isn’t scary - because it’s a dissociative and the *most gentle disso ever* it detaches you from a lot of negative emotions.

3. Take ketamine on an empty stomach. Don’t eat anything for like an hour before. Eating too soon before can make you very nauseous and throw up. You may also just throw up anyway - it just happens sometimes, depending on your body’s sensitivity to that, the ketamine that you acquired, and, especially, if you’re doing too much of it too quickly. So don’t do too much too quickly lol!

4. For your first time (this is a MUST) and the first few times until you get the hang of the dosing —it’s an extremely dose dependent drug (very diff effects at diff doses) — do NOT do ketamine anywhere but in your home (or friends home). Do not do it at a club, concert, festival, party, or in public. I strongly recommend doing it lying down on a couch or bed, with mood lighting, cozy atmosphere. At low doses you might have fun trying to walk because it feels silly, but you’ll be uncoordinated so be careful. At mid and high dosages you should be laying down and not attempting to sit up or walk.

5. When snorting: ketamine is not like coke, so do not snort it like you would coke. Do not rack up huge lines and snort them in quick succession. Snort only short/small lines, ideally 1-2 of these size lines every 2-3 minutes. If your goal is to k-hole (which you should only ever do lying down), weigh out the appropriate amount of powder according to your weight using that first Erowid chart i posted. Divide that amount into little lines and snort according to the method I described, until you hole - you will 1000% know when you’re in the hole .

6. MUSIC!!!!!!!!!! Ketamine loves music. And specific types. So prepare this before you start snorting by having headphones on and your music device on an album or playlist and primed to hit play for when you’re staring to feel the ket enough. Ketamine does not like really sad music, harsh music like metal or screamo, or really fast chaotic music. prefers stuff like trip hop, cohesive albums, lower bpm electronic music, repetitive music with good bass and percussion

Some albums that I recommend on ketamine especially if ur going to k-hole

Mezzanine by Massive Attack (my personal fav)

Onism by Photay

Iteration by Com Truise

Uncle Tony’s Coloring Book by Blockhead

Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd (another fav)

Flux by Love Spirals Downward

Moon Safari by Air

Die Cut by Cut Chemist

Us Ephemeral by Vitesse X

Photay by Photay

Untrue by Burial

Selected Ambient Works 85-92 by Aphex Twin

In Decay by Com Truise

Down the Wall EP by Cubicolor

Heligoland by Massive Attack

Luxor Necropolis by Vatican Shadow

Life of Leisure by Washed Out

Parabolas by John Tejada

Tbh I don’t know what else to add— please let me know if you have anything else you want to know. Would you like me to describe the effects and how it feels at different dosages? Or what k-holing feels like? Or anything else? Just lmk

#long post #ketamine #drugs

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t2r-secret-acc · 1 year

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Big ol rant warnin, Overwatch 2 related ship stuff

You ever have a new character introduced to an interest you have and the shippers go wild and you get very emotionally attached to a rare pair very few people care abt?

Yeah, me too. What’s the rarepair you ask?

Sigma x Ramattra.

“Ew wtf why?”

LISTENNN TOOOO MEEEE!! HEAR ME OUTTTT!!!!!!

Zenyatta and Ramattra have a voiceline where the reminisce about how they used to count the stars with one another. I personally see Ram and Zen as brothers and I feel this experience of intimacy between Ram and his brother brings him great comfort. He’s known to be a very broody character but I feel this is one of his few good experiences. I like to think that Ramattra feels very deeply for the stars because of this.

Sigma on the other hand, his entire life is everything space related. The man dedicated his life to the subject and even (sort of) harnessed the power of a black hole. I like to think that even with his bad experiences with it, he still is fascinated by space and loves the stars.

“ok… so what?”

IM GETTING TO IT LET ME FINNNISHSHEHSHSH

Anyways!! Ramattra’s first seen in 2019 in a cutscene where Doomfist praises him for the way he fights for what he wants but that his plans are destined to fail. That is, unless he joins talon. Maybe then he’ll actually have a chance in getting what he wants for his people.

I don’t think ramattra ever got the chance to join talon because if i’m correct on my overwatch lore, Doomfist was taken in by overwatch soon afterrr… BUT IF HE DIDD JOIN TALLONNN

Ramattra and Sigma would have first known each other from Talon.

“Ur point is?”

MY POIIINTNTNTNNTATAH!! My point is, maybe there in Talon, they were each other’s soft spot.

