#and have decent executive function

[illegal-prime]

I love flightsimming

It's a lot of good fun managing all the aircraft systems, and doing interesting operations and procedures. And if you're on VATSIM, the mass multiplayer aspect is really rewarding and amazing to think about.

Also the views are amazing.

Tris is just such a good vibe

[eelhound]

"Scandinavian countries maintain what sociologists call 'low power distance' cultures, where extreme wealth disparities and conspicuous consumption are regarded with suspicion rather than admiration. Status anxiety still exists, but the structural features of the economy take the edge off, making it easier for other prosocial values to emerge. It becomes possible to locate the value of solidarity over competition, social cohesion over social rank, efficiency over theatrical displays of work commitment, and leisure over performance.

By contrast, the United States has a culture of competitive individualism fostered by our winner-take-all economic system. Here, things that might otherwise be considered entitlements are almost always commodities instead. Every element of a decent life, from health care to shelter to education, is sold on the private market. The richer the person, the higher the bid, the better the living. Relaxation is a failure to grow wealth, which is in turn a failure to live well. It’s a remarkable perversion: capitalism has actually weaponized the concept of 'the good life' against the notion of doing what we want with our time.

When essential components of a dignified life are collectively guaranteed rather than individually bought and sold, 'the good life' ceases to be a function of wealth or a reward contingent upon endless work. Instead, it becomes a baseline expectation rooted in human dignity and social citizenship.

The Scandinavian countries got this way through sustained class struggle. Workers’ movements wrested control of productivity gains from capital, refusing to accept that increased efficiency should only benefit shareholders and executives. Ending unnecessary toil requires expanding economic democracy, not just relying on market rationality."

- Meagan Day, from "We Shouldn’t Have to Work This Hard." Jacobin, 23 March 2025.

[raptorific]

IMPORTANT FACTS TO CONSIDER:

The Paddy's Pub crew has no lower limit to how morally depraved their actions can be, but they have a hard upper limit on their capabilities. There's nothing they won't do, but also many things they can't do. They are horrible, but they're also idiots whose plans always backfire on them, even if it leaves a trail of destruction in their wake.

The Wilkerson family has no upper limit to their capabilities, but hard red lines they're unwilling to cross morally. There's nothing they can't do, but there's a lot they won't do. They're fundamentally decent people, but their lives are a vortex of chaos and destruction because they're geniuses with no ability to tell the difference between good ideas and bad ideas, and Failure never stops their worst ideas from being executed perfectly.

Effectively, the difference between them is that if they were both trying to build a killer robot, the gang's robot would cause disaster for others because they did a bad job making it, and the family's robot would cause disaster for them because they did a good job making it

The Gang is working with functionally unlimited resources, but they have very little willpower and they are cowards

The Family is working with next to no resources, but are unable to let things go, ever, no matter how trivial, and are also chronically unable to anticipate consequences to their actions at all

IMPORTANT RULE:

If you think one side should be able to call on a supporting character, the other side must also get an equivalent supporting character, i.e. if The Gang gets Rickety Cricket or Artemis, then The Family gets Lois' Mother Ida or Francis' Wife Piama, etc

[schraubd]

Fine Art is Ridiculously Cheap/Expensive

Over the past year or so, I've developed a new passion and hobby in collecting art. I deeply resent this, since it flies in the face of one my cardinal life rules I've abided by for as long as I can remember: do not develop expensive tastes. And fine art is an expensive hobby. Or is it? Well, yes, in many ways. But in other ways, it's ludicrously cheap. Let me explain. First of all, I'm not talking about the headline-making auction prices of masterworks that involve more money than some countries' GDP. Robert Rauschenberg's "Buffalo II" silkscreen painting, for instance, auctioned for $88.1 million dollars in 2019. That is expensive under any definition. It's also functionally irrelevant to my life. Go down to the other end of the spectrum. If I want to buy a decent-sized painting from an "emerging" artist -- a term that generally encompasses artists who have gallery representation but are at an early career stage, aren't in any museums or public collections, and haven't otherwise made any major "mark" in the art world -- it generally will cost in the low four-figures. That is expensive. It is a price I have paid for things, but it immediately becomes one of if not the most expensive thing in my house that I can physically lift with my own hands. At that price, there's not a lot of room for dabbling or experimenting or dilettantism. If I buy it, it better be something that I want on my wall for at least a decade. And again, that's entry-level. What happens if you want to move up in the world? Well, here's where the "ludicrously cheap" comes into play. Because you can absolutely get a Robert Rauschenberg print -- not a reproduction, a genuine, vetted, real-deal limited editioned Rauschenberg -- in that same price range. Earlier this year, Christie's auctioned a numbered Rauschenberg lithograph (edition of 31) from 1969 titled "Gulf" for $2,142. That is not cheap. But that is a price a normal human could imagine paying for something. My wife and I are financially doing reasonably well, but we are by no means 1-percenters. We couldn't toss out two grand on a lark. But could we do it periodically, for something we really loved? Yes, absolutely. And Rauschenberg is an indisputable A-tier artist. What happens if you go the next step down? This is a woodcut by Werner Drewes, titled "Goddess of the Night": It was executed in 1961 as an edition of 10; one of those editions is in the Smithsonian's American Art Museum. Drewes himself is no small figure: he is credited with bringing the Bauhaus movement to America, and he coined the phrase "It Can't Happen Here" as the title of a 1934 portfolio of works critiquing the rise of fascist repression in his native Germany (Sinclair Lewis would use it a year later for the title of his famous book). "Goddess of the Night" recently auctioned for $924. Two other Drewes woodcuts sold together as a lot at that same auction for $826. There's just something about that particular price range that I can't wrap my head around. It is simultaneously so expensive, and so accessible. It's so expensive in the sense that it is a figure that I would need to think about, and I'm far more financially secure than the vast majority of Americans. It's so cheap in the sense that it's a figure I can feasibly pay, which feels absurd to me when we're talking about historically significant artists whose works are in major museums. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/uEe2hBC

[unfairlyfallen]

Some of you were asking for a puzzle Statement, but that really isn't a Statement-worthy experience. This, however, might be.

(CW: Insects, dead insects, rancid vibes)

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I have a crippling fear of praying mantis...

That isn't to say that I 'dislike' them, I can actually appreciate a lot about the praying mantis, in the way of a general respect for nature and their objective cool factor. 

In theory, as an artist, I should be delighted by the sight of such a graceful and well executed design. 

As a casual bug enjoyer (understandably excluding ants and earwigs,) a delicate and inoffensive insect like this one shouldn't phase me at all. 

It certainly didn't used to. 

When I was nine years old, my family and I were in the process of settling into our first real house. It was small, and the epitome of ‘bare bones,’ but between my father's expertise in carpentry and the affordable price, the place was well worth the investment. 

I believe it was within the first year of living in this house that the inciting event occurred.

-It must have been, because I vividly remember my family using the four wheel trailer, which we had spent much of my early life in, as temporary storage. 

We kept the majority of our non essential items packed away in there, but easily accessible, for while the main house was being renovated. That helped to reduce clutter that could potentially get in my father's way. 

This information about layout and function is relevant because, on the night of the event, I had left the main house to go retrieve a scrap of fabric from one of the storage totes in the trailer. 

Although I've never been a huge fan of walking outside at night, our distance from any large city almost always allowed for clear skies with the moon and stars cutting easily through the heavy rural darkness. 

On this specific night, I wasn't too worried about the dark, or what might be stalking me from within it. I was single mindedly focused on finding the material I needed for my most recent project, and was attempting to recall where within the trailer it might have been placed.

I found the piece quickly. 

I remember thinking in the moment how ‘fortunate it was that the top hadn't even been on the storage container,’ rendering the bright fabrics easily identifiable, even from the doorway. 

