#this map altered my brain chemistry | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

brainrotgoverner · 4 months

Text

FINALLY have time to watch an other episode of the Scracthed Universe series so I'm just gonna write this post as I watch it cuz I'm OBSESSED with them:

The way Jumpsuit signaled Fixer to get behind him permanently altered my brain chemistry. THIS is the reason I'm watching this series so slowly, im writing them a fic wherever they like of or not XD

Okey, pausing my 2013 fangirl rant to talk about how GREAT the infected are

The mutilated faces are a basic yet extremely effective way to show the virus. It corrupts their faces, like corrupted files. Because that's exactly what they are, they are in a video game and they are made out of digital blood and 01100100 01101001 01100111 01101001 01110100 01100001 01101100 guts. The faces are unnatural and unique to the character (and even according to game mechanics as the Spy's can hide it), it makes you feel uncomfortable in a way only uncanny valley could and I love that XD

ALSO this moment I'm losing my MIND here with this series-

Another reason I like their dynamic so much is even though Jumpsuit is more comfortable in this environment, Fixer is in no way helpless. Shown in the way how he efficiently held up his own before Jumpsuit showed up to save him from the infected Spy (WHICH only got the upper hand because he was about to backstab him) in the last episode, the way even though he panics frequently and Jumpsuit calming him down definitely helps, he throws in ideas on what to do, fixes sentries and jumps right back up to headshot that Demoman after getting blown up. I like how they both have strong suits in different departments and complete their dynamic. I'm fairly positive they are going to make it out <3 please don't tell me I just jinxed them

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING?????? THIS IS ACTUALLY DISTURBING LIKE I'M NOT KIDDING- the other infected were spooky, yes, but this is downright bone-chilling this is WRONG THAT THING SHOULD BE PUT DOWN the only reason I added scared Fixer there is because I genuinely can't handle looking at that thing in full size BUT I might be biased since I was always uncomfortable with hyperrealism in animated horror lol

WHY WON'T IT DIE?????? I mean, I'm happy about the full-white eyes since it's less creepy but NOPE THE EYES ARE BACK JUMPSUIT DO SOMETHING YOUR BOYFRIEND IS SHAKING

To be honest I'm not really sure if the BONKBOT can access the map interface and or if he knows how many people are on the map thanks to his visors or something BUT he is a brilliant character XD he is a perfect way to lower the stakes and sprinkle in some comedy without it feeling out of place

ANOTHER BADASS SCOUT (with AMAZING vocals I mind you) AND HE IS DROPPING SOME DELICIOUS LORE

...what's going on with Fixer?

#The binary translates to 'digital' btw XD #They guy spreading the virus is called Veerus and I love that lol #ALSO Fixer Jumpsuit and BONKBOT is my new fav foundfamily and if anything happens to them I will burn commit arson on tumblr #tf2 scout #tf2 #the scratched universe #scoutcest #scout x scout #found family #tf2 spy #tf2 demoman #spy tf2 #tf2 medic #fem fortress #team fortess 2 #tf2 au

20 notes · View notes

bberetd · 1 month

Note

Nice to meet another Luiasy fan! What got you into the ship?

ayyeee my people!! nice to meet you too 🤝🏾

It probably goes back to when I was maybe… 7-8 years old? For some reason a core memory of mine is always watching my older siblings play Mario Kart Wii, and I’d look forward to when they played the flower cup (if I remember correctly) and the Daisy Circuit map. The statue of Luigi and Daisy was always so fascinating to me, so I guess you could say I was a Luaisy shipper before I even knew it 🤣

And it took me YEARS later to realize there was a statue of the baby versions of them right in front of their adult statues which was even CUTER.

like…

aaahhh????

It took me a while to really fixate on Luaisy. Like with a fandom like Mario, romantic ships aren’t my main focus. They’re nice to have for sure, like yes, give me some Mareach. Absolutely, give me Luaisy, etc. I got into the Mario fandom really because of the dynamic between the bros (which has permanently altered my brain chemistry), but then I felt like exploring other relationships once I felt like I’ve seen everything there was to see of the relationship between Mario and Luigi. I still love em to death tho (understatement), and there’s always more, but gotta expand you know??

Like I said, the romantic relationships were pretty much in the background to me. I love all four of them, but I love Lu and Daisy a tad bit more, so naturally I root for their relationship a bit more 😅. And I just love the fact that Daisy loves Luigi for his awkward and goofy self. They’re equally in awe of each other. True love right there. Fan interpretations of the ship DEFINITELY boosted my love for them, like all the stories and art, hello??

I REALLY hope Nintendo does more with their relationship in future games and the sequel. Like theyre relationship felt genuine in the GameCube games (#steadysweeties 😌), but now it just feels like a “uhh ahaha he gets the other princess” relationship. :/

#I didn’t expect this to be so long #Luigi #princess Daisy #Luaisy

17 notes · View notes

trainingdummyrabbit · 1 month

Note

hello hello.. 1, 25, 8? :>

hihi haiii wave waves!! ^w^/

1-what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are? okok last time i answered w stuff for when iwas rly little but ive got a couple more that r less Teenytinymode(tm) -h/mestuck. (<- iam not letting myself show up in tagsearch ill explode.) my feelings towards it are Complicated but when i was 15 itwas there for me when no one else was in a way no one else would be. now its mostly smthn i use to bring up for jokes and other related bits to Use My Knowledge For Evil, but there are still some aspects i would fight for at the drop of a hat. made some really good friends also. i respect it from a respectable distance now. -taz balance. thissssss Fuckign podcast. everything 2 me and more. altered my brain chemistry deeply. Also made some irreplaceable friends thru this one. (ger if ur reading this. blows a litle kissie.) like yes heehoo funysilly goofy podcast but also having a fixation centered around kindness and hope against unrelenting despair was kind of lifechanging for ~16 year old me. a lot of me rooted here and never left, much like an anchor. also got me rly big into storytelling Actively, it was very kind 2 me :] -flipnote studio. (ttechnically teenytiny mode but its longstanding so...) probably my first intro to 'internet culture' if ihad t describe it :] made me start fixating hard on animation, defined a lot of my knowledge and music taste, it... it was really refreshing as a Weird Kid t see other people who Got It, yknow? never had anyone like me growing up, yknow. its nice t know youre not alone sometimes.

25- fave season and why? i always answer fall for these usually, im a big halloween kid n all. but lately ive been really really fond of summer. its just one of those times when things just start feeling Okay. i can be outside, i can hear birds, rustling trees, i can feel my body like it is a body and not an object. mmmmmmilkshakes....

