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eeveecraft · 1 year

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"Tulpa" and Cultural Appropriation

I cannot believe I feel so compelled to do this again, but after witnessing an announcement by Plural Nest that they're switching to parogenic terminology because they've been convinced by sysmeds that tulpa = appropriation while literally "sourcing" things from minors, singlets, non-Tibetans, and yes, of course, sysmeds is just so goddamn frustrating that I'm going to write this post. I will be referring to this Google Doc Plural Nest themselves linked in their announcement that contains a motley of blogs and accounts by various people:

Strap the fuck in because we're going to be here for a while.

Tulpa = Appropriation Is and Always Was a Bad-Faith Argument

I am prefacing this post with this idea because I want you to keep this in mind as you're reading. Something that has always bothered me about this "discourse" is that the people who go on and on and on about how they're protecting minorities and stopping actual harmful, real appropriation by attacking the Tulpamancy community never:

Go after actual harmful depictions of tulpa that actively profit off of sensationalizing the paranormal version of the word and deliberately linking it to Tibetan Buddhism (Supernatural, Mandela Catalogue, Slenderman, etc).

Uplift the voices of actual Tibetan Buddhists, even ones who disagree with them (which there ARE Tibetan Buddhists who are 100% okay with tulpa as a term, not just the Tibetan Buddhist AMA).

Explain how us using tulpa to describe our systemmates is actively harming Tibetan Buddhists. They just say it's harmful without providing any real examples of harm besides the word annoying them.

The intention of these people never was to protect vulnerable minorities, it was to deliberately blacklist a word a community has used for over a decade and a word that is literally being used in academic studies. If we as a community dropped tulpa, cold-turkey, 100%, we would lose access to so much of our history and access to scientific studies that the community NEEDS to be more accepted by the general public.

If these people actually cared and took the time to look into the Tulpamancy community, they would clearly see that the community very much stresses that tulpa is NOT the same as the paranormal term that IS sensationalized, and that all it means is a type of systemmate that was intentionally/unintentionally created through repeated interaction. And yet, that's not the case.

Oh, also, I found out that the Tibetan Buddhist Tulpamancer who did the AMA also has a Tumblr blog, and they even reblogged this post. And they even left this in the comments:

No one should feel ashamed of using the term “tulpa”. Buddhism, and practices related to it, are meant to be shared. That’s the whole point of the practice. And this greater community, is unique and distinct from Tibetan and related origin, it isn’t “appropriation” and even if it was, no one owns the term, and as I see it; use it as you wish!

So yeah, even further context!

Anyway, with that in mind...

Origins of Tulpa

One thing many people get wrong in the Google Doc is that tulpa directly is a Tibetan word. I have stated this in multiple places from my video on the history of Tulpamancy to my original essay back in 2020 on this very topic, but tulpa was derived from tulku and sprul-pa, which tulku specifically means the reincarnations of the Dalai or Tashi Lama, and sprul-pa means a type of "magically-produced illusion or creation." Alexandra David-Neel, a French explorer during the 1920's-1930's derived tulpa from these two words, and even in her own book, she admits they are not the same:

“These may be considered as veritable tulkus and, in fact, the demarcation between tulpas and tulkus is far from being clearly drawn. The existence of both is grounded on the same theories,” (David-Neel pg 313-314).

David-Neel, Alexandra. Magic and the Mystery of Tibet, Internet Archive, Translated by Claude Kendall, 1971 Dover Edition.

So, for all the people who keep saying that tulpa is a specific word in Tibetan Buddhism is incorrect, tulpa (paranormal) is BASED off of Tibetan language, but is not directly a part of the language, and the meaning was also changed. However, there is a further distinction I need to make:

Paranormal Versus Modern Tulpas

There is a very, VERY important distinction I need to make that a LOT of people who scream, "TULPA IS RACIST!" get wrong. Modern tulpas, the type created by the Tulpamancy community go by this definition (or any similar variation):

A sentient/sapient, typically intentionally created being that is conscious and autonomous, and can only be seen, heard, or felt by the host/system that can also think independently from the host/system. Essentially a separate person sharing a body with the person who created them.

Source: My own Tulpamancy guide.

When the term created by Alexandra David-Neel that is still used in horror media goes by (paraphrasing some bits):

A type of phantom created by a person's concentrated thoughts that when developed enough, it frees itself of its creator's to go onto be a "half-conscious, dangerously mischievous puppet" or just severely injure or even kill their creator.

This definition is cobbled together from David-Neel's own book since she doesn't directly give a definition for paranormal tulpa that I can just fully quote here that's concise enough. Another important observation I made is that David-Neel right afterwards also mentions her ability to see thought-forms, you know... the type derived from English Theosophy, the concept that's way more accurate to modern tulpas than "phantoms," that existed before David-Neel wrote her book? Funny, huh?

Why does this distinction matter?

It's pretty simple. The actual harmful word that horror media profits off of and sensationalizes for clout is the definition David-Neel derived. The word that people attack the Tulpamancy community for literally just means a type of systemmate and has no inherent paranormal or spiritual meaning. The former deliberately shows off the word's Buddhist roots for the sake of personal gain while the modern word is stressed as something on its own, its own concept and practice that is not related to Buddhism. Modern Tulpamancy is completely secular, you can be completely atheist (like me) and create a tulpa just fine. Anyone can. Not a single culture can claim something literally anybody can do by mistake.

