#Unit 731 experiments

[zentarablog]

The Secret Labs of WWII: Innovations in Warfare

World War II was a conflict fought on battlefields, in the skies, and across the oceans. But it was also a war fought in the shadows, in laboratories hidden away from prying eyes, where brilliant minds raced against time to develop technologies that could turn the tide of the conflict. These “secret labs” were hotbeds of innovation, where scientists, engineers, and researchers worked on projects…

[k00320139]

This week I focused on a secondary source. As a kid (and even now) nothing could scare me more than real life experiments which took place not too long ago. I did an ink piece on the Russian sleep experiment and a charcoal one on unit 731. I noticeably changed the Russian sleep figure, and made the room resemble mine. That's because these are my horrors, waking up at night with that thing staring back at me! As for the Japanese unit 731... there's no need to change anything. Its terrifying just the way it is. There are many videos about each I these events which are marked as 'historical ' and therefore only contain warnings about the information. These warnings did not stop me from continuing to watch the videos.

I loved ink, it's dark and dries fast. Looks smooth and flat. I'll definitely use it more. Charcoal however, was less pleasant. The messiness and feeling on the fingers didn't appeal to me at all! I'm happy I tried both though.

[darkdragon768]

Would you question my morality if I told you that I could reference Unit 731 in my story?

[system-admeowstrator]

I would like to mention that the Science Facilities in all these media appear to not be doing any known form of science

lab notes? one shady henchman with a clipboard, if you're lucky

control group? none

controlling experimental variables? nope, we're just going to do an entirely different thing each time

perhaps the reason why these scientists need to be part of a Shady Clandestine Organization is because no reputable funding organization would give them the time of day

I wonder if “we have to torture this special character. in the lab facility. with secret science.” is an interest all 12-year-old children share or were we just the generation exposed to Maximum Ride

[girlblogger360]

Ugh who's ready for more male immigrants from the middle east that will totally not try to rape or molest women and children? The west totally needs more Arab males that deliver Uber eats and think white women are whores.

[kitcat22]

We really don’t focus enough on Echo’s time as a prisoner of war and how earth shatteringly horrific it must have been.

Like i don’t think he would be immediately handed off to the Techno Union so they can cut the secrets out of his head. There was likely a time period spent being tortured/interrogated by the separatists for information before they decided they weren’t getting anything out of him the regular ways and handed him off to the Techno union’s experiments may yield more results. ‘Regular torture’ doesn’t imply it was in anyway easy to resist, by the way. Throughout history prisoners of war have been subjected to immensely disturbing interrogation methods. Physical, psychological,sexual you name it, it’s been done. He would have undergone this treatment by those who consider him less than a droid, so there’s the casual dehumanisation throughout all this.

Seeing as Echo had just been blown up before his capture, he liked would have endured this while already very injured. I headcanon that while he lost one of his limbs in the blast, the other two had to be amputated by the Techno Union because they were so badly infected they were practically rotting off.

His time with the Techo Union is undoubtedly the most awful, traumatising part of this whole ordeal, with forced amputations and unnecessary experimental surgeries. I see a lot of takes where all of this is done in one go but it makes more sense to me that there would be brief recovery periods between operations. Recovery is a strong word when this period would consist of being strapped to a medical bed attached to a whole bunch of machines, knowing what has been done to you and what will be done to you but being utterly helpless in stopping it.

The fact Echo was given prosthetics at all always seemed strange to me but one way I’ve reasoned it is that sometimes scientists do things without reason just to experiment. For reference, Unit 731 (Really suggest not looking this up if this type of thing really triggers you. I’ve only read the wikipedia page and still found it difficult to stomach)

Oh, and either Echo assumes his brothers are coming to rescue him and slowly loses his faith or he assumes at the start that they would believe him dead and is stuck knowing that no one’s coming to save him. Saving himself becomes a harder plan to achieve when he’s suddenly down multiple limbs and is constantly monitored, drugged starved etc.

Honestly the fact he seems at all together when he’s rescued is kind of a miracle because i think i’d have lost my mind multiple times over. I think he probably did straight after he joined the Bad Batch and everything set in.

[call-me-copycat]

PSA To My Hero Academia fans on RedNote/ Xiaohongshu!

I've seen a lot of people going to Xiaohongshu! That's great! However I think this is something you should know (;´∀`)･･ｧﾊﾊﾊ･･

My Hero Academia is the only anime that is a major taboo! As a long term MHA fan it saddens me greatly - but it offends the Chinese people so don't post anything My Hero Academia related!

