#i have like 3 mental conditions i just have like a collection of symptoms of but not enough to actually be there and i’m like well what do

[iviarellereads]

A note on coverage of The Murderbot Diaries

This one's perhaps even more of a departure from the initial expectations of the blog than the Neverending Story was, but all good things are... subject to change? No, that makes it sound like it's not as good.

The Murderbot Diaries are a series by Martha Wells, about a security construct (SecUnit, the name for the designated model type and, by extension, the name used by most of the people Murderbot encounters) that broke its own governor module (think DRM) and functions independently, though it pretends it's still good locked-down company property. It exhibits strong symptoms of social anxiety, making it one of the most relatable robots ever, and accidentally makes friends.

Murderbot itself has no gender. The audiobook narrator is Kevin R. Free, and the subject doesn't come up very often in the story, so a lot of people assume and assign masculinity. Despite that, Murderbot is and knows it is a construct accessorized with the most expedient biological parts, expresses no human gender, and uses it/its pronouns. This just doesn't get clarified until much later in the series, if at all, and I'd rather have everyone understand it up front so nobody accuses me of object-ifying a person who literally personally identifies as an object.

I think this series is really neat. It's so much an exploration of personhood, like your average robot story but with mental illness. Heck, don't mind if I make references all the way back to Rossum's Universal Robots, the (extremely readable or watchable! highly recommended by me) stage play that is the origin of the word itself in its modern context, or perhaps further back all the way to Frankenstein. Murderbot is in conversation with two hundred years of science fiction exploring what it means to be, and besides that, I think it does some really interesting things with the prose.

So, with the newest book coming out in a couple of months, I decided to merge my desire to reread it with my desire to pick it apart under a microscope the way this project allows. We'll be covering more or less in release date order, with the exception of the expanded edition of Compulsory recently released going back to back with the original to compare and contrast.

So please, instead of peace this time, give Murder(bot) a chance, and join me on this space adventure.

Link index:

All Systems Red

Artificial Condition

Rogue Protocol

Exit Strategy

Compulsory (Short story: Wired Magazine vs republished and expanded edition)

Obsolescence (Take Us To A Better Place collection)

Network Effect 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

Fugitive Telemetry 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

System Collapse 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat

Author: Dr. Oliver Sacks

Rating: 2/5 stars

From the publisher:

"The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat," the world's first true medical-improvised autobiographical narrative, is a personal account by the author, Oliver Sacks. The story is set in and around London and its psychiatric hospitals during the late 50s and early 60s, and reveals the author's deep fascination with the human mind as he meets people with extraordinary and disturbing personalities and makes startling discoveries.

But I was the one who had to write, because nobody believed me. When I would describe my findings to my colleagues or to journalists in the press room of the hospital, I would get no reaction. I remember one journalist, who had written the most famous medical story of the year, the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, made me sign a statement: "I, Oliver Sacks, assure you that I did not make these discoveries. The book was written by Oliver Sacks; I only acted as his literary executor."

(Sacks is a neurologist; he writes books like this to document his personal relationships with patients and to challenge the view that the mind is simply a passive receiver of the senses, the source of cognition just a transmitter of sense data.)

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat is a very baffling book. In some parts the narrative is a bit like the old "reporter's notebook" accounts Sacks himself loved as a boy, describing the doctor/patient interactions with no intervening material. "On the morning of April 17, 1952, I saw Mrs. [Mabel] D. … At my suggestion, she had made a visit to Dr. [John] Smyth at the London Clinic. I had also arranged to have her examined on the next day, and I saw her again there. It was clear that Dr. [Smyth] was right in saying that she had suffered a stroke, but it was equally clear that I must have a longer look at her than Dr. [Smyth] had had. I sent for Dr. [George] Pickering, the consulting neurologist in the London Clinic. On examining her I found she had suffered a lesion in the right temporal lobe of her brain, the right hemisphere of the cerebrum, the medial region of the temporal lobe. The lesion was about 2 to 3 centimeters in diameter, and the symptoms were those usually called hemiplegic."

The book is a collection of many of these personal narratives, with Sacks' voice intercut with Sacks' description of these encounters. The book is also a mixture of the "reporter's notebook" and the psychoanalytical ("What I found was a case of paranoid schizophrenia, without doubt, a case of paranoid schizophrenia caused by an injury or lesions affecting the right temporal lobe").

It's very well-written, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around some of the things Sacks tells us about Mrs. M. D.'s brain. I don't want to say anything that might spoil this book, but let me just say this: in some ways, I found it more entertaining than enlightening.

In the course of Mrs. M. D.'s visit to the hospital, Sacks describes her as a sort of "super-woman," able to endure and recover from severe blows (for instance, she spent over a month in bed after a stroke, and survived by eating just a few spoonfuls of water a day); able to read, cook, play the piano, and draw; so calm and even-tempered even during episodes of violent rage that people sometimes found it hard to believe she had actually had an argument with her husband and could kill him; and who apparently didn't even seem aware of the unusual nature of these abilities, because when told by Sacks that she seemed to have recovered, her family's doctor replied that "in other conditions a patient with her abilities might have died." Sacks also describes (pp. 68-69) his attempt to draw some kind of mental map of Mrs. M. D.'s brain using what was in effect a cross-stitch-sewing technique.

(This bit is from the introduction, but if the book is going to be this strange, it might as well be in the introduction. Sacks' fascination with the bizarre, his love of the "weird," and his fascination with his patients probably makes for much more entertaining reading than trying to describe something like his brain map. If you don't want to know what it looks like, this is the place for you!)

[deathchic]

starting to get really annoyed at my brain for not giving me enough mental illness content in any one specific area. like yes i have obsessions and compulsions and weird specific anxieties that are only alleviated by doing things a very certain way yes ocd runs in my family no i absolutely do not have enough shit to get a diagnosis. i just have to like. put up with it.

[down-in-devildom]

if You don’t mind, could you do a therapist MC who diagnosed Mammon with ADHD, BPD, and major depressive disorder? I happen to enjoy projecting onto mammon and I wonder how the brothers would react. if you feel like you wouldn’t be able to do a certain disorder justice you can skip it.

First and foremost, I would like to say that I needed to do a lot of research in order to touch on this prompt and even then, I am not an expert. Please understand that my portrayal of Mammon’s behavior and diagnosis is based on limited research and some personal experience (with ADHD and general anxiety). I will be sure to link any resource videos I used for my education below. My primary focus will be on the ADHA, BPD, and I substituted major depressive disorder with some signs of bipolar disorder. Doing 3 and 3 for now and will link part 2 with it is completed. Thank you so much for the request and the challenge! 

Mammon with ADHD, BPD, and possible Bipolar Disorder feat. Lucifer, Mammon, and Satan

Lucifer

Lucifer was not a demon to have immediately thought that someone like Mammon may have had an outside force that was causing his erratic behavior. He just assumed that Mammon was unable to pay attention for very long on anything outside of planning get-rich-quick schemes and MC. Lucifer felt like maybe the diagnostic was incorrect. The second brother was just hyper, not hyperactive

It was only a few days after Mammon talked about possibly having the mental disorders in the brothers’ group chat, and asking them if they knew anything about it, Lucifer felt compelled to do his own research. It only took a bit of snooping in Satan’s room to find a few psychology books that may be of use to him.

When Lucifer really sat down to read about ADHD, he was not really surprised with what he found. He knew what it was, just not all of the nuances of it. He then started to think of instances where Mammon would seemingly just keep talking regardless of whether there was anything to be said. Mammon’s speech would get progressively faster and faster, almost like he was running out of time to talk about why, exactly, hellfire cup noodles were the perfect dinner. He would then just randomly stop sometimes in the middle of the sentence as if he had completed his last thought and either look at Lucifer expecting some kind of response or would walk away like the conversation was over.

Lucifer did not feel the need to do additional research for the moment, he had paperwork to get done for Lord Diavolo, after all, but he did try to show a little bit more leniency towards Mammon and his meaningless ramblings. Lucifer does not let up on his punishments, per say, they were just as cruel as usual, he just did not feel the need to hang Mammon by the rafters whenever he felt the need to waste Lucifer’s time talking about Goldie having the perfect ratio of metallic shine and rich color.  

Mammon

Mammon did not accept what MC said what he may have at first. He could kind of get the ADHD part of it, that was just having a lot of energy, right? But the more he learned about it, the more he understood his supposedly impulsive behavior. 

He talked a few things out with MC and really tried to reflect on his behavior. The term that MC used to describe his endless energy was almost manic and the stigmatized word scared him. Manic made him seem crazy. MC then had to explain that real mania was more of a bipolar disorder trait, and not what they were describing and still not something to fear. When MC talked more about his money schemes and seemingly sudden life alternating plans, he kinda understood a bit more.

There was a certain point in time when Mammon was convinced that he could become the owner of a club that was a thousand times more popular than The Fall and rake in massive amounts of Grimm. He spent a massive amount of his brothers’ money on buying furniture and alcohol and marketing even before he secured a building. The idea wouldn’t leave his mind but evaporated in a day or so. It wasn’t even like he took the time to research how to open a club in the Devildom, he just assumed that he could do anything in the moment and nothing would stop him. Unfortunately, Lucifer did stop him when Mammon’s new furniture collection started to pour out into the hallways of HoL.

Mammon wasn’t all that sure what he could do to maybe help manage his symptoms. MC suggested stimulants to see if he can see a change in his ability to control his impulsiveness. He had to think about it for a bit though. He did not really like that his “manic-like” episodes were impeding on his ability to enjoy his life but he did figure it may have an impact on the people close to him. He is glad to have MC around to help him with this new journey to better managing his mental health.

Satan

Satan was acquainted to some extent with a variety of mental disorders and have thought about a few possible diagnostics for several of his brothers. When Mammon told everybody about his comorbid diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and ADHD, Satan was very interested in talking to MC to find out a bit more information about the conditions. 

Satan was intrigued by how BPD was able to impact how Mammon approached his relationships. The impulsiveness was something that could be attributed to the ADHD, but his seemingly unnatural, wholehearted devotion and idealization of MC shortly after they arrived was something he could now see in perspective. Call him a cynic, but Satan thinks Mammon attached themselves to MC a little too fast.

When MC was assigned to be in Mammon’s care, Satan was very quick to notice that his tune changed relatively quickly after just a few days. Mind you, MC really was a great and outstanding person and it was no wonder that the brothers all came to like them as much as they did. However, this was the first time in centuries that Mammon met a human that wasn’t after some sort of advancement in life, so his suspicions should have been high. Next thing Satan was aware of, Mammon was practically walking on Mc’s heels trying to please them or expecting MC to do almost impossible feats just because they stood up to Lucifer for him once. Impressive, yes, but not worth the stars in Mammon’s eyes.

Satan was also aware that there was a major possibility that Mammon would experience the flip side of the idealization and assume that MC was the worst person in existence. It hasn’t happened yet, but Satan keeps an eye on Mammon. Maybe just because demons have a different internal rhythm than humans, this switching between love and hate hasn’t happened nor will it happen. Either way, Satan found comfort in knowing just a bit more about his brother.

