#schizophrenic dust sans

[mikimakiboo]

@unknownchoatic it's Dust's turn now, and he is, surprise surprise, schizophrenic !

This disabled AU is consuming my brain, I'll do Killer next

Dust has many symptoms, one of which being that he doesn't show his emotions very much, he tends to stay neutral on the outside, always hidden behind his hood, often isolates himself to the point the gang often has to drag him out of his bedroom or else he would stay inside all day long. Nobody, except Nightmare, really knows what he feels and it sometimes worries them because they never know when he feels sad or hurt and they can't comfort him properly.

Due to not showing much emotions he also struggles to engage with others and to build relationships, he basically only has the gang and doesn't have friends in other AUs like some of them do.

He may be depicted as just being lazy, since he is a Sans, but it isn't entirely true, he just doesn't have as much interest in things as he used to and stays in retreat more.

He also sometimes seems to be lost in his thoughts, he doesn't always react when someone talks to him. He has troubles concentrating for too long, memorizing the instructions (or anything else) or understanding them. He is rarely sent alone on missions because of that, even if it is just a supply run, there is always someone with him. Nightmare gives him written instructions with lots of details, even if some seem to be obvious, he writes them anyway to make sure Dust understands and doesn't forget anything.

Now for the "serious" part, he has hallucinations. These hallucinations can have many forms, they can be visual, olfactory, auditory, tactile or gustatory but in his case most of them are visual or auditory. The most common one is the ghost of his brother Papyrus, he is the one he sees most often, but it can also be other monsters he killed. Sometimes these monsters just walk by him but sometimes they talk to him, either to have a normal conversation or to remind him of his crimes. He has a hard time telling them apart from real monsters so if someone of the gang is with him he will ask them if they can see them, and if they say no then it's an hallucination.

He often tends to cling to one member of the gang so that when the hallucinations are back he is not alone and they can help him make the difference between real and fake. The one he clings to the most is Horror because since he is aphasic and doesn't talk Dust knows that if he hears talking when they are together it is automatically an hallucination because Horror practically only uses sign language to communicate.

Unlike Horror it was fairly easy to diagnose him and everyone in the gang is very supportive and do their best to help him, like any found family should, Dust is very grateful ♡

[hotdogstandz]

Getting out of the house might help…

[mewobrute]

my dust sans design.

[unknownchoatic]

i think that Dust would have a really messed up relationship with reality. like obviously he sees ghosts and has hallucinations so like no duh he has a hard time determining what’s real and whats not,

but what if we added to that.

like Dust genuinely believing that his ghosts are real. and when people try to help him- try to get him to realize that the hallucinations aren’t real- it actually makes everything worse. because what do you mean Papyrus isn’t really there? Dust can see him, they have conversations- you cant talk to dead people- so he has to be real.

he’ll confuse information, mistaking behavior the hallucinations have with what their alive counterparts were like. his delusions give him false information, but he believes them. because his brother wouldn’t lie to him, Toriel wouldn’t lie to him- but its just the hallucinations.

or even worse, he’ll confuse who is and isn’t real. seeing hallucinations of dead people is one thing, but to see hallucinations of real, living people- thats much harder to deal with.

like he’ll hallucinate living, breathing people that he knows- people he met after he got out of his AU.

it’s easier to ignore the voices of dead people- even if they do sound like your friends and family- because all those hallucinations are from Dusttale. his AU is long gone, he knows that. he knows that Toriel and his brother and everyone else is dead. hes been out of Dusttale for a while, and there’s no way for them to be here. but his friends, his family, and his support outside of Dusttale? they are real. they are alive. they wont become hallucinations.

so what if they did?

imagine the confusion, the hurt he would feel from that. Suddenly seeing Red or another friend, and they’re telling him things that are so out of character, but these are his friends. right? he can trust these people.

they’ll feed him false information and made up stories that Dust clings to like a lifeline. and then he’ll unknowingly spread false information.

and it gets to a point where he realizes something is wrong. that some fucked up part of his subconscious is feeding him lies and fake scenarios, but he can’t tell the difference between reality and his own delusions.

basically in summary i really want Dust to suffer

[moccasins]

about a month or so ago i was playing dust in an rp and didn't know how to play him so i talked to my mom, who's both a writer and a mental health professional, and gave her a rough run down of his character and she said "sounds like he has schizophrenia or psychosis" and i find it funny that dust has now been "diagnosed" by a professional.

[scribble-brain-aced]

i researched schizophrenia just to diagnose fictional characters

quick note: i’ve tried to do research on schizophrenia, but if anything is inaccurate/offensive/insensitive/just plain wrong, please let me know! i’m not trying to offend anybody with these, i just noticed a lot of people headcanoning Error and Dust as schizophrenic and i looked up symptoms to see whether or not it could be plausible.

specifcially Error because he’s my favorite. (all information on him comes from ‘Ask Error!Sans, the MOVIE’ on youtube.)

so i have google open, behavioral symptoms include: “social isolation, disorganized behavior, aggression, agitation, compulsive behavior, excitability, hostility, repetitive movements, self-harm, or lack of restraint.”

Error lives in the Anti-Void, which seems like isolation to me. his only friends are the voices in his head, puppets, and later on, a kidnapped Swap Sans. so… check? at least, i really don’t think he has any living friends.

CQ said that Error was made to be hypocritical and confusing, which could fit in with disorganized behavior. he contradicts himself, he never provides a straight answer when asked why he destroys AUs, etc. not a lot, but i think that still might fit.