They're very lenient with foreigners fortunately, but there have been cases of death threats and harassment to a couple MHA posters. It's essentially banned/blacklisted (socially at least)

I've seen people asking, but so far it's an MHA only type thing - no other anime (to my knowledge) has this type of resentment.

It's not an"oh this anime is cringy" type hate. It's a deep seated resentment - because of Dr. Garaki.

So for those that don't know, way back in late 2019/early 2020, there was this whole catastrophe regarding Horikoshi-sensei's naming of him. His original name was "Maruta Shiga". Many saw this as an ode to the WWII experimentation on Chinese citizens by the imperialist Japanese army and unit 731, and seeing that he's a doctor who experiments on people (to make Nomu)... This wasn't taken well

The Chinese saw it as him pretty much spitting on their history, and saw it as a mockery of their patriotism. Therefore, My Hero Academia as a whole is extraordinarily offensive on any Chinese platform in general

However this was entirely a mistake on Horikoshi's side. As we all know, he likes to have fun with his names and names his characters by appearance, power, or behavior. "Maruta" was meant to portray the Doctor's roundness (as Horikoshi said, "he's a short, portly man"), but it was also the Japanese word for "log" - which many saw as a reference to Unit 731 (many many trigger warnings for those who look into that. It's horrific). "Shiga" was chosen simply because it was similar to Shigaraki's name. It was an unfortunate combination.

Horikoshi didn't intend for it to be such an insensitive reference and immediately changed the doctor's name to Garaki within a week on all digital copies. He's apologized as well, but still to this day My Hero is a big taboo (⁠｡⁠•́⁠︿⁠•̀⁠｡⁠)

I'm very sorry to my My Hero Academia friends! But I ask of you to keep it invisible on Chinese platforms like Xiaohongshu - just save it for other places like here, okay?

[liketolaugh-writes]

Since you said psychology is super important for writing characters correctly, what are some good beginner sources to understanding psychology? If it helps, I’ll probably be writing Danny Phantom or Zelda(botw) fics that are in the realm of angst or hurt/comfort.

Okay! So the first thing to understand is that the most useful psychology resources for writing are not usually going to be scientific. While it's good to have that raw information, especially when directly portraying a mental disorder, for the most part what you want is other media with a good grasp of psychology.

The second thing is... that most of my knowledge comes from years of hyperfixation on psychology and several psychology-heavy topics. Sorry. 😅 Horror, history, and true crime are all laden with psychology if you look in the right places. Therefore, most of what I link below are going to be, essentially, 'case studies' of human behavior rather than summaries of it.

I've attempted to categorize them by applicability and labeled some with trigger warnings. However, most of them are going to be fairly upsetting, since they are specifically explorations of how humans behave under extreme stress.

Don't feel obligated to get into all of these, especially not all at once. I've italicized the ones I consider most relevant.

Social Dynamics

The Stanford Prison Experiment - An experiment in social roles and authority. Garbage experiment, fascinating case study.

The BBC Prison Experiment - A counterpoint to the Stanford Prison Experiment

Milgram Shock Experiment - The influence of authority on moral conduct

LPN: Mike Warnke Parts 1 and 2 - Watch one man's bullshit ruin a generation.

PTSD

DSM Criteria | Official Diagnostic Sheet | PTSD in Children

Types of Trauma Therapy - This will help you understand how trauma recovery is done even if you aren't explicitly writing therapy.

Play Therapy Case Study

EMDR Case Study

Understanding Flashbacks

Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail - A Marvel fanfic. Somehow also the masterclass of all recovery fics.

Abuse/Domestic Violence

The Terrycloth Monkey - the importance of affection. TW: animal abuse.

Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn

Morbid: Carl Panzram - How To Make A Serial Killer On Purpose. TW: everything probably, but specifically child abuse and CSA.

LPN: The Ant Hill Kids Part 3 - If you've ever wondered how much people can take before they leave.

LPN: Alcatraz Part 1, 2, and 3 - Psychological effects of imprisonment.

Human (Medical) Experimentation

LPN: MK Ultra Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - You know the government experimented on people in real life, right? (Three and four are italicized, if that's not clear.)

