#and even then there are no guarantees

[scarlet97531]

Love these tags. Ever since we realized some of us had accidentally given ourselves secondary therian identities and started identifying as otherlinkers, the way it’s treated in therian and otherkin spaces has bothered us a lot.

We’ve come to dislike the overwhelming emphasis on “involuntary” experiences in defining all kinds of identities. The nature of an identity does not change because of it’s origin. If you identify as an animal you identify as an animal. Otherlinkers tend to have all the same experiences as therians do, the phantom limbs, the mental shifts, kin memories, species euphoria and even dysphoria. The only difference is where the identity comes from, and personally i dont think thats important enough to warrant being defined as something entirely different.

What i dislike even more than the separation of the communities on it’s own is the *reason* for that separation. The reason there is such an emphasis on involuntary experiences in the first place is essentialism. As in the belief that people are born a certain way and cannot change. This emphasis on involuntary experiences is an attempt to avoid being forced to conform by saying that conforming is impossible. The problem is that this does nothing to challenge the real problem, the source of bigotry itself, the belief that the norm is ideal and anything outside of the norm is bad until proven otherwise. The belief that if it is *possible* for you to conform then you should.

The problem with trying to conform to this belief by defining yourself by what you cant change is that it does nothing to help people that *can* change but dont want to. For example plural people, people with CDDs. The default treatment goal for plural people is final fusion, conformity, despite it being known that final fusion is very very flawed and for some systems outright impossible, often causing more problems than it solves. Meanwhile the *option* of functional multiplicity is right there, and much better option for most systems, and yet most professionals will not even mention it and it is often seen as “anti recovery”.

Making the *choice* to not conform is seen negatively by most of our society, so minorities try to frame their experiences as essential, something they were born with and cannot change, in an attempt to avoid being changed. In the process they throw voluntary, chosen, non essential identities under the bus, believing just like their own oppressors that anyone who has the choice to conform should, and anyone who doesnt is inherently *different*, and less “valid” for doing so.

Feel like we should normalize have a choice about who we are!

You choose to be a lesbian? That awesome!!

You choose to be a boy? Good for you, I hope you're happy.

You choose to be a paraphilia? That amazing!

You choose to be black? Amazing, come by if you want any tips for me.

You choose to have ADHD? That's great!

People don't have to go through dysphoria to know who the really are! You CAN be transgender be choice, you CAN choose your sexuality, you CAN be who ever you to be by CHOICE.

[egophiliac]

2025 is the year of the DRAGON SLIPPERS

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

We all know the semi-canonical ‘all the Robins know to hide/duck inside of Batman’s cape, even as adults’ thing.

We also know that Danny ‘is LITERALLY a ghost’ Fenton sucks at remembering his own intangibility while ALSO forgetting to look ahead of him.

All I’m saying is, Danny Fenton (or Phantom, if you’d really like) would absolutely SLAM into Batman on accident while running on roof tops and Bruce ‘Brooding Instinct’ Wayne doesn’t even think twice about letting the kid hide and scanning around for danger before there’s a record scratch of ‘wait who tf is this?’ kicks in.

[flamingpudding]

Jail Buddies

Once a month, Jason makes an effort to meet Dick on purpose. Sometimes even more. After all, he was a good little brother checking in with his brother. Though he had a rather uncontroversial way of doing so. One that involved getting led into a jail cell of your local police department and loudly demanding to speak to Officer Grayson.

Okay, maybe it wasn't like that it was an effort to check on his brother and just one of his many listed dumb moments of recklessness he got caught for. And he was maybe using his brother to get out without having to call Cass, Steph, Duke, Tim, Damian, Alfred or Bruce, in that order depending who was willing to bail him out every time Dick had his 'Little Wing you won't learn if I keep bailing you out.'-Phases again. Or if Dick was being petty because of a recent prank war.

Either way, while Jason was waiting for Dick to make his entrance in his cell he noticed the teen boy sharing the cell with him staring at him wide eyed. He arched an eyebrow, and decided on a whim to make friendly conversation.

"So what got you here kid?"

The teen blinked as if just realizing Jason had addressed him before grinning a bit feral, his blue eyes having an unnatural glow. "Vandalism."

Jason's eyebrow rose again, but the teen continued.

"Trashed mu place and gave my guardian's car a pretty paint job and some other stuff."

"You vandalized your own place? And got arrested."

"Fruitloop decided an overnight stay was a better punishment then leaving me unattended."

The teen shrugged and Jason couldn't help but feel like he just had heard a red flag. He opened his mouth to question the kid more but than his brother finally made his entrance.

"Little Wing! What did you do this time!?" Jason could see that Dick was out to start a rant but changed tunes when he noticed the teen.

"Danny or Dan? You are here again? When did they bring you in? Trouble at home?" Dick asked, and Jason clearly saw the telltale signs of information fishing bat style.

