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weeapplelover · 2 years

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I had a humans are space orcs idea.

I dont even know if people already covered this but what if aliens met humans with mental disorders like ADHD?

I'm just imagining an alien having a conversation with a human and they just loose track of what they were saying. Or the alien is having a conversation about one thing with another alien and the humans just listening, and then the human just suddenly asks a question totally unrelated to said conversation and the aliens answer, but shortly after ask were it came from.

"Well, you were talking about space travel, and light-speed is something we used to use in space movies, and the most famous was Star Wars, and Darth Vader had a face mask, and face masks are found in hospitals so much, and hospitals try to save lives, and so do Superheroes, who often use superpowers, and superpowers are often genetic mutations or lab-experements, with come from doctors, and people took a very long time to be able to understand to be doctors, so I asked you how long your species took to figure out how to keep people alive efficiently.

The aliens are still trying to process, and once they do, they ask the human how they were able to comprehend that thinking. The human shyly says that they might have ADHD, but they aren't sure because they haven't gotten it checked out. They then leave to sleep.

The aliens quickly delve into research using the humans internet when they get to earth, and learn that ADHD is a mental illness that it quite common in humans. They learn a lot about the mental illnesses and decide to spread the information throughout the universe to add to the guides on how to deal with humans. They test every ship and quite a few humans had ADHD that they never checked for.

Idek if this is a good idea, I'm just trying to start sharing my writing with people who aren't afraid to hurt my feelings by criticizing my writing. All anyone says is that it's really good and I can't improve on that.

#humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #ADHD #aliens learn about mental illnesses

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8rujaa · 2 years

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i think i’m autistic… it has sent me into a major depressive episode not because I’m sad i might be, but because i’m sad that no one including myself realized… literally 100% of my being feels so validated when i realized it could be. i never even considered i could be autistic until i discovered what “masking” was. I’ve realized, everything I do is a mask, and the reason it’s difficult for me to live and coexist with my partners sometimes, even though i love them and wouldn’t want to be away from them, is because i’m masking 100% of the time trying not to seem cold or rude or unaffectionate bc i’m hyperaware of how i can come off…..

#all the sensory issues… the obsession with pink…. the obsession with routines…… the obsession with music and singing #all the little quirks i’ve been embarrassed about …#the reasons i can’t keep jobs…..#the reason why i was my happiest and most functional when i lived BY MYSELF and literally just painted or played piano for hours #like my bedrooms have always looked like sensory rooms.#i hate bright lights but i literally have like 10 different lamps in my room rn #the reason I hate going out and why i hate parties etc #the reason I can’t lie #the reason i wasn’t able to continue my education #like…. i’m understanding everything now #even the possibility of my mother also being autistic when i’ve always thought she was cold and obsessive and mentally ill #i see it in her too now #she’s put me through so much… and even if she is… the fact that she was abusive still stands… but i think finding out and getting assessed #i think it would help me forgive her… because i was such a. difficult child to raise.#i literally went missing and ran away so many times how did no one pick up on the fact that i might be austic #like these all seem like minimal reasons… but when i tell you that at my core i’ve always felt like an alien #i had a video come up on my feed a few months back about how it kind of shows up differently in women bc we have the ability to mask #and i was like hm that’s interesting but scrolled past #and the more i looked up things like ‘why do i do this’ autism would always come up somehow #and i feel like i’ve been really in denial #but because it resonated… i kept reading about it #i kept learning and researching because everything i found was pointing to the fact that it could be autism #and i am not anti self diagnosing at all. but i didn’t want to be the type of people that take something so general and broad that just #just because i related to (one) thing i was automatically autistic #so i kept learning and researching in hopes of find either something else that could be affecting my mental health #in hopes of kind of proving myself wrong and i was being paranoid #but the more i find the more it explains everything. literally everything. and i’m sad. i’m sad that i’ve hated myself so so so so much…#i think there’s a new sense of self understanding…. and a lot of self guilt being let go…#brain vomit

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aardvaark · 2 years

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me: *having breakdown, not doing my uni stuff, forms handed in late, not eating, fearful my self hate and harmful behaviours are returning*

also me: let’s start learning Arabic for some reason

#langblr #i guess i know the arabic alphabet (mostly) now?? also it’s 1am #idk i thought ‘hey that’s a useful widely spoken language & the different alphabet will be a good new challenge’#‘and out of the first languages other than english in australia - arabic is one of the bigger ones’#i’m mentally ill. it’s a bad day #i watched Alien and got upset about the cat even though it didn’t die or get hurt at all #zoned tf out getting my hair cut bc i hâte touch and looking in mirrors #so my brains solution? learn a language #wren speaks #personal

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cyanide-sippy-cup · 1 month

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People who complain that Bruce Wayne is a bad person cause he "doesn't do enough" are so annoying fr.

"He just dresses up and punches mentally ill people" yeah and sends them to a facility to help them (of which many HAVE gotten better [see Waylon Jones]). A facility that has had the corruption ripped from the roots up purely for the sake of helping his own enemies. No matter how many times they break out and try to kill him, he sends them back to be rehabilitated. He only fights them because they have ice rays and mind control and all that. But even in fighting them, he usually only goes all out on the clown. He canonically tries to be soft with Harley and even temporarily gave her a job.

"He doesn't do anything with his money" bitch?? What do you think Wayne Enterprises does?? What do you think the Jason Todd Foundation is??? Why do you think he's poured his money several times into fixing Arkham Asylum??? Like bro there's literally an entire cult of other billionaires who unironically spend their time and money dismantling Bruce's efforts. He's doing the best he can with what he's got.

"He brings children into his war" Dick, Jason, Barbara, Harper, Stephanie, Duke, and Lance all either did or tried to do vigilante work without Bruce's help. Other characters like Tim and Damian refused to accept a no. He instead gave these kids a support network to do vigilante work safer and more efficiently and have them people to call family.

"The kids die or get hurt" Jason died after being betrayed by his own mother, Stephanie "died" after directly going against his orders, Tim was blown up by drones controlled by Steph's dad, Barbara was paralyzed in an attempt to upset her father, and Lance died after taking the costume and getting shot all without Bruce's knowledge (hence why it's important he takes the kids under his wing).