LPN: Lobotomies Parts 1 and 2 - Open brain surgery

LPN: Josef Mengele Part 2 - The crimes of a Nazi 'doctor.' One of the three most horrific narratives I've heard in five years of seeking horrible historical tales. I mean- it's a concentration camp.

(Unit 731 was the human experimentation project in Japan, but I actually don't have a good reference for that off the top of my head. I've been waiting for Last Podcast to get around to re-covering it.)

Anneliese Michel Parts 1 and 2 - When you mistake epilepsy for possession. Denial and religious conviction. (Not exactly experimentation, but topically related.)

When Life Sucks And Everything Is Hard

LPN: The Black Death Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - Gets very graphic re: the plague itself, but this is mostly a reference for how people behave when The World Is Fucking Ending. 2, 3, and 4 are italicized.

LPN: The Donner Party Parts 1 and 2 - TW: Cannibalism, if you don't recognize the name.

LPN: Manhattan Project Part 5 - Hiroshima. TW: Body horror. Take this warning very seriously - this is the second of the 'three most horrible stories ever' I mentioned.

Government Cover-Ups

LPN: Rendlesham Forest Parts 1 and 2 - No matter what you think happened here, the cover-up process is very apparent.

Morbid: The Mysterious Death of Tamla Horsford - A tragic story. TW: racism.

Notable

Effects of Brain Injury by Region

The Basics of Food-Related Trauma

LPN: Flat Earth Theory - Where this mentality comes from.

The Avalanche and Little Pebbles - Hunger Games AU that explores the respective psychologies of Katniss and Peeta without also destroying them (as canon does.) Covers an impressive variety of traumas.

Humanity Fuck Yeah: Jenkinsverse - Fascinating speculation on evolutionary psychology between sapient species. Read until you get bored; I'd recommend aiming to at least reach 5.5: Interlude/Ultimatum.

LPN: Men in Black 1, 2, and 3 | Skinwalker Ranch 2 and 3 - I base a lot of my ghost lore on the principles discussed here.

If you're willing to spend some money AND time:

Stiff by Mary Roach- Useful not only for raw corpse facts but also some of the surrounding culture.

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg - The book on queer history. TW: sexual assault.

Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft - Fantastic book on abuser psychology.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - If you've only seen the movies, the books are definitely worth reading. Suzanne Collins handles trauma, power dynamics, and war extremely well.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett - Isolation, neglect, and hope, and how those things affect recovery.

Blueprint for Armageddon by Dan Carlin - A detailed summary of World War I, including the factors that led to it, how it affected the people of the day, and how it affected generations to come.

There's honestly even more that I could recommend, but this is already I lot. I did my best to tailor this list to focus on themes and topics that come up a lot in Danny Phantom and Legend of Zelda fics. (Trauma, cruelty, confinement, disaster, and human resilience.)

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/751445319499317248/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost75113540651

She did not "basically write fanfic about Unit 731", and that's exactly the weird sort of game of telephone that led to her being relentlessly harassed by people who had not even read the book (there were claims that it was set in WWII, because the 'Unit 731 fanfic' lie was spread so far that people only heard that and decided to jump on the bandwagon) and decided she deserved to be publicly eviscerated for it.

From what the author has actually said about her inspirations for the book, she started writing it years before she found out that the ghost stories she was told as a child by her grandfather (who lived through the occupation) were about a real, specific atrocity, rather than just broadly about colonization--which makes sense considering the only part that seems directly inspired by Unit 731 is revealed near the end of the book and is the major twist that ultimately carves the scales from the MCs eyes with respect to the enemy prince in question.

Also, she didn't 'whitewash' the Japanese, and that kind of claim is really galling because would it actually have been better if she'd based the Evil Empire on Japan instead? Would that really have gotten people off her back? (And in fact I can very easily understand why someone whose family lived through such a brutal occupation would want to get some distance in a story that is partially processing those feelings and experiences by not modeling the Evil Empire directly after the country that brutalized her own; especially since a significant portion of the story involves the main character having very complicated feelings for the prince of the Evil Empire.)

If you want to talk about the writing not being great or your belief that the author didn't achieve what she set out to, that's fine, although I gather from this ask that you haven't actually read the book, which is at minimum a prerequisite to talk with authority about how any given topic or plot point is or isn't handled. I, personally, think it's incredibly tone-deaf to police how someone else writes about their own cultural heritage and family history with oppression and colonization, and that is very much how so much of this criticism comes across, especially considering how much of it is from people who fully admit to not at the least reading the book to form their own opinions about it. And for some reason, this form of criticism seems to be aimed disproportionately at authors of color, who are given much less grace and freedom to be just kinda mid or handle things poorly than white authors.