------

So, mania is defined as symptoms lasting for more than two weeks. Wanted to clear that up as to why it was manic-like and not mania. This is where the bipolar disorder hinting came into play. Resources below. Thank you for reading and hopefully part 2 will be out soon! -Leo

Bipolar Disorder Vs Borderline Personality Disorder

ADHD Vs Bipolar Disorder

Anxiety vs Mania

[novantinuum]

Corruption + Pathophysiology concepts

So, I learned a few new terms and concepts this week in my Mechanisms of Disease class, and I believe there’s some interesting applications one can make between these human medical concepts and SU’s concept of corruption- specifically, when showing how Steven’s condition in I Am My Monster can indeed be referred to as corruption despite having a different origin to other examples of corruption we’d seen before.

Before I get into the fandom stuff though, we need to talk shop about some cool pathophysiology words! Let’s go do that.

Term 1: Etiology

Etiology refers to the precise cause of a disease or disorder. Now, one of the important pieces of knowledge I’ve had reinforced in this class is that some diseases/disorders can have multiple causes.

An example: Meningitis. 

This disease can be caused by one of many species of bacteria, viruses, some fungi, and even by parasitic tapeworms. These are all wildly different sources, but in the end- if all the signs and symptoms of meningitis are there, and the etiology points to a documented meningitis-causing pathogen, the likely diagnosis WILL be meningitis. 

Term 2: Idiopathic

Idiopathic is what one calls a disease/disorder wherein the precise cause, or etiology, is unknown. Sometimes, individuals develop some form of disease/disorder and doctors may not be able to pinpoint the specific root cause of it. In that case, their goal is still to recognize and understand the signs and symptoms of it, and work off of what they DO know to try and alleviate one’s signs/symptoms.

Term 3: Clinical manifestations

This term refers to all the presenting signs and symptoms of a disease/disorder. Signs are measurable and directly observable- such as rashes, fevers, increased blood pressure, etc. Symptoms are patient-reported, subjective, and not able to be directly observed or measured- such as a headache, fatigue, etc.

Term 4: Disease/disorder

I also think the specific definitions of disease and disorder are important to clarify before I move forward- 

A disease is the functional impairment of cells, tissues, organs, or organ systems. 

Whereas a disorder is a disruption of the normal or regular functions in the body or a part of the body.

__ OKAY, and now to the fandom related stuff!

So. Thesis. When it comes to corruption, my analysis is that it can be considered a Gem disorder that has a collective set of recognizable symptoms, but many potential etiologies.

First off, Gems of course don’t have physical bodies, organs, and cells, but they do have a physical gemstone, and their hard light forms have clear functional abilities that can sometimes become impaired.

Some of these functional abilities include: 

Retaining a stable form

Shapeshifting

Communicative ability

Mental cognizance

Access of powers

Corruption disrupts many of these functions. Thus, considering the definitions of disease and disorder, I believe disorder would be the most accurate way to refer to corruption, looking at it from a human medical perspective. (While also recognizing that it’s a fantasy alien condition, and thus won’t perfectly align to human standards.)

As a disorder, corruption presents a number of recognizable signs and symptoms, which include:

Loss of control over form and shape- a corrupted individual’s form may physically expand, develop spikes/tusks/fangs/new body parts, or grow thicker hair. On top of this, upon reformation, this individual is not successfully able to revert to their original form. 

Loss of communication ability- a corrupted individual expresses trouble with verbal communication.

Loss of full mental cognizance- a corrupted individual is not completely aware of themselves and their surroundings, caught in what may be considered a “fight or flight” mindset.

Sometimes, but not in all cases- the development of atypically colored splotches on one’s form or gemstone

The only known successful treatment for those who exhibit the symptoms of corruption is exposure to water that contains the essences of all four diamonds. 

Now, moving on- Etiology. 

From what we’ve seen in Steven Universe and Steven Universe Future, and considering the the situations in these shows that exhibit these clinical manifestations, we can confidently say that corruption has three distinct etiologies:

1) It can be caused by direct damage from the Diamonds. (All the corrupted Gems on Earth.)

2) It can be caused by fusing with a currently corrupted Gem. (Jasper.)

3) It can be caused by a state of extreme mental distress and distortion of self-image. (Steven.)

Now, when it comes to the third etiology, a point of clarification- it cannot be confidently PROVEN whether this cause is something that could arise from any Gem or just from a diamond since we only have one case as an example, but given the fact that we didn’t see any of the CGs randomly corrupt when they were going through mental turmoil, my personal hypothesis is that: it’s either a diamond or a Steven exclusive thing. But again, with only one recorded statistic to work with, we can’t really make any certain statements.

So. Let’s talk Steven’s corruption, and why I believe it wholly counts as such. 

The symptoms Steven exhibits in I Am My Monster are: loss of control over form and shape, loss of communication ability, and loss of full mental cognizance. His form shifts until he’s larger than all of the Diamonds, he grows spikes and tusks and scales, he looses his ability to communicate verbally, and he expresses a great deal of mental confusion about his state, attempting to rush at his family and friends out of sheer fight/flight and survival instincts without wholly understanding what’s going on. He doesn’t develop splotches on his gem, but this is a manifestation that doesn’t always appear. It’s like the spotted rash in Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever- not every patient with this disease exhibits it, and it sometimes makes diagnosis tricky.

I don’t believe the Gems had any idea what specifically triggered him to fall into this state at first, nor did the Diamonds. Thus, initially they might have thought of Steven’s corruption as idiopathic. But when Blue Diamond first saw him, she recognized the signs and symptoms of corruption- and so, the most logical first step is to attempt to treat this condition like it IS corruption. The treatment of course, being exposure to water that contains the essences of all four Diamonds. Which means, with Steven being one of those diamonds, they must bring out his humanity so he can cry, adding in his own healing addition to that final elixir.

In sum: What happened to Steven in SUF was an example of corruption, despite having a different root cause than the other examples of this Gem disorder we’d previously seen in the show.

[culmaer]

36 · 47 · 56 :-)

36. Have you ever met someone who had a very similar personality to your own? Did you get along?

I don't think I have ? I'm quite introverted and reserved, so don't really get to know new people very often. I'm sure they're out there, it's simply that we're less likely to meet each other. most people with whom I share beliefs and interests or hobbies, I only got to know because they're so outgoing/open and extroverted

47. Do you have to suffer to truly understand the human condition? What is the human condition? How can you really experience it?

oi, a tough one. kinda feel like this is two separate issues tbh

no, you don't have to suffer to have a valid human experience. you're just very fortunate. I think someone can still be kind, empathetic, and acknowledge the symptoms of suffering in others, without fully understanding or having experienced it first hand. But you absolutely have to have suffered to truly understand suffering.

which is not the human condition per se. what separates humans from animals, I'd say, is yearning. we are social creatures and yearn for family, friends and a community (not just bc of a safety-in-numbers herd mentality). and we yearn for Meaning, that is, answers to questions precisely like 'what is the human condition' or 'what is the meaning of life' ?

I think the reason why suffering is so often equated with the human condition, is that it usually manifests as a yearning. if someone is suffering, they quite desperately long for 1) respite, 2) an answer to what the Purpose of their suffering is, and 3) people to comfort or help them

56. What do you think about artificial intelligence?

bad. I think. I don't actually know what the technical definition of AI is

making super computers and algorithms can help solve a lot of humanity's problems which would be a good thing. if they are still fundamentally machines/tools programmed to do tasks and the "intelligence" just makes them more efficient

capitalism (not AI inherently) is what screws us over in this scenario bc, instead of meaning people no longer need to work in a liberating way, it renders an increasing number of people unemployable in a they-starve-and-die kinda way. and also google-style data collection for advertisers is evil. but in theory you could have super smart machines recycling trash and diagnosing diseases etc

but an AI, like, a legit fully sentient machine..... that sounds unnecessary at best, and is probably a Very Bad Idea. does the AI have rights ? in which case, can we make it do work like other machines, or what is it for ? also does it have morals or ethics which align with human morals and ethics ?

[celestialvoid-fanfiction]

I really want a sterek scene stealer AU that’s the episode of Star Trek: Voyager, Blood Fever (Season 3 Episode 16). Derek would be B'Elanna – a half-Klingon who finds himself experiencing symptoms of the Pon farr (a point in a Vulcan’s life where their disciplined logic is overwhelmed by emotion and instinct as they’re driven to return to Vulcan and take a mate) after being mentally bound to a young Vulcan – Jennifer Blake – who’s undergoing it. Stiles would be Lieutenant Parris, a human who everyone thinks is cocky and a womanizer, but he’s been hiding his feelings for Derek for a long time.

They make their way down to a planet to collect gallicite when the side effects of the Pon farr begin to take its toll on Derek; he becomes irritated and aggressive.

As the away team – Derek, Stiles and Scott – go rig up their gear and descend into the caverns and collapsed tunnels, Scott’s piton gives way and he falls. Derek and Stiles hurry down after him. Derek loses it, he starts shouting at Scott for being irresponsible but Stiles argues that Scott did nothing wrong; either the gear was faulty or the rock gave way. He says they should contact the ship, but Derek is determined to finish the mission – his anger growing – and when Stiles reaches out to stop him, Derek wheels around and bites Stiles’ cheek before taking off into the tunnels.

Stiles contacts the ship and tells them what happened.

“He’s either out of communications range or just not responding,” Stiles says. “His last known position was ten meters below our current position. I tried to stop him from leaving, Captain, but he got hostile and bit me.”

“He bit you?” Commander Parrish repeats, stunned.

“And he seemed to be enjoying it, in a Klingon kind of way.”

Boyd – another Vulcan on the ship – deduces what’s happened. He and Commander Parrish beam down to the planet to help get Scott medical treatment before going after Derek.

Boyd explains that the Pon farr can be fatal if the urges are not addressed, they set out after Derek—he’s after the gallicite, so they hope that following it will lead them to Derek.

Stiles is the first to find Derek, and when he does, he seems his normal self for a moment; not angry or irritated, but excited to have found the resources they came for.

“How are you feeling, Lieutenant?” Boyd asks, approaching Derek carefully.

“Fine.”

“We need to get you back to the ship,” Commander Parrish says.

“Why?”

“You are experiencing a condition known as Pon farr,” Boyd explained.

“Pon what?”

“Your emotional balance has been disrupted. You may not be in control of your more aggressive instincts.”

“I lost my temper for a moment, that’s all,” Derek said. He glances between them noticing the urgency and worry in their eyes. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“Please come back to the ship with us,” Boyd says, insistent. He takes a step forward.

“Just leave me alone!”

They freeze as members of an alien species step out of the shadows.

Parrish is able to calm them down, explaining they have no ill-intent, but the alien nods towards Derek. “He does.”

“He’s suffering from a chemical imbalance which is effecting his behaviour,” Parrish explains. “We’d be happy to take him and leave your territory.”

But before they can react, Derek lashes out, fighting off one of the aliens.

“Derek, stop!” Stiles says, grabbing Derek by the shoulder.

The two fall to the ground.

The cave walls rumble and the earth beneath them shakes.

Stiles looks up to see the ceiling crumbling.

