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elflock-magician · 9 months

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DRDT Survivor Predictions

Here are my predictions for the survivors of the DRDT Killing Game. Spoilers for the three original Dangan games because I'm using that as a resource for my predictions.

It seems that the proper number of survivors for this will be five. Assuming that two people die every chapter up to five, save for Chapter Three with the usual three deaths. The only reason Dangan THH had six was because of the lack of execution in chapter five. So unless something like that happens in DRDT, five will be our number of survivors.

Teruko Tawaki

I think that Teruko is going to survive the Killing Game, but not the entire story, y'know? Like, unless she slowly finds a purpose to leave to the real world, I don't think she's gonna live. I think she might go out in a blaze of glory in the last chapter to protect her remaining friends and end the killing game or something, it just feels in-character for her. So she's gonna make it through the killing game, but I still think she might die afterwards.

2. Charles Cuevas

Charles feels to in-depth and deep to die. It's either him or Whit, one of them is gonna die, and I think Charles is gonna live. As for my support: the original pattern of the Dangan games. The Dangan games always involve a certain pattern. I think one of the main themes of Dangan is that 'if change is not enacted, history will repeat itself' and right now, there has been no change, and history IS repeating itself in DRDT. The pattern I'm talking about is how the first chapter always involves a main support character, and usually a knife. Chapter three is always a triple death. The muscular character always dies in Chapter Four. And Chapter Five is the death of the antagonist. But Charles is NOT an antagonist anymore. At least I don't think so. For example: Byakuya Togami. He was introduced as the main antagonist of Trigger Happy Havoc in the first chapter, just like Charles. But over the course of the game, Byakuya redeemed himself, just like how Charles seems to do. Maybe if Whit dies, he'll go back to being main antag, but as of now, it seems like he will live.

Out of the three original antags, Byakuya is the only one to survive the killing game. This is because he redeemed himself to the point where he stopped being the main antag by Chapter Five. So he lived. That seems to be the path that Charles is going down, unless something changes. David seems to be set up as the new main antag, so he'll prolly die in Chapter Five instead of Charles.

3. Ace Markey

Ace is going to live. He has to. If he dies I will never be happy ever again. But in all seriousness, I have a bit of back up on this. Ace's secret quote. "I don't know what to do with myself anymore." Ace sounds very... almost depressed and hopeless with the way this quote is phrased. See, Ace has this sort of coping mechanism. He seems to be afraid of being out of control of the situation, so he tends to lash out at people. Which is what I think he does when he insults and downright bullys Nico. But he only does this to people weaker than him, prolly out of his fear of harm. Point is: Ace seems like he no longer has anyone to lash out at, and no one to even seek comfort in because he has pushed everyone away. So I think everyone significant in his life is dead by the point he says this. Being Levi, Nico, and Hu. The three people most significant in his life. Even the people he didn't like, like Hu and Nico. With them gone he has no one to lash out at, and no one to even try and confide in. So he has fallen into a sort of depression. Levi needs to be dead for him to reach this state, I'm pretty sure. And Levi, as the resident muscular character, seems bound to die in Chapter Four, so that means Ace will live to see that day. But one thing: Levi might not die at all. The DRDT cast know they are on a TV show FAR earlier than any of the others. So if they find out about the pattern, they could break it to where Levi doesn't die, and so on so forth. But, that seems unlikely. There is a chance Ace may be involved in Chapter Five, but as of now it seems that will be the death of David, and it doesn't seem David would target Ace if he was going to do a Nagito/Kokichi moment. So, for Ace to get into the depressive state he would need to be to say something like his secret quote, Levi, Hu, and Nico would need to be dead. Levi is seemingly bound for death in Chapter Four, so Ace would need to live long enough to see Levi die. And there doesn't seem to be a place for Ace to die in Chapter Five. So Ace will prolly make it to the end.

4. Rose Lacroix

There's always like?? A few characters?? On the survivor bracket that were so irrelevant that they weren't good enough people to be main support and die, but not bad enough to die either. There is always a few honarary un-important people on the survivor bracket. In Dangan One it was Toko and Yasuhiro. Hiro and Toko were only suuper important when they were being framed. They weren't really loved or hated enough to die. Then in Dangan 2 there was Kazuichi and Sonia, who were barely ever relevant, save for their relationships with the culprits/victims of a few cases. And then in V3 there was Himiko, who was only a main suspect in Chapter 2, but didn't actually shine in either a good or bad light. So she lived. And it feels like Rose will be the honorary normal guy. I hope she is. I love her.

5. Whit Young or Eden Tobisa

One of them is the mastermind, and one of them is gonna live, the other will die in Chapter Three. That's. That's it. I only suspect Eden because of something I saw about the fork stabbed into the clock in the new MV, and Xander's eye wound looking like it was caused by a fork. I know someone made a post about it but i can't find it so credit to them-- But anyways, that's why I suspect Eden. And then there's Whit, who is doomed to die no matter what because of his relationship with Charles. They are not allowed to have a happy ending, no matter what. So Whit is either the mastermind, or he gonna die. I think.

That is my survivors predictions. However, most of my support is from the traditional Dangan pattern. As I mentioned before, these characters know they are on a TV show significantly earlier than any other groups. So they do have the chance to break the pattern, even if it means certain characters dying before they're supposed to, or just them not dying at all.

But yeah, that's all, lol- lemme know your thoughts!! <3

#drdt #danganronpa despair time #ace markey #teruko tawaki #whit young #eden tobisa #rose lacroix #Charles cuevas

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mallowstep · 11 months

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i hope you’re doing okay. 💙 it’s ok if you don’t answer this, i just wanted you to know folks are still thinking about you and wanting good things for you.

thank you babe (and thank you to everyone else who sent a message to this effect; i will answer them when i can)

i'm doing pretty well right now. i've been very busy at work, working on a top secret classified project (god only knows when you'll get more details than what i've already shared ;3), and also just. recovering from depression. there is so much of my life that even months out from the worst of it, i'm still trying to pull the pieces back together.

i have been writing a little. it's been difficult, mostly because of numerous incidents regarding writing and mental health (if you've been here for a while, you probably know about them; if you're new, the tldr is "mallowstep went off the wall for a bit and he's fine but it left him feeling bad"), and now i face down the summer which is...rough, mentally.

i don't know what normal looks like for me right now. i want to write but i don't know how it will fit into my life. i'm still making space for myself, in all the chaos and reconstruction. i know writing will be a part of normal for me. i just don't know where it fits yet.

it's been a while since i've felt like myself. the hollow feeling is abating. i am finding words to describe emotion again, that are more than just there or missing. i have been thinking about the stories i have yet to work on. what i want to tell next.

it has been an incredible two years for me. when i started this blog, i had just been broken up with by my boyfriend of three years, only a month or so after my childhood cat and dog had died one day apart. i was coping with so much impossible grief: i wrote the second chapter of i'll come back to you someday soon myself after my grandmother died, and i did not write anything after that for quite a while.

my wrists are healing. they hurt a little today and i'm not sure why, but they are healing.

i'll be going back to university as a natural resources major. i want a job that lets me protect and cultivate the forests i find so much comfort in. the complex webs of their ecosystems bring me so much delight. did you know trees talk to their daughters? did you know they care for their children? protect them?

it has been an incredible two years. i met my now-partner, learned how to actually trust people, and failed out of a year of college due to collapsing mental health. i went through approximately one million assessments to get a diagnosis and understand what was happening to me. i had a doctor tell me i was being undermedicated to an astounding degree. i had to let go of my beloved plants because i couldn't keep myself alive, much less then. i found a job i love so much i am eager to go to work every morning.

i honestly don't think i would've recognized who i am now, back when i started out here. i have become someone who trusts. who has connections with people. who does not fear so much. (i have also become someone who cries as i drive home from work sometimes. i have also become someone who needs to sit on the floor and count all the pieces of art i can see. we move in spirals, not straight lines.)

all of this is to say, i have been quiet on here for quite a while because i have been recovering from two years (a lifetime) of some truly exhausting events, as well as letting myself find things i enjoy. when i got out of high school, i loved what i was doing academically. i had very little passion. it had been bled out of me.

i am incredibly grateful to each and every one of you. your support, even in my period of dormancy, has meant so much. my relationship with writing sometimes feels like i am fighting my double, trying to balance both my need to use writing to understand myself, and my tendencies to ruin myself in the process.

i still don't have any promises to make, because i really don't know what's next for me. but i am still here, and you all still mean something to me.

with all my love, mallow

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spoocys-glade-of-dreams · 2 months

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The story/lore/relationship between Captain Laserhawk Rayman and Raymona differs between roleplay partners. I was telling this story to @pktearsoftazmily over Discord since it relates to our threads.

For those that have been keeping up with that story line: Rayman and Raymona had a fight that lead to them completely cutting contact with each other for a long time. The full details were never really discussed in the thread and this is still a very raw topic for both of them. So it's better if I as the admin/mun explain this one since the two are not really comfortable sharing the whole details themselves due to how much it hurt them both in the long run. They may never reveal the full story of what happened that day themselves.

When Rayman was still the voice of Eden, he was working hard to get that security for himself and wanted to make life better for the folks of Eden. Especially the hybrids and other members that suffered at the hands of discrimination. Raymona had established a close friendship with Murfy, and Murfy disclosed to her a lot of info of what Eden was doing. She had intentions of joining Murfy's resistance group. She would try to relay this information to Rayman. Rayman didn't want to hear it. It got to a point where whenever Raymona wanted to talk to Rayman about Eden's corruption, he would shut her down and put the talk off entirely.

