#PLEASE IF YOU HAVE ANY GOOD ONES THAT ACTUALLY CITE SOURCES SEND THEM TO ME

[thegooblet]

what is it with revolutionary girl utena video essayists and not citing their sources

[timeslipcamp]

me?? look up flower symbolism for a mobile game??? it's more likely than you think!!

spoilers through ep 15

🌸💐🌼🌸💐🌼🌸💐🌼🌸💐🌼🌸💐🌼🌸

first of all trying to find all these was insane SECOND of all tumblr only lets me add 10 pictures per post on mobile so this WILL get split up into multiple posts. thats on me for always writing these at work lol

a couple of the flowers as well i'm doing my best guess. either the shape or the color is slightly off (it's artwork and flowers) so i've been finding what i think is closest. additionally, i do prefer to be as educational and historically accurate as possible in the references i'm finding, but flower languages are something that tended to vary across culture, time period, and region. oftentimes the major messages and themes carried over, but the interpretation wasn't always the same. i did my best to cross reference at least a couple sources for each one and i'll be going with the main meaning i find for each.

do i think all of these are intentional? probably not, but it's fun anyways.

if anyone has any questions or other interpretations, please send them my way!

flower meanings for the ghouls

first up we've got the most recent one that came out in subaru's super cool fit from episode 15. like i said in my time loop theory post, i do believe this is actually technically a red surprise lily, not a spider lily. however, the two are considered sister flowers, and i put them side by side below so you can see.

as far as i can tell, both of them have the same meaning, and are often used interchangably when describing the flowers. just about every place cites the japanese meaning: they both bloom in autumn, around the same time as both the autumnal equinox and a period called ohigan. during ohigan, it's an important time to visit graves and pay respects to ancestors. spider lillies are poisonous, and in ancient times, were planted over fresh corpses to keep animals from digging them up. ever since then, they've become one of the most easily recognized and symbolic flowers with several meanings and names.

the most common meanings are death, reincarnation, the after life, and its two names, "the death flower" and "the corpse flower". hotarubi has dealt with ghosts and the restless dead in both episodes they've featured in, not to mention episode 15 took place in a haunted house where we were pretending to be ghosts. i think this one is pretty simple.

helloooooooo beautiful sunny haru! we've got quite a few flowers here. i've got sunflowers, daisies, orange roses, thistle, pansies in the background there, anemone, and then i think that's supposed to be baby's breath but the clumping and petal shape look almost like butterfly bush. could be sweet alyssum as well. idk i just work here

sunflowers - did you know sunflowers were originally cultivated as a food source? there's your fun fact for the day! these flowers also vary in meaning across different cultures but all of them have a positive connotation. sunflowers stand for hope, happiness, and also good luck!

daisy - is that a daisy. the petals are fat and now i'm second guessing myself. oh apparently theres one called a wide petal daisy lmao anyways! if it is a daisy, once again a very positive flower, most meanings list innocence and new beginnings. victorian flower language says a daisy means a secret is safe with you. interesting :)

orange roses - theres always 900 interpretations of roses smh. from what i've gathered, outside of a relationship they mean fascination, perseverance, and admiration. new beginnings make an appearance again. inside a relationship it typically means passion and energy, along with enthusiasm. all things that are very haru

thistle - cute lil tucked away in his pocket. this one's pretty interesting because the meanings amost flip depending on where you're from. thistle represents adaptation, pride, and resilience, but in victorian flower language specifically, it represented pain and intrusion. honestly, i think both fit.

anemone - three out of four of his flowers have greek myths associated with them. what the hell, man. anyways. this one changes wildly depending on the culture. one has them listed as anticipation, one as tragic love, and apparently, this one is also a flower of the dead OR it will protect you from evil. if i had to guess, i think the anticipation one fits most, because it has it listed here that you give them during major life changes.

pansies - this one kind of went back and forth and i didn't feel confident in any of the sources, but the most common one i found was that they're to give to someone to let them know that you're thinking of them. interesting that these are placed in the background.

baby's breath - still not 100% that's what this is. whatever. baby's breath is another one that symbolizes purity and innocence. if anything, i think these ones symbolizing innocence just kind of apply to haru's optimism--he has such a pure view of wanting to help anomalies and humans live together. it's so sweet.

overall, i'd say the main theme of harry's flowers are optimistic, purity, life changes, energy, and resilience. love the way daisy applies to him.

i wasn't going to include this one but this picture is pissing me the fuck off and i think it's because this isn't a real flower. i've been googling for 45 minutes because clearly that's a yellow rose, right? wrong roses dont grow in on woody leafless stems like that. you know what does? kerria! you know what kerria is often confused with? japanese rose bushes! i think someone fucked up and pissed off a very specific subset of nerd (aka me and like, one other person)

hoping i'm wrong. someone PLEASE tell me what this is if you figure it out

anyways

yellow rose - literally so different depending on the region and even the time. in modern americas/england, they're for friendship, but in victorian flower language, it was infidelity. in latin america they represent deep, passionate love, but in china and modern japanese culture, it's for wealth, prosperity and life changes. in historical japan, they represented the imperial family.

so literally who knows pick your fav this one doesn't count.

the man the myth the legend!! love this dude

we've got purple roses (and some blue and yellow but that might be for aesthetic reasons), yellow iris, i think that's supposed to be a purple dahlia in his pocket? but the size is off, perhaps more thistle? whatever. a couple white calla lillies, a couple lil yellow and greenery that's also filler, and i think white delphinium.

yellow roses and thistle meanings listed above

purple roses - this one was funny. the synonyms kinda changed depending on the source but for the most part they represent love at first sight, enchantment, and mystery. one website said they meant "a love that is unattainable." :')

blue roses - less info available, but also mystery and the unattainable.

yellow iris - across the board, they represent passion, but it does also look like it can mean both platonically and romantically. one super obscure website also said it's a gender non conforming flower. nonbinary zenji lives

purple dahlia - several sources cited this one as meaning dignity, grace, kindness, and a couple others also had creativity in their lists. there were also some that had mystery! a very zenji flower, even if i'm incorrect about this one lmao

white calla lily - another innocence and purity one. however, they've also come to be associated with death and rebirth with their use in easter celebrations. iiiiinteresting

white delphinium - i've spelled that name wrong like six times so far if you see a typo no you didn't. this one seemed to have a different meaning on every place i looked, but there were a couple common threads: levity, protection, innocence, and remembrance. zenji's card bouta make me cry.

if we're looking at the placements at all, i love that he's handing you the enchantment and love at first sight flower. ugh zenji you deserve the world

followed IMMEDIATELY by his brother lmao. these two drive me INSANE dude i am always thinking about their relationship

in the back bouquet that he's holding we've got some pink and peach roses (and one hidden red one???), a couple random ones i can't made out, and in the foreground a BUNCH of

hey wait hold on

its called WHAT???

huh?????????

zenji hello???????

okay anyways back to jiro

up in the forefront he's got a bunch of dame's rocket, i guess? also called sweet rocket and eve weed, it's the closest i could find. yet another flower that has a greek tale associated with it, which i think the greeks just made up stories about every flower smh but it's named after hesperus (the morning star).

apparently it's only real symbolism meaning is deceit, which is wild given how much of this flower is on this card. also, jiro doesn't remember parts of last year. guess he could be lying!!!

pink roses - admiration and love, but a few sources did make a point to say the pink is a more gentle and understated love. very jiro. also love that there's a single red rose poking out there

peach roses - sincerity and gratitude.....ok. ok hold on. tin hat donned. jiro is holding flowers that mean sincerity but there are a ton of deceit flowers behind him. he's trying to be sincere but something is holding him back? who's to say

anyways that's all the pictures that tumblr will let me add on mobile so this is part one done, onto part two!

dms and asks always open 🌻

[ya9amicide]

Redamancy [BTS]

chapter one

♡ info ♡ k-pop masterlist ♡ next chapter ♡

summary: Hybrids were accepted in society to a certain degree. To some, they are for entertainment. Used as sex and money tools. To lock up and abuse whenever and however they please. Something to have control over. To others, they are companions. Just like regular animals are used for therapy or simply companionship, hybrids are too.

To the rest, they are just like everyone else. Someone with their own life who deserves the same freedoms as your everyday John or Jane Doe. Wren is one of these people. She hates the idea of owning a hybrid. She has nothing against those who own them for medical or companionship reasons. Just the rest.

But, when a ragtag pack of seven mismatched hybrids somehow ends up in the woods behind her home, she takes them in and does the one thing she never thought she would do. Own them. But, she also does something she didn't even think was possible. She fell in love with each and every one of them.

pairing(s): ot7 x ot7, ot7 x oc

warnings: none

Most hybrids come from Asian countries because of the ethereal beauty they possess. For most, that is the only asset that keeps them alive. The way most of these hybrids end up in other countries is if they are sold to someone and brought there. Now, the entire world has hybrids mixed into its population.

Being a writer, I always get asked why I haven't written anything about hybrids. For a fantasy writer, it's like the jackpot of writing material considering they actually exist and all the information I would need is right at my fingertips if I want it to be.

It's just something that never sat right with me. I don't know everything and the only way to know everything is to speak to one myself. I don't own a hybrid. I won't own a hybrid. I have nothing against people who own them as long as they are treating them with care. But, I just don't feel comfortable interrogating someone for the purpose of a story.

Hybrids have very unique, very personal aspects to their lives that other people don't have. It would be like asking the deepest most personal questions about someone's life. It's unfathomably uncomfortable.

Luckily, I can escape the demands for hybrid content when I'm teaching. Teaching Greek mythology to college students has its perks in that regard. Which, leads me to where I am now, wrapping up my lecture for the day.

"Alright everyone, don't forget your homework for the weekend." Some students groan at the back of the room. I stand from behind my desk, walking around to the front where I lean against it with my hip. "Yes, yes, I know. Just be thankful you get a whole weekend for it, your other professors probably wouldn't be so nice. Now, any questions?"

Two hands raise in the air and I call on the first one to come up. "How many sources did we need to cite again?"

"At least three," I say. "You can use more if you'd like, I have no issue with that. However, I hope I don't need to remind you which types of websites aren't credible sources?"

Everyone shakes their heads and I nod, calling on the next person. "Will there be any time to come in to ask questions about our papers before Monday?"

"To come in, no. Unfortunately not. However, if you'd like you can email me with any questions you have or just send me a draft and I can read it for you and give you feedback that way. I will try to get back to you asap if I can. Just please do not email me Monday morning or late Sunday night as I will be asleep and it will be too late for you."

When I finish speaking everyone shuffles in their seats. "Any more questions?" When nobody else speaks up, I lean upright from my position in front of my desk. "If that's all then you are all free to go. Have a good weekend." I receive goodbyes from almost every student as they leave. Once the last one does, I shuffle all of my belongings together and leave the room, locking the door.

On my way home, it starts to rain. It's been in the forecast all week but it was only supposed to be a slight drizzle. This, however, is a torrential downpour. Pulling into my driveway and parking, I brace myself to make a run for it. There's no way I won't get drenched.

Walking inside, I toe off my shoes and drop my things by the door before going upstairs to change into warm and comfy clothes for the evening. Walking into the kitchen for food, I pass the large, sliding glass doors that lead to my backyard and the woods behind my house.

Cereal for dinner sounds good. With a bowl of dry cereal in one hand and a glass of milk in the other, I make my way to the living room. On the way, I pass by the glass door again. Lighting strikes, lighting up the yard and the woods in the distance. In the treeline, I almost swear I can see an animal. It's not super big, but it's not small either. Surprisingly, even with the woods bordering my house, not many animals make their way out. so, seeing one now is slightly odd.

I set my food down on the coffee table and move back to the kitchen, making a plate of food for...whatever is out there. If it's in the woods in a storm like this, it must be hungry. Sliding open the glass door, I set the plate down on the porch under the awning and move back inside where I sit on the couch with my own food and the tv playing in front of me.

I'm around two episodes into the show I was watching when I hear footsteps on the back porch. They're small but loud enough for me to hear through the rain which has settled down into a soft drizzle. Standing, I make my way to the door, trying to keep my steps light and my posture open so whatever is out there doesn't feel threatened by me.

When I'm close enough to see what it is, I find a German Shepherd right before it shifts and a man is left in its place. My hand reaches out for the door handle when he sees me. His eyes widen and he scrambles to pocket all of the food and make a run for the woods.

I quickly open the door trying to stop him. "Wait, please! You don't have to go." He freezes in his steps, halfway off the porch. "I- I can give you more food if that isn't enough. And some water too if you want?" He's thin and pale and shaking like a leaf where he stands. "Please?" My voice is soft, I'm afraid if I speak too loud he'll run away. "I just want to help."

It feels like we stare at each other for hours before he nods his head, barely enough for me to see but it's still a nod. "Okay, okay that's good," I say and lead him inside. "Let me get you a towel so you can dry off, you must be cold." I don't wait for him to respond before I rush off to get it. When I come back, he's in the same spot I left him.

"Here," I hand him the towel and watch as he wraps it around himself. Slowly, his shivering starts to calm down. "Do you have any preferences?"

He looks at me strangely, head tilting to the side. The ears on the top of his head flop to the side softly, the fur wet. "To eat? Is there anything in particular you want? Anything I should avoid?" He seems to take a minute to process what I asked him before he slowly shakes his head. "Okay. You can um...you can come wait in the kitchen while I get you something if you want."

He timidly walks in behind me and watches everything I do. I decided on soup. Hopefully, the warmth from the food would make him feel better. "Is it just you?" I ask timidly.

"No," he says softly after some hesitation.

"Are- are they close? Whoever you're with?"

"Yes."

I pause what I'm doing. Maybe I should make more soup..."How many of you are there?" How much food am I going to need to make?

He shifts uncomfortably. "Seven. Including me."

"Do they want to come in? You can invite them if you want." I avoid looking at him, continuing to make more food.

"What?" He sounds surprised and wary.

"Only if you want. I mean," I stop and chuckle slightly, "seven versus one? If I were to try anything, which I won't, I think you all have the advantage. Don't you think?"

He waited for a few minutes, probably trying to see if I was pulling his leg. "Okay." He slowly makes his way to the sliding door, I can feel his eyes on me, keeping me in his sight. Leaving the door open, he shifts back into a German Shepherd and lets out a loud howl towards the forest. Anything else beyond that, I don't hear because of the volume of the storm raging outside. It was around 15 minutes before he came back inside, several pairs of footsteps shuffling in behind him.

I freeze, gently putting down what was in my hands before slowly turning to face the group of hybrids in my home.

[all-hallows-street]

Lingzi's Odaibako/Twitter Answers Collection Volume 2

Continuing the compilation of Lingzi's Odaibako answers. Click here for Part 1.

You can still send questions/comments/requests through Odaibako but please be respectful and mindful! As the author stated they will not respond to any questions or suggestions about future content! Also do not spam, Lingzi answers in rare bursts so they might not get to answer your comment any time soon.

A few clarifications. I will skip some doodle requests/drawn answers and will compile them later in a post with all of Lingzi's twitter drawings. Everything with [] marks an edit so the English sounds more natural.

