#I know the medical system isn't just failing me

[cextra-loz]

The longer it takes for my doctors to prescribe me anything other than metoprolol the more powerful my rage and fury becomes.

[trans-axolotl]

one of the reasons it's really hard for a lot of intersex people when intersex topics are on the news cycle is because the public's reaction reveals how little anyone knows or cares about intersex people, including people who call themselves our allies. almost every time intersex topics are trending, the discourse surrounding them is filled with misinformation. people who only learned today what the word intersex means jump into conversations and act like an authority. endosex/dyadic/perisex people get tripped up over things that are basically intersex 101, with tons of endosex people incorrectly arguing about the definition of intersex, who "counts," DSD terminology, and so much more. i've seen multiple endosex people say today that they've been "warning intersex people" and that we should have known that transphobia would catch up with us eventually, which is an absolutely absurd thing to say given the fact that consistently over the past ten years, it has often been intersex people sounding the alarm on sex-testing policies and also the fact that many, many intersex people are also trans, and already are facing the impacts of transphobia. there is an absolute failure from the general public to take intersex identity seriously; people seem not even able to fathom that intersex people have a community, history, and our own political resources. instead, endosex people somehow seem to think they're helping by bringing up half-remembered information from their high school biology class which usually isn't even relevant at all.

and this frustrates me so fucking much. not because i want to deny the impacts of transphobic oppression--i'm a trans intersex person, trust me when i say i am intimately aware of transphobia. this frustrates me because there is no way we can achieve collective liberation if our "allies" fail to even engage with basic intersex topics and are seemingly unaware of the many forms of intersex oppression that we are already facing every fucking day. if you are not aware of compulsory dyadism, if you are not aware of interphobia, if you are not aware of the many different ways that intersex people are directly and often violently targeted--how the fuck do you think we're going to dismantle all of these systems of oppression?

if you were truly an intersex ally, you would already KNOW that this is not new, and would not be surprised--interphobia in sports has been going on for decades. you would know that we do have a community, an identity, a history--you would have already read/listened/watched to intersex resources that give you the background information you need for allyship. you would know that although there is a really distinct lack of resources and political education, that intersex people ARE developing a political understanding of ourselves and our oppression--Cripping Intersex by Celeste Orr and their framework of compulsory dyadism is one example of how we're theorizing our oppression. It's absolutely fucking wild to me how few people I've seen actually use words like "interphobia" "intersexism" "compulsory dyadism" or "intersex oppression"--endosex people are seemingly incapable of recognizing that there is already an entrenched system of oppression towards intersex people that violently reshapes our bodies, restricts our autonomy, and attempts to eradicate intersex through a variety of medical and legal means.

you cannot treat intersex people like an afterthought. not just because we're meaningful parts of your community and deserving of solidarity, but also because intersex oppression impacts everyone!!! especially trans community--trans people will not be free until intersex people are free, so much of transphobia is shaped by compulsory dyadism, the mythical sex binary, all these ideas of enforced "biological sex" that are just as fake as the gender binary.

it makes me absolutely fucking livid every time this shit happens because it becomes so abundantly clear to me how little the average endosex person knows about intersex issues and also how little the average endosex person cares about changing that. i don't know what to say to get you to care, to get you to change that, but we fucking need it to happen and i, personally, am tired of constantly being grateful when i meet an endosex person who knows the bare minimum. i think we have a right to expect better and to demand that if you're going to call yourself our ally, you actually fucking listen to us when we tell you what that means.

okay for endosex people to reblog.

[ek-ranjhaan]

She has not just been raped and murdered, she was very much tortured and brutalized like Nirbhaya. It is all over the Bengali news. I don't understand why no one is talking about this.

A 2nd year Respiratory Medicine in a well known government medical college in Kolkata, West Bengal, India is found in a semi-naked state and the college/ hospital called it a suicide.

I'm a MBBS student in second year. After reading about her, what crossed my mind is the amount of times she would have felt this fear, before this worst fear of hers eventually materialized.

"A young resident doctor was found dead in the seminar room of her medical college in Kolkata. Initial autopsy report suggests possible rape and murder."

As all are saying,

She wasn't walking the street at odd hours. She wasn't wearing clothes that were provocative. She wasn't loitering in dangerous neighbourhoods.

She was a resident doctor, looking for a place to rest in her own hospital.

She had been on duty and had gone to rest in the early hours of Friday.

The one place which was supposed to guarantee her safety failed her, miserably.

Someone comes, rapes a female pg who is merely resting in a seminar hall because there is no proper place for her to rest, brutalized her and kills her. How did NO one know? The college and police initially call it a suicide. Excuse me? It is also being said that under pressure from local politicians, the Principal and Dean attempted to alter the post-mortem report. Autopsy confirms sexual assault.

What are the actions taken? One man arrested because his behavior seemed "shady". This is clearly not an act of one man. And this was a very well aware of and a well executed criminal act.

Also, all this happening in WB right when the situation of bangladesh is in turmoil and news of Bangladeshi Hindus being killed and tortured, seems wrong, VERY WRONG. Happening right before NEET-PG, as 24 lakh doctors prepare to write an exam on Sunday to be resident doctors, this news has wrapped us all in agony and rage,

What are they working so hard for? Why should they aspire to be in a system that ignores their basic needs? The minimum requirement of a workplace is safety. That should be non-negotiable.

This profession demands extereme hardwork, a lot of mental strength and Physical Assaults, harassment, low paying jobs with odd working hours with intense humiliation. Now its the worst of all seeing a bright mind losing her life in the most disrespectful state of all. This should never happen to any woman.

I'd also like to question why isn't any big media house covering this news, where are all the international news channels all this time.

What are the students in other medical colleges doing? This talks about their own safety and lives. What are the medical students across the world doing? It's time for us to stand for the most basic Human right, safety.