Just that the word has a distant link in etymology to it and isn't actually a Tibetan Buddhist concept. By the logic of people who think tulpa is a racist term, any term derived from another language in English would be racist... which would account for 99% of the English language, and honestly kind of demonstrates that they low-key don't even know what racism means at that point.

So, please tell me why the latter is in the crosshairs of people who are supposedly protecting a minority? Why is it that I myself have had to call out things like the Mandela Catalogue for using the paranormal variant of tulpa and twisting it into an edgy story about body-snatchers as some kind of cryptid SCP creature, but I haven't seen anyone else do it? Why isn't there an outrage by these people on notoriously appropriative shows like Supernatural? Hmm.

(Also, important that another blog reblogged that post and mentioned that they've spoken to actual Tibetans on Facebook and how none of them think tulpa is harmful specifically because it's so far-removed from Tibetan Buddhism. Like, they're cool with it as long as the community doesn't try and link it to Tibetan Buddhism, which is literally what the community does and has been doing for YEARS. Love how sysmeds conveniently ignore that. Same with this AMA by another practicing Tibetan Buddhist on Reddit, which is REAL funny that Plural Nest doesn't link this AMA, but links another post by a person who converted to Tibetan Buddhism who agreed with their viewpoint, even if that post was extremely flawed).

People Who Tout This Claim

One thing that is extremely frustrating to see is all these POC systems go on and on and on about how white people shouldn't speak about POC issues, but then turn around and speak over other POC. In one of my original posts on this topic, I specifically made the comparison of a Chinese person trying to dictate what can and cannot happen in Japanese culture. Both are Asian, both are people of color, but they are not the same, and to imply that is racist. POC systems saying that they can dictate that a word based off of Tibetan language is racist as hell, even when they're not Tibetan, just because they're both Asian implies that POC culture is all the same that any person of color can dictate what happens in the other culture is disgusting. Full stop. It's generalizing a HUGELY varied amount of peoples and cultures, and just generalizes them as all the same, and quite frankly, that's insulting.

And even if we go by their logic that any Asian POC can dictate whether or not tulpa is racist also conversely means that any Asian POC can also dictate that tulpa isn't racist. I can literally just go to my best friend who's Asian and Buddhist and ask him if tulpa is racist as a term, he'd just laugh, and say this whole discourse is stupid. In fact, let me go do that:

(He sent me a GIF of SomeOrdinaryGamer laughing, LMAO.)

Anyway, this is what he said:

i am an asian, i believe that the word “Tulpa” is not racist nor cultural appropriation.

(FYI, he's also a Tulpamancer and has been for almost as long as I have.)

I can go on r/Tulpas or #RedditTulpas right now, make a poll for Asian POC systems, and ask them whether or not tulpa as a term is racist, and get hundreds of votes that no, it isn't. It means systems like The Cabin System who are also SE Asian who've openly stated that tulpa as a term isn't racist also have as much stake in the argument as the opposite side does.

Do you see how it devolves into a pissing contest between sides? What does this achieve? All it does is segregate the community and draw unnecessary lines, which is exactly what sysmeds want because it's ways easier to harass and kill smaller communities that way or turn them against each other until they eat each other alive. And they won't just stop with tulpa terminology, they're just using tulpa because they found a convenient scapegoat to attack it. Sysmeds literally find ANY excuse to demonize or take away a word from the endogenic community, it's no different here.

To further prove this point, sysmeds literally tried to say "system hopping" is a term appropriated from RAMCOA survivors, which was completely false. They are not afraid to pull the appropriation card on any word they can, tulpa isn't the only instance of it.

Just by looking in the #tulpa tag, you can see people who are equating people who use tulpa as racist, and want to split the community between "racists and non-racists."

Another key fact is that most people who have this view also have a comical lack of understanding of what Tulpamancy even is. For example, the system that coined willogenic specifically because they think tulpa is racist defined willogenic systemmates as:

“Willogenic system - A system that was purposefully created or “willed” into existence. There’s no connection to t/lpam/ncy at all.”

(Notice how the definition also excludes unintentional tulpas, which is roughly a third of the community? Fun!)

Yes, the actual definition is censored like that. So, the definition states that a systemmate can be ""willed" into existence," and is supposed to be a direct replacement for tulpa. No. No. Stop. You don't just "will" a tulpa into existence. If that was true, we wouldn't still get people on r/Tulpas making posts on how they've tried and tried for months or even years to create a tulpa and still failed.

Not just that, but it severely misrepresents the tulpa creation process as this super simple thing to "will into existence" when tulpa creation varies a LOT from person to person and is far more than just willing a fully formed tulpa into existence. I've mentioned this before, but I seriously do not like the broader Plurality Community attempting to force the Tulpamancy Community to adhere to their terminology that they created, and slapping, "Use our terms or you're a racist piece of sh!t!" on top of that has a REALLY bad connotation.

And remember when I made that distinction between the actually harmful paranormal tulpa definition and the community's definition? Yeah, like I said, most people who have this opinion also are conflating what we do to the paranormal definition.

All the Tulpamancy Community does is create a space where people can partake in tulpa creation and development. That's it. The majority of the community views it as 100% psychological, there's no paranormal ghost nonsense happening, and people are just trying to live their lives with their tulpas. It's not any more complicated than that, and labeling people who use a term like tulpa as racist is seriously scummy.

How "Tulpa = Appropriation" is Harmful

Ironically, this "discourse" has caused more harm to the Tulpamancy community than anything else. Like how I said that all the POC systems who said "tulpa" as a word has "harmed" them don't provide any examples of harm? Well, I can provide examples of how this whole thing has actually caused damage to people in the Tulpamancy Community.