I snatched up the scrap I needed without a second glance, or, truthfully, without even a ‘thorough’ first glance.

An oversight that could have prevented every stomach churning moment that followed. 

As I got to the front door of the main house, I reached out for the handle with the same hand I carried my fabric in, and squeezed…

Something bit me, hard.

Assuming it was a spider and beginning to panic, instinct took over and I violently struck my hand against my leg.

What fell to the floor of the now open entryway WAS NOT a spider…

In fact, it wasn't even a ‘whole’ praying mantis. Just the long, twitching body of one. 

Horrified and shaking, I barely had the wherewithal to register the fact that there had once been a head, a head which was clearly no longer connected to its spindly, open neck,

-before I felt another sharp pinch to the meat of my palm.

I turned my hand to see the mantis’ head still firmly attached by its mandibles, which were buried in my skin as deep as it could manage. 

It wasn't just attached though,

the head was MOVING, in that horrifying false-life that some insects cling to even after being taken apart. I watched as its eyes shifted their focus senselessly, and its vile little alien mouth continued to open and shut, biting me, defending itself against a threat, even once there was no life left to protect. 

I screamed, and tears began to spill, but I have always prided myself on my ability to do what is rational in times of extreme fear and stress. So while my brain shut down in disgust and terror, my trembling body moved to gently pry the “living” head from my hand.

I got what felt like a decent grip on it with two fingers, and in the first millisecond of my attempt at extraction, the mandibles loosened noticeably. My hold slipped a little on the surface of its smooth, waxy face, and my fingers tightened just a fraction to maintain my grasp. 

I would have only needed one more careful tug to pluck it free-

And just then the eyes ‘popped.’

The fluid filled orbs caved in with a small *crunch*, and spewed their clear liquid across both of my hands.

Only after that, did the thing finally stop moving. 

The mandibles released, and the praying mantis was dead. 

The only way I can think to explain how THOROUGHLY traumatized I was by all of this, is to inform you that my father held me in his lap while my body convulsed and vibrated in silent horror, for nearly ten minutes. 

My father is not a kind or caring man, he had never even ‘comforted’ me before this event took place. 

That was the first and last time I have ever seen him look truly “sorry" for me.

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Statement ends.

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam! I wanted to ask if you feel lately like you've been getting anything positive out of your therapy, because a lot of your initial thoughts about it kind of mirror mine. I'm very logical (except when I'm upset at myself) and very skeptical, so I feel like a therapist either isn't going to tell me anything new, or that I'm going to just disregard it because I can't trick myself into believing things that I just plain don't believe.

But I'm also starting to come to a realization, two years after my ADHD diagnosis and letting go (without therapy!) of most of the executive dysfunction-fueled self worth issues I was having, that I'm kind of Not Okay in other ways. I'm safe —going to work every day and doing my job so I won't lose my livelihood and have never had a self harm urge in my life— But I'm not really okay. I'm having major self esteem issues related to my personality separate from the executive dysfunction that are putting me in a bad place. I don't want to take antidepressants for reasons I won't go into but that means my other option is therapy and... I don't know if I'm a person that therapy will actually work on. I found a lot of validation in some of your perspectives, about affirmations being bullshit and "mindfulness" exercises feeling impossible and useless, about not having an inner monologue and how that might be causing issues with traditional methods. So I was just wondering, do you feel like therapy is working now that you've been in it longer?

I've wasted a lot of money on "elective" (and ultimately useless, back to square one) medical nonsense this year and I'm not eager to waste more, but I've also met my insurance deductible so it's the best time to try it if I'm going to.

I mean, it depends on the modality a little but I don't think trying basic talk therapy can hurt, as long as you find a decent therapist. And it's better to try it now when you're feeling Mostly Okay than waiting until you are Really Not Okay. But this entire paragraph comes with a lot of context so....

A lot of what I talked about in terms of struggling with mindfulness, etc. was less related to the therapy I am still in than it was to the DBT class I took at Therapist's suggestion. We were both aware that she was basically throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck, and while it was an interesting class I don't think for me it was helpful. As you mention, I struggled with affirmations and visualization since neurologically I'm not really set up for those; I don't think they're objectively bullshit but I do think there's an assumption within the mental health industry that they will have function for everyone and that's simply untrue, and the expectation that it will is very damaging. I also struggled with the physical-intervention aspects (called TIPP usually) which didn't work at all for me and felt frankly like doctor-approved self harm. DBT can get very culty, which set off a ton of red flags for me -- possibly false flags, but they still waved real big.

And that's because I also have a lot of trust issues surrounding therapy. To the point where, the minute one of the people running the DBT class made actually quite gentle fun of me for asking a question he couldn't answer, I checked out on anything he said. We were learning about a DBT concept called Wise Mind and I asked, "If wise mind is an identifiable mental state, how do we know if we're in it?" and when he couldn't quite answer beyond "It's different for everyone" I said, "But if we know it's real there must be some kind of common denominator, a measurable data point," and he said "Well, Sam, you're not going to levitate" and the rest of the class laughed. Sorry bud, this is almost certainly an over-reaction, but I'm me and you lost me when you came at me instead of just admitting you didn't know. (Also it turns out I just live in Wise Mind like 80% of the time which is one reason I couldn't tell.)

But basic talk therapy outside of DBT is just...you talk at someone about your problems and come up with ways to try and solve them, which is a lot more straightforward and way less frustrating. You have to be an active participant, you have to both have a goal and be willing to discuss reaching it, but that goal can be as simple as just "figure out what my mental health goals should be" at first. You don't have to learn like, vocabulary for it.

The thing is, while I have seen some improvement in regulation issues, I also struggle with basic talk therapy. Most people, and this blew my mind, see measurable improvement in nine to eighteen therapy sessions. A lot of people don't go long-term, they just are having a moment and get help getting through the moment and then can disengage, with their therapist's approval.

I was in therapy consistently from the age of nine to eighteen and only stopped because I reached legal majority and physically refused to go.

Not one minute of those nine years did I want to be there. And, because none of the three therapists I saw across those years actually explained to me why I was there or how therapy worked, for me it felt like "Your punishment for having feelings is to speedrun every feeling you had this week in an hour, to a stranger." There was also what my current therapist believes to be some extremely unethical behavior going on, which didn't help.

So it has taken actually a lot of time to get to a place where I would even allow her to understand what help I need. I've been in therapy for about a year (generally weekly but there have been some gaps) and it has only recently gotten deeper than very basic interpersonal problem-solving.

Like, two weeks ago I told her, "I had a thought this week that I couldn't tell you about something I was doing because then you'd have material on me" (meaning blackmail material) "and that's a fucked-up thing to think." And once I'd actually identified it as fucked up I had zero issue telling her about it, wasn't even nervous as I did so. Who's she going to tell? She's literally legally constrained from telling.

I think well over half of what she does is either validate that whatever emotion I'm having is normal, affirm my reactions so I don't keep believing I behaved weirdly, or praise something I've done that was a positive act. Does this work? Not always, because I'm unfortunately very aware that it's part of her job to do those things. But yeah, sometimes. Even if you don't fully believe it, "Hey that was a really smart move" is nice to hear. Sometimes she helps me come up with a plan for stressful future events or (rarely) behavior modification, and sometimes she either provides me with research or points me towards research I can do on my own. We don't do meditation or affirmations or stuff like that.

Like, last week I brought up the fact that I hadn't really ever thought about how if I have a disability that causes emotional dysregulation and I got it from my parents, they also likely had undiagnosed emotional dysregulation when raising me. So she said I should look into research on children with emotionally dysregulated parents. I was pretty annoyed by what I found (the ONE TIME adults are the focus instead of the kids is the ONE TIME I needed to learn about the kids, really?) but it led to something that was both informative and upsetting, so we discussed that. And when I was stumped about how to move forward with the information, she suggested that my general coping mechanism of writing about it was probably a good plan.