Both characters are decently introverted and not very energetic either compared to the rest of the bunch. I feel with a lot of characters in talon, a lot of personalities clash. I don’t feel that way about Sigma and Ram, though.

Talon manipulates Sigma; he’s a disturbed individual and they use his issues against him. Sigma doesn’t know this, but Sombra does. Sombra seems to be the only character that cares for Sigma’s wellbeing but doesn’t really do anything to help him. She just says in a voiceline that if Talon ever gives him trouble to come to her.

If Sig and Ram ever got a chance to speak, I feel the two would have a mutual sense of admiration for the other. Ram would feel Sig’s dedication and work on harnessing the power of a black hole is inspirational. Sigma would probably be very curious about the void accelerator Ram holds.

Idk I feel like they’d like a lot of the same things and I just feel like their personalities would just be very cute with one another.

If my hands ever learn how to art again, i may be able to draw them together but i dunnooo !!

#overwatch #overwatch 2 #overwatch 2 ships #ship post #sigma x ramattra #sigma #sigma overwatch #siebren de kuiper #ramattra #ramattra overwatch

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napping-sapphic · 4 months

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Hello! I have a Situation and its totally cool if you're not able to give advice but im looking for advice anyway bc im autistic and have no idea how to navigate romantic situations.

So ive had a friend since i was 12 her pronouns are she/they so i will be using both. Im now 20 and they're 21. I've known I like girls since i was 13. And shes pan.

So, in the past, ive had like fleeting thoughts of dating/kissing them but i usually just shake my head and think "nah i cant possibly want to date her bc they're my best friend, i just have very strong platonic feelings." Like Very Strong. Ive literally said that i will always compare my feelings for a future romantic partner with my feelings for her bc they're so strong.

So im honestly not sure if i would know if i was in love with someone unless it hit me in the face, and i am currently feeling like it has hit me in the face. I woke up at like 4 am last night from a dream just thinking "omygosh im in love with her" and ive been journaling and thinking all day ahout my feelings and im starting to think ive just been in strong denial/oblivious about my feelings. Both bc im autistic and have difficulty identifying emotions and bc im demiromantic and rarely experience romantic attraction so i dont have much experience with it.

I guess the point of this ask is about any advice you can give regarding knowing if i actually have romantic feelings and if i do,, like what do i do about it??? Should i tell them? We have a really strong friendship and i dont wanna make her uncomfortable. I think ill be okay not acting on my feelings but its been literally less than 24 hrs since realizing my feelings might be romantic and i dont know if it will be difficult to hide or what to do about it. They're also like my only close friend so i cant just ask her what to do like i would normally, which is why im asking you.

Again, i understand if you cant answer this bc its a pretty personal situation but i would appreciate any advice.

Thank you! :)

Ahh once again prefacing with the fact that I am really Not Qualified to give advice on most things😅 but I can give you my take as an outsider on the situation and with my (very limited experience) in case that might help you at all, but again really take all of this with a LARGE grain of salt i am a VERY unqualified stranger on the internet so most of what i say is probably nonsense😅

I feel like this is like my go to advice but I’d say just wait it out tbh, as someone who was in capital L love with their childhood best friend for a while it really just came down to time for me. It took a while for me to be sure whether the feelings were romantic or platonic for SURE. Especially since the platonic love stayed for me even when the romantic love began🤷‍♀️ it made it extra tricky to tell lol.

My ‘oh this is NOT just platonic’ realization came from YEARS of excessive thinking about them, WAY too much jealousy when they dated other people, a LOT of thoughts and urges about holding their hand, a lot of comparing them to people i had passing crushes on, and (i kid you not) an embarrassing amount of love poems teenage me wrote about them lol😅

However! The slow process and thinking it through also lead me to the conclusion that i did NOT want to date them. Being a couple just wouldn’t work for us and I value them so so so SO much as my best friend and really need them in my life as that separate, constant, platonic relationship that I deeply love and care for. It works better for us than any sort of dating could🤷‍♀️ not to mention all of our other clashing traits that just wouldn’t work if our relationship was romantic. And now I’m honestly really not romantically interested in them anymore, they’re just my best friend and always will be :)

I dont think it’s too unusual to fall a bit (or a lot) romantically in love with a best or close friend, I think the more important thing to recognize is whether it’s something worth acting on, that you’re willing to act on, and that will be good for both of you to act on

So I’d say ruminate on it! There’s no pressure to figure it out, if you start getting too preoccupied with it you can try talking it through with them, not even as a confession type thing, you can simply have a conversation letting them know you’re a little confused or wanting their opinion if you think they’ll be receptive to it. Best I can tell you is that there’s no clock on figuring it out, there’s no “right” way to define what type of love you feel, and to remember that either way you’ve got a great person in your life. I’m very sorry I can’t be more help and if anyone has any other advice feel free to leave it in the notes for this person! Good luck to you and I hope you find what you’re looking for soon <3!!