Yesterday when my roommate, an MBBS final year intern was heading for her night posting, I feared and prayed for her to come back safely. Thinking about it, in a few years I will also have night posting, I'll also return from my hospital duties late at night. I'll also have to go through the same fear, and I'll also have to keep praying that my worst fears don't turn into reality. So many female doctors, nursing staffs, other Healthcare workers, other working women, non-working women go through the same fear, probably multiple times a day.

It is a shame to be born in such a disgusting world and society, it is shame to witness such a brutal crime, and it is a shame to live in this fear daily.

Those RAPISTS need to be hunged infront of the whole natio...if needed burned alive. People should fear the idea of raping, more than getting raped.

[tossawary]

This is a very niche fic idea that I have no solid intention of actually writing, but... "Naruto" has more than a few self-insert fics and some of them are transmigrations into canon characters. Some of them are about OCs who do not want to be a ninja and are desperately trying to get out of it. There's usually some deliciously frustrating tragedy and horror about the brutal and inescapable military system of Konoha.

So, I thought that it would be kind of interesting to do an OC-insert into Sasuke, probably ultimately more comedic than angsty, as the OC tries to fail out of having to become a ninja, but then has to struggle against the fact that a civilian Sasuke would probably be expected to start a new Uchiha clan ASAP. (They probably have to concede to at least becoming a genin for the benefits of legal adulthood of some kind at 12 years old, even if it means being a part of the damn military.)

But even if the OC would personally love to be a parent someday, they cannot condone participating in what's essentially a breeding program for a new generation of Sharingan-wielding super-soldiers. Children who are probably going to be chewed up and spat out by Konoha someday too.

I think it would be neat to have a character treat the Sharingan like a genetic disorder that they don't want a child to suffer. I think it would have been interesting if canon Sasuke had also wrestled with the idea of letting the Sharingan die out. Fuck it, he'll adopt if he wants to be a dad someday. I also think it would be funny to have an OC-insert whose goal is to get a secret vasectomy (body autonomy!) without the leadership of Konoha finding out.

Sasuke, as soon as Sakura becomes a medical nin: "I need you to do me a huge secret favor and NOT be weird about it."

Sakura, also still currently a teenager: "You're asking me to CASTRATE YOU, AT HOME, IN SECRET, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO NOT BE WEIRD ABOUT THIS?!"

(And there's the whole fucking issue of the "Naruto" universe having cloning, so, no, a vasectomy isn't a solid guarantee of getting out of this. But it might buy Sasuke a few years to figure out how to avoid the mad science route too if anyone tries to force marriage on him at any point.)

Even throwing aside the issue of children, even in an AU where the OC-Insert is cool with having bio children, I think it would be really funny to have a Transmigrator Sasuke announcing outright in the first Team 7 meeting that his dream is to retire super early and become a shinobi tradwife to a super strong ninja.

Kakashi: "...What?"

Sasuke, possibly talking out of his ass to troll his team and because he's already spitefully exhausted: "I said what I said. I'm the only Uchiha left to pass on my clan's techniques, so my dream is to be a stay-at-home ninja, supported by a super strong spouse who can protect my family."

I think this would break Naruto and Sakura's brains. ("Marry Hokage Naruto" is not the worst plan that a transmigrator could come up with, probably.) I think that this would be a super funny start to a Team 7 OT3 in which Naruto and Sakura become rivals for the position of Sasuke's shinobi sugar daddy/mommy. (Naruto doesn't consciously realize that he's competing for Sasuke's hand in marriage at first, but he gets it after a few years or so.)

Kakashi is... So Tired. Obito, are you seeing this shit??? What the fuck.

I know some OC-insert / SI-insert into Sasuke fics exist, I just think the funniest plot direction for a transmigrator in this situation would be to completely bail on both the "take revenge on Itachi" and "rebuild the Uchiha clan" dreams in the least macho ways available.

Also, what WOULD Itachi think of Sasuke abruptly deciding to give up on revenge and to become a house husband instead?

[sassydefendorflower]

I think one of the few genuine plotholes in Fullmetal Alchemist (Brotherhood & Manga) is the fact that Roy Mustang can get healed by the Philosopher's Stone in the end.

Hear me out.

Quite often, when something isn't answered in the text of fma(b), the answer can still be procured by building up from the existing canon. The magic system of the world is solid and consistent enough for us to create very solid and coherent world building.

Which is why it always irked me in the end when the Stone works on Roy's eyes.

Why?

Because it is heavily implied that not even a Stone has the power to restore what was lost to the Gate. This is of course, not something we as the audience know or believe from the get-go. We are introduced to the Stone via the Elric brothers, who mostly just know that this mystical stone can do the unthinkable. The impossible.

But, as we later learn, not even the Stone can bring back the dead. Death is eternal and cannot be reversed. It is one of the hard truths of the show. No matter how much power you hold, you cannot bring back the dead.

Even Father's showing in the last fight, when he brings back the people of Xerxes, fails to actually deliver on Hohenheim's taunt of "creating life" - because he is just returning souls he already carries within him to the physical realm.

So, that's the first limitation of the Philosopher's Stone firmly established.

But there's a second one.

We know the Stone can heal - Marcoh uses it to heal countless people in his town, some even from deadly diseases and such. We see Father heal Edward's broken arm and create an entirely new arm for Alphonse after his got eaten. Edward uses his own soul like a Stone to close the wound in Baschool, so, yes, healing is firmly within the realms of the Stone.

It is probably far more effective than Alkehistry when it comes to healing, because it CAN ignore the boundaries of the body. I'd actually go so far and say that someone talented and medically knowledgeable could maybe even restore a limb with the help of a Philosopher's Stone. We've seen it do the impossible after all.

But I don't think a Philosopher's Stone could ever actually restore Ed's limbs. Not in the classical sense at least.

Why?

Because when Hohenheim encounters Izumi and tries to help her, he cannot restore her lost organs. He cannot walk that path for her. He can heal her - he rearranges her inner organs and heals the open wounds within her gut, probably giving her another ten years of healthier living, but he cannot return to her what is lost.

He also never offers Ed to give him his limbs back, even after everything has been revealed and they're preparing for the Promised Day.