Let's start with me. On multiple occasions, I have had multiple anons harass my inbox, calling me racist, calling me slurs, and even sexually harassing me in the comments of one of my posts specifically because of this issue. In fact, several sysmeds tried raiding our Discord server alongside harassing us on Tumblr because of what Amanitasys's post started, and this has also happened to @cambriancrew, @sophieinwonderland, and more because we happen to be blogs that intersect both communities.

The Widening Divide

Secondly, the widening divide between the Tulpamancy and Plurality communities.

The relationship between the Tulpamancy and broader Plurality community was already tenuous, and for most of the Tulpamancy community's history, it has stayed isolated from other Plurality circles. It was only within the past few years that the communities started to intermingle, but this drama can ruin that.

Because as someone who HAS been in the community for over half a decade, I can tell you that the majority of the Tulpamancy community thinks this drama is stupid and aren't going to change terminology for multiple reasons. Now, do NOT take this as the community going, "Tulpa is a completely unproblematic word!" when the community has debated the term's usage for YEARS. Nobody is saying the word is perfect, but it's what the community has used for over a decade now and every attempt to change the word has failed. And honestly, as someone who's reviewed the vast majority of Tulpamancy guides in existence, I likely know better than anyone else that if tulpa was blacklisted like some people want, the community would lose so much history and resources, it's not even funny.

Unlike the broader community, the Tulpamancy community has a focus on the creation and sharing of Tulpamancy guides and resources, and the vast majority of these resources directly have "tulpa" or "Tulpamancy" in the name, let alone the sheer volume of times the aforementioned words are used in these guides. If we completely dropped the word, the ability of new people to look up and find these guides becomes FAR more difficult. "Tulpa" is a unique and consistent word and makes it easy to look into the community, which in turn helps people discover resources that can help them on their tulpa creation journey.

And for the bottomfeeders who'll inevitably go, "Well, just change the resources!" I need you to go outside and touch some grass, please.

1.) There are literally hundreds of guides, not even including website domains like Tulpa.info, Tulpa.io. Tulpa.net, and many more. There are literally academic studies that use tulpa, and if the community (not just the Tulpamancy community) wants any hope of being accepted by the general public, we NEED those studies to back our existence (as frustrating as it is). Don't forget all the articles, podcasts, and videos we couldn't even change if we want to! Again, over a decade of history.

2.) The VAST majority of the people who wrote these guides are no longer in the community and it is disrespectful to the authors to take and change their work without their permission (if ANY of you tried taking my guide and replaced every tulpa-related term with something else, I'd be PISSED).

3.) Literally every alternative to tulpa has some critical flaw in one way or another (I made a post about this here) and literally nobody can agree on a single term. The amount of fragmenting this would cause would make the aforementioned issue of discoverability EVEN WORSE.

4.) The rate at which resources are created has slowed dramatically since the community's early days. People are just complacent with what they have now, and I don't think labeling tulpa as a racist term is suddenly going to get more people to write more guides, just to change a few words around.

I feel this issue can get to a point where the Plurality community literally starts banning the usage of tulpa-related terminology completely, thus excommunicating the Tulpamancy community from most plural spaces. Places like Plural Nest where the staff OPENLY say that tulpa is appropriative sets this precedent, and even though Plural Nest (at least right now) is still allowing people to use tulpa terminology, other places might pick up on what Plural Nest did, but worse. That ends up excluding people like us from plural spaces and just undoes all the work that's happened to connect the two communities.

Like, systems like us, Dragonheart already have to avoid sysmed servers, but now, even with "inclusive" servers, we might be run out because the owners/staff think tulpa is a racist term. So now we have an extra layer of anxiety when trying to join new communities. That's fun.

It's literally creating what endogenic systems already deal with in the plural community, but now even parts of the endogenic community are bullying another subset of their own community. It's terrible.

So, in the Tulpamancy community's perspective, we either: A.) Give up our most used word and people lose access to so much history and resources, and create a huge divide in our already fragmented community.

Or:

B.) Stick to our guns, but be excommunicated and villainized by the broader Plurality community.

There's no winning here. Regardless of what the Tulpamancy community does, it's going to cause a lot of damage. Sysmeds win regardless with their goal being to divide and fuck up our community, and it deeply upsets me.

What Tulpamancy Really Is

So, what are people trying to attack so hard and blacklist from plural spaces? What are people fighting so hard against to conform to their standards, or be labeled as racist? What Tulpamancy is, for a lot of people, is a means to living a better life. I cannot tell you how many stories I have read of tulpas stopping their hosts from taking their own lives, how creating a tulpa has hugely improved the mental health of others, or how tulpas encourage their hosts to socialize and take care of the body, or how just making a tulpa connects you to a community with the mutual interest in self-improvement and self-love, and so, so much more. Tulpamancy improves people's lives, and Tulpamancy techniques are not exclusive to us.

Any system, or even singlets can learn from the Tulpamancy community to improve their own lives. And yes, that means Tulpamancy helps a lot of people of color as well, as well as a lot of other vulnerable minorities! Whether it's learning vocality to better communicate with alters or using switching techniques to control switching, or even learning how to make a mindscape or improve visualization skills. I don't understand how this community can be labeled as a bunch of racists (even though there are scumbags like Kopase that sadly exist (why don't you guys RIGHTFULLY sh!t on people like him?)) when literally the entire point of the community is self-betterment.