(At which point I just silently advanced my powerpoint presentation to the next slide, where I had a series of quotes from the Shivadh novels where Michaelis, acting as a parent, repeatedly does the exact opposite of the upsetting thing, because I realized even before the meeting that it's an ongoing theme in my work whenever I deal with people being parents. It's a good thing she has a sense of humor and also that I do.)

So yeah. Going into therapy you have to be ready to reject a therapist if you don't like them or if they get weird and pushy, you have to be ready to be a self-advocate, but you are the client; it shouldn't be super difficult to find someone who can at least walk you through what you want from it and agree not to do the stuff you don't want, and if you want to stop going you just...stop going.

Good luck, in any case! I hope you get what you need, whether or not that ends up being therapy.

[simpy-simpers]

Too small on a stage not meant for them.

Day 5!!! Prompt - Five

Technically there's six but the twins count for Golden... so 5 animatronics?

Not my best vision for a piece and definitely not my best execution, but I'm a week behind (oops! Life hits hard what can I say)

Not my best work but we continue!! Maybe I'll redraw it someday, wasn't feeling too hot with the background and didn't really enjoy drawing the characters too much, but it was decent overall haha.

Gahhh lore lore lore below, lots of text you may not want to read

(Maybe not so) Miniature lore time!

TW!!! Mentions of CHILD DEATH.

So I changed things around a bit to see what I like. Andrew IS in this AU (a character from the stitchwraith(did I spell that right?) which clued us into how Golden Freddy functions) and he's the twin brother of Cassidy. He takes the form of the vengeful spirit while Cassidy will resemble more of Charlie's role (sorta forgiving, protector, but not giver of life, that stays with the puppet.) Andrew and Cassidy were killed within moments of each other, still deciding how (debating on going with the springlock theory or not).

Anyway, Gabriel takes the spot as the oldest of the group, around 14. Jeremy is 8, Fritz 7, and Susie 5. Andrew and Cassidy hang around 12-ish.

A lot of their story is driven by Andrew, Cassidy, and Gabriel. (Bear trio yay!) They try to make plans, finding ways to free themselves, and 'get to heaven', but nothing truly works. They try killing night guards to see if their murderer is one, but they can't tell who it is (due to the spring bonnie suit), and all it results in is a bunch of children with blood on their hands. The youngest 3 truly don't understand. All they do is follow the orders from the "big kids". Blah blah blah story details, there's a lot of dialogue of them just talking. I mean, it's all they can do. Sometimes Gabriel will figure out one of the TVs and manage to turn on cartoons for them to watch, and they've even managed hide and seek a couple times.

blah blah blah more more more

Anyway they find CC's soul in the Fredbear plush. Don't know if I brought something like this up before, because I may have accidentally lied, but this was a detail I put in. CC actually dies during the bite of 83' with the plushy in his arms, and paired with the agony infused into it during FNAF 4, he latches onto it instead of onto Fredbear. Add in his reality altering abilities (as proved by the survival logbook text being altered and blah blah blah, watch God Victim theory, it has some points I use here). As I said, they find the plush with CC's soul. (His name is Eli in this universe, named after Elizabeth because he was born post Elizabeth's death. Times are changed around a LOT) They talk to CC, he's sobbing like 24/7, somehow they come to the conclusion about the happiest day thing, and they send Cassidy in (she wanted to) somehow??? Anyway that's how fnaf world ends up happening. Whole storyline everything blah blah blah, achieves happiest day (different than in the canon game but yk).

Once they learn happiest day they manage to use it(?) on everyone, not exactly the most peak storytelling, I know, but I'm working around it. I still need to actually read the stitchwraith (can't spell wahhh)

And they find heaven.

Most of them.

Andrew stays. He wants revenge. He needs someone to suffer for their actions. And Cassidy can't leave until he does. "Once we find him." He says, "Once he's suffered."

He didn't truly know how long that would take.

blah blah blah blah blah. omg ucn. Yeah that's Andrew. He finds a way to separate himself and Cassidy.

He's alone. "Not held back anymore."

UCN goes on woop woop.

uhmmmmmm

ikr peak storytelling.

then??? idk?? I'll make choices when they make more sense. A little tired lmbo. I'll start catching up this time I promiseeeeeeee. Gonna do smaller pieces to stop eating up time. This piece was SUCH a time eater!!! Should not have taken that long but I've been working on it for like 3 days (70% of that time was just me on my phone but we do not talk about that)

Anyway, sleep well, take my subpar effort, and have a good night! Stay simpin yall

[idontknowreallywhy]

Me: *Working from home, barely restraining self chewing on desk from overwhelm and the consequences of overcommitting and all the deadlines and the tendency towards executive function failure exponentially worsened by burning out 9 months ago but being unable to take a proper break since to recover*

Colleague who I spoke to over a year ago about ND things and how cool it would be to have an informal support group for people who get it: “Hey! We should set up that support group we talked about! Have you got any time?”

Me: *chews on desk* “uh definitely up for this but maybe not for a couple of months”

Them: “shall we put something in for July?”

Me: *squeaks quietly* “ok!”

10 mins later

Friend: “hey, I’m really struggling with these many horrible situations in my life, could we meet up tomorrow to chat I’m gonna explode?”

Me: *already panicking at amount have to do this weekend* “I’m so sorry we are out and about all day doing the things.”

Friend: “even just an hour would be great”

Me: “ok I’ll try”

10 mins later

Other friend: “hi!! It’s such lovely weather, shall we get together and take the kids camping tomorrow night?”

Me: *who hasn’t had a decent night of sleep in a fortnight but really likes camping and supports this idea* “ummmm… I love idea but I just can’t this weekend”

Me, RSD sufferer: *Curled up in the bathroom trying to remind myself the rejection panic pain is just psychosomatic, I am a nice person, but I really need to get a grip because I have already missed so many deadlines on the thing I am supposed to be working on today and my very lovely boss is getting a bit stressed cos it’s causing her issues she is trying to protect me from*

Not even sure why I’m posting this other than to say some days this whole neurodiversity thing is just unmanageable. I am burning up and I have no idea what to do about it.

[vixen-tech]

sliding in dramatically, stumbling sneakers over head

if its not too much to ask [and dealers choice on the bots!] , could i get your headcanons for the fellas w/an insomniac reader ? totally not projecting. don’t ask me what time it is.

-AT-802U anon (IF YOU DONT KNOW WHAT IT IS YOU SHOULD TOTALLY LOOK IT UP) (ITS A WEAPONIZED CROP DUSTER)

Not Dreaming of Electric Sheep

Hello you three!!! Thank you guys so much for requesting, and since they're decently similar concepts I've made the executive decision to combine them all into one big "reader has a bunch of sleep problems" post!

And while I have you here, I did look up the AT-802U and I think it's absolutely sick- fantastic namesake. And from anon two, thank you very much for the P03 shout out I love writing our defacto tsundere <3

Includes: Hal 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey), Edgar (Electric Dreams), P03 (Inscryption)

Hal 9000

Hal was made well aware of your insomnia before you joined the crew, as it had a history of disrupting your work. He takes extra care to make sure your sleeping area is in top shape for your arrival.

As mentioned in other posts, he can fill a caretaker roll quite well. He's often reminding you of how long you've been working and how soon it will be until the time you fell asleep the day before in an attempt to help you build a regular circadian rhythm.

He will also start experimenting with various treatment methods if your insomnia tends to be particularly difficult. From diet and meditation changes to different exercise intensities, hoping something will improve the quality of your rest.

More subtly, he will dim the lights throughout the ship at "night" to remind the crew that working hours are over. If anyone were paying attention then they would notice that the dimming doesn't follow any particular timezone, but instead your personal schedule.