(Just as an example, I've never seen anyone call Avatar: the Last Airbender 'basically CCP fanfic' even though the fantasy prison where political dissidents/troublemakers are tossed to be tortured/brainwashed into compliance in Ba Sing Se is literally named Lake Laogai, after the Chinese political prisons/labor camps.)

--

Yeah, that last part is the crux of it, isn't it? People need a little room to work on their craft. More marginalized creators, indie creators, and people working on media with smaller audiences are afforded less. White dudes making TV shows are afforded a whole lot. Seems like it would be fairer the other way around!

[captain-price-unofficially]

Unit 731 "researchers" conduct bacteriological experiments with captive child subjects in Nongan County, Jilin Province. November 1940.

[my-rewrite-academia]

Just found out that Horikoshi named a character after a slur against Chinese and Korean people during WW2... (Shiga M*****)

Hello!

-

I'm not sure what you're asking by this? I'm aware of this, of course, but I'm also aware that Horikoshi changed the name. For anyone unaware, Dr. Garaki Kyudai was originally called Maruta Shiga. I'm not going to censor this, as it would only serve to make people unaware, and I'm against censorship in general.

Now, as much as I don't like Horikoshi's writing, (can't speak of him as a person - never met him), and as clearly unaware as he is of how racism works, considering the Mutant Discrimination arc, I don't believe he meant any offense to this.

In Japanese, Maruta (丸太) or Marutanbou (丸太ん坊) are used interchangeably and means 'log.' And 'Deku', who was named after the word 木偶の坊 (Dekunobou), means 'wooden doll'. Both Marutanbou and Dekunobou also mean 'nothing', 'bare', 'useless', and other such synonyms. Both are also quirkless.

The correlation is clear.

Toshinori Yagi's name, 'Yagi' in particular, also means tree. Quirkless characters are often associated with wood.

The hospital Shiga (志賀) Maruta (丸太) owns and runs is called 蛇腔総合病院 (Jyakuu-Sougou-Byouin). Now, bare in mind, his name Shiga (志賀) and the first character of the hospital Jya (蛇, which also reads as 'hebi', meaning 'snake').

There is an old legend called 'Kurohime Densetsu' in the Nagano prefecture, where the story takes place in the area of Shiga-Kougen (志賀高原) and the villain of the story is a giant snake (大蛇).

It's clear that he was creating a parellel between Garaki, (or Shiga), with the Kurohime Densetsu, but it was a mistake on his behalf to not do further research into the name 'Maruta'.

For those unaware, in WW2, Japan had a project called 'Unit 731' where they experimented on people they called 'Maruta (丸太)', most of them being Chinese and Korean, which then became a derogratory slur against them.

Contrary to popular belief, this alone did not get MHA banned in China - it was due to how pro-Japan the story felt. Not exactly pro-cop, but pro-Japan, in the same way the anime/light novel 'Gate' was, and China didn't agree with this.

Now, I'm not excusing Horikoshi for this. He didn't seem to have any ill intents, but a bit more research would have avoided this entire scenario, and that is a mistake on his behalf. It's the same as J.K. Rowling calling her only Korean character 'Cho Chang' without realising they're both surnames in Korea. She could have searched up popular first names and last names in Korea, but decided to be lazy and basically went 'Ching Chong' in what she thought was a coy plau.

I still don't understand what this ask was meant to say, as that issue was fixed five years ago when Horikoshi renamed him to Garaki Kyudai, but I thought I would explain nonetheless, as the language barrier makes it easy for misunderstandings to occur.

-

Thanks for the ask!

[the-ancient-forlorn]

Moving Away From RAMCOA

So some of you may have caught onto the name that I'm using and associate "The Forlorn" with an older account of mine that I ran while in a cult of personality. That's right I was in a cult of personality when I ran that. Before "The Forlorn" it was "CulticHellVent" if my memory serves me. Both of which were connected to my identity Night Wyld that I later abandoned upon leaving the cult I was in at the time. I now go by Dusk Noir.

On both "The Forlorn" and "CultishHellVent" accounts I was really big into the concept of and the discussions surrounding RAMCOA. I identified myself as a RAMCOA survivor. But obviously my opinions have changed. Why is that? Well let's discuss.