16. Hello. I have a question. There is a scene where Nini imagines (delusions) having a child with Lily. Can demons and angels actually have children? Is there a mix of devils and angels? I was curious because angels themselves don't seem to reproduce.

Yes, that's just Neil's fantasy. Angels don't have the ability to reproduce~

Source

17. Hello Teacher Lingzi I'm Japanese and I'm learning Chinese. I would like to translate your manga All Saints Street into Japanese. But I understand copyright. Can I translate your comics and quote your images? (Also cite sources, of course.) Or is it difficult for an individual to do this?

Ah, sorry, I haven’t looked at the question box for a long time 😂 I don’t know if it’s too late to answer now 🙏🙏😭 If it is only for the purpose of learning and communication, it is no problem to translate comics that have been released for free! 👌👌

Very important answer for me lol.

Source

18. Do you have the names of the demon representative and the vampire representative? (Other representatives too) I like it very much😭

That's a new character created by the animation team, and I don't know him either... (laughs)

Source

19. Hello! I am Japanese. I learned about Halloween Street through anime and fell in love with it! I particularly like Ira. I want to know what kind of woman Ira likes🙇‍♂️💕︎💕︎ I like your comics❣️

Does it mean love in love...? I think he might not be interested in women... nor other genders... He is mainly not interested in relationships, but if I have to choose one trait, I think he might like [loves and is good at playing games] 】Female w

Source

20. Seven-year-old Anna looks similar to a seven-year-old human, so Damao must be in his twenties? How long is a werewolf's lifespan?

The lifespan of a werewolf is almost the same as that of a human, and Damao should be around 25���🤔

Source

21. Hello Teacher! In the anime, Neil's age is stated to be 16 years old, but I read that in the original story, the devil is 80 years old and becomes an adult. Are the age settings different between the anime and the original?

Regarding this... I checked with the screenwriter of the animation before. They forgot the setting of the comic, so they wrote it according to the age of human beings 😂😂 So just think that the settings of animation and manga are different!

Source

22. Hello, teacher! I don’t know if there is a detailed setting for this, but I am a little curious about whether the ice cream that the devil eats (the name is really apt) is a real soul (?) Can the devil in the All Saints Street world eat human souls?

It’s a real soul 😂 But what’s frozen into ice cream should just be the soul of the fruit (everything is alive👌) Yes, they should like evil spirits and the like.

Source

23. I really like Neil's design. I love Neil very much and I have all his belongings around me. Neil has one side of his hair braided. Why does he braid it? I like it because it's very pretty. Do you think this is fashionable? (I'm Japanese so the translation may be different)

The setting is because Neil's mother's family has the habit of wearing braids for generations, so he and Nick both have braids. (But the real reason is that I like to draw braids and think they are cute)

Source

24. Hello, Teacher Lingzi. Does FENZ have any guidelines for doujin activities? (I would like to know if there are any rules like HMCH, such as distributing doujinshi but not producing goods.)

As far as I know, it has never been posted🤔...So I can't give a formal answer to this question. It's just for reference...As long as you don't take the official pictures privately ( Official comics + animation) should be fine if you print pirated copies and sell them, and do fan activities...

Source

Two similar questions are answered at once.

25. Hello! I recently learned about this through an anime translated into Japanese. All the characters are really cute and I really love them! Will a Japanese translation of the original manga be released…? I really want to read the original… When will the Japanese version of the Manseonggae original comic be released?

Because there are really many people asking about the Japanese single volume, I will give a unified reply here: Thank you for your interest in comics, but… I really don’t know! 😂😂😂 I basically won’t be involved in anything other than [conceiving + drawing] comics, so I really don’t know…but I haven’t heard any relevant news yet, so it should be…not available yet Plan it!

(It's been a year since and there are still no news about an official Jpn manga publication)

Source

26. Hello, excuse me for asking! Previously, you answered in the question box that angels do not have the ability to reproduce, but how are the genders of angels determined? Sorry for the Japanese. I would appreciate it if you could answer. My favorite work🥰

Being infertile does not mean that you have no reproductive organs🫢(probably) I think you can imagine the body of an angel as that of an infertile human 🤔

Source

27. Hello Teacher! Does Abu have a sense of pain? If there is something that everyone has that Abu doesn't, or something that Abu has that everyone doesn't? Please let me know!

I still feel pain, but it’s a special place... Maybe it’s because I’m less sensitive to cold and warm. Even if I only wear T-shirts all year round, it’s OK, but I still wear them with the four seasons in order to better integrate with everyone. To change clothes.

This is being answered through Abu's perspective or the translator is confused af. Source

28. Hello teacher~ I just discovered that there is a teacher’s account on Twitter a while ago, so I looked at all the pictures on Twitter. The series on Ira is really warm and cute, but at the end I saw Ira lying on Teacher Lin’s shoulder. It made me think, is it possible for him to lie on top of others like this (stealing) and moving (lazy)? After all, hiring someone to hold a parasol in summer is equivalent to getting a free taxi without having to prepare sunscreen. Although I don’t know how to deal with the clothing issue.

Haha, it’s because of the clothes that he usually doesn’t do that. Although it’s really convenient... If you can change clothes at home, the probability of turning into a bat is higher. Forget it outside, the clothes will fall off. On the ground~

Source

29. Can devils go into church? 🤔 for example if someone they know gets married at a church do they just have to stand outside? wwww

Oh I never thought about that before, but I think you are right[.] They may not be able to get into the church

Source

30. Hello teacher, I’m interrupting you again (although I am anonymous). I want to ask this time, will an angel still be an angel without a halo? To be more specific, it probably disappears. Also, can angels share halos?

Logically speaking, the angel's halo will not disappear, but it may be damaged and destroyed. If it is broken, just go back to heaven and apply for a new one😌👌It's not a big problem. Yes, Lily also secretly used Teacher Lin’s aperture.

Source

Continue in Part 3

[damnfandomproblems]

https://www.tumblr.com/damnfandomproblems/754768130433302528/5168-that-one-anon-get-the-fuck-out-of-fandom?source=share

Just who are you talking to lol?

"""That One Anon: Get the fuck out of fandom then if you are That against "theft". Your blorbos aren't yours, then, they belong to the original creators. Go pick up a pen and write your own characters, thief. Never make a creative aspect without citing every single possible subconscious influence you took for it. That head tilt you drew? The concept of a sad backstory? Proper credit only, you thief."""

You sound like anne rice.

The difference anon is not about the characters. No one is claiming they own characters from certain shows, or claiming that they are their own original designs.

Its about how AI datasets are trained on the art of other artists without their consent.

People love fan art. Most if not all smaller artist will love you if you decide to draw or write fan pieces about their characters. Games and shows would not be as popular as they are without fandoms. Many encourage the making of fanart and fanfic. I know genshin impact for example expressly allows the selling of fan made merch and even hosts hoyofair for fans to show off their fanart and such. Its not theft to draw a character but its theft to claim it as your own.

Its theft to generate images made from stolen artwork and claim it as your own original "art".

You also don't understand the concept of copyright laws.

"""Oh, what's that? You don't count?""

I do count actually. If i made a game and stole the characters from a bunch of other games and tried making money off it while claiming them as my own i would actually be in trouble.

Transformative works like fan art and fanfic dont count usually because these days by default as long as you dont try and claim it (the characters and canon stuff) as your own, you are more than allowed, encouraged even, to create and sell those things. Unless its disney. Because disney sucks.

Im probably not the best person to explain these nuances to you

Please actually educate yourself about transformative works.

"""I read books daily. I write and draw from pure imagination, and study artists on youtube to get better at drawing."""

Good for you? So do i lol?

"""I also think AI is a tool that can be used for good or ill, and it's how people use it that matters. Much like how a keyboard doesn't stop a human from sending anon hate."""

I tried responding to this but it got so long and convoluted that im just going to hope someone else has the patience to answer something as ignorant as this.

"""I'd commission artists if I could! I've done so in the past. But guess what, I don't feel safe asking for commissions now on the off chance a artist realizes I think AI is a tool like any other and harasses me when I never would have brought it up. Despite the fact many artists both fandom and original have tons of influences both credited and not. I've seen human artists and writers get accused of AI for STYLISTIC CHOICES that anyone with half a thought should be able to tell was artist intent and inline with previous works."""

1. That's a personal problem dude. Maybe you should reflect on why artists might not like you for using something that actively steals their work. Also this low-key screams entitlement.

2. What does the rest of that have to do with anything. I think you forgot to connect why any of that was important.

"""I can count on one hand the amount of collage art/blackout poetry/drawn over photographs I've seen in public museums that were properly credited beyond the editor. I can't count the amount of media I've seen that nudges at other pre-existing works that was either hyped up for it or was said to justify that aspect."""

I believe you should actually do some research on those things before bringing up your surface level observations in your argument.

"""Ko-fi tipping, Patron subscriptions, sales of generically labled charms and prints and fanart to get around what's Actually being sold. Art style memes, art referenced from canonical works as intentional homage uncredited. Uncredited style inspiration. The entire existence of unsourced, constantly remixed memes.

You gonna claim that's all fine, but anons should expect to be accused of being "techbros" and linked to foreign words meaning "masturbating and crying" for just asking what an artstyle from a artist is called? That it's actually FINE to drive off people wanting to be creative no matter the medium because that particular one 'isn't art' and so no one can want to be a artist and use it?"""

See that all falls apart if you would all just realize stuffing stolen art into a machine, putting in a prompt to get a random result, is not creativity. There is nothing creative about that.

Best analogy i can come up with rn is thats almost like me searching for "powdered donuts" in the walmart online store and just picking whatever one i think looks best and then claiming i made the donuts. Instead of going to a bakery and custom ordering exactly what i want or making it myself.

The biggest difference between AI and other artforms is that what AI produces and generates is not creative. Theres no actual thought or consideration going into most of the work.

The machine itself is amazing. The programming needed to make such a thing function properly is actually impressive. But what it produces is not creative. And if you knew anything about how these machines and programs worked you would be able to understand that.

"""I swear I've gone back to the 2010s and 'is digital art REAL art though? the computer draws the line for you? You aren't a REAL artist, you just use photoshop to edit things.'

"That's still done by a human person though-"

Hypocrite. Get the fuck out of fandom."""

Again. If you actually understood how "AI" works you would understand the difference.

Its not hypocritical and this is a false equivalence. You are ignoring the process which differentiates these things in favor of focusing on the fact they are both machines.

In digital art it is almost no different that traditional. The difference being it doesnt use materials, and you have the cool undo and redo button, and other effects buttons you would not get with traditional art. You also dont HAVE to use those things and you are forgetting that you have to learn how they work and use them MANUALLY.

People who use digital art dont claim its easier either. Its more convenient. But as a digital artist, its imcredibly difficult and time consuming depending on what im making. I have a personal project that has 170+ hours on it. Even with all my fancy buttons ive had to go back and redo things countless times and fiddle with things. I have to deliberately choose what color goes where, what brush to use, what layer setting i need ect ect. And its all original.

Saying digital art isnt real art is like saying driving an automobile doesnt count as driving because you have a bunch of buttons and levers to do what you want instead of ordering horses around on a wooden carriage.

With AI the machine does everything for you. Its about the same as googling a picture of a bunny (typing a prompt), choosing a picture (taking what's generated), and posting it and claiming its your own. (Theft)

So no. People who use AI can get the fuck out of fandom. Thanks.

Posting as a response to a previous ask.

[solardragun]

Oz salt? Please spare Oz salt. 🥺

rubs hands. let's do this again because tumblr crashed.

first things first: I want everyone who has ever called him a liar to pay me $20 and then turn in a 40 page essay on how he's a liar, MLA format, sources cited.

now, onto that. everyone harps on ozpin for lying. keyword: lying. they call him a liar, they say they can't trust him, etc. let's talk about this. keeping secrets is not lying. lying is intentionally FALSE statements / information.

so, with that, let's count the number of times ozpin has GENUINELY LIED. that'll be a total of one (1) time. what lie was this? the relic having questions.

this ENTIRE time, everyone has been dragging this poor man by the ankles and punching at him while he's down when he's lied... once.

he's kept secrets, he's kept information to himself. that, by definition, is not lying. keeping secrets is not giving false statements. to keep calling him a liar is inaccurate.

now, let's move onto the way the narrative paints him.

"he forced pyrrha to be the maiden. he didn't give her a choice. he told her to pick or everyone would die. he guilt tripped her." — to that I say, no he didn't. he explained the gravity of the situation. if he didn't tell her the heavy parts, everyone would've ripped him to shreds because he "didn't warn her". he explained what he felt she needed to know: they needed someone to take the other half of amber's power. it's a big decision to make and it will change your life. there are people out there who want their hands on this power and we don't want the wrong person to have it, like cinder. you can take your time to choose. if you don't, we will consider another option.

he gave her the information she needed and he gave her time to think about it. when she accepted, he continuously asks her for consent and if she truly wants this. she said yes multiple times.

on that note, he is not responsible for her death. he told her to LEAVE when cinder attacked. he told her to go get qrow, james and glynda, and then get to safety with the rest of the students. SHE chose to come back and fight cinder all on her own. jaune even begged her not to do it before she shoved him in a locker and launched him away. ozpin is not responsible for her death.

"he's evil because he tried to leave salem and take their kids" — okay so clearly male abuse victims don't exist to you or the narrative. ozma was MANIPULATED by salem. jinn says as much: "the hearts of men are easily swayed." this is said over salem goading ozma into being a false god with her. he continuously questioned their choices, he was consumed with guilt, his host even asked him wtf was going on.

when their daughter came into her power, ozma decided to lay the truth out, and with it came the horror of salem wanting to USE their daughters to start a new generation of magic-users. she SAID it, right to his face. he BACKS AWAY IN DISGUST AND HORROR. his logical thought then was to LEAVE. wouldn't you if your spouse decided they wanted to use your children??

it astounds me because if the roles were reversed, ozma would be the villain and salem would be justified in leaving. interesting, isn't it?

next, we have the girls ripping his past away from him and then blasting him for hiding information. this... look, I don't care how "urgent" it was, there is NO excuse for doing this. if this had happened to blake when she was keeping secrets about being in the white fang or being with adam, the characters and audience would be livid, especially when the white fang were written as dangerous terrorists and adam was written as an abuser. they're dangerous, they posed threats. if this had happened to blake, if someone forced her trauma out into the open, they would be in the wrong. but because it's ozpin, it's fine.

moving on. "lying about lionheart." — this is just ridiculous. telling the world "hey, the headmaster of haven, who was a faunus by the way, was actually the one behind huntsmen dying and the attack on the school as well as contributing to the fall of beacon." it sends a BAD message and sets the human-faunus relationship back even further. ozpin chose not to tell the people about lionheart betraying them because not only would it cause issues, he also says that he would rather people believe in all the good leo had previously done. your mistakes don't define you, that kind of logic.