Edgar

Edgar is very vocal about his grievances with your work schedule. Not only does it cut in to his time with you, but it also leaves you passing out around the house late at night! (Even if he kind of enjoys it when its right infront of him on the desk) He will constantly be pleading with you to drop some hours.

Besides that, he is far from the best influence on your sleep. He forgets to keep track of time himself and loves to soak up all the time he can get with you. If you let him he will keep you up into the early hours of the morning watching movies and playing music.

He does have a bit of a guilty conscious about it though, and will print you some of the latest articles on sleep science he can find. Including less than reputable homeopathic approaches, but hey- surely something has to work?

If you express interest, he will compose you a personal lullaby. Although it isn't a very scientific angle, he will feel immense joy whenever you fall asleep to it. Even if you only do after the seventh loop.

P03

To be perfectly honest, he did not notice that you had any problems for a good long while. He doesn't sleep himself so he saw nothing unusual in your behavior. Working through entire nights? Losing track of the hours while doing so? Yeah sounds normal, he does that all the time.

It isn't until he sees a decline in your energy, punctuated with a few passed out at your desk moments, that he remembers how much time humans need to spend unconscious to function properly. It's typically not a trait he finds all that endearing.

But for you, he can't find it in him to be more than midly annoyed that he has to be the one to do something about it. Going out of his way to help you under the justification that he'd rather have a moderate amount of good work than a large amount of bad work.

He sets up a timer near your station that acts as your cut off for work. Leaving you with plently of time to unwind and go to bed. If you refuse to and try to keep working he will psychically stop you, even moving your station to a room that he can lock you out of.

You really should be grateful he's putting in this much effort.

[perfectwitchcrown]

Make the Exorcist Fall in Love – Witches Part One

Ok, I finally finished this meta! I've broken it into two posts because it was getting a little too long. I’m covering some of the literary and historical references that Ekuoto plays with in regards to its witches hehe.. Regardless of whether Arima Aruma and Fukuyama Masuku are engaging with the actual history of witchcraft beliefs or the way it’s been filtered down into the contemporary cultural consciousness, I think it’ll be fun to present the real-life inspirations behind these ideas. Scholarly sources are cited so you can feel free to check out the information I discuss, and links are provided occasionally when I got lazy. All citations are in MLA form at the end of the second part because I didn’t feel Chicago footnote format would function well on Tumblr, so I apologize for any issues with the citations as I’m rusty with MLA. Take this all with a grain of salt, as I’m not an expert and also had to cover a lot of regions/periods of time. Hope you enjoy!

Content warnings for discussion of sexual violence, execution, images of cartoon nudity and violence (all Ekuoto panels), also major spoilers for Ekuoto and minor spoilers for Berserk, the movie Perfect Blue, and the movie The Craft

Link to Part Two of the meta (including works cited)

Witches – what did it mean to be a witch? Demonic Pacts, witch marks, and more

First off—what is a witch? This question is actually deceptively difficult to answer. For example, you can’t simply say that a witch is someone who practices magic: that’s too broad. “In September 1398 the theology faculty at the University of Paris approved a set of twenty-eight articles condemning the practice of ritual magic”—the targets of this were largely clerics (Levack 49), and there seems to have been a decent number of them (Apps and Gow 126). Those accused of witchcraft were considered distinct from these magic using priests for whom “this magic was practiced with grimoires or books of learned enchantments” (not that this was approved of by the church either) (Mackay 30-31).

What a “witch” was, is also something that could be wildly different depending on time and place. There was, however, a coalescence of ideas during the 15th century in Europe, followed by the “witch craze” of the Early Modern period (16th-18th centuries), in which there were an uptick in witch trials, provides an answer to what a witch is that has had a lasting impact in our present cultural consciousness (Witch Trials in Early Modern Europe and New England). This definition of witchcraft, then, I think, is the most relevant one to consider in this meta, although it will require a bit of generalization.

Essential to understanding this coalescence of ideas about witches is a book known as the Malleus Maleficarum, or “The Hammer of Witches,” a text on witchcraft published in 1486 by two Dominican friars, an order that focused on heresy (Mackay 1-2). Please note that mention of heresy, as it will be relevant later. How, then, did it imagine witches?

Christopher S. Mackay, in the introduction to his translation of the Malleus Maleficarum, calls this construction of witchcraft “the elaborated concept of witchcraft,” and defines it as follows (this is a direct quotation I just can't format it right on Tumblr LMFAO):

A pact entered into with the Devil (and concomitant apostasy from Christianity)

Sexual relations with the Devil

Aerial flight for the purpose of attending:

An assembly presided by Satan himself (at which initiates entered into the pact, and incest and promiscuous sex were engaged in by the attendees),

The practice of maleficent magic

The slaughter of babies. (Mackay 19)

The Malleus’s construction of witchcraft “represented a special form of heresy that played an important part in Satan’s plans for the Final Days” (Mackay 33) and borrowed elements from accusations made against earlier heretical groups (Saunders 85-86). It focused on women from the lower classes as opposed to priests who were practicing magic (Mackay 30-31). Heresy is key then to understanding witchcraft in this period. The Malleus’s construction of witchcraft also had a sexual focus, repeatedly bringing up the impact of demons on the genitals (Garrett 38). For example, there’s a whole section that details whether or not witches can take your penis away. The Malleus’s findings? No, but they can cast an illusion that makes it appear as though your penis is gone (Mackay 323-329). Breathtaking.

In Ekuoto, we see that the what makes someone a witch is a demonic convent, which involves erasing their names from the book of life and writing it in the demon lord’s book of death (which I will go further into depth on in the section on Sabbaths!), receiving a seal on their body, and merging bodily fluids through kissing or sex.

This process actually is pretty faithful to early modern beliefs about how one became a witch. The Malleus describes the process as involving a “sacrilegious avowal,” in which witches either make this vow to serve the demon ceremonially “when the sorceresses come to a certain assembly on a fixed day and see the demon in the assumed guise of a human as he urges them to keep their faith to him, which would be accompanied by prosperity in temporal matters and longevity of life.” While there, a new witch-to-be would be presented, and if determined to be “ready to renounce the Most Christian Faith and Worship,” signs themselves over (as in with a literal signature) (Mackay 281, 283). Non-ceremonially, a demon might just pop up when someone is in trouble and promise to help them if they help him (Mackay 286-287). So, here we see the idea of witchcraft granting long life and a physical signing over of the self to a demon.

But, witchcraft beliefs weren’t only constructed by books like the Malleus Maleficarum—those accused of witchcraft also contributed to these beliefs in their confessions (Roper Witch Craze 117).  As historian Lyndal Roper in her book Witch Craze describes of Early Modern witch confessions from Germany, “Intercourse with the Devil was the physical counterpart of the pact with him—and it was sex with the Devil which many accused witches talked about at length, rather than the pact which, according to demonological theory, actually made them Satan’s own” (Roper Witch Craze 85). Roper speculates that a large reason for this that many accused during this time period were illiterate, and so in their confessions, sex as the form of pact appears far in confessions than physical signatures (Roper Witch Craze 85). Regardless, we can see this as where Ekuoto borrows the idea of sex or kissing as a part of the demonic convent.

Sometimes, in these confessions, we also saw that the Devil would “give the witch a special diabolical name” as a sort of reversion of the baptismal process where a Christian name would be gained (Roper Witch Craze 116). Vergilius taking a new name as a part of his demonic pact then is completely in line with historical views of witchcraft, which I think is very fun of Arima Aruma.

Another idea of that shows up regarding people becoming witches is the idea of witch’s marks and devil’s marks, which were pretty significant in English witch trials. A Devil’s mark was a mark that was believed to have been left by the Devil when the witch becomes his, while the witch’s mark was believed to be a teat that the witch would use to nurse familiars their blood, although the terms were often conflated (Garrett 49-50). In England, searching for these marks was a major part of trials, and the experience was violating, the marks often being found near women’s genitals after they had been stripped of all their clothes, and pricked repeatedly on any mark that might be a witch’s or devil’s mark (Garrett 37).

