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crucipuzzled · 2 years

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About Psychiatry stuff in SPYxFAMILY. Part 1

Part 2 here / Part 3 here / Part 4 here

I'm a dumb and I just realized that ch. 29 of the manga will be animated, since Fiona appears for the 1st time in that chapter and she's in the key visual for the 2nd cour.

I'm aware this isn't the first analysis made on this chapter but so far I haven't seen anyone from the Psy world speaking about this. I'm a Clinical Psychologist grounded on Freudian-Lacanian Psychoanalitic theory and I think I can share some knowledge over several aspects of Psychiatry that are depicted in the manga. I've worked with Psychiatrists in the past, albeit for a short amount of time, in a public healthcare institution, so I have a notion of what Psychiatrists do in a public setting like a Hospital.

If there's a Psychiatrist out there who wants to refute this analysis, PLEASE DO SO. I'm more than pleased to learn and have a nice debate.

This is one of the most hilarious chapters in the whole SxF series, so if you don't want the fun to be spoiled, please skip this post!

Let's begin. 1. Working in a Hospital

I'm not sure if this is universal, as healthcare systems around the world differ in several aspects, but the consensus is that a Hospital, which is a public healthcare institution, is specialized in the treatment of the most complex diseases.

In Psychiatry, this usually means dealing with psychosis, drug intoxication, major depressive episodes with suicide attempts and serious personality disorders. Most of these conditions require hospitalization, as the risk of giving just ambulatory care is not enough to guarantee the patient's safety or that of the others's.

There are Hospitals that provide ambulatory care though. Again, it varies from where in the world you are. In my country (Chile) you usually go to the Hospital when your life is at risk, but if you are suffering from a less serious condition (for example, dealing with panic attacks), you'll be transferred to a primary healthcare institution. Unless you live in a rural area.

Indeed, working in a healthcare institution means gaining access to any patient's clinical record. But for the objective of Operation Strix, and Loid being a Psychiatrist, I don't think that's of much use, for reasons that I'll cover in Point 3.

2. Specialty in Psychiatry

Psychiatry has several subspecialties, like any other healthcare career. You have Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Adult Psychiatry (I believe these two are mandatory to become a Psychiatrist but I can't say it for sure), Addictions, Forensics, Emergencies... Loid said that he wants to help people affected by the war, veterans specially, so it's a polite guess to say that he's an Adult Psychiatrist. Then again, we have this panel:

The sand box is a diagnostic tool used for children. It's mostly used by Psychologists, as they have more time per session to analyze it. I'll cover the sand box in more detail in Part 4 of this series of analysis, but for now let's say that analyzing it consumes a lot of time that Psychiatrists, in a Hospital, usually don't have.

This panel suggests that Loid has worked with children before as a Psychiatrist, and we see him later in chapter 67 with a child (although it's not clear if the child is his patient), so here are another 2 polite guesses:

-Loid's a General Psychiatrist -Berlint General Hospital's Psychiatric Ward is understaffed and they put their Psychiatrists to do whatever is needed at the moment, regardless of their specialties. It sure doesn't look that poor of a Hospital to me, but who knows... My bet is option 1. Poor guy.

3. Donovan Desmond as a potential psychiatric patient

In the first chapter of the manga, Donovan is described as a hikikomori, meaning someone who withdraws from social interaction. This word also describes a psychopathological condition of japanese young lads that spend months, even years, holled up in their homes without interacting with anybody aside from their families (if they have). The word itself doesn't have a pathological connotation tough. In English, the closest concept to "hikikomori" as a psychpathological meaning would be Autism, which isn't equivalent at all. And, when a person is so reclused, we tend to pair it with paranoia, as it often leads to social withdrawal as well. The important thing here is, as you probably are thinking right now, the reason fo such decision. And this reason is always given by the symptoms. Paranoia is a type of psychosis in which a person suffers from delirium and hallucinations related to being endangered or threatened by something. Of course, a proof of reality is useless for these patients, as their perception of reality itself is disturbed. An UFO is watching over you at all times? I can't precisely prove that it's false, as I lack proof of the very existence of UFO, and even if I have it, the delirium would probably shift to attack me as I turn into a conspirator against the patient's truth.

Not that we clinicians waste time trying to do so, though. In these cases, the Psychiatrist kicks in and administers a dose of antipsychotic drugs. Psychotic paranoia often needs hospitalization and a strong compromise from the patient's family to constantly supervise him/her. After that, comes a long process of social rehab. A very characteristic feat of paranoid people is that THEY NEVER SEEK FOR PROFESSIONAL MENTAL HEALTH CARE HELP BY THEMSELVES. Paranoids often arrive to a Psychiatric Emergency Room dragged by a third party due to bizarre behaviour, self-aggression and/or attempts to hurt others.

There are people that is not psychotic and suffer from this kind of fear of pretty much everything as well, but it's hard to determine if they really aren't psychotics, as their reasons to recluse themselves strongly resemble a delirium. The key that helps to discern if it's a psychotic paranoia or not is finding the hole in which a patient allows himself to doubt. In paranoid psychosis there's absolute certainty, while in neurosis there is room for doubt.

These "neurotic paranoids", as we'll call them for now (it doesn't exist as a nosograhical entity anywhere; please don't waste your time looking it up in the DSM xD), tend to abandon therapy pretty soon, as they fight for sticking with their motives to recluse themselves. They don't want to realize what drive them to behave like that. Patients suffering from obsessions will probably act this way, as well as some hypochondriac and anorexic patients. Bear in mind that this is not a norm; everything depends on the symptoms.

All of this begs the question: Would Donovan Desmond ever need Psychiatric help from Dr. Loid Forger?

His interaction with Loid in chapter 38 suggests that he's not reclusive for a mental condition, but he does have a certain level of "neurotic paranoia", as he can't bring himself to really trust any other person much. If nobody is truly sympathetic to each other, they could pose a threat at any moment, right? Since he's clearly not psychotic, because he can hold an interaction with Loid in the same shared reality (not a dellirium, I mean), one can safely assume that he does trust someone, at least one single person. When a psychotic person suffers from paranoia, there's not a single hole in their life that is not filled with suspicions of others being dangerous. This isn't the case for Donovan.

We see him walking with a lot of guards, so he must trusts them. And he seems to be closer to Demetrius as he goes with him to the Imperial Scholar get-togethers, so that also counts. He even takes a detour to meet Damian. Seems like he can trust his family members, and that alone could be a measure of love, albeit in a really weird scale.

Tsundere? That aside, given the social status of the Desmonds, if they ever need psychiatric help, they probably would consult a private clinic instead of going to a public hospital. Unless they find themselves in a reeeeaaaally desperate situation. So, the answer is no... for the most part. Good try, though, Twilight.

I'll cover more stuff in the next part. This one turned out unexpectedly long. It's been fun ruining the fun for those who don't know about mental health though.

#spy x family #spy x family manga #psychiatry #analysis #This is what happens when I don't have a job

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raindrop-on-a-spiderweb · 8 months

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A Message To My Readers

I don't tend to use this tumblr as a personal blog, but I feel obliged to be honest to my readers this time.

On August 11, I shot myself in the head with a .22 caliber revolver.

The bullet entered through my right cheek, fracturing my orbital and mandibular, and exited through the side of my nostril, embedding shrapnel inside my face. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt very much. All I felt was a burning pressure tunneling through my face, and warm blood fountaining onto the collar of my dress. The rest of that night I do not remember–save that in the ambulance, blood clots the size of caterpillars were dropping out of my nose.

I spent the next few days in the hospital, the side of my face swelling up so much I couldn't see out of my right eye. I was in the hospital under observation for three days. Nurse aids--new hires I was supposing– kept looking at me with that faint gaze of horror and slight fascination, at the bloody mess on my face swelling up into a bloodier mess, like rubbernecking at a car accident. Otherwise my stay was uneventful–I watched the Discovery Channel and reread The Master and Margarita several times while we waited for the swelling to go down and for my flesh to knit itself together enough so I could be discharged.. My left nostril leaked so much blood it covered the pillow. Scabs formed to close the bullet wounds on both sides of my face.

I was then transferred to a psychiatric ward. The experiences I had there and the people I met I will remember for a lifetime. It was a fascinating cross-section of humanity. There was an 18-year-old redneck father-of-two (!) who, during a group therapy session where we were asked to find coping methods to deal with depression, yelled out "GO TO A SHOOTIN' RANGE!". The head nurse on the ward constantly quoted One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. There was a woman who believed she was "powerful reincarnation of an ancient druidess". Another man had been a highly successful local restauranteur before meth addiction and mental illness took away his life. A slight, blonde former nurse who after a failed relationship, stabbed herself in the liver and trachea.

The library was meager, but I read John Muir's First Summer in the Sierra and lost myself in snowy mountain peaks and the spray of waterfalls. I made myself popular by giving out palm readings in the day room and was correct approximately 80% of the time. I described one man's temperament as "fiery", which he correctly understood to mean he was an asshole. The ancient druidess asked for a reading but spent most of the time telling me about her myriad other reincarnations (respectively, killed in the Holocaust, killed in the Victorian era, killed in the medieval era). An old former nurse–not the blonde lady– came for a reading and it was so accurate she got teary-eyed; we soon became fast friends. She was elderly but sharp as a tack and had worked her whole life in the profession; through the 70s and 80s. She had never married, although she wished she'd had children. She had been a sci-fi writer as well and had a wealth of advice for me, one being that you should never become a nurse. Nursing had ruined her body and left her wheelchair bound.

My roommate was a quiet woman who barely said two words to me the first day and spent most of her time staring at the wall and sleeping. The therapists could not crack her in the least. By the second day we fell into a card game with each other, and little by little she lit up and started smiling. When she laughed it was infectious. She, I and the elderly nurse spent long hours in the day room, playing cards and watching television and laughing with each other. The night before we were discharged, we were up late, and she confessed her terrible circumstances, her life in foster care, her husband who had molested her children, her trafficking, and her upcoming court hearing so she could claw back custody of her children. A flash of contemplation passed her face, and she said to us, "I have talked more with you than I ever have with any of my therapists." I still have her and the nurse's numbers.

The therapy I was given and the connections I made were overall wonderful and affecting experiences. I left the ward looking forward to meeting the world headon, but when I got out, things grew worse. My mother withheld my medications and electronics and blamed me for everything; wanted me to go to a halfway house (thankfully my father let me stay with him permanently). I was on the verge of filing a police report before she gave them back. And then I realized I was being kicked out of the house. To walk into your room and realize it is not your own anymore, to see your belongings packed up and ready to be stored away or sent back with you, is a jarring experience; to have your eyes go to a familiar place and have it be so alien.

Then she said those words that made my heart drop to my stomach: That I was writing awful, dark things for an audience and that she was completely ashamed of me, and that she thought that it contributed to my decision to end my life. (and also that I was "posting sarcastic comments online for ego strokes"--wtf?) She had gone through everything private of mine, everything I strived to keep separate from my real life identity for this very reason, and told God knows how many people. All for nothing now.