Raymona got fed up. She, once again, approached Rayman to talk with him. This time she was intending to invite him to join Murfy's group with the greenbottle's permission to offer it. Rayman told her that they could discuss whatever she wanted to talk about later. Raymona gave him the ultimatum that they could either have that chance to talk now, or she was going to leave. That's when the fight broke out. A lot of harsh words were exchanged between the two. It ended with Rayman storming off and giving her the silent treatment. This included not picking up any phone calls from her. One of these phone calls that he ignored was Raymona trying to tell him that she was moving, and that if he didn't contact her soon, this may be the last time they would see each other.

When Rayman finally realized he needed to reach out and apologize to her, he discovered that her phone number had been disconnected. He got her some apology flowers and arranged for a ride to her home only to find that it was for sale and empty. It began to set in that Raymona, his only real friend, may be gone for good.

Rayman spent a lot of time, resources, and credits trying to find out what had happened to her. She could not be found. No one could trace her. She had vanished off the face of the planet, leaving Rayman all alone.

This left a scar. One that he hasn't healed from to this day. He thought he had pushed her away. That he was never going to see her again. The fight haunted him, even in his own dreams. Constantly playing that day out and he was powerless to change it. He did his best to cope with everything, but he never got over the regret and the hurt.

Raymona had been missing for at least six whole years before they finally reunited with the help of Bullfrog.

Rayman (going by Ramon during this time) was hesitant in meeting up with Raymona again. He was afraid to face her after everything that happened. With some encouragement from Bullfrog, he finally sought her and Murfy out. He was shocked to see Raymona had forgiven him for everything. Murfy, despite being untrusting of Rayman given how he treated Raymona, allowed him to stay with them at the apartment he was acting as landlord for. Rayman would stay with Raymona until he could get his own apartment situated.

He was always worried about burdening her or overstepping, yet Raymona remained the kind soul that he remembered her as. It was like nothing had changed despite the six years they spent apart from each other. His bond with her grew deeper, and he would begin to show interest in Raymona romantically. She never confirmed nor denied that she shared this interest. Rayman never understood why she did this.

Until it came to light that Raymona had gotten herself trapped working with the slave trader Hoyt Volker. Upon learning over time about everything Hoyt's men would do to Raymona, he feels like he broke his promise to her. The vow they made when they arrived in this Dimension: To look out for each other. He feels like he couldn't protect her, and that was the reason he decided to confront Hoyt like he did: Recklessly.

That fight they had is one of the major factors behind his fear of abandonment. He worries about pushing his loved ones away, and this was a factor in why Rayman reacted so badly to when Lucas tried to run away from home. He thought he had done something to cause his adopted son to want to leave.

He still cannot fathom why Raymona welcomed him back with open "arms" because he knows she deserves someone so much better than him. The fact she chose him means the whole world to him. Rayman intends to make sure she knows how much he cherishes her.

That includes putting everything he's doing on hold when Raymona says she needs to talk to him. He takes her concerns much more seriously now and always makes time when she says she needs to talk to him.

He really does believe Raymona may be his soul mate. Something that his adopted son seems to agree with as well.

#Captain Laserhawk Universe #Rayman Roleplay Related #CLH Rayman x CLH Raymona #Long Post

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yellowstarwater · 1 year

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Alright now let’s get on to P2: E2 of my episode by episode analysis of part two of Inside Job. Again for those who haven’t watched part two yet spoilers.

P2:E2?Whoas-Feratu

First point it is rude that Reagan and Ron’s affair has to affect the rest of the group that is trying to work through their own issues. Yes I understand from a story standpoint the two are from rival companies and can’t get caught but they’re not even quietly making out! And I pointed this out during my first overall analysis of part two but Mothman is right Reagan’s “coping mechanism” can easily become an addiction if she is not careful. To Reagan’s she (and Ron) consider what they are doing as a healthy distraction.🚩🚩🚩 She at least admits that it is a distraction. But the reality of distractions are that they can only work for so long. And once it’s stops working you’re left feeling like you have a lot of things to do in a short amount of time. And some people can get very resentful of their ‘distractions.That is not to say that there will ever be a wrong time for Reagan to try to work on her issues. But it is sad to see her wasting resources that she could be using now. And it’s actually also not fair to Ron who is now probably compromising any progress he had made before hooking up with Reagan (remember that he was going long enough that he had to apologize for bringing a gun to group therapy…again) It is though in character for what we know about Reagan so far so I can’t be completely mad at it.

Next point you have to admit that Rand is making an effort to win Tamiko back. I’m sure that it is very shallow but he is making the effort and I have to point it out even if I still don’t like him. There is still though so much mystery to his marriage that don’t feel ever gets cleared up by the end of part two. But from what we’ve seen his previous marriage wasn’t good. And she admits to having a therapist which means she does go to therapy and part of the reason for that could be because of her previous marriage. So why would he think Tamiko would take him back even if you don’t factor in Keanu Reeves.

Next point Keanu Reeves! Was great he was just so fun I love how they played into the whole why don’t certain celebrities seem to age thing. Also lotus just grow from his pockets what? 🤣He was just fun all around and seemed to really enjoy himself!

From what we do know about Rand and Tamiko’s marriage it does make sense that Reagan wouldn’t have been very supportive of any of her mother’s relationships and for her to be worried about her mother getting hurt. We don’t get to see much about how Tamiko’s marriage to Rand has affected her but I’m guessing that must have happened to make her so resentful and always trying to find ways to get back at him. So Reagan being protective of the only parent she can slightly get along with makes sense. And I guess I can credit Reagan’s new relationship to Ron for allowing herself to be more supportive of her mother’s new relationship. And if Rand was my father I would totally be okay with Keanu Reeves replacing him too!

Okay Rand ordering Reagan to break up her mother’s new relationship is fucked up! Even though it plants the seeds needed to move the plot along the fact that he would make it her job to destroy her mother’s happiness is all kinds of wrong! But it’s good that she stands up to him against that.

The gang just knowing that Reagan is hooking up with someone is a nice touch and shows how close they are even if they don’t know who the person is.

Rand coming up with the idea to make a movie to when over Tamiko was funny though I am surprised that it never occurred to anyone to try to use Brett as a body double for Rand until Andre can work out the formula. But then we wouldn’t have the image of Rand’s man boobs and well the internet deserved that win. But again it doesn’t make sense that Brett would be responsible for tracking down Leo. And that was fun to watch.

Hmm comment about how they might all still be in the matrix that she created when she was eight makes me wonder if that’s going to be the big twist at the end of the series. I think it’s meant to be a joke but I am going to save that info just in case.

I have to point out that this episode is great it showing some of the positive aspects of Reagan’s relationship with her mother. While it was established in part one that her relationship with Tamiko was better then her relationship with Rand it still wasn’t portrayed as a very good one. And I do hope that in season two and beyond we get a chance to see their relationship more because while this was a nice episode for them. Doesn’t mean that Reagan’s relationship with her mother is healthy, it only looks like it is in comparison with her father. Regardless we know that Reagan has a good enough relationship with her mother because of this episode and that’s going to be something important to factor in when we get into the later episodes of part two.

The fact that even Reagan didn’t know that vampires were real and she works for the shadow government is kinda weird. It’s either that there is only a small amount of vampires or that the different companies that run the shadow government have different “company secrets” which means that there could be a group of people or species that Cognito knows about but the others don’t?

I do like seeing that there is a sense of closeness in Reagan and Gigi’s friendship. The fact that Gigi can tell that something is different and Gigi saying that she wants to give Reagan a makeover but later on let’s Reagan give her a makeunder. It’s nice to see that they have a decent relationship.

Brett reforming men with toxic masculinity is just everything! And just shows that Brett couldn’t be problematic even if he wanted to despite having quote “douche instinct” he just wants to be helpful and make new friends. Blaive Brettfordstein was an interesting choice for a fake name and clearly created so that he would look cooler. Brett you are cool and only change in positive ways.

Oh yeah Myc, Glenn and Andre are just helping Rand make a movie this whole episode. That’s all they do, Andre makes a youth serum that makes Rand into a younger buffer man but then backfires and turns him all the way into a literal man child. But Myc takes his role as a writer and director for this movie very seriously and it has funny moments. I mean the fact that he actually cares about continuity is going to be important later on. Also how long is the movie supposed to be if Rand wants thirty more sex scenes?

Okay Gigi knowing that Reagan and Ron are banging just because of a small look on Ron’s face shows that she is very observant and smart. And not a lot of credit is given to Gigi for how smart she actually is just because she’s not a super genius like Reagan. Also it makes sense that Gigi would be the character to not judge Reagan for having a relationship with someone from a rival company considering that we know that Gigi has tried to work for that company herself in the past.

Leonardo DiCaprio being the most bloodthirsty vampire is just the writers leaning head first into the memes. 🤣 And it works really well.

Again Reagan trying to find a way to break up her mother’s relationship with Keanu Reeves is nice when you consider that she really is trying not to seem unsupportive. Reagan pretending to be Keanu is funny too and when she gets caught you feel for her because she really is only trying to save her mother. The fights scenes between Keanu and Reagan were really cool. That being said I wasn’t surprised that Keanu Reeves actually really did love Tamiko. By all accounts according to what we know Tamiko must be at least late sixties early seventies . And I say this because in real life Keanu Reeves is fifty eight years old and Rand made such a big deal about him being younger. So Rand must be in his sixties or higher. I mean he went to college in the seventies and that was fifty years ago. And I’m pretty sure Tamiko is around the same age as him. Which would make her a bit too old to be used for her blood. Leo thinks that she might be forty but she’s not actually forty and Reagan is canonically thirty.