I think that we can absolutely call Error aggressive, agitated, and hostile. he destroys entire worlds, he plays with the souls of other living beings, and the second Blue says that his weakness is friendship in the comic, he gets defensive, maybe a little paranoid if I remember right?, and abandons him in the Anti-Void.

Error does whatever he wants, so that could easily fit with ‘compulsive behavior’ and ‘lack of restraint’. maybe?

i can’t say anything for repetitive movements or self harm, though.

Cognitive: “thought disorder, delusion, amnesia, belief that an ordinary event has special and personal meaning, belief that thoughts aren't one's own, disorientation, mental confusion, slowness in activity, or false belief of superiority.”

okay, well, we can’t read minds, however, amnesia is pretty obvious for Error. he doesn’t remember who he is, he forgot that Toriel was a ghost, his memory is generally pretty bad.

Delusions, I don’t know. Schizophrenia is mostly defined by hallucinations and delusions, but i’m not sure what to think.. “belief that an ordinary event is special,” “belief that thoughts aren’t one’s own,” “disorientation,” “mental confusion,” “slowness in activity”. i don’t think we’ve seen any of that in Error.

however, “false belief of superiority” seems pretty obvious. he acts like he’s the righteous one, saying that “SOMEONE needs to destroy the AUs,” like it can be justified. he calls himself cute, pretty, the best, Abomination #1, and just refers to everyone else as mistakes, abominations, anomalies, and says that Ghost!Toriel shouldn’t exist.

Mood: “anger, anxiety, apathy, feeling detached from self, general discontent, loss of interest or pleasure in activities, elevated mood, or inappropriate emotional response”.

i’m pretty sure we’re lacking in these areas. Anger, yeah, Error gets pissed off easily, and he definitely seems paranoid and suspicious. but everything else, aside from ‘elevated mood’, I really don’t think he has the symptoms.

Psychological: “hallucination, paranoia, hearing voices, depression, fear, persecutory delusion, or religious delusion”

Error mentions in an earlier post that he’s been hearing voices for years, so ‘hallucinations’ and ‘hearing voices’ are checked. there’s a moment where he realizes that a handshake with an asker became handholding, and thinks that he’s being taken advantage of. that, along with his getting angry when Blue says that his weakness is ‘friendship’ and accuses him of being a liar, makes ‘paranoia’, and possibly ‘fear’, seem like another box to check off. i don’t know about the others.

Speech: “circumstantial speech, incoherent speech, rapid and frenzied speaking, or speech disorder”.

I don’t think this is much, but technically, Error could have a stutter? Repititions, prolongations, and blocks are often seen when people voice-act Error, so… maybe? his glitches can definitely make him hard to understand at times, so again, maybe??

Also common: fatigue, impaired motor coordination, lack of emotional response, or memory loss

i’m not sure about a lot of these. maybe,if you squint, you could take the line “when i first got here, all i did was sleep” and fit it in with fatigue, but i’m not sure. impaired motor coordination, i’m not sure either. in my own personal AU, he does have a bit of trouble w/ precise movement because of his glitches, so he ends up clipping through a lot of things, but in canon, i don’t think he has any problems. lack of emotional response doesn’t fit either, since he seems pretty expressive. but memory loss is a given, this bitch remembers nothing.

sooo yeah! that’s all i could find, draw your own conclusions with this-

[morus-god-of-doom]

Swap Underverse Asylum Sans

Alright, I know I'm not on here often, but hear me out.

In the swapped universe where Dream ate the apple, Ink now has Error's job, and Nightmare is trying to stop all of this with the help of a maker Error Sans, I haven't seen much in ways of the other bad guy sans getting swapped counterparts. It seems that having them stay the same, except when Swap replaces Dust or Killer.

But Swap doesn't fit well with either of them, so I think he's more like Cross in the swapped AU, but I digress, he's not who I wanna talk about.

Who I want to talk about is Asylum Sans, or Bandy for short. The little schizophrenic that is obsessed with colorful bandaids, stickers, and sometimes plushies. From what I know of him, his past is mostly a mystery but something happened to his Papyrus, causing him to take on a ghost-like form and hang about the little skellie.

He'd be a perfect parallel to Dust sans, yet being a schizophrenic wouldn't be enough to make him a bad guy.

But what if something happened that made Bandy go off the deep end? Like a certain therapist that recommends putting him on pills to solve the problem of Bandy's schizophrenic episodes. Now, this would absolutely be fine if the pills were correct for his mental illness, but that is not what happens to the little guy.

Instead, they put him on something else; magic suppressors.

From what I have seen, Bandy doesn't use magic in the ward because Mrs. Toriel and Dr. Alphys told him it would be dangerous. He understands that it wouldn't be the best of ideas for him to teleport out of the ward where he can't get the help he needs. So when they suddenly give him little, pink pills, he takes them without question since they had promised him more bandaids if he did.

But they have a negative reaction to the poor skeleton like most things would happen if you take away a person's ability to do something.

Bandy faints due to the effects and hits his head on the floor, causing another change. Of course, Dr. Alphys gives him a check-up and heals the wound, but when the schizophrenic wakes up, his ailment is worse. The new therapist waves it off, of course, giving him a white pill, Bandy's normal prescription, but when the skeleton sees him, he screams due to what he sees in the human, their true intentions.

This would be an everlasting effect as a result of the suppressors they give him with his normal treatment. Anytime Bandy sees someone enter his room for food or check-ups, he stares at them, scooting backward, so they double his prescription.

But what does Asylum see?