“Derek!” he shouts, grabbing him and pulling him aside as the walls cave in and the ground falls from beneath them. When the dust settles, it’s just Stiles and Derek.

Stiles steadies Derek, checking on him. He has a cut on his arm and his head, but he’s conscious.

“We have to get back to the ship,” Stiles says.

“We can’t leave Boyd and Parrish down here,” Derek argues.

“The minerals in the walls inhibit the tricorders; we can’t scan for life signs or a way out. Out best chance is to get back to the ship and get some help, for them and for you.”

“Why does everybody keep saying there’s something wrong with me?”

Stiles does his best to explain what’s happening as they make their way through the tunnels, trying to get back to the surface.

“Boyd’s got to be wrong about this. It doesn’t make sense,” Derek argues.

“It does explain how you’ve been acting,” Stiles counters.

“I don’t see what’s so strange,” Derek says defensively.

“How about starting a fight with a group of armed aliens, shouting at Scott, giving me this—” He points at his cheek which is still bloodied from where Derek had bit him. “—and if I remember my Klingon customs correctly, biting someone on the face means—”

“I know what it means,” Derek cuts him off. 

It’s a way of a Klingon choosing a mate, he thinks. 

“Alright. Maybe I do feel something, some kind of instinct. What am I supposed to do about it?”

“When we get back to the ship, the doctor should be able to help,” Stiles reassures him.

Derek stops at a dead end, positioning the butt of the rifle into his shoulder and aiming at the rock.

“Whoa!” Stiles says, grabbing the end of the rifle and pointing it down—stopping Derek from firing. “We don't know how stable this tunnel is. An energy blast might bring the rest of it down on our heads.”

“Let go!” Derek growls, trying to pull the rifle out of Stiles’ grip, but Stiles resists him, taking the rifle.

“No. I think I should keep this.”

Derek tightens his grip on it, jerking it to the side and throwing Stiles back against the rocky wall, pinning him there.

“Never pick a fight with a Klingon, Stiles.”

“I'm not going to fight with you, Derek,” Stiles says, keeping his voice level and calm.

Derek’s voice is low, threatening; his eyes dark and filled with bloodlust. “Afraid I'll break your arm? You should be.”

“Derek, stop it! This isn't about the gun. This is about sex. But that's not gonna happen right now.”

A smirk turns up Derek’s lips as he leans in close and breathlessly says, “I think it is. See, I have picked up your scent, Stiles. I've tasted your blood.”

“No,” Stiles says firmly. “I'm your friend, and I have to watch out for you when your judgement's been impaired. If you let these instincts take over now, you'll hate yourself, and me too for taking advantage of you. I won't do that.”

Derek pulls back. “Maybe we should split up.”

“No.”

“You don't know how strong, how hard it is to fight this urge.”

“Are you telling me that I'm impossible to resist?” Stiles says teasingly.

Derek levels him with an unamused look. “I wouldn't go that far.”

“Good. Come on.”

They continue on down the tunnels. The walls start to rumble again.

Stiles pulls Derek into a small cavern, just as the tunnel caves in behind them, trapping them.

“We should use that weapon. It's worth the risk now,” Derek says.

“I might agree with you if I still had it. It's buried somewhere under all that,” Stiles says, nodding towards the caved in tunnel.

“What?”

“Sorry. Try to stay calm. I know it's hard.”

“You don't know anything. I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin. I need to do something. I can't take this.”

He pushes Stiles to the ground, straddling him.

Stiles pushes him off, standing up.

“You've never been hard to get, Stiles,” Derek said, rising to his feet.

“Well, I'm making an exception. I can't let you do this.”

“Oh, I bet you wish you could. All those invitations to dinner. And on the holodeck, the way you would stare at me when you thought I wasn't looking, and get jealous when I'm with someone else. You can't tell me you're not interested in me.”

“You're right. I can't,” Stiles admits.

“Then don't push me away,” Derek whispers, stepping closer to Stiles.

“Oh, believe me, I'd like to, but I know this isn't really you. You've made it clear that you're not interested, and I have to accept that's how you feel, even now.”

“No,” Derek said quietly. “No, it isn't… I was just afraid to admit it… I've wanted this for so long.”

He leans forward, bringing their lips together.

“Just let it happen,” Derek whispers as he pulls back from the kiss slightly.

He tilts his head, deepening the kiss. Stiles walks him back until Derek’s back is pressed against the cavern wall. He slowly draws back from the kiss, his face still close to Derek’s and his voice barely more than a whisper as he says, “I hope someday you'll say that to me and mean it.”

Derek shoves him back, enraged. “You'd let me go insane rather than help me?”

“You know that's not true.”

“Just stay away from me,” Derek shouts, sinking down to the floor and curling up in the corner.

A little while later, Derek lifts his head, looking around. His voice is quiet, confused, as he asks, “Where are we?”

“Still stuck in the cave, I'm afraid,” Stiles tells him.

“The cave?” Derek tries to think. “The gallicite. Where's my tricorder?”

“We're not looking for the gallicite anymore. We're trying to get back to the ship, remember?” Stiles prompts, his voice soft and calming.

Derek looks even more confused. “No, I don't.”

There’s a loud crash as one of the large rocks falls away from the wall. Stiles steps away from Derek, helping whoever it is on the other side push aside the rocks.

Parrish’s face appears in the hole. “Are you two alright?”

“Derek needs help. We've got to get him out of here.”

Once they’re back on the surface, they try to contact the ship, but there’s no response.

“There must be some kind of communications problem. I'm sure they'll clear it up soon,” Parrish says.

Boyd looks at Derek. “It may not be soon enough. I am concerned about the rapid progression of his symptoms.” He looks at Stiles. “You must help him now, Mister Stilinski. If he does not resolve the Pon farr, he will die.”

Stiles lets out a sigh. Parrish and Boyd leave them alone. Stiles walks over to where Derek’s sitting, huddled near the entrance of the cave. He kneels before him.

“Derek, I know this is a pretty bizarre situation, probably not what either one of us had in mind, but it's too late to worry about that now.”

“Stiles,” Derek interrupts.

“Yeah?”

“Be quiet.”

Derek takes Stiles’ hand and leads him into the underbrush. In a small clearing, Derek pulls Stiles close, brushing his face against Stiles’ wrist to feel his pulse before nuzzling his face into Stiles’ neck.

“Is this the part where you throw heavy objects at me?” Stiles says teasingly.

“Maybe later,” Derek mutters, his voice slurred as he loses himself in the moment.

“I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to do,” Stiles admits, but when Derek doesn’t respond, he mirrors Derek’s actions, taking Derek’s hand in his and brushing his lips against his wrist before burying his face in the curve of Derek’s neck, letting out a low, animalistic growl.

Derek throws Stiles to the ground, straddling him and pinning his hands above his head.

Stiles doesn’t resist.

Derek looks confused. “What are you doing?”

“Enjoying myself?” Stiles replies.

“Then show it.”

Stiles smirks, flipping Derek on his back and pinning him to the ground. They roll around, struggling the way Klingons do when a branch snaps and a familiar voice shouts, “You are my mate, not his!”

“What are you doing here?” Derek shouts, glaring at Jennifer as he and Stiles rise to their feet. Stiles steadies Derek, the man weakened by the Pon farr.

“I've come to claim you, to fulfil our bond, and if necessary, to face my rival,” she says, glaring at Stiles.

Parrish and Boyd step into the clearing, following the sound of shouting.

“I declare Koon-ut-kal-if-fee,” Jennifer announces.

“The ritual challenge,” Boyd explains. “She intends to fight to win her mate.”

“You want a fight? You've got one,” Stiles challenged.

“Hold on, Stiles. There's not going to be any challenge,” Parrish says calmly, stepping between them. “Are you responsible for the ship being out of contact?” he asks Jennifer.

“It was necessary to disable the communications, transporters and shuttles,” she says. “No one will keep me from my mate.”

“I am not your mate!” Derek growls.

“We will soon decide that.”

“If anyone is going to smash your arrogant little face in, I will! I take your challenge myself.”

Parrish and Stiles look to Boyd.

“She has the right to choose her own defender, even herself,” he says. “Both must resolve their Pon farr before it kills them. I see no alternative but to follow Vulcan tradition.”

“Alright,” Parrish reluctantly agrees.

Derek and Jennifer fight. They’re evenly matched—throwing punches and kicks. The two fall to the ground, wrestling and struggling as they exchange blows until finally Jennifer collapses, unable to get up. Derek staggers back, completely disorientated. He falls into Stiles’ arms.

“Is it over?” Stiles asks, worried.

“The blood fever has been purged,” Boyd says. “It is over.”

   Later, once Derek has recovered, they return to their duties. Derek is in the turbolift as the doors open for Stiles.

Stiles steps into the turbolift, the awkward tension filling the air.

“Looks like you’re feeling better,” Stiles says, trying to break the awkward silence. “Back on duty?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Derek says. “And yes. The warp coils should be good as new by the end of the week.

“Oh, good. Glad to hear it.” He pauses. “Computer, halt turbolift.”

The turbolift stops.

Stiles turns to Derek. “Look, this is ridiculous. We are going to be together on this ship for a long time.”

“You're right. We have to pretend that the whole thing didn't happen.”

“But something did happen, Derek.”

“Look, Stiles, I really appreciate what you did—what you were willing to do—for me. But as far as I'm concerned, I was under the influence of some weird Vulcan chemical imbalance, and, and whatever I did, whatever I said, it wasn't me.”

“Yeah, I know. You're afraid that your big, scary Klingon side might have been showing. Well, I saw it up close, and you know, it wasn't so terrible. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing it again someday.” He turns away, hiding his smirk as he says, “Computer, resume.”

The turbolift slows. The doors open and Derek steps out.

“Careful what you wish for, Lieutenant,” he says over his shoulder, leaving Stiles stunned as the turbolift doors close.

[kingofthewilderwest]

Something interesting I've noticed about COVID-19's isolation is that many people trying to spread love exhibit a blindspot. For those of us on the other side of the blindspot, it's been... frustrating.

I speak with love and hope my tone sounds considerate rather than self-focused, but I want to reveal the blindspot for what it is and ask us to reconsider our collective behavior. I've been nervous to post this, but... here goes.

Circa 2017, I moved to a town where nobody else I knew lived and I started an online-only job. The remote job was socially isolating enough; constant severe mental illness struggles made it almost impossible to have the energy or gumption to find human contact. For years, I've struggled to get even rudimentary face-to-face interactions. I've learned to cope and live a stable life. I don't want to sound self-pitying because I don't feel that way about myself; I simply want to explain how it's felt living like this.

I also want to emphasize I have it light compared to others who live isolated, and I want to focus on them and their struggles. (I'm simply using myself as an explanation reference point.) People with chronic medical conditions find themselves housebound with loads more limitations and loneliness. I have several friends whose health has locked them almost 100% in their houses. And there's little that can be done to help their lack of mobility.

For years, I tried telling friends that living isolated was psychologically debilitating. While I take initiative to help and heal myself, I also asked for help from others. I explained how I was hurting and described ways they could consider helping, if they were willing to consider it. I speak through observation and not accusation, but I want to note: people rarely if ever did anything about my condition; rather, it was more common people forgot my suffering existed. They weren't processing what it'd be like to live in my situation. They were seeing the world only as they lived it.