8- any reacquiring dreams? oh, iwas actually just thinking about this the other day! i get reoccurring themes and stuff, but i do know that for a while, the same city has shown up over and over and over again, in different places, in such a way that i can patchwork together a map if i try hard enough. what always sticks out most to me though, is that theres always a school (''> >...) with the same stairs, with the same lawn, that always leads out into the city. theres an indoor hallway type dealie hosting storefronts people think is abandoned and closed off, but if you walk down it theres actually a restaurant in there! was a restaurant in there. for some reason it closed down, and my dreamself was very upset about it bc they had very nice food... it was my favorite spot and everything. (the people there were very kind to me.) when ur dealing w dream stress, having a place to just sit and feel safe was nice. now its just the hallway. its enough, i guess... > >

#there used to be people id see over and over again but i seem to have misplaced them... > >#now i just keep getting dropped into situations where i already have a role n gotta play along. they handle it pretty well honestly..#s not as scary as it could make it. its just like advanced roleplay; just blurring th lines a little. theyre having ffffffun? i guess?#there arent as many of the reoccurring themes as there used t be; which i feel kinda mixed about. but thats whatever.#piktalk #ask game

2 notes · View notes

primal-con · 1 year

Note

I wanna see men in homoerotic situations wearing slutty clothes 🥺👉👈

How could I say no to that face... well, alright, you've twisted my arm

Fairy tale AU! aka I watched Enchanted as a kid and it permanently altered my brain chemistry

I've only really figured out a handful of characters but the beauty of this thing is it can fit as many characters as I can imagine, so basically it's an infinite plot bunny and I love it <33 (also if anyone has pitches for other characters/ideas please please please send them 👀👀)

The initial idea was just dragon!Rodimus because obviously, but it grew from there. He’s the prince of a ruined kingdom who was cursed as a child to transform into a dragon each morning and change back each night a la Beauty and the Beast or Shrek if you have taste

Then there’s Ratchet as a piss poor damsel in distress and Drift as a knight (really he’s a ninja, but what is a ninja if not a non-western knight who can do sick flips?) who embarks on a quest to save Ratchet but kinda just ends up in a polycule because Rodimus is bad at being a dragon and Ratchet is bad at sitting back and letting other people solve his problems!

The central plot of the AU though, the thing that most of the other stuff revolves around is, of course, Orion Pax and Megatronus trying to overthrow a corrupt king. Because they have an MO and also I’m very weak for their relationship dynamic during that era of their lives. Orion is actually the lost prince Optimus who disappeared as a newborn, but since he was raised by Alpha Trion rather than the corrupt king and grew up some regular kid in a library, he’s way too aware of all the ways in which the crown sucks ass so he wants no part in all this “Prince Optimus” bullshit. And Megatronus is a gladiator and totally not treasonous poet wanted by the crown whose help he enlists in overthrowing his father. Hijinks ensue etc etc

And again, I can map as many characters as I want into this!! Infinite possibilities at my fingertips and all of them deeply driven by the sense of craving something you cannot possibly have because the barriers of society disallow it. And also men shirtless, that’s equally as important as the first thing. I love fairy tale settings so fucking much <33

Also I made a playlist :D I created this AU two days ago you guys I think I might have a slight problem-

#they live in my head rent free anon #also please folks send more ideas for other characters!#I want to expand this >:DD #transformers #maccadam #fairy tale au #humanformers #ask and ye shall receive #rodimus prime #tf ratchet #tf drift #orion pax #megatronus #dratchrod #megop #why do all the ship names in this fandom suck #love that for them <33 #tagging this for spicy themes mostly cause of that one megop doodle...#kiddos stay back (spritzes you with a spray bottle like you're my cat stealing from the pantry)

12 notes · View notes

peachesandmilktea · 11 months

Note

my writing so far </3 it’s the introduction chapter and i don’t plan on writing the others likes this. i just wanted this to sum up the family dynamic so when i get into the actual story, i won’t have to worry about the confusion.

—-

born from flesh, warm and soft. little hand wrapped around a single finger in such a gentle yet tight embrace. welcoming smiles and tear stained cheeks of joy; a memory to forever be engraved into the hearts a family that will only ever break again and again.

a promising start, they swore. this one will be different.

slowly chipped away like stone broken by a chisel. nothing but a cold, lifeless statue built from a solid foundation until it was nothing but a beautiful viewing piece to show off. nothing but polite gestures and conversations passing by the days. days that soon turned to weeks, then months. the unfortunate amount of time that gathered up into a year of more nothingness.

empty words of affection that weren’t even spoken to you but to another. the same topics over and over. work, meetings, politics. yet they never strayed too far from one subject; you.

young, promising. an envision of the future. their future, the one they’ve mapped out from the moment you turned five.

you were a late-bloomer. four was when it should have happened. the disappointment that filled the new dull look in your fathers eyes for the first time will always be unforgettable.

new to you, at least. it was always there. the same eyes that the naive child you once were believed to hold the calming ocean in, were the same eyes that held raging tides for your family.

years of abuse and neglect had made done their damage. your sweet mother had grown distant, only ever answering in small sentences. memories of her standing on the porch in a beautiful dress soon faded into a small glimpse of the white walls of a hospital, an old blue gown draped over an empty woman. dead, yet still breathing. she’d never recover.

your eldest brother torn down into a hallow shell of rage. every which way he turned was trouble. it followed him. latched onto his back, tearing through his frayed shirt and seeping into his skin. it embedded itself into his veins, tainting his bloodstream and altering his brain chemistry for the worst.

Hi am SO SORRY for the time I took to reply to this, especially because I know how intimidating it can be to share one’s writing. You seemed nervous about it but I promise you you have nothing to be nervous about, this is very good!

I really like the way you set the scene and the mood by listing little details. It’s a great way to show don’t tell, which is always what one should do when writing ; it is subtle and yet works perfectly because each word hits harder.

The choice of the vocabulary and the details in question are very delicate, the way you craft the scenes and the short story is very skillful because your choice of words works very well.

You shit between ideas and between scenes, flashback sometimes, and the transitions are very well done. Really, I have nothing to criticize in such work (and I am trying very hard to be objective), I really really like it and would love to read your next works if you write any!

#peaches replies #asks

6 notes · View notes

taran-chan · 1 year

Note

Helloo, i just wanted to come here and thank you for writing On a Wednesday on a Cafe, it was one of the most perfect, beautiful things i've read in my entire life. It altered my brain chemistry, the plot, the characters, who you describe everything they felt, it was just magnificent I loved it so much. I've been around since the very begging, its a little bittersweet to see that the is story ending but i couldn't be happier to be able to read it, and read more about Thena and Gil's beautiful love story. Thank youu

Btw i'm very exited about your spooky au, its a very cool concept, cant wait to read more. 🖤

thank you so much for staying and loving my cafe au till the end 💙💙💙 Thena and Gilgamesh deserve everything good and sweet and i'm not even gonna pretend i didn't pour all the fluff i can think of in there lolll

my other works might not be as soft but they'll have a happy ending. 100%. i'm looking forward to mapping out those journeys as well 🫶

#if there is an eternals sequel i might do a sequel for cafe au as well hahahaha #hopefully they'll talk to me again in the future

4 notes · View notes

questionablepastries · 1 year

Note

soulsborne ask 8, 14, 30(also happy late birthday!!! how did i miss it!!!)