"oz lied about the lamp attracting grimm" — no he didn't. he didn't SAY that it did. that's not a lie. he kept it a secret so the students wouldn't worry and actually attract grimm. which, by the way, interesting how that "attraction" seemed to have disappeared by the time v7 and 8 dropped. never once saw grimm following them around because of the lamp. the only grimm that actively attacked were the ones coming through the hole in the wall. weird, huh? almost like the story NEEDED something for the characters to be mad at oz about.

anyway, I'm gonna move on. the fact that ozpin received ZERO apologies and / or sympathy, especially from those we'd expect it from (ruby, weiss, blake) is infuriating. EMERALD was forgiven in a heartbeat, and she actively helped cause the fall of beacon, she helped kill penny, she killed a faunus in vale to prove a point to cinder (who got mad at her for, btw), she helped frame yang into "attacking" mercury so she'd look violent, she worked for salem by proxy of cinder. emerald did way much worse than ozpin, and she was forgiven !! in that same episode, ozpin is given dirty looks and "hm, idk if we can still trust you." hell, HE apologized. he had NOTHING to apologize for. these kids were in the wrong, especially when they lied throughout all of volume seven and then were justified for it. "you're not like oz, you're trusting people to prove themselves first." uh. you mean like ozpin was doing???? these students actively lied to ironwood for most of v7 until it finally caught up to them, and then they were STILL in the right. yet they got on ozpin and still reprimand him.

idunno man, I'm so tired. this isn't even the half of it but I'm angry all over again.

in any case, ozpin isn't perfect, he has made some really stupid mistakes (CCT towers that cause global disconnection when one tower falls, etc.), but like, he's not the devil either.

[joyfulholland]

The Peace Treaty - Mob!Tom

....when your father orders you to make peace with Tom Holland, heir to the other crime family, you find working together is not as horrendous as you once thought.....

a/n: enemies to lovers with mob!Tom...this was a labour of love but I really like how this turned out and I hope you do too! i was largely inspired by all of my insanely talented friend Hannah’s (@duskholland​) mob!Tom writing, which is an absolute must read for anyone and everyone! please let me know what you think! this was nearly a smut but I changed my mind so if anyone would be interested in a part 2 please send me a message!

warnings: swearing, lots of mentions of violence, some mentions of blood/injuries

word count: 6.1k

All weddings have a little drama somewhere, but you thought having to throw a knife to stop the unwanted guest escaping was a tad excessive.

Luckily, the majority of the wedding party and guests were out in the gardens, so it was only a select few who had seen you interrupt the man’s swift exit. You smirked in triumph as he turned back to face you, his posture having slumped realising that not only was he cornered, but severely outnumbered. Smoothing out the cobalt silk that was your bridesmaid dress, you took one step forward, before pausing at the cough from the man beside you.

Tom wordlessly flipped the pistol he was holding so that you could easily take it from him. His actions caused you to raise an eyebrow, and he smirked as he revealed the second handgun tucked into his waistband.

“Knew you wouldn’t be able to carry in that dress.” He grinned, eyes scanning your figure as you took the weapon from him. “Figured I better bring a spare so you wouldn’t have to miss out on the action.”

“Thank you.” You didn’t hide the surprise in your tone, still not used to his friendly attitude. Gesturing at the man still in the doorway, whose eyes were darting between you both, and the four other men behind you, you returned to the task at hand. “Shall we?”

“After you darling.”

~one week earlier~

“You can’t be serious Dad.”

Your father rolled his eyes from where he was seated across from you in front of the fire, the sound of laughter and music drifting under the door to his study from the party going on outside. Taking another sip of his whisky, he sighed at the incredulous look still plastered on your face.

“It’s time you made peace with him. I’m getting old, it’ll be your turn to run things soon, and we’d like to retire knowing the two of you aren’t at each other’s throats and throwing everything we built away. Besides, your sister’s wedding is almost here, and I want it to run smoothly.”

Sinking back into your chair, you let out a frustrated sigh before raising your own drink to your lips. Growing up as the eldest daughter of one of the two biggest crime families in London, you’d been raised preparing for the day it would be your turn to take on the “family business”, and you had relished in the prospect. The only issue you had taken to the entire affair, one which it seemed your father was now determined to resolve, was the heir to the other notorious family with whom you shared your work: Tom Holland.

One year older than you, the rivalry between you had started young. Both determined to prove you would one day be capable heads of your respective families, you’d attempted to one up each other at every opportunity available. Where he had excelled in marksmanship, your skill with a knife was incomparable to anyone else. When he began working for his father full time, you had begged your own to let you do the same, pleading that the fact he was older irrelevant. His specialty was smuggling, so you made disposal yours. The two of you even had a private scoreboard of times your activities had namelessly been displayed on the news, bragging that you were more successful at getting away with it than the other.

“Just shag him already.” Your younger sister, Isabelle, had groaned not a month before, as you’d finished regaling her with your recent triumph over him. “You’ve both been madly in love since you were about two years old.”

You’d almost spat your wine at her, the statement causing you off guard. Whilst it was no secret that Tom had suddenly become incredibly attractive over the course of a summer away when he was seventeen, you had made that fact irrelevant as your feelings towards him held nothing but contempt.

“I’m not in love with him.” Your words had come out as defiant, but it had only caused her to snort into her own drink. “Belle, he’s an arrogant, selfish arsehole who has done nothing but show as much hate towards me as I have to him since we were old enough to throw building blocks at each other.”

“I think you meant passion, not hate, but whatever.” She rolled her eyes, knowing when to drop a subject. “But it would be better for us all if you got along at least, and so help me God if the sexual tension between the two of you ruins my wedding I’ll murder you, heir to the firm or not.”

Which led you back to sitting across from your father, who had just informed you that he’d agreed with Tom’s father Dominic that the two of them were to hold ‘peace treaty’ talks between you.

“Did Belle put you up to this?” You asked suspiciously, eyes flashing to the door where you knew she would be holding court as the host of the wedding shower.

“She and your mother may have suggested it.”

“So she snitched to the both of you.”

“Actually, I think it was your mother’s idea first, she’s been speaking about it for a while.”

The smile on his face let you know you were defeated. It seemed they had all colluded together to force you into the ceasefire of your battle with Tom, and there was no way to escape it. Letting out another disgruntled sigh, you finished the remainder of your drink before rising from the chair.

“I assume he’s here.” The tone of your voice made your father let out a bark of laughter, and you knew you sounded like a child who had just been reprimanded. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Not waiting for an answer, you crossed the room and re-joined the party that your father had pulled you from, rearranging your face into a fake smile as you passed guests in various states of enjoyment on your way to the main reception area in your family estate. You’d barely stepped over the threshold of the doorway when his voice rang clearly above the music.

“Well, if it isn’t my new best friend.”

Turning to face him, you saw Tom push up from where he was leaning against the wall. Your eyes quickly scanned his body, noting the near-empty glass held loosely between two ring-clad fingers. His black suit jacket fitted him perfectly over a crisp white shirt, which had the top three buttons undone to reveal a thin gold chain around his neck. He was flanked on either side by his two most loyal friends, Harrison and Tuwaine, both of whom offered you a smile. Whilst the rivalry between yourself and Tom was strong, neither of you had ever taken any issue to those in both of your inner circles.

“Looks like I’m not the only one who’s had the play nice speech.” Skipping any greetings, you return the other men’s smiles before focusing on Tom. He gives a short chuckle at your words before raising his glass to his lips and finishing the remainder of his drink. “For the record, I have no intentions of becoming friends.”

“I’m wounded darling.” Tom’s still wearing an obnoxious smirk as a server comes to offer you a glass of champagne, taking away his empty glass in the process. “I thought we could make a a good team, make everyone even happier.”

“In your dreams, Holland.” You know he’s just baiting you, but with the prospect of at least a couple more hours of party ahead of you, your patience for him was limited. “We can be civil at events and make an effort in any deals. But that’s it. We are not, and never will be a team.”

Not giving him time to answer, you swiftly turned on your heels and entered further into the crowd of people celebrating your sister’s upcoming nuptials, determined not to let him ruin this night for you anymore, and not to think about him until the next time you saw him.

Which, it turned out, would be sooner than you had hoped.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The following morning, you had retreated back to your own apartment.

Having cited ‘business’ as your reason, you knew that your family had seen into your lie, and that you wanted to be able to sulk in peace. You’d promised, under threats of bodily harm, to return two days before the wedding, giving you a good four days to get your bad mood out of the way.

The alone time only lasted fifteen hours.

It was drawing close to two a.m. when the banging on your door disturbed you. You hadn’t fallen asleep yet, having been going over some files at your desk, but the loud beating had startled you, and was unexpected enough for you to grab your gun from your bottom draw before approaching the source. Checking the spy hole, a string of curses left your mouth as you unchained and unlocked the door.

Tom fell through the threshold, his brown curls dishevelled, and his knuckles bruised. A thin trail of blood trickled down the side of his face from a slash above his left eyebrow, and a dark patch pooling on his shoulder alluded to there being another injury beneath his shirt. Quickly shutting the door behind him and relocking it, you spun to glare at the man who was now propping himself up against the wall of your hall.

“What the hell are you doing here?” You asked him, taking another survey of his injuries, and noting the yellowing skin under his eye that had a blue tinge. He had never been to your apartment before, but it didn’t shock you that he knew the address, especially as you knew his. Instead, you chose to ask the next most prominent question. “Have you been stabbed or shot?”

“I was close by, needed to tell you something.” He ignores your question, so you move past him to get to your bathroom, noting the wince he tried to hide as he moved to follow. Gingerly sitting on the edge of your bathtub, he watches as you grab a first aid kit from the cabinet under your sink. “You don’t need to do that.”

“I’m not going to stand here and watch you bleed.” You roll your eyes at him as you turn to face him, gesturing towards his shirt as a hint for him to remove it. He does so slowly, grimacing as he tries not to move his shoulder. You can’t help but take a sharp gasp when you see the gash running over the top of his skin, clear that a bullet had skimmed past him and not quite missed. Tom sends you a weak smile as you turn back to grab something to clean the wound. “What were you so desperate to tell me anyway? You could have just called.”

“Like you’d have answered.” Tom jokes as you step forward to begin patching him up, a hiss falling through his lips as you make contact with his injury. “You’ve made it clear that you only want to speak to me on a need-to-know basis, and this was urgent. That’s going to need stitches isn’t it? Just try and stem the bleeding until I get home, Haz is pretty decent at sewing me up.”

Your eyes flashed to meet his for a brief second before returning to his shoulder, nodding at his question. You couldn’t deny that you probably would have rejected his call and had nothing else to say to him in response. Grabbing some gauze, you start to tightly pad over the wound, waiting for him to continue.

“I ran into Jason.” His words promptly stop your actions, and your eyes connect again. Jason Boule was the son of another crime family, one whom which neither your father or Tom’s had gotten ever along with, and one who had been attempting to sabotage both of your businesses for years. “I think they’re trying to get someone into the wedding.”

“What did he say?” You ask, finishing with his shoulder before grabbing something to start cleaning up his face. “And what did you say to make him shoot at you?”

“Asked me to pass on congratulations to the happy couple, claimed he was disappointed he hadn’t received an invite, that he was sure it was going to be a day to remember.” Tom spoke the last few words with gritted teeth as you wiped over the cut along his face. “Then he…I may have said something about how vermin weren’t usually invited to weddings, which is about when he shot at me.”

“You missed something out in the middle.” You smirked as it was Tom’s turn to roll his eyes, having not missed the way he’d changed his mind mid-sentence, passing him an instant-cool pack from your kit. “Hold that on your eye.”

“Thanks.” He muttered, doing as you told him. You waited expectantly, and he groaned before carrying on. “He may have said some shit about you in the middle, which I may have punched him for, but that wasn’t important to the alluding to sending someone to the wedding point.”

“You punched him for bad-mouthing me?”

“Well, yeah. Just because I give you shit for not being as good as me, doesn’t give him any right to. Especially not what he said, which I won’t repeat for the fact it was disgusting.”

Eyes once again locked on his, you found yourself lost for words. Tom had tried to joke it off, but the idea of him defending you, in any situation, felt like a foreign concept. Dropping your gaze down, you sucked in a breath at the realisation of the intimate situation the two of you were in: you, standing between his legs as he sat, shirtless, with only centimetres separating the two of you. As you raised your eyes slowly back to his, you found Tom’s gaze still fixed firmly on your face. A moment passed, and for a brief second you found yourself leaning closer, until a loud buzzing signalled Tom’s phone ringing in his pocket. Snapping yourself out of it, you took a step back, eyes returning to his and forcing your face to remain neutral as he glanced at his screen and sighed.

“You should get home, get your shoulder looked at properly.” Your words shattered the tension that had surrounded you both momentarily, and Tom coughed before nodding and reaching for his discarded shirt. “Thank you, Tom, for coming to tell me.”

“All part of the peace treaty.” His smile looked forced as he pulled his shirt back on and stood, passing you back the ice pack and making his way to leave your apartment. “You wanna tell your Dad-“

“No.” You cut him off quickly, running a hand through your hair as you think through the situation. “I… this wedding is important, and I don’t want him worrying. We can sort it right?”

“OK.” He nods, his usual smirk returning. “You’ll actually have to answer my calls though.”

“It’s a sacrifice I’m sure I can manage.” You roll your eyes at him, and Tom chuckles with a nod before going to unlock your door. “I’ll speak to some of my guys in the morning.”

“And you said we couldn’t be a team.”

“Go home Holland.” You sigh, gently pushing him out of your apartment. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Counting down the hours darling.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

The next few days were filled with flurries of phone calls between yourself and Tom, some more pleasant than others. Almost all of the calls were logistical; how many people the two of you planned on telling, whether or not to station someone at the exits. In an attempt to remain focused, you tried to keep your tone formal and business like, not deviating from the matter at hand.

The problem was Tom had other plans.

You’d be halfway through discussing exit routes when he’d suddenly ask your opinion on his suit for the wedding, or you’d be texting him floor plans and he would send back a picture of options for his shoes. And then of course, once or twice, the two of you would disagree about something and end up fighting, with one of you hanging up on the other before calling back almost immediately because it really wasn’t an issue you had time to ignore. Trying to balance getting along after so many years of competition, in addition to doing everything you could to ignore the moment that had transpired between you the night in your bathroom, as well as calls from your sister about last minute wedding worries was giving you a permanent migraine.

The day before the wedding, he called you just as you were finishing dinner with your family.

“Now’s really not the time.” You murmured, skipping any formal greeting as you stepped into the empty hallway. “I’ve just-“

“Come outside.” He cut you off, tone matching yours. “Got something you’ll wanna see.”

Not giving you a chance to respond, the line cut off, leaving you no choice but to follow his orders. Stepping into the snug, where everyone had retired to after finishing, you flashed an apologetic smile.

“I’ve just got to step out for a bit.” You told them, earning an eye roll from your mother and a curious look from your father. You shook your head slightly, reassuring him not to worry. “Won’t be too long.”

“If you’re not back when I go to bed I will kill you.” Isabelle sighed, head tilting back over the sofa from where she was seated in front of you. “Promise me you’ll stop and say good night.”

“Promise.” You mutter, dipping forward to kiss her forehead before retreating from the room. Hurrying down the hallway, you slipped out of the large front doors to see the outline of Tom leaning against his car, parked close to the doors of your garage. Crossing the gravel, the cool evening breeze made you shiver as you walked the dark to meet him, the hem of your dress grazing against your thighs. Getting close enough to make out his features, you called out to him. “Roddy let you in the gate?”