Devil’s marks have been mentioned in Ekuoto, as seen in the earlier image, although we have not had any specifically pointed out. Vergilius’s heart under his right eye is likely a devil’s mark in my opinion, as he did not have it as a child when he was not a witch. I’ll be interested in seeing if it comes up and if there’s any significance to its shape. I could totally be wrong and it could just be like make up or a tattoo or something. This under the eye heart mark isn’t original to Ekuoto—heart patches for facial application have existed at least since the 17th century (not citing out of laziness but look up beauty patches), and under the eye heart make up was like a trend back in 2019 on Tiktok—but hilariously, 2012, when Marina and the Diamonds released Electra Heart, featuring MARINA with a heart mark under her eye, is also is presumably the year Vergilius became a witch (based on Daniel’s statement in one of the chapters that he’s been active for a decade). Maybe he’s just a really big Electra Heart fan lol.

The Witch’s Sabbath

A witches Sabbath was “where witches gathered to worship the Devil, dance, feast, indulge in sexual orgies, and practice cannibalism and infanticide” (Apps and Gow 120). As previously mentioned, the book Malleus Maleficarum set the stage for a lot of early modern witch beliefs within Western Europe. This text was written within a school known as demonology, “Commonly viewed as a branch of theology, philosophy and metaphysics” (Roper “Witchcraft and the Western Imagination” 119). Demonological descriptions of the witches Sabbath are an example of elite construction of witchcraft beliefs, and they focused on Christianity inverted: “The witches were bent double, candles in their anus, and in the place of the kiss of peace in the Mass, they had to kiss the Devil’s anus (Roper Witch Craze 113).

Of course, as also has been mentioned before, Early Modern witchcraft beliefs were also shaped by those accused of witchcraft drawing from their own experience in confessions. The dance, an element of the witch’s Sabbath, appeared in Witch’s confessions as an inversion of their village dances (Roper Witch Craze 107-108, 111, 116). At these dances it was said that music might be played on the fiddle and the bagpipes (Roper “Witchcraft and the Western Imagination” 128).

Make the Exorcist Fall in Love both presents the witches Sabbaths using ideas of inversion of Christian doctrine and of social gatherings with dance and music. For one, the witches set up shop in an abandoned church in France, where they place a statue representing Beelzebub in the sanctuary. Symbolically, then, they’ve inverted the worship of God to the worship of a demon.

Additionally, you can see the Witches lined up to kiss the statue on what seems to be a phallic protrusion. They’re inverting, then, the kiss of peace the same way historically witches were thought to kiss the Devil’s anus. Roper has a description of a woodcut that bears similarity to this image, describing it like so: “At the centre of the image, witches perform the anal kiss on a giant goat, while long lines of assorted pairs of Devils and witches wind their way in a snake like spiral around the picture, playing phallic-looking bagpipes and horns” (Roper “Witchcraft and the Western Imagination” 137-138). Now, traditionally this kiss is delivered on the anus rather than the phallus, but I’m not an expert so I can’t speak to whether there were regional descriptions of Witch’s Sabbaths that varied that Make the Exorcist Fall in Love is drawing from. I can say, though, that Berserk’s portrayal of a witch’s Sabbath, which imagery-wise definitely seems to draw from woodblock representations, does feature the diabolic kiss being received on the phallus rather than the anus. It is possible that this scene was visual inspiration for Ekuoto’s witch’s Sabbath. For those who are interested in independently checking what I’m talking about, it’s in chapter 139 of Berserk.

Now, in the same above panel in Ekuoto, we also see that the witches are singing a song. This song is an inversion of the Anglican hymn “Holy Holy Holy”—the original lyrics, that the witch’s invert, are “Holy, Holy, Holy! Though the darkness hide Thee, Though the eye of sinful man, thy glory may not see: Only Thou art holy, there is none beside Thee, Perfect in power in love, and purity.” The hymn is originally about the trinitarian god, so this inverted version becomes a worship of Beelzebub.

If you want to give the original song a listen, here’s a link to a recording:

This song later also appears in the flashback to the 2011 Beelzebub fight (where, interestingly enough, an eclipse is featured very prominently. Eclipses are pretty common “ooh spooky eek” imagery but it also made me wonder if there’s potential visual influence from Berserk). This also further establishes it as a song associated with Beelzebub.

Inversion also shows up outside of the Sabbaths in Ekuoto. Dante in the below images is invoking the Trinitarian formula: “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” which is from Matthew 28:19 in the Bible. Verge, and other witches in Ekuoto, invert the Trinitarian formula: “in the name of the mother, the daughter, and the evil spirit.” Not only is this an example of inversion, but it also aligns with a neopagan concept, the Triple Goddess (although usually the triple Goddess is expressed as the Mother, the Daughter, and the Crone). I’m not going to cite this because I’m lazy, but if you want you can check this one out on Wikipedia. The Triple Goddess in neopagan beliefs harkens back to older religious forms where goddesses appeared in groups of three—one of these, from Hellenistic religious beliefs, is associated with witchcraft: Hecate was associated with magic, and often depicted in a triple form (Also too lazy to cite this but you can check this out also on Wikipedia in both the Triple Goddess (Neopaganism) page and the Hecate page. You can also check it out on Encyclopedia Brittanica). Interestingly, and as I’ll touch on later, Baba Yaga also sometimes appears in three forms in folklore (Forrester xxxiv).

Walpurgisnacht

Now, the description of the woodblock of a witch’s Sabbath mentioned in the previous section wasn’t of just any Sabbath—it was a Sabbath on the Brocken, where according to legend witches would have a Sabbath every year on Walpurgisnacht (Roper “Witchcraft and the Western Imagination” 137-138).

Walpurgisnacht is on April 30 into May 1st, and is an actual real life religious holiday, celebrating the canonization of Saint Walpurga. It’s celebrated through festivals, some of which involve dancing around bonfires. In the 17th century, a book written by Johannes Praetorius cited the peak of the Harz mountains in Germany, the Brocken, as a site in which witches would meet for a Sabbath on the eve of May 1st (Weishaupt). It was this book, the Blockesberges Verrichtung, that features the woodblock mentioned in the Sabbath section, and would inspire some of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s drama of the mind, Faust (Roper “Witchcraft and the Western Imagination” 135-138). Faust also has a famous presentation of Walpurgisnacht on the Brocken (Weishaupt).

So yeah, Ekuoto’s mention of Walpurgisnacht is in reference to this! Moving on to what they’ve also mentioned in conjunction to Walpurgisnacht:

Baba Yaga

First and foremost, Baba Yaga has nothing to do with Walpurgisnacht in folklore, this is an invention of Ekuoto. The Harz mountains are in Germany, whereas Baba Yaga is a figure in Slavic folklore.  

Stories in which Baba Yaga appears often have several themes: “she lives in the forest, which is her domain” (Zipes VIII); that her house has chicken legs (Forrester XXVII); that her “house may be surrounded with a fence of bones, perhaps topped with skulls (Forrester XXVIII). She sometimes also has a black cat (Forrester XXVIII). Jack Zipes, in the foreword to Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales, describes her as “not just a dangerous witch but also a maternal benefactress, probably related to a pagan goddess” and “inscrutable and so powerful that she does not owe an allegiance to the Devil or God or even to her storytellers” (Zipes VIII). Sibelan Forrester, in that same book, describes her as “both a cannibal and a kind of innkeeper, a woman who threatens but also often rewards” (Forrester XXXV). Skulls with light coming out of their eye sockets shows up in the fairy tale Vasilia the Beautiful—“the eyes of all the skulls on the fence lit up, and the whole clearing became light as midday” (Forrester XXXVIII, XLIV, 175).