"He doesn't affect crime rates" in Gotham maybe, but see the Court of Owls mentioned above. He works with the JLA and JSA to take down crime all across the world and galaxy. He founded Batman Inc, a network of Batman ripoffs across the world who keep in touch, use each other's resources, and get backup from each other to fight crime in their corners of the world.

Hell, even "he's a bad father" is just bad writing. He's actually a very caring father, even if he does maybe struggle. He gave Jason his own damn library and he allows Damian to keep a whole army of weird pets (including a literal demon). He took Damian in upon learning about his existence, allowed him to express himself as Robin, sent him to school, taught him morals and compassion, and LITERALLY WENT TO HELL TO RETRIEVE HIS SOUL WHEN HE DIED. He took in Cass despite knowing Shiva would retaliate. He taught her to speak and he encouraged her to learn ballet. He even officially adopted Dick, Jason, and Tim in 3 separate emotional moments. And also bro literally adopted a piece of an alien hivemind (Jarro best Robin).

Like he was raised by Alfred-motherfucking-Pennyworth. There was never a chance he would turn out as corrupt.

#bruce wayne #batfam #batfamily #batkids #batman #jason todd #dick grayson #cassandra cain #tim drake #damian wayne #PLUS in earth 2 he had Helena and she loved her father #batman incorporated #batman fandom

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newtsoda · 1 year

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When school is torture...

A comic about autism and “school avoidance”.

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Commence Alt Text:

[PAGE 1]

Title: 'It's Not School Avoidance – Trauma, Burnout and PTSD in the Education System'. The first panel shows a woman, her face veiled in shadow and surrounded by a thicket of thorns. She looks alien, with pointed ears and cat-like eyes. The second panel shows her drowning, her hand grasping at the air. The next panel shows ghost-like arms twisting around her. The speech bubbles read: When I was a kid, school was the stuff of nightmares. An intense and overwhelming environment, overstimulating and demanding, and entirely unforgiving. It's where I learned to mask and how to lie about all manner of things. I faked so many illnesses just so I could have the break I couldn't ask for. All so that I could somehow stay afloat in a system that did not recognise my needs. Neurotypicals don't understand just how much school is not designed for people who are not like them. Nor do they understand what it's like when you have to return to the place that is hurting you, day after day after day.

[Page 2]

The woman lies with her head on a pillow, staring wide-eyed at the reader. Thorns creep around the edges of the frame. The text reads: It's nearly twenty years later, and I still have the nightmares. Not the same vague dreams about not doing my homework everyone gets, but vivid night terrors that revolve around school and the things it made me feel. I've been told it's a symptom of CPTSD. The second panel shows a dagger with thorns wrapped around it as it is slowly dragged into their midst. The text reads: Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder develops over a series of prolonged traumatic events. A disturbingly high number of autistic adults go on to develop it and can trace the root of their trauma back to the torturous experiences of their school years. So, I guess it's safe to say I'm not alone. But what's worse: It's still happening today.

[Page 3]

A girl is at the centre of the page, tears streaming down her face as scissors cut through her wings. Blood drips down the page. Thorns creep towards her. Another panel shows the woman's back with the shredded remnants of her own cut wings. The text reads: Autistic children are being dragged through a grim education system that does not get their needs, quietly suffering. Parents are denied support if their child makes good grades or is quiet in class, because all is well. But the school doesn't see the tears and fights getting to the gates in the morning. Or the meltdowns/shutdowns as soon as the child gets home. It doesn't matter what's happening to their mental health. That a bubbly, happy child who loved to learn has turned into a despondent, empty shell of their former self. Above all else, school emphasises attendance rates. As long as that child is still showing up every day, it's seen as a success, no matter the cost—and the cost, sadly, is often steep for people like us.

[Page 4]

The girl and the woman are wrapped in a towering mass of thorns. Swords jut from the wounded woman's chest while she looks down at the girl who reaches for a hand trying to rescue her from her plight. The text reads: “Your child just needs to develop more resilience.” An infamous line that keeps rearing its ugly head. It comes from a place of ignorance, from people who have no idea how resilient these young people already are from living in a world not designed for their neurotype. But what can parents do? They're witnessing the damage forced classroom time is doing to their children, seeing it destroy them, but feel powerless to help. Keeping them home for recovery results in fines, warnings, and intimidation tactics. Seeing no other way out, some parents are forced to take their child out of school for good, opting for home schooling instead. They report needing years to repair the damage done to their child's mental health.

[Page 5]

The woman is seen healing the girl's back. Tiny wings sprout where hers were cut. The text reads: Homeschooling can allow parents to slowly build their children back up, coaxing them back to their former selves. But not everybody has the means to homeschool, and while it should always be a choice, it should never be one forced by desperation. The next panel shows the woman's own shredded wings. The final one shows her defending her child. Text: This whole thing is excruciating for autistic parents who experienced it all themselves while growing up and know exactly the damage that is being done, yet find themselves unable to protect their child from suffering the same fate. I want to be a parent one day, but the thought of school already fills me with dread. I want my child to benefit from a well-rounded education without paying the steep mental health price I had to pay. It shouldn't be too much to ask! And yet, I've fully prepared myself for the battles I'll have to fight.

[Page 6]

The page shows the woman twirling the girl around while she holds her hands and the girl flies with her new, full-grown wings. The woman's wings are still shredded, but she smiles knowing that she was able to help her daughter. The text reads: I want to raise the next generation of autistic people unburdened by school trauma or CPTSD. We need more autistic-friendly options, and lockdown and the pandemic showed that it's possible! We need flexible schooling, less classroom time, more opportunities to do schoolwork from home, and low intensity classrooms for children who don't have parents who can support learning from home. Allow for recovery time and stop penalising low attendance rates! We want the education system to recognise the damage it's doing to young people and believe parents when they plead for support. There is more than one way to achieve learning outcomes, and we deserve a system that works for us.

