Slime, Spiders, and Shinto Philosophy

Kit: A friend introduced us to the anime, "The Time I was Reincarnated as a Slime". We'd been avoiding that one, because we thought it was going to be too silly (as opposed to, say, 'I was Reincarnated as a Spider, so What?'.  We're really glad that we were able to watch them both.  (We've been through the first season on both, and we're deep into the manga for the Spider one -- we might need to grab the manga for the slime one, not sure yet).

Spoilers Below.  Lots of Spoilers.

So here's the thing. We've noticed that anime strongly follows the Shinto philosophy on a lot of points, and these two anime do so even more than normal. It's the kind of storytelling we enjoy, actually.  Go figure.

There's some key take-aways from Slime.
In Shinto, natural forces are not considered evil - they act in accordance to their nature without malice. Outside factors may cause them to 'misbehave' - essentially an imbalance. A person is, for the most part, essentially good, but is not naturally balanced, so can cause imbalance / tragedy / conflict. Taking a life is a tragedy - an unclean act and one of the gravest sins of Shinto, but Shinto isn't about good vs evil, or punishing sin - it is about trying to find your own balance and harmony.

Also - what is in the past is in the past. You learn from it, but you don't let it control you. When dealing with others, you interact with them as if meeting them for the first time, and greet them as you would a neutral party until you discern how they are going to act now. This doesn't mean ignoring past actions - you can be as wary as you wish to be - but you don't bring up negative things from the past unless you plan to attempt to resolve them then and there.

So.  Let's look at Slime.
The main character abhors taking life unless absolutely necessary - typically when in the defence of others, not itself. There is the rare example, but these are things that are a significant, dire threat, unintelligent, or will not relent. The slime tries to restrain enemies and offer them an opportunity to surrender or leave if possible.

Most enemies are enemies because of outside stresses or misunderstandings.
The restrained dragon? Befriended and a pact made.

The goblins? Befriended and watched after.

The dire wolves trying to kill the goblins? The hostile leader would not relent, and died. The rest? Spared and made allies.

The dwarves?  Aided (even when imprisoned!) and allied.

The ogres? They lost their entire tribe and thought the slime was a maijin. Allied.

The obnoxious lizardfolk? Sent away, alive. Allied later.

The orc horde who devoured everyone and anything in their path? The leader had been effectively 'possessed', and manipulated by the said maijin.  The slime ate him, discovered his tragic past of trying to save his tribe during famine, and gave him peace (sent him effectively to heaven). Then took the sins of the entire tribe even after they'd killed thousands (while cursed), put their past actions in the past, and gave them a home and a life. Consider them a 'natural phenomenon' that was driven to anger by outside forces. Once that was dealt with? It was considered in the past - who the orcs are now is what is important.

It is this attitude that allowed the slime to befriend a chaotic demon lord. He was able to get to the core of why she was who she was, and they became 'besties'. She's so chaotic because she is bored.

The scummy human that caused such problems in the dwarven city? He was only trying to be worthy of the king - and had lost his way due to envy. He was, in fact, not a bad guy, just a desperate guy. His past actions were set aside and he was given a home and work and befriended.

When a catboi gets possessed by a horrific demon? He's rescued, the demon slain, and he gets healed and returned to his master. His master's impressed with the slime's show of mercy and understanding, and they become allies.

The ifrit possessing someone he cares for, that's tearing down the town the slime's built? Captured and absorbed. Given a chance to become a better person.

Don't look at me, you don't want to see me this way...

 Samantha

Fuck.

Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

On the one hand.. I'm really glad for them. I want them to be happy. I want their life to be good. I want the best for them. They deserve it so very much.

On the other hand.. losing something I was looking forward to, before I even had the chance to experience it.. that hurts.

And I don't want to be selfish.

I ... just wanted someone I could hold, and feel close to, and who'd be there for me and I could be there for them. I wanted that intimacy (not sex, sex was never on the table), and by the goddess she was so adorable. She was ephemeral and bright and ethereal and fun and...

And not mine.

And I want to cry. I'm trying not to. Because crying means I'm not celebrating that she's found someone. She deserves this happiness, and I don't want to be selfish.

I mean, yeah. I've got the long distance thing. That gives me ... some emotional support, and can make me happy ... but I want someone who's there, who I can hold onto, who sees me and acknowledges me, and wants me.