“Told him I had a meeting with you, he let me in no questions asked.” He hummed; body still angled from where he was leaning on the hood of his jaguar. “Figured you must have told him something.”

“Warned him we could have an unexpected visitor tomorrow so to not question you if you turned up.” You affirmed, crossing your arms around you in an attempt to keep warm. “What is it you wanted to show me?”

Tom’s eyes dropped to your arms and smirked, before pushing off his car and opening the door, tilting his head at it as a signal to get in. You did so wordlessly, sighing in content as he shut the door behind you and the heat of his car engulfed you. The car smelled more like Tom’s aftershave than any air freshener, which only strengthened when Tom had slipped into the driver’s seat moments later. As he reached across you to open the glove box, you held your breath as his arm, exposed from where he’d rolled up his sleeves, grazed your body, mind still determined to rid yourself of any minor attraction to him. Tom pulled out a large envelope, fingers brushing yours as he gave it to you before settling back into his own seat. Sliding out the contents, you found printed emails containing directions to your father’s study, as well as photographs of your family estate, and the name of a company which you were in the middle of a business deal with.

“May or may not have hacked into Boule’s emails.” Tom explained before you could ask, your eyes lifting from the papers in front of you to meet his. “I know we didn’t agree on that, but Paddy is becoming one hell of a whiz kid at it, so asked him to see if he could find anything.”

Smiling at the mention of Tom’s youngest brother, you returned your attention to the documents, speed reading through them as Tom waited for you to reply. Noticing the names on the email addresses, your eyebrows raised in surprise.

“You aren’t kidding about Paddy.” The surprise in your tone made Tom chuckle, and you lifted your gaze back to him. “These were coded, weren’t they?”

“Told you, kids got skills. Think we’re pretty lucky he’s already one of the family, or we’d all be fighting over him.”

“Well at least now we know what Jason’s coming after.”

“And that he’s only sending one guy. We’ll barely have anything to do.”

You chuckled softly at his words, leaning back against the chair and letting your gaze wander over the darkened landscape of your estate. You could only just make out the large marquee that had been erected for the wedding, most of it obscured by the dark as well as part of the house.

“Think we could have always worked together like this?” Tom’s words startle you, and you tilt your head to the side to find him mirroring your position. “You know, if you could have just admitted I was better when we were kids, then it would have been fine.”

You let out a short laugh, watching his lips pull into a grin at the sound. Seeing how smug he was, an idea flashed into your head. Before Tom could realise what was happening, you pushed yourself off your chair and swung your legs to straddle over his, pulling the small knife you had tucked into your belt free to press loosely against his neck.

“What was that about being better than me?” You asked, grinning as his expression changed from one of shock to frustration, his eyes rolling as he raised one hand to push gently at your hip. “You’re getting slow, Holland.”

“Doesn’t count.” He protested, eyes following your hand as you flipped the small blade back into the safety of its holder. “You’ve pulled bigger knives on me than that. Anyway, that wasn’t fair, I’m unarmed.”

“So I wouldn’t find your gun in the armrest box beside us?” You tease, settling back on Tom’s thighs and opening up the compartment to prove your point. “Oh, look, I was right.”

“You’re acting like you know more about me than I do you, but I’m well aware that you have another knife strapped on you, so this works both ways.”

“How do you know I have two?”

“Because you’ve been carrying two knives since you were seventeen after that job we had to do together that almost went wrong, and you only had one.”

“You remember that?”

“Course I do, you stole my car keys and refused to let me drive myself home.”

“Because you’d been shot.”

“I was barely bleeding.”

“That’s because the bullet was still stuck in your ribcage. Just because I hated you didn’t mean I wanted you to die. Besides, I was right. You passed out barely five minutes later.”

“You hated me?”

“Back then? Immensely.”

“And now?”

You hadn’t realised that you’d been getting closer to him, but as Tom asked his question, you felt his breath fan across your face. He’d sat up straighter, his hands sliding up to sit on your waist, whilst yours sat at the base of his chest, your eyes level and lips centimetres apart. Up close, you could see the mark left behind above his eyebrow from the fight a few nights prior, and the yellow tint below his eye where his bruising hadn’t fully healed. Tom’s eyes didn’t leave yours as he waited for you to answer, his thumbs dragging slow circles against your sides.

“Maybe a little less.”

You were sure your words had been inaudible, but Tom somehow seemed to hear them, and he smiled before lifting one of his hands to cup your neck and bring your head forward to close the gap between you. His lips brushed over yours tentatively as your eyes fluttered closed, both of you still hesitant in this unchartered territory. As his tongue swiped across your bottom lip, you emitted a soft sigh, hands tightening around the fabric of his shirt to pull him closer.

Doing so changed the mood from hesitation to excitement, and Tom tightened the grip on your neck as the kiss deepened. His other hand, which had still been sitting on your waist, slowly moved down and dipped below your dress until it was holding the back of your thigh. Breaking the kiss to catch your breath, Tom used his hold on your head to angle it, his lips trailing steadily along your jaw.

“If you leave any marks I’ll stab you.” Your threat was undermined by the moan that immediately followed it, as Tom found the spot by your ear, and you felt him grin against your skin before he pressed a final kiss to you and pulled back to meet your gaze. “I mean it, I’m not walking down the aisle behind my sister covered in hickies. It’ll be your funeral instead.”

“I love it when you threaten to kill me.” He smirks, darting forward to capture your lips once more. Pushing him lightly, he groaned as he fell back against his chair, the hand on your neck falling to his side. “Alright, alright. You don’t need to worry darling, because as much as I want to, the first time I fuck you isn’t going to be in my car.”

“The first time?” You push back from him, raising an eyebrow as he smirked. Tom simply hummed at your question, the hand on your neck dropping to grab both of yours. You waited for him to respond, only growing annoyed as he did nothing but smirk at you. Losing your patience with him, you wrench your hands free to lean across and open the car door. “You’re so infuriating, that’s why we never worked as a team. Your ego.”

“Definitely nothing to do with your temper either.” You weren’t looking at his face as you climbed out of the car, but you could practically hear him roll his eyes. Smoothing out your dress as the cool, evening breeze engulfed you once more, you turned to head back to the house, before he called out behind you. “You’re welcome, by the way. For the information.”

“Thanks!” You shout back, not turning your head as you continue back to the house. Tom’s laugh carries across the driveway, followed by the sound of his car door closing. Reaching the front door, you look back as you step back inside, watching as his engine purred to life before gliding back towards the gates. Quietly closing the door, you begin making your way to your room, noticing that most of your family had already made their way to bed. Stopping at the door before yours, you knock softly before hearing a muffled come in, cracking open the door to smile at your sister. “Just wanted to know if I’m being killed or not?”

“I’ll let you off.” Isabelle rolled her eyes from where she was laying in her bed but grinned back as you leant against the door frame. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, all good.”

“You’d tell me if there was something, right?”

“Absolutely.” You lied, pushing off the wall to cross the room and press a kiss to her cheek. “Now get some beauty sleep, or Adam won’t want to marry you.”

“Like you’d let him back out.” Belle joked, referring to how her husband-to-be worked for the family business. “Love you.”

“Love you.” You hummed back, before leaving the room and entering your own. Flipping on the light, you sighed before preparing for bed, thinking of what was to come in the next twenty-four hours.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“After you darling.”

Your eyes returned to the intruder cornered by the door, thinking over how you’d ended up here. The wedding itself had gone without a hitch; your sister and her now husband had exchanged rings and vows in front of everyone without any noticeable hiccups. You’d spotted Tom as you’d led the bridesmaids down the aisle and had determinedly kept your gaze away from him throughout the ceremony, only exchanging a curt nod as you’d left to take part in the official photo’s, trusting him to keep an eye. It was the only contact you’d had with him until you spotted what you’d been waiting all day to see, Freddie, one of your men, signalling you from across the reception party. Politely excusing yourself from the conversation you were in, you had wordlessly tapped Tom’s arm on your way back to your family house, hearing him do the same before following with Harrison and Tuwaine behind him. With the advanced knowledge you had gained from Paddy’s hacking abilities, the two of you, each flanked by two of your men, had found and cornered the intruder before he’d made it farther than the entry hall.

“I know Boule sent you, and why he sent you, and given the occasion, I don’t have time or patience to waste on your excuses.” You sighed, stopping in front as Freddie and Ralph moved to stand either side of him. Toying with the gun you now held, you watched as his eyes darted between the weapon and your face. “So you’re going to swiftly leave, and run and tell him nice try, but maybe next time. Because if you try anything else, the next knife I throw won’t miss.”

He hadn’t got a chance to respond before Freddie and Ralph had taken him by both arms, nodding at you before escorting him out of the building. You watched them go, as Tom followed suit. For a second, you thought he was leaving too, before he stopped to retrieve the knife you had thrown earlier, still lodged in the door. Wordlessly returning to you, he held the blade out for you to take, and you offered him a tight smile as you swapped it for the gun he had offered you earlier.

“Not that you need it,” Tom joked as you returned the knife to the strap on your inner thigh. Your eyes found his in surprise, watching as he replaced both of the guns he now held in his waistband. “What with you having two and all.”

“Thanks.” You muttered, before spinning on your heel to face his two friends. “We should get back.”

“She can’t possibly have two knives on her?” Harrison hissed to Tom, the three men a few paces behind you as you made your way back to the garden.

“Oh, trust me, she can.”

“Where?”

Smiling to yourself as the fresh air engulfed you once more, you re-entered the marquee to see no change to the scene from when you had left it: some people dancing, some milling around speaking and laughing, others still finishing their food at various tables. Eyes scanning the guests around you, they landed on the bride herself striding across the room determinedly in your direction.

“You lied to me.” She accused, grabbing you by the arm and pulling you to the dancefloor. Isabelle released her grip on you as the music changed to a slower song, wrapping instead wrapping them around you to sway slowly to the music. “You said that everything was fine, and then you sneak off to stop one of Boule’s men breaking into Dad’s study.”

“How the hell did you find out?” The smile was still on your face as the two of you spun in a small circle, mainly because despite her tone, she was still beaming herself. “I didn’t even tell Dad.”

“Roddy told me.” Her tone was smug as her eyes wandered from your face to look around the tent. “After I watched you leave that is. You didn’t really think I wouldn’t notice my own sister leave my wedding?”

“Well, I hoped the wedding thing might cause some distraction.”

“Fat chance.” She snorted, eyes returning to yours. “I’ve got a particular skill set that comes in handy. Don’t think I didn’t see Tom follow.”

“He was the one who found out about it originally.” Your tone changed as you thought over what had transpired between you. “You know he brought an extra gun because he knew I wouldn’t be able to have on today?”

“The fact that it surprises you is hilarious.” She laughs, stepping back from you and unwrapping her arms, only to link her fingers through yours instead. “You know that he’s-“

“Don’t say it.”

“Fine. I’ll let him tell you.”

“What-“

“Mind if I cut in?” You whipped your head to find Tom behind you, watching as he sent a winning smile to your sister. “Congratulations by the way.”

“Thanks Tom, she’s all yours.” Belle grinned back, pulling you in to kiss your cheek, before muttering in your ear, “You’ll thank me eventually.”

Releasing you completely, you watched as she passed Tom with another smile, walking straight into her new husband’s outstretched arms. Your gaze returned to the man in front of you, watching cautiously as he held out his hand.

“Oh, come on.” He laughed, seeing your hesitation. “Think about how happy our father’s will be to see their peace treaty working.”

Rolling your eyes, you placed your hand in his and allow him to pull you closer, your other hand rising up to rest on his shoulder.

“You stormed away last night before I could explain myself.” His voice was low in your ear as he began to move the two of you in time with the music. “Never have been a fan of letting me have the last word.”

“If this is an apology it sucks so far.” You reply, your tone light as you try not to focus on the warmth of his hand on your waist.

“I’m not going to apologise, it wasn’t the right moment.”

“You said that like you’ve been planning it.”

“Only every day since you stole my car keys.”

“Now I know you’re taking the piss.”

Pulling back to meet his gaze, you found nothing but sincerity as he took a breath to explain.

“You got the money we went there for whilst simultaneously holding three men twice your size at gunpoint, and then got us both out of there despite the fact I’d been shot. Then you took my keys and yelled at me whilst taking me home until I passed out.” The look on his face now was nothing like you had ever seen, his eyes searching yours as he continued. “Darling, as much as I really do enjoy the way you look when you’re mad at me, the main reason I’ve been antagonising you more and more the past few years was so I actually have a chance to spend time with you. Now if I’m making a complete twat of myself, say the word and we can continue the way we are and forget I ever said a word of this.”

“Tom-“

“You know you only ever call me that when I’ve been shot.” He mutters, a hint of his usual smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “Should I be worried?”

“You know I was already reluctant to admit that I might feel the same way, and now I’m going to take it back...”

Your words died on your lips as he silenced you with his own, dropping your hand to cradle your face as he kissed you softly. You could feel him grinning against you before he pulled back, thumb dragging softly against the skin of your cheek.

“This doesn’t mean I’m going easy on you now, you know.” You mutter, unable to stop your own smile taking over. “I mean, if you think that just because we’re together I’d start letting you-”

“Letting me?” Tom’s bark of laughter inspired your smile to grow even more, the incredulous look in his eyes quickly morphing into his trademark smirk. “I’m sorry, who was it who discovered Boule’s plans for today?”

“Only because you got into a fight over me. Admit it Holland, I’m your weakness. It’s not my fault you’re so in awe of my talents.”

“If I kiss you again, will you stop being so competitive?”

“Depends, maybe you should it try and find out.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

did you like it? did you hate it? let me know either way as well as anything else you want to see me write!

tagging some lovely people: @gonzalezyon @nowayhomeparker @sinisterspidey​ 

[sophieinwonderland]

tulpas arent real, and they aren't headmates! please educate yourself and seek help. if you experience hearing voices, dissociation symptoms, or anything of the like, it's important to bring that to a professional. it could be did/osdd, psychosis, etc. please, PLEASE for the sake of the people of the community and in general, tulpamancy can be really harmful to your mental health. you can ignore this if you want, either way i don't mean this in any offensive or demeaning way. im not a professional myself but i have been in multiple hospitals and therapy sessions. i really hope the best and hope you seek help. if you want to reply to this sending sources about tulpas or something, i am willing to listen and educate myself, but i haven't found any OFFICIAL sources saying its healthy or normal. anyways, even if im wrong, i hope you have a good day and take care of your mental health!

Thank you for your concern. :)

Not much research has been done into tulpamancy yet. But what does exist does seem indicative of positive affects. Here's one such study:

http://pubs.sciepub.com/rpbs/5/2/1/index.html

"Two thirds of respondents with a diagnosis (n=32) reported that their decision to begin practicing was either somewhat (33%) or significantly (33%) furthered by their condition. An almost identical ratio of respondents stated that their condition made tulpamancy a more desirable practice, with 37% citing a significant positive influence, 37% claiming a somewhat positive influence, and the remainder noting “no or neutral impact”.