Well, he'd see the quote-unquote 'demons' hanging about people, or for a better way to put it, their intentions. Now, with good people like Mrs. Toriel and Dr. Alphys, the demons are small, barely considered a threat in his eyes. Yet when he sees the other doctors and patients, he sees all sorts of monsters, some fusing with their hosts, like when he shrieked upon seeing the new therapist. He saw all of the malice the man had turned them into a creature from nightmares.

Now, as we know with most bodies, they will build up a tolerance if exposed to negative factors. So over time, Bandy's body slowly adapts to resisting the suppressors, causing them to increase the dosage until it eventually stops working on him.

But Bandy still acts docile on his prescription, right?

Wouldn't you know it, one of the employees forgets to order the medicine that Bandy so desperately needs. It would take 2 days for the emergency order to come in.

No big deal, right? Bandy is always friendly to people, even before the new 'prescription', surely nothing bad will happen, right?

Well, Milo Murphy's law states that anything that can happen will happen.

On the second day, Bandy sees the bad Therapist and finally snaps. The suppressors on his magic had ceased working since his body had too much of it. It needed to be expelled.

And what better than the man who had started the torment?

It was all a blur to the skeleton, but it was bloody and brutal. The schizophrenic came to when he had cornered Dr. Alphys and Mrs. Toriel. A bloody pair of scissors in one hand, and a sharp bone in the other. He stared at the weapons before giggling, a manic grin on his face. Asylum knew a lot now, and the two women in front of him had let the therapist do whatever.

So, he finished the job before skipping off to the medicine cabinet.

He needed answers.

It would be quite a sight for the next victim, the person who delivered the medication. Seeing bloodied halls, corpses and dust everywhere.

And just like that, the deliverer would fall by Asylum's hands, and he gets the prescription he needed. So a win-win for him.

I feel like Swapped Dream and Ink would stumble upon the AU by chance and find Asylum playing with the corpse happily.

It's just a thought I had though, just a simple idea since I was bored. Just wanted it to be recorded a bit.

[bistandrnshit]

I’m going to be a bit controversial on the UT/AU community for a second, but…

We don’t need all these neurodivergent sanses..

I’m not saying you can’t give them mental illnesses or whatever, that’s all fine and dandy, however, it’s a problem when the sans’ entire personality is surrounding their mental illness..

Examples include: ADHD Sans, Tourette Sans, Dyslexic Sans, Autism Sans, etc.

These. These just seem very gross to just center around an entire person based off of a mental illness. If you want to make your sans neurodivergent, at least give them a personality.

Ink Sans is commonly headcanoned as autistic, though I’m not certain if that’s canon, it’s better than making Autistic Sans, who just only has autism as their personality. Same goes for Dust and Asylum Sans. Both are headcanoned to be schizophrenic (canon maybe, but I’m also not too sure), which doesn’t take over their personality.

At this point, I won’t explain further about what sanses are pretty cringe and which ones aren’t.

People may have their own personal reasons for making them and I’m not judging if that’s the case, but a lot of them that I’ve seen had the caption of:

“I hope no one has done this!” or “I’m glad no one got to this before I did!”

It’s just… really.. really bad..

Again, I don’t want to bring anyone down and force them to get rid of the characters, that’s not my intention. But, please, you have the ability to make them more then just their mental illnesses. Give them hobbies, likes and dislikes, dreams and aspirations! It’s going to give them more pizzazz, trust me!

[bijou-dame]

Alr New idea, the multiverse but everyone is in a gang, like nightmare, and dream are gang leaders some are freelancers, and some are just there.

Nightmare and dream are the most well known gang leaders they are also twins. Also, also there's no magic and they are just like humans, and teenagers.

Nightmare Joku- 17- he is like 5.4 and anger issues, he is the leader of the "nighttime gang" (idk), he is the more violent of the Joku twins, also keep the height joke's to yourself unless you want the whole town against you. He gang fights, and basically Mafia leader

Dream Joku- 17- he is 5.9 and lives by the motto 'kill'm with kindness', he takes the killing part VERY seriously tho. He is nice, he looks nice, he acts nice, don't let that fool you tho, it's a cover. Leader of the "Star Sans"

Epic Geer/012- 17- he goes by Epic Geer or Epic 012 it just depends on who you ask, he is 5.8. he is a freelancer and info junkie, if you want info on someone or something he is the FBI. he steals packages, and information and sells them to the highest bidder. No one's ever seen his whole face, he cover's it with a hat, all they can make out is a ghost of a scar on one of his eyes. Controlling father. He is the 'sidekick' also involved with both main Joku twins, knows EVERYONE. Everyone may have it bad, but you aren't this guy. Part of no gang

Cross Pañaloza- 15- he is the MC, 5.8. he is new in town and nightmare just adopted him. He comes from an abusive father, he HAD a bandana but epic stole it first day and wears it like a medal, and won't give it back, he doesn't mind much now. He has bandages where his scar is, it's going from one side of his face to the other. He is nervous around everyone, but epic and (most) of the nm gang. Part of nm gang.

Killer Wabas/W- 16- he is not okay mentally and is not afraid to show it, 5.7. he Loves cats and has cat notebooks, cases, bags, you name it he has one. The local knife dealer, he has everything. Knows everyone for some reason, no one knows how. He his very secretive. Part of nm gang.

Dust Carno- 16- he is even more not okay, most people say he's insane, others think he's bipolar, but everyone thinks he's schizophrenic, 5.5, and will beat your ass. He is just a case, got picked up by nm gang and has stayed, Korean exchange student, but knows English surprisingly well. Should be in an institution somewhere. Part of nm gang.