ASH!!!!! IM ANSWERINGN SO LATE forgib meh (also THank you for the belated birthday wish YAYAYA <3 )

I wanted to answer this on pc, bc i intended to write a lot given that this is like one of my top favorite franchises and it altered my brain chemistry permanently; aint no way im writing no sorry ass short answer so its gonna go under a readmore :)

8. What are your 3 favorite areas and why?

ough this ones already tough, throughout all the games there are so many good areas lol. I had to write a large list of areas I love and finally managed to narrow it down to three it was super painful and took like 30 min but here they are (in no particular order)

Fountainhead palace from sekiro - probably the most serene location in all soulsborne personally, The music is very peaceful the area is GORGEOUS compared to the bloodbath of the rest of the game. It very much is its own isolated location because technically it is. the royalty in sekiro would seclude themselves in this location and do nothing but ignore the state of the rest of the world and it very much shows since the area is so serene with its cherry blossom trees and massive koi fish to feed. even though the area has since flooded and all the servants turned into fish people hybrids its still awesome to explore what is essentially abandoned royalty temple ruins

Nokstella eternal city from eldenring - the area is just super pretty as well! sorry its starting to sound redundant but unlike fountainhead palace this place is not meant for normal people much less royalty to access and yet its a fucking cinderella castle underground complete with stars and shit, plus everything here is like weird mercury magic and has all these mimics its AWESOME i love doppelgangers and i love the scary silent atmosphere here because its like what did these people DO to get themselves banished underground

Tower of latria/upper latria from demon souls, i chose this one because i think it caused me the most stress in my demon souls run. it was here that i was getting very lost and very scared - probably the most stressed ive ever been my entire demon souls run. going from super scary prison to jesus christ is that a giant fucking beating heart being held up by chains was an experience ill never feel again it was so cool

honorable mentions go to: caelid, lake of rot, crumbling farum azula, academy of raya lucaria (elden ring), the gutter, black gulch, and shrine of amana (ds2), the entirety of shrine of storms (demon souls), nightmare of mensis (bloodborne)

i feel bad not even mentioning one ds3 map so uhhh profaned capital

14. Who is the most underrated boss in your opinion?

leechmonger & adjudicator (yes i chose two, im cheating) from demon souls. I think soulsborne games should lean way more into body horror/horror themes in general given how crappy the state of their worlds are and these guy are like. the definition of both body horror and gore. sad to see both of them being ignored for fan favorite cool people in armor bosses (artorias, ornstein, gwyn, lady maria, malenia, old king allant, soul of cinder, nameless king...etc)

bosses that get this horror thing right include: ludwig, orphan of kos, guardian ape (not exactly underrated but the second phase tho), radahn (he was eating a guy at the start lol he counts as horror in a way? plus he's massive), mergos wetnurse, king allant (the real one!), phalanx (god i love this thing), flamelurker, maneaters, four kings (warped by dark magic and infinitely respawning in an abyss this is the coolest concept of all time), gaping dragon (COOL!!!!), demon of song are a couple i can list with google's help

off topic but my favorite "just a guy" bosses are penetrator (demon souls), looking glass knight + darklurker (ds2) and the corrupted monk from sekiro

30. Rank the games you’ve played!

wahhh......

dark souls 1 (my entry to the franchise im sowwy)

demon souls (really captured the scary morose medieval knight atmosphere i was desperately craving after finishing ds1)

bloodborne (super unique game - has no peer in terms of atmosphere, is only in third place because i much prefer being a depressing knight rather than a cool guy in a trenchcoat on a weekday in london)

eldenring (being unable to ride torrent in the final boss fight, the dissapointment of lack of things to do at the mountaintop of the giants, and no boss living up to radahn or rykard in the end game stretch..(malenia is just a hot lady im sorry; even her second form is just hot lady - now if she was a monster.....) is why im placing this as 4th)

sekiro (another unique game however has zero replayability)

dark souls 3 (might be overdue for a replay since i only beat it like twice since release, and i struggled to remember any bosses or areas when answering these questions. I think ds3 was just like a bunch of references to ds1, however gael one of THE most memorable bosses for me and was a grand way to end the franchise)

dark souls 2 (granted i only played vanilla upon release only once and it left a bad taste in my mouth to the point that i was concerned about the state of the franchise after i finished it because while i knew the main team was working on bloodborne while this was being developed it made me wonder if id ever experience what i felt in ds1 ever again.

#answering this took me like an hour and thirty minutes lol #asks #thanks again ash!!#dank souls #soulsborne

2 notes · View notes

cup-and-chaucer · 1 year

Text

My Month in Books: January 2023

I really struggled with reading this month. After nearly reaching 50 at the end of last year and coupled with a crazy work month, I haven’t felt the most motivated to read or felt pressured by the internal numbers game. Which is something I never subscribed to until I realized that reading 50 books was a possibility for me. Seeing how much other people read does impact me more than I would like to think it does.

Still, I read three! And it was proof that I need to get back to the mindset that 2 books a month is a good goal to keep me in the habit, that reading a lot is not the same thing as reading well, and that our reading numbers fluctuate for all sorts of reasons.

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer: First of all, this bitch is MY age and the sophistication of this story is so upsetting to me. Maps tells the story of Lia, a happily married mother of a young daughter, who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. The book flips back and forth between Lia’s present process of dying, Lia’s past being raised the daughter of an evangelical minister and her abusive first relationship, and the voice of her cancer. I so, so, so enjoyed this. The second quarter of this book was a little muddy but it really stuck the landing. The perspective she has on Matthew is so interesting and felt very real to me. From the outsider’s perspective, we can see that a teenager and a twenty-something should…like not be dating. The way that MM shows how being with someone with that sort of critical age difference impacts Lia’s relationship to herself, her self-worth and confidence, isolates her from her peer group, makes her lonely before any physical abuse has even occurred is really subtle. The implication that what abuse looks like can be different, can be subtle, can even be unintentional is so good here—Matthew gets with Lia, I think, initially less from a sense of power but rather from a profound immaturity without understanding the profound implications of a fifteen year old having sex with a twenty-one year old. The idea that she views this relationship as a romance, even after it’s violent conclusion and takes on some of the blame for the fact that Matthew abuses her, still, years later, I think is also really well-done. It’s a complicated dynamic and MM allows us to be immersed in an uncomfortable, unsafe, and unreconciled point of view. The twist at the end, the idea that we’ve been living inside a retelling of Wuthering Heights the whole time made me lose my mind, I will not lie to you. I get why people will not like this book the way I did. I think so much of my enjoyment has to do with the fact that I listened on audio and so the things that felt gimmicky in print and might have driven me crazy if I was reading a physical copy of the book. this book is flawed, certainly, and could have used with some grounding but!!! I still gave it 5 stars. (Recommended via Jen Campbell’s YouTube Channel)

The 13 Clocks by James Thurber: This was a perfect read for a snowy day!! I read this in two big gulps. It’s a delightfully dark children’s book about an evil Duke who keeps his niece, the beautiful Saralinda, captive in a cold castle. A prince, with the aid of a magical creature called a Golux, go on a mission to rescue her. It’s Jacobean and whimsical and dark. I think that if I had read this as a child I would have lost my mind and it would have altered my brain chemistry. It’s fun as an adult because the pattern of the language is so much fun to chew on but I literally cannot wait to read this to a kid. Neil Gaiman listed it as one of his favorite books and I have an interview with him about this book queued up and I can’t wait to hear more.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt: I have finally read it! And I am in the camp that loved it lol. I think its use of perspective is brilliant, the characters and setting are so well-drawn. It is truly immersive. What I don’t see people talking enough about is how poundingly funny it is? People talk about adapting it into a film or show and it always sounds so serious and it’s like…this would literally be Derry Girls with murder. I do have two criticisms which is…I think the last third is quite bloated and loses focus. I also think that Charles’ descent and apparent control and jealousy over Camilla needed more set up….like, her and Henry’s relationship felt very complete even while it occurred off-screen and I had the impression that incest could be a twist early on but…I felt like it needed more flesh to it. But other than that, so so so so good. I do think it hits a little different if you went to a small New England liberal arts college…like there were parts that rang uncomfortably true about the culture of Hampden. And having lived in the area where it was set for many years…there’s a mythology to the region that DT plays on really well.