There were so many vampire puns!

So I guess this means that if we ever see those ageless male celebrities again on this show that means they are clones like Oprah. Also adult Rand in a diaper is something we all can never un see.

That being said the fact that Tamiko runs out on Keanu Reeves not because he’s a vampire but clearly because he’s older then she thought he was. And was going to give up staying young for Tamiko. For me confirmed my headcanon that Tamiko only tries to date younger men. My guess was between the ages of 18-25 but I guess that might be what she prefers but it’s not a deal breaker as long as you are younger. I also think it helped that Keanu was also a major celebrity. I am still upset with her for dropping Keanu Reeves like that but it’s probably because the show wouldn’t be able to add him on an even semi regular basis.

Well now that I’ve rewatched this episode I can finally start working on updating my Breagan story. If anyone is waiting for “Probably not a good idea but we were drunk?” Just know that I am trying and hopefully it will be updated within the next two weeks!

#inside job #reagan ridley #brett hand #breagan #rand ridley #tamiko ridley #gigi thompson #andre lee #glenn dolphman #magic myc

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landwriter · 11 months

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4 and 11 for Oaths, for the ask thingy?

Thank you Sari!!

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue? As somebody who lives and dies by dialogue and loves it the most of maybe any part of writing fiction, this is so hard for me haha. One bit I think is neato, though, considering Hob's initial Philosophy To Cope With Life being that '[t]he trick of it had been accepting that some things existed only in stories. It was stories that had gone and made promises to him which life could not keep.' is when he's later trying to make his case for aiding Dream and being dismissed over and over:

Hob shook his head. “No. No, you called me your lord,” he said, lost somewhere between fury and despair. “It was only another story, Hob.” Dream’s eyes were shining with tears. “You called me your man, and you know I am not.” “Can it not be true? Can you not tell me how to make this story true?” “No,” said Dream.

11: What do you like best about this fic? Having the excuse to just go on and on about scenery tbh. It's been such good practice! Also have loved getting to indulge in writing these really emotionally fraught and oft-unhinged conversations that stem from Dream and Hob both stubbornly trying to protect the other. And the ballad and meter. And researching 16th century apple varieties

I will probably miss the most dicking around with A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue; it's been a phenomenal resource and I've selfishly had SO much fun finding out what words existed in Scots prior to 1700. (You'd be surprised!) I'm a fucking loser so I get such a thrill out of finding words that are intelligible to English-speaking readers but also happened to have their first recorded usages when this fic was set.

(behind-the-scenes fic asks)

#asks #behind-the-scenes fic asks #oaths

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mystxmomo · 2 years

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But what's their deal. Your oc's in the ship.

Hm.... I don't even know where to start when asked about my characters.

Okay. So let me start by explaining their individual personhood and going from there?

Laelia is a demi-god child of a deity in a pantheon made for the world she inhabits. She's nature themed. Associates with crows. I still haven't decided how her powers function, but she's got a few.

Floant is a kitsune with more survivors guilt then they have time, and strength then they have bravery. They're kinda a looser. We love them for it.

Ida starts as a human priestess working under the direct influence of Laelia's father, but she evolves into.... Mmm something else entirely.

Laelia and Floants stories are meant to foil one another in terms of how they grew up. Laelia grew up in a house of nobility, but a strict schedule and brutal training made her life miserable. Most of her time growing up was spent in lessons, or training fighting ect. Had high and unreasonable standards that she had to meet, was punished cruelly when she didn't meet them. You know the type.

A large part of laelias character is choosing kindness after having lived a lifetime of cruelty. She's not a very naturally kind person. She was raised and groomed to be desensitized to violence, her speaking style and actions are directly inspired by fuckin heathers, and she can be pretty disconnect and patronizing. But she's also not a naturally cruel person. She's altruistic by nature, wanting to do good but raised in an environment that made it clear doing good was through harm. And I think a large part of her story is uh... Learning kindness through others, especially those found in strangers. And also heroism through small actions rather than big memorable ones. Her biggest most notable action is ending the world (don't worry this happens like three times in this universe she's not special) but what she's remembered and loved for is the fact she spent most of her life like. Helping people with farm work. Taking care of wild boars terrorizing small settlements. Watching people's kids or some shit. She likes to cook for people. It's the first thing she offers to do when meeting floant.

Admittedly, a lot of how I handle Laelia's character these days is in large part due to how much I hate how this type of character is generally handled in like, marvel movies and other media? You know the character type. Raised to be a ruthless emotionless assassin by a father figure that out more worth on what they could do rather than who they were as a person. I generally find the character type to be boring, because they're always... So stoic and humorless and dry, and the relationship they hold with their family is always very black and white.

So Laelia. Someone raised in cruelty but finds peace through kindness.

Floant, on the other hand, grew up dirt poor, in a rural and dangerous part of their world, with a prostitute for a mother and people constantly threatening his life. Despite this, they have a good relationship with their family.

This, Notedly, is not a statement on how it's better to be poor, like how I think a lot of media that handles these contradictions tends to handle the matter. There's this idolization in being poor when you're well off and trying to tell a story about the contrasting lives of nobility and the poor, but a lot of floants issues and direct trauma comes from a lived reality of poverty. Their strongest abilities come in early, and they doesn't have access to the resources that could help maintain and temper them. A lot of their siblings die due to preventable illness, or the cruelty of others. Because their mom was busy working, they were often the one raising their siblings, being the oldest, and feel a large amount of guilt over their death.

Ida and Floants stories reflect eachother in their survivors guilt and figuring out how to cope with loss. Both are characters dealing with an immeasurable amount of grief due to lost of family, and how they handle that quietly contrasts, yet mirrors, one another. Floant runs from their remaining family and begins travelling, takes new identities and doesn't stay in one place long. They refuse to grow their powers and get themself into trouble. Ida, on the other hand, purses herself into her religion and studies. She forces herself to grow, doesn't leave her library, pushes aside her grief until it consumes her.

Like a large part of these two is their relationship to grief. So there's that.

Ida and Laelias stories contrast eachother in terms of their relationship to her father, and in turn, Ida's religion.

I think there's this temptation when writing for familial abuse and the outreach of it to have characters immediately agree and sympathize with an abuse victims pain. However, the lived reality of it is often that people aren't always going to believe you. They're going to push for you to try and talk to your family. This is especially true when the abuser is a pleasant person that does good things, because there's also this temptation when writing abusers to make them horrible people that treat others horribly.

And that's ... Sort of Ida's role, for a while. She's someone who found a lot of support and love in Laelia's father (and, you know, his religion), after her own families death. She struggles to see how returning her to that environment could be bad, let alone how he's a bad or cruel person. There's probably also a statement here on how religion in itself can be either incredibly healing or incredibly damaging to someone, and how a system someone can thrive in can also be a system another person suffers through.

But Ida also isn't a bad person, either. Shes the most outwardly and sincerely polite, albeit disconnect, of the three of them. She's an incredibly kind person that wholeheartedly and sincerely believes the best in everyone, and believes anyone can change for the better. This view does color how she sees and interacts with others.

... at least, that's all the plan I have for them, currently speaking. We'll see what happens when I get to writing

#ida innes #laelia #floant #also ida does an on screen transition and while i think that would be fun to talk about i dont want my characters or story to #be known for any degree of representation #so ill talk about it... somewhere else #not unlike my fanfiction my original writing is a needlessly complex web of #exploring trauma and abuse #shrugs

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unearthlydream · 2 months

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im sad and can't focus on work so instead time to scream into the fucking void so it at least looks like i'm trying to write this story thats due at the end of the day.

i keep finding myself thinking "i wish things were normal" and wishing i could go back to pre-Oct 31 and how things were before all of these things happened. but i don't think there is a noraml to get back to and i think that this is just what my life is now. and idk how to cope with that tbh lol ijust wanna jump off a building

i want to be able to see my friends and talk to people and work on craft projects but instead all i do is sit at home in silence after work dissociating into a game or a tv show because i don't have the energy. i can't lie and mask my way through life anymore and i feel uncomfortable w the fact that i can't have a conversation with anyone without them inevitably asking how i am or what i've been up to. how can i even engage with people when i have nothing positive to share and most of the convos just end up with "i'm so sorry, let me know if you need anything"??

my mom has been on and off dying (thankfully off for good now i think? long recovery process) since december. i've cared for my grandpa from oct 31-dec only for him to now be on palliative care. my family is being so normal and cool about it and i'm the youngest one and being forced to deal with all of their issues because my aunt and uncle can't be not self centered for once in their lives-- and obv my mom is dying and my grandma is grieving and helping w my mom so like who else is gonna take care of things and manage people's emotions and be a shoulder to cry on?

so i'm actually doing horribly and don't have the capacity to make up lies anymore. and what have i been up to? spending tons of time in hospitals and then getting various illnesses because people can't seem to mask up in a fucking hospital of all places!!! i don't have the energy to lie anymore bc i'm funneling everything i have into just waking up in the morning and doing thebare minimum to make sure i do'nt die and my household is clean enough that it's not a danger to my cat.

and even when my friends and partnersask like 'how can i support you' -- idfk put a bullet in my brain??? like no one can do anything to help me. i'm alone andhave always been alone and will always be alone and forced to be the mommy in every situation and i'm so tired. i just don't want tot hink. but then when i say 'it stresses me out that you're waiting on me to make the plans for groceries or doing laundry and i just need you to get it done,' i hurt peoples feelings and i'm being too rough.

i'm just so tired. i'm so fucking tired and i wish my brain didn't go from zero to "just kill yourself" so quickly. i wish i knew what i needed and how tomake it better. i feel like my stupid ass needs to be committed. i'm worried about self harming again as i already relapsed late last year amidst all of this. i'm worried one day i'll be so lcose to the end of my rope that i'll act on one of my impulsive thoughts and make things worse for myself.

i don't wanna worry anymore but i think that's just what's in the cards for me. which is like... doubly scary bc of the genetic lottery i've already won (mom had a stroke in her 40s and now is dealing with all of this which like.... most of it is caused by stress and not taking care of herslef and i'm falling down that same rabbit hole without my consent which is so cool and funky fresh).

and the worst part... i don't even think things would be easier if i died. the guilt of knowing what i'm leaving behind won't even let it in the realm of possibility.

this is so long. i might delete this later. but like holy fuck. a bitch needs a fuckin break. a bitch needs a resource officer or somethnig like hold fuck.