#autism #actually autistic #autism acceptance month #neurodivergent #neurodiversity #school #education #newtsoda #comic #autistic comic takeover

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au-sonic-smackdown · 3 months

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AU Sonic Smackdown - Round 4, Right Side

Words Hurt AU belongs to @oddogoblino

Infested AU belongs to @hejjhug

Learn more about them under the cut!

Words Hurt AU-

In this au, Earth is decaying, the planet slowly losing its ability to sustain life due to mankind’s lack of care to it. To try and survive, they attempted to move people to planet mobius as it held similar conditions as earth. The mobians at first welcomed them happily, happy to help those in need. Eventually, the humans began trying to repeat their old mistakes and began digging into mobius and setting up machines to harvest from it to try and save Earth. The planet didn’t handle this as well as earth once did, machines quickly backfiring and any mobians nearby during the incidents quickly falling ill. That’s how the infections started.

Sonic’s parents were one of the few first mobians infected, having lost them due to them going into the second form of the illness that’s caused from starvation. They’d been “quarantined” and left without food or an energy source for too long. He was only a toddler when this happened. He’s now part of Vanilla’s secret organization that helps infected mobians survive outside of the homes they’d been kicked out of due to fear. Sonic himself works as a secret delivery boy and tends to travel to make sure infected mobians have access to food and water and even just simple pleasantries like games and toys. He met Tails as a 4 yr old who’d been born from infected parents, taking care of him when they weren’t. Currently Sonic is 17 and Tails is 8.

Sonic is mostly his same ole usual self except he’s a lot less social. He doesn’t talk to anyone except for Tails, Vanilla, and sometimes Cream. He was naturally born with his super speed but keeps it hidden due to not wanting to be mistaken as an infected. He still has to fight Eggman as the mad doctor tries to manipulate both uninfected and infected mobians’ fears and resentment toward each other. He has a civilian disguise named Nicky so no one recognizes him as the superspeedy hero. He’s a bit more easily agitated but only because he doesn’t get enough sleep with his work.

Sonic’s right eye is always tearing up, not because he’s emotional but because of repeated exposure to infectious spores. The spores can only infect others if inhaled or through exposed open wounds. Hes naturally immune to the illness, but he doesn’t know that, and wouldn’t ever take chances on it. Whenever he gets injured, he disinfects the wound immediately and patches it up like others would in hopes to avoid spore-infection.

Infected mobians tend to live in abandoned spaces that their cities and towns assigned for them to live. Infected mobians feed off energy, whether that be electricity, emotions, powerful items, etc, but can also eat normal foods just fine. They need normal food to keep sane and prevent them from going into the second form that attacks anything with energy in it. Only the second form can infect others directly, making it the most dangerous and is an automatic kill-on-sight if seen. No one knows yet if you can change infected back to normal after they’ve transformed. Vanilla takes care of transformed infected when Sonic reports the incidents.

Mobians aren’t the only things infected, plant and wildlife have been mutated by the illness aswell. The symptoms of the infection is body mutations, a blue tongue, and increased hunger and thirst. Mobians born from infected parents can’t go into the second form but they become feral without food. Bites from hostile born-infected mobians are less likely to spread the infection but it isn’t impossible.

Infested AU-

Sonic, under the influence of a mysterious alien brain parasite, has become unpredictable and very, very dangerous. While all his powers remain the same, he now uses his speed to maim and kill anyone who moves. Sonic’s mental state has devolved to basic instinct, and, thanks to the parasite, he is in a near-constant state of feeling like a wild animal trapped in a corner. As a result, he will call upon impossible strength, reserved only for life-or-death scenarios. Pray you don’t catch his attention. You can’t outrun the fastest thing alive.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic #sonic au #sonic alternate universe #au sonic smackdown #round 4 #words hurt au #infested au

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crismakesstuff · 1 month

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would y’all jump me if I said I genuinely see nolan as autistic??

bc he checks a lot of the boxes for a diagnosis also mark is so nd coded to me too

Also ok list of reasons why nolan is autistic TO ME this is just a HEADCANON

i dont hc as him as autistic just because he struggles to display emotions also in the comic the other viltrumites adapt to earth ALOT better than nolan did bc nolan is always struggling with his emotions and displaying them even in the endgame of the comic

-He’s incredibly socially inept and does not understand social cues, yes this is an alien thing but Idc it’s an autistic thing too people have always used fantasy and scifi species in place of real life groups of people for either sexuality or mental illness reasons

-struggles to keep / maintain friendships

- always tends to prefer wearing very tight fitting clothes over loose ones

-He struggles immensely with change, he literally would rather die

-He feels things very deeply but struggles to verbalize those emotions

-is capable of talking at length for long periods of time about things he is knowledgeable about (infodumping)

-Struggles with displaying empathy, it was always there he didn’t just learn it on thraxa that’s just the first time he found himself able to begin expressing it more at the lowest point of his life (shoutout to my friend fio for pointing this out so eloquently u get me fr)

-I can’t say ab his canon eating habits bc we don’t get much of a look at them sadly :b

#i’ll probably delete this later #but yes pls don’t take this as me woobifying him I just genuinely believe he’s got a lot of symptoms and I’m also autistic so #sm ppl hc mark as autistic or some kind of nuerodivergent where do u think it came from?#not debbie that’s for sure! she’s the neuroatypical holding that family together #I think we should let autistics maim and kill #let autistics be messy and fucked uo individuals !! not everyone is a uwu baby #invincible #nolan grayson #mark grayson #omniman #omni man