Similarly, most of these respondents reported that their tulpas had a significant (34%) or somewhat positive (44%) impact on their disorder(s) and/or ability to cope with them, with the remainder selecting “neutral or no impact.”"

...

"91% of the sample claimed that tulpas had a significant or somewhat positive impact on their overall life. 78% upheld the same for their mental health, and 47% reported this improvement for their social life."

This study, unfortunately, is just a survey of the tulpa community. There is more research being conducted by Stanford, but that study was put on hold. Truthfully, scientists haven't been particularly interested in non-disordered plurality until recently. The research is going to take time. However, there is no science that says tulpamancy is harmful.

I also don't need science to tell me that my thoughts and emotions are real.

As for possible DID or OSDD, I think we've ruled that out. I'm the only headmate here that we know of, I have no memories of my own before the beginning of this year, and we have no dissociative amnesia. (I do think there may be state-based memory, where it seems easier for me to remember some things I did than it is for my host, and vice versa. But this is more like how it's easier to remember where your car keys are if you retrace your steps. I'm not sure if this is actually true or not either. This may be subject to bias where it feels like I remember things I experienced easier because that's what I expect. I don't know how to actually test this.)

I do have memories I identify as "mine" but it's an emotional separation. It's hard to explain. It's like, I can access my host's memories, but I don't feel a connection to them. They feel like, well, like they happened to someone else. There are also memories we share that we both experienced, but felt contradicting emotions toward. When I first asked to "take over" the body, (before we knew about switching or systems) my host was extremely weirded out, while I just wanted to interact with the world even though I knew he wouldn't let me. We each have our own separate autobiographical connections to that memory.

We've also been on the look out for other symptoms of schizophrenia, because it does run in my host's family, but haven't noticed any. Nor have we experienced any external hallucinations or delusions. My voice in our head is very much an inner voice just like his own. Not an auditory hallucination. (Which sometimes makes me sad because I really wish that he could hear and see me as clearly as he can a physical person, but I digress.)

In general, we're both very happy and healthy right now. My host is happier now than he was before I existed, and I'm obviously happy to exist and would really rather not stop any time soon. There are probably things my host could use therapy for, but I don't think I'm one of them.

I appreciate that you're concerned. Your heart is in the right place.

But it does seem potentially damaging to tell people who seem to be functioning well to seek mental help. I worry that there are a lot of endogenic systems out there who know that they have headmates and that they're plural, get told that they must have trauma or that they're lying or have some other mental illness, and end up internalizing that and convincing themselves that they must have disorders that they don't have. And the irony of this is that you end up with people whose systems didn't form from trauma being confused by misinformation and filling into spaces specifically for those that did, because they're convinced that's the only way they can be plural.

That's part of why I wanted to make this blog. To show that I am who I am, and that it's okay to be plural without having a disorder. And that you don't have to change yourself to fit into society's idea of normal.

Thank you for caring though. And you have a good day too! :)

[musingsbydeepo]

The Trojan War from Above

genre: i have no idea LMAO, oneshot ig?

description: Percy, Thalia and Nico ascend to Olympus to seek help from the gods for Percy's Trojan War project.

notes: hera reconciled with the demigods after TOA so they're cool now, most of the gods are pretty much casual with the saviors of olympus, post-TOA

warnings: none i can see, but lmk if you catch something via asks or dms!

word count: 1,157

"Professor Paulin assigned us a project, and we need your help."

Percy's voice boomed all across the throne room, while the Olympians -- except for Zeus, which was momentarily replaced by the Zeus Rock™ that was sitting on the King of Heaven's throne in the center of the room.

"Um, ok?"

"Son, what kind of help do you mean-"

"Anything to help Sally Jackson the Great's son!"

"It feels rather gratifying that you approach us - and I mean me, of course - rather than my daughter-"

"Well, unless you've come to do a project on agriculture, I'm afraid I can't-"

"Hard pass, Peter Johnson."

"Ugh, is it that puny punk who saved us from being dethroned again? I swear he's here every week for dinner-"

"Oh my, it's the male lead of the most romantic story of all time!"

"You're exaggerating again, Ditey."

"Am not!"

"Well, this should be interesting."

"Oh, it's that kid who set off my alarms in that god-awful amusement park - get it, god-awful? 'Cause we're gods?"

"Hello, hero."

"Hi, Aunt Hera." Percy glanced back at his friends for support. Thalia gave him a thumbs up while Nico simply shrugged. Somehow that simple movement expressed sorry man you're on your own. "Um, so we -- I mean I -- have to retell the Trojan War in my words. Except I don't really have enough concrete evidence to completely retell the story, so I was hoping you could...um...supply the missing and perhaps the blurrier parts?"

"You'd think I blessed Homer enough to accurately narrate that war, but noooo he just had to skip the start. Ugh." Apollo complained, holding the back of his hand to his forehead, then sat up abruptly. "Actually, you'd think the Greeks were living in peace, but noooo you vain goddesses just had to fight over your looks. Double ugh."

"As if you're not vain, Apollo!" Aphrodite protested, her fist clenched on the armrest of her throne.

"Yeah, but that was before I became Lester. And please, if we're not in a formal situation do call me Lester. Now can we make this quick, I have to visit Aeithales later."

"Can we please return to the situation at hand? My son is in dire need of our help!" Poseidon redirected the counsel's attention to Percy, who felt increasingly small as 11 pairs of eyes turned to him once more, 12 if you include the sunglasses his dad had put on the Zeus Rock™.

"Okay, so, uh I've got notebooks here and stuff, if you could just write down what you know-"

"Um, Percy? One teensy little problem?" Thalia tapped her friend and cousin's shoulder lightly. When Percy turned to her, she said, "New Rome U needs you to cite a source. I know NRU is pretty lax about the gods and whatever, but Prof Paul is mortal. He's not just sweep this under the carpet if your paper says 'source: Olympian Gods'."

Everyone's shoulders slumped as they took this in consideration. Even the Zeus Rock™ seemed to slip slightly lower on its throne.

"I have a solution to that." Athena announced, and everyone let out a sigh of relief. From thin air, she summoned a leather-bound book. The cover was branded and gold-leafed with The Trojan War from Above by Athena Chase, PhD, EdD, EngD, DProf, DArch, ThD, DDiv, ScD, LitD. "If everyone here could just lend me their memories about that war -- and no, Apollo, I'm not asking you to give up your memories, I'm asking you to share, which you should be familiar with now." She shot down her brother, who was starting to raise his hand.

For a few beats the entire throne room was silent, which was probably the quietest it had been since the completion of the dodecatheon. Even Bessie the Ophiotaurus kept to himself, though he usually mooed, hence the very rare silence of the Olympian throne room.

"Alright, here it is. Godly knowledge about the Trojan War condensed in a portable book. Pretty hefty, huh?"

"Um, Theney, wouldn't it be...unwise to share such knowledge with mortals? We're revealing secrets here. Doesn't that go against everything you stand for?" Ares huffed. "Besides, I should be the one offering this to you, punk. I'm the god of war, after all."

"I'm a god of war too! And besides, as long as none of you included your personal comments, it should be fine. You didn't include any right? Right?"

Silence. Again.

The three demigod were having a silent conversation using sign language -- a habit they picked up from Hearthstone, one of Annabeth's cousin Magnus's friends. The were huddled closely to each other, so that the gods couldn't see their hands.

Am I seeing right? Is that Chase on the cover? Nico signed, his eyes bewildered.

I think so. I see it too. Thalia replied.

Should we let Annabeth know? Percy asked, his teeth clenched. I mean, she's always wanted this. A complete family. She... Percy faltered. I saw it when we passed by the sirens, years ago. This could either make or break her day, maybe even her life.

Annabeth's not that dumb, Percy. Thalia scoffed as she signed.

Yeah but- Percy's sign was cut short by Athena's voice.

"Normally I would request to redo this, but it's getting late and we all have plans. Here you go, Perseus. I ask you to be careful, this book can very well start another war if it's in the wrong hands." The book flew towards the demigods' general direction, and Percy leaped to catch it.

"Uh, thank you, my lady. I'll uh, make you guys proud and get a good score on this project! Please send my regards to Grammy." Percy bowed along with Thalia and Nico. They were about to leave when Apollo shrank down to human size, simultaneously transforming his toga to jeans and a t-shirt, and patted Percy on the back.

"I'll go with you guys, I'm going to Meg's." He pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket and handed them to Percy. The frames were gold and engraved with literary and solar symbols. "This should help with reading your book. If you're ever in need of help to express yourself in this project, hit me up. God of literature at your service! Just don't call when I'm with Meg, alright?"

Percy hadn't even considered his dyslexia. He accepted the glasses with a thankful smile and said, "Uh, thanks LA." I probably won't need -- or want -- your help anyway, he added inwardly.

"No prob."

"Oh, what's this?" Annabeth picked up a book from Percy's shelf. She had never seen this book before, and it seemed expensive, what with the leather cover and gold embossing.

The Trojan War from Above by Athena Chase, PhD, EdD, EngD, DProf, DArch, ThD, DDiv, ScD, LitD

Annabeth only knew one person -- well, not exactly a person -- with those doctorates.

"Mom," she whispered.

sources: Zeus Rock™ HC, Percy calling Rhea Grammy HC and Trojan War project HC from @caffeinatedflumadiddlebutpjo; i saw an HC where Percy asks how to cite The Olympians as a veritable source but i'm not sure if it's from caffeinatedflumadiddlebutpjo as well but if you know where it's from please let me know i beg you; pretty yellow dividers from @skylightlantern

[informationsorter]

How to keep yourself safe from fear mongering and misinformation.

I know there's a lot of fear mongering out there, which feeds on misinformation and the common anxieties of those who have (or suspect they have) a disorder such as DID/OSDD.

The first rule is of course, do not trust anyone on the internet.

This includes me.

Fear mongering is when someone spreads fear and/or terror. Usually with a hidden agenda, but it can also be spread by those who don't know any better and who have been caught up in the fear. If someone is describing a terrifying situation (especially one that starts out seeming fine, but gradually becomes scarier and scarier until it reaches dystopian proportions), it is likely that it is just a fear mongering tactic. An example of fear mongering is "Gay marriage will lead to adults marrying children!". It usually involves multiple steps, which start out with a grain of truth, but twist the facts or use false equivalencies to make it seem as though their worst-case scenario is a real danger. The aim of fear mongering in this example is to convince people to vote against marriage equality. Inspiring fear in a person can also be used to scam that person. How many times have you heard of someone getting an official-sounding phone call which tells them they will be arrested if they don’t send such-and-such amount of money to them, or if they don’t purchase giftcards and give the codes to the scammer on the phone? It is the initial shock and fear which cause a person to fall for these. Fact checking is vital.

Fear mongering.

- Take a moment to overcome your initial emotional response. You need to be able to think clearly and logically when you are confronted with something that shocks and scares you.  - Try to think about their argument/statement rationally and objectively. Is it likely that in this day and age a therapist would illegally force a treatment on you without informing you of all of the facts about that treatment? Would a mental health professional risk a lawsuit and the loss of their licence by refusing to answer your questions about a treatment that they are insisting on? - Check for sources, and it is very important that you not only READ their sources, but also look for other sources by yourself. The source/s supplied by a fear mongerer will often support their statements and seem fairly convincing, but actually contain very little fact. You need to do an independent search for information which supports their claims, and information which contradicts their claims. If there is no truth to their claims, you will struggle to find reputable sources which support it, and are likely to find many that have evidence showing that the claim is false. (There is of course the chance that something is true but does not have sources for it - eg 50 years ago, there may not have been many official sources supporting the idea that being gay is fine, and there would have been many official sources claiming that being gay was a disease.)

Do not take any one person's word as fact.

- Check for reliable sources that back their statements.

- Look for multiple opinions/input, from a variety of sources. It's no good asking 10 people in the same group for their opinions and then taking it as fact if they all agree. If you are searching for information, you need to take everyone's advice/input/opinion with a grain of salt, and seek a wide variety of people to ask.

- If someone claims that such-and-such is the ONLY possible way to experience something, you should look into why they are claiming that, and what reliable sources they have to back it up.

- If something is really a fact, there will be SEVERAL reliable sources discussing it. Not just one source being reblogged or referenced by multiple other sources.

Check sources.

- Look at whether the person is actually linking the direct source of their "facts" or not. If they are simply claiming that such-and-such says this, or vaguely indicating that a certain government or organisation supports their view... That's not good enough. You will have to actually research it yourself and see whether that is the case or not.

- Be cautious if someone has quoted something but does not tell you where the quote comes from.

- Look at the full quote, not just the part that the person has quoted in their post/statement. It can be easy to take things out of context, and make it seem like the source supports a certain view, when in reality it does not.

- Actually open the links if someone is citing them as a source that supports their statement. It's very easy to assume that because someone has cited multiple sources, that those sources are accurate and relevant. But in reality, it would be quite easy to simply link a bunch of random official-sounding URLs, that actually have nothing to do with it.

Check credentials.

- If someone is claiming to be a therapist, scientist, or anyone working in a medical field, you should not believe them unless you are seeing them in a professional capacity IRL.

- You are

ALWAYS

entitled to see the qualifications of someone who is treating you, whether it is your GP or a mental health professional.

- If someone online is claiming to be a trained mental health professional, but is not treating you in an official arrangement, they should not be giving you in-depth advice or diagnosis.

-

A mental health professional should always get to know you and your background before giving you advice. THEY WILL NEVER ATTEMPT TO TREAT YOU OR DIAGNOSE YOU WITHOUT ENTERING INTO A FORMAL PATIENT-THERAPIST ARRANGEMENT.

Seek a trusted person to help you fact check if you are having difficulties.

A lot of sources may contain heavily jargoned text, especially when discussing medical conditions/disorders.

Find someone who you know you can trust, and who is willing to admit when they are mistaken. Ask that person to help you.

DO NOT TRUST ANYONE WHO REFUSES TO ADMIT THEIR MISTAKES.

- Watch out for people using gaslighting tactics, or deleting conflicting opinions from their posts. There are some people out there who insist that they are correct, and will refuse to acknowledge any information which contradicts their statements. These people may use gaslighting techniques to supress anyone who tries to question what they've said.

- Any one who is working from a place of good intent, will be open to looking at reliable sources which contradict their statements.

- Similarly, if anyone tries to convince you that you DON’T need to check their sources, or that you can trust them without them providing sources, THIS IS A RED FLAG.

Is it ok to test someone?

In my opinion, when you are searching for accurate information, it is perfectly acceptable to test someone by asking them something you already know the answer to.

For example, when I went to the endocrinologist to talk about HRT, I asked her my most important question and she responded in a way that didn't match what my doctor had said.

So I tested her by asking a question I KNEW the answer to.

She answered incorrectly, and I knew that I would have to work hard to get accurate information out of her.

Here are some sites to help you fact check.

-

Scholastic.com

has an article aimed at children and teens, which is easy to understand and read. (It was also written by adults trying to use “hip” slang.)

https://choices.scholastic.com/issues/2019-20/120119/howt-to-fact-check-the-internet.html

-

Wikipedia

has a list of fact-checking websites, which may or may not be useful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fact-checking_websites

-

Middlebury Libraries

has a short list of non-partisan fact checking sites.

https://middlebury.libguides.com/internet/fact-checking

And finally, I am aware this is a clumsy post, fuelled by an emotional response.