What is RAMCOA

For a brief overview of RAMCOA I'll explain the meanings behind each of the three main parts of the acronym. I'll be as impartial as possible on this as my current opinion and feelings are not necessary to discuss quite yet.

RA = Ritual(istic) Abuse

This refers to abuse that is repetitive to the point it becomes a habit to react as if said abuse is about to happen. If your abuser specifically hurt you the most on Saturdays you may worry about the abuse happening or mentally feel it coming even years later on Saturdays.

MC = Mind Control

This refers to the way that one's mind may be altered by trauma and conditioning. Usually this pertains to things like brainwashing or behavior control. In some cases this refers to something called programming in many specifically Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)/Hc-DID (HC meaning highly complex). HC-DID tends to be the term used by programmed systems. This essentially means that someone has been purposely induced into developing DID. In other cases it means someone hijacked the natural process of the disorder to force people to split alters and then attempt to make those alters behave in specific manners.

OA = Organized Abuse

Any group that conspires together to commit abuse on an individual or multiple individuals. This can span all the way from a small gang to things like the human experimentation done by Unit 731. They can be massive or small. Most commonly survivors of these online are cult, gang, or trafficking survivors.

RAMCOA as an acronym serves to cover those who have experienced extreme abuse. And often is used almost exclusively for those with DID. However the term bye itself does not erase those without DID.

It is a controversial term due to the fact that the ISSTD SIG is originally credited with its creations and some members of said panel are conspiracy theorists. There is also concern of ties to proclaimed Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) and the past satanic panic that leads people to believe RAMCOA is just a continuation of the same core idea. This unfortunately ignores those who've never claimed nor believe their abusers had anything to do with the occult or satanism.

My own stance on the term will be explained as we go along on this post.

My Experiences

I. Introduction

My first proper exposure to RAMCOA was when I was in a discord server for the system community. It was unfortunately Anti-Endo primarily (a stance I disagreed with) but allowed any and all stances of discourse in as long as you had DID, which I did. Over time I would see glimpses of what this thing was... And usually I saw people saying any amount of questioning whatsoever if you grew up in a cult or were trafficked will get you instantly killed. It will trigger something in your brain and force you to kill yourself if you're a real survivor!!! Never ever talk about it or look into it!!!

So I got curious and decided to revisit the source of the dread I had felt for years in spite of them. Was the church I grew up in a cult? Speaking of which I can't remember anything about it it's... I'm blocked from all of it. I used to be there literally every day ofu childhood without my...

Without my parents.

Every day.

I looked things up asked my mom about it and found that looking at it on Google Earth absolutely sent me into a spiral. I had a horrific amount of flashbacks but with help in therapy I worked through things and eventually I realized... I had always been right. Ever since I was scared I had grown up in a cult before we moved when I was 10, I was right. I was 12 the first time I started intensive research into cults. Maybe 14 the first time I wrote down the bite model for the church I grew up in before losing my shit over what I found and forgetting everything again.

Therapy helped more I began to write down memories when they came to me instead of screaming or crying and pushing them away and I knew I grew up in a cult. So I said it to my friends in that server. Of course cue them brutalizing me and screaming about how I was going to get people killed for daring to say the word cult. I was told I was the same as my abusers and any mentions of my suffering was disgustingly irresponsible and I should NEVER talk about it. And so I was isolated. You know who I ran to after they did this? The people who would go on to groom me for the next two years and break me so utterly and completely that I still on the rare occasion get nightmares.

II. Pandemonium

I at some point joined the discord server as a supposed activist for survivors of RAMCOA said "activist" claimed to have a portion of land in Ireland allotted for them in order to help house survivors of cults and trafficking. This was a server I did in fact find a childhood acquaintance in, something I am still to this day grateful for. However that was not the only thing. See this activist had a thing for going around and claiming everyone was connected to her own trauma and a global ring. Not even caring about the fact that people were usually at most only related due to dark web money for illegal videos.

This wasn't the end of her problems you see. She brought someone into the server. Someone she claimed was a survivor. Of course many people believed her, and as many did so foolishly I shared more private information such as the name of the cult I grew up in and pictures of myself as a child as well as talking a bit about the trafficking the youth pastor and his friend put me through. This individual who I had talked too later turned out to be actively working for a trafficking ring and trying to apparently pull this "activist" back into the ring. Of course this was shut down but she admitted to allowing this man in her server for survivors even while knowing what he was and planning to "expose him". But I suppose endangering numerous others is fine. I still have confusing feelings and am quite unsure of what to even begin to believe about this situation.