#personal

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drpurnimatiwari · 4 months

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The Emotional Rollercoaster of IVF: Coping Strategies and Support

IVF is a complex process that can be emotionally draining for couples. It involves multiple steps, from hormone injections to monitoring and egg retrieval, all of which can create an emotional rollercoaster ride. This article will discuss the emotional rollercoaster of IVF and provide some strategies for coping with it as well as support options available in Bhopal.

IVF is a long journey with many highs and lows along the way. The initial excitement at starting treatment may quickly turn into anxiety when trying to conceive does not happen right away or after several failed attempts at implantation have taken their toll on your emotions. You may also feel overwhelmed by all the decisions you need to make throughout the process, such as choosing an IVF centre in Bhopal or deciding how far you are willing to go financially for treatment costs, leading up to further stress levels.

It is important during this time that couples find ways of managing their emotions so they don’t become too overwhelmed by them before reaching success with IVF treatments. One strategy could be talking openly about feelings both good and bad – this helps alleviate any negative thoughts or worries while allowing partners more understanding towards each other's experiences during this difficult time.

Additionally, setting realistic expectations around outcomes from every step within your fertility journey ensures no one feels disappointed if things do not work out exactly how planned initially. Other helpful activities include taking part in relaxation techniques such as yoga, meditation, breathing exercises, etc., which help reduce stress levels while providing comfort through physical activity - these should always be practiced under professional guidance if possible though!

Also Read: Best Female Gynaecologist in Bhopal

Finally, seeking out support systems either online forums/groups where people share similar stories & advice; friends who understand what it means going through infertility treatments; counseling services offered by local hospitals like Apollo Sage; attending seminars related specifically to infertility issues - all these sources allow individuals facing similar struggles to come together & offer mutual encouragement!

All in all, navigating through an IVF cycle requires immense courage, but having access to resources mentioned above makes it easier to manage any tough times encountered along the way!

#IVF centre in Bhopal

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understandingfertility · 6 months

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The Emotional Rollercoaster of IVF: Coping Strategies and Resources

Emotions Galore: Navigating the IVF Rollercoaster with Best IVF Center in Indore

Hey there, brave explorers of emotions! Today, we’re taking a thrilling ride on the emotional rollercoaster of IVF. It’s like a journey filled with ups and downs, and we’ll discover how the Best IVF Center in Indore is your trusty guide through this exciting adventure. So, grab your emotional seatbelts, and let’s dive into this world of feelings!

What’s IVF, Anyway?

First things first, let’s talk about IVF. It’s like a baby-making superhero move for mommies and daddies who need a little help. IVF stands for In Vitro Fertilization, but we’ll just call it IVF because it’s a big word. It’s like a magical recipe for making a baby in a special lab, and then putting it in the mommy’s tummy.

The Emotional Rollercoaster

Now, let’s talk about the IVF rollercoaster. When mommies and daddies want to have a baby with the help of IVF, it’s not always smooth sailing. It can be a bit like a rollercoaster ride at a theme park. Here are some emotions they might feel:

Excitement: At the start, mommies and daddies are excited about the idea of having a baby. It’s like planning the coolest adventure ever!

Worries: As the journey begins, worries might show up. Mommy and daddy might worry about if IVF will work or if everything will be okay.

Hope: Hope is like a shining light during the journey. Mommy and daddy hope that IVF will bring them their little bundle of joy.

Patience: IVF can take time, and patience is like a superhero power that helps mommies and daddies wait for the magic to happen.

Frustration: Sometimes, things don’t go as planned, and frustration might visit. It’s like trying to solve a tricky puzzle.

Happiness: When IVF works and a baby is on the way, happiness fills everyone’s hearts. It’s like fireworks in the sky!

Coping Strategies

Dealing with all these emotions on the IVF rollercoaster can be challenging, but there are ways to make the journey a little smoother:

1. Talk About Feelings: Mommy and daddy can talk to each other and to friends and family about how they feel. Sharing feelings is like a superpower that makes them feel better.

2. Support Groups: Joining groups where other families are on the same IVF adventure can be like finding a big group of friends who understand. They share stories and help each other.

3. Mindfulness: Mommy and daddy can learn mindfulness, which is like a superhero skill for staying calm and focused. It helps them handle the rollercoaster twists and turns.

4. Relaxation Techniques: Breathing exercises and relaxing activities like reading or drawing can be like taking a deep breath on the rollercoaster to calm down.

5. Stay Positive: Keeping a positive attitude and believing that everything will be okay is like having a secret weapon against worries and fears.

Resources at the Best IVF Center in Indore

The Best IVF Center in Indore is like your expert navigator on the IVF rollercoaster. They have special tools and superpowers to make the journey smoother:

1. Emotional Support: The doctors and staff at the Best IVF Center in Indore understand the ups and downs of the IVF rollercoaster. They’re like your friends who know just what to say.

2. Expert Guidance: They provide expert guidance and answers to all your questions. It’s like having a superhero mentor by your side.

3. Personalized Care: Every family is unique, and the Best IVF Center in Indore creates special plans that are just right for each family. It’s like having a tailor-made rollercoaster ride.

4. Fertility Counseling: They offer counseling services to help mommies and daddies deal with their emotions and find strategies to stay strong.

5. Success Stories: They can share stories of other families who have gone through the same journey and found their happy endings. It’s like getting a sneak peek of the amazing rollercoaster ride.

In Conclusion

So, there you have it, brave explorers of emotions! The IVF rollercoaster is a journey filled with feelings, and it’s okay to feel all of them. With the Best IVF Center in Indore as your guide, you can handle the twists and turns and make your way to a joyful destination.

Remember, you’re not alone on this rollercoaster ride. There are people who care about you, support groups to join, and experts who know how to make the journey smoother.

Now, go out there, embrace your emotions, and remember that with the Best IVF Center in Indore as your guide, the IVF rollercoaster can lead to the most amazing adventure of all — a happy, healthy family!

#best ivf centre in indore #ivf hospital #ivf treatment #ivfjourney #ivf center in india #top ivf centre in indore

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pornaddictionsymptoms · 1 year

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The Signs You Might Be Addicted To Pornography

Are you struggling to control your use of pornography? You may be addicted. Here are some Porn Addiction Symptoms that you might be addicted to pornography, and how it can impact your life. If you think you may be addicted, reach out for help. Recovery is possible.

You feel like you need to watch pornography in order to get aroused or to orgasm. Many people feel like they need to watch pornography in order to get aroused or to orgasm. This can be a difficult thing to talk about because it can feel like you are admitting to something that is bad or wrong. It is important to remember that everyone is different and there is no right or wrong way to be sexual. Some people might not feel like they need to watch pornography in order to get aroused or to orgasm and that is okay too. If you do find that you need to watch pornography in order to get aroused or to orgasm, there are a few things that you can do.

First, it is important to make sure that you are watching pornography that is consensual and that all parties involved are enjoying themselves. Make sure that you are not watching anything that makes you feel uncomfortable or that feels like it could be non-consensual. If you are unsure about whether or not something is consensual, it is probably best not to watch it. Second, try thinking about other things that turn you on outside of pornography. This could be anything from thinking about a past sexual experience to reading erotic stories. Fantasizing about things that turn you on can help increase your arousal and make it easier for you to orgasm. Lastly, if you find yourself needing to rely on pornography more and more in order to get aroused or to orgasm, it might be a good idea to talk to a therapist or sex educator who can help you explore why this might be and how you can change it if you want to.

If you feel like you can't control how much pornography you watch, you're not alone. Many people struggle with this issue, and it can be hard to break the cycle. However, there are some things you can do to start making progress. First, it's important to understand that addiction is a complex issue, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Second, try to be honest with yourself about your relationship with pornography. Are you using it as a way to cope with anxiety or stress? Are you using it more often than you'd like? Once you have a better understanding of your relationship with pornography, you can start to develop a plan to change it. There are many resources available to help you do this, so don't hesitate to reach out for help.

The thought of not watching pornography makes you feel anxious or depressed. Many people who view pornography regularly may feel anxious or depressed at the thought of not being able to watch it. This is because they have become used to using pornography as a crutch to cope with their negative emotions. However, it is important to remember that pornography is not a healthy coping mechanism and it will not make your problems go away. In fact, it can actually make your problems worse by causing you to feel more isolated and contributing to feelings of low self-worth. If you are struggling to give up pornography, it may be helpful to talk to a therapist who can help you understand your motivations for viewing pornography and develop healthy coping mechanisms.