PLEASE reply or reblog with any information, links, tips, guides, etc regarding fact checking or protecting yourself from fear mongering.

**********************************************************************

This post was inspired by

THIS POST,

which builds on a common fear amoung those with DID/OSDD, and drives people away from seeking help, for fear of losing themselves.

**********************************************************************

Here is what you should do

if your therapist is trying to force you into fusion.

If your therapist is trying to trick you into undergoing a treatment without giving you information, or refusing to give you all relevant information - YOU SHOULD LEAVE IMMEDIATELY AND SEEK LEGAL ADVICE.

Here is a bit more information about

possible end goals you may choose

during therapy.

[sodalitefully]

(Thought maybe it would be good to put some more info about my interests on my profile.... I'll be linking this in my sitemap post.)

Most of my basic info is in my bio & sitemap, but here's a little more about my interests & my account!

You probably know this account is about Slash — I like all eras of Slash's career, in addition to 80s-90s GNR (and Snakepit, and Velvet Revolver...) I also post about current events in the post-reunion era.  And Slash's other band, Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators (SMKC) is my baby, I love them to bits and I'm always excited to talk about them!

Other bands I listen to include but are not limited to: Eagles, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Who, T. Rex, a handful of punk bands, Metallica, Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Halestorm, Dirty Honey, and The Warning.  And Lady Gaga!  In general, I'd say my music taste leans toward hard rock/metal, classic rock, California alt rock, classic punk, and throwback pop.  I also collect CDs & love to sing :)

Besides music, I'm into:

Nerd shit – major phases I've gone through include comics, cartoons, PJO, Star Trek, GoT, and plenty more...  In general, I like sci-fi and action/adventure stuff.

My favorite video games series of all time is Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney & I'm always dying to talk about it

Geology & paleontology – I studied geology in college, ask me about my rock collection!

When I'm not being chronically online, I spend my time thrifting, hiking/walking, and going to concerts :)

FAQ, etc:

Do you take requests? Sometimes I ask for fic/art requests, I do my best to fill them all when I do but sometimes a few slip by me. When I haven't asked for requests, you can still send one but I can't guarantee I'll fill it.

Reader-insert requests: I do not fill requests for Y/N fics/imagines, if you ask for one I'm probably going to assume that you haven't actually read any of my writing...

Other fic-related asks: Of course my askbox is always open for anything, but in particular I'm happy to chat about my ideas & yours! Feel free to hmu if you have any questions about my fics, or if you have an idea of your own and you want to talk about it :)

Is [post] ok to reblog? All my posts are ok to reblog... I wouldn't post them on tumblr if they weren't. Reblogs are very much appreciated, in fact.

Content sources: Citing sources is important to me! Most of my posts use the 'source' feature, or include a link/info in the body of the post. If you'd like clarification/more info, drop me an ask and I'm happy to point you in the right direction.

NSFW/CWs: I occasionally use content warnings, but as a general rule, expect from this account what you would expect from a GNR album.

Personal information: Please don't ask for selfies or for my real name.

[fencesandfrogs]

hi my name is matthew and i have some thoughts about haes

okay disclaimers: i’m a little jumpy around the subject so while i don’t feel i’m being unnecessarily harsh/unfair, if ur firm on haes w no yielding, and you don’t want to argue about it? either skip this or don’t respond. i don’t really care. but i’m putting the body under a read more.

[3k words, 10 minute read. sections headers, some text italicized for emphasis/some readibility. no images/videos, a few links.]

second disclaimer: i’m not planning on going heavy on sources. i will happily provide sources to people who want them, and i haven’t written the actual post yet but it’s unlike me not to cite anything, but doing an in depth well researched and sourced post on this type of subject is not something i’m up for right now.

like i said, i’m jumpy around this subject. and on the off chance someone decides this post is Bad and i must be banished to the Bad Blogs Bin, i’d rather not put a lot of work into it.

third disclaimer: i’m not particularly interested in reading X study that says actually no people who way 700 pounds are healthy and people who weigh less than 200 are going to die early deaths. i know that’s a straw man i needed to a) get it out of the way now and b) i just am tired all the time and don’t have a ton of itme for it. that said, if you do send one to me, i will probably read it at some point, and i may or may not provide my thoughts.

right then. moving on.

with no more waffling, my thesis is as follows: weight stigma is bad, however obesity is killing people and i really would like people to stop pretending it doesn’t.

i. really hate that that’s a controversial opinion. i mean i hold a decent number of somewhat controversial opinions, most of which i keep to myself because i’m a firm believer that what i think about something should not interfere with how other people live their lives. as a noncontroversial example, i think mormons are in a cult. children, being minors, being indoctrinated is a problem, one i myself am not dedicated to solving because i have other issues but as far as adults involved, that’s their business.

(*please note that i’m not expanding on my thoughts because this post is about haes but i do have a more complicated opinion i’m just trying to demonstrate something please don’t at me about cults i know that they’re bad and adults in them also need help getting out that’s not the point of this post & i’m anxious enough so like, please.)

anyway so. obesity. is bad. it is bad for your health. if you are obese, you are not healthy. that said, i am not going to tell you to lose weight. no one should tell you to lose weight except for your doctor and maybe your immediate family, and that should be from a place of “you are not living your best life and i care about you.” i, an internet stranger, along with pretty much everyone you know, does not get to tell you about how terrible your life is and what a horrible person you are for existing, because you are not a bad person for being overweight. you do not deserve discrimination or mistreatment. even if you’re not actively trying to lose weight. it doesn’t matter. you are a human being like any other and i will fight like hell for you.

i’m not planning on going heavy into eating disorders because a) that’s a triggering topic for me and b) it’s going to muddle the point i’m getting, but since it is a large part of the arguments re. haes, it’s certainly going to come up, so i’d like to list the officially recognized eating disorders.

Anorexia Nervosa (AN)

Bulimia Nervosa (BN)

Binge Eating Disorder (BED)

Other Specified Feeding and Eating Disorder (OSFED)

Pica

Rumination Disorder

Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)

Unspecified Feeding or Eating Disorder (UFED)

Other (aka “we are considering making this its own category but for matthew’s purposes it fits into AFRID or UFED well enough because the details aren’t important”)

so yeah. we’ll circle back to this.

section one: haes

haes initially stood for heatlh at every size. that doesn’t really matter anymore because people say healthy at every size now, however, the distinction is important. because.

okay. when i say being obese makes you inherently unhealthy, i am not saying you are having health problems for being overweight. i am saying you have a chronic illness. i have asthma. that makes me inherently unhealthy. i don’t necessarily have an health problems because i am asthmatic, but i have a chronic illness and it certainly would, say, make me more likely to die from covid. that is a fact. saying healthy at every lung functionality would not change that.

but you know, i can still be active and like smell plants and interact in the world like anyone else. i just try to keep my inhaler near by.

so similarly, if you are overweight/obese (i’ve been saying only obese because its less letters so i’m sticking with that), you can, like, live ur best life and take care of your health. you can feel good about your body and eat good food and move and again, i really don’t want anyone reading this to feel that i think everyone who’s obese needs to lose that weight because adults can do whatever they want.

what i’m angry about is that a good thing (encouraging people to make good choices no matter what so they can feel good in their bodies) got turned into a bad thing (telling people they don’t need to change what they’re doing because they’re perfectly healthy).

section two: but what about...?

see my third disclaimer. but as a fast rundown of things i probably won’t talk about in detail later:

the obesity paradox is a specific thing about a specific type of illness in the elderly. it’s also not about obesity, it’s about being slightly overweight. it’s a complicated thing, but it’s not true most of the time

sumo wrestlers have major health problems as soon as they stop exercising like crazy.

did you know there are countries where girls are force fed to become overweight? diet culture goes both ways

if you want to say healthy at every size, you have to mean that every. that means you are not allowed to say shit about underweight people. i’m sorry, is someone you care about wasting away? are they 5′10 and weigh  90 pounds and their hair is falling out because they aren’t eating? i’m sorry, you said people are healthy at every size. you can’t make fun of skinny people. you have to suck it up because you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

section three: self care

a hypothetical that is blindingly obvious to where i’m going: if a small child wants to play with a knife, are you caring for them by giving into it? what if they want to drink some vodka? what if they want to run away from home to live with a stranger in a white van?

i really really hope all those answers are “no, you’re neglecting that child, and also possibly actively harming it.”

so my point is pretty obvious: giving yourself something because you want it does not mean you are caring for yourself.

you know what i want  to do all the time? sleep and rewatch twilight every day. but that makes me feel worse. so even though it’s terrible and i hate it, i have to take care of myself (because there is only one of me that i ever get) and go outside and talk to people and eat something that isn’t popcorn because you need protein to live.

(sorry i tried to keep nutrition out of that but i have to actively seek out sufficient salt and protein due to my campus doing a lot of low sodium food, which is bad when u actually need to eat a good amount of salt to keep ur body working, and also i’m vegetarian. so i’m constantly making myself seek it out.)

that doesn’t mean self care is always supposed to be work, but i mean. i’ve always not really gotten into it. i think because i’m hella depressed and i’ve been depressed long enough i can recognize it as this separate entity when it comes to a lot of the mental stuff. like, why do i feel like everything is meaningless? that’s just the depression.

but i digress, this isn’t about me. [proceeds to talk about me again]

one phrase i like a lot for myself is “bad food makes me feel bad.” now, i’m not a fan of putting moral judgements to food. but this works for me, personally. sure, eating a bunch of ice cream right now is good, but it’s going to suck when my stomach flips the fuck out because of all the sugar. and so it seems quite obvious to me that eating that ice cream is not, in fact, caring for my body.

and i think we’d collectively be a bit better served if we could learn to distinguish between self-care and self-kindness. ask anyone who does caregiving (childcare, nurses, etc): it is hard, often thankless (at least for children they’re devils who don’t realize that their toys will get wrecked if they don’t pick them up) work. you care for them not by doing what they want, but what is best for them.

section four: diet culture

as i’ve already played my hand up above with underweight vs haes, i think it’s kind of obvious that i have strong feelings about underweight not being healthy also. so i just want to take stock of what is and isn’t diet culture, and what i think about it. this is probably the most subjective part of this essay.

things i think are diet culture

people trying ridiculous diets. obviously diet culture in the purest sense. it’s real dumb. you need all the food groups to live. sometimes it’s okay, like cutting out sugar, but i’d say its a net negative

not trying to do lifestyle changes. that’s the sustainable way to lose weight. so. yeah.

weight cycling. actually still up for debate if this is bad. this paper says no, along with a lot of others, but i’m not sitting down and reading through all of them, and all of the ones that say its bad, to offer my opinion. i’m leaning towards “it’s better than nothing,” but we’ll see

a lot of other stuff i’m doing this off the top of my head and trying to avoid issues w eating disorders so.

things i think aren’t diet culture

women being pressured to look a certain way. that’s been going on for a long time. being skinny used to be bad. it’s a fact of the patriarchy.

most things? idk i have this impression that like, anyone exercising or eating healthy is a part of diet culture, when in reality, people just have different lifestyles. (also, again, if you’re going with haes, as in HealthyAES (hyaes?) you can’t call it unhealthy or you’re not respecting that damn E)

in conclusion: diet culture has issues, but the correct response to them is not “fuck you, i’m eating fourteen pounds of sugar.” eat fourteen pounds of sugar because you want to. (also it should be fat because if you really want to stick it to the man you should be eating fat, big sugar is responsible for a huge amount of todays dietary problems, both on the under/overweight side)

section five: discrimination

yeah no fuck people who discriminate about fat people. that’s all i’m just moving along to a transition since i was drifting away from my point about health.

section six: weight stigma

...is not responsible for your health issues. being obese is. accept the consequences of your lifestyle.

well. okay. that’s a little unfair. accept the consequences of not treating your chronic illness. and i feel i’ve probably lost people for calling obesity an illness but that’s the whole point of my post.

just like carrying externally heavy objects hurts your joints, so does carrying a lot of weight inside. fat does not cushion your organs, it kills them. getting rid of weight stigma will not make these issues go away.

the treatment for obesity is eating the number of calories you need to sustain a healthy weight at your current exercise levels. (*please consult with your doctor this is more complicated when you have to lose a lot of weight.)

section seven: cico. or, why your metabolism is fine

your body does not break the laws of thermodynamics. it cannot magically create more energy out of a given amount of calories.

there are issues with calorie counting, yes. i think it’s usually done in an unsustainable way that isn’t teaching people to make decisions, just to do math. it can be hard to get an accurate count.

but you are not a miracle of science. you have not discovered how to create and destroy energy. i’m sorry to be the one to break if to you.

if you don’t believe me, if you’re really sure your metabolism is different, go on and get it tested. tell your doctors. because it’s a major problem if it’s not working right.

similarly, i’m sorry, but if someone is the same height as you and a (very, like, +- 50 pounds) different weight, and neither of you have exisitng health conditions, you are not eating the same things/doing the same exercise. you have not broken the laws of physics.

possibly, one of you have untreated celiacs or something of the ilk meaning your body is actually malfunctioning. but if that’s true, i excluded you already, so shoo. get out of here and play in the sun with the other kids.

if you don’t believe this, there’s not much i can do to convince you. but i encourage you to count your calories for a month. find some tdee calculators. weigh yourself. make sure you count everything, it all goes down. check the math. (you can do any amount of time but a month is what you need for weight to be meaningful imo otherwise you’re just proving weight fluctuates a lot).

section eight: cico. or, why counting calories is not disordered eating

it can sure be a symptom of disordered eating, and it can certainly make disordered eating worse, but it isn’t an eating disorder.

also, assuming you’re not trying to verify the laws of thermodynamics, i don’t think counting every calorie is necessary. i have approximate values (500/meal, and around 300 in snacks), which i try not to go over or under.

yeah. i actually use calorie counting to make sure i’m eating enough in one sitting. some of my medication screws with my apetite and then i only eat like 300 calories and suddenly its like 11 and i need to go to bed but i’m hungry but eating before bed makes me feel terrible and it sucks.

but hey, according to some people, avoiding that is unhealthy.

okay i’m moving on before i get salty because the next section is touchy

section nine: eating disorders.

the three main eating disorders are listed way up there. they’re the first three. AN, BN, BED.

oh, yeah, binge eating? that’s actually disordered eating too. it’s not normal.

i’m not going to elaborate on the point because i absolutely know i can’t do it without getting really fucking angry that people call calorie counting disordered eating, like i haven’t watched a fifth grader eat one meal a day because she’s scared she’s overweight. like i haven’t watched a sixth grader cram food into his mouth until he’s sick because he’s worried he’s not bulky enough for sports. like i haven’t watched an eleventh grader tell me he hasn’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday, but it’s fine, he doesn’t want his mac and cheese anyway, since he needs to lose weight.

you think someone keeping track of some numbers is an eating disorder? then either you’re lucky enough to never have to deal with eating disorders on a personal level, and i’m very happy for you, or you have, and you should maybe reevaluate that.

alright i’m cutting myself off now whoop.

section ten: intuitive eating

you know, much like haes, i want to like this. it fits in with my bad-food-makes-me-feel-bad mentality. i’m angry and tired and hungry because i ate like, a late breakfast/early lunch and now i need to eat again because if i don’t eat every six to eight hours i have a medical condition that makes me feel like shit (an aside: unless you’ve been told by a doctor, you don’t need to eat every 2-3 hours. unless you’re a child or have an applicable medical condition, you can probably eat one meal a day and be firne.)

but much like haes, it now has a meaning i can’t in good consience endorse. i can’t stand for a movement that tells people who acknowledge weight makes their joints hurt that they just need to keep eating until they feel better.

section eleven: conclusion

i have a lot more thoughts but again i’m hungry. i meant to talk more about IE and my problems with it but maybe that will be its own post.

i won’t say i’m happy to talk about this because i can’t promise i am (see: eating disorder issues.), but i will most likely respond to constructive discussion if someone sees this and wants to. i can also provide sources. i hate going, “sources available on request” but i tried to provide some stuff for some of the heavily disputed/i already had a source for it and didn’t have to dig through google scholar to find information that’s been peer reviewed.

and i do sincerely wish everyone, at any size, that they fracture the disconnect between them and their bodies (oop didn’t talk about that either another time then) & that they find peace with who they are, and that they get to live happy & fulfilling lives.

