u/Some_Patient_6403

So I have an oldddd ass account that I really just don't have much use for anymore? My own screwing around when I was 17 and not taking the game seriously got me blacklisted from the biggest corps at the time, and at 21 years old now, that kinda makes the game pretty shit to play these days.

Additionally, my character sheet is really not well defined or focused. So, my intent was to gather all my assets on my old account and just transfer them to a new account so that I can get it suped up and ready to go into what I actually want to focus on for now (gas mining) and then have a bit of a fallback.

Aka, I am leaning towards a fresh start and just suping myself up with skill extractors because I already have the skill and experience from the past, but with a new approach and potentially more real experience because I wouldn't be starting off uber wealthy.

My intent is to just give me enough to get started on the path I already enjoy being on, while also actually needing to earn things as I go. I just want to skip the "tutorial phase" of just grinding missions just so I can get enough to do what I already know I enjoy doing.

Just looking for feedback and input, please let me know what you feel is the best option between starting over and just continuing on with what I already have.

So, I am struggling to understand the near dreaming.

From what I have heard it described as, it's just a more fantastical version of things that are in reality, but from everything I have seen so far, I do not remotely understand how it is possible, even in the context of the game.

How does it WORK?

My best guess is that you can enter freeholds akin to a pocket dimension, and then when you want to exit them, you "pop out of them"

Kind of like a magic closet, like Narnia. It's entirely innocuous to Autumn People, but Changelings can basically use any mundane entrance or method of disappearing as an entrance to a freehold, and then when you are IN the Freehold or Near Dreaming, only things like extremely high banality or leaving return you to the Autumn World, with the side effect being that it is MUCH EASIER TO DO compared to the Deep Dreaming and that you don't develop Bedlam.

Or is it literally just play pretend?

When I drink a huge mug of ale in an old brewery, that is in fact a massive brewing hall with dozens of floors and hundreds of flavors of ale, filled by several Glome or Crofted and other changelings and Chimerical creatures, is it actually just me drinking piss in the bottom of a massive old rusted barrel?

how does this work my guy

What actually IS social processing in the Technocracy?

Is it brainwashing and mental torture, or can it be something as simple as just being critiqued or dressed down by a supervisor and being told to get back in line with things?

Could it be something entirely non-violent in the form of just...having a meeting with an agent?

What is it and how do you depict it?

I saw somebody mentioning that you need to eventually find who you are intimately; as in, who you personally know yourself to be.

If you don't, you end up taking on and absorbing the incredibly conflicting and unstable opinions of every other person around you about who you are.

This is pretty much the exact thing that has happened to me; I was never able to grow or figure out who I was, I always had to be whoever someone needed me to be in the moment growing up, and didn't get to actually individuate.

So, now, I am incredibly unstable and swing wildly between thoughts and opinions of myself, because effectively none of them are actually MINE.

They're just what I've taken in and accepted as other people have told me their impression of me.

The issue is that I consider myself worthless, ungrateful, intensely underwhelming and a failure, despite the fact that I know, objectively, this isn't really likely to be true.

How do I figure out who I am, stop being unstable in the process, and not detest whatever it is I find?

I want to point out that I'm aware that is kind of the point

I just find it more and more funny the more I read about them.

They don't trust anybody and assert the one truth is evil in some cases, but they do not remotely question the entities telling them this.

They are of course USING those entities actually, they're the ones using THEM, and its just all part of a scheme to take the dark one's power!

Except that's what they want you to think

Ahhhh clearly as you can see evil is the truth of the world! Except for the fact that it...is inherently less effective than trust and collaboration.

EXCEPT THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK

Ahhhh but you see they have corrupted and CLAIMED the underlings which so loyally serve them! Except they betray themselves and others more often than it rains in the Amazon. So, clearly that doesn't work out.

EXCEPT THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK-

Yeah I'm pretty sure you get the point by now.

I feel like the Nephandi are great because they speak to a part of a lot of people growing up that went through a phase exactly like that.