The final straw for me leaving outright was a mix of horrific incidents. Though I took a while to leave because I was busy being groomed and abused- I did have enough time to catch some of the horrific details. Said "activist" trafficked a child to Ireland with the help of others in the name of saving said child from other sex traffickers. They didn't have the legal ability to do so and instead of giving this poor kid a place to stay like they promised- she left them homeless on the streets. Oh and afterwards said "activist" was exposed to be a TERF so... That too.

Just to be absolutely clear that is not the correct way to try and help a child who is being trafficked. The best thing that you can do is find all the hotlines in their area, talk to them in depth and understand everything they have going on, and inquire about whether or not they can call these hotlines themselves or you need to. Call the hotlines, tell them everything you know. Make sure professionals are aware and are on the case. The professionals will know what to do better than you and they will have the resources to actually care for the child. Vigilante help and justice do not make victims safe.

III. Dependency

I ran as I said before, two different blogs centered on RAMCOA. During these being up I would get sent a large amount of asks some with far too much dependency upon myself. I understand that I was there as someone willing to give advice but some people went in depth with their trauma stories and gave very personal information. This is a trend with the community as a whole and very concerning. Putting all your faith in a 19-20 year old who's just beginning to figure things out isn't a safe bet. I should've put a stop to that kind of stuff sooner.

IV. Backlash

Both from within and outside of the broader RAMCOA and plural community I experienced excessive backlash to the point of constant waves of harassment. Often people would mock my experiences, purposefully try to trigger me, trauma dump about how the community affected them or similar. It was something that started to wear me down until I just couldn't take it anymore. You are objectively taken less seriously if you use the term.

Why I'm distancing from RAMCOA

As you can see I don't necessarily have the best experiences when it comes to the community in fact I would go as far as to say my experiences were quite poor. There were things I struggled to at first fully grasp were occurring within the community at the beginning. My brush up and run ins with a person who would go on to literally traffick a child (albeit the illegal kidnapping was for "good reasons" it was still child trafficking) has been more than enough reason on its own for me to avoid the community and subsequently the term like the plague.

Another reason I haven't fully touched on is the way it enabled my own delusions while I was deeply psychotic due to a mix of being abused and having undiagnosed schizoaffective disorder at the time. Now I'm on antipsychotics and have a better awareness but for a while I had convinced myself that due to my father's occupation working for the government the feds were in on my childhood trauma. I believed the feds must have been why I got trafficked and thus I was a human experiment and eyes were everywhere watching me. This also led to me believing I was a sleeper agent. This idea went fully unchallenged and in fact seen as rational due to my father's past occupation before his retirement. At least to the community. The reality is far sadder. My father's occupation made it so he was gone a lot and my mother was neglectful. My dad simply wasn't there to save me and my mom didn't care enough. That's the only way that federal agents were involved with my abuse. My own dad having to take his trips for work. It's something we've talked about together. He feels awful but we both know it wasn't his fault I was too young to have the words and he never knew.

The community itself is not responsible for my delusions coming up but the community does enable those who have additional delusions surrounding their trauma. You can't make up memories that you got trafficked, memories don't work that way. But you can make connections where there aren't any and be told by the people around you that you must be part of some secret "government programming" operation. I wasn't. There would be no reason to do that. Nothing to gain. My abuser gained by their abuse of me, money maybe status, and most certainly a sadistic form of pleasure.

The last reason I'm moving away is simply because I'm tired of my trauma being associated with conspiracy theories. I'm tired of explaining over and over the specifics of what I mean by certain words. Simply put it is best to just be blunt about what happened.

How I See It Now

I was abused to the point of developing severe and chronic disabilities that will forever impact me. My mind has been altered, I will never know who I would be without the cult. My very personality was molded by it before I understood what a personality even was. There were patterns to when times got worse and I still get sick with anxiety around those times. I was abused by a group, namely a cult with one fucked up youth pastor with unsavory criminal friends. I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I wasn't special, I wasn't chosen, I wasn't even targeted uniquely. I was there. And so I was abused.

I want to stick with being candid about things and use language reflecting that. I want to talk about stuff without all the baggage of the term RAMCOA or it's new incarnation- Organized Extreme Abuse (OEA). It'll be more accessible to people in general.