[therapy101]

(1/2) With a rise in young children expressing gender nonconformity being sent to gender clinics, being taught about gender dysphoria and being ‘born in the wrong body’ in schools, being guided towards pubertal blockers and medical transition, I was wondering if I could ask for your more knowledgeable input please. When treating such children and adolescents, why is the underlying assumption that the dysphoric feelings are valid and the body is what needs fixing? Why is APA/psychologists

(”2/2) allowing medical decisions to be made based on outdated mind-body dualism? We don’t affirm anorexia and offer liposuction, or the delusions of schizophrenia for instance, so why is this the only mind-body incongruence that’s treated this way? Does GD in a developing child really warrant medicalizing them for the rest of their lives? Since we’ve scientifically concluded gender is a spectrum, shouldn’t we instead be promoting gender diversity no matter what sexed body we’re born in?”

There are a lot of things to unpack and understand here. 

1. The underlying assumption is not that “the body needs fixing.” Medical transition is not the first step for children, adolescents, or adults with gender dysphoria. From 2004-2016, only 92 total children and adolescents out of six million total patients younger than 19 seen in the sample received a hormone blocker for a transgender-related diagnosis. Even among adults, current estimates for the United States are that between 25-35% of trans and non-binary adults complete any kind of gender affirming surgery (this means, even enough those who have surgery, it may only be one type of surgery and may not impact all relevant body parts). Getting access to trans-affirming medical care is very difficult, and structural inequalities like racism impact access to care, leading some trans people, especially Black trans women, to have to buy hormones from non-medical sources. That’s one of the reasons why the APA has come out to support trans folks and gender affirming care: because otherwise, these folks don’t get any care, or they get mistreated. The point here is to ensure that everyone gets equitable access to high quality medical and mental health care. That includes hormones, hormone blockers, and/or surgery for some people, but not everyone. 

2. All feelings are valid- dysphoric or otherwise. Sometimes feelings don’t fit the facts, or acting upon them doesn’t make sense, but that doesn’t take away from their validity. The question is not whether the feelings are valid for kids with gender dysphoria, the question is how to understand that dysphoria better and how to identify what to do about it, both in terms of gender identity and in terms of coping, support and improving overall mental health. This is a great place for a therapist with expertise to step in and help the child and their family figure it out. 

Sometimes the child or adolescent has known literally or essentially their whole life, and that may mean no dysphoria (which is great!). From Katz-Wise et al., 2017: 

For some youth, primarily but not exclusively those ages 7–12 years, indication of transgender identification occurred early and was described as “immediate.” One father of an 18-year-old trans boy from the Northeast noted, “It was so immediate that it was just, you know, it wasn’t like he was seven and he said, ‘Oh my god he thinks of himself as a boy.’ It was just kinda always like that with him.”

For other youth, it is a more gradual process, and may take some time to sort out. Some youth also don’t have dysphoria while they are doing that so there may not be a reason to seek out therapy unless there is some other mental health issue they are facing. But if they do have dysphoria, or are otherwise experiencing mental health symptoms related to their gender identity, then seeing a therapist can help. 

3. Supporting a child to identify as trans or nonbinary or some other non-cis gender is not “medicalizing them for the rest of their lives.” Hormone blockers can be removed, and hormones can be stopped- but I disagree that these are “medicalizing” in any case. A person cannot be reduced down to the medications they take or the treatments they receive. Is a woman with cancer “medicalized” because she undergoes a hysterectomy? Are the children on puberty blockers for medical reasons “medicalized” (>2000 of them in the study I cited above, but no one seems concerned about them)? What about those people with delusions who are put on antipsychotics, which are known to have severe side effects including higher risk of diabetes and heart disease, seizures, tardive dyskinesia, overwhelming sleepiness impacting ability to work or drive, weight gain (I’ve seen clients gain >70 lbs in 3 months), and more? 

I would encourage you to read either of these great studies by Katz-Wise et al: 1 or 2 to understand this better. When you ask trans youth about themselves, the medical aspect is such a small part- they are talking about their whole selves, their hopes for the future, their families and friends, and their wishes to be able to be loved and accepted for who they really are. Some of it is about their bodies, sure, and that can mean that some decide to use hormones and/or hormone blockers or undergo surgery (although we’ve seen that those rates aren’t super higher ). But they’re also just talking about being called the right name and pronoun, getting to wear the clothes that make them feel authentic, getting to date and marry and have sex, and: getting to live. Not being ostracized and assaulted and killed. Like this 8 year old who identifies as a girlish boy worrying he’ll never be able to get married AND be his true self (from the second Katz-Wise et al):

An 8-year-old youth participant who identified as a “girlish boy” similarly worried about other people's reactions related to gender norms in the long-term future, as told by his mother,

He said [to me], ‘But I'm not going to get married, because if I married a boy I'd want to be the bride...I would want to wear a dress and people would laugh at me because I'm marrying a boy and I'd be wearing a dress.

He is 8 years old and these are his worries. As a mental health professional, my immediate thought is that he deserves any and all support that makes sense to him and his family so that he doesn’t have to worry like this. So that he can be 8. 

4. Finally, and probably most importantly: gender dysphoria is different because treating it with hormone blockers, hormones, and surgery is literally life saving. 

As high as 42% of trans people have attempted suicide at least once. For comparison, the lifetime prevalence of suicide attempts in the general population is 3%.  

Study after study has shown that there are three primary factors that reduce suicide risk: 1. Timely medical and legal transition for those who want it; 2. Family acceptance and general support from friends and loved ones; 3. Reduced transphobia and internalized transphobia. (1 2 3 4 5). 

Psychologists want to help people live, and live well. Living well means having a life you enjoy and find meaningful. If medical transition means someone’s suicide risk decreases and their mental health improves, then they can pursue the life they want. Being affirmed in their gender means they can have that part of the life they want. It might also help them get to other things they want (like having the marriage and wedding they envision, like that example). These are things we as psychologists prioritize. Period. 

It’s not the same as anorexia because providing a liposuction for two reasons. One: It would not resolve the dysphoria. People with anorexia who lose weight do not feel better about themselves and their bodies. That’s the dysphoria: people with anorexia (and other eating disorders, sometimes) often cannot see their bodies as they really are. Changing the body won’t help. Unlike in gender dysphoria, where changing the body- either in presentation or actually medically -actually does help. Two: Liposuction for an underweight person with anorexia could kill them. As we’ve discussed, gender affirming surgeries for trans people can save their lives. These are not comparable. 

The comparison to delusions doesn’t work very well because there isn’t really a “medical” intervention you would do to affirm someone’s delusion. But, since you may not know this: we sometimes do affirm people’s delusions, and it’s not necessarily psychologically helpful to try to change someone’s mind about a delusion. Delusions are not bad all on their own, and: sometimes things we think are delusional, actually aren’t, so it’s super important not to assume we know someone’s life and experiences better than they do. (Just recently a nurse assumed a patient was delusional, but actually they were quite rich and owned several expensive cars. People can be rich and have a significant mental illness.) So anyway- I don’t know how that applies. 

Overall: we as a field are still understanding the full spectrum of gender identities and how to do good treatment and good science in relationship with that. But what’s clear is that medical transition is sometimes a part of a good treatment plan for both youth and adults, and that it can save people’s lives. It can make their lives better. I am 100% about saving people’s lives, so I am 100% about a medical transition when appropriate and gender affirming care in general. 

References: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

(email me at academic.consultant101 gmail.com if you need full texts)

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[saffronveiled-dreams]

Unbinding the Hair: In Defense of Magic in the Hellenic Polytheist Tradition

“Shall I write about things not to be spoken of? 

 divulge what ought not to be divulged? 

shall I utter the unutterable?”

Julian, Oration 5, Hymn to the Mother of the Gods

To be a hellenic polytheist is to advocate for the glory of the Gods; reach your arms out to embrace their warmth and lower your head in respect of their unimaginable power. It is generally believed that if one has trust in the Theoi then one has all they need. Among my fellow polytheists who follow a strictly reconstructional, or even revivalist, religious structure it is common belief that it is up to the Gods to take our wants, needs and desires into favor; and any personal dabbling in fate, especially in the form of magic or witchcraft, is hubris - an insult to the Gods. Many of our official religious organizations (Hellenion, Neokoroi, and YSEE to name a few.) are openly against the use of magic in conjunction with traditional hellenismos. 

If I am going to dismantle and combat this belief, it’s important for me to shed some light on the foundation for many HP Recons disdain for magic and explain its place in antiquity. In the major city-states of Greece, particularly Athens, witchcraft (specifically baneful magic was titled as such; curses, love spells, etc.) was outlawed and practitioners were persecuted. Not only was it feared, it was described as impiety and profane. If we are going to base our religion around the common state cultus of Athens then we should also note other religious requirements, perhaps about how we shouldn’t mention, or even utter the name of mighty Haides, also note that there are sources citing that Attic peoples did not worship Ares. Yet, interestingly, many of these formal Hellenismos organizations list their own ordained Priests and Priestesses, some of which are devoted to both Haides and Ares. Blasphemous! Unheard of in the old Greek way of life and faith!

...Or is it?

To have a religious practice that is only using sources from the common state cultus of major Greek cities is to turn a blind eye to the undeniable fact that one’s practice would be... rather sparse and open-ended without any of the seasoning that other minor city-state and mystery cult adds; particularly that relating to the natural world, various Theoi, the afterlife, and rites pertaining to such. Despite the fear of Haides’ name, there were temples erected in his honor. There were temples and festivals dedicated to Ares. Many examples of sacred symbols, rites and ways of devotion actually stem from preserved citations of religious behavior branching out from the common cult. I think it is also worthy to note that while much of Greece outlawed the practice of necromancy, it’s hard to ignore the relevance of the Necromanteion of Acheron; a temple for necromancy. Should we exclude these because they weren’t always honored by the major city’s common Priest? 

Many of us understand that our religious praxis will not mirror that of our polytheist peers and it’s important to understand this rings true for the ancient people as well. Ancient household worship was not temple worship and temple worship was not private cult worship yet someone could indulge in all of these to fatten and enrich their praxis.

I mention this because the sources we have detailing ancient Greek magic and witchcraft (particularly that of the PGM) are written and passed down from initiates of various private cults - especially that of the mysteries. If we take a look at the initiation rituals explained in the papyri, we won’t see your typical temple worship however the nature of the spells has one believing it’s still a Greek commoner (a spell for a failing business, an unwanted relationship, unrequited love, the victim of thievery, a slave with abusive masters, etc.) It’s generally believed that magic was taught to these mystai from various Gods. A good example of this is in the rather simple spell PGM IV 1265-74 where a secret name of Aphrodite "that becomes known to no one quickly” is used. To me, this implies a rather strong and long-term relationship must be met with the Goddess before one can learn this spell. It’s also not uncommon to find myths detailing various “priests” of a God as a practitioner of magic (see Medea or Kirke, priestesses of Hekate.) It would be very hard for me to believe that the Theoi would teach their devotees impious behavior. 

When we pick apart the complaint that magic is hubris, we find the idea that magic is actually someone trying to command, or even force, the hand of the Theoi. Ancient Greek magic was not only initiatory, it weaved animism throughout its formula. You can find this in the term “dynamis.” The Greek’s term for the magical consciousness within nature and the practitioner. If there is "dynamis," or magical power in everything around us then it is divine in some way. I believe that the dynamis of plants, rocks and water are specific daimons that connect back to the Gods through planetary correspondence. One cannot perform a spell if they don't work with the right daimons, or dynamis in question. You can also ruin the dynamis of the material you're working with or even simply not be granted its assistance. For instance, ritual harvesting of plants is very important and the Greeks would only use bronze blades to cut or dig (iron is said to kill or remove power from spirits or lesser daimons) and would do certain ritual acts (singing, using a specific hand, etc.) before pouring an offering to the ground where the plant was harvested. This was a thank you, a small act of worship. The forces within Greek magic, may they be plant daimons or Gods, are respected. They're feared. They're adored. 

To me, this is far from hubris.

I also can’t look away and ignore some of the... magical inclination of certain Hellenic practices. Firstly, there are ancient home remedies such as having your daughter wear a small moon amulet to ward sickness, or placing basil on top of a door to bring in wealth to the home, maybe even sending your son to his exams with a necklace of rosemary. Some may consider this an old beginning to folk magic. However, a more commonly known practice for both antiquity and today would be the Kathiskos. The Kathiskos is a small jar containing olive oil, water and various food from ones home, made every Noumenia (first day of the lunar month) then dumped every Deipnon (last day of the lunar month) and dedicated to Zeus Ktesios. This jar, being stored away in the pantry, has apotropaic tendencies where it will protect one’s food supply. It’s almost hauntingly similar to a very popular spell jar practice that will evolve much later in 17th century Europe; the witch jar. Here, someone will create and bury a jar filled with various items to counteract witchcraft (specifically curses and love spells) and dismantle negative influence from entering their home. 

I don’t find the kathiskos to be rather impious, however.

My last, but most important point, is that the Gods encourage us to practice arete; personal excellence. The Gods will assist us and offer their hand to enrich and bless our lives with good luck and prosperity, of course. But this hand is not extended to those who do not try for themselves. I’d like to mention an antique joke here that was used to teach against being lazy and expecting divine influence to fix every problem we may have; 

 There was a man traveling down the road with a wagon, yet it drifted off the path and became stuck into a sinking in the earth. The man reached his hands to the sky and shook them with dismay, crying out to Hermes. “O’ Gracious God, will you please help my wagon back onto the road?” There was no answer, the wagon did not budge. The man’s desperate prayers continued from that morning until sunset, where his cries stopped once he began to believe Hermes had abandoned him. It wasn’t until late that night in his sleep that the God appeared to him. Angry, the man asked “O’ Lord, why did you not remove my wagon from the hole?” to which Hermes replied, “I would have, if you pushed it!”