#asks #if i remember right this is my fourth case of giving probably shit advice im so sorry anon #ALSO remember to trust yourself more than me or anyone else you ask for advice💪#also ALSO sorry i talk a lot #i talk more when i get uncertain about what i’m saying😓#again im very sorry but im wishing you SO much luck #🐙🪼🦐🐠🐟🐬🦞🦀🐋🐡 <- calming aquarium trip for you!!

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soldier-poet-king · 8 months

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career anxiety which turned into existential dread which turned into me guiltily defending my use of stories as narrative framing devices for my own life & human existence as storytelling more broadly (smthn smthn sometimes you gotta be a little mentally unwell to be mentally well)

what is possibly the longest cringe worst thing ive ever put on this webbed site, but i gotta get it out in writing to clear my head and i type more quickly than i write and if there's a post length limit by god i'm gonna find out

with my deepest apologies if this readmore doesnt work

so we had a Big Fancy Meeting at work today, with a group of information professionals from an Outside Institution (some of whom i had met previously), and which i got to sit in on/play tech support for, which was all fine and well for the actual presentation portion of the event, but afterwards when it was informal chatting and the like it was just???

The following things are true:

i actually got to speak with people close-ish to my age and in my profession

it was a very nice and enjoyable experience and we got to talk both seriously about professional things and also jokingly shoot the shit about shared woes with this one outdated archival software that everyone under the age of 60 hates with a passion

i was also incredibly jealous of this group of archivists & librarians because they're all /friendly/ with each other and i am lonely being the youngest person at work

i am also jealous because theyre working on very exciting projects at A Big Institution with Actual Resources and Technology and PROCEDURES my beloved, and not the slapdash kinda thing going on at my work

this in turn made me anxious because there were certain elements of the conversation i couldn't follow and i worry about my professional development at my current job, and that my technical skills are either atrophying, or not growing in a way that would enable me to get hired at A Big Institution like this one (which is the ultimate goal)

this in turn made me more stressed about my current job, which i just got promoted to fulltime permanent for the following

beyond the skill atrophy fear there is also the fact that my boss is grooming me to be her successor when she retires in 5 yrs and i very Much Do Not Want to be here in 5 years

this adds several layers of guilt

i was just promoted so im getting really sweet messages of congrats from random ppl in other departments who i didnt even think knew/care i existed - the people at this workplace are extremely nice, even if im like. meh. about some of the work/procedures/etc

a large part of my promotion being approved hinged on the fact that im undertaking this big technical project that my boss doesnt have the technical know-how to do. so i cant just bail and leave them high and dry without feeling guilt. but also. it's not so fancy a project that someone else couldnt do it. anyone in my field worth their salt and not super old should be able to handle it. sure i work hard and im friendly, but surely that's not that rare in an employee

i dont even KNOW if there's better opportunities out there. but i see stuff on the listserv all the time, and assuming i could land those jobs, they pay better and are at larger orgs and more in line with what i want

there is an element to working non-profit adjacent that is guilt inducing as well as [redacted thing about my work that would make me feel even guiltier for leaving, i cannot say what, but it is Significant]

this of course, tapped into my larger, ongoing sense of ennui and being 'stuck' and fears about unchosen monotony and purposelessness and all that mid 20s recent grad existential bullshit. i cant really do anything to solve it bc yknow, unprecedented housing crisis, rent is insane, im stuck living in a dysfunctional household which traumatized me as a child, etc etc etc. but broadly:

i am afraid of being stuck in a mediocre job forever. my boss has worked for two (2) archives her whole life and has always done non-profit adjacent work and is like. a one man small archive thing. i VERY MUCH DO NOT WANT THAT

i feel guilty for wanting

idk how to want things or be a person (separate issue), but i know very much what i want career wise. i know what makes me happy and satisfied. and i know what im good at. im doing fine at my current job but i know i could be so much MORE and i want that desperately

if my personal life is always doomed to be dismal, as is my family life, can i at least have one thing

i gave up academia for my mental health and some degree of financial stability, can i at least satisfy SOME of my ambitions here?? just a few??