And the chances of me getting that are so, so slim. And it isn't like I've got lot of time to find someone.

She was... perfect, you know? Perfect in so many ways. I felt a kindred there.

I want her to be happy, I'm glad she's going to be happy.

I just wanted to be the one to make her happy.

Equal Rights to Existence

 Samantha here, and I've got opinions.

So, a friend of mine mentioned they have a tulpa.

Someone else was personally offended at the very thought.  They don't believe tulpa are people.  They consider tulpa to be a personal affront to people with DID and schizophrenia (which they have both). Kit took exception to that - but his beef was that this personal verbally attacked the other person.

Then they got offended he took the side of the tulpa.

My opinion is sharper. Nobody gets to decide who's a person and who's not a person. That this was dragged started in a public forum with an attack on someone else pisses me off.  If you've got this kind of opinion, you don't drag it out in public - and shouldn't feel affronted if people take exception to you going on the attack.

I've been on the pointy end of the 'you shouldn't exist' and 'you don't exist' not to take this personally. No, nobody gets to say 'you don't exist'. I don't care what kind of trauma you had, you don't get to project it onto other people in front of everyone and not expect some backlash.

Limited RAM

 Mark

People understand the spoon theory.  A person has only so many spoons to use up during a day on tasks, and different tasks - even things which you would think would be fun - use up your spoons.

We have a different problem.  RAM.

How much attention can be used doing what at the same time.

For example, Kit may be doing the following:

• Writing for a project.
• Listening to music to keep Bard entertained.
• Taking a short break to watch a YouTube video which interests me, Daryl, Troy, or Shawn.

This usually being:

•  The Lockpicking Lawyer (guy who picks locks on camera with ease)
• Pimpnite (Pokemon battles showing incredible strategy)
• Kicking Mustang (airsoft extreme sniper skills)
• CritCrab (RPG implosions)
• Legal Eagle (discussion of law in the USA)
• Color-R-Touch (showing off high-quality Transformers action figures).
• Death Battle (geek discussion and strategy)
• Epic Rap Battle of History (sheer amusement)

We've got very disparate tastes, and usually we take turns spending 10-15 minutes on one or two videos to entertain the masses before Kit goes back to work.

When one of us comes up for whatever reason, it takes up RAM.  If we're passive - in that we're mostly just looking over Kit's shoulder, and maybe tossing out a short text every 10 to 15 minutes, it isn't much of a problem.  We briefly interrupt his flow, do our thing, then fall back and let him get back into things.  He's used to this, so it isn't that much different than watching a video, or answering a FB post, or when one of us fires off something on Twitter.  It's a mild interruption, and then we're back to equilibrium.

The problem starts when one of us has to be up for more significant periods of time, or have to deal with something that requires time to think, interact, and focus.  Then we're taking up more RAM, and that will hamper Kit's ability to function.

For example, if 'someone is wrong on the internet', and we get engaged in a debate.  Kit has to stop what he's doing until we're satisfied with the outcome (or walk away in disgust).  Sometimes it's a collaboration, like when Kit writes one of his essays on some RPG-related topic because it's hit a point more than one of us finds important (there's at least three gaming geeks in here, and a number of us are also fascinated by human psychology, history, religion, storytelling, and politics, so there's a lot of fuel for the creative fires of essay-writing when it comes to gaming).

This who are very familiar with me and Samantha know we aren't usually up and talking with people online unless it's for something scheduled (like gaming), or we're explicitly asked for - a rare thing for me, I almost never get asked for (though that's recently changed).

And those people know that we're going to have gasps.  We'll say our bit, then step back and let Kit do what he's doing, then if we're responded to, we'll come back and talk a little more, then step back, and so forth and so on.

This makes the RAM pendulum swing back and forth between a low load and a high load.  And that's fine, we can handle that.  However, when it becomes a point where we're needing to be up more and be more engaged, then we're dealing with a high load.

To some extent, we can handle that.  One of us is up when Kit is up - Kit shuts down a lot of what he's doing, allowing us to do what we need to be doing, and that's it until we're done.  If it goes on for some time, Kit essentially gives up his day and plans on doing stuff later.

(Which could be 'watch YouTube', 'tinker a bit with an RPG idea he's got in the back of his head', or 'watch Samantha play Warframe' - something he does to unwind).