(He does promise to sacrifice himself for Al in the end, but we'll get to that in a bit)

This is something the Elrics don't know - they don't know what Hohenheim did and did not do for Izumi. They believe, up to the end, that they could restore their bodies with a Philosopher's Stone, but they choose not to.

I think, actually, that Hohenheim might be the only one who knows that it is not possible.

Because what they have lost was a price paid for pushing past the boundaries of humanity, it is a punishment for arrogance just as much as it is a toll for knowledge gained. They didn't lose their organs during childbirth, their arms and legs on the battlefield. All of them walked into god's domain and paid the price.

It is the Unforgivable Sin, after all, the Ultimate Taboo.

This is not something you can reverse by paying a bribe (the souls of the stone) - not unless there's a personal sacrifice bound to it as well.

Which is why it probably would have worked if Hohenheim had given his own life for Alphonse - because it would have been the sacrifice of a father for his son. Equivalency restored.

To get back what you've lost from the Gate, there needs to be an Equivalent Exchange - and the souls of strangers don't do it in the Eye of Truth.

Which doesn't mean that you cannot open the Portal of Truth with a Philosopher's Stone. We've seen it. It is possible. But never once successfully when it comes to the restoration of a body. You can push through the Gate using a Stone, you can heal, you can force someone else through the Gate... but you cannot restore what the Gate itself has taken.

That is a much more personal gamble, a much more personal exchange.

It is the second limitation of the Stone: you cannot gain back the toll you paid for stumbling into god's realm without sacrificing something yourself.

Which brings me to my original point: the fact that Roy Mustang's eye sight could be restored using a Stone.

It's a plot hole.

It is one of the few plot holes in the show/manga, and even as I write this, I am trying to think of a watsonian explanation. Maybe it's because Roy didn't do the human transmutation out of his own free will. Maybe it's because he was forced through. Maybe it's because Truth feels responsible for what happened to him. Maybe the story is lenient to him and his wish to see the future.

But the truth remains, that every time I encounter this story, that part of it trips me up.

And now you know it too.

[weemietime]

There isn't a whole lot of content on Tumblr about schizoid personality disorder so I thought I would make a little informational post. SZPD is a cluster A personality disorder, of the odd/eccentric cluster alongside schizotypal and paranoid. It is on the schizophrenia spectrum, and comprises the negative rather than positive symptoms of schizophrenia.

This primarily means we have avolition, catatonia, flat/blunted affect (demeanor), limited interoception (emotional sensations), lack of bonds to others including primary family members, and indifference to the opinions of others.

Whilst this isn't a diagnostic criteria, many of us are also asexual and aromantic, meaning we don't want to have sex with other humans (but usually do masturbate) and have no interest in romantic companionship.

My most disabling symptom is avolition, because I have comorbid ADHD. This means when I don't have my medication (dextromethorphan 120mg) I just sit there and zone out and can't even hold a conversation or move my body, nor even do things like feed myself. It is genuinely crippling and I am unemployed because of this, even though my meds help, they don't cure me and I need a lot of time alone.

Schizoid is something of an "anti-human" disorder, because we fail to form basic social bonds with others including primary caregivers. As a child I got diagnosed with inhibited RAD because I could not tolerate human contact. This differs from autism because autistic people generally want to socialize, they just lack the skills. I don't want to socialize and it takes tremendous effort for me to do so.

To even make this post I had to wait for my meds to click in as I was just sitting there mindlessly beforehand. While we have low internal sensations of emotions like caring, love, happiness, trust, sadness, etc. we aren't typically antisocial/dissocial and don't have a pattern of exploiting others or dishonesty. This requires too much effort.

There is a schizoid version of narcissism but it is separate to narcissistic personality disorder. NPD is characterized by a very fragile ego. You can't contradict or disagree with NPD because they are unable to regulate the emotions caused by conflict. Conversely, SZPD does not care about the opinions of others at all and places little value on them.

Our sense of superiority is legitimate, meaning we just do genuinely believe we are smarter than other people. So your mileage may vary on how insufferable you find that. I recognize this trait in myself and work to actively challenge it since it is illogical for me to think I am more special than anyone else. But, my ego is very stable, so criticism doesn't bother me the way it would in NPD.

Interoception means the sensations you feel inside your body. We lack this, so even stuff like hunger and tiredness don't impact us until we are very hungry or extremely exhausted. I don't have the feeling you would to look at a family member and get a sense of love or trust. I have a logical sense of obligation that I developed through choosing what I value based on reason. I describe this as care, and I place importance on my friendships, but there is no emotional component to this, it is all cognitive.

Tangentially: I'm somewhat of an optimistic nihilist, believing that there is no grand purpose to existence. Yes, even as a religious person. I don't think G-d ultimately has a purpose either, as an agent of the universe. (I don't believe G-d created the universe.) We have a human nervous system, so we base our rubric for morality on suffering and decide what is meaningful both collectively and individually.

I don't believe in true freedom of will (but I do believe we have agency), because we know that Bereitschaftspotential or reaction potentials occur in the brain up to two seconds before we become conscious of a volitional desire. Our consciousness occurs because of quantum synchronicity in the brain, so our free will is in a bit of an in-between state rather than fully determined or fully free.

So, we are not born deciding "I'm going to be an abuser," that happens because of brain abnormalities. It's no different than the forces of creation and destruction at work like a virus infecting a host cell. I don't place much importance on concepts of self-hood, I view myself as the electrical and chemical processes that occur in my brain, which happen without my choosing, that I can influence and impact through my own agency.

Anyway, these are just some basic schizoid meanderings for you all and I hope that this was informative or interesting in some way. Peace.

[copperbadge]

More on mindfulness and meditation

I feel like perhaps I came across as anti-meditation in that last post I did on it, and there were some folks who were a bit vocal about not liking meditation in the notes, but the notes also had some great and interesting discussion of what can count as mindfulness that isn't traditional meditation and what some alternatives might be, so I wanted to do a follow-up. Especially since I don't think I'm going to get to respond to everyone individually.