yes this is pride. yes this is ambition. just bc i spent so long extremely depressed and with 0 self esteem does not make me immune to ambition, even if non traditional.

i feel immense guilt over this but i dont stop wanting it

ofc, my brain is a web, all existence is inextricably interconnected, and im listening to the tge audiobook on my commute and rotating csevet in my brain, thara is more personal, more beloved maybe, but csevet is my fave lil guy babygirl and i have a thing for fantasy secretaries, so i am now thinking even MORE of ambition, and how i have it, and how i love that im good at this one complex but boring thing, i am thinking of kip mdang, of kamet, of muire lo, of how some of my deepest loves, in no particular order, include: organization and scheduling, devotion, competency, well-ordered policies and procedures, righteous anger, boring skills being used to change the world for good, small kindnesses, Duty, loyalty to a person or ideal which goes beyond the functional and the expected and which extends into unprecedented levels of intimacy - whether it be friendship, qprs, romance, etc, and also, metadata and research

so. as i sit there sorting this all out in my brain i am like. wow you are a pathetic human being. you are not even a person. like. why is everything being framed in terms of narrative and story. why does everything relate to a Broader Theme or Arc or Meaning.

i am forcibly reminded of being undiagnosed, unmedicated, aged 18/19 and trying to explain smthn really personal about myself to someone i knew from youth group and him being like. wow. you describe everything and relate to everything from stories.

to this day i live in embarassment over this moment. but also. lowkey. fuck him. and tradcath circles be WILD, the social dynamics BAD, and it was not the place for me to be, even tho i latched on to it lacking any other social contact at the time. if a complete mental breakdown, latent OCD, and a really painful loss of friends is what it took to get me out. like. i cant say i dont regret the loss, but also, i like who im becoming much better now

ANYWAY. i got thinking about stories and why i am and am not extremely cringe

i am a big believer in storytelling is the oldest human activity. it's the most fundamental human activity. this isn't some nihilistic devaluing of the human person, the soul, the human experience, it is instead and elevation of the story. because like. stories are what we do to live. it's why we live. it's how we communicate. storytelling is how we turn to another person and we attempt to communicate the innermost secrets of our heart. language is a flawed tool always ultimately falling short. but we use stories to share ourselves with each other, to be recognized and known, and throughout the ages, to share our grief and love, to know to oneself, no, i'm not the only one, others have experienced this before too. stories are balms and inspirations and are ultimately reflections of their creators, they reflect some Truth about the human experience back to us

im not even talking like. published stories. tv shows. mcu ification of media. i mean /stories/. in whatever form. from whatever time. this isn't a fandom thing - though there is overlap, im not talking about consumption for the sake of consumption, or consumption as a personality trait

i mean like. stories as the bedrock of humanity because it is the only way we can attempt to understand ourselves. stories are foundational because the human person is too complex, having too much of the image of the divine in it, to ever be really fully successfully understood. and so of course. of course we turn to stories in times of trouble, and triumph, and all the times in between. how could we not turn to stories to attempt the divine understanding that is always ultimately beyond us?

(i have a whole other locked and loaded series of thoughts on storytelling in faith traditions, and specifically how the bible is a literary work as well as a spiritual one, and the reasons for this reflected in the human soul, but i digress)

so really. maybe i am pathetic and cringe and a fake not real person (i am all of those things), but i hope it's not because i think in stories, in themes, in arcs. everything is tangled in my brain, inextricable, i can do nothing else, i know nothing else, i would not want anything else, unless it were the full divine understanding beyond mortal means

and besides. i am trying. to be better. to be more. to have comforts and hobbies beyond this. the crafting. the cooking. the career ambitions that arose when i found something that i was good at and enjoyed and was /me/. my insatiable need to learn to dance.

i dont know where im going with this. i barely know where i started. it's stories all the way down, because it's people all the way down, and we are all mirrors of each other and we are all connections with each other in a vast caring world. or. so i like to think

#franposting #long post #im so sorry but also i needed this so.#smthn smthn you go to the circus (my blog) dont be surprised when there's clowns (me) etc etc #i had to take a break in the middle of typing this bc i got worn out emotionally #should that have been a sign to stop? maybe. but i cant read so that sign wont stop me etc #this is the most embarassing cringe thing i have ever posed in my ELEVEN YEARS on this site #ah well #gotta weed out the weak. natural selection for my horribleness #and now. i am going to play bg3 for a bit. and then read. and then bed bc alas. commuting

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