Few things can compare to the horror of having a loved one finding out the deepest, rawest, most honest parts of yourself and reacting with disgust. To have them point a finger at your most delicate personal works and say, "This is responsible for your attempted suicide," when writing had brought me nothing but delight, happiness and friends at some of the darkest times of my life. Part of the reason I love writing was the lack of restraint and escapism, and the idea of being someone else. How could I possibly return to writing knowing that someone was constantly judging me and looking over my shoulder? How could I write honestly, without constantly second-guessing myself?

Anyway, my mother wanted nothing to do with me and threw me out with my father once I got my belongings. The last thing I said to her was "Next time, I won't miss." C'est la vie and that's the end. I'm officially disowned now and cutting off contact. No clue where I stand will-wise, but I don't care anymore.

We got in the car and went home. As my mood sank, I was tempted to do the unthinkable and I gave some serious thought to deleting my account and works. The thought of my mother (and potentially other family members too) reading these stories of mine in all their graphicness was a crippling prospect. It also occurred to me that she had started packing my room up when I was still in the hospital, and that finally made me cry. I wondered whether she was the same person who loved me and hugged me and protected me as a child, or she was the same person all along and I just never noticed.

When we got home to my dad's farm I was shaky and unfocused and my mind was in a dark fugue. But it was a bright and sunny August day. As soon as I got out of the car my cats poured out of the fields and out of the barn to surround me, meowing and excited after a week of not seeing me, Spot and Zorro and Aldous and Erik and Gidget. We're glad you're back. We're glad you're here. Beings that didn't judge me, that I didn't have to explain anything to or justify myself to, that just were happy that I existed.

As I felt the sunlight on my shoulders I started to cry again, but they were tears of relief. How could I have tried to kill myself when a moment so beautiful existed? Things will look up. They always do.

I love writing and I will never, and can never, stop.

#personal #writing

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tacticalhimbo · 1 year

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YALE PSYCHIATRIC - THE TRAGIC CASE OF FATHER JOHN WARD (FAITH: THE UNHOLY TRINITY)

With the new drop of development notes into the GOODIES folder of the game, I wanted to revisit an old analysis I did way back during the era of the Chapter 2 demo.

The long story made short is this: John has an interesting psychology that is backed by the in-game letters and allusions to his hospitalization at Yale Psychiatric. That being said, it isn't really expanded upon because it's not a core element to the plot.

Which, to an extent, can be disagreed with because it is entirely possible that the events of The Unholy Trinity are told through the perspective of an unreliable narrator (John), which then means that some (if not all) events that take place are exaggerated and intensified by John's mental state.

If you ask me, I see the series of events as a blend of details. Demons exist and the cult is very much up to something, but certain things are manipulated to fit a narrative (think, the Martin twins. Amy's mother miscarried, yet John was manipulated into believing the cult had kidnapped the born children for their rituals). I might expand on that another time, but for now, here is my perspective on the characterization of John Ward, and how mental illness plays a significant role throughout the series.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a psychiatric professional. I do have a degree and spent years studying the intersection between the mental health and correctional systems, but I am not a clinician or an individual with a lot of clinical knowledge. I'm just a guy with too much time on their hands and a tendency to let the autism win (/lh /j). Also, if there are any grammar issues… I know. It was, like, 3 AM when I wrote this, and I don't care to tidy it up more than I have tried to.

With this out of the way, let's dive into it. Below the cut will be spoilers for the game and discussions regarding psychiatric abuse. Reader discretion is advised.

In-game dialog and other citations will be highlighted using small text, as I cannot for the life of me get the indent/blockquote feature to work on desktop.

As of writing this post (January 2023), there are five notes regarding John's admission to Yale Psychiatric after the failed exorcism of Amy Martin. I'm going to transcribe them in order of events, and not in the order they are found. The first note we would see examining John's case file, if he were an actual patient, would be the intake assessment form:

Yale Psychiatric Institute NEW PATIENT INTAKE FORM

Patient Name: Ward, John Thomas

Age: 33 Sex: M Ethnicity: White/Caucasian

Assigned Counselor: Spinel, James, PhD

Health Examination Results: Height: 6 feet 2 inches Weight: 185 lbs HR: 92 bpm Blood Pressure: 135/81

Current Status: Minor cuts and bruises, sprain in left ankle.

Patient is in a state of psychologic shock.

Existing Conditions:

Asthma (dormant) Diminished mobility from childhood injury to right knee.

Notice the little note there about psychologic shock. We do get elaboration on the comment made by whoever conducted the intake process, which come from Yale Psychiatric Notes 1 & 2:

Notes - new patient initial consultation

Subject: John Thomas Ward

Present: Dr. James Spinel, PhD, and two orderlies

Subject non-responsive for first half-hour, followed by fragmented 'exorcism' narrative

Subject unable to maintain consistency in story (for example, stating that Amy was in the basement and then saying she was in the attic)

Subject insists incident was the result of demonic possession

Cannot declare subject of sound mind; will require several more sessions to fully understand subject's mental state. Will advise Martin Family attorneys.

—

Subject is suffering from delusion. In John's mind, he plays the role of the hero sent by God to protect the innocent. In order to escape the consequences of his actions, he has created his own reality. In order for everything to make sense, he needs to believe in the evil spirits and paranormal occurrences. I recommend an in-vivo approach until we can get John to accept the truth.

And for the love of God, please have Ms. Martin transferred to another facility. Somehow, John knows that she is in here with him.

Then there's the newer documentation and references to In Vivo, found in the GOODIES folder of the game. See the text around bullet point 3.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: An image of development notes for Faith: The Unholy Trinity Chapter 3, which were taken in an non-lined notebook. There are several roughly drawn images of the page, consisting of level mapping for puzzles in what the developer has called, in previous notes, GaryLand. The text beside bullet point 3 reads "Mini-environments to collect keys. Re-contextualized once you grab key (lost In Vivo). Placement of plagas cultists is 'contested space'. Keys? Sigils? Body parts? Notes alluding that John was there". Beside the last note is a doodle of the eyes emoji, with two stylized eyes looking to the left toward the text. END DESCRIPTION.]

Here's the thing about psychiatric institutions: They suck.

The mental health system in modern day America is better than it was in the 80s, naturally, but not by much. It is important to note that the deinstitutionalization of the mental health system was the right call to make. However, I must note that the lack of funding and resource allocation (mostly due to greed among politicians and public perception of those with mental illness) made it so that individuals are still institutionalized. As of the modern era, individuals with mental illness are disproportionately incarcerated.

The Prison Policy Initiative has a wonderful online research library with up-to-date and reflective research on the rates and treatment of individuals incarcerated, as well as how current carceral practices only work to exacerbate these issues through intensive focus on punishment:

But traveling back in time, before the tides shifted, we have to understand what the environment was like within psychiatric wards/asylums.

The deinstitutionalization of mental health emerged in the 50s following World War II. To make a very long story short, the human rights abuses were put into the spotlight. Several factors, such as inhumane living conditions, harmful treatment practices (which we will elaborate on later), and the rising costs and demand for psychiatric treatment, all contributed to the call for deinstitutionalization. The goal was to improve the quality of life for people with mental illness, and to really just… allow them to exist as humans within society. Though the movement began in the 50s, it didn't gain much popularity among advocate groups until the 60s and 70s (e.g., the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and Project Release), where the movement truly took off.

However, large-scale closures of institutions didn't actually happen until the 80s, at least in the States. This means that, come 1986/1987, there were still institutions actively running. If you'd like to read more about how psychiatric institutions were run in this era, then I highly recommend reading Dr. David Laing Dawson's personal testimonies as a clinician during the era of asylums and advocacy:

But what were popular treatment modalities for patients like John? Firstly, and mentioned in the in-game notes, we have In Vivo Exposure Therapy, or more simply put: Exposure Therapy.

The American Psychiatric Association, in their Clinical Practice Guideline(s) for the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (2023), define In Vivo Exposure as:

Directly facing a feared object, situation or activity in real life. For example, someone with a fear of snakes might be instructed to handle a snake, or someone with social anxiety might be instructed to give a speech in front of an audience.

This intervention is not limited to PTSD, though, and is often used for other clinical concerns such as phobias, panic and anxiety, and (in some cases) Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The ultimate goal is to break the pattern of avoidance while confronting the fear in a safe environment. Which is great… for patients who are ready to confront these things. If there's one lesson to take away from this post, it's that treatment cannot be forced. Treatment is ineffective if the person requiring it is non-consenting or otherwise unwilling/unable to go through the modality.

So when you look at a patient like John, who is in an active state of crisis, and decide the best treatment intervention is to (effectively) tell him to "Suck it up" and induce anxiety and fear? It's disgusting and it would, in a realistic scenario, only exacerbate his symptoms even further. Which it seems to do, if the line about John having a reaction to Amy's presence in Yale Psychiatric is anything to go by. The man believes she is possessed by a demon (or knows she is), and has intense dread and anxiety around trying to save her (to the point where it's already a fixation). Exposing him to Amy's presence, or even the possibility of it, is not going to do him well until he is guided down from a crisis state and able to understand what is going on (as well as process the events that took place in the Martin home, because Amy would be a psychological trigger of recollection for said events).

John's official diagnoses are, ultimately, mild anxiety and acute coulrophobia (aka: fear of clowns). This much is clarified in the release form:

RELEASE FORM

SUBJECT: John Thomas Ward

DOR: 31 Oct 1986

This form certifies that the subject is hereby released from my care after having completed their required counseling and treatment to my satisfaction, with confidence that they are ready to resume their normal daily activities as a mentally stable member of society.

Dr. James Spinel, PhD

EXISTING CONDITION:

Mild anxiety

Acute coulrophobia

As an aside, can we just point out how John was only admitted for a month, give or take some days? Even if we take the events at face value (aka: demons are real; Hell is real; Lucifer is planning an invasion of Earth to reclaim what God has taken from him-), this feels… entirely too short to state that John is fully recovered.

At least from my interpretation of the intent behind "a mentally stable member of society", as the stigmatization of mental illness would place the burden of showing minimal, if any, signs of distress within day to day life… unless you were a hard-working husband who drank off most of his time at home while beating his wife, lest we forget the nuclear family values and toxic masculinity that still run rampant in American society. But I digress...

And immediately bring your attention to a bit of a continuity issue that, effectively, renders my last point moot: John's letter to Dr. McGlashan, who we can assume is a director of sorts within Yale Psychiatric.

This note is dated for December 30th, 1986:

Dear Dr. McGlashan,

It has been thirty days since the beginning of my treatment here at Yale Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Spinel, who has been so patient with me, has helped me understand my afflictions and has helped me fund a way to move forward and accept the truth.

With Dr. Spinel's help, I have come to accept what really happened in September at the Martin family residence. I accept that what happened was not the result of any supernatural phenomenon, but rather the desperate actions of a young girl driven to violence by her dogmatic parents and old church rituals that are thought to drive out evil.