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fairycosmos · 3 months

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I’m wondering if you could speak more about the adolescent life experiences you missed out on because I am curious and also heavily relate and am seeking solace in shared experiences

from the ages of like 11-16, it was particularly difficult for me. i had very few friends and people at school would either make fun of me or straight-up act like i wasn't there a lot of the time. so eventually every single day just became a battle where i refused to go to school or participate in life much during those years. i'd have meltdown after meltdown and it was honestly exhausting. i think when my classmates were discovering the foundations of who they were and learning to acclimate to social situations and developing bonds and memories with those around them, i was either sleeping or breaking down or on my computer. basically half-mute, missing out on massive chunks of my secondary education bc i was/am so beyond mentally ill & also could not handle the alienation/ridicule. i can't stress enough how much damage i think this has done to me and my sense of self and my life as a whole, the direction of it. i usually feel like i did not even develop a personality or a selfhood at all tbh. the only reason i kind of broke out of that cycle was bc i lost a bunch of weight, dated a random dude i met online for a bit + started smoking/drinking which allowed me to cope with reality a little easier. not recommending any of that as a way out btw because none of it has actually helped the root of my issues lol and it put me in a lot of dangerous situations, which also set me back emotionally, just in a different way. i'm really sorry you can relate, i know it's hard. i know there's a lot of grief involved in living like this and constantly wondering who you could've been had things been different, constantly wondering why you had to be like this while everyone else got to be "normal." i'm working on abandoning the idea of a conventional timeline that everyone has to follow but still, it's so so painful. especially when hardly anyone around me is willing to abandon their idea of the conventional timeline, which gives it a lot of weight as a concept. it's hard to live with. i completely understand and will be here if you need to talk. x

#anon

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nottoonedin · 1 month

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what.... please elaborate i do not understand but i wish to....

So, I'm guessing you're asking about this post, where I speculate about Ivan's relationship with the dog-alien?

Here's a post where I talk about what "The Dog Alien Incident" is (or at least my interpretation of it).

(Long ramble/analysis/theory below!)

Now, this^^ was my interpretation of the scene before Round 6. But then Round 6 came out, and:

The MV shows Ivan seems to have some sort of relationship with the dog-alien. They definitely seem to have a deep level of trust. I mean, the alien is allowing Ivan to touch its teeth, and even going as far as LETTING IVAN LIE IN ITS MOUTH!? (Which like???? Go off I guess??? You do you??? But why would you want to??? He was tempting death at this point).

When I first saw this, I immediately jumped to conclusions and was like "Oh, he's insane, he's just like Luka, he planned this out, he was trying to kill Mizi-" because I was literally just recovering from the event which was Round 6.

But, now that I think about it, I don't think I stand by that theory anymore. I don't think Ivan would actively try to kill Mizi. I don't think he ever hated Mizi, as they've been shown to be quite friendly in their interactions, unlike Luka is with Hyun-woo.

(Would translate these properly if I knew Korean, but alas.. Maybe in the future, I'd actually love to learn the language-)

So, looking back at Ivan's relationship with the dog-alien, I think they were just friendly? Like, Ivan would just go hang out with the dog-alien whenever he wanted, just for some quiet time away from the other kids, since the place that the dog-alien(does it go by another name other than "dog-alien"??) resides seems to be secluded and hidden from the rest of Anakt Garden. I think it was just coincidence that Ivan found Till and Mizi together in that area (Mizi could have wandered off, perhaps to find Till, or Till was trying to follow her?). Ivan may have just stayed watching in the shadows just to see what would happen out of pure curiosity.

Another thing!

Ivan's friendship with the alien (as well as him being allowed to roam freely without a collar) could have benefitted him in allowing him to escape the Garden with Till. The alien seems to be a guard dog of some sort (which could explain why it attacked Till, or it could've been just attacking Till because why the hell not-), and if it trusted Ivan enough, it's not surprising if it would let Ivan (and Till) pass by it and out of the Garden without alerting the AG Guardians.

Long story short: Ivan's very weird, but not as batshit insane as our favourite mentally-and-physically ill blondie, Luka <3

Hope this explains everything..?

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fanonical · 9 months

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i think one of the most interesting things about animorphs is its criticism of war and imperialism

make no mistake, the series (particularly the last books) is constantly criticising war. war is brutal. the children involved in this war experience extreme trauma and are forever changed by their involvement in it. they are brutally injured and all experience ptsd and other mental illnesses by the end of the series

the yeerks are imperialist aliens who come to earth to infest its population and take over. they consider this to be the best for themselves, and don't really care about the lives and humanity of the people they control. in one of the chronicles books, it is made explicit that the yeerks concentrating on america is no accident - they originally made landfall in the middle east, during operation desert storm, but quickly learned that the middle eastern soldier they infested was intimidated by the americans

and all of this, in a series that ended in may 2001

i'd be so interested to see a version of animorphs written after 9/11

#Animorphs

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the-golden-vanity · 1 month

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💚 for the Terror. 💖🧡 and 📖 (but chapter(s) instead of entire book(s)) for Moby Dick

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

Ooh, it's time to make some enemies.

I really, really dislike the popular fanon characterizations of James Fitzjames. Depending on what particular flavor of queer a fanwork is depicting him as, the kind of... shallow femininity that gets forced on him makes me MASSIVELY uncomfortable. It often comes across as somewhere between homophobic and misogynistic caricature, personality stripped away and replaced with a pretty dress.

I can see where this started, though—the pre-Carnivale dress scene is something that's very important to a lot of Terror fans, and perhaps something that endeared them to a character whose Empire-loving, glory-hounding, "the atrocities I've committed are fun table conversation"-believing ways are (hopefully) unsympathetic to a modern audience. Still, I'd like to see more fanworks engage with that side of James Fitzjames—the tool of an empire that can never love him back.

This isn't to say I don't love queer or trans readings of Fitzjames! I just want to see the character still be a glory-hounding veteran of an imperialist war, and someone I can still believe would shoot rockets at bears.

💖: Already answered here!

🧡: What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with?

I had to think about this one for a bit. I'd say it's the take that I see floating around on the Internet a lot that Moby-Dick is cosmic horror. If we're taking cosmic horror to mean the horror of the incomprehensible, the impossibly alien, the Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, then there is exactly one chapter that fits the bill—"The Castaway", which includes maybe my favorite passage of the whole book.

However, almost the entire rest of the book is our narrator-protagonist making sense of the whale, as if knowing everything he can about it is his way of coping with the devastating trauma of losing everyone he spent two years of his life living with.

It's almost reverse cosmic horror—rather than a sane man going mad from coming face to face with an incomprehensible monstrosity, our mentally ill (traumatized/depressed/bipolar/open to interpretation) protagonist makes meaning for himself by learning to comprehend the monstrosity.

📖: If you had to remove one chapter from the book, which would you choose?