#my month in books #the secret history #donna tartt #maddie mortimer #maps of our spectacular bodies #james thurber #13 Clocks

2 notes · View notes

akaluan · 3 years

Note

psssst. hey aka wanna talk about code vein meta and the life cycle of the BOR parasites -ser

The life cycle of the BOR parasites, huh? Those parasites, huh? The horrific, vampire-lite creating parasites that underpin Code Vein's EVERYTHING, huh?

SURE WHY NOT!

(Cut because Ser and I have legitimately done some "the ground is soft and I have a shovel" world building + a lot of these suppositions / worldbuilding is based off of story spoilers. So if you have no desire to read horrifying parasite / invasion worldbuilding based on Code Vein spoilers, skip this post, lol!)

Okay so, I'm going to start with some basic facts that Code Vein's story tells us:

1) we don't know where the BOR (Biological Organ Regenerative) parasites, the Horrors, or the Thorns of Judgment come from

2) the BOR parasites show up first, and are found because dead animals literally GET UP AND START ATTACKING EVERYTHING in search of blood

3) BOR parasite research initially starts as MEDICAL research, not to create Revenants for fighting

4) It isn't very long after BOR parasite research begins that the Horrors show up

5) all BOR parasites in the current Revenants are "artificial" (I'm actually suspecting that it's similar to using a weakened virus to train the immune system -- it's still a true BOR parasite, probably a cloned one, but it's been nerfed in order to generate Revenants that are in control of themselves)

There's a lot more than we get to see and that I'll be mentioning during this ramble, but these are some starting tidbits to build from.

So, first off.

BOR Parasites, which have never been found in ANY BIT OF PREVIOUS HUMAN HISTORY, are suddenly discovered. It's a medical miracle! Let's try to do some research on these things!

During the process of the research, gigantic beasts call Horrors suddenly appear and start wreaking havoc. Humans die too quickly to these things, so the BOR Parasite research is turned away from medical miracle to...

generating an army.

An army of pseudo-immortal soldiers. An army of pseudo-immortal soldiers that ALL REQUIRE BLOOD. And that, upon messing up and going into Frenzy, become Lost.

Revenants can be ashed (permanently killed) by stabbing the heart, where the BOR parasite resides. Becoming a Lost means that the BOR parasite takes over the entire body, not just the heart, and thus the BOR parasite itself becomes no longer vulnerable. Lost cannot be killed because upon taking near-fatal death, the parasite triggers dissolution and the body turns into motes that reform later in another place. (Revenants go through this same process when they take near-fatal damage that isn't damage to the heart. It's the BOR parasite's will to survive showing through.)

At some point, I'm hazy on the exactness of the timing, the Great Collapse happens and the Thorns of Judgment erupt from the earth and essentially rearrange the Earth's surface. The Thorns of Judgment are often a deep brown with glowing golden bits. I think there might be a few other colors, but those are the majority.

So in the process of all of this, more research is done and Project QUEEN is begun in order to find ways around some of the downsides of Revenants. Project QUEEN is carried out by feeding the subject Revenant the blood of (game says "all known animals" but I'm calling bullshit bc that's A LOT) many many animals, which ends up changing the Revenant and "evolving" (games stop using "evolution" when you mean "metamorphosis" challenge) the BOR parasite, at the cost of horrible pain to the subject and the feeling of harboring a growing monster.

Project QUEEN ends with the subject going into frenzy and becoming the Queen, who is ALMOST like a Lost, except... not as irrational / instinctive / driving to JUST EAT. The Queen is shown in several instances to fight intelligently, and seems to lead the Lost in some way. Drinking the Queen's blood (which is BLUE, btw! Every other Revenant is shown as having red blood, as are the Lost) is guaranteed to make a Revenant frenzy.

An INTERESTING note is that the Queen has access to... thorns. That look exactly like the Thorns of Judgment except WHITE AND SMALL

So now we get into "the ground is soft and I have a shovel and a will" area

We don't see many Horrors in this game -- we canonically see one in the main game, which is a gigantic canine/monkey-esque beast, and then three others in the DLC Depths maps -- but Mido (eugh, I hate taking this bastard's comments into consideration, BUT) makes a comment in the late game that Revenants and even the Queen are but stepping stones, and the Horrors are the next point in the "evolution" of humanity (STOP USING EVOLUTION WHEN YOU MEAN METAMORPHOSIS CHALLENGE)

Mido has also altered himself and.. essentially forced a metamorphosis of his own, making him look almost like a Lost except retaining his human rationality (not that he had much =| bastard) and ability to reason, etc. Or at least some level of it, since we can't be entirely sure how much his brain chemistry is being affected by the BOR Parasite and how much is just.. Mido is a fucking bastard like Kurotsuchi.

ANYWAY

Ser and I have shoved the puzzle pieces together in this order:

BOR Parasites and Horrors are from the same place, with the BOR Parasites leading the way.

BOR Parasites appear. Start to infect low level things, (animals etc) and begin to transform them into Lost. The Lost generate something called Miasma that affects other infected beings around them. Lost also become STRONGER via Miasma intake over time, which tends to... make them larger.

The growing population of Lost + Miasma serves as a beacon, drawing more BOR parasites to the planet. It's canonical that Lost blood (and also Revenant blood) affects inanimate objects -- it's called Ichor and it's used to make Blood Veils do their thing. The more Revenant / Lost blood that's spilled, the more "infected" the world becomes.

At some point, Ser and I believe that a BOR Parasite managed to essentially "infest" the planet itself. As a result, the Great Collapse happened, and the Thorns of Judgement appeared. I believe that the Thorns of Judgment act as a... a beacon of sorts. Where there were only a few Horrors here or there, there's now a veritable flood of Horrors, which accelerates humanity's desire to create revenants to fight. More revenants means more potential Lost. More potential Lost increases the miasma levels which makes more Revenants frenzy and become Lost, cycle continues.

Project QUEEN resulted in a "frenzied" but STILL RATIONAL entity that cannot be ashed, causes instant frenzy upon ingestion of its blood, and IS ABLE TO USE AN ABILITY THAT LOOKS LIKE THE THORNS OF JUDGMENT.

Proposition: Queen is not a Lost, Queen is A BABY HORROR.

Proposition: BOR Parasites are the larval form of Horrors.

So the life cycle, before humans intervene, looks like this:

BOR Parasites -> Lost -> Horrors -> [a "queen" is created] -> new planet is found -> Queen creates and releases new BOR Parasites on the new planet, cycle continues

When they come across humanity, the life cycle becomes a bit tangled, BUT:

BOR Parasites -> Revenant [a "queen" is generated in THIS stage and skips to Horror stage, but isn't truly mature the way it should be] -> Lost -> Horrors

I propose that the relics that are being handed around are Similar To But Not Quite Identical To the "eggs" that a true, mature queen entity would produce to make more BOR Parasites. Except in this case, I think that if they actually allowed the Relics to fully take over the bearers, you'd end up with more of the weird, "baby" queens that still need to mature before the cycle can truly continue.