Horror S.- 15- he has severe brain damage, memory loss, and to top it off amnesia, 5.10. nm picked him up off the street (literally). No one really knows where he is from not even epic, but they all know it's bad,BAD. He is really sweet to everyone he knows scares off the rest tho. He can't speak all too well but he's trying. VERY malnourished when nm picked him up, now he just looks sickly, and deathly pale. Part of nm gang.

Blue/Swap Prince- 15- really nice, kill'm with kindness, a boxing champion, he has the gold belt's to prove it, 5.6. short king. Don't underestimate him, he really likes cute, star aesthetics, can and will kick your ass, 0 hesitation. Part of the "Star Sans"

Ink Comyet- 17- he is forgetful, out of sight out of mind, most people don't really like him, bc he is very creepy, and stalker-ish at times, 5.3 the only one shorter than nm. He LOVES art and will force his way into conversations and make them about art, he has art gigs places, very famous, but no one knows what goes on behind closed doors. His art name is "The Creator". Part of the "Star Sans"

Fresh C.Q.- 16- he is straight up creepy af, and talks like he's in the 90's, not very well liked, mf 6.1 and still growing. He wears a backpack and can pull anything out of it, he is very sadistic, doesn't really feel empathy or much of anything. And it does not matter how hot or cold it is he WILL layer like he's preparing for the Russian winter, and still always complaining that it's 'too cold'. He has no siblings (sorry CQ brothers fans but I don't roll like that) and just plain annoying. He is a freelancer and has no gang

Error P.G.- 17- he is forgetful but not near as much as ink, or horror just long term memory loss and sometimes short term, 5.6 but taller than blue. Him and blue are best friends and do a lot together. near sited ass mf, needs glasses but keeps forgetting to put them on or that he has them in the first place. He has no siblings. Part of nm gang

That's all I have for now but I will come back.

[cant-blink]

KotM Ghidorah’s Pain (RP)

The Monsterverse Ghidorah model in KU is incapable of folding their wings and constantly has them open in permanent threat display. It’ll be replace with a better model, but until then, it is canon in the RP that they’re contractually obligated to never put down their wings and may or may not explode into dust if they violate that contract.

The results...

Ichi (Friend#1): Existence is pain... Ni (Friend #2): LIFE IS PAIN!! San (Me!!): Brother Ichi... ;~; I’mma put down my wing. You can’t stop me anymore. Ichi: No, you can’t, Kevin!! San: *sobbing* You can’t stop me anymore.... Ni: You can’t!! Stop crying! We’ll make it through, I promise. San: It hurts so much... ;~; Ichi: I know, Kevin. I know...

But there’s hope of relief in a tiny package...

Random human: *shouts up at them* Hey! You ever thought of getting a massage? Ichi: Unless you’re offering to do it, shut the hell up! >:O Human: Well, I can try, but there’s a whole lot there!  Ichi: Well, you better get started then. *Human starts to climb up their foot* He’ll live like a flea on us for now.

So now, Monsterverse Ghidorah has a pet flea-human on them at all times. If he stops massaging, he will die. :3 All the while, Cretaceous Ghiddy is watching the whole thing and questions himself on why he chose this schizophrenic Ghidorah to be his father....

[houseofoddballs]

SCP AU character Crossovers!

I have been working on this list for to long... but I hope you enjoy! It's a bunch of the bosses, minibosses, side characters, items, and even alternate AU characters that just fit! there's even Y/n ;)

(If there a re multiple SCP's with a character it's a mix of them with the Undertale character. I am also open to changing some of the SCP's with the character if you have suggestions! *Cough cough* BURGERPANTS *Cough cough*)

If you want to look these SCP's up for yourself here's the SCP website: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-series

Flowey: SCP-307 “Carnivorous Ivy”

Asriel Dreemur The Absolute God of Hyperdeath: SCP-2690 “Angels Tongue”

Toriel: SCP-204 “The Protector”

Monster Candy: SCP-942 “Blood Candy”

Napstablook: SCP-624 “‘Personal Music Player”

Papyrus: SCP-999 “The orange slime”

Sans: SCP-106 “The Old Man”

Rocky: SCP-617 “Pet Rocks”

W.D.Gaster: SCP-035 “The possessive Mask” SCP-049 “Plague Doctor”

Grillby: SCP-1814 “Fossilized Flame”

Doggo: SCP-314 “Motion-Seeking Blade”

Dogamy/Dogaressa: SCP-284 “The Twins”

Greater/lesser dogs: SCP-1279 “People Dogs”

Snowdin Bunnies: SCP-2037 “Dust Bunnies”

Mad dummy: SCP-492 “Animated Cloth Dummy”

Shyren: SCP-327 “The Mermaid”

Mad MewMew: SCP-847 “The Mannequin”

Undyne: SCP-939 “With Many Voices”

Muffet: SCP-278 “A Large Mechanical Spider”

Royal Guards: SCP-2101 “The Imperial Army”

Alphys: SCP-079 “Old AI”

Amalgamates: SCP-1913 “The Furies”

BurgerPants: SCP-415 “The Harvested Man”

NiceCream Guy: SCP-1793 “A Happy Bunny”

Mettaton: SCP-1370 “PesterBot”

Asgore: SCP-1529 “King of the Mountain”

Frisk/Chara: Schizophrenic D-Class Personnel with Multiple Personality Disorder (SCP-220)

Ink Sans: SCP-067 “The Artist’s Pen”

Dust Papyrus: SCP-126 “Invisible Friend”

You: SCP-423 “Self-Inserting Character” (that or you could either be a Scientist, guard, or another D-class personnel with Frisk)

Robot Sans (S4-N5): SCP-379 “Mechanical pheromone”

[mikimakiboo]

hello! um- for the Disabled AU. i once spent like a whole hour analyzing Error and researching shizophrenia and he could be diagnosed with it in canon! not gonna make the whole list of symptoms, but the voices, social isolation, POSSIBLE persecutory delusion (when he accuse Blue of trying to find his weakness, if i remember right), paranoia..

you dont have to answer!! just some food for thought if you want it-

Hi !

