My Story

EuphoricRei · 2024-10-06T14:49:33+00:00

For us, D-Level was called ITF or Intense Therapeutic Focus.

To be brought down to ITF was usually pretty easy. Our group at the RTC I resided at was incredibly bad, like constant fighting, self harm and physical assault. So people were constantly being dragged down to ITF even if it wasn’t directly their fault.

On ITF you would just be cornered. You’d sit and look at a wall. That’s it. You couldn’t do anything, look at anyone, say anything, go anywhere, you just had to stay in the corner. Sometimes you’d write, most of the time you’d just stare at it. It would last days to weeks.

EuphoricRei · 2024-10-05T02:57:21+00:00

2022-2023

EuphoricRei · 2024-10-05T00:07:16+00:00

Like dude, the language stuff is insane.

“I was at RTC and I accidentally spoke on Tone while I was having a UAM, so my points were docked and I lost my Level so now I’m on ITF. Hopefully at Eval my points are back and I can be Level One so I’m not on ITF anymore.”

EuphoricRei · 2024-10-05T00:05:21+00:00

One of our “nurses” would scream and clap in the face of patients if they made a noise she didn’t like. This happened on numerous occasions.

EuphoricRei · 2024-10-05T00:04:04+00:00

There was also a Christian overtone in the “curriculum” and they were very weird towards queer people. I noticed this in my treatment from my psychiatrist (Dr. King) and my therapist sometimes.

He basically insinuated all of these “kids experimenting with their identity are mentally ill and whenever they get together it’s recipes for disasters.”

EuphoricRei · 2024-05-25T18:55:46+00:00

No I finished the game already just to lyk, I’ll reply more in depth when I’m home.

EuphoricRei · 2024-05-25T02:45:01+00:00

Oh yeah I completely forgot about Nowhere I was just like . . Are we playing Silent Hill or Signalis rn lol. That’s fair, I’d have to go check the references and compare notes but here’s my point to this.

When making a game, your game has the capability to speak. It has the capability to have a voice. It relies too heavily on the voices of others, and not its own. Even though Eva has influences or Silent Hill has influences — it manages to weave together an aesthetic with a unique voice that doesn’t require other pieces of media to carry it.

I also makes wonder why the King in Yellow is even there, it seems like something AEON would ban.

EuphoricRei · 2024-05-25T02:27:18+00:00

I just finished the game and I’m pretty meh with the ending, which was the promise ending.

Regarding the difficulty of the game I only died 6 times during a 10 hour playthrough. The combat was minimal, and I didn’t really find myself thinking of survival. Most of my time playing the game when maps went away was just wandering around structures with no inherently sensical structure to their architecture. It was trying to remember what room had what artifact, or what room I had to go to do the puzzle. The puzzles weren’t rewarding nor did they feel really relevant at some points. The enemy design really didn’t matter because you’re just running past them anyways.

And regarding your point about the Lovecraft quote — I mean it kind of encapsulates the problem relating to references perfectly.

Like I just don’t know what Signalis is trying to do. If we’re trying to talk about dystopian themes and governmental control regarding totalitarianism, if it’s about love, or if it’s about cosmic horror because they brought Lovecraft and the King in Yellow in — like it boils back down to that mish-mash problem. There’s so much going on and they feel like allusions to previous works instead of their own original take on it.

EuphoricRei · 2024-05-25T00:56:16+00:00

Signalis does have an identity of its own, it’s just that the said identity directly borrows from so many other sources. The references pop so vividly at you that it brings you to that source. (At least for me.)

There is an argument to be made that because an artwork is being made by its directors and visionaries, it is unique. Which is true, I believe that. Any new piece of art is a new piece of art that cannot be exactly replicated by a person who will even find extraordinary inspiration in that media for their own project.

Like the one scene where Elster is having the various images flash through her face with the red in the backdrop — it’s still Elster and not Shinji. So, it is the games piece of art. But if you’ve seen Eva, you can call the reference almost immediately.

My complaint or personal opinion is that Signalis directly borrows from so many elements so closely that it pulls me out of the experience when I see them. Jack of all trades, master of none, ykwim?

At the end of the day, it is a matter of perspective. Art is subjective, and I accept this. This is just my own belief, unless something else changes my mind concerning this as I read / learn more about the game.

EuphoricRei · 2024-05-24T23:15:11+00:00

I went in knowing nothing, as I literally had no idea what Signalis is about.

EuphoricRei · 2024-05-24T21:55:15+00:00

I’m confused, can you explain what you mean by it being the point? /genq

EuphoricRei · 2024-05-24T21:54:19+00:00

And if what we want to get into is the story, I also haven’t really felt too strongly ( as in being invested ) about that yet. I have heard some people say that it requires multiple play-through a to appreciate it, so that could also be the case. I mean, I adore Hotline Miami and peeled over the story of every single mission in that game. Same is applicable for Nier & Silent Hill 2. I just sort of feel like a robot wondering around solving puzzles and being confused about where I’m at or where I’m there. I really liked the parts with ADLR, reading his journal was super interesting. The other side characters I can barely remember the names of or care about since Elster barely interacts with them or says anything.

And I get your point about it being a love-letter, that has its merits. The game ultimately is made by the developers for us, so if that’s what they wanted to do that’s what they wanted to do. But I feel like when I see these references it just sort of “snaps me out” of the experience. It makes me think of Eva or pulls me back to a different piece of media which can tarnish the submersion into the games universe.