The post was not meant to be anti-meditation, but to express frustration with the way meditation frequently is, or rather fails to be, taught. I can understand why people would struggle with "mindfulness" (vastly overused term) and meditation, so I'm not here to argue with or shame anyone, and I really appreciate the alternative suggestions. But because mindfulness can mean so many things, and people can meditate for many different reasons, I wanted to talk a little about why I'm being asked to do it.

It's easy to lose track of why one might try meditation for mental health, because the cause and effect are so temporally dislocated from each other. I try to keep in mind that my specific goal is emotional regulation deriving from increased present-moment attention. Some of the stuff that was suggested is great for a goal other than this, like puzzle games that allow people to empty their racing minds or activity that brings someone back into their body when dissociating -- both extremely laudable functions! -- but that's not why I'm here. Meditation is meant, for me, to be a maintenance medication, not a rescue inhaler.

There is science that suggest that mindfulness practice, under a specific definition of the term, can help to manage emotional dysregulation, ameliorate Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and reduce depression and anxiety. I discuss the science in a slideshow here but essentially this specific form trains the attention into the present moment, which improves executive function -- and as we know, emotional regulation is a facet of executive function, so this leads to better emotional regulation.

There is not a lot of science on it yet so there is room here for yoursamplesizeissmall.jpg, but it's all we've got so I'm running with it. There is one foundational practice and three practices that build on it which effected this change in subjects of the study:

Breathing Meditation doesn't really confer any benefit the others don't, but the others all employ it as a basic practice. We know this can calm the parasympathetic nervous system, although to be honest I have not found that to be the case personally. As soon as I stop the deep breathing I'm right back where I was, likely because my issue is ruminational, not situational. But everything else wants you to breathe first, so I still have to do it.

Body Scan focuses attention on the body and as others have pointed out is good for people prone to dissociation. As I said in the other post, I live here; paying extra attention to my body isn't something I need. I was asked to try it anyway as part of a practice in keeping an open mind about stuff I think is dumb, and clearly I do need practice in that. Still, it's likely I'll be able to let this one go pretty soon.

Loving-Kindness asks you to think positively about others, expanding compassion from a single point outward to the world. I've encountered this before in reading Pema Chodron; I don't do it as meditation, but I do try to practice it in life because I am not naturally a patient or compassionate person, and that has been helpful in the sense that it keeps me from getting punched in the face a bunch. For me there's no real "train the attention to be in the present" aspect on account of that, however.

Observing-Thought is where you just sit with your thoughts, let them arise, sometimes label them in some way, and let them go. I was most interested in this purely because it's the only one I hadn't already encountered. I haven't found it useful so far, but I don't have enough data about it to be definitive, and if it is training executive function I would expect that to take time.

Now, I know that all four of these have science backing them, so I know that we're not just dealing in new-age woo here. The problem is functional, not theoretical. The issue overall is not "meditation is boring" -> "find a way to make it interesting", although I do appreciate that it may be an issue for others and I like that people were offering solutions. The issue for me is that the boredom derives from the fact that the meditation isn't being taught. There's no progressional learning -- there's no step-progress-reward-step-progress-reward like with most difficult skills.

Any task is boring if you aren't deriving any reward from it or you are being expected to execute it without skills or training, and in this case I'm facing down both. Long silences from a meditation leader are fine if you're there to engage with a practice you already have familiarity with, but if you're trying to learn, they are the opposite of helpful, and they are actively punishing to someone with ADHD.

I don't want to be entertained (I mean, generally I do, but in this case I don't expect it). What I want is a pedagogical approach that steps up to the practice rather than beginning with it, so that I know I'm doing it right, I experience rewards along the way similar to how I currently do learning Italian, and I have more confidence that what seems dull and fruitless actually will produce results.

Uh, so yeah thanks for coming to my TEDtalk; the fact that a practice that's especially hard for people with ADHD helps with almost every problem ADHD presents really sucks, and I wish we approached teaching meditation as if it were something you actually did have to learn rather than something you're supposed to Do Until You Get It. In the meantime I guess bumping the speed on the recording isn't the worst thing I could be doing.

[dinoburger]

let me just get my thoughts down for a moment after a light perusal of the Mouthwashing tag -

I don't think The Point of Mouthwashing is "who is and isn't a bad person" with a backdrop of "capitalism bad"

the story is explicitly about the exploitative, hierarchical conditioning capitalism enforces, that creates situations like what unfolds in the Tulpar

I think to say "this is the fault of [this or that character]" is to miss the forest for the trees.

to view what happens as a series of random, unfortunate events that just happen coincidentally to the moral inclinations of the characters is missing the very palpable deprivation that all of them feel when it comes to how much control they have over the situation they've found themselves in.

I'll try to break this down a little more:

Curly is definitely one of the more contentious characters when it comes to morality and I think what people miss is... he has far too much control. As captain, he has the first and last say in everything.

There's no possible way he could understand exactly how to handle every situation appropriately. Nobody could. It weighs on him a lot. To the point where his fear of messing things up is exactly what blinds him to the chain of events that initiates Mouthwashing as we know it.

He tries to smooth things over. Because of course he would.

The problem is that he is set up to fail from the start.

Breaching just about any condition on the ship can get the pay of his poor subordinates docked. He has to obey the company rules to protect them, too. The omnipresent horse keeps all of them "in check". He can't afford to take a moral high-ground, because most of them can't afford it either. He's trying to keep the house of cards together.

The most telling line to me is when Anya points out the lock on the medical room door that's absent from the sleeping quarters.

The company puts more value on the expensive equipment on board than the human lives. It tries to cut as many corners as possible. It undermines their livelihoods to maintain itself - in vain, ultimately.

The cargo of mouthwash is more valuable to the company than they are.

You can see also in each of them, the kinds of people capitalism makes.

Swansea tried to fix up his life and do everything right. He tried to become a good worker for the sake of his family. But is he much better off than when he was an alcoholic? He says the best part of his life is still when the only troubles he had was the bottom of an empty bottle - nevermind his family, his sobriety and becoming a "correct" person in capitalist society.