Where they were an angsty, angry and depressed teenager that believes love is fake and goodness is weakness and only hatred and power are meaningful pursuits and blah blah blah before we all learned to take a fuckin chill pill.

I understand there's the obvious of the characters rolling attacks and things like firearms or brawl against each other; I mean how do they *magickally* fight each other, from a mechanical stand point in the game?

Do they have a battle of wills or something? Like a domain expansion (I hate that this is the example that comes to mind) where one paradigm has to overpower the other?

Is it kind of like they have seen behind the curtain and know how the magician does his tricks, and now everything they see is informed by what is actually happening?

It seems like they should be able to recreate sorcerous effects that they already knew without paradox. Was it mainly just a balancing decision?

I want to love my family. I really, really wish that I could. I wanna be able to hug my dad and actually feel someone that cares for me and loves me hugging me. I wish I could cry for my mama. I wish I could get a hug from my mama, and not worry about if she was going to grope me or get tired of it. I wish I could talk to my sister and it not end in us cussing each other. I just want my dad to be the way he was when I was growing up.

I wish I could call for my Mama and actually feel safe doing it. I wish my sister and I could be friends. I just want my family. I just wish I could want my family. I just want to be ok again. I just want to be ok. I just want to be able to hug my dad, and have fun again. I wanna be able to train with him and talk with him and go to the store together.

I wish my mama wasn't the living falseness that she was. I wish my sister and I could play games the way we used to play. I'm so sad, and I'm scared, and I wish this was just a bad dream. I just want this all to be a bad dream. I feel like a little kid again. I wish I still I don't want this to be the way it is anymore, but I can't go back. I can never go back.

I (m21) just wanna be able to play with my dad and have fun and be around a mama that loves me and cares about me. I just wanna be with my family again, when we were happy. When things were ok. But then, things may never have been ok. I think this is the saddest that I have ever felt.

I miss my dad. I wanna play with my dad and train and talk and wish I could literally talk to any of them at all. I just want my family to be my family again.

This is the hardest I have ever cried. I can't talk anymore. I can't even cry anymore.

I haven't cried like this in years.

I don't think I've ever cried like this.

if you have advice or really anything, or if you've experienced similar, please tell me.

I (m21) want to love my family. I really, really wish that I could. I wanna be able to hug my dad and actually feel someone that cares for me and loves me hugging me. I wish I could cry for my mama. I wish I could get a hug from my mama, and not worry about if she was going to grope me or get tired of it. I wish I could talk to my sister and it not end in us cussing each other. I just want my dad to be the way he was when I was growing up.

I wish I could call for my Mama and actually feel safe doing it. I wish my sister and I could be friends. I just want my family. I just wish I could want my family. I just want to be ok again. I just want to be ok. I just want to be able to hug my dad, and have fun again. I wanna be able to train with him and talk with him and go to the store together.

I wish my mama wasn't the living falseness that she was. I wish my sister and I could play games the way we used to play. I'm so sad, and I'm scared, and I wish this was just a bad dream. I just want this all to be a bad dream. I feel like a little kid again. I wish I still I don't want this to be the way it is anymore, but I can't go back. I can never go back.

I just wanna be able to play with my dad and have fun and be around a mama that loves me and cares about me. I just wanna be with my family again, when we were happy. When things were ok. But then, things may never have been ok. I think this is the saddest that I have ever felt.

I miss my dad. I wanna play with my dad and train and talk and wish I could literally talk to any of them at all. I just want my family to be my family again.

This is the hardest I have ever cried. I can't talk anymore. I can't even cry anymore.

I haven't cried like this in years.

I don't think I've ever cried like this.

I (m21) want to love my family. I really, really wish that I could. I wanna be able to hug my dad and actually feel someone that cares for me and loves me hugging me. I wish I could cry for my mama. I wish I could get a hug from my mama, and not worry about if she was going to grope me or get tired of it. I wish I could talk to my sister and it not end in us cussing each other. I just want my dad to be the way he was when I was growing up.