I am happy to report that, since accepting the truth, my nightmares have ceased and I now enjoy peace of mind that I have not felt since the incident. Given my progress since first coming here, I respectfully request my release from Yale Psychiatric Institute, contingent upon follow-up appointments with Dr. Spinel in the future.

Sincerely,

John Ward

And raises several questions, such as:

If the failed exorcism took place in September, does this mean that John was within Yale Psychiatric from September to December?

Why was there a release form authorized in October 1986 by Dr. Spinel?

John states, "It has been thirty days since the beginning of my treatment […]". Does this mean that there was a second admission period between October and December?

If there was, when did that occur? Was he brought back in during the last weeks of October? In November?

My personal belief is that John was institutionalized twice. Once immediately following the failed exorcism, and once more after due to a relapse (hence the specification "[…] contingent upon follow-up appointments with Dr. Spinel in the future."). John, by this point, is aware of his mental health concerns and acknowledges that he needs more in regard to his treatment. Here, he's showing a clear capacity to establish and (hopefully) follow a community treatment regiment.

And this is where a bibically-accurate, canonical analysis, would end. A bit of insight into what happened, why it happened, and the ramifications (albeit brief). But here's the thing:

I believe there's more to John's case, since I believe in the blending of two prominent theories (everything is real versus everything is imagined). Personally, based on these notes and a few key dialogs within Chapter 3, I believe that John (in addition to the Anxiety) experiences Psychosis brought on by Paranoid Schizophrenia. In context of the game's plot, he experiences Persecutory and Grandiose Religious Delusions.

Let me explain.

There are several types of delusions, and the severity of these delusions can vary from individual to individual. More on the specifics (as well as recommended treatment modalities) can be found in this PDF.

Generally speaking, though, the types of delusions I mentioned are described as follows:

Grandiose: An individual experiences an exaggerated sense of importance, power, knowledge, or identity, that may have some type of theme.

Persecutory: An individual is fixated on the prospect of being attacked, harassed, persecuted, or conspired against.

Sounds familiar, yeah? Let's break it down:

Grandiose: Exhibited in all chapters. John is of the belief that he is a destined savior to Amy Martin. That he is the only one who can save her from the demon(s) plaguing her because he is the only one with the power and ability to do so. He, in the Super Miriam boss fight, also claims to have God's power directly within him. That he, in a way, is God (at least, in that moment).

Persecutory: Exhibited in all chapters, prominent in Chapter 3. In Chapter 1, there's "The Offering" Ending. John is (or perceives to be) stopped in the middle of the road home by Gary and his cult. Then, in Chapter 3, the entire arc around Gary's cult centers around the idea of John being persecuted (targeted by the cult for his attempts to save Amy).

But I feel like this expansion on John's psyche is supported within the canon itself, even if not explicit. Let's look more at the dialog cues from other characters.

One thing that slates me toward this conclusion is the brief mention of John's mother, Meredith. Amy's demon taunts John by asking him "What about Meredith? Did she get better?" and says how he couldn't save her. And based on the delivery of this line, it's clear that some sort of illness was what killed Meredith. Given that Schizophrenia in of itself typically doesn't cause death (though symptoms can contribute to other factors, such as poor physical health, risk-taking behaviors, higher risks of suicide), we have to look beyond the mental health aspect for a brief moment.

According to fairly recent research, there have been connections made between an individual's Schizophrenia diagnosis and their likelihood for developing Alzheimer's Disease. Kochunov et al. (2020) state:

"Schizophrenia (SZ) is a severe psychiatric illness associated with an elevated risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Both SZ and AD have white matter abnormalities and cognitive deficits as core disease features. […] SZ and AD have diverse etiologies and clinical courses; our findings suggest that white matter deficits may represent a key intersecting point for these 2 otherwise distinct diseases. Identifying mechanisms underlying this white matter deficit pattern may yield preventative and treatment targets for cognitive deficits in both SZ and AD patients."

Now, as a personal note, I have seen and experienced what Alzheimer's can do to people and how long of a process it is. My maternal grandfather, tragically, passed due to the illness in 2020. I still cannot discuss the symptomatology and progression in full as a result of the grief, but I can direct attention to the Alzheimer's Association and their article on the stages of progression:

Returning to the psychoanalytical aspect, mental illness can be hereditary and passed down, in addition to being individually developed (through whatever means, which are often referred to as the biopsychosocial factors of development). Such is true with the case of Schizophrenia.

Additionally, there does seem to be evidence suggesting that John's perception of events is questionable. Of course, I must note here that every character in this story is an unreliable narrator. Every character has their motives in the information they share and how they share it. This is in no way, shape, or form, me saying that other characters are objectively right in their perceptions. Especially Gary.

Gary is a cult leader. Even if the cult is not as dramatized as they appear to be (e.g., they are not, in fact, kidnapping babies and sacrificing people)… he is still running a cult. He is still capable of being manipulative regardless. I can absolutely delve into the psychology and structure of cults, but this post is long enough as is.

So instead, let's look at what it is Gary says to contradict John's point of view. The primary dialog that I believe points us to a faulty perception is Gary's recollection of the Martin twins:

"Oh, John… deep down, you always knew the twins were an illusion. But you could not resist chasing after lost (hurt) souls. I suppose you wished they were real, just like the late Mrs. Martin. That is how I knew you would come to me."

The popular analysis among the fandom is that Mrs. Martin miscarried the twins, and experienced a rough patch of grief surrounding the event. Again, I have seen similar experiences in my personal life, so I can sympathize with and affirm how rough this process can be. This is why Mrs. Martin had put effort into the belief that they were still expected/born, with the room being set up for them and the crib being discarded in the Martin's basement (as well as the birthday party and clown aspect).

John knew this at the time of exorcising Amy, but his own mental break altered his perception of events and made him believe in the same narrative that Mrs. Martin presented: The twins were alive. The difference here is that John tied the twins into his perception of the game's events, and came to the conclusion that Gary (and his cult) kidnapped them for ritualistic reasons.

Likewise, a lot of Gary's dialog has key words switched out. A list of these words is as follows, with their substitutions in parentheses:

enter (abuse)

lost (hurt) souls

Vessel (Victim)

journey (despair)

Again, this could be a simple nod to Gary's capacity for manipulation as a cult leader. But that doesn't exclude it from also pointing out John's perception of the series' events. In fact, this could be John's psyche interjecting and affirming itself.

So, if John does have this diagnosis, what would a thorough treatment modality look like if they'd pinpointed it back then? If he was institutionalized a third time, after stopping the Profane Sabbath?

The answer to that is either Insulin Shock Therapy (IST)/Insulin Coma Therapy (ICT), or Chlorpromazine (a strong antipsychotic medication).

It's important to note here that IST/ICT fell out of favor in the 1960s, like most shock therapies (with the exception of electroconvulsive therapy). Jones (2000) details the history and modality of ICT, stating:

"Comas were induced on five or six mornings a week. Typically, the third dose of insulin was 10±15 units with a daily increase of 5±10 units until the patient showed severe hypoglycemia. Treatment continued until there was a satisfactory psychiatric response or until 50±60 comas had been induced. Experienced therapists let patients spend up to 15 minutes in 'deep coma' with hypotonia and absent corneal and pupillary reflexes. Clinicians noted gross variation between individuals in response to a given dose of insulin. Also, in the course of treatment a patient could show day-to-day variation in his reaction. Further there was an uncertain relationship between clinical signs and the blood glucose level. The hypoglycemia made patients extremely restless and liable to major convulsions. Comas were terminated by administration of glucose via a nasal tube or intravenously."

If any of this sounds vaguely familiar, it's because the treatment modality was highlighted in the story of John Nash, a fundamental American mathematician with Schizophrenia.

The 2001 film A Beautiful Mind showcases Nash's story, including the usage of ICT. Attached is a video clip from the film, which contains content that may be triggering/disturbing. Watching it is not vital to this analysis, as it's to illustrate the paragraph above:

youtube

Ultimately, the takeaway is this:

Mental illness plays a huge role in the game's overarching narrative, even if not considered a major plot element in of itself. The Satanic Panic was a moral panic used by fundamentalist Christians to excuse abuse within their churches, excuse the discrimination of BIPOC and queer folk, and dismiss rising concerns regarding mental health advocacy. This, alongside simply targeting youth subcultures to preserve the nuclear family imagery that arose during the previous generations.

John Ward is easily one of the most fascinating characters to exist, in my opinion, because of how his character is linked to this idea. John Ward is a beacon (for a lack of better term) for this message within the game. He exhibits mental health issues canonically (re: the official diagnoses) and can be analyzed as having a deeper, more expansive diagnosis.

Everything I have said is interpretation, and is not entirely canon in the bibically-accurate sense. This is just a topic that's been in my mind since the release of Chapter 2's demo. You can feel free to agree or disagree with literally anything I have said, and I love hearing others' interpretations as well! The theories scattered around the fandom, whether posted on the Fandom Wiki or hidden in the tags on Tumblr, are just… so good. So I wanted to help contribute in some way!

And for those that read this far... Thank you <3

#txt #faith the unholy trinity #faith chapter 3 #john ward #tw psychiatric abuse #cw medical #meta post #meta analysis #my writing #gary miller #amy martin #meredith ward

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sanslovesblog · 3 months

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Unraveling Madness: San's Dark Secrets Pt. 3

Summary: You're a brilliant psychiatrist, but you were no stranger to internal conflicts. You had accepted the task of treating Choi San, the psychiatric ward's most dangerous patient due to his violent episodes. Despite skepticism from other staff members, you believed that beneath his destructive exterior lay a vulnerable human being, yearning for understanding and acceptance.

Trigger warning: mentions of su1cide

Teaser | Master list | Pt 4

Choi San leaned forward, his elbows digging into the soft cushion of the couch. His eyes were distant, lost in a memory so vivid that it seemed as though he was reliving it all over again. His voice was barely above a whisper as he continued to share the horrific abuse caused by his father. He spoke of the nights he would wake up to the sound of his father's fists pounding against his mother's fragile body, the muffled screams that would echo through the halls of their once-peaceful home. He remembered the look of terror in his mother's eyes as she tried to shield him from the onslaught, the taste of blood in his mouth from the times he had been forced to defend himself against his own parent.

The more Choi San spoke, the more emotion welled up inside of him, threatening to spill over at any moment. Tears began to stream down his cheeks, leaving trails of glistening wetness on his face. He fought back the sobs that threatened to rack his body, determined not to break down in front of Dr. Y/n. You sat there, silently listening, your eyes never leaving his face, offering him a level of understanding and empathy that he had never experienced before.

As the memories poured forth, Choi San found himself reliving not only the physical abuse but also the emotional torment his father had inflicted upon him. He spoke of the countless times his father had belittled and humiliated him in front of his friends and classmates, of the way he had made him feel like nothing more than a worthless piece of garbage. The pain in his voice was palpable, each word cutting deeper into your heart.

You listened intently, your gaze never wavering from his face, your features etched with a mixture of anger, sadness, and understanding. Choi San could see that you were struggling to hold back your own emotions, but you remained steadfast in your role as his therapist, offering him the support and empathy he so desperately needed.