His existential crisis grips me because it does raise questions about if living the way you're "supposed to" is worth it.

Daisuke wants to prove his worth in his capabilities. Daisuke is still trying to prove himself as valuable to the system, even at his own expense. Swansea laments this, because he just knows there's no point where you become valuable or worthy enough in the system.

Anya, as the only woman on board, takes the blunt of the lack of autonomy enforced by the system.

Jim... Jim is exactly the kind of person this system breeds, too. He's entitled. He's hungry for more power, but he can only see it by wrestling it off his coworkers and enacting interpersonal violence. He sees himself as a temporary victim of circumstance, who has a right to the power Curly has.

He is the exact sort of person who might have been a captain on some of the other cargo ships. Can you imagine if he'd had that much power from the start? The company doesn't give a shit, so long as the cargo gets there in one piece. The toll of the psychological trauma taken on the staff will never outweigh the value of the goods being shipped.

Even if it's just mouthwash.

I think you could maybe also read Jim's affinity for the cartoon horse as a metaphor for his hunger for power, too. It's something he both desires and dreads. He wants to have his cake and eat it too, he doesn't want the consequences that follow. It's the carrot and stick. He'll take as much power as he can before the axe finally drops and he has to face the music, even if it means making everything so, so much worse in the process.

[anameistoohard]

Oh boy, lets open that can of worms

There's a LOT of discourse with endo vs anti-endo stuff (endogenic system=plural system not formed by trauma if you don't know 🙂). Like, death threats coming from both sides kinda thing. We try to stay out of it. But it's easy to accidentally stumble into it if you're not familiar with some of the nuance. So we want to share some observations as like, a crash course. (And apparently we had a lot to say lol.)

This post isn't really to debate how plurality forms. Just to give some context as to why so much hate is flying between these two groups.

Basically, you have 2 extremes. (And everyone in between obviously)

On one side you have people making up extra rules on top of the diagnostic criteria to exclude and gatekeep anyone who doesn't meet "their level" of disordered. (I've literally heard people say "you can't be a system, you're not as traumatized as me"). A lot of accusations of faking come from this bunch. Too much internal communication? Faker. Too many non-human alters? Faker. Too many or not enough alters? Faker. You can't win with them even if you have a diagnosis.

We've noticed a lot of parallels between this group and transmeds. You need to have x level of dysphoria to ride this ride. You can't be trans if you don't want xyz treatment. You need to reach my arbitrary bar of "trans enough". Enbys and everyone else are fakers. That kind of bs.

But on this side you also have a lot of people who just want to be taken seriously. They want to be validated by their diagnosis and feel hurt when people say or do things that they think will compromise that validity. They, at least initially, come from a place of sincerity not malice. But they fall into the trap of trying to be "one of the good ones".

On the other extreme you have the wild west. Things people treat as fact aren't codified with the same scrutiny as the DSM-5 or ICD-11. This breeds its own confusion and misinformation. We've seen people conflate plurality with things like maladaptive day dreaming, lucid dreaming, adhd, and (applying it to other people with ferocity to the point of harassment) metaphors of all things.

They have a spaghetti at the wall approach that reminds me of a less extreme MOGII (an attempt to define just about every possible form of gender and sexuality). It's a messy patchwork of ideas. We've seen 8 different labels that all mean the same thing and are being used by exactly no one. Redundancy and hyperspcificity, that's the name of the game. But frankly we like this if for no other reason than we want to see what sticks, what becomes mainstream.

We've seen people from this group attack people as badly as the anti-endo group. Openly mocking people for having trauma or saying vile shit like "traumagenics kys". They feel threatened by the exclusionary nature of diagnoses. But instead of taking their frustration out on the systems of power they take them out on normal people. After all if you're diagnosed, you "represent the system"... I guess. Equally bull shit.

But this is also where the edge cases go, the exclusions, those that don't fit into a neat little box. The DSM excludes people whose plurality is accepted as part of their culture or religion. These people don't suddenly stop being systems just because they're accepted, but they're distinctly not disordered. They don't meet the clinical definition of DID or OSDD. Same goes for someone whose symptoms are mild enough to not cause "clinically significant distress". You also have people who don't want to be pathologized or have been failed by the medical system.

So lastly, a warning: When dealing with plural stuff, it's very easy to go stumbling into a mine field.

Tldr: I would always rather land on the side of letting too many people in than exclude people who needed the support. However, no matter your in-group, some people take things too far. Like, ffs don't attack people. 

-Taylor & Mark

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Genuine question for those of you who say that you want the dissolution of all states. What do you envision in place of states in terms of:

Logistics (i.e. making sure every area has the basic resources it needs in order to function and people not die for lack of water, food, fuel, medical supplies, etc.) Like not assigning these things necessarily but literally just getting them to various far-flung places.

Security (how do you prevent people from outside the area coming in and taking everything including resources, land, people, etc.) How do you prevent authoritarian groups coming in and occupying your formerly peaceful, non-hierarchical society?

Supporting people outside of affinity networks or within rigid social systems (a lot of disabled people, queer people, and other people on the social, familial, and religious outs are gonna die without some kind of appropriate systems in place to meet these needs.)

Addressing major environmental challenges that require cooperation over vast areas of land, if not global cooperation.

Rule of law, especially when it comes to human rights, freedom of movement, freedom of religion/culture, dispute resolution between governing bodies of whatever variety that doesn't involve war, etc. but also just like, basic laws governing interpersonal relationships (preventing rape, murder, theft, etc. and addressing the aftermath of those things in a humane, just way.)

Peaceful transition from states to whatever it is you imagine taking their place, without hemorrhaging lives from the most vulnerable populations.

And like, there's more that I'm sure I'd have questions about too, but these concerns are so basic that I just cannot continue the conversation without knowing what the plan is for these essential tenets of an organized society.