Ooh, that's a good question. And a hard one.

Moby-Dick is, rather famously, full of chapters upon chapters of whale facts, some of which are even true. I will not be getting rid of any of those. Those are load-bearing whale facts. You pull them out, and the book collapses into a respectable revenge tragedy, rather than the earth-shattering psychological epic that it is. The whale facts represent both the fact that for long stretches of a sea voyage, nothing particularly exciting is going on, and you have time to contemplate things like the immense scarred brow of the whale, and also that this story is being told by a traumatized man who's going off on tangents because he really doesn't want to get around to the part of the story where he loses everything and all of his friends die.

If I had to get rid of one chapter, it would probably be "The Town Ho's Story". Of all the ill omens and tales of woe that the Pequod's crew encounter on their fateful final voyage, this one drags out longest and (to me) was one of the less memorable. However, I'm sure it's probably someone's favorite chapter. Many of them are.

Thank you so much, @georges-chambers/@alienmythologist! You gave me much to think about.

Ask me for my unpopular opinions about boat stories!

#ask game #ask #georges chambers #alienmythologist #moby dick #whale weekly #the terror #the terror amc #james fitzjames

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cellarspider · 2 months

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25/?? Eschatology for Dummies

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

Once again, we dive into that font of madness, Prometheus. I lied last time, we’re not talking about language today, I want to bash my head against the problem of “what in blazes is the intent of this movie”.

As the expedition enters the alien structure, suddenly Shaw remembers that germs can float.

“Wait. We still don’t know how Holloway got infected. If it’s in the air–”

This is one of those maddening little moments where the script tells me that no, the earlier removal of helmets was not just the oversight of someone who didn’t know better. The script chose violence.

“Smells fine to me.”

So does VX nerve gas. Truly, this is the mental acumen required to become rich.

The movie attempts to raise tension through a ZOOM AND ENHANCE, and cluing in those in the audience who may have been thinking “Ha! Foolish Engineers! How would they ever destroy life on Earth if they don’t have any spaceships?”

Well, turns out, there are these great big buildings called “hangars”, and you can put spaceships in them, sometimes even under the ground. I almost feel like if they hadn’t buried the ship, Holloway would’ve tried to see if he could do a burnout in it.

David, meanwhile, is having a great time. He’s giving a guided tour of the ship (that he explored more thoroughly than anyone else), pointing out their technology (that he learned how to use), explaining what they were doing (which he figured out before anyone else did), and assuring Weyland that yes, he can talk to the Engineer (which no one else can do), blithely skating by the reasons why he knows Holloway didn’t die from an airborne illness and how the Engineers were going to press the reset buttons on Earth. Simultaneously excelling at what he was supposed to do and also anticipating Weyland’s inevitable doom, possibly even that of humanity as a whole. It feels appropriately childish for a character that’s extremely young, extremely smart, and has had the worst socialization this side of Immortan Joe’s war boys.

Weyland doesn’t care about any of that, because he’s a horrible homunculus of an old Englishman formed out of a forty-five year old Aussie. This continues to vex me, even now. I keep trying to figure out why they did this. Did they originally intend for him to be depicted as young and change their mind? Was the mobility aid exoskeleton thing they put him in heavy and cumbersome? It’s hard to see in these screenshots, but he is wearing one.

Honestly, just have Lance Henriksen play another Weyland again. Lance can definitely play scumbags, and it would honestly be funny to have every single Weyland in every single time period played by him. Have him play Vickers too, for good measure. It would’ve taken me out of the film less than this.

At this point, I personally did not care about any characters besides David and the Engineer. Which is a very strange position to find oneself in, caring most about two characters who seem just fine with humanity going pft!

And I’d like to examine that. Because fiction can put you in all sorts of strange headspaces that can be thoroughly contradictory to personal morals and self-interest. What was the movie trying to do here, and where has it ended up?

I want to start with some assumptions that mass media tends to make. Fiction, in general culture, is often presented as a moral lesson. Your protagonists are virtuous, and anything that stands in their way is villainous evil. The protagonists are also expected to be likable, and the audience is expected to root for them. A moral tale of who is worthy and who is not.

This is only a small piece of what fiction is. No one of these things is required. Villains are not required, sometimes problems aren’t caused maliciously. Protagonists do not have to be moral. Moral characters don’t have to be likable. You don’t have to root for the protagonists. And none of these divisions are binary.

I am uncertain whether we are supposed to root for the protagonists in this movie. Ridley Scott isn’t a stranger to this idea–look at Blade Runner (1982). Is it good that Deckard hunts down fugitive replicants? No. Absolutely not. Is it a compelling story? Yes! It’s beautifully told and tragic! If you make me watch Roy Batty’s monologue I will cry.

So. It is entirely possible that we are supposed to find the human characters unsympathetic. The Engineers created humanity, and then decided to destroy it. This could have been planned from the start–many religions describe cyclical, world-ending death and rebirth, after all. But this movie is heavily influenced by christianity. Those sects that believe in a destructive apocalypse call it the Last Judgment of humanity, something that occurs when the world has fallen into a state of corruption.

Which then brings us to the question: Does humanity deserve that most fatal judgment?

I mean, in real life, I’d say no, absolutely fucking not. The problem of a suffering world is not sanely responded to with “I’ve got a solution: murder everything”.

This is fiction, though. We are being presented with a vision of humanity. This has the potential to be a counterpoint to the Engineers’ thinking, or their evidence, or a mix of both.

What is it, then? Most of the cast are morons, selfish, or featureless ciphers. They are a very pessimistic view of humanity. And remember, this is fiction. People don’t need to act like real people. When you think about redeeming qualities in yourself, in your friends, in your favorite so-and-so, this fictional realm does not necessarily contain them. In its barest form, it only contains the characters we see.

We’ve got Janek, who’s been charming and indicated he’s willing to stop the Engineers here, but that’s all we know about him. He’s also behaved in negligent ways that contributed to the deaths of Millburn, Fifield, and the nameless guys mutant Fifield wailed on. Christian morality is big on redemption as a path to unconditional absolution, so is he redeeming himself through a last-minute sobering up? Maybe. I’d note he’s missing the “confession” and “recanting past sins” parts that are usually bundled up with that.