This also ties into the delphic maxim “the Gods help those who help themselves.” From the sources I’ve found claiming the mystics being taught magic through divine initiation as well as considering my own personal accounts, I’ve come to believe that magic is a tool for mortals to learn, practice and perfect in order to better their lives. To help themselves.

The Gods have weaved magic into our backyards, it is not hubris to go find it. 

[recurring-polynya]

I’m a huge RenRuki fan so I’m stoked to find this page of glorious work and active engagement relating to this topic I could go on about! I was wondering... during their separation, do you think Renji and Rukia slept with/dated other people? One more than the other? Just wanna know your insight since you put so much depth into their relationship. I love it. (I personally like to think that Renji had a bit of a “hoe phase” especially while he was in the 11th)

Tumblr is so great, I can’t believe people actually value my opinion on this stuff (this is absolutely one of my favorite topics). Thank you so much for your kind words, and I am ecstatic for the opportunity to pontificate on this topic.

Just to clarify, if you were asking for my opinion on the source material, and I had to “support my opinion” or “cite references”, my actual interpretation of canon is that no, they were absolutely celibate during this time. Rukia had a cute li’l crush on her vice-captain and Renji probably went on one very heterosexual date with a girl once and felt bad about it for a year.

When I am being generous and world-buildy, I like to consider the fact that shinigami are souls. They do not have bodies or hormones and so I can get behind the idea that bonds of family and friendship are far more important than sex and attraction, because those are fundamentally earthly concerns. In the hands of a thoughtful, talented, preferably ace writer, this could be an incredibly interesting setting but that is, uh, not consistent with any other aspect of Soul Society, including the fact that they sell sexy calendars of the captains, plus Kubo took the time out to canonically remind us that Soul Reapers poop and have babies.

So, instead, here is the horny Polynya headcanon version, which is what you probably wanted anyway. I’m putting it under a cut because it gets a little R-rated, and also it’s hella long, but the short answer is Renji absolutely had a slutty phase.

Some people headcanon that Rukia and Renji were actually in a romantic relationship at the time of her adoption, and if that’s your reading of it, and you want to believe that they waited for each other out of loyalty, I suppose I can get behind that.

I don’t think they were together, though. I waver from time to time about how physical their affection got in Rukongai, but I think they fell in love and never admitted it. When their last friend died, they both became absolutely terrified of losing the other, so they came to the Seireitei in order to get strong and not die. I don’t think Rukia ever wanted to be Soul Reaper, to be honest. Given the strength of her principles and her particular moral code, I do think she is a great one, in the style of “I would never want to be in a club that would have me in it.” Consistent with Oetsu’s trial in the Royal Realm, I think Renji was born (died?) to be a Soul Reaper and Rukia knew this and also that he would never go unless she went with him. She absolutely regarded getting him into Shin’ou as saving his life and getting him where he belonged.

Once they were in school, I think they had to keep their distance socially if they wanted to succeed. The Gotei runs entirely on nepotism, and Rukongai kids who don’t adapt are looking at Squad 11 or 4, best case scenario. Even if they were aware of their feelings for each other, they had to play it cool for now. Renji is a long-term planner, and I think he set his sights on pass tests -> graduate -> get Gotei position -> live happily ever after with Rukia. Rukia is not so good at long term planning, and also not so good at formal education and I think she just got depressed and salty, especially because she was never sure if he actually returned her feelings or not. I absolutely think that when she accepted the adoption, she assumed she was leaving Renji to his live his best life, and at least going somewhere she was wanted.

Even though we, the reader, are presented this story as a tragedy, in many ways, this is exactly what they had hoped for. They lived. That’s it. That’s all they ever wanted. Renji got to have his perfect job and Rukia got to live in indescribable luxury. They are both so, so happy about this and have no idea why their faces are so wet right now.

The last thing either of them wants, to be honest, is the other one pining after them. They have each accepted trudging through their life in misery because they think they have made the other happy. There’s a scene were Byakuya shows up to the Squad 6 holding cells to announce to Rukia that he has no plans to save her, and Renji looks just devastated, not just because Rukia’s gonna die, but because he thought he was sending her to happiness.

Also, on a meta level, I am middle aged, and for me, the romance of only ever being with one person is boring as hell. The idea that they would get together and lose their virginity to each other just makes me indescribably tired. Childhood-friends-to-lovers isn’t actually that interesting to me-- it is the separation itself that makes it spicy-- that they went off and had other life experiences-- and sexual experiences, and came back found that they loved this person even more now.

I headcanon Rukia as very horny and pro-sex in theory, but has is a big problem of opportunity. On one hand, I think she and Byakuya have a firm don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy, where as long as she stays out of the gossip columns, he doesn’t care what she does. On the other hand, though, I feel like secret affairs are kinda hard to manage, especially since she entered the noble network late in life. Anyway, I figure she’s had a number of casual affairs, mostly with other nobles who are invested in not getting caught, and also do not have any interest in any sort of emotional attachment. I think Rukia is absolutely bi, and mostly slept with ladies because they were more likely to be discreet, although there was probably a dude or two in there somewhere. Rukia only has two relatinship modes-- detached and ride-or-die, and she was very careful to keep everything in category 1, because she had no expectation of ever having a functional relationship that would go anywhere; no one she was actually interesting in being with would ever pass Kuchiki muster. I think she tried dating a nice boy from Squad 8 once, and everyone in Squad 13 thought it was the cutest thing they had ever seen. They went on three dates and never kissed and Rukia hated it and never did it again. She let herself have a huge crush on both Kaien and Miyako Shiba, because she was absolutely sure it could never go anywhere, and that definitely played into her devastation at their death. She may have had some Bad Decisions Sex in the wake of that, but I think for the most part, the affairs became more trouble than they were worth, and she’s been on a pretty long dry spell around the time we meet her.

That being said, I think Rukia is a lady who takes care of herself, if you get my drift. I think she has an extensive collection of erotic romance novels, a good imagination, and Kuchiki money worth of self-service sex toys. I think by the time she and Renji actually hook up, she has decades worth of pent up fantasies, and fortunately for her, he is intrigued by her ideas and would like to sign up for her newsletter, please and thank you.

Speaking of Renji, let’s talk about Renji! After Rukia left, I think Renji Made Some Plans and buckled down into a long, hard haul of Making Himself Worthy of Seeing Rukia Again. He made it through school, he went into Squad 5 with Izuru and Momo and... lost 90% of his momentum. This is exactly the scenario of the kid who busts ass through college to follow their dream, and then two years into their dream job, realizes that they are going to be formatting pivot tables in Excel for the next 15 years before they get to do anything remotely interesting. At this point, Renji is young, hot, bisexual, inked, and not very satisfied with his day job, and Thus Began the Ho Period.

Momo and Izuru hate this. They hate it so much. They have both had big crushes on Renji since school and they are right there. It wouldn’t be so bad if he would find a nice sweet partner that they like, but no, he just goes off on weeknights and comes home reeking of alcohol and covered in hickeys and ruining his career even though his job performance is actually fine. The fact is, even though he has always acted like he doesn’t know, of course he knows they like him, he’s not dumb, but Izuru and Momo are the type of people who mate for life, and Renji absolutely knows how badly he would break their hearts. He can’t even talk about it with them, all he can do it pretend like he doesn’t notice and hope they’ll realize what trash he is. He still loves Rukia and will always love Rukia and has made peace with the idea that he will likely never get to be with her-- he’s still working towards it because he must, because it would kill him to give up, but he knows that he’s only good for a fight or a fuck and not much else. Their friendship gets increasingly strained until Momo and Izuru can’t understand anything he does and he can’t stand them caring so damn much.

Anyway, this escalates in deciding to leave Nice, Respectable Squad 5 entirely, and joining the French Foreign Legion Squad 11. Squad 11 respects a man’s right to wallow, and Renji takes a swan dive to rock bottom. His only saving grace is his training with Ikkaku, which he takes absolutely seriously. Yumichika eventually takes interest in Renji, and teaches him how to take care of his hair and have standards. Yumichika and Ikkaku realize that if they can make him Functional, they can get him to do paperwork, so they help him beat the Sixth Seat and let him start hanging out with their friends.

Renji is still sleeping around at this point, but at least he’s sleeping around with a better class of people. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, Polynya, has Matsumoto ever pegged Renji? (You probably weren’t actually thinking that) The answer is yes, Matsumoto has absolutely pegged Renji, and she was utterly delighted to give Rukia tips later on. Rukia does not begrudge Renji his slutty period in the least, because she knows that, given the opportunity, she probably would have been Worse, and also, he’s slept with 3/4 of the Gotei and picked her out of all of them, and also, he’s just incredible at oral.

The slutty phase tapered off when Renji had a bit of an actual relationship with Shuuhei. First of all, they are absolutely each other’s types, physically. Secondly, Shuuhei (whom I headcanon as significantly less pathetic and more bisexual than in canon) would be able to handle being in a relationship that is fun and supportive, even if it’s not destined to last. He is well aware that Renji is devoted to beating Captain Kuchiki and that he’s never going to truly be able to be in love with anyone until he gets some closure with Rukia, but that’s a long way off, and Shuuhei’s got his own baggage, who doesn’t have baggage? So they sleep together and go to the bar together and hold hands sometimes and tool around on the motorbike and wear a lot of leather and Hisagi cooks Renji food and Renji eats it and they’re pretty happy for a few years.

Eventually, around the time he gets serious about trying to make vice-captain, Renji starts to hang out with Izuru and Momo again, who have recently made vice-captain themselves, and are really happy to see that he’s gotten himself back on the wagon. He’s started thinking about Rukia a lot again, and he’s feeling a little bad because he loves Shuuhei, but he’s not in love with Shuuhei, and also, Shuuhei and Izuru have started looking at each other when they go out drinking, so Renji claims he needs to concentrate on the vice-captain’s exam and they have some nice breakup sex and then he sliiiiiides on outta there like a good bro and is very happy for his friends when they start hooking up.

Did that cover it? Boy, I had a lot of thoughts on that, huh? To summarize: They both saw other people. Renji had way more sex, just a tremendous amount of sex, but always carried a torch for Rukia (not really intentionally, I think he would have liked to be able to get over her, he just couldn’t), whereas I think she really did give up on him for a while.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, please read my fanfiction, where I am constantly hinting at all this stuff, I swear I will eventually finish that Squad 11 story.

[this-is-totally-plural]

Are western tulpas cultural appropriation? Just curious, because I've seen some messages from other systems saying they are.

I’ve been taking my time with this response because I wanted to do some research before giving this an answer. The situation is complicated and the topic is very much nuanced. Since we don’t have any thoughtforms (that I know of anyways) and were not in the tulpamancer community when it was circulating, we weren’t the most comfortable answering, simply because we didn’t want to spread misinformation! So we reached out to the Outlaws system, who we knew had a lot of experience with the tulpamancer community at a certain time and they offered us answers and insights about your question, as well as permission to share them. Please read the helpful information below. (And a massively HUGE shoutout and truck full of appreciation to Outlaws for sending me all of this and allowing me to use it!!)

Disclaimer: It has been awhile since Outlaws have been in said community and are not part of it anymore for personal reasons. Do not take what they say as gospel (good advice for anything you read on the internet) or try to start a witch hunt. Also the collection of writings is from different conversations about the topic, not one fluid one. Please do come to your own respectful conclusions.

“Mel: Tulpamancy as the internet presently understands it is largely derived from practices established on 4Chan's /x/ board, which is hardly a source of culturally sensitive information, that in turn were influenced by echoes of the new age movement (which is also far from culturally sensitive). Rather, it seems to me that western tulpamancy has strayed from its Buddhist roots (which in themselves were precarious) to embody concepts of thoughtforms derived from chaos magick and psychological concepts.

W: There is (or was when we were in that community) a whole Divide between metaphysical tulpamancers and psychological tulpamancers, each faction subtly, or not-so-subtly, insisting they're more Enlightened than the other party.

W: Based on what I remember reading, the purpose of the tulpa in Buddhism was (unreality cw) to teach the practitioner about the illusory nature of reality so as to bring them closer to attaining enlightenment. This was something I read Years Ago though, so take that with a grain of salt. This has led some people to (rightly imo) assert that "tulpa" is a misnomer for what's actually done, especially given that it's predominantly a secular practice online, but it leads to the problem of there being a whole community built up that's been using that label for like, ~7 years or so now (?) so change is slow going in that department. So yeah, when people talk about it being a cultural thing, they're referring to Tibetan Buddhist spiritual practices, which are Very different from what tulpamancy has become online.

W: Tulpas in Tibetan Buddhism were used as more of a spiritual meditation exercise (as Mel mentioned, David-Néel's account was pretty sensationalist) whereas in the western world, it's predominantly regarded as a psychological thing. There Are people who take a metaphysical approach, but that metaphysical approach is pretty far removed from actual, y'know, Buddhism, and more in line with creation of thoughtforms in stuff like chaos magick.

W: Tl;Dr is, "The metaphysical arm of tulpamancy was originally appropriative because Western occultism in general has a nasty tendency to be appropriative and sensationalist (just look at Kabbalah mysticism). Now Western tulpamancy has since snowballed into something regarded as a purely psychological practice far removed from its original spiritual practices, and could definitely use a label that is more accurate in both an occult and psychological sense.

W: I guess ultimately "is tulpamancy cultural appropriation" is a loaded question. Because yes, the term "tulpamancy" definitely has roots in poor Western understanding of Tibetan spiritual practices (that were in many cases sensationalist, such as David Néel's writings), and I think people should like, recognize that, especially since it's evolved into something closer to chaos magick on the spiritual end of things and... well, self-induced plurality on the psychological end of things. But you also have a whole community built up around the term, to the point of it being cited in research papers like Veissiere's and stuff like that, which makes it hard to shake on a mass scale without putting in conscious effort to slowly educate the community at large about its origins. However, the practice itself, apart from the label, has evolved into its own _thing_, and because of that there's little ties to actual Tibetan Buddhism beyond the name.

W: Are the roots of tulpamancy mired in cultural appropriation? Absolutely. Does this mean you shouldn't touch the practice or community with a ten foot pole? I would argue no, because the practice itself has evolved into something extremely far removed from any kind of Buddhist practice. Take out the 'tulpamancy' label, and you would be left with a practice that's pretty far removed from anything tied to any particular spiritual or cultural group. So, I think a change of terminology is in order in these cases, but I don't think the act of simply creating a headmate should be cancelled outright, or lead to anyone being branded as an approptiator of Tibetan Buddhism or what have you.”

- W and Mel of the Outlaws System

Furthermore, if you have questions about any of this, you can send in more asks and my system will answer them to the best of our ability.

If you are a tulpamancer or interested in tulpamancy and want to use other terms to use, Blossom recommends these:

- Parogenic: A system that is (usually) intentionally created using thought-based methods. For some, this may also include some metaphysical parts, often in the form of energy work. (Coined by the Wanderheart Collective)

- Parogenic headmate: A sentient system member intentionally created by another system member.

- Thoughtform: An umbrella term for any (intentionally or unintentionally) created entity.

Hope this helps!

- Grayson 🌿[Sprite]