Having more than one of us up at the same time is a severe strain on resources.  We tried it in a friend's Pathfinder game.  I was playing, Samantha was playing, and Kit was in the back seat.  Except he wasn't.  He helped me with my character, but it was a significant strain for us to do this - and usually what would happen is Samantha would go quiet, and let Kit and I do things.  And when Samantha was being active with her character, Kit and I would retreat so she could do things.

This is usually what happens when Kit, Samantha, and I are involved in gaming.  I'll be quiet and let Samantha do her thing.  Then she goes quiet and lets me do my thing.  And we alternate back and forth.  To make things easier, though, lately, if Samantha's playing, we don't.  Kit lets her have her time.  It helps let her have time up - but it's been difficult, because the rest of Legion gets bored, and then looks at reading, or YouTube, or whatever, and that pulls RAM from Samantha, so she goes quiet.

This has become an issue recently.

Samantha has an SO.  This SO wants time with her during the day, and the two have gotten into a pattern of being active for a lot of the day if possible.  This uses a lot of RAM, so Kit's stopped most of his daily routine to allow for it.  Because he makes sacrifices like that.  This has also completely buggered our sleep schedule, since Kit wants to do things and unwind, and that means doing it at 3-5 in the morning, then passing out around 11-12 and sleeping until 4-5 at night, falling asleep again at 11 pm to 1 am or so, then waking up at 3 to 4 am again.

And now I'm a part of this.  I've been asked to be more engaged with one of my SOs as well.  That will basically redline our RAM.  Kit trying to do anything, while Samantha's trying to be engaged, while I try to be engaged.  Something has to give, because we can't function like that.  It would be like having Kit and Samantha and me all active with full characters at the gaming table.  It just won't happen.

And if we do the usual Samantha/me swap like we might do at the gaming table, then one or the other of us goes quiet for extended periods of time while the other's engaged.

And if Kit wants to do anything at all, we both fall quiet.

Shawn's solution is simple, but cuts to the bone.

No, we're not going to be active full time during the day.  Yes, we can engage with others, but there's hard limits.  We're secondary riders, we're not primary.  Anything that draws Kit's attention draws his attention.  We may not get the chance to say 'AFK' or or anything, we may be quiet for 15 minutes, or an hour, or four hours.  It happens.

In other words - the old status quo.

If we're wanted - come to us.  Don't wait for us to come to you.  We might.  Sometimes.  But it won't be the normal situation.  We need to be 'pinged' so we know to come up.  Why?  Because if Kit's in the zone, he's using almost all the RAM on whatever he's doing, plus entertaining Daryl and the others for short breaks while he relaxes and gathers energy.

The old status quo.

We'll be easier to get in touch with during the night - usually 9-11 or so, give or take.  Kit's less busy, there's less demands, and he's used to loosening the leash so to speak, so we can talk to people.  This will usually allow one of us up and active if we get pinged, and we can be more engaged.  For example, Kit may be talking to his friend (Samantha's boyfriend), Samantha may be talking with her girlfriend (not her SO for this example), and in between Kit may be running a game.  If Kit needs more attention on the game, though, he'll go quiet on his friend, and Samantha will go quiet as she focusses on her character's responses.

People who've been with us for at least 5 or more years are used to this by now.  There's no complaints or anything - one of them may 'poke' to get attention, but usually not, they wait to see if Kit or Samantha come back - and sometimes it doesn't happen.  One might wish a 'goodnight', and the other just goes to bed.

Now, if I want to talk with Kit's friend (since he's my friend too), Samantha will go quiet, and slip out for the night, letting me have my time.  She doesn't talk to anyone else, because three-way rapid swapping leads to headaches.

As you might imagine, all of this has been thrown into disarray.  We're trying to find a new status quo, which allows us to function without redlining.  And it's a work in progress.

Shawn, being the one with the keen insight, points out that we should go back to the status quo.  It lets us function, it's how we've lived for the last 25 years.  Those who are new to interacting with us just need to understand this and go along with it.  The problem is - if they're unhappy, and Kit or Samantha knows they're unhappy, it causes discord, and they try to adapt, even if it's to their detriment to do so.

If the other people can accept it, however.  'It is what it is'.  Then yes, going back to status quo would work out.  There needs to be a talk, and it needs to be concluded.

With all that said, Legion wishes you a Happy 2021.  Thank the gods 2020 is over.