That's actually quite fitting ! I haven't thought about Error but now that you mention it I can definitely see him being schizophrenic too, there is also a nice comparison to make because he would be so different from Dust even though they have the same mental illness

For exemple while Dust despises his voices and hallucinations and tries to escape them by staying with the others and constantly asking them if they can see/hear what he sees/hears, Error just accepts his hallucinations

He has been alone for so long with his only company being the voices he hears all the time, he became familiar with them, he doesn't fear them, he answers them not caring if they actually are real or not because he just doesn't care like Dust cares

They are two very different interpretation of the same illness and I think it could be very interesting to compare them !

Thanks for the idea ♡

[petty-revenge-stories]

I Crop Dusted an Entire BART Train in San Francisco

I'm recent to living in San Francisco, so naturally I wanted to explore the city in my first few months of being a resident. Unfortunately on one of those nights I happened to lose my wallet in an Uber. Rather than enduring the nightmarish DMV experience within the city of San Francisco to get a new ID, I chose to travel to the Pleasanton DMV office in the East Bay. This involved me traveling for 30 - 45 minutes on Bart and getting a ride from a friend who kindly offered to drive me to the DMV from Oakland.

The whole point of going to Pleasanton was to skip the long lines and get back to the city by the late afternoon. What was supposed to be a simple task turned into an 12 hour ordeal. I got to the DMV by 8:30 in the morning, and wasn't out until 4:30 PM. Needless to say, I was pretty livid by the end of the experience. I took a day off of work and had hoped to have enough time left in the work day to sign on from home before meeting friends for a birthday happy hour in the city. Getting back to Bart itself was a nightmare (having to endure the east bay traffic), and by the time I was on the train back to the city (8 PM), I had had enough.

The train was particularly active that night... Some younger high school drop out types were drinking on the train out of a brown paper bag, blasting music from a boombox and having a dance battle. They were jumping over rows of seats, swinging from the hand rails, and spilling Four Loko all on the ground of this moving train. A homeless man was sitting across the aisle from me cheering them on, while snapping back and forth from an aggressive schizophrenic conversation with his imaginary friend. An older asian lady literally brought a live chicken on the train. I'm trying to sit and not make eye contact with any of these crazy individuals, eating my burrito and listening to a podscast. This was about the last thing I was hoping to deal with after the shit show of a day the DMV turned out to be.

The burrito I had just wolfed down was sitting heavy in my belly. The sour cream, refried beans, and greasy chicken had already begun to move through my bowels. I begin to make my exit as the doors for the train open. I take one last look back at the scene of desperate madness in this train, let out a loud cough to get everyone's attention, and let the mother of all farts rip through my athletic shorts and straight into the train as the doors began closing. I know that fart was extra potent, as I'm a fiend for sour cream and had asked for extra when ordering.

The high school drop outs erupted into chaos and lunged for the door to grab a hold of me but I was out of reach by the time the doors closed. I'll always have the satisfying picture of those degenerates giving me the finger as the biohazard of a train sealed them in and took them further down line.

While I may have soiled a pair of underwear, it felt so damn good to have some inconsiderate assholes to take out my pent up frustration on.

(source) story by (/u/gentlesir123)

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Tomás Nochteff (Mueran Humanos)

Mueran Humanos, an Argentinian duo now based in Berlin, mixes post-punk, industrial-inflected synth explorations, garage rock and psychedelia. Carmen Burguess and Tomás Nochteff share vocal duties and play a very basic line-up of instruments: bass, synths, drum machines and samplers. In his review for Dusted, Andrew Forell called their latest, Hospital Lullabies, “a thrilling concoction of electronic, industrial, bass-driven body music fueled by the transgressive spirit of a DAF or a Psychic TV.” Here, Tomás presents his list of visionary music.

A list of visionary music

What is a visionary? Visions can come in dreams, in journeys to other worlds, in hallucinations. They can be the product of will, of a derangement of the senses, or they can come uninvited to save you or to haunt you and destroy your mental balance, even your life. It can be heavenly, or hellish, but to be authentic visions they have to be otherworldly. And to be visions rather than just imagination, they must have an element of truth. Not literal truth, like “that wall is green,” but a different kind of truth, the one that´s expressed in symbols, in metaphors, in omens and obsessions. In “Heaven and Hell,” Aldous Huxley analyzed the visions of people under the influence of psychedelic drugs, the visions of mystics and the visions of schizophrenics. He found fundamental parallels and concluded that they must have been visiting the same places. These people are not merely hallucinating, but they are perceiving another reality, visiting a different world, or maybe they are perceiving the world as it really is. And he quotes Jung on this: “schizophrenics and mystics are on the same ocean, but schizophrenics are drowning and mystics are swimming.” A visionary could be a mix of all these archetypes. Like Philip K Dick: was he on drugs? Yes. Was he mad? Yes. Was he seeking enlightenment? Yes. Had his visions an element of truth? No doubt about it. Were his visions revelations? To some extent, yes.