Enter COVID-19, social distancing, quarantine, isolation.

When lockdown hit, almost nothing changed to my routine. Only one thing changed: instead of sometimes working at a coffee shop, now I always work in my apartment. (I suppose the other change was I spent three weeks 100% indoors because I exhibited coronavirus symptoms, but I'm better now.)

I sympathize with everyone whose lives are now interrupted through pandemic lockdown measures. I understand your disorientation with time, your listlessness, your sluggishness, your constant boredom snacking, your stir-craziness, your depression, your anxiety, your trauma, your crippling loneliness, your out-of-whack sleep schedule. Your struggles are valid. Your hurt is real. <3 I want to send love your way for all that. But. I also admit. Every time I feel compassion for others in the lockdown situation, I crash into something that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

It's that people STILL aren't able to realize what it's like to be in someone else's shoes. Everyone's suffering *IS* valid, but people also aren't processing that others might be living or suffering differently. You're treating everyone as though they're in the same boat you are.

I've had many longterm friends ask how I'm holding up in lockdown, and while the question is intended to be compassionate, they're unintentionally hurting me by their ignorance. It becomes a double slap in the face: once for being oblivious to my pain in the past, and twice for being oblivious you're living a taste of my pain now. It shows that you still haven't processed that my three YEARS of isolation hurt me; you're asking me about how I'm feeling about the last three weeks YOU have been living. COVID-19 lockdowns haven't taught people how the housebound, the shut-ins, the chronically ill, the socially isolated feel. People still don't register that that pain exists. People still forget everything we've said.

I was talking online with one of my housebound friends the other week, someone who's chronically ill, and who has been talking with other housebound individuals. He says conversations often bitterly revolve around how isolated people continue to be forgotten. For one example, my friend mentioned he's having an easier time living now because society made things more accessible to the home - things once deemed "hard to integrate" (like certain online learning accommodations) are now everywhere. It's rubbing salt into the wounds about how much housebound people were ignored... and continue to be ignored. It feels like it's only when OTHERS have issues that these accessibility problems get thoroughly addressed. Every time the general populace posts about "quarantine problems," we're just seeing a description of our usual lives. We've been sitting here angrily thinking, "SEE??? I TOLD YOU THIS SHIT HURTS!!"

It's not that we don't care you're hurting, but my friend and I and our friends' friends are angry that you're getting a tiny taste of our lives, suffering, and STILL failing to notice we suffer.

If when the pandemic ends and and you return to your routines and regroup only with your friends who had robust social lives, I fear we've lost a major learning and bonding opportunity. You have now lived a small sample of what the socially isolated constantly feel. You know what it's like to go two weeks without a hug; these people are used to two months between physical contact. These lonely people aren't missing concerts, restaurant hangouts, or face-to-face office proceedings; these lonely people are lucky to go to an event outside the house twice a year. Once the pandemic is over, lots of citizens (albeit with collective trauma) will be able to return to social interactions. The chronically housebound... won't. Many don't have that option to. 

Society's finally learned that can be miserable existence. How can we respond appropriately? I hope we can take time to provide love to people in nursing homes, to visit grandparents living in isolated houses, to spend time with friends who have physical and mental health woes and can rarely leave the house. I know I'm going to make more effort to see my grandparents and one of my chronically ill friends. I feel bad I haven't done enough before corona struck.

This can be a time where we all can connect over the pains of isolation. I would love to connect and spread the love. <3

I'm here for you. <3 I know how to cope with this. I'm happy to talk about how to get through it. I'm here to listen. Please. Let's learn to see each others' situations, rather than presume someone's living your same life.

[southeastasianists]

Editor’s note: The following is a guest piece authored by LGBT+ advocacy group Heckin Unicorn on so-called conversion therapy in Singapore. It was not produced by Coconuts Singapore.

Sam embarked on a journey of self-discovery in his 20s. He had been through many abusive relationships, and for reasons he couldn’t quite grasp, he’d always felt that something was missing in his life. Sam wanted to get in tune with his emotions. He wanted to heal.

At 26, Sam flew to Japan to attend a spiritual workshop. The workshop’s exercise was simple, but intense: attendees were paired up, and for 3 hours, each pair had to stare meditatively into each other’s eyes. The poetic beauty in this exercise wasn’t lost to him: staring into the windows of another’s soul would help him get in touch with his own.

Yet for hours, nothing happened.

Then his sensei came over and gently touched his chest, or what spiritual practitioners called the “heart space”. And in a single stroke, Sam’s inner soul broke loose with an explosive force. He started shrieking — so uncontrollably, in fact, that he had to be restrained by several workshop attendees. Anguish, anger, and confusion raced through his mind. It was an excruciating 30 minutes of raw physical reaction, as if years of emotions ripped through his body. Yet it was nothing compared to what was about to hit him in the months to come.

Because in that moment, something clicked into place. Sam suddenly recalled that he was a victim of “conversion therapy” over a decade ago. He finally understood why he’d always felt that something was missing, and why he felt so strongly that he had to heal himself. Deeply repressed and harrowing memories came rushing back like an avalanche.

Sam fought to stay alive over the next 3 months. He suffered from hallucinations, and would cry inconsolably for days on end. He would vomit uncontrollably. His body burned in pain. He wanted to end the suffering. He wanted to end his life. But in between the painful outbreaks, Sam found the strength to fight for his survival. He knew that to live, he had to find out more about what had happened to him. He began researching extensively about “conversion therapy”, and the more he researched, the more he recalled the lost years of his adolescence.

Slowly, his memories fell into place.

Sam went through a lot at a young age. He learnt that he was gay while going through puberty. And through interactions with his closest family members, he learned that it was something he needed to get rid of.

When he came out to his mum at 13, she told him that she expects a grand funeral when she dies. It was her cold, indirect way of telling him that she expects him to bear children and grandchildren for her. When Sam turned to his aunt, she called him derogatory names and told him that people will not accept him if he continues to be gay. The message from his family was clear: turn straight, or else.

So at 15, Sam scoured the internet for answers about his sexuality. In the age of dial-up internet, genuine LGBTQ+ content was hard to come by. The information that he found about STDs scared him — HIV was still called the “gay virus” back then. Sam started getting desperate. He needed to find a way to turn straight.

And then he found a solution — or so he thought.

Sam began attending a “conversion therapy” programme offered by a local church when he was 15. It marketed itself as a counselling service that could help people who were “struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction”, and sounded exactly like what Sam was looking for. Even though he only signed up for their counselling services, he felt compelled to attend their church services as the years went by. His family never knew that he was participating in “conversion therapy” sessions; they were more concerned that he was converting from Taoism to Christianity.

Perhaps the scariest part about the “conversion therapy” programme was how, to 15-year-old Sam, it just felt right. Sam’s 1-on-1 sessions with his counsellor felt like normal counselling sessions. Sure, scripture was quoted a lot in their hour-long sessions, but to Sam — and anyone who desperately wanted to turn straight, for that matter — everything seemed to make sense. Because in a world full of rejection, the programme claimed to provide all the answers.

Sam’s memories about his counselling sessions are hazy, but their core message remains clear in his mind: you’ll go to hell if you’re gay. It was a powerful and terrifying message, and it fueled Sam’s desire to continue with the programme. He didn’t know back then that his sexual desires were innate and perfectly normal, so he confided his feelings with his counsellor and followed everything he was instructed to do. For a long time, everything he heard in his counselling sessions made him feel like turning straight was a real possibility.

Celibacy was a strong mandate of the “conversion therapy” programme. Sam’s counsellor told him many times that he would go to hell unless he stopped masturbating. He told Sam that it was wrong and sinful to have sexual desires. And as an impressionable teenager going through the peak of puberty, Sam absorbed and believed everything his counsellor told him.

Throughout his 4 years in the programme, Sam suppressed his desires and took things to the extreme. He would hold tightly onto his bed frame every night before going to bed to prevent himself from touching his body. It was a physically and mentally exhausting exercise, but Sam managed to push through every night for 6 consecutive months before he succumbed to his desires. He wouldn’t know this until years later, but this extreme psychological conditioning left him with a debilitating inability to touch himself.

In one church session, the pastor discouraged churchgoers from listening to secular music. Only Christian music should be allowed in their lives, the pastor declared. The next week, Sam brought his entire music CD collection to church, and watched it being burnt and destroyed. Sam was so enthralled by the programme’s promises that no physical coercion was required to get him to engage in such extreme activities. To him, listening to everything they say was the only way to not end up in hell.

There were a few reasons that ultimately made Sam leave the programme after 4 years. First of all, nothing worked. Sam knew that he was still gay, and that all he managed to do was to suppress his innate desires and convince himself that he isn’t worthy of love. He was also harassed by a cell group leader, but nothing seemed to be done about it after he raised this up to the church leadership. And in an attempt to negotiate some joy back into his life, Sam asked a church friend if God would accept him if he were to be in a loving gay relationship, but abstained from sex for life. The answer: an unequivocal no.

When Sam left the programme at 19, he wasn’t a changed man — he was broken. He left not because he realised that their teachings harmed his mental health, but because after 4 years of trying, he has resigned to his fate of going to hell.

Sam turns 38 this year. And in the last decade or so, he’s been to hell and back.

After spending thousands of dollars in medical scans, Sam was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. In simple terms, he experiences chronic physical pain induced by his extreme psychological trauma (side note: psychological trauma isn’t the only factor that could induce symptoms of fibromyalgia). These painful outbreaks aren’t just unpredictable, but also incurable. His chest would tighten and he would gasp for air; his face would twitch suddenly and uncontrollably; he would suffer from the inability to speak; he is often fatigued and would suffer from migraines.

Sam also faced considerable financial challenges over the last couple of decades. There were months when Sam was unable to get out of bed. His inner demons would take control, and he would find himself once again fighting for his life. Because of this, Sam had been in and out of jobs. This, coupled with his expensive medical treatment and therapies, set his finances back considerably.

It would be nice if we could end Sam’s story on a positive note. But the truth is that even though Sam is a fierce survivor, his experience with “conversion therapy” still affects him decades after the sessions have ended. Sam isn’t ready to date yet, because he thinks that he carries too much emotional baggage for any relationship to work. He continues to face difficulties fully accepting his sexuality, even though he understands that there’s nothing wrong with being gay. And he continues to sleep with his arms wide apart, because physical contact still makes his body burn in pain.

Let this be clear: “conversion therapy” practices exist in Singapore. Many of these programmes continue to showcase “success” cases without acknowledging, or perhaps understanding, how “conversion therapy” can irreparably damage a person’s psychological and physical wellbeing.

According to the United Nations, any attempt to change or suppress someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity is a form of “conversion therapy”. Many international psychiatric organisations have condemned “conversion therapy” practices because the medical consensus agrees that they not only don’t work, but could cause mental harm to participants (page 115). Taiwan has fully banned “conversion therapy” practices, while Germany has done so for minors. Other countries such as Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and the UK are considering legislation that would make them illegal.