"I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like for you, Choi San," you finally said, your voice gentle but firm. "It's clear that your father's abuse went far beyond just physical violence. He systematically destroyed your self-esteem and sense of worth, making you feel like you were worthless." Your words seemed to cut through the haze of pain that had settled around him, and for a moment, he felt a spark of anger ignite within him.

Choi San nodded, wiping away the remaining tears from his cheeks. He took a deep breath, trying to steady his racing thoughts. "Yeah," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "He did everything he could to make me feel like I didn't belong anywhere. Like I was nothing. But the worst part wasn't just the abuse itself… it was the way everyone else treated me afterward. They'd see the bruises and know what had happened, but no one ever did anything to help."

You leaned forward, your expression filled with compassion and understanding. "I can only imagine how isolating that must have been for you, Choi San. It's not uncommon for children in situations like yours to feel like they're the only ones going through something like this. But you're not alone. You don't have to go through this alone."

Your words resonated deeply within him, offering a glimmer of hope in the midst of the darkness. Choi San looked down at his hands, clenched into fists, before slowly relaxing them. He took a deep breath, steadying himself as he continued to share his story. "There were times when I thought about killing myself," he confessed, his voice barely above a whisper. "I thought it would be better for everyone if I just wasn't around anymore."

Your expression turned grave. "I'm glad you didn't take that step, Choi San. It's not your fault what happened to you. You didn't deserve any of it. And you don't deserve to suffer anymore." You paused, considering your next words carefully. "Do you think there's any chance your father could change? That he might realize the harm he's caused and try to make amends?"

Choi San snorted derisively. "No, I don't. Even now, he thinks he's the victim in all this. He never takes responsibility for his actions." He sighed heavily. "I just wish I could forget all of it. Make it all go away."

You listened intently, nodding your understanding. "I can imagine how difficult it must be for you to carry those memories around, Choi San. It's natural to want to forget such horrific experiences. But trying to forget them doesn't mean they'll disappear. In fact, it can sometimes make the pain worse, as if they're haunting you."

You paused, considering your next words carefully. "What if, instead of trying to forget, we focused on processing those memories in a healthy way? On turning them into something that can empower you, rather than hold you back?" You leaned forward, meeting his gaze with a mixture of determination and compassion. "I believe that you have the strength within you to confront your past and come out the other side stronger than ever before."

Choi San felt a spark of hope flicker within him at your words. He hadn't realized until now how much he had been longing for a way to move past the pain and the shame. Your offer felt like a lifeline, a chance to finally break free from the darkness that had consumed him for so long.

@skzline | @janetsarttrove | @vampzity | @xoxkii | @idfkeddieishot

#ateez x reader #choi san #ateez #choi san x reader #choi san x y/n #choi san x you #kpop icons #ateez fic #atiny #ateez fanfic #childhood trauma #san's darkest secrets #unraveling madness

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archersarrow-tarot · 6 months

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✨THE CUPS✨

As professions/career fields:

| Ace of cups: 🎭

Emotional health counselor,art, spiritual work. Early stages of development of new project, position, job, etc. Searching for or representing a job that can be an outlet for overflowing emotion.

| Two of cups: 💏

Working with a partner, with mutual respect and connection. Healer, care giver, match making/dating, animal care & health

| Three of cups: 🥳

Wedding/party planner. Working well with others creatively. Daycare worker, teacher, guidance counselor. Supervisor - especially with youth or children.

| Four of cups: 😴

Work you find boring, dissatisfying. Monday-Friday, 9-5 type work. Basic jobs that are predictable and get you by. An assistant, administration, receptionist, store clerks. Office jobs.

| Five of cups: 😢

Work that isolates you. Grief/loss counseling. Psychiatric ward workers. Religious practitioners who visit nursing homes and hospice patients. Hospice care workers. Work involving grief and loss.

| Six of cups: 👶

Working with children. Daycare workers, nanny’s, babysitting. Stay at home parents. Elementary or Sunday school teacher. Volunteer work. Foster care and group home workers.

| Seven of cups: 🏃

Career counseling. Frequently changing jobs and/or positions. Traveling for work. Many options for careers. Trying to decide which option is best - not clearly seeing the options for what they are.

| Eight of cups: 🚚

Leaving job to start new job/career. Leaving a job - usually one you’ve had for awhile - that isn’t fulfilling or helping you grow. Searching for new job, trying to find a career that suits you.

| Nine of cups: 😌

A job/career that is fulfilling; keeps you content. Very good paying work; wealthy. “Wishes granted” working doing what you’ve always wanted to do.

| Ten of cups: 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

Staying home as housewife or stay at home mom - happily. Helping families. Family therapist.

| Page of cups: 🍼

Student. Creative fields such as art, photography, digital illustration, advertising, etc. Art teacher. Receiving positive news about new job, promotion, etc. Working with youth, children. Labor & delivery work. Nursery.

| Knight of cups: ✨

Artist. Creative work. Career your very passionate about. A job where you handle situations with tact and grace. Conflict resolution work, mediation. Addiction Recovery.

| Queen of cups: 👩‍⚕️

Emotional support work. Nursing, counseling, therapy. Work that involves a lot of compassion and empathy. Could also be about your emotional well-being at said place of work.

| King of cups: 👨‍⚕️

Jobs where you have to or have mastered your emotions. Stable work. A boss or leader. Caretaker, doctor, therapist, life coach, case worker.

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pinesfamilyguidetotheweird · 5 months

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(SCRAPPED) Fragmented AU -- Background Info (Tragedy in the Pines Family)

So, as mentioned in a previous post, the Fragmented AU has Dipper and Mabel's parents die in a fire when they were 10 (almost 11). The cause of said fire was a bit of a mystery, but Dipper believed it was someone called Bill. No one believed him, as there were no signs of someone breaking in, and many assumed that he started the fire accidentally. He was then sent to a children's psychiatric ward to help him cope with his trauma.

Two years have passed and Dipper is finally let out to live with the Stans, along with Mabel, who was staying with their grandparents.

Because of what happened, Dipper and Mabel are no doubt scarred by it in different ways: Dipper's a bit more harsh, anxious, and a bit emotionally unstable while Mabel does everything in her power to hide away her negative emotions and avoid talking about it. She's also scared of leaving Dipper behind or being left behind herself.

Speaking of the Stans, Stan was able to get Ford back into their dimension three years early thanks to a certain redhead finding the 3rd Journal and with the help of it, was able to track down the 2nd Journal.

As for Ford, he too has confronted Bill with his quantum destabilizer in the Nightmare Realm earlier than canon. However, just like in canon (well Journal 3 canon), Stan prevents Ford from dealing with the killing blow. So, yeah, there's still tension between the brothers. It surprisingly waned over the next three years, but there had been considerable bumps.

The loss of the Mystery Twins' parents did hit the Stans hard. Stan had grown a sweet bond with Caroline, his niece-in-law, finding her carefree and strong attitude endearing. His nephew, Morgan, somewhat reminded Stan of his brother, a nerd, but loved him all the same.

Ford only got to know the couple for a short while (other than when Morgan was a child), meeting the family during the holidays for hanukkah and christmas. Despite only being there for a month, Ford was quick to form memorable bonds with them, though he lamented that he missed Morgan growing up and marrying, as well as missing the birth of the younger twins.

Upon hearing of Morgan and Caroline's deaths, Ford was absolutely devastated. He had just connected with them, mere months earlier, and he had just lost them. It very much broke him. Not to mention that the possibility that Bill may have something to do with it sent him into a faint-inducing panic attack.

Surprisingly though, the loss brought the brothers closer together after a series of panic episodes and some angered words. Stan would then later make the decision for them to adopt the twins because a) their older brother Shermie already has his hands full with their ailing mother by himself, b) Ford had expressed his (and Stan's) deep seated fear of losing them too and c) Stan knew of the possibility of foster care separating the kids.

Was Stan the best choice to raise the orphaned children? No, not really. Man's a mess with his own set of issues. But, he's devoted. What about Ford? Well, the man has a tendency to forget to take care of himself so...plus, he has issues too, issues that the people of their dimension would not understand. Even so, when it comes to family, Ford would go above and beyond for them.

(Want more?)

#gravity falls #stanford pines #grunkle ford #ford pines #stanley pines #grunkle stan #mabel pines #dipper pines #fragmented au scrapped

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itstimetotheorize · 5 months

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Otto's past, his descent into madness, and the Ferryman's schemes.

In the sounds of nightmares, Otto presented himself as a psychologist devoting his life to helping children who suffered from a number of mental and sleeping disorders, but behind this image was a past he now saw as both shameful and insane.

We may not yet know to what extent, but Otto was once greatly interested in the field of parapsychology and metaphysics, the reason being was of course because of his big sister Sisi. As a boy, Otto faced the tragedy of losing his big sister Sisi, however, he never knew what happened to her, and odds are, no one else did either. The only thing he had left in regards to Sisi's possible whereabouts were the bizarre "dreams” she spoke of and the figure she would claim to have seen within her dreams, the Ferryman. As a result of Sisi's mysterious disappearance, we theorized Otto only involved himself in the field of parapsychology and metaphysics because it was the only field capable of giving him a chance at finding what he was desperate to find ever since he was a little boy…answers.

Otto wanted to know what happened to Sisi, and so long as there was no body, it was almost as if Otto retained this small sliver of hope in which he couldn’t help but think maybe, just maybe...Sisi was still out there somewhere...and yet... it was precisely this hope which quickly spiraled into an obsession. Throughout the sounds of nightmares, we see Otto's dedication to finding Sisi grow so extreme, he was even willing to disregard his own health and the well being of another child like Noone...but all the while I and many other theorists noticed Otto's descent into madness, we realized something...was this the first time such a situation happened with Otto?...or has his mad obsession over finding Sisi been something he retained for the majority of his life, to the point of it deciding every decision and every path he took? Even during his time in the field of parapsychology and metaphysics? If so, then...what happened in his life to finally make him push it all away and put an end to it all?

Somewhere along the line of his career, Otto had made the decision to put his experiences in the field of parapsychology and metaphysics behind him, refusing to rely on what he previously learned as he tried to convince himself it was all wrong, all so he could try to remain balanced over the years in an attempt to instead focus his career and life at the counties psychiatric institute, prioritizing logic and reason above all else.

However, amidst his former research in the strange and supernatural, Otto created a device with the capability to not only allow him to see into the dreams of others, but also experience them for himself through mutual dreaming. Through his device, Otto could connect his mind to another person and share in their dream... and yet... upon acquiring his new position at the ward, he never completed it, but why? He said he viewed it as fools work, but what led him to come to this realization after what could have been years of work and research? Was it just because he left the field and viewed it as ludicrous? Did he gradually lose interest?… or did his motivations for building such a contraption slip away as time went on?

Had the trauma and grief he faced over losing his sister truly become his drive for the paths he took in life, then it may have also been his sole motivation for building such a device, he merely needed to be reminded of his end goal to keep himself focused on completing it, the end goal being of course... finding Sisi and the one who took her from him….the Ferryman.