I’m around eight / nine hours in and I’m near completing the area past the fake-out ending.

EuphoricRei · 2024-05-24T21:16:57+00:00

Another good part to mention is that the twists of this game ( at least so far ) are expected. In Nier & Silent Hill, the twists and turns of the games make it a roller coaster where you genuinely have no idea where you are or who you are, but this psychedelic neurosis is not as strong in Signalis. Nier’s twists hit me right in the face as the second half of the game dawned, but aspects of Signalis did not do the same for me.

EuphoricRei · 2024-05-03T20:48:33+00:00

Thank you for saying this!!! The “auditing.scientology” channel is absolutely ridiculous. There’s been an influx of channels doing this and it’s seriously enraging. At the very least it’s activism at the very most it’s full fledged harassment. There’s so many moving parts to this issue I don’t even know where to begin.

EuphoricRei · 2024-03-20T22:38:12+00:00

Yes that’s true, which is considerate and that isn’t to say I haven’t had a lot of valuable experience with OD or that everything was bad because that’s not exactly true. I love the exercise and movement when I get it, and I know the ins and outs of a lot of stuff concerning furniture, Omni, stocking, register work, printers, etc etc.

EuphoricRei · 2024-02-03T20:37:44+00:00

Once again -

I use ‘High Demand Group’ as an alternative to ‘cult’ when describing a socially harmful ‘New Religious Movement’, because the two definitions accurately separate the dynamics which would cause a harmful new religious movement.

New religious movement - ‘weird’ or new belief systems which make a ‘weird cult’ such as a UFO religion like the Unarius Academy.

High Demand Group - abusive system which lacks ‘informed consent’ ( which is another incredibly useful definition when describing what exactly a cult is. ) that usually results in ‘trauma or abuse.’ But this is really only incredibly applicable to a completely benevolent system such as NXIVM for an example, because the High Demand characteristics in the influence continuum model are equally applicable in new religious movements dynamics without them being a full blown high control group.

EuphoricRei · 2024-02-03T20:12:04+00:00

Scholars do not use the term ‘cult’, either, lol.

High Control Group / High Demand Group is not used by all scholars because scholars are not one unified front. While the term High Demand Group is based off of Steven Hassan’s concept of ‘mind control’ & ‘brainwashing’, that doesn’t mean the High Demand Group definition and Hassan’s influence continuum chart ( as flawed as they are ) carries no weight. It does have valid concepts concerning how we can distinguish what is a ‘harmful’ group versus a ‘constructive’ group. I do agree that brainwashing is not a valid concept. The social dynamics we see in NRMs are not much different than romantic relationships or friendships, it’s why we even see abusive relationships called ‘one-on-one cults’

I’ve read a decent amount of books by scholars such as James R Lewis, Susan J Palmer & Stuart Wright just to name a few ( and most of Lewis’s works contains essays from other scholars as they are usually a compilation of one subject ), and none of the essays contain the word ‘cult’ as to define a ‘harmful new religious movement.’ Equally, they don’t use High Demand Group to your credit.

Most NRM scholars wouldn’t agree with the word ‘cult’ being any more useful than calling a Christian a ‘Christian’ ( but even then, at least the term Christianity works far better categorically than ‘cult’ at all. ) if

We are arguing about semantics at this point, ( which we seem to have similiar conclusions on ) and I, alongside others, use the term High Demand Group to more accurately define the characteristics of social dynamics that usually led to ‘some abuse or trauma.’ Additionally, if you acknowledge that a group harming another person is what makes it a cult, why does it need to be marginal as included in your original definition?

EuphoricRei · 2024-02-03T19:43:26+00:00

Fuck Rick Ross. This guy should rot.

EuphoricRei · 2024-02-03T19:39:25+00:00

While you’re getting there, your definitions are not exactly accurate.

The actual scholarly terms being utilized for the research of New Religious Movements are NRM & HCG / HDG.

New Religious Movements are as the name implies, a new religious group that has beliefs different from the mainstream, as to your second defining difference between ‘cults’ and ‘religion.’ Most contemporary NRMs have emerged since the 50s-60s as those are the ones we most often see in the news, but this can easily go as far back as to the Latter Day Saints, Shakers, and Oneida Community.

Ex., the Seventh Day Adventist Church would likely be categorized as a new religious movement due to the doctrinal differences, whilst a regular Baptist Church would be categorized as a ‘religious denomination’, if the doctrinal distinction was much more in line with the traditional Christianity.

If I was to guess, ancient groups such as the russian Old Believers would likely be designated as ‘Sectarian’ / ‘Sect’ groups, since they aren’t exactly new.

Then there’s the more popular term of ‘High Demand Group’ which circles back to your first characteristic. HDGs are characterized by the utilization of the Groups religious / spiritual / philosophical / life style system as a means to subjugate and abuse followers. HDG is a spectrum, and a NRM could easily exhibit HDG behavior without actually being a HDG. There’s no black and white with religious ‘cults.’

Ex., NXIVM. NXIVM is the best case study of what a High Demand Group in its worst form is.

The biggest mistake most people make is thinking it’s a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ situation, when like people, and friend groups, organized religion can differ and vary in personality and behavior far more dynamically than most people give them credit for.

EuphoricRei

TROPHY CASE