I have been really melancholy lately about wanting to go back to some kind of ocean/water environment and be my pseudorca self indefinitely. When my life gets stressful, burying myself underwater becomes that much more appealing.
I was able to go swimming again recently but I was struck again by just how hard it was for me. Just a few meters of energetic underwater swimming and I was having heart palpitations. I had to cling onto the edge of the pool and catch my breath for a few minutes. It’s so awful. I can remember so clearly being able to swim like it was second nature, even in this body, and now that is gone and I don’t know if and when I’ll get it back.
Thoughts about Sanders Sides I want to share, feel free to add onto them! If you make art or fics based on any of these please tag me I’d love to see it! Keep in mind some of these theories are going to be outdated.
Thoughts From the Playlists
What Virgil’s playlist may tell us about his past
Depressed Patton as derived from his songs
Logan angst in Art is Dead
Sunrise, Sunset is about Anxiety
A Thought From Janus’ Playlist
Periodic Table Song
Turnaround From Patton’s Playlist was for Logan?
Theories From Episodes
Roman Angst
Logan Angst
Logan’s Notebook
The Angst Potential in Logan’s Notebook
Virgil Not Being in You vs Yourself
Logan Wasn’t Deceit the Entirety of You vs Yourself
Virgil Lied About His Name
How Deceit Tried Using Virgil to sway the Court Case
How Nico Will Help c!Thomas Grow
Future Episodes With Nico Flores
Coincidental Foreshadowing
Explaining Relationships
A Reason Why Virgil May Hate Deceit
Strain in Patton and Virgil’s Relationship
Expanding on Patton and Virgil’s Strained Relationship
Misc.
Reasons for the Physical Attributed of the Dark Sides
Orange Side Theory
More Orange Sides Theories
Sides Getting a Hint About Orange in YvY
Is That You Orange?
Virgil got sparkly eyeshadow Logan needs a galaxy tie
Remus’ morally grey statement is a subtle intrusive thought
Virgil Mistaking Compliments for Insults
Patton’s Sweater
Bravery
Logan Food for Fanfic Thought
Virgil’s Trust Food for Fanfic Thought
Food For Fanfic Thought Doing Nails
Remus is a Mad Scientist
A Thought Surrounding Parallels That Can be Drawn Between the Dark Sides and Lying
I did not get to transform last night or this morning. Unsurprising, but I thought I’d talk about what it feels like when I have a “failed” shift.
It hurts, for one. I wake up and at first everything feels fuzzy like I am going to get a transformation, but then something happens that stops the process and my body starts “ringing” almost like a bell when it’s been struck. I don’t exactly know how to describe that sensation except that it’s kind of like vertigo except the oscillations are very very fast and they feel contained to my body instead of the room around me.
My arms seem to be the things that transform the easiest/fastest and so when the shift goes wrong, they feel it the most.
When the ringing dies down, which it usually does in just a minute or two, I get an ebbing or draining feeling. This is usually when my heart starts racing as I become properly “awake” and also when my arms start aching. It (the pain) often begins in my hands and then spreads all the way to my shoulders. It’s not a joint pain, surprisingly. It’s like the bones themselves are sore, as if they had to snap back to their “human” shape too quickly. The pain will last several minutes up to an hour, and often my hands feel strange and difficult to move for quite some time.
I know the whole thing is a function of my hypnagogic/hypnapompic hallucinations but I do find it strange that the pain sticks around even after I am very awake. I have a lot of chronic pains because of my illness, but I only ever get this kind of ache after a shift.
Preceding a transformation, my arms and whatever other body parts affected usually go completely numb. I wonder if the numbness is to circumvent the perceived pain of transforming, and when the change “fails” there isn’t time for the numbing so I have to feel the beginnings of it revert.
Went swimming for the first time in about a year today.
I used to swim a lot, as in very nearly every day. I was a synchronized swimmer, and then I raced competitively. By now, though, it’s been so long, and most of my fitness has been eroded away by my illness, so swimming is not nearly as free and easy as it used to be. I miss the ease, and I think the fact that I can feel the limits and degradation of my body has stopped me from trying to get back to it. I used to feel like I could swim forever without taking a breath, and now I’m coughing and hacking for air after a few meters.
In spite of that, though, today was really nice. I swam in a spring so there was no chlorine sting when I opened my eyes under water (I hate goggles), and everything—the water, the air—was the perfect temperature. If it wasn’t a bit of a haul over there I’d probably try to go back every week.
I’m not really in any shape for it anymore, but I think I want to try and work back up to swimming with a monofin, even if that means braving the gym pool and the chlorine a lot more often. I’ve wanted to swim with one since I was little, but I was rarely ever free swimming then. Now I can do what I want and I think it would be really nice and affirming.
Have not been able to transform for quite some time now and it is very frustrating. I’ve been very stressed, so no surprise but I wish my body would let me get to feel it since it’s really stress-relieving.
Sometimes I seem to have the ability to conjure or at least guide the hypnagogic hallucinations, but it’s unpredictable. I guess my body needs the sleep more than anything right now so I just conk out before I get to feel anything or transform.
I was dealing with a migraine on and off for a few weeks that I think has finally cleared up, so here’s hoping I get to transform soon.
Did not sleep well last night, which is not entirely uncommon, but there was a silver lining for me this time.
Normally my transformations (I call them that because that’s how they feel. Slow, methodical, incremental) happen as I’m falling asleep. They are sometimes fragile, sometimes persistent, but rarely particularly vivid outside of hypnagogia. Sometimes I can try as hard as I like to try to trigger them and I’ll just fall asleep like a rock with no change. They occasionally happen upon waking (hypnapompia), but are usually not nearly as clear.
Well, last night at least during one of my many wakeups, I had as vivid of a transformation as I’ve managed in months. It was a little disconcerting at first. My hands and fingers were fused like flippers (this is a common part of the shifts) but strangely, I could feel all my pseudorca teeth. I haven’t experienced my teeth changing around before but the sensation was extremely clear.
Eventually as I rolled around I returned to “normal” but it was still quite nice. Usually upon waking my heart races and I have a crashing adrenaline rush for a few minutes, but I guess I was still asleep enough in my transformation that my body didn’t trigger the panic. It was very nice. Like floating around.
Maybe I’m in a bad brain space but I think being in a tank would be very soothing. Everything would be accounted for. I’d get food dropped in my mouth, I’d get praise, I’d get vet care. The walls would be known quantities for all my life.
I glimpsed through a study that suggested pseudorcas had better welfare outcomes in captivity than some other delphinidae (not the exact wording, but that was just gist) and maybe that holds true for me too.
Very frustrating trying to find images of pseudorcas and they are almost all unidentified and unsourced. Especially vintage photos or anything of captive pseudorcas. I want to catalogue them here because it’s so rare I see anyone discussing pseudorcas in marine parks, but I don’t want to repost images uncredited and without even a name for the animal in them when I know they had one :<