Otto explained how the Ferryman was no stranger to his world, he had been documented in various cultures around the world for hundreds of years as a sort of gatekeeper within dreams. Now, it’s not as if this was all new information to him, it was all documented in journals by his former colleagues, journals he kept. To hear his sister speak of the Ferryman was one thing, but to discover this being was known throughout many cultures around the world as a mythic entity guarding the entrance to another world, well, what more could Otto do but try and figure out how to see for himself if such a creature existed, through the only place he was believed to hide...dreams

So then...what finally made Otto leave his former field, lose contact with all those he knew and abandon his work on the device he once promised himself to finish? …unless….maybe it wasn’t that he gave it all up so suddenly, maybe what drove him to pursue such things finally came to a halt. Had Otto truly struggled over his sister’s disappearance for much of his life, then what if maybe …just maybe…the grief he felt everyday of his life finally led him down a path he did not want to face, but had to acknowledge nonetheless ....the path of acceptance. Before Noone arrived to his ward, Otto appeared to be someone who was content with his life, and although it still hurt anytime he thought of his sister as he mentioned her to someone else, like Noone, it was at this point in time where his entire life was no longer revolved around Sisi, almost as if at some point in the past....Otto simply accepted he would never find the answers he wanted, leaving him no other choice but to come to terms with one painful realization.... Sisi was gone... and she was never coming back. Had he truly come to terms with his loss, then there would have been no point in continuing the crazy idea of pursuing a mythical being who was only ever heard of in stories.......wait a minute.

If Otto truly came to terms with his loss and made steps to move on with his life, then…of all the things to occur in his life, how was it a child like Noone, a child with a direct link to the Ferryman, the very being whom Sisi saw, wound up walking into his life to seek treatment?...then again...what if it was no coincidence Noone found her way to Otto

In chp.5 of the sounds of nightmares, Otto was certain Noone’s next visit to the Nowhere would be her last, he did not have hope of her returning just as she did many times before, which is why he decided to take his chances and went against his promise to Noone (the promise was to not use his device on her for one night), and used his device on her anyway to see into her dreams and finally take a glimpse into the Nowhere. Sure enough... his machine worked...as he gazed upon the eye entity hiding within the halfway place. However, in chp. 6, despite his assumption of Noone being lost forever, to his(and our) surprise, Noone returned the next morning…but why?

Otto thought the Ferryman let Noone return as a way of toying with him, to make him feel powerless, but…was this truly the reason?….no…something's wrong… the way Noone spoke about finding the yellow raincoat in her previous visit to the Nowhere, the very same yellow raincoat which once belonged to Sisi, it was almost as if…Noone was being used to deliver a message, as if...the Ferryman wanted Otto to know there was a trace of Sisi within the Nowhere.

In chp6. it is revealed the Ferryman knew who Otto was, he could hear Otto, he responded to Otto's questions, he knew Otto desperately wanted to enter the Nowhere...but exactly how long has the Ferryman known about Otto? In chp. 4 Otto realized much like how he was often behind a two way mirror to observe the ignorant children within the reunion room who never knew he was there, it was always the Ferryman who was behind a veil similar to a two way mirror. The veil separated their two worlds, but it was always the Ferryman who could observe everything and everyone. The ferryman could see and hear everything, while Otto could not, and if the Ferryman was always there...watching....then...what if he was always watching Otto...since the day he targeted Sisi all those years ago, but unlike Sisi who would be swept away to the world of the Nowhere...what if...there were other plans set in store for Otto...

Otto was no normal man, he was the man who defied the impossible and created a device which could be capable of forming a link between the waking(human) world and the Nowhere. Sure his former colleagues and professor speculated the Ferryman and another world(the Nowhere) existed, and sure the Ferryman was documented for hundreds of years in various cultures from around the world, but the way the Ferryman and the Nowhere's existence were known, one could even say...the Ferryman and the eye entity wanted the humans to know they and the Nowhere existed. Amidst his struggles, Otto was certain the Ferryman was determine to keep him out of the Nowhere...so then why would the Ferryman tell him there was another way to enter the Nowhere? If what we theorize is true then...could it be the Ferryman wanted someone like Otto to find him and the Nowhere?...maybe

Through Otto, we know many people researched and speculated in the existence of the Nowhere and the creatures which resided in it. In regards to how information of the Ferryman and the Nowhere's existence was available throughout the world for other adults looking to learn more of this mythical place and being, well, perhaps Otto was not the only one willing to listen to a childs bizarre "dreams". But if there were other adults... did they ever come close to proving the Nowhere's existence or even sensing the Ferryman's presence?...honestly who's to say.

Still, out of everyone who could have pursued this mythical place, could it be none of them ever came close to proving it was truly real, let alone were capable of catching a glimpse of it for themselves? If so, then does this mean the only one who has thus far been capable of accomplishing this, was Otto?....but that's just it isn't it...it was always Otto...it had to be Otto, because unlike everyone else...it was Otto who had the drive to keep pushing to discover it all..no matter the cost. What am I trying to say? Well, if Otto is truly the only human being who was capable of creating a device to connect his world and the Nowhere, if he was truly willing to make any sacrifice to accomplish his goal to find his beloved sister Sisi, then what if maybe...just maybe...this was always what was expected of him...its what was planned for him from the start.

As previously stated, for Otto to have a child like Noone suddenly walk into his life, a child who saw the same being Sisi saw was.... suspicious. After everything he experienced and let go of in his life, and knowing the content life he had working at the ward before the drastic spiral into madness he underwent the more he learned of the Ferryman, the Nowhere, and Sisi's presence in the Nowhere through Noone, it wasn't long before I and many other theorists realized something...Otto was being led on... someone...or rather something was trying to pull Otto back into the path he strayed from, the path to finding Sisi, the Ferryman, and the world they disappeared too.

We have always known the Ferryman targeted numerous children to bring to the Nowhere, but we have always theorized certain adults' could also be targeted...if they were worthwhile... if Otto was truly one of them and if what we have theorized is true, then everything Otto did, everything Otto accomplished, and everything Otto was willing to sacrifice(including Noone) in his goals to find his big sister Sisi, was never for his benefit alone...Otto is being led to pursue his research by the very creatures which took his sister away. The only question now is...why does the Ferryman want Otto to continue his research?, is it just to obtain more innocent children to offer to the eye entity and its world...or has something bigger always been planned, they just needed a human who would help make it possible, but what could it be?...maybe we always knew...Despite his loss near the end of the sounds of nightmares, Otto became more determined than ever to find the other way into the Nowhere the Ferryman spoke of, and with a child like Ethan walking in through his doors, its as if someone...or rather something...is once again bringing forth yet another child with a link to the monsters who took Sisi away. If what we theorized is true then, Otto may very well have his wish granted...but not in the way he had hoped...but hey...it’s just a theory...a Little Nightmares theory.

#little nightmares #little nightmares 3 #little nightmares theory #the sounds of nightmares theory #ln the sound of nightmares #tson theory #tson otto #tson ruth #little nightmares ferryman #little nightmares 3 theory #ln3 the counselor #tson the counsellor #tson noone #ln3 noone #ln theory #ln theories

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sunspira · 6 months

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Im laying my bets now. the entire idea that autism (and adhd) is more common in men and boys is pure myth created by poor science, backwards statistics and faulty parameters of the condition itself. in another 50 years we will understand it was never a gendered condition. just a highly gendered and biased measurement system. i'm absurdly confident on that

the rates of autism in girls is "rising" exponentially. it is rising even more exponentially in girls than in boys. not because girls are becoming more autistic. but because the "science" is just getting better at measuring and accurately acknowledging autism in girls.

autism often does present differently in girls, due to how girls are raised or personality differences. the literature and criteria was based on boy sample groups. the entire research data was done on white men as if that is a standard default person and control group.

not only that, doctors and teachers and parents literally were not looking for it in girls under the false widely propagated belief it was rare in women in girls. it is a self fulfilling prophecy. that's not science.

we will soon have to reckon with the lost generations of autistic girls and women and children assigned female at birth* who never got diagnosis and early intervention. we should be forcing the world to reckon with it right now. a great deal of autistic millennial women are brilliant minds who dropped out of STEM and the workforce due to their untreated and misidentified disability overtaking their life. the impact of never Knowing you or your child is autistic or adhd is difficult to comprehend for autistic and adhd people who did get diagnosed as children. even when the awareness and interventions were unhelpful or harmful. the harm of not knowing means the child trying even harder to become neurotypical and a level of autistic burnout few others on the spectrum can comprehend, often taking place after the woman is a legal adult, and there are no legal protections in place for this disabled person.

the unmitigated stress of being developmentally delayed and never knowing it, simply hating and blaming yourself and fighting day in and out past your limits to become neurotypical, limits your don't know you should have because you have never been so much as briefed on what adhd or autism can feel like. you don't know the distres and tiredness you're feeling is "dysregulation". this is why we see women in nervous breakdowns. psychiatric wards. treatment resistant depression. electric shock therapy. hard drug addiction. cutting. homelessness. personality disorders. dissociation. psychosis. early death by accident or suicide. (obviously people who are not autistic or adhd have these illnesses but my point is untold and disproportionate numbers of them are undiagnosed neurodivergent with unprocessed trauma. i'm telling you. more than you think).

it's why we see young people on tiktok not faking DID per say, but describing a dissociated experiences and fractured sense of self and escapist alternate personalities, a mental illness that has much less in common with traditional DID, but has much in common with struggling and under-treated autistic people. DID is a very rare condition. autism is very common. autism can create out of body experiences and self protective blurring of reality and fantasy so extreme, no person can be expected to understand it is autism if they never been advised about their own disability and the knowledge that should he available to them. it's no wonder we have people with mislabeled rare disorders like DID who are clearly very sick but instead of showing real DID signs, are sick with all the signs of severe unassisted autism they have been completely barred from understanding or coping with in any other way. for those lucky enough, we see unemployed young women with severe chronic pain in their 20s and 30s who look and feel like they're elderly and gave up their dreams when they hit 21 or 25 and their brains stopped working and their bodies shut down. now they mostly scroll tumblr and tiktok and try to remember to open the blinds. they have a roof but people scorn them for entitled laziness and worst of all derided for "self diagnosing".