Of course these are only my opinions, nothing concrete. But I hope someone felt heard or understood or perhaps understands me.

[sjchalm]

Poppy War parallels literally have changed my brain chemistry

Oh my gosh. Literally everything is clicking in my brain. I’m not sure if everyone else already knew this and I’m just stupid, but if you didn’t—here you go.

As you probably know, The Poppy War is based on the Second Sino-Japanese War. But I didn’t realize just how many parallels there are. I’m no historian, but here’s my rundown:

Before the war, China was on the brink of civil war, and Japan decided to take advantage of this. They had already taken some territory during the First Sino-Japanese War, but that’s a whole diffrent story. By the time this war started, Japan was far more advanced and prepared—and they pretty much just kept pushing forward, taking land as they went.

In case you haven’t already guessed, Mugen is based off of Japan, and Nikara is based off of China.

Anyways, while this was going on China was determined to keep Shanghai, flighting for months. They eventually lost the city—along with a massive portion of their forces. After that, Japan advanced to Nanjing, which led to what is debatably one of the most brutal massacres in modern history. I won’t go into detail here, but if you remember the horror of Golyn Niis in the book—yeah, that’s the parallel.

Another dark connection: Unit 731. I’m not going into detail there either, but think about what was done to experiment on the Speerlies, Altan, and Rin. Then imagine it even worse. That’s Unit 731.

Remember when Altan orders the destruction of a dam to stop the enemy? That’s pulled directly from real history—China really did flood the Yellow River in an attempt to slow Japan’s advance. It worked, but at a massive human cost. Including civilians.

And while all this was happening, the rest of the world’s more powerful nations basically turned a blind eye, despite having the resources to help. I sense the Hesparians.

This went on for a while before the US cut off Japan's oil source. Without oil Japan could not power tank, guns, and more. That was a major factor in the eventual bombing of Pearl Harbor. (Doesn't have much to do with the Poppy War, just a instresting fact)

Anyway, I could go on and on, but I’ll stop here. There’s so much more to talkabout, but thanks for reading if you made it this far. If your interested I highly recommend looking further into this war. Also let me know if you want part two. :)

Also Poppy War music because why not. 🫶

[a-weirdo-works]

A Flashback Fic.

It was 2:48 am. Blast Hornet was asleep in his charging capsule…when he got a call.

He picked up the phone.

“Yeah?”.

“So, I listened to Zero and read some history books and websites, as well as some archived forums and I just learned lots of things about humans!”. Said Web Spider.

“Good to know.” Blast Hornet mumbled.

“Did you know about the French Revolution? So, this queen couldn’t help the poor, so she got beheaded by the people!”.

“Uh huh.”.

“And I also learned about communism. Did you know that they thought it would work, but people actually got poorer and died?”.

“Yeah, I know.”.

“And did you know that humans wouldn’t even let other humans vote?”.

“Yeah, I’ve heard rumors to that effect.”.

“And enslaved other humans! And have you heard of Unit 731? They did a whole ton of Maverick experiments-“.

“Humans aren’t considered Maverick.”.

“Oh, right. Sorry. Anywho, humans have had so many dictators! Caesar, who was stabbed, Hitler, who committed suicide, Stalin, he got a brain hemorrhage, which part of the brain, I forgot. The Taliban, which got eradicated, Un, who was assassinated. Castro, who maybe died in his sleep.”.

“That’s really great, Spider, but, I really gotta get some sleep.”.

“And don’t get me started on the American revolution. Or the War of 1812.”.

“Okay, buddy!”.

“And don’t get me started on the creation of robot masters-“.

“GOODNIGHT, SPIDER.”; he hung up.

[bardic-tales]

@prehistoric-creatures. As per your question about Project N:

Possible Trigger Warnings: Abduction, abuse of power, body horror, chemical experimentation, dehumanization, dismemberment (implied), forced experimentation, forced medical procedures, government/military abuse, historical war crimes (referenced), identity erasure, invasive procedures, medical trauma, mental manipulation, psychological torture, religious trauma (angel/demon dynamics), sadism, scientific experimentation on living subjects, spiritual trauma, torture, and war crimes.

Bianca’s time in Project N definitely pulls some influence from Final Fantasy VII (since that is the fandom she is created for during this period of her arc).