Don't get me wrong: I don't love states and wish we had a better system too. I am also painfully aware that states are failing many if not most of these all the time. However, what I would need to know is how what you are proposing is better than trying to improve what currently exists and isn't going to come at the cost of catastrophic loss of human life, human cultures, animal life, and land destruction. And not in a pie-in-the-sky way, a realpolitik way.

[theriverbeyond]

this is such a random question, but on the subject of theories i was wondering what would have happened if john and the erebos had arrived at the aftermath of canaan house before boe and found the non-lyctor survivors. like would he have just let corona, judith, and camilla go home or get rid of them because they knew too much? is “knowing too much” even a concern for john? for some reason neither option feels totally right to me, but i would love to hear your thoughts!

I honestly think he would let them go home! I think one of John's major flaws is he fundementally both misunderstands and underestimates the people he sees as "his", and I think this does extend into the houses.

I don't think he would see non-Lyctors as any kind of threat, even if he knew that said non-Lyctors had figured out the secret to Lyctorhood. At most I think he would sew their tongues but honestly I think he would take one look at Judith "on life support from catastrophic gut wound" Deuteros, Camilla "catatonic with grief" Hect, Coronabeth "inconsolable because Ianthe age Babs and not her" Tridentarius and be like wow! these kids are having a bad time I should send them home to their parents.

Remember -- if John had arrived at Canaan House before BOE, this is *before* BOE took out 18,000 soldiers with orbital radiation missiles. this is *before* Augustine's betrayal, and Mercymorn's, and *before* the Sixth House defected. The only betrayal John would have felt was Cytherea's, and she failed, and as we see in HtN he mostly pities her.

I do think this could lead to a very interesting AU wherein Camilla is sent home (with the bones in her pocket), Judith is fixed up with proper medical care from the start (and then packed back off to the cohort), and Coronabeth is probably (on request) taken to the Erebos with Ianthe.

I can see this leading to Camilla spending a lot of time trying to free Palamedes' soul while on the Sixth, potentially needing to join the cohort (Alexandrite Cam, anyone?) so she can reconnect with Judith, who despite having several sticks up her ass is the only person Cam feels she can really go to about this (due to them both being the only people left in the Dominicus system who actually know what happened at Canaan House). Maybe Camilla convinces Judith to poke around in the skull bones -- Judith isn't as good as Harrow, but maybe they do bring back some shadow of Palamedes into the bones.

THEN maybe eventually they run into Coronabeth, who perhaps was not allowed all the way to the Mithraeum, but WAS given some sort of very strategic and fancy seat in the cohort so Ianthe can keep tabs on her. A very nepotism hire situation, and despite Ianthe's desire to keep her safe Coronabeth HATES it all because she was once again left behind. When the opportunity to track down Ianthe arises, she takes it.

I see this unfolding over several years post GtN timeline. Perhaps the three of them end up collaborating with other characters along the way that they feel they can trust, some more likely than others -- Mia (Pro's wife) and her children, now grown enough to want more information about their father's death. Ram and Capris Asht, who don't believe that their brother would kill the eighth house heir he had sworn to protect. Kiana can get in here too. maybe the Third house Boy Who Loved Shuttles helps them with a getaway once. Abigail's younger brother, who she named as her heir -- maybe he helps with Palamedes' soul. Jeannemary and Issac's younger siblings. A neo-niner or two -- John renewed the house, and involving a character or three that was ressurected from our modern times would be super interesting and also fill out our merry band. Maybe the neo-niners Remember Things that make Cam connect some dots.

Harrow is still out there, obviously, and in this AU I am imagining Number 7 as NOT speeding up and really taking 5 years to get there, just to even out the time line and allow all that to happen before Number 7 comes and Augustine drowns the Mithraeum.

anyway. events occur, things happen, and intrigue abounds. Alecto awakens, Harrow Remembers, Ianthe doesn't get the girl. Cam is on a warpath. Judith is dragged alongside. Coronabeth isn't going to be left behind again.

what was your question again? this answer has gotten deeply out of hand

[fungusfangs]

TW drugging, noncon. full transcript without drunkspeak/sound effects under the cut

Skeptic: Curious? Wha- Oooh.. Curious: You're alright~ nothing's wrong~ Just overworked and crashing out is all~ Skeptic: No...this is different...I'm not-- Oooh, Don't press.. Curious: Awwww~ Your tummy not feeling too good~? Poor thing~ Hana: Whatever you gave him might be making him nauseous. Should I go get a trashbin? Skeptic: Ow! Fucking stop... Curious: Nah~ He's okay~ Just a little bellyache is all~ He'll be out like a light in a few minutes. Hana: I still don't think you should have done this. Re-Destro only told us to TRY to not let him overwork himself while overseeing both companies this week. I doubt he truly expected us to stop him. Curious: He's been awake for 3 days! Would you rather Re-Destro return and we hafta tell him skeptic's back in the ER because the two of us couldn't convince one paranoiac that adderall and redbull isn't a substitute for sleep? Hana: Medically sedating him isn't really "convincing"! Curious: Oh relax Koku, this is perfectly safe! Besides, he won't even remember it! Hana: You do realize that even if he doesn't remember this now, he'll still see everything from all his surveillance cams set up in here right? Skeptic: Owww! Oh my god stop touching me!...I've got reflux...you cunt...I hate you. Curious: Skeptic, Sweetie! Listen honey, I know your tired but before you sleep I'm gonna need to know the access code to the security system~ Hana: That's your plan!? Curious: This is really important, Tomo! You don't wanna fail Re-destro,right? Skeptic: I didn't...didn't fail.... Curious: Right! So just let me know the password and I promise I will leave you alone. Skeptic:....okay Curious: Really? Hana: There is no way. Skeptic: Write it down...I'm not repeating... Curious: Okay! I got a pen~ What's the code? Skeptic: It's numbers and letters....case sensitive. Curious:Gotcha. Ready! Skeptic: One, eight, zero, zero- Curious: Okay.... Skeptic: Capital G, lowercase o- Curious: Uh huh... Skeptic: Next ones are all caps... Curious: Alright, go on. Skeptic: F,U,C,K- Curious: ...uc- wait... Skeptic: The rest are all lowercase. y,o,u,r,s,e,l,f Curious: Goddammit Tomoyasu!