again i'm asking why CFS chronic fatigue syndrome is so responsive to adderall. i'm asking why professionals are reluctant to test women for adhd if she does well in school because she is very bookish and why experts in the field are openly amused and doubtful to test a woman for autism if she has a long term boyfriend. why is ability to mask or function a disqualification. why is inability to function in women, who later turn out to be autistic or adhd, so aggressively mischaracterized as BPD, bipolar, depression, OCD, schizophrenia. why is autism and adhd clinically diagnosed and defined by distress and dysfunction and not by intrinsic traits and qualities that present while still functional for preventative care. why are all people, men and women forced to wait until their lives and minds are deteriorating and they have experienced some irreversible disasters and pain before they can be diagnosed. why must girls and boys wait until their daily life as children have become unbearable hell for them before their disability can be treated and acknowledged. and if these policies are changing now, why are doctors and psychiatrists not eagerly and urgently reaching out to find the vulnerable adults they missed during more archaic screening methods. we aren't rising in adhd diagnosis because of tiktok you assholes. adult onset adhd and autism don't exist. those people were always adhd. adult onset skill regression and increase in severity due to stress DOES happen in adulthood. modern day stresses like loss of structure during the pandemic and social media is advancing to become more attention span draining. everyone is feeling the effects but these are causing adhd and autistic people to cope less and mask less effectively so they are running into significant problems, their loved ones are noticing, they are getting referrals and suddenly forced to google their rapidly worsening mental issues for the first time and seeing they line up with a known neurological condition . this is obvious. doctors blaming it on some sort of trend are being willfully clueless

*because autism especially is screened identified diagnosed and first intervened ages 2-5, before a child has an internal concept of self or gender and above all before they can express their gender, diagnostic practices and criteria are based on how adults perceive a child via birth assignments. and the studies are overwhelmingly beholden to data only on children assigned male at birth, rarely accounting for their actual future gender either. as part of the warped science insisting that autism is as if somehow linked to the y chromosome and not a universally likely human quality, you see amab kids laser focused on as candidates and afab kids fucked over most of all. all children assigned female have the worst chances of their developmental disability being identified and acknowledged in a timely manner and disproportionately experience late diagnosis in later adolescence or adulthood. tho i wouldn't be surprised if trans womens rates of accurate diagnosis is lower than cis men. as trans girls may present autism differently and characteristic of girls autism, even while still in the closet or before she knows she is trans. regardless adults are very vigilant for signs of autism, even atypical ones, in any child they perceive as a boy. so any millennial or gen z child identified female at birth had significantly worse chance at receiving autistic support compared to peers

in particular women assigned male at birth might have a better chance at being identified for types of autism that are often labeled "high functioning", involves high masking, and often receives few services. these more invisible types of autism often need to be diagnosed before age 5 in order to qualify under the criteria at all. and so in the days where autism was believed to be 20x more common in the genetics of xy children, any chance of being considered and diagnosed would come down to almost purely birth assignment dependent. with the less outwardly visible types of autism, a person who misses this window will remain autistic all their life but once they learn a certain level of skills and masking, no matter how late they learn these, the person will no longer qualify for diagnosis, either not until they have a nervous breakdown or possibly not ever qualify. it's this type of more hidden autism we see struggling across the board as undiagnosed adults including both trans and cis women especially, tho we are seeing it disproportionately even more so in undiagnosed afabs of any gender. who are dropping out of schooling and work and succumbing to severe mental illnesses during what should be the prime of their lives. overall tho birth assignment is not everything this is an issue that disproportionately impacts cis women. trans women. trans men. non-binary people. likely doubling for those that are afab. and then tripling and quadrupling for children who are not white.

bit of an understatement in that last part there. gender likely isn't even the biggest barrier to proper diagnosis and treatment. probably race is even more so. but since gender is such a big disparity in itself across race and one i relate to and can speak on from experience ive focused on it here. a more in-depth look is needed on the neglect of adhd and autistic children of color especially black native and latino kids. but for now do keep in mind the points i'm making increase exponentially for kids who aren't white across all genders including cis boys

#this is dramatic and long but it's a dramatic situation that is completely slept on in the public eye #it's not just about me this is about people who had it so much worse. tho my insider experience obviously brought it to my attention #i'm pretty sure i'm not autistic im adhd but the reality of adhd is a lot more like autism than we are acknowledging #a topic for another day #autism in women #adhd in women #atypical autism #adhd inattentive #undiagnosed autistic #undiagnosed neurodivergent #undiagnosed autism #undiagnosed adhd

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eroticcannibal · 3 months

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Why does the NHS need an investigation to tell them that patients are being raped on psychiatric wards when in the early 2000s if not earlier, A&E and children's hospital staff were quite happy to threaten kids with being raped in a psychiatric ward to try and get us to stop acting mentally ill 🤔

#word of god

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dojae-huh · 6 months

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I'll make an exeption and write not about NCT. This case is interesting in showing what SM idols can evolve into as solo artists, what topics SM can support.

Taemin is known as an idol who debuted at the age of 14 y.o. as a dancer, but who made himself into a vocalist. He debuted as solo first in his group, however, it took him several albums to be able to have his artistic way. Same as Taeyeon he was curated a lot in the beginning. I believe the success of older idols like him made it possible for the company (or LSM originally) to trust in newer artists like Taeyong more, put energy in developing their skills as songwriters and composers.

Taemin's "Guilty" trailer , mood clip and MV.

The majority of what I will write down was noticed by my friend @jan-fm. Some observations are taken from Russian forums, a couple of mine. I won't go too much into detail, there should be plenty of analyses by Taemin's fans out there.

First of all, the MV is multilayered. The trailer and the promotional pictures serve as keys to the story.

The main plot: Taemin and other children (school uniform, shorts) are brought to a facility that looks like a psychiatric ward or a boarding school for "difficult" children (doors with locks, guards in white, the children have short hair, "children's drawings of a "happy family" have everyone with sticks in their hands)). The children are victims of abuse (Taemin's shots with the guards) who grow up, rebel and become abusers themselves (they kill guards, burn things, men sexually assault women in their group (the solo part with a male dancer pouncing on a female dancer who tries to skitter away, but is taken by force anyway)). Taemin goes through his angst and becomes the bird-snake god Abraxas (the idea of the union of the good and the evil in a human soul, he is the creator and the destroyer of the world, the darkness and the light).

The main theme: taboo topics that people can't talk about because they are being shut up by society or they stay silent about it themselves (the hand over mouth gesture in the choreo). Such as: psychological problems and traumas, homosexuality, sexual coersion, maybe pedophilia, etc.

The facility can be interpreted in many ways: the school, the society of adults, conversion camp, the army.

Taemin plays several roles, the same story can be viewed from different POVs: the victim (and the lover), the observer, the seducer.

In his recent talk with Suga Taemin said that he came to terms with himself being androgynius (internally, not just outwardly). In the "Guilty" MV he plays both genders. The female lead is both his love interest and he himself (same hair). In the trailer he is throwing water at a female student, but is absent with a male student. In the MV in the role of the seducing god he is both with a female (the neck) and a male (sits atop of him, top bank bed). The story of "runaway lovers who take pictures of each other" (the mood clip) can be viewed as a hetero love story (the female is the one who takes the pictures) or as a gay story (female clothes are absent in the background, a lot of cigarettes).

Subplots: the suicide of a boy, Taemin's trauma, Taemin combining all of his sides (the victim, the abuser, the good, the evil) and emerging as a god (the dance in the pink torn to shreds clothes (looks like flesh/body), the dress has snake scales on the sleeves=snake legs of Abraxas).

When children are brought to the facility, they stand in 3 groups: boy/girl, two girls, two boys. Couples. In a blink-and-gone shot it's two girls sitting in a room alone, lesbians. Taemin is given a gun to shoot someone out of frame. After he does it, he collapses, clings to the guard (adult) and self-harms (the fingers digging into the knee).

The suicide is shown in the trailer. A boy slowly walks to the white car, stops and makes a decisive step. In Asia a lot of teenagers end up their life by throwing themselves from roofs, bridges and under an upcoming train. In movies, the act is often shot at the level of the feet, the final step into the abyss. When Taemin dances in the MV at the same spot, he makes gestures of killing oneself (hanging on a rope, breaking the neck).

As the story goes, Taemin was somehow connected to the boy's death. Was he his lover (seduced and "ruined" by him, the toxic/forbidden love in the song)? Was he made to out him? ("killing" him before other students, outing in school). Or did he want to follow the example (his inner demons dance)? Was he an observer and was punishing himself for not acting and helping somehow the situation? Open to interpretation.

There is a lot of sexualisation of Taemin who plays a teen in both the trailer and the MV. Is he a seducer (the toxic/forbidden love) or a victim/the one being seduced? What is his trauma? Only his inner demons and the need to combine all his sides in one, to love oneself, or there was a traumatic episode he alluded to in the MV?

The promotional pictures and the album design show a melted ice cream (popsicle: getting sexual satisfaction from a human body), cacti with thorns (endurance, inner strength) and flowers (death, love, maturity), crocuses (rebearth, innocence, new-beginning), green grapes (the unity between the human and the god). More and more layers to the concept.

To sum it up. As you see, a song that at first seems to be about toxic love has underlayers and other readings. The MV is an example of a video that can be shown to general public who won't see anything unusual, but that hides a message for those who want to look deeper.

#notes in the margins

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usetheeauthor · 2 years

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The Satanic Panic III +18

Devil!Perv!Eddie Munson x Witch!Sinclair!Reader

For other chapters/story summary check out: https://usetheeauthor.tumblr.com/post/691280498281070592/the-satanic-panic-series-masterlist-18

Summary: You learn the story of how Eddie became the devil. Now he rules over you as your Dark Lord who, by the way, has a lot of fans. Also, you, Eddie, and his gang conduct a séance.

Word Count: 4.7k+

A/N: This was a gonna be long one so the next one chapter will be a continuation of the séance. There are some Eddie/Reader dynamics in this as they are exploring their relationship more. There’s even some hints of Steddie in this. I enjoyed writing this chapter and I hope you guys enjoy reading it.

Warnings: blood/blood drinking, occultism, cults, Steve being a devil worshipper/cult leader, spit kink (magic transfer), sexual tension, if you squint perv!Eddie, religious themes, blasphemy, brief steddie kiss/steddie moments, smoking herbs

III. The Séance Pt. I

“You’re who now?” You were dumbfounded.

“Ya know, the Devil. Satan. Beelzebub. However you wish to call me.”

You stare hard at him before bursting into a fit of laughter. “T-that’s r-really good,” You tried speaking through your giggles. “Possibly the funniest joke you’ve said since I’ve know you actually.”

“First off, ouch! I think I’m pretty damn funny. Secondly, how the fuck do you explain all the teleportation I just did?”

“I don’t know maybe I’m having a fever dream right now. In fact, I’ll go right back to bed and when I wake up, this will all be a dream.” You tried to head back to your bedroom, but your feet stayed planted to the ground. You lifted your legs, twisted, shook left to right but you wouldn’t budge. You look over to Eddie who donned a toothy grin.

“How are you doing that?”

“I told you. I’m the—”

“Impossible!”

“Would you like another demonstration?”

By the looks of his mischievous smile, it was probably in your best interest to say no. “How did it happen?”

“A good friend told me showed me the dark path.”

*flashback to a year ago*

Eddie’s escorted into the psychiatric facility, walking passed the prisoners that will soon be his neighbors. He put on a brave face but deep down he was an absolute wreck. Eddie wasn’t a fighter. He liked music and had nerdy interests like D’N’D. If there was anything he learned from his father, who’d been in and out of jail, is that he couldn’t show himself as weak especially if he’s the newbie.