But honestly? The real inspiration behind what she went through is way darker and comes from real history. I based a lot of it on Unit 731, a horrifying research unit from World War II where Japanese scientists did brutal human experiments in the name of science. That was the tone I wanted for Shinra’s treatment of Bianca: not just magical girl gets poked and prodded, but full-on dehumanization. She wasn’t seen as a person to them. Just this half-divine, half-demonic lab rat they could break down and turn into a weapon and /or create Sephiroth 2.0. I wanted that horror to hit hard, like it wasn’t just fantasy trauma. It had echoes of things that have actually happened.

I used the themes of that real-world cruelty as the emotional backbone of her FFVII backstory. Everything she went through in Project N: regeneration testing, mental reprogramming, trying to chemically split her angel and demon sides? That’s all meant to reflect how far people will go in the name of control and power.

I didn’t want her story to be just tragic girl suffers. I wanted her to feel like someone who was shaped by these atrocities, like her pain is real and resonates. So when she finally snaps, aligns with Sephiroth, and starts walking down this darker path, it’s not a twist. It’s what happens when you’ve survived hell and come back with a purpose.

[thesnazzysharky]

Hot take: Monster 3 is a decent character

Out of all the creatures in this game, Babcube seems to get the least amount of attention and seems to be widely disliked. I do get it to some extent, it's not my most favorite character, but to the point of disliking it? Nah. Firstly, I've seen some claim that there's nothing to the creature itself in terms of background or lore, which isn't true. Its purpose seems to be representing some kind of symbolism. "Old Experiments" is the title of the ambience that plays in the area that Monster 3 resides in and is also the ambience that plays when Monster 3 chases you in Endless Mode (albeit only in the og version of sjsm). Simply going off the name and the fact that it's associated with Monster 3 gives some disturbing implications. That being, at some point amidst the chaos that Ghost Cow was causing in the hospital, a literal infant (or possibly multiple infants) were involved in some way. Infants that were involved in some twisted experiments that somehow birthed the creation of... that (do remember that this is the same game that directly references Unit 731).

Either Monster 3 is supposed to be that infant or infants merged into one or Monster 3 could be a paranormal manifestation of the pain those infants went through. The pain of being trapped down below in the hospital, which is represented through the box containing the baby head, and eventually succumbing to whatever experiments were performed by the possessed staff. That is what Babcube symbolizes. Some extremely fucked up shit was happening down there (which was already made pretty evident by Monster 4, the Hanged Man). It might not be much, but the implications are definitely there. That's kinda the point of the monsters and is what separates them from the specimens. The DLC tells you jack shit about its creatures. Leaving things up entirely to your own interpretation and speculation. Karamari Hospital is all about its mystery. It's why, although pretty funny, I'm not a big fan of Wambu's "How a body got the bag" story apparently becoming Monster 2's canon backstory. It feels like it misses the point of Monster 2 and Karamari Hospital as a whole. But that's just my take. Secondly, its design. It's very simple. An infant's head in a rusty cube. Yet it still manages to be unnerving and bizarre. Frankly the most bizarre creature in this whole entire game in my opinion.

"Well that's just weird" isn't the only aspect to its design however. It's just very unnatural and uncanny in general. The way it glitches in and out of existence as it slowly moves towards you. The way the head itself clearly resembles that of an infant, yet it subtly doesn't 100% look like one, with the closed eyes, wrinkled face, and unnatural looking mouth and nose, making it strike the uncanny valley. With the face looking even worse when it randomly distorts.

And the sounds... dear god I fucking hate the sounds this thing makes. Similar to how the face resembles an infants, the sounds from Babcube resembles the crying and wailing of an infant, but there's that uncanny valley again. It sounds like a crying infant... but not fully. Its crying sounds muted and croaky. Not loud like a regular infant, but definitely odd and strange. Combine all of this together and you get a creatures that's disturbing to ponder about, unnerving to look at, and uncomfortable to listen to or even be around. A creature that feels like it shouldn't exist, yet it does. A creature that really makes my skin crawl. Not in a downright scared or horrified way, but in a "what the fuck am I even looking at or hearing" kind of way. A creature that I just feel really bad for and wonder what happened to birth it.

Like I said, it's not my most favorite character, but I don't dislike it either and I appreciate what they add to the game and the atmosphere of the hidden basement. I don't dislike or think any of the enemies in sjsm are bad in fact. Some are weaker than others, but I think they all add a little bit of flavor that makes this game so enjoyable and cool to me.