On our last album, Hospital Lullabies, the songs deal with all these different experiences on the journey to another world and on the invasion from another world into everyday life, with its horror and its beauty, the agony and the ecstasy. And how one copes, or doesn´t, with it.

So to celebrate it, I made a list of music that I do consider visionary. There’s madmen, there’s mystics and there’s psychonauts, all possible combinations of the three archetypes and everything in between.

Pharoah Sanders—“The Creator has a Masterplan” (Impulse)

I don´t know much about cosmic jazz, or any jazz for that matter, but what I know is that this record is pure bliss. “Harvest Time,” on Pharoah is another masterpiece. Alice Coltrane and Don Cherry are also incredible. This is music of the spheres; it has the touch of God.

Rudimentary Peni—CacophonyI (Outer Himalayan Records)

One of the few perfect punk bands ever, for lots of reasons. The bass lines are extraordinary, for example. But they belong here because of schizophrenic member Nick Blinko: incredible artist & novelist, obsessed with Catholicism and the supernatural horror. A guy who stopped his medication to force himself into a psychotic crisis just to write an album. Hero. Martyr.

Nico— “Janitor of Lunacy” (Cherry Red Records)

For me, Nico was the best and more underrated of all Velvets (and we love Velvet Underground as much as anyone). Also, the production from John Cale on her records is probably his best work too, or at least among his best. I feel that she is not appreciated enough. Iggy said that meeting her changed him. I suspect that´s true for all her famous friends: Bowie, Lou Reed, John Cale, Leonard Cohen, etc. They were all larger-than-life characters. And we know there is an element of self-built mythology on all that, a bit of acting. There is nothing wrong with that; rock and roll at its best is a complete artform and we must appreciate this self-built mythology as part of their craft. But with Nico you don´t get that feeling. She seemed that she didn´t care about her image, she was born Nico and I suspect that in that sense she inspired them all to no end. She was the genuine article. One of our main loves in music. Essential with a capital E.

Coil—“I Don’t Want To Be The One”

Jhonn Balance wanted to be a magician, and he died trying. I think he succeed in building a shamanic body of work with the help of the great late Sleazy and a myriad of brilliant contributors. Coil´s music at its best it´s like a plasma between worlds, or a very, very good psychedelic drug. My most beloved electronic/industrial/post-industrial project ever and one of our main influences. This performance is superb.

Lungfish — Feral Hymns

I´m not interested in DC post hardcore per se, and I don´t have any tattoos. I shouldn´t care about Lungfish the way I do, but they knock me out every single time. Daniel Higgs is a seer. I don´t know what he is talking about, but at the same time, my gut knows exactly what he is talking about. He speaks in images, like Tarot, like the religious painters, like Rimbaud and San Juan de la Cruz. His delivery is supreme. Raw and fragile, yet powerful and precise. Over circular, repetitive, minimal structures of music that have a haunting, arresting effect. Hypnotic, magical, devotional music. Either you get it, or you don´t. I can´t explain it. That´s the beauty of it, I suppose. And the truly mark of the visionary artist.

Ghedalia Tazartes—“Une Éclipse Totale De Soleil Part 2”

Ghedalia for me represents the pure, untouched, sui generis artist. Applying the techniques of musique concrete to the ancient folk music of the Sephardic Jews with a raw energy that usually you can only find in punk, or blues. I see in him an archetype, the Fool card in the Tarot. The madman that opens the gates of heaven and hell, gives himself to these supreme energies and survives only because of his perfect innocence.

OM—“Sinai (live at Sonic City)”

Maybe the greatest rock band of the last 20 years. Here with Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe to maximum effect.

Charlemagne Palestine—Live in Holland 1998

Like Ghedalia, Charlemagne Palestine is a Jewish artist that works in the avant garde field but subverts it with the tradition of his folk music instead of sticking to the cold, cerebral, rational program of academia. He has his own world. Watch this and you will understand what I am talking about.

Virgin Prunes—Excerpts from Sons Find Devils/“Walls of Jericho”

There is a VHS tape called Sons Find Devils, comprised of live shows and short experimental films (some of them made by Balance, from Coil). I had it as a teenager and watched it countless times. Sadly, it is not complete on YouTube or elsewhere but here are some small extracts. With their heretic mix of Irish Catholic imagery, Irish Paganism, Bataille, performance art and post punk, the Virgin Prunes made a unique and extraordinary body of work. A testament of its importance is that Gavin Friday was guest singer of two bands in this list: The Fall and Coil. And Mr. Scott Walker himself invited him to sing on a play. Maybe the historians ignore them, but Mark E. Smith, Scott Walker and Coil knew where it’s at, didn´t they? Their record If I die I die is a masterpiece. Produced by Colin Newman from Wire, no less, if you need more validation.

Boredoms—Vision Creation Newsun

I like some of the more comical, early work of Boredoms, but with Super AE and this one they got me. They got serious and spiritual, channeling Alice Coltrane, tribal drumming, kraut rock and noise into a glorious, euphoric sound. Maybe they are not visionaries, but their music can produce visions. I saw them around 2005 (on acid) with the three drummers line up, still in this phase. I remember thinking “this is what cavemen had in mind when they invented music.” I actually saw it, with my eyes closed. Early humans. In caves. Inventing music. God bless LSD.

Aphrodite´s Child — 666

The one record I bought for the cover only, it cost me 50 cents, best deal of my life. A concept album about the apocalypse. Easy contender for the best psychedelic rock album of all time. Pet Sounds? Get outta here. An absolute masterpiece.