Watching pornography becomes more important to you than your relationships with other people. It's common for people to watch pornography from time to time without it having a major impact on their lives. However, for some people, pornography can become much more than a casual pastime. For some, it can become all-consuming, to the point where it starts to damage their relationships with other people. When this happens, it's important to seek help. Watching pornography can be a way of coping with low self-esteem or anxiety. It can be used as a numbing mechanism to avoid dealing with difficult emotions or situations. It can even become a form of self-harm. If you find that you're Priority is watching pornography over your relationships with other people, it's important to seek help from a therapist or counselor who can help you explore the root causes of your behavior and learn new coping skills. Ignoring the problem will only make it worse.

You're unable to stop watching pornography even though it's causing problems in your life. It's understandable that you're feeling overwhelmed and helpless right now. Pornography can be addicting, and it's common for people to struggle to break free from its grip even when they're facing serious consequences. The first step is to understand why you're turning to pornography despite the negative effects it's having on your life. It may be that you're using it as a way to cope with anxiety or stress, or because it's become a habit that's difficult to break. Once you identify the underlying reasons for your addiction, you can start to develop a plan for overcoming it. This may involve seeking out therapy or counseling, attending support groups, or making lifestyle changes such as setting limits on your screen time. It won't be easy, but with commitment and effort, you can break free from the cycle of addiction and build a healthier, happier life.

Remember, if you’re concerned that you might be addicted to pornography, there’s no shame in seeking help from a professional. An addiction to porn can wreak havoc on your life, but with the right support, you can get control of it and start living a healthier, happier life. Do you think you might be addicted to pornography? What steps will you take to address it?

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c-is-for-circinate · 3 years

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Wait, isn't "anti" stuff more like "anti-pedophilia" and stuff? Like, you have a point about anti-porn attitudes, but from what I've heard just "anti" on its own means against stuff like kid porn and incest porn and legitimately f*cked up sh*t like that.

Okay! So this, I think, is actually a great example of what I was talking about, and a really useful thing to understand. (CW rape, child abuse, etc)

Smarter people than me have written much better essays about why policing thoughtcrimes is a bad road to go down, and I will probably reblog some of them next time they cross my dash for more context. What I want to talk about is the trigger mechanism, the ‘oh, this looks like danger!!!’ immune response in how we look at different kinds of porn, and how that applies to anti culture.

Here’s the thing: I am anti-pedophilia. I think that, for most people, that’s a stance that largely goes without saying! Adults who prey on children are bad. I’m also against incest; relatives who prey on their family members are bad. Above all I oppose rape. Sexual predation of any kind is bad. In fact, I’d say that’s the most important item on the list. There is plenty of room to argue about where the lines are between ‘adult’ and ‘child’ and how teenagers fit in the middle, and there’s plenty of room to get historical about the lines between ethically terrible incest, distasteful-but-bearable “aristocratic inbreeding” between distant cousins, and the kind of consanguinity that tends to develop in a small town where everyone’s vaguely related to everyone else by now anyway. The core of the issue is consent, and it has always been consent. Pedophilia and incest are horrific because they are rape scenarios where the abuser has far more power and their victim far fewer resources to cope, both practically and emotionally; because harm to children is, to us as a culture, worse than harm to adults, for a lot of very valid reasons; and because they constitute betrayal of trust the victim should have been able to put in their abuser as well as rape--but they are all rape scenarios, and that’s why they’re awful.

These things are bad. It is good for us to have a social immune response system that recognizes these things when they’re happening and insists we step in. That is a good thing to develop! It helps us, as a society. It can help the people being victimized. It’s the same reason educators and childcare workers in the US are all mandated reporters, why we do background checks on people working near kids. These things happen, and they’re terrible, and it’s good that we try to be aware and prepared for them. (Though obviously studies show we’re a lot less good at protecting the vulnerable than we’d like to pretend we are.)

The question is: why does that same social immune response trigger, and trigger so angrily, in response to fiction?

Anti culture is fundamentally an expression of that social immune response. Specifically, it’s that social immune response when it is set off by a situation that, while it has some similarities to the very bad real-life crime of sexual predation including pedophilia and incest, is in and of itself harmless.

If you’re instinct is to flare up in anger or dismissiveness because I’m calling these things harmless, I want to ask you to just take a deep breath and bear with me for a bit longer. What you’re feeling right now is an allergic reaction.

Humans tell and read and listen to stories about “legitimately fucked up shit” all the time. It’s part of the human condition. It’s part of how we process those things happening, not just to use, but to other people in the world around us. It’s part of how we process completely unrelated fucked-up shit, playing with fears and furies and insecurities that we all have, through so may layers of fiction that we don’t even recognize them any more, playing with power dynamics in metaphor and making characters suffer for fun. Aside from the fact that literally all stories do this to some extent or another; aside from the fact that drawing lines between ‘ok that’s good storytelling’ and ‘that’s too fucked-up to write about’ is arbitrary, subjective, and dangerous in its own right; aside from all of that, these stories are stories. All of them.

Even the ones about rape, about incest, about pedophilia. They’re words on a page. No real children were harmed, touched, or even glanced at in the making of this work of fiction. This story, pornographic though it may be, is part of a conversation between consenting adults. (And if a teenager lies about their age to consent, that is a different problem altogether.)

Stories in and of themselves, no matter what they’re about, are no more dangerous than a crate full of oranges. Which is to say: utterly harmless, unless all you have to eat is oranges, all day every day, and you find yourself dying slowly of nutrient deficiency--which is why representation matters. Or unless someone wields one deliberately, violently, as a tool to cause harm, and someone gets acid in their eye--which is the fault of the person holding the orange. And unless you happen to be allergic to citrus.

The key here is this twofold understanding: First, the thing that hurts you can also have value to others. Real, legitimate value. Whether you’ve undergone trauma and certain story elements are straight-up PTSD triggers or you just don’t like orange juice, that story, those tropes, that crate of oranges may be somewhere between icky and fundamentally abhorrent--but we understand that that is still your reaction. Even if you don’t understand how anybody could ever enjoy it; even if every single person you surround yourself with is as sensitive and disgusted and itchy about this thing that makes your eyes hurt and your throat stop working as you; that doesn’t make it true for everyone. That doesn’t make oranges poisonous. No real children were involved in the writing of this story. It is words on a page.

But, secondly: the thing that has value to others can also hurt you. Just because a story isn’t inherently poison doesn’t mean it can’t cause you, personally, pain. That’s what a PTSD trigger is: an allergic reaction, psychological anaphylaxis, a brain that’s trying so hard to protect its own from a threat that isn’t actually present (but was once, and the brain is trained to respond) that it causes far more harm and misery than the trigger itself possibly could. And no, it’s not just people with PTSD who sometimes get hurt by stories. There are many, many ways a story can poke the part of your brain that says, this is Bad, I don’t like this, I don’t want to be here. The story is still, always, every time, pixels on a screen and ink on paper. The story causes no physical harm. But it can poke your brain into misery, it can stir up your emotions, it can make you want to cringe and run away. It can make you want to scream and fight and go after the author who brought this thing into existence. It can make you hurt.

This is an allergic reaction. This is your brain and body, your reflexes and instincts, trying to protect you from something that isn’t really happening. And just like a literal allergic reaction, it can do actual harm to you if it gets set off. This is real. The fact that stories can upset you to the point of pain and mental/emotional injury is real, even though it’s coming from your own brain and not the story itself. There are stories you shouldn’t read. There are stories I shouldn’t read, regret reading, will never read, because they hurt me. That doesn’t mean they’re the same stories that would hurt you. That doesn’t mean they don’t have value.

And, finally:

If getting upset about stories is fundamentally an individual person’s allergic reaction, their brain freaking out and firing off painful survival instincts in the face of a thing that isn’t, in and of itself, a threat? Then the anti movement is a cultural allergic reaction.

Fandom as a whole has a pretty active immune system, which doesn’t mean we have a good immune system. We try very hard to be aware of all the viruses and -isms and abuse and manipulation and cruelty, both systematic and individual, that exists around and within our community. We’re primed and ready to shout about things at all times. The anti movement is that system, that culture, screaming and shouting and fighting at a harmless thing on a grand scale. It wants to stop that thing, that scary awful thing that trips all of its well-primed danger sensors, at all costs. It’ll swell up and block off our airways (our archives) if it has to. It’ll turn on the body it came from. It’s scared and protective and trying to fight, and it’s ready to fight and destroy itself.

Luckily, fans and fanfic and fandom and fan culture are a lot bigger and older than they often get credit for, and it’s not like these cultural allergies are anything new. We could talk about shippers and slashers in the X-Files fandom in the 90s. We could talk about the birth of fandom in the days of Star Trek. We could talk about censorship and book burning going back centuries. We survived that and we’ll survive this, too.

But god, does the anti movement my throat and eyes itch. Man is it irritating, and sometimes a little suffocating, to realize how many stories just aren’t getting told out of fear of what the antis will say. And that’s the real danger, I think. What are we losing that would have so much value to someone? What are we missing out?