We’ve also got Shaw. Shaw has all the makings of a Final Girl, somebody who is destined to survive the plot. They usually have some redeeming quality that makes you want to root for them. What does Shaw have?

Well, she’s got a never super-defined strain of christian faith. And she’s had a really shit time lately, so it would be cruel to watch her get kicked around more.

So, that’s two. Two could be enough in Abrahamic religions–Lot flees from Sodom to Zoar, and it’s spared from destruction because of its presence. Sure, he does some Weird Shit, but he qualified as righteous by whatever standards were at play there. But Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for want of ten righteous people.

And all that gets more complicated in New Testament stuff, after God’s pinky promised not to destroy everyone again, except for the aforementioned Last Judgment thing. Is this movie, as christian allegory, advocating for a god of forgiveness, or depicting a just god who punishes the wicked?

No idea. It doesn’t have to be clear, obviously, fiction doesn’t have to be clear, any more than it has to be moral. I didn’t personally want the Engineer to sail off and destroy Earth, but frankly, I could see it from that perspective, given what this poor bugger’s met with upon waking up.

Next time: our Engineer wakes up from a two thousand year trauma nap to find some little monkeys yelling at them. Surely, this will go well.

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(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

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Alt-text rambles:

https://extra-images.akamaized.net/image/8a/5by6/2021/04/17/8a6f54c4f0ca4bd397cc22aceb4cb30e_md.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torc

#Prometheus 2012 #Prometheus (2012)#This movie keeps trying to be biblical and I keep trying to meet it half-way on the analysis #only to be left hanging like the movie wandered off in the middle of offering up a high-five

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lanymme · 4 months

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THANK YOU I thought I'm the only one who was super uncomfortable with Passionlip's SGs. Like I think if i were to describe a CCC part that I think is bad, it's Passionlip's segments and the way the game treats her, I'm so glad you put it into words

Yeah! I am a Certified Passionlip Lover, and I can kinda see what Nasu was putting together and it’s so cool and emotionally effecting.

She’s such a good depiction of how social alienation hollows you out, and the chapter recognizes that the desperate starvation you can feel for any sort of contact is a terrifying force.

The idea that you have some degree of agency in your rejection, and you’re not just a pure victim with no prospects, is also really wise. Like “this isn’t just other people being shitty, you’re different, and it’s not fair but if you want to connect with people you will have to face that and manage that” is something I had to spend years learning, myself.

The whole Spinal Coaster monologue was fantastic and effecting, like so much of the chapter was good!

There are some occasions throughout where Passionlip is blamed for her circumstances that don’t feel right, and that’s sort of a microcosm for this game. There’s some weird misogyny and horny straight boy shit and casual racism that really confuse things and get in the way of what’s happening. (The way Hakuno thinks about girls sometimes, in particular, is really jarring and inconsistent coming from a woman who has to be read as sapphic.)

But in this case in particular I think Nasu truly beefed it. Something really didn’t come together, or he has some unprocessed biases that are really fucking with it—but it did not stick the landing. I get that the Alter Ego punishments are supposed to feel violent, but I thought it would be like, a cruel dissection, truths wielded to destroy, and this sort of just felt like brutish abuse of a vulnerable mentally ill girl.

Will have to wait for Melt’s chapter to see if this is a theme here or a one-off.

#fate extra ccc #passionlip #asks

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rabbithaver · 9 months

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i finally decided to actually write out some of my major headcanons for Silver. i like him a lot as a character and i think people overlook him too much lmao

I genuinely believe that Silver has been decoupled from the timeline completely. This means that changes to the future made in the present do not affect him. He may not remember the specific events of 06, but he absolutely remembers growing up in an apocalypse and frequently has lines that support this in the comics. Him being unaffected by changes to the timeline explains why his personal history has not changed, despite the future being saved multiple times. ALSO, Ian Flynn has confirmed that Silver is not in control of when or how he travels through time -- I believe that whatever or whoever is sending him back and forth is the same thing that separated him from the timeline.

Silver is deaf, pushing about 70% hearing loss. It's not congenital -- his hearing sucks because he's from a timeline where things blew up constantly and he had no hearing protection. He relies mostly on lip-reading and guesswork, but wants to learn ASL when he gets a chance... if he gets the chance. Time is wibbly-wobbly for him. (I should note that this one is personal to me -- I myself am HoH due to otosclerosis and I'm definitely projecting my declining hearing on him lmao)

I know Silver is canonically the exact same height and weight as Shadow and Silver, but I personally don't find that very... likely. All three of these dudes are 3'3" and 77lbs EXACTLY? Nah. Shadow and Sonic, maybe, but not Silver. I headcanon Silver as being smaller and lighter than the other hedgehogs because he grew up in a timeline where food was hard to find, and thus didn't grow as much. He's very scrawny and basically has almost no meat on his bones, but you'd never guess because he's got The Fluff.

Elaborating on the food thing: his relationship with eating is probably totally screwed. Think about it: he spent his whole youth eating whatever he could get his hands on, and he probably had to eat as quickly as he could so he could stay on the move. The idea of eating to enjoy the flavor is like, completely alien to him. He also tends to stash food away for later, as he's not used to knowing when his next meal will be. He does it entirely out of habit, even when food is abundant.

Silver's immune system probably sucks. Every time he goes back to the past, he catches some illness. This is largely because he's not used to the pathogens 200 years earlier, but I also like to imagine this is because he's got some sort of autoimmune disorder.

You cannot tell me this boy does not have asthma. I am aware that this is kind of a fandom in-joke, but it makes total sense. If he grew up in a world of smoke and flames, his lungs probably look like burnt toast. Someone get him an inhaler please.

Silver has PTSD and severe anxiety, both due to his personal history growing up in a hellscape and also because repeatedly going back to the future to find his time in disarray due to events in the present is probably traumatic as all hell. His biggest trigger is most likely building collapse, but I can't imagine he doesn't have kind of a hard time with explosions after the Eggman War. His cheerful optimism and helpful attitude is his effort to deflect from his trauma.