Tim Buckley—Starsailor

Tim Buckley is a mystery. He died too young. How he went from his L.A. folk rock first album to the absolute unique sound of Starsailor and Lorca is impossible to understand and a miracle of music. All six records in between are masterpieces. He was possessed by genius and has the most beautiful voice. I don´t know much about him, but his music put me out there.

Sun Ra—Night Music 1989

Watch this. Space is The Place, indeed.

Pescado Rabioso—Artaud

This guy, Luis Alberto Spinetta, is considered by many to be the most important rock musician in my country. So being an arrogant teenage punk, or whatever, of course that alone was enough to reject him altogether without even thinking. But a couple of years ago I was blown away by a book of poems he published in 1978. Incredibly beautiful, unique and sophisticated poetry. I recently started, too late, to listen to his music. This is one of his most famous and revered records. It´s dedicated to, and inspired by Antonin Artaud, who tried and failed to reach the mystic enlightenment, generating a body of work in the process which is a testament to his spiritual ambition, his radical rejection of the material world and his pain. Spinetta understood this, he said the record was trying to find an answer to Artaud, a way out of it, a way out of the pain. It´s psychedelic music of the highest order. The lyrics are incredible but you can enjoy it even without understanding them.

Dead Can Dance—Dyonisios

I kept forgetting this band exists. This new album is great. I listened to it non-stop during last Winter/Spring. It´s the perfect time because the record is about Dyonisios, so as a soundtrack for the rebirth of Nature it´s perfect. Probably their best work in years. Sublime.

The Fall—“Garden” (Live at the Hacienda, Manchester, UK, 1984)

No list of visionary rock and roll would be complete without Mark E. Smith. Famously he said, “I used to be a psychic but I drank my way out of it.” Indeed, there was a time, between 1978-1990, when he was possessed by something, injecting realism with mysticism, mixing high and low planes, exposing the supernatural forces that hides in the cracks of everyday life. He never talks about hell neither heaven, but rather the way they mix and manifest here on Earth. You’ve got countless of bands using occult/mystic imagery, and you know it´s nice but it´s just a game. You’ve got thousands of bands referencing Burroughs and the cut-up technique, but no one can write as Burroughs did. MES did it. MES wasn´t playing. He was a realist of the augmented reality, he told it like it is, in his fragmented, hallucinatory, unpretentious, visionary prose poetry.

There is a lot in his lyrics that can be read in a mystic, occult way. He left a lot of clues for the ones that can read them. His texts are kaleidoscopic, and they reflect what´s in your mind, really. I think he will be recognized with time as the great experimental writer that he actually was rather than merely an angry Mancunian punk. He had more in common with someone like Iain Sinclair than with any other rock musician. One of my favorite web sites is The Annotated Fall, where fans analyze his lyrics in depth. Pay a visit if you can, I can´t recommended it enough. In many ways, he was too intelligent for rock and roll, and that´s why he was misunderstood, but he didn´t care, he believed in constant work, never explain, never apologize. The Fall took all the best things in rock and roll: Can, Velvet Underground, punk, Captain Beefheart, and pushed it to the next level. Our favorite rock group ever.

Huun Hur Tu — “Prayer”

I tried to stick to Western, modern music but I can´t help including this.

[unknownchoatic]

thinking about writing a silly little silly where Dust has a psychotic/schizophrenic episode 

might be high school au

idk

[aftaabmagazine]

Home After 20 Years: Travel to Herat

words and photos By Fariba Nawa 

From the 2001 issue of Afghan Magazine | Lemar-Aftaab

Journalist Fariba Nawa traveled to her hometown in 2000 which was then under Taliban rule. Here is her story. 

Flies buzzed and circled around my face. I swatted them away with my hands as I slowly looked up to a dozen men watching me. Standing in line at the Iranian border waiting to cross into my hometown Herat, Afghanistan, the men stared at my face and hands - the only bared parts of my body. My hair and the rest of my body were covered in observance of Iran's dress code for women.

Keeping my eyes to the floor to avoid the ogling, the Iranian border agent called my name. My hands trembled as I handed him my Afghan passport - perhaps the least useful travel document in the world. In a matter of minutes, I would be home again after nearly 20 years. I was eight years old the last time I crossed the Silk Route. The desert I was about to cross was the frontlines of war. My parents, sister and I walked as donkeys carried our belongings for six hours until we reached safety in Iran.

My family fled Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion in 1981. We escaped to California where I grew up.

As an adult, I am Americanized but Afghanistan is in my heart and memories. I visualized returning to my grandfather's orchard home, where I used to play with my cousins and eat the sundry of fruits we picked from trees. The 5-acre home was a sanctuary from my parents' neighborhood where the boom of rockets and bullets echoed in our backyard.

The Afghan-Soviet war has turned into a civil war now as Afghans struggle to survive in the wake of more United Nations sanctions. One of the poorest countries in the world, Afghanistan is facing a severe drought as well as the threat of starvation. The Taliban, the militia ruling the majority of the country, enforce a strict code of law. In the name of religion, they forbid women from going to school or working in most fields and force men to pray. Women must travel with a male kin and wear a burqa, which covers the body like a tent with only a mesh for sight. Men must sport long, scraggly beards. This was the Afghanistan I was about to enter.

My cousin's best friend was my rented male kin or mahram traveling with me. Mobin was a merchant who traveled across Iran and Afghanistan, selling buttons and lace to survive. He saw his wife and 18-month-old son in Herat one week out of every month. Shrewd and experienced on the road, Mobin promised to take me from Iran to Afghanistan and finally back to Pakistan, where I worked as a freelance journalist.