And like what @dharmayokeyodasampa, the Tibetan Buddhist Tulpamancer stated before, "Buddhism, and practices related to it, are meant to be shared. That’s the whole point of the practice," and the same can be said for Tulpamancy. Tulpamancy can be for everyone if it means making their lives better. It's meant to be a positive thing that can truly be life-changing, and seeing people trying to label that practice with one of hatred and harm is just... horrible.

The Tulpamancy community doesn't have some secret agenda to silence people of color or mock any kind of religion or practice. We're just a bunch of lonely people wanting companionship and are tired of being alone.

Conclusion

"Tulpa" as a term, at best, is murky. Nobody is arguing that David-Neel was a saint. She wasn't, and she's dead and buried. Tulpa isn't her word anymore. People in the Tulpamancy community are just fed up with outsiders trying to dictate how their community should be run. We know the term has issues, we know its history is not all sunshine and rainbows. We do not need outsiders barging in and stating the obvious and acting like they know more than we do about our own community and history.

And look, I know some people who believe tulpa is appropriative have good intentions and just want to be non-offensive, but people take advantage of that. Sysmeds took advantage of people wanting to do right and weaponized people into being their mouthpieces under the guise of, "We just want to be racially-sensitive." But instead of actually protecting minorities, all it did was harm another minority while ignoring groups who are taking advantage of the word, and using it for clout and profit. That is exactly why I started this LONG essay with why this whole thing is a bad-faith argument.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: this is the Plurality-equivalent of "queer is a slur." Drama deliberately caused by bad actors who spread rumors of a word being bad, leading it to be picked up by well-intentioned people, and being turned into the pawns of those bad actors without realizing it.

I'm so pissed I had to make this post, but after seeing what Plural Nest did, and then learning that they KNEW some of their sources were by sysmeds who have ACTIVELY professed their hatred of tulpas and decided to use them anyway to a community of over a thousand users just led me to being fed up. It gave this indication that if large plural spaces like that are echoing a statement meant to divide us, things aren't looking good, and I'm not going to sit here and watch a community I've been in for over half a decade get wrongfully demonized.

If Plural Nest staff just said they're changing terminology because they just don't like tulpa or or the fact that it's conflated with horror media, I would've been fine with it. That's a perfectly understandable reason not to like the term. We're not forcing you to use the term! Use whatever term you want! It was the motivation behind it that I take issue with and the precedent it sets. I don't know where this community is heading, but I hope things go all right.

7-22-2023

#tulpamancy #plurality #actuallyplural #endogenic #tulpa #tulpa-safe #sysmed tw #sysmed mention #cultural appropriation #tulpa safe #endo safe #plural community #pluralgang #long post #essay

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spot-the-antisemitism · 2 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/imajicaagency/756061981558046720/the-role-of-jupiter-in-roman-society-and-its

Oh look we've got our first pagan dude using pagan gods for various modern conflicts and modern peoples

Gross culturally appopriative bandwagon riding shit

Very qualified man

whole lotta nothing in a pretty package

what do you want us to do, Andrew?

which synagongues do you want your followers to bomb in the name of Pagan gods, Andrew?

OOOH that's such projection from a LITERAL CULT LEADER

Really of the gods you choose the one who is a famous rapist, Andrew? Is THAT how you see palestineans, Andrew? Racist much

#tw rape mention #leftist antisemitism #antisemitism #leftist brainrot #leftist hypocrisy #pagan antisemitism #cultural appropriation

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stellae-de-baphometis · 1 year

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ACTUAL Mesopotamian Pagan Goddesses You Can Work With INSTEAD Of Lilith 🌙

So if you've seen the old post of mine touching on an antisemitic "Demonolatry" subreddit, you'll probably have heard about the common argument antisemitic practitioners make to try and justify appropriating Lilith and a lot of other Jewish daemons.

A lot of these people will try to propose that working with Lilith isn't cultural appropriation, because she predates Judaism and is actually a "MeSoPoTaMiAn PaGaN gOdDeSs". And I don't think it takes a genius to realise that this is absolute horse shit lol. Just look at any Mesopotamian deities list and she's not there.

These people are most likely referring to similar spirits such as Lamashtu, Kilili, Ki-sikil-lil-la-ke, Ardat-Lili, and even Inanna/Ishtar in some instances. There's also the family of desert-dwelling night spirits that comprise of the Lilu and the Lilitu/Lili daemons.

While Lilith may have originated from or was based off of these daemons, they are not the same as Lilith. And I get that people have their own UPGs on certain entities being aspects of one another and such, but if that entity is part of a closed practise, you are in no place to even have a UPG on them to begin with. It comes from a practise that you aren't a part of, therefore you have no right or reason to have a UPG on it. Please just leave closed practices alone.

To my knowledge, one of the first times Lilith was documented was in the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with the daemon race of Lilin. The Dead Sea Scrolls is a Jewish/Hebrew text. So the idea that Lilith predates Judaism is just not true, and it's clearly an excuse made by people who appropriate her in an effort to brush off any accusations of their cultural appropriation and covert antisemitism. Lilith and the Lilin are only loosely based on the Lilitu wind spirits; They are not synonymous with one another. Anyone who tries to claim they are is just blatantly uneducated and/or antisemitic.

The whole idea of Lilith having origins in Mesopotamian mythology can all be traced back to a mistranslation. The BS-Free Podcast has an episode on this and it goes into depth about this mistranslation. I highly recommend checking out their podcast episode here!