Life wasn’t easy in the ward. Eddie fought constantly for his life, learning how to fight and make weapons for himself. He’d held his own in these fights. But how much can you really fend for yourself against a group? They called him “the fish”. That’s what they usually call the new kid on the block.

Yet Eddie would once again earn his title as “The Freak”. It all began the day Eddie was moved to a different cell block and he met his new cellmate, Steve Harrington.

Steve seemed like a well-composed fellow. A man only a year older than the metalhead. He is cool, calm, collected and extremely charismatic. So charismatic that even the correctional officers had a friendly relationship with the man. So what was he doing in such a place like this? He’s a cult leader and his extreme ideologies have led people to commit organized crimes against humanity in the name of the group, The Children of the Dark.

At first, Eddie never spoke to anyone including his new cellmate. He’d stare up at the ceiling in his top bunk, while Steve would rant on his own about society.

“If people really looked…and I mean, really look at the world around them, they’d see the things they’ve overlooked their whole lives. People like us, though. We’re different. We see things that are out of the ordinary. Things we can’t explain. And what do they do to us for seeing it? We get locked away.”

Eddie’s eyebrows furrowed, wondering what he could’ve meant by that. Before he could come up with an idea, Steve continues.

“You’ve seen things, too. Haven’t you, Eddie?”

The eerie question hangs in the air. Eddie remains silent.

“These things they’re hard to explain. Now you’re locked away here for murder. A murder you didn’t commit.”

Now Eddie’s fully invested. He sits up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed to look at the cellmate. “What do you mean?”

“I’m saying you and I both know you didn’t kill that girl but you saw something that did. Am I right?”

“Y-yeah. How’d ya know?”

“Because… the Dark Lord told me,” Steve says, simply. “I’m the Dark Lord’s mouthpiece. He sees and speaks through me. My body is his vessel. All Children of the Dark are his vessels to use. And now our lord seeks you, Eddie Munson. He sees something special in you.”

“Dude, what the hell are you talking about? This whole ‘body is a vessel’ spiel is total horseshit. Called bullshit from the second I heard ‘Dark Lord’,” Eddie sighs, swinging his leg back on the bed and lying on his back once again. “You wouldn’t understand what I saw. Now that was real.”

“You mean, the Angel Bots?”

Eddie’s eyes bug out and he swallows hard. He turns his head to the side, eyes meeting Steve’s intense ones.

“I’ve seen ‘em, too. They only reveal themselves to those with spiritual eyes because they exist in a whole other realm. You’ve seen the angel bot because they’ve wanted you to see them. You’re seen as a threat. I can’t see your aura but I’m sure that it’s gotta be serious business if they hadn’t killed you yet.”

“Why haven’t they killed you? You’ve seen one. How are you still alive? Because I have the mark of Cain,” Steve rolls up his sleeve revealing a tattoo in the inner forearm. “The Dark Lord marked me which means they can’t hurt me.”

“Why’d he give you something like that?”

“To recruit members like you. The Angel Bots will probably come after you once again. If that fateful day comes where they find you, you’ll be dead meat. But…there’s a way you can be saved. The lord offers his mercy to you. You’ll be granted freedom if you accept his terms. All ya gotta to do is give your body to him. Be his to own.”

Eddie knew that this was madness but he couldn’t help his curiosity. “And how would I be granted freedom?”

“All I can say is, the Dark Lord will allow the evidence to go in your favor. After all, did you really think you’d be able to explain that hole through the roof of your trailer without sounding crazy? You can thank Him for his intervention.”

Eddie thought back to you. You’d told him that the hole in the ceiling had sealed magically. Whole time it was the devil himself.

“Don’t you want to avenge the girl of your dreams? Now is that chance, Munson. It won’t hurt to give yourself to the cause after all he’s done for you.”

“I’m in looney bin, man. What should I be thanking Him for?”

“For giving you another chance,” Steve answers. “Accept him and he’ll grant you the things you most desire. Is it power you crave? He’ll do that. Is it money? That’ll be no issue. Is it women? Men? Let’s just say they won’t be able to resist you.”

“You don’t look so glamorous. Well, aside from the hair, anyway,” Eddie says, gesturing him up and down. “The hell are you doing in a place like this? Where’s your lord to come and save you?”

“Thanks for the compliment,” Steve runs his hands through his hair. “If your ever in need of any hair tips, I’m your guy.”

Eddie stares at him, bored.

Steve laughs. “I’m here because I chose to be here. My mission was to find you. I’d say I did a job well done,” He smiles. “Honestly, it seems like it’s a lot sane in here than it is out there.”

“So, let’s say, hypothetically, if I were to take this offer, what would be the catch?”

“That’s the beauty of it, Eddie. There is no catch. All that He asks of you is that you remain loyal and devoted. And shall he call upon you, you must answer.”

“That sounds a lot like a catch to me.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Steve shrugs. “Although, I’d make the decision soon. Your luck is running low. You won’t be so lucky the next time, they attack. Then, what’ll all this be for? No vengeance and dying knowing the whole town still thinks you’ve killed that cute cheerleader. That’s a shitty way to die if you ask me.”

Eddie speaks slowly; not sure of what he wants. “And if I do say yes, how does this whole body offering work?”

“Well, is that a ‘yes’?”

“It’s a ‘possibly’ if I know this isn’t going to hurt, at least.”

“It won’t hurt in the slightest, man. Come out of bed. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

Eddie hesitate, eyeing the young man who’s smile never falters. He reluctantly jumps from his top bunk, standing face to face with him.

“We’ll do the blood sacrifice. You’ve got a shank somewhere round here?”

“N-no.” Eddie’s eyes, shift back and forth.

Steve stares at him with an unconvinced look. Eddie sighs, pulling out the knife and plopping it into Steve’s awaiting hands.

“Relax, Munson. I’m not gonna tell anyone you’ve got a weapon,” Steve takes the knife, sliding it across Eddie’s thumb. Eddie hisses at the pain, noticing that he’s drawn blood. “My Dark Lord. Our Master. I offer you the blood of a willing brother. Ad profundis inferni. I offer him to you. His temple now yours to own.”

Steve brings Eddie’s thumb up to his mouth, drinking the blood flowing from it. Eddie, watches him in horror. Steve then proceeds to lock eyes with the shaggy-haired metalhead placing a hand at the back of his neck and pulling him in. Their lips colliding, catching Eddie off-guard but he doesn’t push away.

Eddie feels as if his very soul is being sucked from his body. He feels empty yet also whole. A tingling sensation coming over him. Then the pressure begins to feel so heavy that Eddie worried his head would explode. Hot, searing energy course through his veins. It didn’t hurt but it was so overwhelming that he’d pushed at Steve’s chest, breaking the kiss.

The look in Steve’s eyes indicated terror and concern. Eddie could feel the energy warp his perception of reality and time. Things feeling fast and slow all at once. He’d grown fangs, long fingernails like claws, his head feeling a heavy pressure as horns pushing through his scalp. Bones shifting in his flesh. This was beyond painful at this point. Eddie howls at the biting sensation.

When the transformation finally ceased, Eddie began to feel a strength and power he’s never known to exist. He looks at his appearance in the mirror. His eyes now a deep black.

“What’s happened to me?”

Steve approaches Eddie slowly; his heartbeat the only sound in his ears as he observes him. “Dark Lord?”

Eddie stares at him, confused why he’s saying it to him.

“You’ve consumed the devil and his divine energy. I don’t understand how this is possible but…you’ve become the Dark Lord himself.”

Before any protest could be made, Steve immediately bows down on his hands and knees. “He’s deemed you worthy of his power,” He rises his face from the ground looking up at the half-demon, half-human form. His hand to his chest. “From now til the end, I will serve you. I devote my life to you. Eddie Munson, Lord of the Dark.”

*end of flashback*

“He kissed you?!” You say, jaw dropping.

“I give you the full story of how I became ruler of the underworld, and that’s what you picked up from all this?” Eddie scoffs.

“Sorry, but to be fair, I’m really intrigued by this Steve dude. He really is charismatic.”

“Do you realize that I’m now a completely different person?”

“I wouldn’t use the words ‘completely different’ so lightly in this context.”

“Ash, will you please be serious?”

“Sorry, I want to but you’ve still got me planted to the ground like I’m some clothing store mannequin. Maybe ease up a little, will ya?”

He frees you from his control and you make your way over to him, arms crossed and observing his face.

So this was why you’ve been noticing changes in his behavior with each visit. “Do you feel any different? Aside from the cool powers. Are you still you? I mean, you sound like you.”

“I’m still me…I think. I have all my memories, I still enjoy my music, still have feelings and emotions. Not sure if the Devil was ever capable of that. But I also have new motivations and goals that I want to accomplish. That part I’m sure isn’t me but I need to follow through with them.”

“What motivations?”

“I need more followers.”

“You mean for like people to worship you.”

“I wouldn’t say worship per se. Maybe more like being a leader they can look up to.”

You nod. “Okay. Good luck on those endeavors.”

You turned away from him when you suddenly felt him pressed up against you from behind, lips brushing against your ear.

“Where do you think you’re going?” His voice is low with a dark undertone. “You didn’t think you’d be getting off that easy…did you?”

You look up at him over your shoulder, shivering at his sudden shift in presence. “What do you mean?”

He rest a finger under your chin, beckoning you to slowly turn and face him. “I want you…”

The finger under your chin began to trail down your neck, right against your pulse. He traces over the vein lightly. You were sure that he could feel your heart pounding at an alarming rate.

“By my side.” He finishes.

“By your side?” You echoed as if you were in a trance; eyes glossed over.

He nods, cupping your face in his soft, large hands and smiling warmly at you. “Yes, Ashley. I need you by my side. Devoted to me. Submitting to my every request. In return, I’ll give you what you most desire.”

“What I most desire?”

“Mhm. I can make you so powerful. Your family, too. All you need to do is announce me as your master, your king, your dark lord and you will never have to settle for less again.”

His thumb swipes over your bottom lip. You couldn’t think right for some reason. You clench your thighs together, a sudden ache between them. No way were you getting worked up by this guy. His aura does have a powerful effect on you but this is still Eddie we’re talking about.

“I want to lift my family’s curse. I want to have power.” You say, dazed.

He moves closer to you, lowering his face so it hovered inches away from yours. You look at him, doe-eyed.

“Then say the words, Ashley. Tell me that you are mine.”

“I-I can’t say it. I can’t belong to anyone.”

A deep growl rumbles within his chest. And for a moment, You were scared that he’d transform and reveal his full demonic form. “But you will,” His voice is darker, deeper. You couldn’t deny the butterflies that fluttering in your belly. “You must.”

“What if I don’t want that?”

He laughs. “You don’t get that choice.”

“Says who?”

“Well, I won’t force you but it looks like your body is speaking for itself,” He smirks, eyes raking down your frame. Goosebumps littered your skin; your hardened nipples present against your clad white tank top. “It’s calling for me, Ash. Begging me to feed it the power it so desperately needs. The question is, though, will you let it starve?”