Expanding on the anxiety thing; Silver struggles when he doesn't have something to do. We actually see this in canon in the 2022 Annual story "Future Growth." He has no idea how to function when he doesn't have a mission to focus on. Being in the past with no clear directive is insanely triggering for him and he totally fails to cope.

While I'm talking about his mental illnesses, I want to make it explicitly clear: he is REALLY good at hiding this stuff. His friends in the Resistance/Restoration don't find out about his issues for years, and this is specifically because he instinctually hides anything that could be perceived as a weakness. He's been conditioned to hide any and all weaknesses because it was the only way to survive in the post-apocalypse. Being visibly affected by your trauma is a quick and easy way to get dead, so he simply... doesn't. This kid cannot stop masking his trauma at all until he's literally at his breaking point.

There is no way he doesn't have intense Survivors' Guilt. Going back to the Metal Virus arc in the comics, he's the only survivor of a shuttle crash in Issue #25. All of those people died. They actually died - if they were zombots, they would've survived that crash, but because they were still healthy, they didn't have the ability to recover. Silver probably feels that because he was trying so hard to get survivors to the shuttle, he led those people to their deaths. I specifically am pointing to his dialogue here as evidence of this:

He probably dreads going back to the future. Like, think about it. He's admitted to being lonely (IDW #8) in his own time -- probably because his history separates him from the average person! The only friends he really has are in the past, the vast majority of whom are likely long dead by the time he's born. And while his friends are always happy to see him, I can imagine he has a lot of anxiety thinking about the fact that they inevitably start to associate his arrival with something bad coming down the line. That's rough, buddy.

He's very proud of his ruff and he takes really good care of it. It's super thick and very soft. However, when he's having a rough time, he's not as thorough, and it tends to show. If you know him really well, you can get an idea of his current mental health just by looking at the state of his chest fur. A happy Silver is fluffy, a struggling Silver looks like he was left in the washing machine.

Silver has a really hard time with media that involves apocalyptic worlds. He knows that it's just fiction, but it reminds him of the fact that he's the only one who remembers the apocalyptic hellscape he grew up in. It reminds him that as much as his friends want to support him, they can't truly understand what he's been through; his background is only real to him. It just leaves him feeling lonely and sad, so he avoids it as much as possible.

Silver doesn't sleep well in real beds. Maybe it's just a lifetime of growing up surrounded by an apocalypse, but he has a really hard time getting comfortable in a real bed. For months during the Eggman War, he'd spend hours tossing and turning before finally giving up and curling up on the floor in a corner. It's just not what he's used to at all.

anyway i think about him a normal amount :)

#terin.txt #silver the hedgehog #sonic the hedgehog #sonic headcanons #idw silver

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nocturnowlette · 5 months

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I have been recently diagnosed with a mental health issue and I have been trying to deal with it on my own .I think that it is not the best choice for me and I am curious about how you are dealing with this situation that you are so confident in posting and that is a good thing for you then you be you.

Content Warning for Mental Health Discussion

First, I’m very happy that you’ve decided to reach out to someone about this topic, as it can feel very alienating to do so, and to actively declare that you’re struggling with this. Even further, I’m honored that the person you chose to ask about this is me. I’ll do my best to help.

I suspect that I might be in a similar situation to you. I was diagnosed with ADHD and Autism long after my childhood unlike some others, and so I grew up with the idea drilled into my head that I was “normal”, while just being a little different from the other kids.

I would constantly have kids and adults alike get angry at and yell at me for reasons I didn’t understand, would be called rude or condescending or feel stupid for not understanding things that others seemed to easily. I would find it magical how other people would be able to just do things without issue, and have the only advice given to me to “just do it”. I’d be called lazy and scatterbrained and weird. Because I was supposed to be “normal”, it gave me the impression over time that something about me was just fundamentally wrong. Like I was broken.

The realization of me not being normal, that there might be something defined that actually explains all of these struggles was both enlightening and somewhat soul-crushing at first. It was nice to have an explanation after all of this time, but it felt at first like it reinforced the idea of me being “broken”. I was supposed to be “normal”, and now I’m not. Thinking back to my childhood (which was largely hard to remember for reasons I didn’t question at the time), every small wisp of a memory I would see now through this new lens. Every nice interaction was treated with paranoia, wondering what the person thought of me. Feeling vindictive towards how I was treated, feeling angry at my parents for insisting that I was normal, feeling everything tainted by this realization. I was angry at the world for “making” me this way.

I already had a strong sense of shame and self-hatred, and this only fed the flame of it. However, as time passed and I was able to reflect on it more, me learning about this has only served to help me. The first thing that is important to note is that neurodivergence is not an inherent good or an inherent bad. There are some things that concretely affect your every day life negatively, there are aspects of it that are occasionally useful, and the are things that feel wrong, but only under a societal context.

One of the things I’ve thankful about is having this realization lead me learning about the Social Model of Disability. It’s one of a few, but the simple concept is this: imagine there is a world identical to ours, except that the majority of people had the common grouping of symptoms one would associate with autism. If someone considered normal in our world was placed into that one, they would then be the one that is considered to have a “mental illness”, and there would be no name for autism because it would simply be normal. Architecture and lighting and social traditions and interactions would all accommodate those with what we call autism, and so it would be far easier to navigate the world because it was made for you.

While there are absolutely concrete struggles with autism, with ADHD, with bipolar, with BPD, with schizophrenia, they are made harder by the fact that the world isn’t built for us. There are symptoms and aspects of all of those that are only struggles because “normal” people don’t have them and don’t need to think about or accommodate them. That’s to say, you are not “fundamentally broken”. You are just different, and that can cause friction with a world that functions largely off of fitting in. You are okay, and you are not broken.

Specific to ADHD and other ones with Executive Dysfunction, it’s important to note that “productivity” is not some inherent human good. Capitalism values productivity highly, and that has bled into our culture, but humans are not robots and we were not built to simply produce. Take days where you force yourself to do nothing. If you constantly just think about needing to do something, then you won’t be able to get that relaxation you need to have the energy to do it. You’re kinda stalling yourself out. I still get like this sometimes, but it’s easier to recgonize when you’re doing it the more you’re aware.