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In an attempt to combat some of this antisemitic fuckshit, I wanted to make an entire blog post dedicated to the goddesses and daemonesses of ancient Mesopotamia that you can work with instead of Lilith! I've had this idea for a little while now, but didn't really know who to include or how to construct this until now.

I also have another post in the making which will be a more UPG based post and will also include sigils, conjuration chants, correspondences, illustrations, etc. This current post merely exists to function as a guide and a sort of directory, with mostly historical information about each spirit listed.

So without further ado, let me show you some of the other goddesses, daemonesses, and spirits you can work with; All without appropriating someone else's ethnoreligion!

Full post is under the cut. ↓

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☣️ DISCLAIMER: Some of these spirits may be considered intense, unpredictable, and chaotic in nature. These spirits can be overwhelming to work with if you are sensitive to such spiritual energies. Please tread with caution, especially if you're a beginner practitioner. Stay safe. Xx

⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of infant/child d3ath, ab0rti0n, and slight mentions of s3xual a55ault/abu5e and r4pe but nothing described in any explicit detail. Also slight mentions of antisemitism and Ne0-Naz1sm towards the end of the post.

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Here are some ACTUAL Mesopotamian Goddesses and Daemonesses that can ACTUALLY be considered Pagan. These spirits, in my opinion, seem to bear the most resemblance to the pop-cultural stereotype of "Lilith".

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+: Kilili :+

Lady Kilili is a daemoness of Sumerian origin, likely associated with owls. She is also attested as a minor goddess who functioned as a servant of Inanna/Ishtar. - Lady Kilili's name is that of a bird, most likely an owl. In one source she is equated with ab-ba-su-su, meaning "she who leans on the window" in Sumerian. She could be referred to as "queen of the windows" and "the one of haunted places", and it's assumed that she was imagined as an owl daemoness. - Kilili was usually affiliated with Ishtar, and according to at least one source, is said to be one of her eighteen messengers. She could also be considered as having a connection to sex due to her link with Ishtar. Kilili could also possibly have links with Lady Ardat-Lili due to similar affiliations, but there is no solid evidence for this. - It has also been theorised that Queen Kilili is in fact the goddess figure depicted in the Burney Relief terracotta plaque, and while it is highly likely, this has never been officially confirmed. - With the limited information we have on Queen Kilili, all we can really say is that she was likely a daemoness and goddess of owls, nocturnal animals, the night, sexuality, and portals to other worlds (hence the whole "windows" affiliation).

. . .

+: Lamashtu :+

Lady Lamashtu, also known as Lady Labartu, is a Mesopotamian daemoness and (demi)goddess who was said to menace pregnant women during childbirth, and allegedly kidnapped children and devoured them. She was blamed for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, as humans didn't yet have a medical explanation for this phenomenon at the time. - She was the daughter of the Mesopotamian Sky God Anu. There are also modern day accounts of Pazuzu being her consort (the Daemon King of the Southwest Winds) and their offspring being the Lilu wind daemons. In my UPG, Pazuzu and Lamashtu seem to be friends with one another (or at most, in a queer-platonic relationship) but aren't necessarily espoused to one another. I do believe there are a specific subtype of Lilu wind daemons that were created by them though. - Lamashtu was also associated with ab0rting unborns and killing newborns, eating men and drinking their blood, disturbing sleep, bringing nightmares, allegedly harassing mothers and expectant mothers, infesting lakes and rivers, killing foliage, and being a bringer of disease, sickness, and death. - Queen Lamashtu was classified as an "evil" spirit, as she acted on her own accord rather than following the gods' instructions. However, it is likely that she was just a more chaotic spirit, as not everything in our world can simply be divided up into "good" and "evil". At least, that's what I believe anyways. - In modern times, Lamashtu could more so be seen as an advocate for ab0rti0n rights and women's rights, as well as a defender of women and neglected/abu5ed children, rather than being a malicious monster who kills without any motive. - As for the men she devours, perhaps we could suggest that these men were persecuting innocent women and sƐxually a55aulting and r4ping them, impregnating them with children the women did not want or were unable to care for. Lamashtu might then assist the woman with ab0rting the unborn child, and then guiding it to the afterlife or elsewhere to be potentially reincarnated. - She could also be seen as persecuting sƐxual abu5ers and protecting the victims or potential victims of such a55aults. I don't know, just some food for thought lol. A lot of the areas in which Ancient Mesopotamian religion was practiced had quite misogynistic attitudes towards women, being the time era that it was (obligating them to stay home and be wives); So perhaps Lady Lamashtu's mythos was somewhat twisted out of content because she didn't fill that stereotypical role. In a way, this could make Lamashtu quite the feminist icon!

. . .

+: Akhkhazu :+

Lady Akhkhazu, also known as Dimme-kur, is a Akkadian daemoness associated with pestilence. She is also called "the seizer". - Akhkhazu brings fever and plagues, and is a part of a trio of daemonesses (Labasu, Lamashtu/Labartu, Akhkhazu). Despite the fact that Akhkhazu is known as a masculine name, she is said to be feminine in nature. - Next to nothing is known of Lady Akhkhazu, however we can confirm that due to her link with Queen Lamashtu, she can be associated with death, destruction, and sickness. Being a daemoness of plagues and illness, it could be proposed that Akhkhazu may also be able to help heal these things.

. . .