"Danny and the usual." Danny, as Jason now learned the kid's name was, shrugged nonchalantly like this wasn't the first time he and Dick had had that exchange.

"Seriously buddy? I had a rebellious phase as teen too but to regularly trash your home to the point that someone calls the police or vandalize your guardian's cars, buildings, advertisements or anything that has to do with him is not a solution kid." Jason arched an eyebrow at Dicks tone, feeling slightly reminded of whenever Dick lectured one of them.

"Oh I know. But it's a nice stress reliever, plus you guys are nice here. I get pizza as dinner whenever I stay the night." The kid grinned and Jason couldn't help the snort that earned him a little glare from Dick.

Instead of arguing further his brother let out a suffering sigh and let Jason out of the cell, waving him towards the exit and following him shortly after giving the kid one more look that looked like a mix between stern and pleading to stop being a rebellious teen.

Once out of earshot, Jason then chose to ask. "So what's the kid's deal?"

"Nothing, just a rebellious teen reminds me of Damian when he first appeared. He has a twin and a little sister as far as I know, both of them also known here. Their guardian is an upstanding man, though." Jason heard the hidden but.

"Did someone look into it?" He hummed more as a cover.

"Higher ups don't know, but i am running an investigation." Translation Bruce is unaware, but Dick was using Bat resources for looking into the kid's residence.

"Nice kid, didn't think he was a regular." He only commented.

"Nice and polite, you wouldn't think he did some of the things he was brought in for. Distrustful though, despite his friendly nature."

Jason nodded as Dick went through the papers to bail him out, a thought popping up in his head. Clearly, something was up with the kid that had his brother worried, and it looked like he was stuck on just doing his investigation. So, being the thoughtful little brother he was, Jason decided to help his brother.

In his uncontroversial ways, of course.

"Yo Danny, also here?" Jason grinned as he was led into the same cell the teen was in a week later.

[stealingpotatoes]

Hi, I remember your post in which it is mentioned, that Han won Dathomir in a game of Sabacc. Does that mean, that Talzin lost that game against him? Does she have a gambeling problem?

I haven't read the legends book the other ask was talking about, but that must be it!! talzin needs help

(commission info // kofi support!)

[efverse]

random elderly married lopunny and gardevoir couple in efverse...

[choccy-milky]

another batch of MCs as thanks for drawing clora🥹💖💖 once i start working on something i cant rest until i get it done so ive legit been working on these nonstop for the past 2 days from when i wake up till i go to bed.......i can finally rest 🧎‍♀️........THANK YALL AGAIN💖💖💖🙏🙏🙏 MC's in order: @moonstruckmoony @syaolaurant @dwightschrute11 @boxdstars @versailles-black @ccelicaa @ethniee @wrongcog @ashiori-chan @tamayula-hl @celestinawarlock @serpensortiamaxima @silvyadrakkon @jadepalaceyaya @zorro-d-t

[beskarfrog]

a place i could have loved you

[sunshines-child]

pjo au where shortly after the war nico dies and turns into a rather obscure deity. later, young demigods start showing up alone at camp borders. when asked who brought them, they always talk about a pretty person with wings on their head and back, covering a face that wore a black crown. time passes, and a young, tiny child of Hekate, maybe 4, appears. when asked, the child says how there was this boy with wings over his face that brought her, and that the boy tells the child that his name is nico before kissing her head and leaving. shit hits the roof.

[uncanny-tranny]

Periodic reminder that unless a person specifically and clearly tells you it is okay to tell others they are trans or queer, you should err on the side of caution and assume they do not want you to tell people (especially random people!) about their transness or queerness.

You have no idea, generally, why somebody doesn't talk openly about their trans or queer status, and you have no idea, truly, how somebody might react to that information. The most progressive person out there is still capable of harbouring incredibly negative thoughts about somebody's queer status.

[hedwigette]

Why is it, when someone makes a positive post about Harry highlighted with canon evidence, there must be people trying to contradict it.

You can literally prove how Harry is academicaly above average and there will still be people who would be like "Yes but I still think he's not good enough."

You will make a post about how Harry is hyperaware except when it comes to romance and people will still say "Yes but he's oblivious to everything"

Holly shit can you just accept facts as it is without trying to contradict it with your opinion?

Giving nuances to the statement is absolutely valid. Trying to contradict an explicit canon evidence is just delusional.

[windvexer]

I actually do think that doing magic takes a lot of work and is kinda hard and there aren't very many good shortcuts, and many modern shortcuts actually just amount to leaving out steps, which means you either have to be powerful enough to brute-force it or it fizzles.

Look, I know some people are just much better at magic and witchcraft; anything they do works with little effort, and the lengths some of us have to go to accomplish magic seems bizarre to them. Those people are cool and I wish I was like them but I'm not.