Again, though, while many of these problems are due to just the society we live in, there are concrete issues you need to deal with, ones that would still be problems in that fictional world where everyone has what you do. Sensory issues and depressive mood swings and executive dysfunction are not something you can just will away, and they are things that you need to deal with. However, you still had to deal with those before. Now, you have a name for it. It’s a target, and something defined that you can work on now that it’s no longer some abstract struggle and has a name and known information around it.

And, to reiterate, you are not some fundamentally different person now that you have learned this information. You simply have a name for it now. That is exclusively helpful for you, so long as you don’t fall into the pitfall that I did for a while, which is “learned helplessness”. For a good while, this realization made it feel like I was destined to fail, to never succeed, and to always be different and alienated from others. The truth is that there will always, always be people that will understand and support you.

In my humble opinion, it’s best to avoid online semi-closed off communities that center exclusively around these neurodivergent struggles. While they’re well intentioned, what I’ve found is that it slowly becomes a place that functions like a crab in a bucket, everyone sort of convincing themselves that they will never grow beyond their struggles, and that any progress they make is in spite of them and not alongside them. In a more open, diluted website like Tumblr it might be better, but I haven’t participated much so I can’t tell you for sure.

It’s best to find communities that have people that struggle with the same things, but function as a general community of people rather than focusing just around that topic. Not only do friendships grow stronger that way, learning more about the person and being able to relate your struggles as well as count the small differences, but it enforces the idea that while this is a significant part of yourself, that it is only a part. It does not define you entirely, it is a texture to your mind. Important, but not everything.

The most important parts of growing as a person alongside your neurodivergence is both to accept it and to try your best to love yourself. Shame is a strong social motivator and it gets instilled into you early. My bullied and the uncompassionate angry adults that harshly corrected me started to form their own sort of critic in my mind, one that would always comment on what I’m doing without anyone else even needing to anymore. This is somewhat present in everyone, but it can turn nasty if it’s too strong and turns into self-hatred like it did with me.

The solution, for me, is to form a new voice in your head, one of rationality and self-forgiveness. I envision is as an owl, but most people simply feel it as an abstract voice. It talks over your negative feelings, over your self critic, reminding you that you are not worthless or broken. Reminding you of the simple facts, things you should keep in mind, even if you don’t feel them right now. As you grow and slowly change, that voice becomes more solidified. It doesn’t override or discount your feelings, but accepts them and tries to remind yourself of what’s true and what’s important.

It’s okay to feel bad, and you keep stay rational at the same time. You can forgive yourself even while you are doing something you perceive as wrong. Failure is the most important part of self-improvement, it could not happen without it. Real, helpful change happens slowly and systematically. You choose every day to do small things that help you, and sometimes fall off the horse entirely before getting back on. Change is not linear, it is not easy, and it is not fast, but it is very, very possible. The key is failure, acceptance, and forgiving yourself for failing and finding it hard to accept yourself.

Finding people that love you for you is extremely helpful, so while communities can have problems, I do highly suggest it. Even a few close friends or even just allies that understand you can make such a big difference. Even something private like a diary or journal or a private blog helps. Turning your feelings into words has some sort of effect. If people could see some of the things I’ve written down in my journal, they’d be extremely concerned for me. It’s a place that lets you get out your worst thoughts.

Lastly, understand that while some mental illnesses are concrete in their existence, others are simply names we give to a common grouping of symptoms. Both Autism and ADHD are just that, and they can potentially have multiple different sources or a combination of them, and also have many different individual nuances. Keep your ears perked to new ideas and always be willing to try them, it might take 100 before you find 1 that works, but every single one makes it a little bit easier.

And remember, you are so, so deserving of love. You are wonderful and complex and unique, while still close enough to others to resonate with them. You deserve happiness and contentment and joy and self-acceptance. You need to remember this, as hard as it is to feel it. You deserve so much love.

Those are all of my thoughts for now. My PC crashed after typing about 15 paragraphs of this and it didn’t save because it’s a response to an ask, so I dunno how good this rewritten version is or if I covered everything the first did. So, apologies if I missed anything.

#owlette #mental health #neurodivergent #autism #adhd #adhd things #adhd problems #mental illness

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iwtvfanevents · 1 month

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Rewind the tape — Episode 5 highlights

One of our favorite bits of backstage trivia is...

...from the official Interview with the Vampire podcast, where writer Hannah Moscovitch tells host Naomi Ekperigin:

There’s a huge beauty to writing something that’s a culminating scene. And we talked a lot in the story room about, like, when we were going to reveal that Lestat can fly. And we all came to it together in the writing room, we were like, “This is it!” […] It was a really exciting day in the writing room, actually, we were, like, very self-pleased. [...] ‘Cause we were like yeah and it’s like Paul falling to his death only he doesn’t die!

We found this quote very interesting. Lestat dropping Louis from the sky is, obviously, the culmination of years of rising tensions within the Rue Royale family dynamic but, Hannah tells us, also a callback to Louis’ human life: Louis’ business, Paul’s mental illness and how they both contribute to their alienation from the family and how they strain their relationship, finally coming to a head in a similarly tragic way.

The morning of Paul’s suicide is, too, the first and last time we hear Louis say “I love you,” precisely what Lestat now throws back in his face.

Next week we’ll see Paul be invoked again, both verbally by Louis when he finally asks Lestat if he had a hand in Paul’s death, but also in Louis’ struggles with suicidal ideation.

What's a favorite bit of trivia of yours? A comment from the writers or the cast, an interesting connection with the source material, a compelling bit of analysis from a reviewer or a fellow fan?

Reblog with your highlights, or make a new post with the tag #vampterview to join the conversation! And, if you're just getting caught up, learn all about our group rewatch here ►

#paul de pointe du lac #louis de pointe du lac #the titular vampire #lestat de lioncourt #vampterview #interview with the vampire #iwtv #amc interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire amc #amc iwtv #iwtv amc #IWTVfanevents #rewind the tape #a vile hunger for your hammering heart

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