Yet “conversion therapy” remains legal in Singapore. Many teenagers like Sam will continue to enrol in programmes that psychologically condition them to suppress their innate sexuality. Most of them would emerge from the programmes with their sexuality unchanged, but mental health deeply affected. Some of them will kill themselves.

[desiraypark]

Blurring the Lines (III)

Previous | Entire Series I apologize in advance. Content: Nervousness/anxiety; trauma; PTSD symptom(s) referenced; manipulation; guns (mentioned; not used); “woman trying to heal man” trope. // Warning: This chapter is not condoning the return to a volatile/abusive relationship, or excusing/romanticizing the hostile and violent behaviors of intimate partners or connections. Note: I made an edit to the previous chapter (Kylo’s room number).

Gina Palmer had given her daughter a life’s manual, inspired by her own experiences. But she had three important instructions for Tiffany. Instructions that she begged her daughter to heed, if she heeded nothing else:

1) Do well in school.

2) Find a life outside of North Carolina.

3) Don’t let a man (or a woman) hit you twice. Once, if you can help it.

And Gina was proud. Her daughter had listened. Not too many parents could say the same. Children always believe that they’ll never repeat their parents’ mistakes. They become teenagers and fall prey to the illusion that is “adulthood”. Even in collective societies, there’s no one more determined to be an individual than a teenager with a changed body and a little money in their pocket. 

But Tiffany Palmer listened to her mother. She got good grades, she went to school in New York and stayed there. Unfortunately, Tiffany did the one major thing that Gina should have added to the “important” list, but didn’t: don’t fall in love with a drug dealer. Oh, not because they’re violent like Tiffany’s father was. But simply because there is no room for stability in that kind of relationship. But when this Kylo kid did the unthinkable, her daughter made her way home.

Gina’s heart ached for her daughter. But still, she was proud and happy that she’d listened to “important instruction number three”. 

____________________

“Shit!” Tiffany mumbled to herself. Gina was watching television with her gun nearby. This was the third curse word Tiffany had screeched in the distance. Finally, Gina rose from the sofa and walked to the kitchen entryway. 

“Are you sure you don’t need any help, Baby?”

“Yes, Mama, I’m sure,” Tiffany said quickly. Agitated. 

Gina nodded and walked away. All afternoon, she listened to her daughter’s mumbles and groans and watched her wipe her sweaty palms on her jeans. She hated this. She’d never met this Kylo boy--and Tiffany avoided sharing all details about him, until recently, of course. But she hated him and hated what he’d done to her child. It was bad enough that he’d made her his mistress--but then to choke her? And stalk her, afterward?

The Palmer women ate a quiet dinner. They quietly put the food away, washed dishes, and watched a little television. It was about 9 o’clock when the doorbell rang. Gina walked to the door and looked through the peephole. She sighed and glanced over at Tiffany, whose spine was suddenly straightened, and her eyes wide. 

“Long nose?”

Tiffany swallowed. “Yeah.”

Gina looked back into the peephole. The porch light beamed down on the stranger, who was scanning his surroundings. “Hair at his shoulders?” 

Suddenly, he unknowingly met Gina’s eyes. Tiffany nodded. “Probably.”

“And tall,” Gina resigned. She knew who this stranger was. He matched Tiffany’s descriptions.

Tiffany nodded again. 

“I can hear you, whoever you are. Please let me see Tiffany.”

“No!” Gina shouted. “Leave my porch before I send you to hell where you belong.”

“Tiffany, I’m not going back home without you!” he said, ignoring Gina. “I love you.”

Tiffany stood up and walked to the door. 

“Kylo, please just leave me alone.”

“I’m not giving up on you,” he said. 

Tiffany glanced through the peephole and examined Kylo’s face. He was staring at his feet--looking like a sad little boy, trying to apologize for breaking something. In a way, that’s just what he was--and it was just what he was doing.

“Kylo, you have a wife and two children. You need to be home with them.”

“I’m going to leave her,” Kylo said. Tiffany’s heart skipped a beat. 

“What?”

“Don’t fall for that, Tiff,” Gina whispered. 

Tiffany met her mother’s concerned eyes. 

“I want to marry you,” Kylo continued. “I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care who gets upset about it--”

“Your wife and your kids will be upset about it!” Gina interrupted. 

“May I come in, please?”

“No!” Gina shouted. 

Tiffany heard Kylo sigh. 

“I love you, Tiffany. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make this work. To bring you back to me.”

“Bye, Kylo,” Tiffany said. She left the door with a sigh. 

Quietly, Gina and Tiffany listened to Kylo’s movements. He went down the stairs, got into his car, and drove away. Then, Gina sat beside Tiffany and threw her arms around her.

“I’m so proud of you, Honey.”

Suddenly, Tiffany burst into tears and Gina held her daughter close. “I know that was hard. I know...”

____________________

Flashes. Memories. 

Tiffany and Gina retreated to their bedrooms after midnight. Kylo didn’t return, he never called Tiffany’s phone. He didn’t have her number, thankfully. Or at least she assumed. But memories came as flashes. As did fantasies. 

Tiffany remembered the last time they were together before she made her great escape--the way Kylo spread her open on her kitchen table and devoured her as though it were his first time tasting her. She remembered the first time they had sex--the times they made love and the times they fucked. She could smell the scent of her new apartment when Kylo first gave her the keys.

Then came the fantasies. She imagined a house filled with marble and glass. A fireplace. Children--a boy and a girl--running through the kitchen as she cooked. She envisioned herself, belly full with another child, decorating a nursery. Kylo appeared behind her, planting kisses on her neck. She missed his touch--his scent, his kisses. 

Tiffany missed laughing with Kylo. She even missed the arguments. Once upon a time, their arguments ended with kisses and sex--not bruises. 

She missed being pampered and showered with gifts--not because that’s all she wanted from him, but because she knew why he did it. Even though she never went into deep detail, she told him how rough her childhood was--how she would get teased for her high-waters and Payless shoes. He knew that she’d been mentally redecorating homes since she was a child living in tiny apartments with puckered linoleum floors from the 1950s and shredded wallpaper in similar conditions. 

Kylo had listened to the little details and gave Tiffany her childhood dreams on a rusted platter.

He listened to her, just as she’d listened to him.

They were from two different worlds, yet they were very much the same. That’s what she’d told herself. 

Two beings who’d grown up doing everything that was asked of them. Kylo did it all without a “Thank you, son.” 

Tiffany went to Kindergarten thinking it was normal to hug your mommy while she was cleaning blood from her face. 

Gina Palmer never would have imagined that her child would have to parent her as she calmed down from violent nightmares. 

But it all happened. That was the life Tiffany knew.

Rub Mama’s shoulder. Give Grandma her medicine. Buy ice cream for her best friend after her boyfriend breaks up with her two weeks before prom (and shows up to prom with another girl). If her boyfriend is angry, calm him down--even after he’s punched a hole in a dorm room wall. 

Kylo was unloved. Even his children kept their distance. Maybe all he needed was someone to just be there for him. To be in his corner for once? Maybe that was all he really needed?

Sheralyn Hotel. Downtown. Room 8-0...5? Room 8-0-5...

[pbacklinks]

How To Survive in the wild

New Post has been published on https://pingbacklinks.com/how-to-survive-in-the-wild/

How To Survive in the wild

Let us discuss about how are we able to survive out there in the wild without using anything.

  Actually, a huge part of your training for survival is simply to have the certain experience of being uncomfortable incredibly in hungry, cold, and even exhaustion.

how to survive in the wild with nothing

So what is the reason why should you be subjecting yourself to all that?

  Due to the fact that it will make you stronger. It can show you that you are capable of a lot more than you realize currently. It will even bring you closer to nature.

  In addition, if you are able to master the skills in survival then you will already have the very most important requirement for moving onto a lot more long-term wilderness experiments for living.

1. Staying Warm & Survival Shelters

  The most popular likely cause of death when in the wilderness for survival is not actually starvation or even lack of water. It’s hypothermia the lacking of water which can be a cause of death.

  This might be a very popular danger if you are wet. There are actually some situations where the one main thing that can contribute in saving you is a fire for 5 minutes.

  How To Survive In The Wild Without Nothing

  Are you able to get a fire going from scratch in only 5 minutes?

  Not the majority of the people could. However, this is probably a less likely scenario. It is much more likely that you have not fallen into a lake that is quite icy. However, you have just needed to survive one night with cold rain in the weather forecast.

  Your need first in a typical type of survival situation is shelter.

  Do not underestimate the importance for a shelter. Even during summer-time conditions, the temperatures can usually drop low especially at night. You can also add in a bit of heavy rain and you have the result of hypothermia.

  The very best thing you can do is to look for a natural shelter. This can be a tree that is downed with the dry ground underneath. Or usually up against an outcropping that is rocky.

  You can upgrade a natural shelter by simply using leaning branches against the structure of and piling on debris.

  The very most important thing about a certain shelter is staying dry in it. If you are able to stay dry then you are very much doing well.

  The second most important item about a certain shelter is insulation. If you are able to keep your body insulated well enough against the cold ground, not to mention the wind & open-air, then definitely you are doing really well.

  2. Finding Water To Survive

  A good shelter will be able to keep you from extreme freezing to death type of situation on a cold night.

  However, if you prefer to last more than just a few days, then you would need to start planning about how to find water.

  The Symptoms of dehydration can begin within just a few hours of your latest drink and with the inclusion of low energy, dizziness, headache, muscle cramps, and the next to come is loss of consciousness.

  The majority of the rainwater is safe for drinking. You can also collect it in a jacket that is waterproof, or drink it directly off non-toxic leaves.

  The rain is basically one of the untreated water sources only. It would feel quite comfortable drinking (Unless you are in an extremely polluted area).

  If you are in a season or climate that is lacking of rainwater, then you will need to take a different type of approach. It is always good to have a plan for backup in case that the skies might dry up for a couple of days.

The other type of reliable option is boiling water. You are able to collect it from any kind of source that is chemical-free. The clearer the better.

  Just make sure to bring any drinking water intended to a rolling boil. a few sources would even say that you should keep it on boiling for as much as 15 – 30 minutes. Better to be safe than sorry.

Survival guides  pocket survival guides

Most of the time we don’t realize how helpless and technology-dependent we are until the most basic wilderness survival skills are put to the test in one way or another. The human capacity to survive in the wild is diminishing in direct proportion to the increase in the level of technology of the planet. Pay attention because I am going to talk about wilderness survival!

  The mental attitude often makes the difference between life and death. Panic prevents the formation of a survival plan and its implementation. There is a rule of three, which implemented with a positive attitude, gives good results.

The prioritization rule or the plan of the three is:

3 minutes without air

3 hours without shelter (especially in case of humidity and cold)

3 days without water

3 weeks without food

  Shelter is essential for preventing hypothermia. An improvised shelter does not require special skills but only a positive attitude. A cave can be a good shelter. To build a shelter we must take into account:

Location (away from dangerous places, close to a source of materials)

Insulation (against water, wind)

Heat source (fire or only body heat)

Size (for one person or a group)

  Water is an important element in the wilderness survival plan. It is advisable to always have some water purification pills at hand or to boil drinking water. Most water sources are unsafe and may contain dangerous pathogens. Dew, rainwater, water from high mountain rivers or snowmelt can be consumed without problems. Statutory water is dangerous.