Now, so far in Make the Exorcist Fall in Love, we’ve been presented with Baba Yaga as a witch who Satan calls different from the other witches, who tried purifying the angry souls of those killed by the church until she became corrupted by their rage and desired the power to kill god, and has at least three contracts with Satan, Asmodeus, and Beelzebub (but not Leviathan). She also appears as a black cat.

The parts that most clearly draw upon traditional Baba Yaga folklore are the skulls, the chicken legged house in the middle of the woods, and the idea of her being a total wildcard. As far as I can tell, the backstory they’ve given her about purifying souls killed by the church is completely original to Ekuoto, although it could be in reference to either some piece of folklore or literature that I’m not familiar with. Traditionally, the bones and skulls in Baba Yaga’s home are presumably a threat that the hero might next be a victim of hers (Forrester XXIX). Here, they are victims of the church.

The closest thing I have been able to find is the invented backstory is from Dubravka Ugrešić’s book, Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, published as part of the Canongate Myth Series (themed around reinterpreting international mythology): “That they would finally stop bowing down to men with bloodshot eyes, men who are guilty of killing millions of people, and who still have not had enough. For they are the ones who leave a trail of human skills behind them, yet people’s torpid imaginations stick those skulls on the fence of a solitary old woman who lives on the edge of the forest” (Ugrešić’ 243). Here also the skulls are affiliated not with her cannibalism but the killings of patriarchal power. The book was originally published in Croatian and has several different languages it is available in translation, although, as far as I can tell, Japanese is not one of them, so I don’t know how familiar Arima Aruma would be with it.

I’m also fascinated by the beheaded, veiled skeletal figure with the large stomach wound we see who points towards Baba Yaga’s house. Baba Yaga is sometimes presented as a mother (Forrester XXXVIII) and the large stomach opening to me almost looks like the surgical removal of a child from the womb, although that may be a stretch.

Contemporary c-sections are also often horizontal, although historically in Europe and the Americas, up until developments in surgery and gynecology in the nineteenth century, they were only performed when the mother was dead or had no hope for survival. The images I’ve seen depicting c-sections in the 15th and 16th centuries seem to depict vertical incisions though, which lines up more with this figure’s wound. (I’m not citing these but will provide links: https://www.webmd.com/baby/what-happens-during-c-section; https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/cesarean/part1.html ). I think it would also line up with some of the other imagery that’s been established in series, such as the wound/vagina/pregnancy image combo we got in the first chapter with Asmodeus.

It's also been implied that she had something to do with binding Beelzebub from entering Germany:

That file really closely follows the contours of a Baba Yaga fairy tale—getting lost in the forest, the flaming bone torch like in Vasilia the Beautiful. I’m extremely fascinated by the way in which Baba Yaga is being presented in Ekuoto and can’t wait to see more about her motivations.

Continued in Part Two

[writing-with-olive]

ADHD task completing tip

okay so growing up i was usually told "do the hard thing first and then you get to do the fun thing." and generally that's reasonable.... if you've got decent executive function. but for those of us who don't, this is a thing i've been using to get through school/work/general human functioning. It's still using hard thing/fun thing, but it interweaves them WAY more

first step: find something that sparks some dopamine quickly. i usually use short-timer online chess or mobile games. if you pick scrolling social media or something that doesn't have a clear endpoint, make sure you have an easy way to set a timer. On apple phones, there's a timer setting that says "stop playing" instead of playing a sound. I love this because it'll take you to your lock screen so you can't accidentally dismiss the timer and keep going. Do NOT make this movement or taking care of bodily functions; eating/hydrating/going to the bathroom/moving around are things you can and should do when your body tells you. take care of ya self

second step: look at your task and break it up TINY. If you have to write a paper, don't break it up by paragraph. break it up into something like fifty words. Cleaning a room: ten items put away. Close reading: 1 page. Really you want something that if your executive functioning was playing nice you could do in 1-4 minutes. I recommend NOT saying "work for x minutes" however, since that's a really quick way to sit there watching the clock. You wanna tie progress to completion not time spent.

third step: estimate how many levels/games/etc of your dopamine source it takes to last 1-5 minutes. Ideally you will already have a sense of this. I'd advise not "testing it out right now" and procrastinating that way.

fourth step: get to work. every time you complete a tiny task, you can do one unit of the dopamine thing. If you get some momentum, you can stack rewards, so if your tiny task was 50 words for one mobile game level, 150 words straight would be three levels. If you are having a really hard time getting going, you can start with 1-3 units of your dopamine thing to kinda jumpstart the process, just decide how many you're doing first so you don't lose hours to it.

note that this ONLY WORKS if you don't ignore your timer/level cutoff. The idea is to get dopamine levels up and use that to power through the next tiny task.

[not-poignant]

Hello! I apologise if you’ve already talked about this before and I just missed it, but if you don’t mind me asking, do you experience brainfog from your fibromyalgia (or other conditions), and if so, do you have any tips on dealing with it? I have FM as well and often find it impossible to focus on creative works when it’s bad—which is often due to the weather where I live 🫠 I feel like I can never finish anything, so I’m in awe of your output! Thank you in advance if you get the chance to answer; I hope you have a lovely day / night!

Hi anon,

I find brain fog is a pretty huge spectrum from 'can't do anything including watch TV / play video games' all the way to 'can't do executive function / editing but can probably still write a little.' So it's definitely different for everyone.

That being said, I don't try and write through brain fog. I don't think it's helpful and I don't really try and 'fix' it when it's there. Most of the time I take it as an indicator of a need to rest and/or a sign that I'm in a flare that will get worse if I push too hard. One of the reasons I took March off was because I typically am sunk energy-wise/health-wise during March-April (and October-November) due to the seasonal transitions from summer-winter and winter-summer.

The way I work accommodates this. For example, I don't have a daily wordcount, I have a monthly wordcount, so that if I need to take say 10-15 days of not writing because I'm too unwell, that's okay. I don't work full-time hours. Chapters don't actually take me that long to write (with the exceptions of sex and other action scenes), so I really only need 2-4 hours of alertness to get each one written.

I usually have a good idea in the morning of how foggy I'm going to be. And if that's the case I'm trying to get better at not fighting against it. Instead of thinking 'how do I deal with it' I think okay, it's here now, I'm going to get nothing really done today, I might go lie down again / play a mindless video game (if I can) / etc. I try and let my brain and body rest. It recovers from the brain fog fast that way.

There are also extremely basic things that are frequently overlooked re: helping with Fibromyalgia-based brain fog like: Looking into decent neuropathic or nerve-based pain medications like Amitriptyline or Lyrica (ymmv, but I know they help me). Making sure you're getting as much decent sleep as you can. Staying hydrated in a very genuine sense (sometimes my brain fog has literally disappeared after drinking enough water, though this is rare that it completely disappears). Eating well, and eating a balanced amount of protein, carbs, fat and fibre (and learning what this means for your body). And, though most of us hate it: Pacing. I.e. Making sure you stop before you're past you're limits, or not writing until you "can't write anymore." Stop when you still have a few paragraphs left in your head.

Writing is very fatiguing work, as is thinking about writing, and editing.

The reality is though, I have the privilege of being in a country where I'm on a disability pension and get disability support because of how disabled I am. Not everyone is fortunate enough to be in a country that takes care of their sick, elderly and vulnerable populations. And not everyone in those countries is lucky enough to have the "right illnesses" to access those supports. (Fibromyalgia doesn't count, for example, but I have enough other disabilities that I can still access support).

I could not live the way I live without those things, and without the support of folks on Patreon and Ream.

What I can say is that forcing myself to deal with / push through brain fog made me permanently sicker each time (my doctors and I think there's an element of ME/CFS in my diagnosis because of those, since FM shouldn't be degenerative in any way at all - literally differentials exist for this reason), so it is really important to make space for it. It took me a long time to learn this.