+: Labasu :+

Lady Labasu was a part of the aforementioned trio of Mesopotamian daemonesses alongside Lamashtu/Labartu and Akhkhazu. She is said to have the same powers and associations as the other daemonesses in that trio. - Not much is known about Labasu outside of that, but we can assume that she's a daemoness of disease, plagues, pestilence, death, and decay. I believe she could also solely be worked with as a death daemon/deity.

. . .

+: Inanna-Ishtar :+

Lady Inanna, also known as Lady Ishtar, is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, beauty, justice, war, and fertility. She is also associated with sex, divine law/justice, and political power. It was initially thought that Inanna and Ishtar were originally seperate deities, but overtime merged into the same deity (similar to how Amun and Ra merged to become Amun-Ra). - Inanna-Ishtar's prominent symbols were the lion and the eight-pointed star. She also had associations with the planet Venus. She held the title of the "Queen of Heaven". - Her spouse was Dumuzid (later known as Tammuz), the god of shepherds, fertility, and vegetation.

. . .

+: Ki-sikil-lil-la-ke :+

Lady Ki-sikil-lil-la-ke (also known as Kisikil-lila or Ki-sikil) is another obscure Mesopotamian daemoness of which not much is known about. - Her origins date as far back as 600 BCE, in the Epic Of Gilgamesh, an ancient Sumerian epic poem. In Tablet XII, an Assyrian-Akkadian translation of the latter part of the Epic Of Gilgamesh, it tells the story of a 'spirit in the tree' referred to as Ki-sikil-lil-la-ke. Proposed translations for the Tablet XII 'spirit in the tree' include; Ki-sikil as "sacred place", lil-la-ke as "water spirit, and lil as either "spirit" or simply "owl" (given that the lil builds its home in the trunk of a tree). - The Ki-sikil-lil-la-ke is associated with a serpent and a Zu bird. In the ancient city of Uruk, a huluppu tree grows in Inanna's garden, and she plans to use the wood of the tree to build a new throne. After ten years of growth, Inanna returns to the garden to harvest the tree, but finds that it has since been inhabited. A serpent is dwelling at the base of the tree, a Zu bird is nesting atop the tree raising its young, and the Ki-sikil-lil-la-ke has built a home within its trunk. - Gilgamesh was said to have killed the serpent, then the Zu bird flew away to the mountains with its young, while the Ki-sikil-lil-la-ke fearfully destroyed her house and fled to the forests. - Lady Ki-sikil's story was eventually mistranslated as referring to Lilith, leading to the misinformation of Lilith having origins in Mesopotamian mythology. - Outside of this, not much is known of Lady Ki-sikil. Going off the limited information we have of her, we can conclude that her associations are with willow trees, owls (or other birds of prey), water, snakes, forests, and vegetation in general.

. . .

+: Ardat-lili :+

Lady Ardat-lili (also known as Vardat-lilitu) is a Mesopotamian daemoness and wind/storm goddess who inhabits the desert. Not much is known of this daemoness, but in modern times she has been likened to a "succubus" or vampiric-like entity. Ardat-lili was said to prey on men and conceive daemon offspring from their nocturnal emissions. - There are a few different stories of Ardat-lili's origins. Some sources claim that she was the spectre of a young girl who died before getting married, and out of sheer bitterness and envy, she sets out to prevent and/or sabotage the marriages between mortals. Other accounts suggest that Ardat-lili may refer to a specific family of multiple spirits, rather than a singular entity. In my UPG, Ardat-Lili is a daemoness, whereas the Lilitu/Lili are a class of spirits that Ardat-Lili belongs to. - Ardat-lili is yet another daemoness of which little information is known, and it's likely that a lot of her mythos was lost to history. I personally interpret her as a daemoness/goddess of storms, wind, the desert, sexuality, and the night. I also see her as being androgynous, similarly to how I see Astaroth in my UPG.

. . .

+: Ereshkigal :+

Lady Ereshkigal (also known by the titles "Queen Of The Underworld" and "Queen Of The Great Earth") is the Goddess of Kur, the land of the dead in Sumerian mythology. In later myths, she was said to rule Irkalla alongside her husband Nergal. However, Ereshkigal and Nergal were only two of the many deities that ruled over the underworld in ancient Mesopotamia. - On some accounts, her name was given as Irkalla, similar to how the Greek name Hades was given to the underworld itself as well as the ruler of the underworld. Ereshkigal is also known by the name of Ninkigal, meaning "Lady Of The Great Earth". - In the ancient Sumerian poem Inanna's Descent To The Underworld, Ereshkigal was said to be the older sister of the aforementioned Inanna-Ishtar. But historically, they weren't commonly associated with one another. Another account associates Ereshkigal with the gods Ninazu (originally regarded as her husband but later as her son) and Ningishzida. It was said that Ninazu initially ruled over the Underworld, but Ereshkigal later fulfilled this role as the mythos evolved overtime. - In later Babylonian deity lists, Ereshkigal ruled over a category of Underworldian gods that were known as "Transtigridian Snake Gods" which included Ninazu, Tishpak, Ishtaran, and the Elamite god Inshushinak. She also had a messenger named Namtar. - Some accounts suggest that Ereshkigal and Inanna-Ishtar are somewhat polar opposites to one another; With Inanna-Ishtar being the Queen Of Heaven, and Ereshkigal being the Queen Of The Underworld. -

. . .