So, in short, every Revenant is a Horror in potentia.

("In order to kill the monsters, we became the monsters")

Anyway, thank you for reading my long, rambling thesis on why Code Vein is a truly horrifying game no matter how you look at it or what ending you get.

#code vein #code vein meta #the soil is soft and i have dug deep #look you can tell me it's not that deep but really? REALLY?#besides i like this horrifying realization it is now how I plan to treat any fic I write for/in/about Code Vein from now on so get comfy #=)

10 notes · View notes

hennyjolzen · 3 years

Quote

Smell Your Way Home A razzle of citrus. Cut grass. Spike of bergamot crushed between dogteeth. Star-scent. Shiver-musk. Your antennae quiver with sparkling electrons. You hum and skim through oak trees, singing with your whole body until you reach it: the hollowed out oak trunk. The place your brothers and sister have been covering with a perfume called 'home'. "Swarming bees locate a new hive and attract the rest of the colony through the use of a pheromone called Nasanov that includes such familiar terpenoids as geraniol, nerolic acid, and citral acid. Produced by glands placed parenthetically around a worker bee’s stinger, beekeepers have noted that the Nasanov pheromone can be detected by a naked human nose and smells of lemongrass. This is a fact that beekeepers take advantage of when they use lemongrass essential oil to trap bees or introduce them to a new 'hive'. In fact, bees' lives are intimately orchestrated by smells. The smells of flowers and, most importantly, the pheromones secreted by their queen. The queen coordinates behavior, hive-building, defensive techniques, and nectar-collecting strategies via her pheromones. Interestingly enough, if you remove a queen and wait for her 'smell' to blow away, you insert in another queen and drastically alter the collective behavior of the hive. The bees live in the Queen’s smell, her atmospheric aroma, like we live inside culture, unwittingly letting it orchestrate and organize our tasks and lives. Beekeepers have observed that when dealing with an aggressive hive, if you remove the queen and let her pheromones fade before adding in a 'gentle' queen substitute, you can create the conditions for a 'calm' colony. "Smell is vital across species. Dogs are the most popular example, smelling oncoming seizures in human owners, unearthing Iron Age corpses, and locating prized truffles blooming darkly below the duff. In Texas, cadaver compound was injected into oil pipes, and the pipes were observed for vulture activity to locate where the pipes had sprung a leak. The vultures honed in on the smell of corpse emanating from the broken pipes. Elephants choose the most nutritious, highest sugar-content fruit, by way of a scent evaluation. Recent studies at Oxford University’s Department of Zoology demonstrated that Scopoli shearwater birds navigate great distances across water by way of 'olfactory maps'. The study shows that many other birds find their way home by smell. The ocean is an odoriferous landscape. It is a series of perfumed songlines. "The idea of songlines might not be that much of a stretch. The Vibration Theory of Smell posits that just as smell is, in a manner, touch – an interaction between scent molecules 'touching' into the olfactory cleft of our nose and setting off a domino-chain of electrons – so smell might also be sound. First formulated by Malcom Dyson in 1928, it suggests that a molecule’s smell is due to its vibration frequency. The theory has received pushback from the 'shape' theory, which posits that molecular shape is more important than vibration, but as a poet, I am drawn to the lyrical nature of smell as song. Perhaps that’s why, faced by impoverished smell vocabulary, we rely on phrases like 'chord' or 'note' or 'symphony' when describing perfumes and complex aromas. "Humans, although we live in a culture biased towards visual and auditory stimuli, receive a remarkable amount of information via smell. Recent research has upended the myth that humans are smell deficient. The human nose is capable of distinguishing over a trillion distinct odors. A Scottish woman named Joy Milne can accurately make a diagnosis of Parkinson with her nose. In fact, her nose is a finer diagnostic tool than any technology, picking up the disease years before it even registers on traditional tests. It may be that this skill isn’t just her superpower. We are all making subconscious decisions based on smell all the time, like the worker bees inside the pheromonal ocean of the queen’s influence. In a famous study nicknamed the 'sweaty T-shirt' experiment, a Swiss scientist Claus Wedekind showed that people exposed to T-shirts soaked in different people’s body odor, unknowingly and consistently picked the T-shirt from the person with the histocompatibility gene (MHC) that was most different from their own. The MHC gene is responsible for the growth of a healthy immune system and it has been shown that mates that represent a diverse combination of MHC genes produce healthier, more immunologically robust children. Studies aside, most people have had the experience, at least once in their life, of smelling a lover’s body odor and knowing deeply, somatically, that there is chemistry. What if we didn’t date via visual cues, but dated via smell? Would we make better partner choices? "We smell events before they happen. Cut grass blows downwind. Bad smells shepherd us away from fire, from pollutants, from eating rotten food. We smell events that have happened. And memory is intimately entangled with smell. A perfect blend of lily and gardenia summons my grandmother with such vivacity that the rest of her easily materializes: I see her powder blue dress, her dove broach, her mischievous eyes. Long dead, I open her old perfume jar and suddenly I can touch her again, speak to her. Smell is often the doorway into other sensory experiences. The Song of Songs, one of the most popular parts of the Jewish Bible, is a glossary of erotic smells. The smell of spikenard and aloes and myrrh leads us through the Gospels. Jesus is constantly anointed, washed, articulated by smell. As a writer, I have observed in the writing I love and the writing that I create, that smell is one of the most effective ways to build an embodied world. We know that most of taste is really smell. The first mouthful of wine on a summer night. The dark cherry of black coffee sipped as the sun spills into your living room. "The artist Kate McLean, interested in biosemiotics defined as the exchange of sensory signals between animals and their environments, has created a project called Sensory Maps. She gets people to 'map' their cities by smell and creates complex 'smellscape' maps with the aggregate information she receives from participants. Mostly focusing on urban environments, McLean has suggested these maps can be utilized by Urban planners and developments. Where should smells be preserved? Where should we not develop, due to a bad odor? Diving into her work, I was immediately reminded of Bernie Krause and his Acoustic Niche Hypothesis in relationship to Soundscape Ecology. The theory is that animals in a shared ecosystem develop different tones and rhythms that collaborate like an orchestra. Each sound finds its perfect channel so that it doesn’t 'interrupt' anyone else’s song. "Poetically thinking with the Vibration theory of smell as being related to sound, I wonder what an Aroma Niche Hypothesis would look like? Do ecosystems evolve complex symphonies of smell – fungal, vegetal, animal, elemental – that all cooperate and combine into a polyphony? And if this is true, what of anthropogenic smell? What about smell pollution that is so pervasive it almost, especially in the smell maps of Kate Mclean, overwhelms any other biological, environmentally excreted perfumes? What if birds can’t find their song/smell lines across the ocean? What if we are wearing so much synthetic perfume that we can’t make a correct olfactory assessment of a potential mate? "I’m not trying to answer any questions. I’m trying to smell them. I’ve always had a problematically sensitive nose. I can smell when someone is sick before they know it. There are certain mycelium I know by a taste as I walk over their hidden underground bodies, not their visible fruiting mushrooms. I have often thought I will know I have found my partner when my nose tells me. My nose will know, better than my mind ever will. In fact, I harbor a deep, mushy belief that my nose is my most direct connection to my heart. "What if, taking our inspiration from Kate McLean, and bringing it out of human-dominated environments, we tried to retrain our noses to detect subtle cues. What if you mapped your neighborhood? A nearby trail? Keep a notebook of smell observations. Don’t worry about using smell words. Make something up. Use a color. A sound. A feeling. The English language needs to be composted. It needs neologisms and kennings that properly reflect our ability to detect over a trillion different 'smell songs'. Smell is haptic. It reflects our intimacy with the world every time we breathe in volatile molecules and let them cascade into our brain chemistry. Smell is song, vibrating with melodic messages about behavior and mates and environmental hazards. And smell is deeply erotic. It connects us with our deep somatic appetites. Maybe it even guides us toward our ecological olfactory niche. Just like the bees follow the lemongrass pheromone to their new hive, maybe smell can show us how to get 'home': home, for me, being a state of mind. A state of mind where I realize everything is alive. Everything is funky. Musty. Lusting. Loving. Everything, even without a voice, without a sound, is talking.