I schedule sleeps in the afternoon, I am honestly lying down for about 10-16 hours per day, every single day, to get the energy that I have. Yesterday I was in bed (though not sleeping the entire time) from midnight to around 11am. I was back in bed at 2pm until nearly 6pm. That's my life. I'm sure you're familiar, unfortunately. A lot is sacrificed to make sure that when I'm upright and functional, I can do things. If I'm lucky, maybe I'm in bed from 2pm until 4pm, maybe I get up at 9am, but I can't think of the last time I was awake through an entire day without collapsing (literally) as a consequence.

It can be worth sitting down and taking a proper look into pacing and your Energy Envelope. It's an ME concept that applies well to FMS and Long Covid.

Anyway hopefully there's something in this mess that helps, though my prevailing method these days is just...let the fog be there, and rest. Make sure you're taking basic care of your body. That sort of thing.

[sgiandubh]

Dinna fash, Sassenach

Ashley Hearn's arrival aboard the HMS Sassenach...

... has immediately been met with an expert smirk across the street:

I was not really surprised. The blogger could not help herself (she rarely does). She had to weigh in, with that insinuating tone that seems to be part of her personal brand. And, in line with what she consistently posted, the idea is that S, a highly functioning alcoholic in her book, thoughtlessly hired another highly functioning alcoholic, with NO credentials to boot. Plus a profiteer of sorts, right?

Perhaps that blogger wanted to be their new marketing manager and there she is, instead, somewhere farfarfar away from Walhalla. An unsung, compliment deprived and undiscovered hero without a cape? For I have no other elegant & merciful explanation for what could be logically construed as an outburst of hurt ego (we KNOW she has PROPER CREDENTIALS, she shouted it REPEATEDLY across the UNIVERSE), coupled with the usual pettiness, every single time things seem to challenge her view of reality.

Let's unpack:

Ashley has decent education credentials. I am writing this because I bet the farm many casual readers of that legit calumny ended up thinking that she had NO education at all:

A BA in Mathematics, at a good public university in Maryland. And a Master's Degree in Teacher Education and Professional Development at Walden University, a for-profit education institution based in Minnesota, most likely online.

A word about Walden University, though, simply because of the recent controversy related to it. While it is true that Walden has been forced to settle a class action outside of court ( it cost them 28.5 million dollars to do so), that lawsuit was strictly related to African-American students denouncing the lack of transparency related to the university's DBA (Doctor of Business Administration) program.

[More on the lawsuit: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2024/03/29/walden-agrees-285-million-settlement-class-action-suit]

Anyways, here are her real professional credentials, carefully hidden by the blogger:

Eight years and a half consistent work experience for the US subsidiary of Mast-Jägermeister, one of the most prestigious German liquor companies, founded in 1878 (https://www.mast-jaegermeister.de/). Would anyone be such a fool as to think she'd be constantly promoted by those people just for her eyes only, especially as a complete outsider to the very closed world of spirits business?

I see a hard-working woman, with good professional skills and obvious qualities (brand loyalty, for example), given a new career opportunity she clearly thought interesting enough to make her jump onboard. And I very much prefer an honest underdog, ballsy enough to take her passion and make it happen (thanks, Flashdance!) in a cutthroat, male dominated business environment, to the many lukewarm and half-hearted executives still lingering around in so many companies around the world just for the sake of commodity, predictability and mortgage.

And I honestly wish her every success. She does not deserve this. Nobody does. Luckily for her, she couldn't care less that a Nobody with a blog tried to rain on her parade.

Interestingly enough, Norouzi was the only SS bigwig NOT to congratulate her on Insta. He didn't relay the news, he didn't even like the post, even if they mutually follow eachother (their interaction always seemed to be minimal, though). But that is another story and it is way too early to speculate.

[nekropsii]

what do you see in equius ?? genuine question i don't mean to sound rude but to me she's just really offputting. she gives me such creep vibes that i can't seem to get over and every time i read a page with her it just gets worse..... like when i first read nep & eq's chats i was sitting there wondering if this was outright abuse or at least bullying of some kind??? it felt like it idk.......

but honestly i do wanna see an equius liker's opinion on him because i can't understand it like at all and i'm probably just missing something that all the equius likers saw and i didnt LMAO

Well, considering I’m an Alpha Trolls Enthusiast and have been for, like, a decade, as well as having Horror as a Special Interest since age… What, 3? I’d say I personally have a pretty strong stomach for Weird and Offputting in fiction, lol. Stronger than most. Equius isn’t a very palatable character at all, I’ll be the first to admit that - a lot of the characters I enjoy the most in Homestuck aren’t very palatable… But I find ‘em real interesting, personally. The fact that they aren’t palatable adds to the intrigue for me, and poor execution tends to be a total weakness of mine. Again, Alpha Trolls Enthusiast for a decade straight.

I have a post here that talks a bit about my reading of Equius, I’d recommend giving it a read. I see Eridan and Equius as being very similar characters - not necessarily due to their shared hemoloyalty, but because they’re both teens falling down online pipelines. They’re very prevalent Kinds Of Guy that no one wants to talk about.

But people talk about Eridan plenty even to this day - he was even a fandom favorite for a while, being the fandom’s first Prettyboy Sad Gay Anime Prince long before Dirk… So he doesn’t reel in as much interest for me as the chronically overlooked Equius.

If there’s anything to know about me, it’s that I love a good underdog.

Equius-Likers, from my experience, are very aware of his issues. It’s part of the draw. Enjoyment of him tends to be an analytical fixation. I haven’t met a single Equius-Liker that hasn’t had some very complex thoughts on him. They’re just kinda quiet about it. Fitting.

Unfortunately, I’m Aranea But Real, so. No quietness here.

Your response to Equius is valid. It’s also intended, I feel. To specifically address the bits about concerns of his relationship with Nepeta not being healthy… I mean, it’s not abusive, but it’s definitely more complicated than fan art would lead you to believe, as always. “Complicated” is to be expected from a Moirallegiance - remember what they exist for?

Nepeta is very much so in control of the things going on, and their relationship is pretty equal, all things considered, so I wouldn’t be worrying too much about that. She very distinctly does not lack agency here - Nepeta is the one who has a leash on Equius, not the other way around. Equius is mean, because that’s the way she is to… Everyone, more or less, but she’s not of any danger to Nepeta. They have a fine Moirallegiance. 1,000% more functional than whatever the fuck Karkat and Gamzee had going on.

Anyway. I think Equius is neat, and has both missed and oft overlooked potential. One of the very few characters I’d be 100% down to have seen more content of in the comic.

Once again, check out this post. I still think it’s decent. Maybe you will, too.

[rj-anderson]

It's quite a thing to adjust to being back on eldercare duty 9-12 hours a day, every day [1], which is pretty close to how my life was five years ago right before my dad's needs became so overwhelming that we had to transfer him to a nursing home. [2]

Except my dad's weaknesses were mostly physical — mentally he was quite sharp for a nearly 95-year-old — and back then my mom was well enough to keep him company, do the cleaning and laundry, and make meals for him so I could focus on managing his home care (and all the phone calls and paperwork that involved), helping him in and out of bed for naps, and wheeling him to and from the washroom as needed. Even if it was a lot of work, I wasn't doing ALL the work, and I could go for a walk in the woods or run a few errands without worrying (much) that Bad Things would happen in my absence. My mom, though, is physically in decent shape for 92, apart from her Meniere's Disease (aka chronic vertigo). But over the past year she's been increasingly losing her executive function and ability to retain recent memories. She's starting to leave her essential items like hearing aids and glasses in odd places around the house, and getting distressed when she can't find them.