#fandom #anti culture #anti-anti #I guess?#asked and answered #you are not WRONG or BAD or BROKEN if a story hurt you #but neither is the story #Anonymous #anti discourse day

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fortunatelyfresco · 3 years

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A Holistic Integration of Type 1 Narcolepsy into the Reading of Moist von Lipwig

Literary Interpretation, Disability, and Finding Yourself Between the Lines

As it goes, "I wrote this for me, but you can read it if you want." It might be a fun ride for anyone who is very interested in Moist von Lipwig, or narcolepsy, or both, and/or anyone who enjoys collecting small details from within a body of work and arranging them into threads that are supportable by the text, without being actually suggested by it.

Personally, I find it very interesting to read the meta behind different headcanons, and see how creators can unintentionally write a character who fits certain criteria. There are only so many traits, after all, and some of them tend to travel in groups! Humans are pattern seekers, etc etc.

The first step of reading Moist von Lipwig as narcoleptic is wanting to read Moist von Lipwig as narcoleptic. Being narcoleptic myself and relating heavily to Moist, this step was very easy. I invite you to take my hand and come along, at least briefly, if you were interested enough to click the readmore.

Once you have taken that step, things start falling into place. At least they do if you're intimately familiar with narcolepsy, or if you first learn about it in detail through, for instance, a Tumblr post with an agenda :)

I'll break this down symptom by symptom, citing only the ones I both have personal experience with and see textual support for.

I'll be using OverDrive's search function to catalogue "evidence" in (the American editions of) Going Postal, Making Money, and Raising Steam, so I might miss passages that don't use certain keywords.

Please take any statements along the lines of "being narcoleptic means X" with a huge grain of salt. Sometimes it's just more succinct. Narcolepsy can manifest in many different ways, and is still being actively studied. Don't base your entire understanding of it on a fandom essay I wrote to cope with the crushing pressures of capitalism. I have not even fully read the scientific studies linked here as sources.

Here we go! Spoilers abound.

I. Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (EDS) and sleep attacks.

Being narcoleptic means (salt now, please) that your brain does not get adequate rest while you sleep, no matter how much you sleep. This is because of a disturbance in the order and length of REM and NREM sleep phases. This leads to constant exhaustion. Some sources describe narcoleptic EDS as "comparable to [the sleepiness] experienced by a healthy individual who has been sleep-deprived continuously for 48–72 hours."

(Source.)

Sleep attacks can come on gradually or suddenly. In my case, I become irritable and easily overwhelmed, and nothing matters except finding a place to lie down. A more severe attack, under the right circumstances, can put me to sleep while I'm actively trying to stay awake and engaged.

Moist refers to 6:45 am as "still nighttime." He is "allergic to the concept of two seven o'clocks in one day" and is "not good at early mornings," and the narration even cites this as "one of the advantages of a life of crime; you didn't have to get up until other people had got the streets aired."

In Going Postal, he repeatedly falls asleep at his desk. I can only find two instances, but the first one describes it as having happened "again," so it happens at least three times over the course of one week. Both of the times I found were after Mr. Pump cleared his apartment, giving him access to a bed, and I can't find any reference to the fire destroying it—just that his office is "missing the whole of one wall." His presumably wooden desk is still intact, even, just "charred."

There's also no build-up either time. No direct narration of the time right before he falls asleep, just retroactive accounting for it.

Which is primarily a function of stories not showing us every boring second, and secondarily one of the smaller ways we're shown Moist being overwhelmed and racing to keep up with himself, but tertiarily it's a great set dressing if you've already decided he's narcoleptic. Sometimes sleep is just a thing that happens, without any deliberate transition. Sometimes you sit down to catch your breath or get some paperwork done, and wake up several hours later.

I've found only one example in GP of Moist waking up in his actual bed at the post office: the morning after being possessed by all the undelivered letters. Presumably either they put him there, or Mr. Pump did.

There are two points in Making Money where Moist, in an effort to be a comforting and/or guiding hand, advises people to get some sleep. First Owlswick Jenkins, and then one of the clerks (Robert) who is worried about Mr. Bent.

I take the optimistic view that this is Moist genuinely caring about these people, not just trying to get them to do what he wants. He has always done some combination of those things (GP opens with him having befriended his jailers, after all), but there's definitely a thread of him learning to treat both himself and those around him more like real people. (See also.)

Looking at this thread through narcolepsy-colored lenses, you get Moist perhaps drawing from his own experiences in an effort to be helpful. In Owlswick or Robert's position, what is something he would want to hear from the man currently in charge of his fate, or at least his job? "Get some sleep."

If we accept this as a pattern, it culminates in Raising Steam, when Moist starts to worry about "Dick Simnel and his band of overworked engineers," fixating particularly on their lack of sleep.

What sleep they got was in sleeping bags, curled up on carriage seats, eating but not eating well, just driven by their watches and their desire to keep the train going.

[...]

"People are going to die if we push them any further," he said to Dick. "You lot would rather work than sleep!"

[...]

The young man swayed in front of him and Moist's tone became gentle. "And I see now that part of my job is to tell you that you need some rest. You've run out of steam, Dick. Look, we're well on the way to Uberwald now, and while it's daylight and we're out of the mountains it's going to be the least risky time to run with minimum crew. We're all going to need our wits about us when we get near the pass. Surely you can take some rest?"

Simnel blinked as if he'd not seen Moist the first time, and said, "Yes, you're right."

And Moist could hear the slurring in the young man's speech, caught him before he fell and dragged him into a sleeping compartment, put him to bed, and noted that the engineer didn't so much fall asleep as somehow flow into it.

Moist then recruits Vimes to help him talk the rest of the engineers into getting some rest. The two of them briefly commiserate about people not realizing how important it is.

"I have to teach that to young coppers. Treasure a night's rest, I always say. Take a nap whenever you can."

"Very good."

II. Insomnia.

This is a lesser-known but very common symptom of narcolepsy. Or a comorbidity, depending on how you look at it. It seems counterintuitive if narcolepsy has been presented to you as "sleeping all the time," but it makes sense once you know it's really a matter of disruption in the brain's ability to regulate sleep cycles.

The case for this symptom is flimsier, and I fully admit I'm just reading my own experience into it. But here are two excerpts from Going Postal that I find quite suitable for my sleepy agenda:

1. "A man of affairs such as he had to learn to sleep in all kinds of situations, often while mobs were looking for him a wall's thickness away."

I latched hard onto this detail the first time I read GP.

At my worst, I could not get more than a couple hours of sleep in my bed. I kept taking naps in the bath because it was one of the few places I could sleep. It seemed to fulfill some of the criteria (isolation, temperature control, etc) that my brain demanded in exchange for playing nice.

We're told over and over again, throughout Moist's books, that he functions best under pressure.

(Brief aside: This is often cited as a reason to interpret Moist as having ADHD, which I'm also fully on board with. Not coincidentally, narcolepsy and ADHD share a few symptoms, have a notable comorbidity rate, and are treated with some of the same medications. Source.)

So again, if you're already inclined to read Moist as narcoleptic, the following is an easy jump:

"Moist thinks he's good at sleeping in strange places under strange circumstances. This is because A) his basis for comparison is a disordered attempt to sleep in normal places under normal circumstances, B) something about danger satisfies his brain into running more smoothly, and C) he's a resourceful person who is 'not given to introspection,' and so is less likely to wonder why his body demands sleep at strange times and more likely to focus on finding a place for that sleep to happen, and chalk this up later as a skill."

And returning briefly to EDS: Why would someone like Moist waste time finding a safe place to sleep while people are actively trying to kill him? At the beginning of GP, he leaves Vetinari's office and immediately goes on the run. In multiple books, when he feels threatened, his brain instinctively launches into complex escape plans. We see him successfully blend into an Ankh-Morpork crowd at least once after becoming a public figure.

So why bother? After all, a safe place to sleep is also a safe place to change clothes, or at least remove whatever distinguishing features he's given himself. Why wouldn't he just become someone else and leave town immediately?

The obvious answer is that sometimes things just happen, and an author doesn't need to know or explain every single detail of a character's past.

I would suggest, though, that one of those things might be Moist reaching a point where sleep is just not optional. A point where he not only doesn't, but can't, care about anything else. Where he is too tired to think straight, too tired to talk his way out of trouble, too tired to even contemplate the long journey from one town to the next.

2. "Moist knew he ought to get some sleep, but he had to be there, too, alive and sparkling."

Sometimes (especially in combination with underlying mental health issues) narcoleptic sleep deprivation can bypass everything I've described so far, and lead straight into a manic state. You won't necessarily find that on Google, but it's been my experience.

That's obviously not what the text is implying. "Alive and sparkling" is just a very relatable description. And we do often see Moist getting away from himself, speaking without thinking, making absurd promises that he justifies immediately afterwards as Just Part Of Being Him, always raising the stakes.

And here are a couple of excerpts from Raising Steam that could be interpreted as Moist being a light sleeper, AKA struggling to get deep sleep:

1. "And slowly Moist shut down, although a part of him was always listening to the rhythm of the rails, listening in his sleep, like a sailor listening to the sounds of the sea."

2. "All Moist's life he'd managed to find a way of sleeping in just about every circumstance and, besides, the guard's van was somehow the hub of the train; and although he didn't know how he did it, he always managed to sleep with half of one ear open."

Moist is exactly the kind of opportunist to see that as a useful tool, isn't he?

III. Hypnagogic and Hypnopompic Hallucinations.

These are hallucinations that come on as you're falling asleep or waking up. They can also happen during REM intrusions while you're awake. My most memorable ones include piano notes, someone calling my name, being trapped in the waves of a large body of water, and a huge truck going over a guard rail and tumbling down a hill. These are often, but not always, accompanied by sleep paralysis (and sleep paralysis is often, but not always, accompanied by hallucinations).