With my American passport hidden under my bra, I held my breath as we passed Taliban customs. We rented a taxi with two other women. Mobin was also their mahram. The Taliban banned music, but the taxi driver popped in the latest Afghan folk songs and increased the volume as we headed toward Herat. An ancient city once known for its art and culture in Central Asia -- now it is the only Afghan city with a running economy.

The station wagon rolled up and down on the sand dunes. I took out my journal and wrote under my black coat. Every time a man appeared in the distant, the other women and I covered our faces with the edge of our headscarves.

"Don't worry. The Taliban are scared of women," Mobin said.

"They usually stop cars with men. The ones with women, they turn their heads."

We decided to don the burqa once we reached the city. In disbelief, I closed my eyes, smelled the air and listened to the folk singer, who had recorded his music in Virginia. The singer lamented that he was distant from his homeland. But I was finally home.

Two hours later in pitch dark, we entered the gates of the city. My heart was throbbing. The adobe, high walls hid the houses, but downtown was lit up in neon-colored lights. Men rode their bicycles on the unpaved roads. It was 10 p.m., and there was not a woman in sight.

[caption: A shrine in Herat.]

The taxi stopped in front of Mobin's house, I stepped down and kissed the ground, then looked up at the sky. The fall breeze blew the dust in my eyes, but I could still see the constellations, shooting stars and the moon. That's the closest I have gotten to euphoria.

The people I knew in Herat were distant relatives with the exception of my step-grandmother, who still lives on our land. My mother's uncle was the only one who knew I was coming because he was one of the few owners of a telephone. I stayed with his two wives and their children. They were fairly well off and rebellious. Disobeying the Taliban's ban on music and television, a satellite dish propped up on their porch, a television and musical instruments in the basements. My five female cousins, mostly teenagers, did not clandestinely go to home schools as did some girls. They did their house chores and learned to read the Koran from a religious teacher for an hour a day while their 15-year-old brother attended public high school and took English courses.

This family's attitude toward the Taliban was typical of other Heratis. They have accepted the limitations in exchange for peace. However, they want Ismail Khan back in power. While warlords, once freedom fighters against the Russians, fought each other, Ismail Khan began to develop Herat, and he was still corrupt but better than the Taliban, my relatives said.

[caption: Few of the minarets built during the 15th century Timurid Empire are still standing. Others were toppled during the past 20 years of war.]

The ruling militia has instilled a chilling fear in Afghans, especially women. Since Herat is the Taliban's base for money, they give its residents more leeway to break the law. Heratis take advantage, but they go about it in a schizophrenic manner. My cousins would drum on their tambourines at midnight, cursing the Taliban as they sang. The next day, the girls whispered in conversation, afraid the Taliban were coming to get them. One way of appeasing the Taliban was to invite their ringleaders to parties where they joined in the festivity.

I kept a low profile, not asking too many questions and staying inside most of the time. I fit in surprisingly well despite my liberal ideas and informal mannerisms. My relatives assumed I had forgotten the Persian language and Islam, both of which I have kept.

[caption: One of the sarachas; strangers live in my family home now.]

On the second day of my journey, I bravely put on the burqa like my mother used to and hit the streets for the first time with my cousins. I walked slowly embarrassed that I might trip on the flowing fabric. There is an ironic power in being invisible. Men in public noticed my ankles and hands, but they did not look at my eyes watching them. I stared at their expressions and actions, reading them without the interruption of their gaze.

We first rode a decorated Toyota Corolla taxi, then a horse wagon to reach my family home. I knocked at the old brass gate. A child opened the door and led me to my grandmother. She was praying. I lifted the front of my burqa as she turned her head. My grandmother, 70, screamed in disbelief like I was a ghost. She passed out for a few seconds before hugging me and sobbed on my shoulders.

[caption: Our four-acre house in Herat was sold and divided into four small homes. This is the doorway leading to one of the sarachas.]

The next few days passed so quickly in glee. I went shopping, visited shrines and my school where I stopped attending after I witnessed a bomb kill my second-grade classmates 19 years ago.

On the seventh day of my trip back to Herat, I stepped into the orchard home, saving the best for last. I threw my burqa on the ground and sprinted toward the living quarters, hearing my family's laughter inside the hallways.

[caption: My cousin Ehsan, 16, stands in front of Gazergah where renowned Sufi poet Khwaja Abdullah Ansary is buried.]

But there was no one and no laughter. The doors of the 11 rooms were locked shut, some of their windows broken. I ran out to the field, frantically looking for the mulberry and pomegranate trees where we had picnics.

I found the trees but no harvest due to the drought. The entire place seemed much smaller. I kept running into walls. Then I recalled that my uncles sold three acres of the land a few years ago. My happy nostalgia turned into despair. I climbed the roof overlooking the city, buried my face in my hands and wept.

[caption: My maternal grandfather's orchard where all my happy memories of Afghanistan live. The orchard yielded little harvest because of the drought in the last couple of years.]

The tears were a catharsis, an acceptance of the past as past. My distance from Herat for these 20 years had left a void in me. I was missing something as I had lived my comfortable Western life in San Francisco. But 10,000 miles away, leaning at the edge of my childhood roof, I felt a sense of completion, that I was coming back full circle, fulfilling a spiritual journey. 

About Fariba Nawa

Fariba Nawa, an award-winning Afghan-American journalist, covers a range of issues and specializes in women’s rights and conflict zones. She is based in Istanbul, Turkey and has traveled extensively to the Middle East, Central and South Asia. Visit Her Website