  Dry and high-calorie foods should not be missing from the backpack of any hiker. Basic knowledge in the field of edible plants can be very helpful. Only eat plants that you are sure do not contain toxic elements. Remember that you can survive without food for three weeks so choose safe roots, leaves, flowers and fruits, hunt small animals or fish if you have what you need.

[myhauntedsalem]

The Most Haunted Mirrors in the World

Since 6000 BC, mirrors have been a common object found in most households. Apart from photographs, mirrors enable us to truly see what we look like from an outsider’s perspective. But what happens when a mirror shows you more than just your reflection?

What happens if a mirror shows you something frightening? Something you were never meant to see?

Over the last few centuries, people have started collecting mirrors not just for the sake of practicality, but for décor around their houses. And every once in a while, a person may stumble upon a mirror that could be considered haunted.

Often times someone will claim a mirror is haunted as a means of making profit off sites such as eBay. But occasionally, a person may come across a piece of glass that is really and truly haunted.

1. Twisting Inversions

Years ago, while at a cookout with his family, a gentleman named Juan heard a chilling tale of a haunted mirror from his cousin in Vercruz, Mexico.

One day, Juan’s cousin and a friend of his were shopping in an antiques store when he came across a large Victorian style mirror. The mirror was incredibly ornate, with a brushed silver frame. Juan’s cousin was drawn to it immediately and asked the shop owner how much it cost.

The shop owner told him the price, but seemed a little edgy afterward. He told Juan’s cousin that if he wished to purchase the mirror that he must make sure that it is always covered by a heavy cloth after the sun goes down.

Juan’s cousin found the man to be a bit quirky, but nevertheless promised that he would do as the owner bid. He purchased the mirror and drove it home in the back of his truck.

He arrived home in the early evening. After he found a space on the wall of his bedroom to hang it, he admired his reflection for a few minutes, then promptly covered it with a bedsheet. He felt a little silly doing so, but the shop owner had been so adamant…

Dusk approached. Juan’s cousin was relaxing on the couch when he began to hear a steady knocking sound as though someone was at the door. However, no one was there.

Puzzled, he wandered through the house, tracking the noise until he got to his bedroom. Chills ran down his spine as he realized that the knocking sound was coming from within the mirror. Slowly, he grabbed the bedsheet by the corners and pulled it off the mirror.

Inside the mirror was his reflection, but a reflection that moved entirely on its own. Juan’s cousin watched in horror as his mirror self slowly knocked on the glass surface, an eerie, leering smile on its face.

He moved to cover the mirror back up, but his reflection somehow managed to grab him, and attempted to pull him into the mirror itself. This surreal violence had Juan’s cousin paralyzed with fear. He fought to free himself, but his reflection was too strong. He was partially pulled into the mirror.

His fear escalated ten times over when he peered around. Within the mirror he saw his bedroom, but everything was inverted backwards. Juan’s cousin began to pray, and only then did he find the strength to free himself from the mirror.

He fell to the floor and immediately ran out of the house. He ran down the street to his friend’s house and stayed there until morning, too terrified to return to his home. When the sun rose, he and his friend grabbed the mirror and burned it in a raging bonfire.

Since destroying the evil mirror, everything has, thankfully, returned to normal.

2. Scratches in Oil

A young man who goes by the name of Nooko once discovered a mirror in an abandoned building not far from his house. The building was strewn with various trash and broken furniture, and it seemed that the only thing that was in perfect condition was a small, square mirror he had found up against the wall.

Nooko was studying art at the time, and had been interested in painting on a glass surface for some time. He brought the mirror home with him, thinking it would be his next canvas.

He laid out a brand-new tarp, and arranged his oil paints on the floor of his bedroom. For hours, he worked on the mirror, adding stroke after stroke until at last he was finished. On the mirror’s surface was a portrait of himself.

Happy with this work, Nooko carefully closed up his paints and crawled into bed shortly after midnight. The following morning, he opened his eyes and recalled what he had done before. Looking to the mirror, he was shocked to see that it had been altered over the course of the night. His portrait was still drying on the surface, but through his face was a series of long, deep scratch marks.

Had he somehow missed these marks when he first picked up the mirror? No, he had cleaned the surface before he had started painting. Puzzled, Nooko looked around his room, trying to discern what could have made the scratches. All of his supplies were in the exact place they had been when he had fallen asleep. He didn’t have any pets or siblings, and his parents would have never destroyed one of his pieces.

In addition to the scratch marks, Nooko also noticed substantial tears in the tarp. He searched his room thoroughly, but he could not come up with any possible theories as to what had caused such destruction.

He was scared. After the portrait finished drying, Nooko took the mirror and placed it in the shed in his backyard. It remains there to this day. Whenever Nooko needs supplies out of the shed, he always feels extremely uncomfortable, as though something foreign and malicious is present.

He hasn’t look at mirrors quite the same way since.

3. Victorian Evil

When Sotiris Charlambous and Joseph Birch found a large Victorian mirror in the dumpster outside of their London flat, they thought they had hit the jackpot. The antique mirror was quite beautiful, with a thick walnut border. They believed it would look great hung up over the radiator in their apartment.

But not long after they hung the mirror up, strange things began to occur to both of them. Sotiris found himself suddenly waking up in the middle of the night with stabbing pains shooting through his entire body. Joseph, usually a very happy twenty-year-old student, found himself feeling incredibly depressed and void of energy

At first, neither of them made any correlation between their mental and physical symptoms with the mirror. That is, until Sotiris decided to paint the walnut frame a bright silver. After that, their problems only escalated.

Joseph began to experience the same sharp pains that Sotiris felt during the middle of the night. Objects began to go missing, such as keys and documents.

And that’s when Joseph started noticing strange movement coming from the mirror. It began one day when he was alone in the flat. He had been walking down the hall towards his bedroom when he caught movement in the mirror’s reflection out of his periphery. Dark shadows seemed to flicker and move on the glass surface, even when Joseph stood completely still.

The two friends confronted their landlord about the mirror and soon discovered that it had once been his. When they asked if he wanted the mirror back, he quickly shook his head.

“I don’t want anything to do with that mirror,” the landlord said.

It wasn’t long after that the nightmares began. Joseph feared being in the apartment by himself—he was certain that something malevolent was there with him, draining him of his happiness and energy.

Sotiris began to theorize that something awful had happened in front of the mirror, and it had somehow managed to absorb the negative energy from the event. He became convinced that someone had once been murdered in front of its glass surface, and now the mirror brought nothing but discomfort and despair wherever it was.

When the radiator and landline phone mysteriously stopped working, the two friends begrudgingly realized that their troubles were only going to escalate. They decided to put the mirror on Ebay, with full disclosure as to what had been happening to them.

The mirror has since gone to the highest bidder, and the two friends are certain that a feeling of lightness and hope as flooded into their apartment once more. They hope that whoever has the mirror now is well trained in the paranormal and will not experience what they endured while the Victorian mirror was in their home.

4. A Family of Spirits

Most people who have a deep interest in the paranormal have heard about the infamous Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana. Built in 1796, the house has become known as being one of the most haunted historical locations in the south.

But what some people may not realize is that within the haunted house lays a haunted mirror.

In the hallway, across from the large wooden staircase is a large, rectangular mirror with a gilded gold frame. The mirror has been within the house for well over two centuries, and many eerie stories have surfaced about it.

According to one story, Sara Bradford Woodruff, who lived in the house, along with her husband and children, during the 1820s haunts the house, and is said to be permanently trapped inside the mirror.

Tourists who take their picture in front of the mirror often find strange anomalies in their photographs—creepy looking shadows, or an array of orbs. Some people even claim that they have seen fingerprints and silvery apparitions standing on the staircase reflected within the mirror’s surface.

Some people believe the mirror shows nothing but ordinary reflections, but there are countless accounts of believers and skeptics alike who have seen something paranormal in its ancient surface.

Today, the Myrtles Plantation is open to tours and also serves as a Bed and Breakfast. If you decide to visit, be sure to have your photograph taken in front of the mirror. But be warned—you may not like what you see.

5. Into the Black

Greg Newkirk has always had a profound interest in the paranormal. Over the years, he began to research and track down various objects that others had deemed as haunted. Once Greg had collected a sufficient number of items, he, along with his wife Dana, formed the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal & Occult. Essentially, Greg and his wife travel around the country and display their supernatural finds for anyone who is curious.

A couple years ago, Greg was contacted by a young woman about a small mirror with black glass. The woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, stated that her mother had acquired the mirror during a psychic expo. Her daughter thought nothing of the purchase until her mother began to act very withdrawn and subdued. When the young woman confronted her mother, her mother claimed that it was the mirror’s doing… that it was inherently evil.

Skeptical, the young woman took the mirror home with her, concerned over her mother’s mental health. Despite not believing what her mother had said about the dark mirror, nevertheless she found herself feeling oddly uncomfortable and uneasy in her home. After a few short days, she contacted Greg and donated the mirror to the traveling museum.

At first, Greg kept his distance from the mirror—not because he was frightened by it, but because he didn’t want to be disappointed if nothing paranormal occurred. Often times, the museum has supposedly haunted objects donated to it, but nothing strange ever actually occurs. However, since it was newly acquired, Greg brought it along for their next tour.

One their first stop in Pennsylvania, a woman immediately picked up the mirror and gazed at her reflection. Within seconds, she had grown extremely pale and had set the mirror down, hastening to cover it up with a piece of cloth. When Greg asked her what she had seen, the woman replied that she had seen her own corpse in the mirror’s reflection. The woman then stated that the mirror was dark in nature and that she needed to go pray.

Confused but excited by such an account, Greg made it a point to carefully observe anyone else who grabbed the mirror. Some individuals only saw their reflection…but others had much more ghastly things to report.

Another woman in a different location also claimed to have seen her corpse. One man, a supposed diehard skeptic, stated that he had seen his reflection but that it had turned around and had walked completely out of the frame. Another woman claimed that when she looked at her reflection, her mirror image had begun to whisper ,despite the fact that the woman herself never once opened her mouth while gazing into the mirror.

Greg and his wife continue to tour with the dark mirror, but the paranormal enthusiast admits that he keeps the mirror covered when it resides in their home. He avoids looking at the mirror at all costs. The mirror itself seems to want to draw Greg in, but he has always resisted gazing into the glass surface head on. He has become convinced that whatever the mirror wants to show him, it will not be pleasant.