[sunken-standard]

This is going to make me sound like more of an asshole than I usually am, but I am so, so tired of people under 30.

(wow this rant is long so more under the cut)

Like, my old therapist left her job a couple months ago and I got assigned a new one (and they won't let me change because it's some bullshit policy or something, like you can only change therapists a certain number of times ever; it's not my goddamn fault they have a high turnover and I've had 5 different therapists in as many years because they move on to other jobs), and I don't know how old she is exactly, but I can tell she's young.

I don't have anything against young people as a whole, and having self confidence is good and all that, but Jesus fuck, when somebody tells you they've done everything ever suggested to them (by a professional or read in an actual paper book or just saw on the internet, whatever) for well over 25 years, stop trying to suggest goddamn apps or teensplaining dietary choices. Fuu-huuuck allll the way off.

This has been eating at me since yesterday, and I'm so yuck about it because I have to keep talking to her, I don't have a choice in the matter or else I'll be dropped by the practice and lose access to my medication. I tried to very gently explain to her why her advice wasn't helpful to me and she literally just repeated herself, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And then, on top of that, I've been reading a lot of fic lately and wow has the quality gone down across the board. Beta readers are a thing of the past, as is grammar [grinded is not a fucking word at all you numpties, the word you're looking for is ground, ffs the American public school system has really failed us all]* and the same exact visuals and tropes almost copy-pasted from some universal outline of how XYZ pairing is meant to interact--I just can't. (I am so very tired of that anime-inspired string of spit between lips or dick) And fact-checking or research? Why bother, they'll get the kudos either way, right?

I mean, I don't have a lot of day-to-day contact with, well, anybody under the age of 75, but... I dunno. I'm having a lot of "well, in MY day" feelings about just about everything. I don't want to be a Karen about anything, but I just feel like everyone's phoning it in all across the board and I'm just tired (don't get me started on service industry jobs; I know they're garbage but manners are goddamn free, learn to eat shit with a smile like the rest of us had to).

So yeah, anyway (old woman shakes fist at cloud.jpeg)

*this doesn't count for ESL writers, English isn't easy and to write a wholeass story in your nonnative language is way, way more than I could ever do, keep on doing amazing sweeties)

[mantidbasil]

I have been thinking nonstop about how tf2 mercs and markiplier egos would interact now 😭

-------

Heavy, squinting down at Dr. Iplier: tiny.... tiny little doctor...? (mark is only taller than engie, maybe the same height as pyro)

------- Medic: Hey if you want I could heal your ey- The Host: NO. Medic: :( why not The Host: It's complicated Medic: Please don't tell me your eye sockets are haunted too... ------- Google: (minding his own buisiness) Engineer, visibly twitching: Hey there. (slowly pulls out screwdriver. casually approaches). Mind if I ask how you were made? ------- Spy has no interest in interacting with anyone until he finds Dark sitting in a corner drinking wine. He sits down next to them, pours himself a glass, and they just silently exchange looks. -------

PYRO AND WILFORD PYRO AND WILFORD OMG Pyro: (drawing rainbows) Wilford: Ha ha! I'm wearing rainbow suspenders!

Pyro: (burning down buildings, setting people on fire) Wilford: This is fine because death isn't real! (shoots someone)

Pyro: Mmph Mmph! Wilford: Unfortunately your subtitles haven't been translated, so ol' Warfstache here doesn't know what you're saying :(

------- Bing and Scout do skateboard tricks together. Both of them attempt a very simple trick and fail it, falling down and scraping their knees. Both insist they are the better skater, the world's best skater even.

-------

Heist Mark pulls out his bombs and his 16th Century flintlock pistol likely used by pirates for boarding actionsTM and Demoman is mildly interested. Heist Mark then proves that he has strangely extensive knowledge about medieval weaponry and Demo is much more interested. Demo pulls out Eyelander and Captain Magnum joins their little group where they all start talking about weapons and bombs.

-------

Engineer: (disappointed after having failed to get permission to take Google apart and put him back together) Head Engineer Mark: Hi there! I heard you're an engineer? I'm an engineer! Engineer: Do you. Build guns. Or robot arms. Head Engineer Mark: I mean I have the Asteroid Defense System turrets..... but actually I build a spaceship and sort of maybe a time travel universe breaking machine? Engineer: So a dangerous device that can destroy the world.... can I see the schematics?

------- I know in my SOUL Ed Edgar and Sniper hate each other but I can't elaborate. Illinois and Sniper have a very casual truce going on but ultimately Sniper does not really wanna hang out with anyone. This of course means the Jims spot him standing off to the side and think he's the perfect intervewee and at least three, maybe four Jims swarm Sniper and shove cameras and microphones inches from his face and he has a terrible time.

-------

Yandere somehow completely enchants Medic's doves and I can't elaborate on this either. Heavy is bemused. As long as Archimedes chooses Medic over Yan he's going to pretend he isn't jealous about the attention his doves are giving her. Scout goes "AWOOGA GIRL?!" and gets stabbed by Yan. Heavy is reminded of his younger sisters and is delighted.

-------

Eric Derekson is terrified of Soldier. The main two off the top of my head who are not put off by Soldier's shouting are King of the Squirrels and Yancy. Soldier corners King and is like "what are you king of?! not america. WHAT COUNTRY IS SQUIRRELS" Scout hears Yancy speak, hears the accent, and immediately throws hands.

-------

I am yap-o-clock-ing in your ask box but I needed to give you the brainrot that you've given me

OH MY GOD IM DRAWING SOME OF THESE I PROMISE YOU . I DONT KNOW WHEN ILL DRAW THEM BUT I BET YOUR ASS THEYLL BE DRAWN. KEEP YAPPING IN MY INBOX.

PLEASE. PLEASE KEEP TALKING.