In GP, Moist casually cites his own hallucinations as proof that what is happening at the post office is not one.

"They're all alive! And angry! They talk! It was not a hallucination! I've had hallucinations and they don't hurt!"

Obviously that's not true for everyone, but it's true for Moist, and he has enough experience that he immediately recognizes the difference.

At one point while awake, Moist "[snaps] out of a dream of chandeliers" to realize someone has approached him to talk, while he was busy having visions of what the post office used to look like/could look like again.

Now, that's cheating, because we're probably supposed to assume it's a side effect of being possessed, but... I'm putting it here anyway.

There is also perhaps a case to be made for the tendency of Moist's internal monologue to lapse into extremely specific and prolonged hypotheticals. The lines between hallucinations, waking dreams, and "regular" daydreams have always been very blurry to me. I'm especially curious about the example at the end of Going Postal, which goes like this:

"Look, I know what I'm like," he said. "I'm not the person everyone thinks I am. I just wanted to prove to myself I'm not like Gilt. More than a hammer, you understand? But I'm still a fraud by trade. I thought you knew that. I can fake sincerity so well that even I can't tell. I mess with people's heads—"

"You're fooling no one but yourself," said Miss Dearheart, and reached for his hand.

Moist shook her off, and ran out of the building, out of the city, and back to his old life, or lives, always moving on, selling glass as diamond, but somehow it just didn't seem to work anymore, the flair wasn't there, the fun had dropped out of it, even the cards didn't seem to work for him, the money ran out, and one winter in some inn that was no more than a slum he turned his face to the wall—

And an angel appeared.

"What just happened?" said Miss Dearheart.

Perhaps you do get two...

"Only a passing thought," said Moist.

In-universe... what is Adora reacting to? What did just happen? The fact that these incidents are not isolated to Going Postal is a point against it being some sort of literal timeline divergence caused by The Spirit Of The Post.

So maybe Moist visibly zoned out. Maybe he had some kind of minor but noticeable cataplexy attack (more on those later) as part of a REM intrusion, brought on by the intense emotions he's currently struggling with.

IV. Vivid Dreams.

Again, at least some of this is probably supposed to be part of the possession, but I've been professionally projecting myself onto the surreal dreams of magically afflicted characters for years. Do try this at home.

1. "Moist dreamed of bottled wizards, all shouting his name. In the best tradition of awaking from a nightmare, the voices gradually became one voice, which turned out to be the voice of Mr. Pump, who was shaking him."

2. Moist is uneasy about the Smoking Gnu's plan, and then he has an extremely detailed dream about the Grand Trunk burning down.

This culminates in "Moist awoke, the Grand Trunk burning in his head," followed by a paragraph of him thinking things through and starting to form his own alternative plan, followed immediately by "Moist awoke. He was at his desk, and someone had put a pillow under his head."

So he fell asleep at his desk, woke up from a vivid nightmare, was awake just long enough for a coherent train of thought, and then passed back out. Which once again is not "proof" of anything, but fits the predetermined interpretation like a glove.

V. Cataplexy.

Cataplexy is a sudden loss of muscle control, usually triggered by strong emotions. This is thought to be a facet of REM intrusion—waking instances of the atonia that is meant to stop us from acting out our dreams.

The most well-known manifestation is laughter making your knees buckle, but it's not always that severe. My own attacks range from facial twitching, usually when I'm angry or otherwise extremely upset, to all-over weakness/immobilization and near-collapse when I laugh. My knees have fully buckled once or twice.

This is the biggest stretch. This is the one that is absolutely only there if you've already decided to read entire novels between the lines. It's also not even necessary for the broader headcanon; plenty of people have narcolepsy without cataplexy (or such mild cataplexy that it's never noticeable, or very delayed onset, etc).

However. I am doing this for fun. So I want him to have it. It's also become a major part of how I imagine Moist engaging with emotion, and I'd like to make a case for that.

There are a few scattered references to Moist's legs shaking, or being unsteady, or outright giving way, but there's usually an external physical reason, and/or enough psychological shock to justify it without a medical condition.

The most compelling example I've found so far comes from Moist and Adora's conversation about people expecting Moist to deliver letters to the gods.

"I never promised to—"

"You promised to when you sold them the stamps!"

Moist almost fell off his chair. She'd wielded the sentence like a fist.

"And it'll give them hope," she added, rather more quietly.

"False hope," said Moist, struggling upright.

"Almost fell off his chair" at first sounds like casual hyperbole, but then "struggling upright" implies it was a bit more literal. It's also an accurate description of me recovering from my more severe attacks, supporting myself on a wall or my spouse, or pushing myself up if I've fallen over in bed.

That happens to me multiple times per day, by the way. It doesn't bother me, and I didn't realize there was anything unusual about it for a long time. I barely think about it, except to fondly note that my spouse is good at making me laugh.

Which is to say, even severe cataplexy is not always noticeable or debilitating. Sometimes it absolutely is! It can be downright dangerous, depending on where you are, what you're doing, and whether you have any other conditions it might exacerbate. I don't want to undermine that.

I am just hell-bent on justifying the idea that this fictional character could have repeated attacks throughout the canonical narrative that are so routine they don't merit an explanation, or even a description. Especially for someone who is used to hiding his few distinguishing features behind false ones that are much more memorable. (See also.)

(That link goes to my own fanfic. Sorry.)

On the milder side, between Going Postal and Making Money, there are three instances of Moist's mouth "dropping open" when he's shocked, upset, confused, or some combination of the three. This is the kind of thing that shows up a lot in fiction, but rarely happens so literally in real life.

(There's technically a fourth instance, but I'm not counting it because it seems to be a deliberate choice on his part to convey surprise.)

And then there's laughter. Or rather, there isn't. I could be missing something, but I've searched all three books for instances of laughter and various synonyms (not counting spoken "Ha!"s), and what I've come up with is:

Moist laughs once in Going Postal, when he receives the assignment for the race to Genua.

Two packages were handed over. Moist undid his, and burst out laughing.

There's also an instance earlier in the book where Moist nearly "burst[s] out laughing."

I find the specifics here interesting, and, for our purposes, fortuitous. Cataplexy is complicated and presents differently for everyone. In my case, when laughter triggers an attack, one of the effects (which is sometimes also a cause) is that I laugh very hard, with little or no control. "Burst out laughing" is quite apt.

Let's move on to Making Money, and start with a quick tangent:

Mr. Bent explains that he has no sense of humor due to a medical condition, and that he isn't upset about this and doesn't understand why people feel sorry for him.

Moist immediately starts in with "Have you tried—" before getting cut off by the frustrated Bent.

Out-of-universe, "Have you tried" is such a well-known refrain to anyone with an incurable condition, I'm not at all surprised to find it in a book written by someone who had at least begun the process that would lead to a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's. And Pratchett has certainly never shied away from portraying ignorance in his protagonists.

In-universe, it feels a little odd. Moist's tongue runs away from him all the time, but usually in the form of making ridiculous claims or impossible promises. Moist's entire stock-in-trade is People Skills, and it feels strange for him to make this kind of mistake immediately after being told Mr. Bent is not looking for solutions.

But if one were reading with, for instance, the idea in mind that Moist himself has an incurable condition related to laughter and is enthusiastic about, but still relatively new to, the practice of drawing on his own experiences to help people... it is easy to imagine the gears in his head turning the wrong way, superimposing those experiences over the tail end of Mr. Bent's explanation. Disabled people are not immune to these well-meaning pitfalls.

There is another Mr. Bent moment that I want to discuss, but we'll circle back around to it later.

I found two instances of Moist himself laughing in MM.

1. "He said it with a laugh, to lighten the mood a little."

This is deliberate laughter, employed as a social tactic. A polite chuckle, probably. Not the sort of thing that generally triggers cataplexy.

2. "Moist started to laugh, and stopped at the sight of her grave expression."

The first and only involuntary laugh in MM. It doesn't always trigger attacks...

Which brings us to Raising Steam. Compared to the first two books, Moist laughs a lot here. I count nine instances. Two of them are "burst out laughing"s, a couple include him as part of a group, some of it comes off as deliberate, and some of it doesn't.

I've always seen a lot of... rage in Raising Steam. Combing through it for laughter, I realized Moist's emotions in general are much closer to the surface here, and he's much less concerned about letting people see them. He laughs with friends and acquaintances, he cries in front of strangers, he shouts at Harry King, he has that entire conversation with Dick that boils down to "I'm very worried about you," etc.

Opinions vary wildly and sharply on Raising Steam. I have my own hangups with it, as I do with most books in the series. (Every time I make a new Discworld post, Tumblr passive-aggressively suggests the tag "my kingdom for a discworld character who is normal about women and other species.")

But I like this particular change in Moist, and I choose to see it as character development. He's trading in the professional detachment of a conman for the ability to grow into himself as a person and make meaningful connections.

So, what does that have to do with cataplexy? A lot.

I don't want to get too maudlin, so I'll just say I have plenty of personal experience with emotional repression masking cataplexy symptoms. And so, I believe, does the version of Moist we've put together over the course of this post.

Which brings us back to Making Money, and Mr. Bent. He says something about Moist that I find very interesting: "I do not trust those who laugh too easily."

Unless I've missed something, at that point in the book, Moist has never actually laughed in front of him. And Mr. Bent is a man who pays very close attention to details.