+: Tiamat :+

Lady Tiamat (a.k.a. "The Glistening One") is the primordial goddess of the sea in Babylonian mythology. She represented the embodiment of primordial chaos, and was said to have created the entirety of the cosmos and the universe. with the help of her consort Abzu, the god of groundwater. - Tiamat's consort was Abzu, the god of groundwater. Together, they bore the first generation of deities, including their son Kingu. However, trouble arose when these gods kidnapped and murdered Abzu in an attempt to usurp his lordship over the universe. This angered Kingu, and he reported the incident back to his mother. - Devastated and enraged by her husband's death, Tiamat created eleven mighty monsters, including the first ever generation of dragons, whose bodies she filled with "poison instead of blood" and sent them to rage war upon the gods to avenge her husband. After war broke out, Tiamat was eventually killed by the storm god Marduk, and it was said that he integrated elements of her body into the heavens and the earth. - Tiamat is associated with sea serpents and dragons, and may have even taken the form of these animals sometimes. - Side Note: I actually wanna make a whole seperate post regarding the eleven monsters created by Tiamat, because I think they're really cool and I do wanna venerate them at some point!

. . .

⭒☆·━━━━━━━•( 🌑 )•━━━━━━━·☆⭒

Welp, that's pretty much it for this post! I will eventually be making a post about The Anti-Lilith-Appropriation Hierarchy Of Spirits I have come up with, comprised of all the spirits, goddesses, and daemonesses you can work with and venerate instead of Lilith. So stay tuned for that!

⭒☆·━━━━━━━•( 🌑 )•━━━━━━━·☆⭒

There are many different deities, daemons, and spirits that you can honour, worship, and venerate; Lilith doesn't need to be one of them.

Respecting closed practices is of upmost importance, because here's the thing... Spirituality and metaphysical beings cannot be definitely proven to exist. However, the years upon years of discrimination, erasure, xenophobia, religiophobia, and maltreatment in general that groups of people such as Jews and Muslims have had to go through, is very much real and can be backed up by solid evidence.

Do you really think it makes sense to prioritise something that could very well be all in your head, over actual oppressed minorities who have literally been mistreated and even killed since the very beginning of time, all because of shitty bigoted people's prejudices? Just think about that for a second.

Because if you still think it's completely fine to appropriate Lilith, even though it is evidently clear that she is closed and exclusive to Judaism (NOT Mesopotamian), then I have absolutely no problem assuming you're antisemitic and most likely a Ne0-Naz1 as well. And if you are, you should go and fuck yourself. :)

⭒☆·━━━━━━━•( 🌑 )•━━━━━━━·☆⭒

There's unfortunately quite a lot of antisemitism in occult spaces, especially when it comes to Satanism, Daemonolatry, and Luciferianism in particular. I want to do my best to counteract this shit and to help educate those new to this branch of the occult, so that unsuspecting people don't fall down an antisemitic pipeline like I did at the beginning of my path onto Daemonism and Daemonolatry.

If my best friend hadn't educated me on how bad cultural appropriation actually is and hadn't snapped me out of my radicalisation process, the gods only know where I would've ended up... It deeply concerns me just thinking about it. I hate to think about how antisemitic occult spaces such as r/DemonolatryPractices could've potentially led to me being radicalised into a Ne0-Naz1... Ugh, it makes me fucking shudder...

Please don't fall into the trap of thinking that cultural appropriation is completely fine and not harmful at all, because if you give that shit enough time to fester, you never know what it could snowball into. You'll most likely fall down a right-wing pipeline, and trust me, it is not a place you want to end up in.

I had to learn that the hard way.

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Anyways, I hope you found this post helpful and informative! And as always, I wish you well on your spiritual journey. <3

~ May You Be Blessed By The Daemonic/Infernal Divine ~

-Kody

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emotional-moss · 1 year

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some thoughts about cultural appropriation

a few important notes before you read this:

- here, when i say “white,” i am referring to specifically white canadian, white american, and white european, with white european being a rather loosely defined term but typically relating to britain. this is not intended to ignore the existence other white identities such as white south africans, but i am a mixed-race indian+white person who has spent most of his life in the united states and does not have enough experience or knowledge of these identities to make accurate takes about them.

- this is not me making excuses for cultural appropriation. it is a dangerous thing that waters down and erases culture, and should not be encouraged. - this is written in a gentle and hopefully palatable way to white audiences, who i encourage to read this. not every take from a poc is going to be nice-nice about these kinds of things, but this is.

i find it very interesting that when you ask white folks about why they’re so obsessed with certain aspects of culture, the palatable, easily-appropriated ones like native headdresses and whatnot, their reason usually is in the form of “mysticism” and “exoticism.” this is a problem in itself, obviously, tying into the long-standing colonial fetishization of culture, but here’s the bit i actually want to talk about:

when you ask why it’s so “exotic” to them, why it’s so obviously “different and other” at a personal level - it comes from a sense of community.

let me break this down a bit. culture and community are often used as very loose synonyms, and for pretty good reason. a culture is based around the ideas of societal norms and roles, material things, ways of thinking and whatnot - and these all come down to community.

there are certain things that are intrinsic and unique to every culture (even if they are a medley of various different cultural influences), whether they be classical carnatic music in south india, pinakbet from the ilocos region of the philippines, or the ninauh-oskitsi-pahpyaki social role/gender in the blackfoot tribe. even cultures we would consider to “appear” white have these, such as the tales of tuatha de dannan in irish mythology. but the idea of whiteness as a concept does not have these.

whiteness as a concept is a sterilized, “de-cultured” identity that attempts to assimilate most/many folks who appear “white” into a single monolith. this is obviously very damaging and dangerous to many cultures - for example, many ancient celtic traditions have been lost due to the deliberate erasure of these in order to assimilate these people into whiteness.