I wish I could call for my Mama and actually feel safe doing it. I wish my sister and I could be friends. I just want my family. I just wish I could want my family. I just want to be ok again. I just want to be ok. I just want to be able to hug my dad, and have fun again. I wanna be able to train with him and talk with him and go to the store together.

I wish my mama wasn't the living falseness that she was. I wish my sister and I could play games the way we used to play. I'm so sad, and I'm scared, and I wish this was just a bad dream. I just want this all to be a bad dream. I feel like a little kid again. I wish I still I don't want this to be the way it is anymore, but I can't go back. I can never go back.

I just wanna be able to play with my dad and have fun and be around a mama that loves me and cares about me. I just wanna be with my family again, when we were happy. When things were ok. But then, things may never have been ok. I think this is the saddest that I have ever felt.

I miss my dad. I wanna play with my dad and train and talk and wish I could literally talk to any of them at all. I just want my family to be my family again.

This is the hardest I have ever cried. I can't talk anymore. I can't even cry anymore.

I haven't cried like this in years.

I don't think I've ever cried like this.

I feel absolutely horrible right now honestly. I just don't really know what to do anymore, these days. Existentially at least. I'm realizing just how far away I am from being happy or stable. It's clarifying but also very, very depressing. I feel completely, existentially, fundamentally, and horribly, horribly alone.

I don't feel any connection with my family anymore, most of my friends are dead or gone, I am incredibly uncertain in my future, intimacy just scares the shit out of me, and I am very swiftly losing reasons to live, or even things that make me feel human.

I used to love being alone, but it feels like these days, honestly, I cannot bring myself to love anything anymore.

This state is the only thing that actually feels real, or honest; complete, and utter hopelessness. Nothing that presents itself to exist is actually real, or meaningful, or alive. And every time I remind myself and am again made aware of that fact, I return to this place where I am at right now, and it all comes crashing down and falling apart even more than the previous time.

I am stable, but I genuinely don't know if I even want to be alive sometimes. I will *continue* to be alive and don't intend on stopping living, I just don't have any solid clue what the point even is anymore.

I remind myself of the true existential nature of everything, and I am thankful for the clarity and lack of ignorance, but at the same time it leaves me agonizingly lonely and extremely depressed. It is exceedingly painful to remember that - in reality, or the closest thing my mind has to it - I am quite literally the only thing that exists, in truth.

So, what I mean is this. I understand that Thallain are made out of nightmare glamour and generally that's not a great start.

However. You can be Kithain and Unseelie, hell you can be Kithain AND Seelie, and still be a completely despicable asshole.

What I am asking is is it just pre-determined that if you're Thallain, you're just GONNA be an asshole? Kinda like how any story needs a given villain?

Or is there any amount of variance where Thallain either just want to be left alone, or are just inherently evil no matter what? How do you run it?

I'm not yet in a master's program for becoming a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, but after looking at the salary range being 60-85k per year, and that's before taxes, it makes me deeply hate myself. More than I already do.

I got my bachelors in finance and COULD have gone into an MBA, but personally I just cannot see myself working in finance or business for the rest of my life. The original reason I even went into it at all was because my family directly discouraged me from it because "everybody goes for it because it's easy."

So i ended up with a degree that i will likely never use.

And now they are treating me like I am lazy and unmotivated because I "wasted my time", with my mother - the one who actively told me not to pursue psychology - telling me she is "tired of taking on all of the blame and responsibility for a decision you should've made yourself." 1. I was 15. What, I'm an idiot for *listening to my parents?* 2. I've never once blamed her for it.

But now that I am seeing the income ranges for LMHC's, especially considering that my older sibling graduated law school at 22 and I'm 21, and it will take me becoming a clinical psychologist and 7 years of study to MAYBE get to the level of income she is making in THREE MONTHS?

I deeply detest myself and I somehow always manage to find the absolute worst possible option, and I have accepted that I am the family failure. I don't know what to do anymore, but I hate myself for choosing this career even though I love it and it's the only thing I can see myself actually enjoying doing for the rest of my life.