So, what is the in-universe explanation for this? I'd like to propose that Moist is very skilled at seeming to laugh, without actually laughing. He smiles, he's friendly, and he makes other people laugh, which is another thing Bent dislikes about him. He gives the impression of being someone who laughs a lot. (He certainly left that impression on me; I was very surprised by the lack of examples in the first two books.)

Even staying strictly within the bounds of canon, it's easy to imagine why this might have become part of Moist's camouflage in his previous life. He wasn't looking to get attached to anyone, and he didn't want anyone getting inside his head. Engaging with people genuinely enough to laugh at their jokes would run counter to both of those things, but some of his personas still needed to come off as friendly and sociable.

Still working within the canon, it makes sense to assume he's similarly distanced himself from emotion in general. He sits in a cell for several weeks without truly believing he's going to die. He's bewildered when Mr. Pump points out that his schemes have hurt innocent people. He has no idea what to do with his feelings for Adora. Etc.

Interpreting Moist as having cataplexy adds an extra element of danger. Moist thrives on danger, but there's a difference between the thrill of a con and the threat of sudden, uncontrollable displays of vulnerability. And so it becomes even easier to see him stifling his own emotional capacity.*

We meet Moist at a moment of great upheaval. He is forcibly removed from his cocoon of false identities, and pushed out into the world as himself. And we are shown and told throughout Going Postal that he does not know how to be himself. (See also.)

He is repeatedly stymied by his own emotions. He gets tongue-tied and confused around Adora, he snaps at Mr. Pump, he lashes out at Mr. Groat, he gets lost in school flashbacks when he meets Miss Maccalariat. This thread continues in Making Money, where the sudden reappearance of Cribbins immediately rattles him into making an uncharacteristic mistake.

I called him Cribbins! Just then! I called him Cribbins! Did he tell me his name? Did he notice? He must have noticed!

Later in the same book, Moist misses a crucial opportunity to run damage control on the bank's public image... because he's excited to see Adora.

The Moist of GP and MM is not used to feeling things so deeply. It throws him off his game. I'm not at all suggesting cataplexy is the only (or even primary) reason for that, but I do think there's room for it on both sides of the cause and effect equation.

With or without the cataplexy, I find Moist's relative emotional openness in Raising Steam... really nice. (It's a work in progress. He's still getting a handle on anger.)

Cataplexy just adds another dimension. A physical manifestation of emotional vulnerability, which would have been especially untenable for a teenager on the run. Just one more facet of the real, human, fallible Moist von Lipwig who spent years buried beneath Albert Spangler and all the rest.

Another piece of himself that Moist is growing to understand and accept, as he learns to more comfortably be himself.

The Moist of Going Postal runs into a burning building to save lives without fully understanding why he wants to, and justifies it on the fly as an essential part of the role he's trying to play.

The Moist of Raising Steam mindlessly throws himself under a train to save two children, and then blows up at Harry King about the lack of safety regulations. Freshly traumatized by the murder of several railway workers and his own violent, vengeful response to it, he still offers, in the face of Harry's own grief, to be the one to inform their families. On a long and dangerous journey with plenty of moving parts to think about, he worries about Dick Simnel and the other engineers, and pushes them to take better care of themselves.

He also meets a bunch of kids who nearly derailed a train as part of a childish scheme. His admonishment is startlingly vivid.

"Can you imagine a railway accident? The screaming of the rails and the people inside and the explosion that scythes the countryside around when the boiler bursts? And you, little girl, and your little friends, would have done all that. Killed a trainload of people."

[...]

"I'll square this with the engine driver, but if I was you I'd get my pencil and turn any clever ideas you have like this into a book or two. Those penny dreadfuls are all the rage in the railway bookshops."

Maybe what he is also saying, between the lines, is:

I left home at 14 and began a life of smoke and mirrors. I was empty inside, and I thought everyone else was, too. It was all fun and games, and then a man made of clay told me I was killing people. Nip it in the bud, child. Write books.

------------

*There are studies suggesting that in addition to deliberately employed "tricks," people with cataplexy may experience physiological reactions in the brain meant to inhibit laughter. (Source 1, Source 2.)

Most of the information here is way over my head, but that second link also says "one region of the brain called the zona incerta (meaning 'zone of uncertainty') was only activated during laughter in people with narcolepsy, not in controls. Research on the zona incerta in animals suggests that it also helps to control fear-associated behavior."

The linked article about that (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03581-6) is also over my head, but I would certainly describe Moist von Lipwig as having unusual fear responses.**

**Narcolepsy is a fun roller-coaster ride of constant scientific discoveries about exactly which parts of your brain are paying too much attention, not paying enough attention, or trying to eat each other.

#moist von lipwig #narcolepsy #discworld #disabled headcanons #oh my god this got so out of hand #earned itself a title AND a subtitle #mr. cybulskis i'm sorry i fell asleep in your class every day it was at the exact wrong time and temperature and lighting

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mxrstar · 3 years

Text

here are some unrequested general thoughts i have about empathy/hyper-empathy (as someone who definitely feels it way too much), specifically because i have seen way too many people use empathy as a shield for selfishness and i'm tired of it

your empathy isn’t a sign of worth. it can make you more attentive and careful around others, but i spent the longest time treating it like it was proof that i was a good person and that i cared, and i’m here to tell you that empathy proves nothing. compassion is the bit that matters. having low to no empathy isn’t a flaw and having lots of it isn’t a merit. don’t put yourself above others because of it, and please don’t sit in your pit of despair thinking that you should hold on to that suffering because it means you aren’t evil. it hurts and there’s no reason why you should carry that pain

your empathy isn’t a superpower. i do pay special attention to sign of distress in others, but i honestly don’t think that is connected to my empathy. there are people who act like me but don’t feel emotional empathy, and instead just want to help. if i’m in a restaurant and someone is sobbing two tables over but i’m playing a videogame with headphones on and or i’m generally lost in my thoughts, my empathy isn’t magically gonna warn me about that pain. having empathy doesn’t make you automatically receptive to other people’s needs if you don’t make the effort to raise your head and look for them

your empathy doesn’t make you more understanding by default. it can help your perception of other people’s experiences, sure, but it can also distort it. i generally put it like this: when someone is expressing a strong emotion, what i feel is my own interpretation of its echo. it’s not the real thing because i am only dealing with the resonance it has on me and because i am re-interpreting it with my own tools. the best way to understand someone's pain is to listen to them when they talk about it. when a mirror of that pain develops inside of you it is going to be filtered by your experiences, and sometimes it’s important to not get stuck on that version of it because it may not be accurate

your empathy can stand in the way of your compassion. i know it stands in the way of mine. when i help someone deal with something difficult, depending on how the conversation ends, it can feel taxing for a long while. sometimes, i will be having a really bad day and realising halfway through that it’s mostly because i am feeling the aftermath of someone’s pain. i love helping people, it gives me hope and i want to keep on doing it, but i’d have more energy for it if i didn’t feel quite so much empathy. realising that the pain your empathy makes you feel isn’t necessary to be a compassionate person can honestly feel quite liberating and it’s a good thing to internalise

i know it can be difficult, but when someone is opening up to you, you should try to file away whatever discomfort you may feel for later. it’s not your fault that you feel upset, and you are not making it about yourself because it’s fun or pleasant, but you can deal with all of that with someone who isn’t involved. as you are still in the moment, do your best to keep it to yourself and do not feel guilty if you need to calm yourself down internally as you are listening. especially when i am speaking to someone in person, i try to tell myself things like: “it’s okay, the two of you are currently safe, they are opening up because they find a benefit in doing so, you are helping by being here, this pain isn’t all that there is” and it does help. i still feel guilty for not being able to just listen sometimes, but there’s nothing wrong with trying to cope with your feelings so that you may be there for that person and support them

i find that it can be useful to practice being in a situation where your empathy would get intense. there are two reasons for this: 1) if something horrific happens, you can’t just refuse to deal with it because it may hurt you, sometimes you just have to; 2) having a productive script focused on what you can do to help usually distracts me from my empathy and gives me a positive goal. as an example, sometimes i try enacting what i would do if someone asked me for help in a really desperate situation (stuff like: what kind of resources could i give them? what i could i say? in what way could i say it?). this may not be helpful to everyone, but being able to plan an interaction like that can be useful in general and it also gets me personally accustomed to the idea that emergencies happen

in connection to the last point, there should be no situation that you feel you categorically cannot ever know about because of your empathy. of course you can avoid certain professions (like a therapist or a doctor) and choose not to read specific stories or try not to listen to gruesome details on the news, but i think that part of your plan just cannot be “well, i don’t have to manage how i would react to [x thing], because i know no one who would make me come close to it”. as long as [x thing] is in the realm of human experiences (so not something like: my friend becomes a ghost for the rest of eternity) then in my opinion you should stop looking at it as something avoidable. what if you become friends with someone new who is experiencing that thing and they need your support? what if that thing becomes relevant and you should politically do something to stop it? it is certainly not good to obsessively expose yourself to pain so that you “get used to it” (which is something i know i used to do) and it is important to walk into conversations knowing what they are so you can be prepared and know what about them might cause you discomfort (which is to say: it's reasonable to be upset because someone constantly references their trauma in detail in lighthearted situations) but you need to deal with your limits. of course it can be a process, but it is healthy to try and set tangible goals. you especially should not avoid the news because you are too emphatic. again, you deserve to have options to cope with the potential aftermath and doom-scrolling is rarely productive, but you cannot use your empathy as an excuse to not care about other people

#empathy #hyper-empathy #hyperempathy #sometimes i talk

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