[doshmanziari]

Aldrich and the Desacralization of Dark Souls 3

Aldrich, the obsessive-consumptive cannibal saint, is one of Dark Souls 3′s most interesting figures when one sees his actions and inferred character as representing a prominent facet of humanity’s spiritual position at the time of the game’s setting. If we look at Dark Souls 3′s landscape as an assemblage of symbolics, and compare it to Dark Souls’ arrangement, we see that an inversion has occurred: the zenith is the human domain of the High Wall of Lothric, and the nadir is Irithyll/Anor Londo, once the apical sunlit land of the gods, now chilled, darkened, and sunken. And yet, even if Anor Londo only ever represented the power of a pantheonic institution, its ruination and darkness here is a much more troubling scenario; because at the “zenith” we find only stasis or stagnation, a reflection of the psychology of prince Lothric himself who has selfishly fended off fate through elusion and inactivity (if we note the series’ pattern of things being what one makes of them (i.e., reality is what one believes it to be), we may wonder if Lothric’s lameness was not self-willed¹). On the broadest scale approaching metatexuality, we see too that Dark Souls 3 is the series at its most complex and diffuse, with the collective mono-myth responsible for the Age of Fire now distant, separate, very nearly nonexistent.

For an example of this, let us look to the swamp around Farron Keep, where we must put out three flame-beacons corresponding to the Witch of Izalith, Nito, and Gwyn’s deific family. This sequence is an initiatory rite of passage, but, rather than entering into a mystery for contact with the numinous, we perform willful ignorance for mere tribalism (to witness it, anyway). For it is only through this symbolic act of un-remembering -- the nullification of the sustaining flame of myth, the obscuring of its principal actors -- that we are granted access to the Keep proper, and then to the Abyss Watchers, a clan of warriors who represent, to an extreme, “mass-mindedness”: directionless, hollow zombies who do not even remember the name of the knight they model themselves upon. All that matters here is the Clan, where insular, infinite warfare is mistaken for life-sustaining meaning (I’d make special note of the fact that the Abyss Watchers all resemble one another; the violence done to another is, in truth, violence done to the self: self-oppression misinterpreted as empowerment). As César Daly wrote, “To neglect history, to neglect memory, that which is owed by our ancestors, is then to deny oneself; it is to begin suicide.” The great abundance of such details makes it all the more startling when Shira, in the Ringed City, says to us, “Speak thee the name of God” (i.e., Gwyn).

No one can seem to agree on what exactly constitutes or delineates the Age of Fire or the Age of Dark, but Dark Souls’ Serpent Kaathe refers to the latter as "the age of men.” Given the evidence, it is difficult to not see Dark Souls 3 as marking the beginning of such an age, or at least the transition between the two. But what liberties has it brought? They are, I think, the pseudo-liberties of a desacralized world. Narratives have become aimless, attempts are made to plug up voids without examining root causes, and the self cannot be harnessed for purposeful actualization. If we seek a demonstration of the latter, think of our first major combative encounter in the game with Iudex Gundyr, whose body, midway through the fight, unleashes a chaotic mass of black, writhing forms uniformly termed the Pus of Man. The Pus of Man reappears during our initial exploration of the High Wall of Lothric, this time out of a couple of standard Hollows. Once the Pus of Man has emerged and is aware of us, any semblance of the host’s self-control is usurped by total destructive instability.

In our own bodies, pus is the result of infection, and its treatment is its release from an abscess; but the Pus of Man, thus released, does not allow for healing, because its internal causes, a symptom of a shared spiritual crisis, have gone unchecked for too long, and so it assumes complete control. It is, on one level, a coup by the id, which Freud describes as “...a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations. ...It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle.” It would also not be inappropriate here to look to the concept of humorism, wherein humans’ personalities are regulated by vital body fluids, and where we find (within the most popular, four-component model) “black bile”, a secretion whose associated qualities are coldness and dryness and whose effect is melancholia: “a mental condition characterized by extreme depression, bodily complaints, and sometimes hallucinations and delusions.”

The Cathedral of the Deep is representative of the same crisis, but diverges in the shape of its consequence. If the Pus of Man recalls Manus, whose “humanity went wild”, and signifies degradation with “seething excitations”, then the Cathedral of the Deep -- a religion and a site -- signifies degradation with stagnation. Inside the Cathedral, we find that its nave and south transept is thick with liquidized decay, the perimeters encrusted by mounds of corpses. These are the matter-of-fact results of both mortification of the flesh (done by flagellation) and Aldrich’s cannibalism, prior to his relocation. What’s relevant here is the material stasis. Richard Pilbeam, in his video “The Bastard’s Curse”, compares aspects of the Deep faith to those of Shinto, placing specific emphasis on the cleansing properties of water. He notes: “Water will wash away impurity, but only if the water remains in motion.”² The motion of the water is the motion of a dynamic, reciprocal spirituality. Our own bloodflow requires circulation.

All of this talk of the body, ruptures, and liquid brings us back to Aldrich, the Devourer of Gods. Despite his title, the only god we are explicitly aware of Aldrich having consumed is Gwyndolin; but the sheer extent of rotting flesh and bones (some, no doubt, of mortals) in Aldrich’s current habitat, the appropriated chancel of the great Anor Londo cathedral, is evidence of innumerable, unseen feasts. Inspecting the soul of Aldrich, we are told that when he “...ruminated on the fading of the fire, it inspired visions of a coming age of the deep sea. He knew the path would be arduous, but he had no fear. He would devour the gods himself.” It again behooves us to approach the matter in terms of symbolics, poetic substitutions, and understand this envisioned age as a radically desacralized state of being, one where the Age of Fire has been permanently entombed, replaced by a humanity misled by vacuous obsessions which is then itself overcome by what those profanities manifested. “In time, those dedicated to sealing away the horrors of the Deep succumbed to their very power,” the description for a robe worn by deacons of the Cathedral of the Deep reads. “It seems that neither tending to the flame, nor the faith, could save them.”

Aldrich, as a deiphagous agent (although perhaps not godly to begin with himself), of course has deicidal associations.³ Most pertinent would be the filicide of the Titan Cronus, who devoured his children in fear of his prophesied deposition. We are told that Aldrich “had no fear”, but this is, I think, an ironic statement. In the same way that we may compulsively eat in order to fill an emotional-existential void, Aldrich feeds to fill the void of Dark Souls 3 which has, as M. Christine Boyer writes in reference to modernity, “[closed] off any meaningful access to the past.” Yet his murderous feasting prepares himself and the world for another void: that of the “age of the deep sea” (to be slightly literal for a moment: what, on Earth, is more akin to a void than the ocean’s depths?). At the Ringed City we observe resonances of this behavior in the locusts, who primarily inhabit the dim mire at the city’s bases (the resemblance to Oolacile’s predicament is unmistakable), and “were meant to beckon men to the dark with sermons, but most of [which] are unable to think past their own stomachs.”

We should also recognize that Aldrich did not act alone. He “had the desire to share with others his joy of imbibing the final shudders of life while luxuriating in his victim's screams.” Recall that certain deacons of the Deep are bloated, including the deceased Archdeacon McDonnell. These are ministers who have oftener partaken of feasts. So here is also a distortion of that communal principle wherein participants ingest the deity/deities and affirm life through its nearness to death. This ingestion recalls the older meaning of “embody”: “a soul or spirit invested with a physical form.” George Hersey writes, of the ancient Greeks and their sacrificial rituals, “Whatever form the victim or offering took, once it was [...] full of the god, [...] the divinity became too immense, too terrible, to be contained. It was necessary to break apart the offering. Yet even after death -- perhaps especially after it -- the animal’s carcass, the god’s container, was steeped in his presence. This is why the worshipers ate parts of it: the act was not just feasting, but communion. The worshipers’ own bodies combined with parts of the victim’s to express the fact that the god had entered them. The victim’s body parts were in fact ‘reconstructed’ now in a different way, by uniting the bodies of the worshipers.”⁴

There is no concern for any of these vitalizing affirmations with Aldrich and his followers. Indeed, we see that Aldrich himself has become “too immense, too terrible, to be contained” (just like those aforementioned “horrors of the Deep”), and so his body is coagulated hemorrhage. Constructive concepts such as selflessness, spirit, metousiosis are nullified, as the consumptive process, one of intense sadism, functions as its own end. Aldrich is both terribly and mundanely a narcissistic parasite. During our fight with him, he will burrow into the refuse of the arena to temporarily escape -- a tactic that is emblematic of his self-regressing psychology, where nothing matters except gorging, sleeping, and surrounding oneself with a playpen of mud to dive into and thus hide from the world. Remember, now, that Aldrich was canonized as a Lord and remains one. Hawkwood, a former member of Farron’s Undead Legion and a resident of Firelink Shrine, wryly and accurately comments that this was “...Not for virtue, but for might.” And when we venerate sheer might, we venerate persecution.

From this perspective, I think it is not an accident of phrasing when the description for human dregs, an object sometimes released by slain Deep devotees, says that they, once having sunk to the “lowest depths imaginable, [...] become the shackles that bind this world.” To bind something can mean to unify it, to adhere components together and provide a sort of structure; but this is done with shackles, items associated with repression and enslavement. It is another echoing of that “self-oppression misinterpreted as empowerment” (or, analogously, freedom). There may be no better conclusion to this essay than to remark upon Aldrich’s death at our ends. As the battle progresses, Aldrich’s body becomes enkindled, speckled by embers, to the extent that any zone he occupies catches on fire. This is not so different from Yhorm or the remaining Abyss Watcher; after all, they are Lords of Cinder too. But I believe that, for Aldrich, this can be read relative to the sacrificial ritual which ended with roasting specified parts of the animal and then eating them. Thus, when we kill Aldrich, even if we cannot adopt and atone for the sins of his actions, we can at least break that insatiable cycle and consign his body to the purifying fire -- so that we may, finally, take and imbibe his soul.

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¹ Dark Souls 2 quickly presents us with an example of this when a handmaid gives us a featureless human effigy and says, “Take a closer look... Who do you think it’s supposed to be? Think back, deep into your past. Yes, it’s an effigy of you.” Consider also the case of Miracles, which are not instructions but stories. Once read, they turn real -- fiction tangibly weaponized.

² See: Misogi and kegare. The concept of the sacred grotto is apposite, too, if we imagine that the latter-christened Cathedral of the Deep neighbors one. In Heavenly Caves, Naomi Miller writes, “Fascination with the grotto is rooted in the story of creation. While understood as a source of life and as a sacred spring in the classical world, in the Old Testament the grotto is often equated with the void and hence with chaos -- the formlessness that precedes the beginning. [...] ...within the Temple in Jerusalem, beneath the Stone of Foundation in the Dome of the Rock, was a cave known as the Well of Souls. This fountain of perennial water within the Temple may well allude to the cisterns and reservoirs known to be under the Holy Rock, but it also has metaphysical significance and refers to the mouth of the abyss identified with the subterranean torrent located at the earth’s center, from whence the rivers of Paradise went forth to water the four corners of the world...”

³ An example of deicide which is often not thought of as such is that of Christ, who, in his self-sacrifice as the human avatar of God, clears the way for a radically new covenant.

⁴ Walter Burket, in his book Homo Necans, posits that such sacrifices “were much later reenactments of primal ritual murders in which a god-king was killed and consumed.”

[traumascumathena]

I’m currently putting some research into symptoms of mental illnesses, neurodivergencies, and even physical disabilities that may contribute to the concept of “median systems.” So far, I can categorize these contributors into 5 groups. I’ll explain the how in a later post when I do not have anything to do that day. I’d just like to get my thoughts out. 