You hadn’t realized you’d been holding your breath while he observed you until you let out a shaky exhale. “Oh, god. Please.” You weren’t sure what you were begging for.

“Not God. Me.”

“I want it, Eddie. So badly.”

“Then say the words.”

You inhale deeply then breathe out again. “Eddie…”

“Wait. I want you on your knees as a sign of your full submission.”

You roll your eyes. Was this really necessary? Nevertheless, you found yourself lowering to the ground eye never leaving his. “I, Ashley Vita Sinclair, announce you, Eddie Munson, as my master, my king, my dark lord. I offer myself to you and you only. Please accept this offering as my full submission to you.”

Eddie seems to be pleased with your prayer. Then, he tilts your head up higher, placing his thumb firmly under your chin. He tugs below your lip causing your lips to part slightly. “Open wide. Tongue out.” He orders.

What the fuck was he doing? Part of you wanted to get off your knees and give him a piece of your mind. The other part of you, however, was curious to see how this would play out so you obey.

“Ad profundis inferni.” He chants before sticking his surprisingly long tongue out. A line of saliva hangs on the tip of his tongue and falls onto yours, connecting the two of you indirectly. “Swallow.”

You do as your told swallow and break the line connecting you to him. You feel different. A new sense of energy flowing through you.

“Rise to your feet.”

You follow his command, watching him intently and waiting for the next step. He throws his hands up with a satisfied expression.

“You’re officially a part of my kingdom. Welcome, welcome.”

“That was…” You feel hypnotized before quickly reverting back to your usual wittiness. “Possibly the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced.”

“A funny way of saying you liked it but okay.” He winks.

——

Once Eddie left, you’d made the initiative to test out your newfound state of magic. Reaching your hands out in front of you, you focus on the spell you’ve been trying to perfect for weeks. The Levitation spell.

“Vis intus esto meicordia levitatis.” You shout at the top of your lungs. When nothing happened, you were this close to going over to Eddie’s place to call him out. That was until you felt your feet slowly lift off the ground. You were floating in mid space; your long braids, floating and swirling around you. The hair movements resembling Medusa’s head of snakes.

You laugh at your success doing a backflip before slowly descending down to your rug. You’d actually did it! You knew you had to celebrate. Running up to your house phone, you dialed for your parents house waiting excitedly for an answer.

“Hello? Max?” Lucas answers in a hurried tone.

“Were you waiting by the phone the entire time?”

“Ash,” Lucas groans, annoyed. “Couldn’t you just call later. I’m kinda of waiting for a call from her and I don’t want to miss it.”

“It’s 9:35 pm. She ain’t gonna call you, buddy. Whatever you did to make her pissed off, all you gotta do is apologize and admit your wrong. Anywho…enough with the sisterly advice. I’ve got great news. Put me on speaker. I want everyone to hear this.”

“I’m honestly surprised you have any good news at all. Today was hell for me at school. Word went around that you’re a witness in support of Eddie and it made a lot of people angry. Now they’re taking it out on all of us.”

“What? That’s terrible. Are you okay? What about Erica? Is she alright?”

“She’s fine. You know her.”

You weren’t fully convinced that she was alright, making a note to come by and check on her whenever you had the time. “What about you, though?”

He sighs. “My team won’t even look at me. No one’s beat me up or anything but…it’s fine. Whatever.”

“It’s not fine. Ughh, people in this town are so frustrating. They don’t even understand what the hell is going on,” You squeezed your eyes shut, resting the phone against your forehead the bringing it back to your ear once more. “I’ll fix this.“

“How?”

“I don’t know how but I will. Nobody messes with my siblings,” You assured him before adding. “Except for me.”

He laughs.

“So is that why Max is angry with you?”

“No. She’s not angry. She’s just having trouble sleeping and I told her she can call me so we can stay on the phone until she sleeps. She’s probably asleep.”

“Don’t give up on hope just yet, lover boy. I think I might’ve been a little hasty. Give it until 10 maybe she’ll call. I’ll hang up and leave you at it.”

“Wait! You said you had some good news. What is it?”

“Oh, it’s just some candles I got on sale.” You lied. It was probably best to tell them another time.

“You called to talk about…candles?”

“Yeah, but, they were for a really good deal at Benny’s. I got to save 25% off.”

“Riiight. I’m gonna hang up now. I’ll be waiting for a call that actually matters.”

The phone clicks off. You let out a groan, slamming the phone back into its place. How in the hell were you going to fix this mess?

———

You stopped by your frequented herbal shop to pick up some herbs for Eddie who apparently needed the for something. This ‘Eddie being the devil’ thing was really starting to freak you out. He seemed to know more about occultism than you have your entire life!

It wasn’t lost on you that you were getting looks from people in public. You decide to brush it off; not letting them get to you.

You walk up to the counter and greet the store owner who’s son, Will, happened to be one of Lucas’s best friends.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Byers.”

“Please, Ashley, you know you can call me Joyce,” She smiles. “What can I do for ya?”

“I need 4 grams of Ice Seed, 2 grams of Dream Turmeric, and 6 grams of Annaley.”

“Ooh, are we conjuring up a potion?” Joyce questions, jokingly.

You give a nervous laugh. “Just a self-care bath.”

“Self-care’s good,” She says, while looking for the exact herbs. Once she’s done, she hands you prettily purple bow-tied sack and book. “It’s on the house.”

“No, I can’t accept.” Herbs were hella expensive so you knew she’d be missing on a hefty profit.

“Trust me, Ash. You’ll need this.” She tilts her chin down, looking at you knowingly. “I know that people in this town have been a little bitchy because of your testimony but you still have me in your corner.” She winks.

You smile. “What about the book?”

“Keep it. It’ll probably have better use in your hands. I can’t figure out that confusing thing. Maybe you can.”

You look down at the leather book which had characters written in the front you couldn’t decipher.

Parking your car in the driveway, you made it to the location that Eddie specified. It was a home you weren’t familiar with. Just as you were about to head for the front door, the garage door lifts up and you stood watching until it revealed the devil himself.

“Who’s place is this? Don’t tell me pillaged a family of 4 for this.” You quip.

“Hardy, har, har. Will you just get in here already?” He have you in. “This is my friend Gareth’s place. Did you get the herbs?”

You held up the bag before following him. “Yep. What will we be doing with these exactly?”

“Oh, you’ll see.” He smirks.

“I don’t like that smile.”

You enter the home through the garage following him down to the basement. It was dark; dimly lit by candles around the room. His friends sat around a long rectangular table.

“Everyone, I’d like for you to meet Ashley, formally. Ashley, these are my buddies Gareth, Jeff, and…Steve.”

Your eyes widened as you glanced over at Steve. “Whoa, whoa. I thought this man was in prison for organized crimes?”

“Don’t be afraid, Ash. I don’t bite.” Steve winks. You seethe at the use of your nickname being used so soon and casually.

Eddie places his hands on your shoulders. “Simmer down, little firefly,” He takes the sack of herbs from your hands. “Go on and have a seat. The fun’s about to start.”

You sigh, grabbing a chair next to Jeff.

“No, you sit next to me.” He points to the front of the table where there’s a throne at the end. He takes your hand and you could feel your face getting hot as the group’s eyes were on you.

Your seated in the chair closest to him and across from Steve who flashes you a teasing smile. Eddie sits at his throne and begins the meeting.

“Could I just start by saying that I’m already loving the team we’re building so far? I know I haven’t actually recruited anyone yet but I really feel the love from you all.” He looks to the side him and sees your grumpy face; arms crossed.

Gareth speaks up, excited. “You’ve got plenty of people to choose from, Eds. Even with half the town against you, you have so many who want to either pick at your brain or give you—”

“Wait, so the people in this town have been dumping on me and my family since the trial but you’re getting the celebrity treatment?”

Eddie looks concerned. “People have been harassing you and your family for defending me.”

You nod. “Yeah. My mom’s been having a hard time finding another case to work on because no one wants to hire her after the loss. Lucas and Erica are getting bullied at school. And well, I guess my dad’s fine. He’s a cop so ya can’t really bully them.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Ash. I didn’t know. Nobody’s said anything about it. Hell, I play D’N’D with Lucas the other day. He didn’t say a word. I’ll handle it for you. No one’ll bother you or your family again.”

“How?”

“Just leave it to me. Trust in your master.”

It felt weird having him say it in front of everyone since the only time you’d refer to him as that was when you were alone. You nod, trying not to feel the overwhelming sensation of wanting the ground to swallow you.

“Okay, fellas and lady, let’s begin the séance.”

The boys hoot and holler. Your mouth drops open. “I’m sorry. Séance?”

“Yep.” Eddie says, shrugging.

“As in communicating with the dead?” You further elaborate.

“Yeah.” The group speaks in unison.

“Oookay. I guess I could use even more excitement in my life.” You laugh, on the verge of a mental breakdown.

“That’s the spirit.” Steve says, patting your hand.

For a split second, Eddie looks between you two with a pissed expression. He composes him pouring the herbs onto the table. “This won’t be just any kind of seance. In true ‘Eddie’ fashion, we are going to smoke these herbs and then the heavy smoke with guide us. Then, we’ll be in contact with the land of the dead.”

“I’ve never gotten high before, Eds. What if I trip balls and get in contact like with my late grandmother, Pearl. She’s really Christian.” Jeff says, his tone high in pitch.

“I can hold your hand through it, big boy.” Eddie jokes, while rolling up the herbs.

“I got these herbs because you wanted to get high while simultaneously being in a séance? This is not how I pictured my Thursday afternoon.” You shake your head.

“What can I say? Spontaneity is the spice.” Eddie before holding up the joint to your face. “Will you do the honors and speak ‘the land of the dead’ spell onto the herbs?”

You look at him and at the guys, then back to him and whispered. “Eddie, they don’t know I’m a witch.”

“And they didn’t know I was the devil until just this morning. Well except, Steve. He practically knows everything. They don’t care what we are, Ash. They live for shit like this. Now will you please do the honors.”

“I don’t know that spell. I’ve never hosted a séance.”

“You know because you are an extension of me. Go on. Speak.”

You exhale, closing your eyes. “Quarta pars Ice Seed, medium pars Dream Turmeric, totum Annaley. Coniunge et fac unum. Iunge nos cum mortuis et separa a vivis.”

You opened your eyes and absolutely nothing happened. “You see I told you I didn’t know.”

All of a sudden, the herbs began to shimmer and glow and everyone stared at it in wonder. Eddie shooting you and I told you so look. “Quit doubting yourself all the time. You’ve got it.”

You really appreciated Eddie being so encouraging of you. You were so used to your shortcomings revealing themselves while attending your academy that you’d gotten used to expecting failure. But Eddie always show you how special you were even before he’d became the devil himself. You valued your unlikely duo of a friendship.

Eddie sparks up the joint. “Now, shall we begin with the séance?”

Taglist: @nerdypartytrashpsychic @frozenhuntress67

LOOK OUT FOR

IV. The Séance Pt. II

The Gang conducts a séance looking for answers but leaving with more questions. Also, Eddie’s getting really tired of your attitude.

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