Sophie Strand

5 notes · View notes

liverpoollaw · 3 years

Text

“The rumors began almost as soon as the disease itself. Claims that a foreign adversary had unleashed a bioweapon emerged at the fringes of Chinese social media the same day China first reported the outbreak of a mysterious virus” (per AP News)

Unknown to most, Chinese Agents were deceitfully set up and allowed by American CIA to access the Coronavirus Bioweapons Research at a Canadian laboratory, knowing the Chinese would steal samples to find out what Americans & Canadians were doing in Bio-Weapons Research & Development.

The American CIA and Western Intelligence Agencies then unleashed on the world what is now called COVID-19, by starting with China at the Wuhan Military Games in 2018 and, subsequently, on the rest of humanity using human super-spreaders who were unaware they had been involuntarily infected with the disease. That is why Chinese Vaccines have not proved as effective at controlling the spread of the disease.

The Chinese were set up by American & Western Intelligence Agencies in a desperate attempt to slow down the incredible rise of Chinese economic, military and diplomatic world power and the demise of American global hegemony.

Think with me for a moment. Do you honestly believe that if the Chinese were in on this COVID-19 conspiracy to infect the entire world that they would have allowed it to begin in their home country where they would be blamed globally by the rest of the world? No. The Chinese stepped into an American CIA trap and we’re ensnared by their own attempts to steal American & Canadian secret technology!

That is why America and the West were able to so rapidly identify and develop their so-called COVID Vaccination Programs. Because the vaccine already existed.

“It is NOT a vaccine”.

"It doesn't stop infection. Or transmission. Don't think of it as a vaccine," because it is not!

"Think of it - at best - as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS. And we want to mandate it? Insanity!" (per Alex Berenson)

What COVID-19 is has become increasingly obvious. It is an mRNA vax designed to alter a persons DNA and reprogram Human Biology. It is a Neuro-Weapon!

You will be ostracized, isolated, fined and eventually arrested. Your children will be taken from you or, even worse, forcefully vaccinated.

If unvaccinated and caught remaining inside the borders of North America and Europe you will be unable to ever leave, treated as a public health & safety risk and eventually removed from society into green zones known as quarantine camps or isolation centers, also called FEMA Camps

THE MAJOR INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES HAVE WEAPONIZED NEUROSCIENCE! COVID 19 IS A NEURO-WEAPON

It is a Neuro-Weapon to turn the world into a neuro-society, neuro-economy, etc. A Deadly White Rabbit used as a Eugenics Program to control and reduce the global population, using Climate Control and other forms of Missattribution, Disinformation & Misinformation to achieve their insidious goals.

Notice that the leak of CORONAVIRUS was synchronized with Chinese Lunar New Year. The largest mass movement migration of people in the world

The new 'novel' CORONAVIRUS is not a global pandemic at all. It was meticulously planned. A new form of neuro-warfare unleashed on the world under a secret United Nations protocol, using a viral delivery system which will rapidly infect the entire human race, which was quickly and unexplainably found in other countries where those infected had no direct or indirect connection to China at all

With rapid advances in Medicine, Chemistry, Engineering, and other disciplines, Neuroscience now includes the study of Cellular, Molecular, Structural, Functional and Evolutionary Development of the human body, including the mind and central nervous system

With molecular & cellular studies of individual nerve cells, Neuroscience is no longer just a field of medicine. It has crossed the threshold of medical science and is now a chief weapons platform used by the major intelligence agencies of the world

It is a controlled endemic which was meticulously planned. A new form of neuro-warfare unleashed on the world under a secret United Nations protocol, using a viral delivery system which will rapidly infect the entire human race. China was just the first stage of a global release of the virus, quickly and unexplainably found in other countries where those infected had no direct or indirect connection to China at all. cies of the world, who are seeking to transform the world into a multilateral neuro-society & neuro-economy to follow the carefully orchestrated collapse of the currency based system, which has already begun with new crypto currency exchanges rapidly developing between governments around the world

COVID-19 is a Biotech Engineered Viral Based Delivery System for new nanoparticulates that are naturally self-assembling and self-replicating allowing for an active and adaptive biological block-chain of self functioning - nanoscaffolding - neuro-tech that can easily, reproducibly, self modify in each newly infected host

Once infected the nanotechnology & biotechnology migrates through the blood stream to the brain and adheres to the neurotransmitters of the victims brain, allowing for the nanoparticles to speak to and decode those neurotransmitters through a process called transcranial brain stimulation achieved through the infrastructure of a global system of thousands of Exascale Supercomputers, already in place, using electromagnetic low frequency waves emitted from towers, satellites and mobile platforms. Enough to monitor the brain waves of every human being on Earth who is actively plugged into the system

COVID-19 was a secretly controlled global release of genetically engineered biotechnology using nanoparticulates as a basic strong-arm for the re-design and re-structure of the biological blood stock and DNA gene pool of the entire human race. That is why they so quickly found new cases of COVID-19 around the world that had no connection at all to China. These new cases of infections have been retroactively traced to people who never visited China and had no direct or indirect contact with anyone else who did

It is neuro-warfare being utilized as a viral scaffolding system so that each new host infected by COVID-19 provides a rapid multiplier for infection of other humans creating a global delivery system of nanoparticulates for the genetic re-engineering and new evolutionary development of mankind, from Human to Trans-Human; for the introduction of NEURO-REALITY to forcefully integrate humanity into a new cybernetic evolution of mankind for the global transformation of the human race by the re-engineering of global patterns of neuro-tech to turn the world into a multilateral neuro-society & neuro-economy culminating in a new One World Order

Did you see how fast the Chinese and other countries mapped out the genetic structure and DNA of COVID-19 so quickly for the purpose of identification of the virus and a potential vaccine to be developed?

In other words, the vaccine for COVID-19 already existed before the controlled release of the virus, at least for those 'good people' who work for and/or obey the Shadow Government and Deep State

NB:

[Copy/Paste Text Hack Forced to tap page three times to access copy/paste. Going on for years with many of my posts and emails. It is a tactic called ‘FILTERING’ which allows American Supercomputers to CONTROL ALL DISTRIBUTION & VISIBILITY OF CONTENT]

0 notes

songofproserpine · 6 years

Text

Mass Effect, mental illness, and healing.