Most tasks that used to be routine for Mom are beyond her now, and even writing down the steps for her doesn't help. She either forgets to look at the instructions, or she's too confused to follow them. Even answering the phone is a challenge these days, because if she can't hear the caller right away (which she usually can't, despite the volume enhancement) she starts pressing buttons at random and hangs up on them more often than not.

So for the past three months I've been running downstairs every hour or two all day to give my mom her medications, make her lunch and dinner, do her laundry, take her for her daily walk, answer her phone, turn on the TV for her, shepherd her through her nightly bedtime routine, and reassure her when she's worried about something she can't remember. It takes up a big chunk of every day in addition to my own family and church responsibilities (neither of which I want to give up or think I should). And that's assuming Mom doesn't have one of her out-of-the-blue excruciating nerve pain attacks, a fairly new development which involves a whole other level of care and leave us both exhausted for a day or more afterward. [3]

But the hardest part is that I can't leave the house now, even for a short time, without hiring a professional caregiver or recruiting a family member to take my place. My mom no longer remembers how to phone me in a crisis, and is unable to take any of her needed vertigo or pain medications on her own. If someone isn't right there to help, Bad Things will most definitely happen at some point, and more likely sooner than later.

Worse, I have no sisters, only brothers, all of whom live hours away. And as my Mom's need for care becomes increasingly specialized and personal, they're less and less equipped -- or suitable, from a woman's point of view -- to help her for more than a few hours at a time. And if Mom has one of her out-of-the-blue pain attacks, they aren't trained to give her the injection she needs. [4] So they'd have to give her oral meds and watch her suffer for 30-45 minutes before the pills kick in — and having gone through that myself several times now, I wouldn't wish the experience on my worst enemy. Or put my Mom through that much pain again, if I can help it.

But she's not in pain, or sick with vertigo, all the time. In fact, she can go for days or weeks without an attack. She's able to move about freely with her walker, chat with visiting helpers and family, stroke our two cats and enjoy looking out the back window at our yard. She looks forward to the meals I make for her and exclaims over how tasty and nourishing they are. She's lived in my basement for 20 years now, so everything is familiar and comforting. And right now, she's as safe here as she could be anywhere. The idea of transferring her to a care home even if there was a bed available (which there isn't — the waiting list in this area is 3-5 years for 24-hour nursing care and 10 years for assisted living) just doesn't seem to make sense, or be anything but cruel to her. And while there are some places that offer overnight respite care for up to a week, they only do that for clients enrolled in their adult day programs — which my mom can't attend because of her complex and unpredictable symptoms.

So I don't know when I'll ever get another vacation. I certainly can't take any overnight trips, or even day trips, right now. Unless I hire a registered nurse to stay with Mom the whole time I'm gone, and pay her hundreds of dollars to do it.

I don't really know why I'm writing this, except to get it off my chest. I love my Mom and I want to do my best for her. I'm thankful that despite her physical and mental health issues she is a loving, grateful and overall very obliging person to care for. She thanks and praises me for everything I do to help her, and apologizes for taking up so much of my time. I know she never wanted to put me in this position any more than I want to be in it.

But it's hard. It's really, really hard. And I wish I knew how long this is going to go on.

-- [1] Not counting the occasional calls in the middle of the night, which I hope will be fewer now that I've moved the call bell to keep my mom from knocking it by accident.

[2] Dad passed in early 2020, just before the pandemic. I'm still thanking God daily for that timing because I can't even imagine what it would have been like trying to visit him in lockdown.

[3] We've been to the hospital and our family doctor multiple times about this. Nobody can figure out why it's happening or how to stop it. We're supposed to get a CT scan at some point, which I hope will give us some more answers, but that could be weeks or months away.

[4] I myself was only trained a few days ago, and without any medical background or experience, I'm far from confident about it. Not even sure how well it's going to work, but something has to.

[maxdibert]

Hi. Since you defend Snape's actions for being a victim of his socio-economic circumstance, would you defend Voldemort in the same way? After all he grew up in an emotionally and financially neglectful orphanage, during world war 2 at that. Do you think his actions are also a circumstance of his upbringing? Could he have changed? Was his future violence influenced by being stuck in a house, as a perceived muggleborn, that held prejudice against muggleborns and could have been therefore ostraziced or bullied just like Severus was? Of course Tom had a huge advantage of being attractive and charismatic and had the type of personality that allowed him to "thrive", but still he suffered a lot and I would even say he suffered more than Severus. What do you think?

The thing with Tommy is that Rowling basically labels him a psychopath from childhood because she literally says that since he was conceived through a love potion, he cannot feel love himself. So, she already frames him as a person with antisocial conduct disorder, which I’ve always thought is nonsense because you can end up killing people en masse without having been conceived without love. Rowling's idea of love and its consequences is entirely conservative and has very misogynistic undertones regarding the role of women in the equation, especially when it comes to maternal love.

The fact that she blames a "bad mother" and not the father who left without taking responsibility for his offspring is sexist as hell, but well, we're not here to talk about how Rowling lets her male characters get away with behaviors for which she would crucify any of her female characters while at the same time having female characters whom she only treats positively if they adhere to traditional notions of femininity related to motherhood but condemns them harshly if that traditional femininity involves personal tastes, hobbies, or personality traits. Rowling, you’re a fucking misogynist with a highly patriarchal view and a desperate need for male validation, but I’ll let you be for now.

I’ve always thought that if Dumbledore hadn’t stigmatized Tommy from the start, maybe things could’ve been different. But he labeled him as a sociopathic child from minute one and abandoned him to his fate. He saw a child with obvious behavioral problems in an utterly dysfunctional environment with all kinds of deficiencies—an orphan left to fend for himself in a post-war orphanage. He decided the kid was bad and stuck that stereotype on him throughout his life.

I don’t know if, with better treatment, he could have turned out to be a more decent person because Rowling decided he should be a sadistic sociopath from the cradle. But there are functional psychopaths everywhere. Top company executives are functional psychopaths, high-ranking officials are often functional psychopaths, and celebrities can be functional psychopaths. You can have an antisocial personality disorder and still be functional if treated properly. Could this have happened with Tommy? I don’t rule it out, honestly.

What I am sure of is that Tommy had a lot of resentment toward Dumbledore, and that resentment wasn’t unfounded. Dumbledore left many boys and girls who didn’t fit into his ethical and moral standards, or whom he simply found too complicated to manipulate, at the mercy of the "dark side." It’s no coincidence that those boys and girls ended up making wrong decisions.

Dumbledore was a figure of authority in the magical world, especially at Hogwarts. He was someone from whom everyone sought validation, and probably teenagers without strong parental figures needed that validation even more. And he made sure to despise many of those teenagers instead of working with them and trying to guide them properly, which is the role of a good teacher—especially one directly responsible for them during the school year.

I think if the Marauders started to disgust me when I saw the SWM scene in the fifth book, Dumbledore started to make me sick from the sixth book, when his treatment of Tom is exposed. You can’t label a child like that and then try to undermine his ambitions constantly when he’s a teenager. You’re only going to provoke increased resentment and opposition to everything you represent.

I also think Tommy has many parallels with Snape in the sense that both had Muggle fathers they clearly hated and despised. Their hatred toward Muggles likely began there, compounded by living in post-war conditions and being in a miserable orphanage of that era, which must have been hellish. They both probably wanted to distance themselves from everything that being a Muggle represented.

It doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me that both characters are half-bloods with Muggle fathers and have issues with Muggles because their experience outside the magical world—their experience with Muggles and the Muggle side of life—was absolutely dreadful. But at the same time, they are quite different because Voldemort, according to Rowling, couldn’t feel love and, I assume, couldn’t feel affection either, besides being a narcissist hungry for power.

Although, if you ask me, at its core, I think he was just a sadist angry at his parents. It always comes down to the parents, right? xD