1. Mood swings being confused for a “median system,” most commonly a product of BPD and bipolar disorder. 

2. Feeling as if a collective being confused for a “median system,” most commonly a product of autism, adhd, and some developmental disabilities. 

3. A brain injury that leads to a change in personality being confused for a “median system,” such as concussions, strokes, and literally any significant head trauma. 

4. Heightened awareness of the id and the superego being confused for a “median system.” For context, the id is part of your mind that is instinct, while the superego is the conscience, the awareness of social and cultural rules. While my research on this group isn’t complete, it’s most often a product of depression, anxiety, addiction, and PTSD. 

5. Delusions and psychosis being confused for a “median system,” most notably a product of schizophrenia, personality disorders, PTSD, and drug usage. 

Feel free to add anything I may have missed, or links to reputable research papers on these topics. At the moment, my research is pointing towards the concept of median systems being symptoms of a variety of conditions being put through a “plural” perspective, with no care for recovery from negative symptoms. It really does sadden me how the popularity of “non-disordered plurality” is causing people to ignore thought processes and symptoms that are harmful. 

[knovesstorytelling]

Murray Mysteries S1E3 Transcript

Episode 3. Dr Seward’s Clinical Hour

Written By May Toudic

Mina: Welcome to Murray Mysteries.

[Theme music plays.]

Mina: Hello everyone! And welcome back to the podcast. Today’s episode is something a little bit different. I promised variety, entertainment, and a healthy amount of educational content. So, we are branching out. I’m here with Dr. Jane Seward, who agreed to tell us about her job as a clinical psychiatrist and share some of her case notes with us.

Jane: Thank you for having me, Miss Murray. It’s a pleasure to be here. 

Mina: Thank you for coming. I know this can’t have been the most, um, comfortable location for us. First of all, how did you end up running a whole mental health institution at such a young age?

Jane: Oh, I, I guess I got lucky. I did quite a few internships during my degree, including at the institution I currently work at. They offered me a residency after graduation and then a permanent job. The previous director left soon after that and he offered me his position.

Mina: You must’ve done an amazing job to climb the ranks so quickly. I assume junior members of the staff usually aren’t a first pick for a job like this.

Jane: I do my best, but I wasn’t any more deserving than any of my colleagues.

Mina: Okay.

[She hums in thought.]

Mina: Now, can you tell us what your job entails exactly?

Jane: Mostly administrative tasks. The day to day running of an institution like this one requires a lot of paperwork. But I do get to take on a few patients to keep my skills sharp and conduct my research.

Mina: Wha— what kind of research?

Jane: I’m generally assigned to cases that can’t easily be diagnosed with anything in the handbook. I have a patient at the moment — oh, uh, you want to play the recordings?

Mina: If you don’t mind. Listeners, the very organized Dr. Seward has agreed to share some of the voice notes she takes on the job to keep track of her cases. We’ll still be here to interject if anything needs explaining, but for now, take it away Past Doctor.

[A beep.]

Jane (recording): Right. New patient in today, and a promising case. I’ll call him R in here for confidentiality purposes. Late 50’s, impressive physical strength, very excitable with periods of depression and some fixation we haven’t managed to pinpoint yet.

[A beep.]

Jane: R has been with us for a few days now and I’ve had the chance to get to know his case better. He displays signs of a few known disorders, but his symptoms are peculiar. He’s obsessed with animals, started collecting insects he found in his room and common areas. Spiders mostly. Some flies, even a few birds. He uses a lot of his own food to keep them alive, even if we upped his portions, so we’re somewhat worried about his nutrition. Although it seems like he’s, um. Eating some of them. Escalation is a concern in this case, especially since he’s started requesting other pets. He keeps asking for a cat, which we of course had to refuse. We’ll see how the situation evolves in the coming days, but this is an interesting case. Zoophagia, some kind of fixation, I need to do more research. There must’ve been a similar case somewhere, sometime. But if this hasn’t been documented yet, this could be big. Right, to the books.

[A beep.]

Mina: That is fascinating. Do you already have a diagnosis in mind?

Jane: There are a few possibilities, but I don’t want to favour a particular one until we have more information. I’m hopeful we can diagnosis in due time. It’s easier to treat a condition when we know what we’re treating.

Mina: Um. What happens if, uh, if it isn’t a known condition?

Jane: In the unlikely case this is something new, I do research. More research, and more research on top of that. Take a lot of notes, ask for a second opinion, then a third. Then I write a very long paper, have it peer-reviewed, and submit it to many, many, many academic journals.

Mina: That sounds like a lot of work. But, it would be rewarding, right?

Jane: A new illness is quite an important discovery, yes. But the well-being of the patient comes first, and the best thing for him would be to get diagnosed and treated for something that has a precedent.

Mina: Of course. Well. Ah, this has been a great talk! I’d love for you to come back and keep us updated if that’s okay with you.

Jane: Hem, yes. Yes, why not. I, I just.

Mina: Ah. I’ll make sure Lucy’s out.

Jane: Thank you.

Mina: Well, this was clinical hour with Dr. Jane Seward. Tune in next time for an update on R’s mysterious condition.

Jane: Oh, um. Goodbye!

[Jane leaves the room.]

Mina: I hope you all enjoyed that because this week’s personal update isn’t the cheeriest. Sorry. I know, I promised you, uh. Fun and entertainment. I just—

[She sighs.]

Mina: I’m worried. Talking to you makes me feel a little less... Alone. Like I’m not just, talking into the void. The past few days have been complicated. I haven’t heard from Jonathan in a while. At first, I figured he has no reception. The place he was headed to was in the middle of nowhere, so we figured this might happen. But. I still got nervous after days without signs of life. So I reached out to the boss at his firm, Mr. Hawkins, uh, to see if he knew anything. But he told me he just received an email from Jonathan saying he was leaving his client’s place. Just one line. No time frame, no flight details. Nothing.

[She sighs again.]

Mina: It’s not like, it’s not like J, I swear it’s not. He’s usually open and communicative. First Christmas after we got together, he went home to see his family and kept texting me about every single part of his day. When he woke up, what he dreamt about, what he had for breakfast, what the weather was like, what presents he’d found for his third cousin and the food—

Mina (laughingly): Oh God, so many food pictures.

Mina: Anyway. I tried to ignore it and, uh. Just wait for him to get back. But it’s been a few days now. And no matter how I think about it, there’s no way it would take that long to get from the Romania to UK. Mr. Hawkins hasn’t heard from him either, not since that one email. I keep thinking something’s happened to him. I get this… feeling of dread every time the phone rings.

[She lets out a quiet breath.]

Mina: I would normally talk to Lucy about this, she’s great at talking me out of a crisis, but she hasn’t been herself either. She’s sleepwalking almost every night. Her mum says it used to happen when she was a kid, but definitely not that much. We agreed to keep her bedroom door locked at night. I sleep in here with her so I can keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn’t try and get out. But that means I keep getting woken up by her moving around and I’m not sleeping much. Lucy’s mum thinks all the sleepwalkers gravitate towards roofs and cliffs and end up falling to their deaths. So far, Lucy’s only been wandering through the house and raiding the fridge, but uh. Better safe than sorry? 

Mina: She’s even more angsty than usual too. Art had to fly to the US, their dad’s not doing great, so she’s been dragging me into her schemes and making herself busy. If I have to spend one more night watching her do shots at the village pub, I might lock her in during the day. No, no I feel bad just saying it. But, come on! Even jigsaw puzzles aren’t worth all this. Especially not when she keeps getting distracted and sending Art pictures of the funny shapes. 

[A pause.]

Mina: The weather’s turning, I should— I should go check on her. I promise the next update will be more fun. I’ll do cartwheels or something.

Mina (whispering): Wait, no, you can’t see me.

Mina: Um, verbal cartwheels? I’ll— I’ll do those? Ugh. I’ll talk to you next week, when I’ve had time to figure out what verbal cartwheels are and how to do them. Bye!

[Theme music begins]

Credits: Murray Mysteries is a Knoves Storytelling production. This episode was written and produced by May Toudic and featured Drew Victorie as Mina Murray and Bebhinn Tankard as Dr. Jane Seward. Original music by Sophie K. Thank you for listening.

[flying-elliska]

Any tips on how to get help for your mental health when you've been to a dozen different doctors and they all just... left you alone with your symptoms? I am a bit lost, you don't have to answer of course

i’m sorry anon, that sounds like a very shitty situation to be in. i’m not a medical professional and i don’t know anything about your specific situation so i can’t give you a lot of specific advice. here’s what i would say though - based on my own experience, which might not necessarily speak to yours.

- in situations like these, it’s very important to be able to be your own advocate. do as much research as you can on your symptoms. people like to shit on self-diagnosis but (while staying within the bonds of reason) having at least an issue of what is going on with you will help with finding more appropriate treatment. personally, i figured out i had adhd on my own after reading some articles and doing online tests. this is something that is almost never diagnosed in France, and it was one of my reasons for moving to the Netherlands ; once there, I sought out a specific treatment center who advertised that they had therapists who knew how to treat adhd. i know this isn’t possible to do everywhere, or in any situation, but the more information you have, the better.

- in that vein, if you haven’t already, go look for stories of people who have similar symptoms as you, especially those who have found a path to recovery/healthy coping/healing and happiness. it will make you feel validated, and less alone. also - it will make you more aware of the nature of the challenges that come with your condition in a more political, collective way. on neurodiverse twitter, for instance, a lot of people are complaining about medical mistreatment and being supported by their peers, and given a lot more specific advice. in general, asking people for help is a good thing even though they might not always give you the answer you’re looking for.

- another thing about being your own advocate, is taking your own pain seriously ; finding words to describe what you’re going through in detail, and not diminishing it out of a fear of being inconvenient. this could help with finding a doctor that adresses your issues. that said, there are massive issues with modern societies’ conception of mental health, and sometimes you have to know how to work within that system. one of the things doctors are most likely to pay attention to is you talking about how your issues impact your capacity to work and be productive. also, the truth is I found it helps to sometimes focus on a specific subset of issues, those you think are more pressing and impactful to you, and linked to a specific diagnosis you feel could be applicable to you (because the system is very fond of putting people in boxes and sometimes, sadly, getting the right treatment is dependent on being found as fitting a box. of course, once you manage to get the right treatment, it’s important to be as honest as you can. but getting to treatment might require a bit of strategic thought given to how you frame your issues. this sucks, but the most important thing is getting treatment)

- i imagine this must feel very discouraging to you. if you’ve seen a lot of doctors already, that shows you have a lot of stamina and motivation and I admire you. i hope you’re being kind to yourself. if you haven’t found the right treatment yet, it’s most likely not an indictment of you as a person, but of the flawed healthcare systems you are surrounded by. The world has a long way to go to create a healthcare system that is truly caring, compassionate, adequate, and fully adapted to the complex nuances of human existence. That doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with you. I’ve visited more than ten therapists in the last ten years, and many had a very shallow, limited view of what my issue was, and it’s through a gradual process of understanding myself better that i was able to get to a place where i could advocate for myself, explain my issues properly and seek the right sort of treatment. it’s very common for these things to take time. i am rooting for you <3 and i hope you get the treatment you deserve.