I’m replaying the Shepard trilogy, and this has been bouncing around my thoughts lately.

So in Mass Effect 2, Miranda says that part of The Lazarus Project was the very specific order of recreating Shepard exactly as they were, no exceptions. This includes their personality, their memories, etc. Ignoring questions like ‘how do you reconstruct someone’s mental structure, store it in a computer, and then transfer it to a mind you hope to make sentient,’ this leads me to the more interesting question of (1) does future technology and medical science in the Mass Effect universe have the ability to map brain chemistry to the point of knowing how one’s individual mind functions; and (2) what does this mean for mental illnesses?

While it’s highly unlikely that Shepard could have served if they had a serious mental illness prior to their service, it’s all but flat out said in the opening lines of Mass Effect 1 that Shepard has serious emotional scars. I.E., Shepard at the very least had a PTSD diagnosis depending on what military background you chose for them. And while PTSD is treatable through medication and therapy, it doesn’t seem to have barred Shepard from continuing their service in the Alliance. If anything, Shepard only advanced further, becoming the Normandy’s commander and eventual commanding officer once Anderson stepped down.

I will allow Bioware some dramatic license for this story, and Shepard is also constantly considered a person with “a remarkably strong will,” which means they can endure pain and hardships beyond what most would find tolerable. But just because someone has a “strong will” doesn’t mean they aren’t affected by pain and trauma--they could just keep it all inside and suffer quietly, which Shepard seems to do.

Much like a post I made about Fallout 4 and Nick Valentine’s human form (and how the pre-Institute MIT folks mapped out his brain prior to his death, and simply used that data to make synth Nick’s mind), what we have here is yet another case of someone being created (or resurrected) with a mental map that included mental illness... and that mental illness being programmed in. It wasn’t removed. It wasn’t treated as a flaw to eliminate. It was an integral part of that person’s mind and identity.

With Shepard, this is likely because of Miranda’s orders: Shepard had to be the exact same, no exceptions. But with Nick Valentine, I consider this especially brutal and unfair, because synth Nick wanted so very much to put human Nick’s memories and ghosts to rest. He wanted to build a life and live that life separate from the man he was built from. And this choice of his, while noble and fully valid, was made all the more difficult for him to do because of human Nick’s PTSD and survivor’s guilt being transferred over.

Make no mistake: I’m not saying The Lazarus Project should have eliminated any/all of Shepard’s lingering mental trauma, nor am I saying the Institute should have done something different (it’s very likely that they couldn’t, or just didn’t think it would matter). I myself have been diagnosed with PTSD--that’s why I’m so fascinated by the presence (or lack thereof) of mental illnesses in the video games I play, which are largely RPGs in scenarios where mental health and treatment are either nonexistent (Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls, Soulsborne), or very seldom remarked upon (Mass Effect, Fallout) unless it’s for a specific quest. What I am saying is that I wonder what this says to us who have mental illnesses, no matter what they are, and how we can use this narrative choice in video games as a way to change our perspective about these illnesses and the part they play in our identities?

My psychiatrist and I have weekly therapy sessions as part of my Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Very recently, we ended a session with a question that we’ll explore in later sessions: is it possible to practice acceptance and active healing at the same time? Acceptance in this scenario means acknowledging that while my situation and illnesses are not fair, that’s also what they are. I do not like that my life is so brutally sidetracked far too often by symptoms of my illnesses, or by the very existence of the illness itself. But that’s my life.

I wasted an entire decade of my life (all of my 20s) mourning and hating and being brutally ashamed that this was my lot in life, that it wasn’t fair, that I couldn’t be expected to endure all that my illnesses demanded of me on top of the normal things life asks of us all--but none of that thinking got me anywhere. It didn’t make me feel stronger, it didn’t encourage me, it didn’t offer answers or hope or anything useful in the slightest. If anything, it made me worse, to the point where my body was then literally wasting away and destroying itself because of my anxiety by the time I was 29. But I digress.

Back to the question and, eventually, Mass Effect and Commander Shepard. Acceptance of mental illnesses and living with them simply means you look your life square in the face and you accept it--you don’t judge it, you don’t question it, you don’t wonder how it could have been different. It’s not different. It’s your life--period. And it’s yours. That alone should make you want to cherish it. It might be hard, it might be frightening, it might be lonely and all other kinds of things--but it’s yours. No one else’s. And your life, and most especially your illnesses, needs your love.

We care for wounds without questioning why they dare hurt in the first place. We just tend to what hurts and wait until it heals. Why should we do any less to ourselves and our illnesses? That’s acceptance.

The second part--active healing--is trickier, and slower, and far more intricate a process than acceptance. It also requires you return to step one (acceptance) almost every single day. Or, if you’re like me, and have a mood disorder, every hour of every day, for the rest of your life--period. But all active healing really is, in the end, is looking at why acceptance was so hard for you and filling that in with love and care.

Active healing means you tend to your wounds. You get out of bed. You brush your teeth. You shower. You make food. You do chores. You go for a walk. You take your medication. You call your doctor if you feel like you need help outside of your appointments. You remove habits that no longer serve you in healthy, useful ways. You indulge in things you like to comfort yourself when you’re feeling down. You realize that you might need more time to do things, but that extra time doesn’t diminish the importance of what you do. You’re healing. You’re on the mend. You will always be recovering and repairing. This doesn’t have to be shameful or exhausting (even though it can be--but then you start back from acceptance and slowly work yourself back up). It just is.

Which, finally, returns me to Mass Effect 2, The Lazarus Project, and a resurrected Commander Shepard who has their military background include a deep emotional scar added into the mix of the very current emotional scar of having died in space. Jacob tells you that you were “just meat and tubes” the first time he saw you. You weren’t a corpse--you were pieces of a corpse. And you were remade from every atom--including your illnesses. Including your wounds, private hurts that only you ever felt or knew about.

How would this make you feel?

How would you feel about this life, this second pass through the universe, this mulligan on oblivion that pulled you back to this ol’ mortal coil? Angry, undoubtedly. It’s why renegade Shepard in Mass Effect 2 is something of a raging vicious psychopath--but I can’t quite blame them. not really.

Remember the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? When Buffy finally lets slip that she wasn’t in hell, suffering--she was in some kind of heaven? She was happy. She was at peace. And her friend dragged her soul back to its body, forcing her to dig her own way out of her grave, back to life, before she suffocated and died once again. She got her life back, but was never asked if she wanted it back.

That’s Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 2. That’s baseline commander shepard in Mass Effect 2.

Now imagine a mentally ill Shepard having to bear this burden. I’m not questioning whether or not Shepard could endure it (you’ve probably played the trilogy--you know the answer to that question). I’m simply asking you to imagine it. Imagine a marine of whom the galaxy, the entire galaxy, demanded everything. Every thankless task, every brutal mission, every hard choice, every life-altering, life-threatening, life-shortening thing possible under every sun. Imagine a marine lying in a pool of their own blood being told, “it didn’t work,” and their response is, “what do you need me to do?”