But I also think some of the truth of how to work effective sorcery gets paved over by these "witchcraft has no rules, do anything you want" support posts.

Because A) that is not true, I believe that witchcraft has lots and lots of rules (it's just that nobody else can tell you what they are), and B) I think do anything you want is taken to mean anything you do should work, which is also not true.

I feel like I always see advice given that you don't need to do things (like use physical tools, or cast circles, or whatever). But I never see anyone explaining the techniques and paths of power that are supposed to replace them.

Let's just imagine for a moment that clear quartz really is a universal substitute. Discordians would say that it totally is. So does that mean all you have to do to sub out clear quartz is to just put it on the altar and do the ritual as if it's something else?

Or do you have to do something more?

Do you have to consecrate the stone as being something other than what it is? Do you have to ritually birth it into a new life and baptize it like a baby? Do you have to spend weeks or months honing your technique of focus and beliefs so that you can mentally shift from consensus reality to a personal reality where there is literally no difference between clear quartz and sodalite?

Do you have to raise energies of sodalite and imprint them into the quartz crystal, perhaps working over it for an extended period of time? Do you have to use energy work to tie the clear quartz into Ideal Sodalite so that it becomes like an avatar?

No, you don't have to use physical tools if you don't want to. But that shouldn't be taken to imply that tools are useless or can be replaced in a way that matters by just visualizing that you have them.

A witch spends six months propitiating a tree, ingratiating themselves with the land, offerings and acts of fealty to the tree, a week-long branch harvesting ritual, blood offerings at midnight on a holy day, then another year curing the wood and crafting a wand. Big effort, right?

And you don't need to do that. But if you want that power, what are you going to do instead?

Same with circle-casting. Same with magic on the full moon. No, you don't have to wait until the full moon. You don't have to wait until the moon is in Libra. But there's a really good reason people do those things. So if you want those effects, what actions can replace those effects?

You literally could not do the spell while the full moon is in Libra. That's fine. But then what will bridge the gap? Will you have to raise more energy somewhere else? Include a new aspect? Modify the spell for the moon you can work with?

"You don't have to follow the moon phase for magic" doesn't mean the moon phase is irrelevant and some witches just like to inconvenience themselves for no reason. But it does mean that you can probably adapt your working to overcome the moon being in the inopportune phase.

Every time I talk about how much time, energy, and effort magic can be I feel like someone always replies, "well, it's just not that hard for me! I do what I want with what I have when I need it and it always just works, with very little effort."

Which I think is very great for them, but I also don't think that most people can get results with such low effort.

So anyway my entire point is that I think sometimes the reason people struggle with getting witchcraft to work is because they are operating off of out-of-context soundbites that make it sound like you can just completely cut out some of these foundational concepts of witchcraft.

Maybe you don't have to accomplish those steps in traditional ways. Maybe you don't need all of those steps for every spell you're doing.

But if you've just cut out swaths of steps only because you heard someone say you don't need them (not because of your own experiments working with magic and determining what works best for you), then is there enough left to constitute a functional system of magic?

[aq2003]

has anyone gotten the idea that odysseus' storyline in hades 2 is a depiction/exploration of trauma over his SA and how he's blaming himself for things that were out of his control? because that's the impression i'm getting from what i've seen. he talks about "goddesses" as his "greatest weakness" and that "he's not one to say no to them"...

when mel invites him to the bath, he brings up mortals having different standards for intimacy than gods and how it usually has a more romantic/sexual connotation. she then asks if he's uncomfortable and he has a startled reaction and brings up circe and calypso again (but never actually by name)

(this isn't ship/romance bait btw. odysseus knew mel as a kid and they're stated in-game to have a sibling/uncle-niece relationship)

also he grew apart from penelope after his return, but the game makes a point of showing that his love for penelope and telemachus is what drove him on at all so that element of his character isn't brought into question

[itsmespicaa]

"Whoops, so sorry. Where are the shears for the least expensive clothes? Looks like it's not this one."

[egophiliac]

GRIMS COMING!!! You gonna pull for him??👀👀

I'm gonna try, but...

I have mere hours to decide if I want to make one last attempt at Malleus or save a few to try for Grim...and this is all before the new event reveal on the 16th. truly the most difficult choice of our modern times. the gacha is getting its revenge for all of my Lilias.

[mythicalthing]

If you sat this one out, if you voted third party, the fact that this man could very likely win is on you just as much as it is on everyone who voted for him. I know a lot of us really wrestled with voting for Harris given her and democratic leaders' refusal to call for a ceasefire. I'm Lebanese and Palestinian and I guarantee you I understand. But if Arabs could set aside their hurt and fear and anger to vote for the candidate that is more likely to protect women's, trans, migrant, and minority rights, so could you.