TF2 x MARK EGOS BRAINROT !!!!!!!!!

[sleepyzzzi]

!Big talk!

Once again, my blog isn't for vents, but sometimes I need to say stuff that's on my mind.

I'm a student pilot, and honestly. . .I think it's too hard for me. I have one license and some medical knowledge at this point, I'm certified, but it's getting more difficult. It's not that I didn't expect it to be hard, but I'm the only biological female in my classes, so a lot of the guys are awful and sexist. The coursework is a very heavy burden. . .but if I pull through, the pay will be good. They need pilots, I get emails day after day about it. I'm not sure what to do if I fail my part 107. I had the highest scores in the classes last year, but my simulations were less than promising, and this year my scores have dropped by 30%

What I guess I'm saying is, I think I'm going to quit. I think I'm going to become a teacher instead. The pay isn't nearly as good, that is a concern of mine, but I'm hoping to do commissions on the side that can help. I've always wanted to be a teacher, ever since I was in kindergarten. I am absolutely terrified of the future, and losing my grip on my little side as I have been lately.

Along with that, as I mentioned, I've been struggling with my little side. I haven't actually regressed for more than a few minutes in what feels like weeks. I'm not doing too well, but I'm trying my best. I constantly feel unfocused and disoriented, on autopilot. I can never tell who's fronting, or if anyone is even real. I get front stuck so much that my system seems silent and inactive for days at a time and I start to worry if I'm subconsciously faking it. I don't even know, honestly. I'm trying to distract myself, but it seems like nothing is working.

And on top of that, it feels like my incontinence is getting worse in. . .less than ideal ways. It's still embarrassing and humiliating to me. You'd think I'd be used to it, but I'm not. I feel like I can't talk about anything because I'll chase people off by being too negative, weird or clingy, I dunno.

Edit: Actually I want to say. Those guys constantly tell me that those classes aren't for women and I should go back to the kitchen where I belong. Not to mention their 'funny little nicknames' for me. For context, I have some odd looking scars all over my face and other parts of my body due to a skin condition. They look like large patches of severe acne, but they're smooth and just scars. However, these guys like to call me Deadpool or "messed up science experiment" among other things. It's terribly frustrating, and I'm already ashamed by them enough. Why are people so cruel?

SFW INTERACTION ONLY.

[eldritch-araneae]

So; I finally finished watching earthspark; and I truly want to hug Bee; like a lot; my bot does not deserve all that happened to him. I also need more information about breakdown and brawl. Also where was Optimus. Also megatron gets a hug. And Tarantulas and hashtag!

Where is grimloc?

Bee needs a medic, by the way.

There are many more questions and feelings.

But I will end this here.

You also get a hug!

Rev

I have a lot of thought about this! Earthspark Spoilers under cut!

1)Bumblebee def needs a hug and I really hope he will receive some, poor guy! That's a great set up for his character arc as well, which I thinking will happen in second season. His struggles with the alt-mode, agent Schloder being so obsessed and incredibly angry as Bee, and the whole thing with Breakdown. Can't wait to see how this gonna play out.

2) Yeah I also wonder who will treat Bumblebee's injuries? Will it be one of Autobot medic? Or one of Terrans will take this role?

3) About Optimus it's very interesting how he was absent, there are mostly theories how he's being mind controlled by GHOST and such so I wont repeat those, bc I have an additional thought that maybe Optimus is working on better solution. Perhaps with work with some government people to get legal protections for cybertronians on Earth, but he must do this in secret bc GHOST might find out ( and lets face it, Megatron is unreliable in current state).

The reason why no one think of this is bc everyone projecting IDW, and I sincerely hope the ES writers didn't go the exactly same path as comics. Decepticons being oppressed while being the military faction, and Autobots being the oppressors while they are mostly represented by civilians and workers never sits well with me. Besides there an an official continuity where the roles are reversed and it's called Shattered Glass. Ofc there is still big possibility that writer still copied the IDW formula, which would be super disappointing to me, but I'll live. As long as they butcher Bumblebee ahaha. But so far I do like it what I see in the show in current state. GHOST being corrupted organization ( and we don't know if it was always corrupted or it got corrupted over years) but it's the only somewhat support Autobots had and Optimus knows it and he also knows it will affect everyone (which why he hides a lot of Autobots and Terrans in first place). And he's know there is some shady shit on, but doesn't know what exactly (and same with half of GHOST bc Schoder isn't aware either) that's he's trying to find a better way. (Side Note: Tbh, I think about how Croft's possible end goal is got get full control over cybertronians ( and even over humans, we saw how immediately she gain full control over Mandroid and he fails to see it bc of his own hatred) to use them as war machines to her army! Even Optimus kinds implied it when he said "I'm afraid GHOST might use them (Terrans) as asset", like asset for what? There is only one answer for it and we all know military do with those assets.)

Optimus is very interesting, he's really in bad situation right now, and he tries his best to solve it, but its really difficult and he often has to morally compromise just to prevent another war from starting.

And Megatron, even tho he good intentions to break down the oppressive system on Cybertron, he failed, and the main reason why he failed bc he surrounded himself with enemies like Shockwave (which I'm surprised on one else pointed this out yet). So his faction turned into yet another tool of oppression, bringing the war to Earth and trying to conquer it. And what I find interesting is just the fact Megatron isn't there yet!

Right now to me he appears to be someone, who only started to accepts his mistakes, but he doesn't take full responsibility yet. He doesn't realize that his movement was doomed to fail bc of ppl like Shockwave and the fact his still call him a friend after how badly Shockwave treated Terrans really screams it.

And if this gonna be a story not how Megatron isn't actually a traitor of Decepticons, but he was surrounded by traitors and Megatron finally realising it - this would be very cool and thousands times better than whatever it was in IDW!

And I much prefer the situation that a lot of cons joined the cause bc they were ether lied to, or were in desperate situation and Shockwave took advantage of this. This would make perfect sense for "not all cons are evil" and "cons are evil and they choose to be".