What do you need me to do? That, my friends, is the central question of acceptance and active healing. What do you need me to do? Ask your illnesses this when times are tough, or even when times are good. What do you need me to do? Maybe your brain wants to trick you every now and then. Slips in an invasive thought, or a self-destructive demand. Maybe it tries to sell you on a suspicion, building up to full-scale paranoia. These are not things you should feed into; they aren’t actions you should take. More pain will not serve you. Hurting yourself in any way is not the answer to an already existing pain.

Acceptance. Active healing. What do you need me to do? Assess your damage, know that pain will always be integral to your existence, but is by no means the only thing that defines it, and figure out how to respond to it.

Instead of looking at your traumas, your symptoms, your triggers, your anythings as flaws, as failures, as setbacks, as things to hate and be ashamed of, look at it as a part of you in need of care, and ask, What do you need me to do?

And remember this last piece of advice: be kind. Because even after destruction, Commander Shepard took just one more breath--one more small gasp of life. And sometimes that’s all you can ask of yourself: just one more breath. And then another. And another. This is probably the hardest lesson anyone with an illness will ever have to learn: you are healing. You will always be healing. You will always have to take just one more breath. Because that’s what you need to do for you. No one else.

So breathe.

#mass effect #mental illness #borderline personality disorder #ptsd #nick valentine #fallout 4

170 notes · View notes

behindthebridgeblog · 6 years

Text

The Young Brain: Tone and Dynamics

By Julie Lyonn Lieberman, Artistic Director, Strings Without Boundaries.

Brought to you by the new Ascentè Violin Strings

Young students’ brains struggle to organize a relatively blank mental canvas to master and record a number of complex processes. Meanwhile, musical components like tone and dynamics often take a back seat to these core essentials.

Researchers define the brain’s ability to learn as limited to a specific number of units of attention. For instance, the conscious brain can only process 15 - 50 bits / second whereas the sensory system can process 11 million bits / second. That’s a ratio of 1 to 200,000 and explains why kinesthetically oriented tools that help maintain form in each hand are so successful.

Brain research also states that it takes three hours of repetition for the motor cortex to lock in a new movement pattern and two new patterns learned simultaneously can dilute this process and add minutes and even hours, weeks, or months to each undertaking.

Let’s look at our opening statement more closely in this context. Classroom learning encourages children to turn off sensory feedback and think in a left-brain, linear, sequential modality. During a music lesson, the child must switch cognitive processes in order to receive sufficient sensory feedback required to maintain correct form while simultaneously juggling tuning issues, sense memory, and the translation of symbols on a page into muscle moves. Even a straightforward task, like mastering a G major scale, demands right-brain thinking (mapping spatial relationships) and auditory memory (locking in the sound of the scale), as both motor cortices pump extremely different streams of information to the right and left hands. All this while trying to retain new rhythmic information. Most pedagogical systems, even before we understood the workings of the brain to the extent we now do, have wisely built skills in step-by-step single-focus routines to accommodate these complex processes.

Unfortunately, if tone and dynamics are left out of the early learning picture, they can tend to be ignored or added as peripheral and often mechanical skill later on. Those of you who’ve served as judges in your state juries know how we want to jump up and dance and break out the champagne when, after hearing a dozen-plus kids play the same scale, arpeggio and piece of music, one of them actually plays musically rather than just physically correctly.

Here are some fun approaches to tone and dynamics that won’t tax your student’s brains even further.

Photograph by Carey Weiss

Tone

Aside from the obvious — good form in the bow hand coupled with controlled bow motion across the strings—students have no preexisting criteria to compare or even understand the difference between a coarse or nasal sound versus a pleasing one. The shortage of decent-sounding fractional-sized instruments compounds this problem. And, as stated above, students are often too fixed on brain-to-muscle response and pitch to contend with such a complex issue.

There are several approaches you can use to help students focus on tone:

Use Gear. A microphone or a solid-body (electric) violin coupled with a mixer or preamp and an amp can come in handy to assist them. In all three cases, these components offer knobs that can control the amount of bass, mid-range, and treble that cooperatively generate the final tone coming through the amp. Nowadays, this equipment isn’t too expensive or can be bought used on Ebay. To learn more about these pieces of equipment, you can read "Get the Best Tone on Your Electric" on my NS Design blog “Lyonn’s Roar.” This issue includes an interview with D’Addario’s Fan Tao about how to choose strings. It can be a fun game for your students since they live in a world of technology. Invite volunteers to adjust the knobs and turn this exercise into a guessing game: Did Talitha boost the treble or the bass? How much does Sam need to turn up the midrange—2:00? 5:00? 9:45?—before it sounds too bright? What adjectives would the class use to describe the different sounds they hear?

Use Recordings. If you don’t have a budget to buy this equipment, try compiling snippets from various recordings of the same piece of music and invite them to describe the difference in tone between five cellists, violists, or violinists. Or play the same piece of music (preferably one they are presently learning) on several different instruments and ask them to describe the difference between the instruments.

Use Strings. Of course, the right set of strings can elevate a substandard instrument considerably. If your program can’t afford full sets of strings to use for ear training, try buying A strings from three or four different companies so that students can hear the difference on the same instrument. You might throw an old, dead string into the mix. This exercise provides an opportunity to teach them adjectives like shrill, nasal, bright, dark—or whatever other words you would like them to link to sound production—but you can also elicit descriptive words that include colors, feelings, and any other categories you can think of in addition.

Dynamics

We rely on markings on a page to convey the complex range of emotions a more advanced artist is able to incorporate into his or her performance. The range from pianissimo to double forte all too often doesn’t translate into expressive performance, so many string players never make that leap as they mature. Their dynamics sound correct but slightly mechanical.

I began to incorporate the use of imagery in the early 1980s while working on my book, You Are Your Instrument, to help alter mind-to-muscle response as a tool for dealing with unwanted side-effects from the chemistry of nervousness. I was delighted to discover a surprise benefit: greater expressiveness on the part of workshop participants in sessions nationwide. Images can be restricted to the five senses or extend beyond. As a warm-up, challenge students to play a simple phrase or open strings while seeing a specific color in their mind’s eye, smelling a particular scent, pretending they are standing in a pool of cold or hot water, walking in the rain, or any other range of images you care to experiment with.

Then you can experiment with images for either hand:

Imagine your right hand is a piece of flexible rubber

Pretend your left-hand fingers are bouncing on a trampoline

Envision standing barefoot in warm mud while the hair on your head reaches straight up to touch the sky

And so on. Once your students are warmed up, you can invite them to play a piece of music with images embedded into certain phrases. For instance:

Make measure 2 sound like a flock of birds taking off in flight

Start measure 4 as if it’s a train that’s coming around the bend and as you approach the end of the measure, the train will arrive and then head off into the distance

Make the final four measures sound like you can’t wait to get to the playground, etc.

Invite your students to invent images they think appropriate to certain phrases in whatever songs you’re currently rehearsing. You can also invite a number of volunteers to play the piece solo while focused on an image of his or her choosing and see if the class can guess correctly. For instance, a student might choose to focus on tasting lemon while playing, and, based on the experiments I’ve run, you’ll be delighted to find that many students will guess “tart,” “tangy,” “lime,” and other taste sensations that are very close to lemon.

Have you tried any of these techniques? Let us know! Stay in touch through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. We love to see teachers and students achieving their goals.

7 notes · View notes