whiteness as an identity was founded on a basis of eurocentric values and traditions as well as either the deliberate assimilation or erasure of all other cultures and traditions - white supremacy. it still exists like that today (see groups like the KKK or proud boys).

now we know obviously that not all white folks are intentionally racist and a large portion of them genuinely don’t mean harm to poc communities…so why is cultural appropriation so rampant, even in white folks who would otherwise be decent allies to poc?

again, it’s coming down to a sense of community.

i have grown up and lived in the united states for most of my life, and as early as i can remember i have always had questions about the cultural identities of white americans. i’d look at the indian half of me and indian culture that i partook in and experienced, things i cherish such as cooking traditional South indian food, learning carnatic classical music, participating in religious ceremonies, etc. and then i’d look at the white half of me. there was no culture there i could find.

sure, i could look at typically “american” things, such as hamburgers and surfboarding and apple pie, but these fall apart very easily with minimal research. similar hamburger-looking foods appear in europe as far back as the 4th century. bodysurfing/surfboarding has existed in peru, africa and various polynesian countries for thousands of years. versions of apple pie existed in british and french cookbooks as far back as 1390 BCE with influences from the ottoman empire - and apples aren’t native to the americas.

the colonization of the americas and the subsequent reframing of canada and the states as “white” areas is due to the influence of colonization, obviously - and the genocide of millions of first nations people. this was deliberate.

but here is the interesting bit. for hundreds of years, as far back as the pilgrims, cultures that were not fully assimilated into whiteness were rejected and oppressed - even as they colonized.

take italian-americans, for instance. the late 1800s to early 1900s saw a huge influx of italian immigrants to the united states. these immigrants faced oppression in the form of religious and political discrimination (anti-catholic sentiments and anti-communist sentiments). they were often subject to horrible living conditions compared to their american white counterparts as well as violence - one of the largest lynchings in america was the mass-lynching of eleven italian immigrants in new orleans in 1891.

yet today, when we think of italian-americans, we often see them simply as “white.”

a huge amount of immigrants to the united states and canada were forced to give up their original cultures in order to assimilate into whiteness. if not, they were subject to prejudice, discrimination and overall just shitty conditions. for some groups that resembled “white americans” in appearance, such as irish folks and italian folks, this method worked eventually and they were assimilated and accepted into whiteness. for many others due to their skin color or features, such as black enslaved folks or jewish folks, even giving up their own culture still meant they were not accepted as white - they didn’t “look white.” additionally, many cultural groups resisted assimilation and rejected being seen as white.

this is somewhat why i believe so many white americans, canadians, and british participate so heavily in cultural appropriation. it comes from a sense of loneliness, of little to no original culture - and whatever is left has been bastardized and reduced to just “white,” neglecting the cultural nuance.

growing up as a brown-skinned mixed person with heavy ties to the indian side of my culture, i was subject to a fair amount of racism. i remember people asking why my hair was “oily and gross,” and then begging my mom to never put coconut oil in my hair ever again. i remember people telling me that the khichdi my mom had carefully made for my lunch “looked and smelled like fish eggs,” and then only eating bland sandwiches at school. but there is one experience i remember very clearly.

i had a white american best friend when i was very young, from kindergarten to third grade. she never judged me for my food or my clothes or my grandparents’ accent or any other part of my culture and i loved her for it. but i remember having this experience with her one day.

she’d met my grandmother who came to pick me up, donned in an elaborately-formed red sari. the next day, when i sat with her at recess, she said something like, “i liked your grandma’s dress. it was pretty.” taken aback by open appreciation of my culture, i just mumbled a pleased “oh, thanks.” but she didn’t stop there. she said, “my grandma only wears boring clothes, like sweaters and granny dresses. i wish i was indian.”

i said something like, “granny dresses can be nice. you can be white and wear cool clothes.”

“yeah, i know. but any old person can wear sweaters and dresses. they’re just…not from anywhere.”

at the time, i didn’t fully understand her desire to be connected to a specific culture, but i understood in a bit of a detached way. i was always very connected to and appreciative of my indian culture, but look to the white side and i was met with exactly that - a gaping white void. the closest answer i got was “well, your great-grandparents came from germany.” that answer dissatisfied me, although i couldn’t articulate why. now i can.

it’s something like, “but after such a long time, they’re not really german anymore.” i’d seen the absence of culture in whiteness, and how my white friends and family could name a distant time where their family belonged to another culture - but not anymore. now, they were just “white.”

whiteness as a concept strips and sanitizes culture to fit a very, very narrow version of culture - a culture defined on the surface by cheeseburgers and british accents and football and canadian politeness, but dig deeper and you find colonialism, colonization, eurocentricism, racism, and various other systems of oppression.

once again, this is not an excuse for white folks who appropriate culture nor is this me trying to reason my way into approving of it. it’s not, and i’m not. i die a little bit inside every time i see some random hippie on the internet bastardize and water down the concept of chakras. but it is a bit of an explanation, and this is why i have some degree of sympathy for white folks who culturally appropriate.

so, to all white or white-passing folks who read this and understand/relate to it: i implore you this. please, please, please, if you have the time and resources to do so, reconnect with your native culture. talk to older irish folks, or learn about traditional welsh folklore. learn german, or watch documentaries of italian culture. read stories from white-passing native folk, or talk with your black grandparents. please do not lose the culture that your ancestors had to give up in order to assimilate into whiteness. understand that whiteness is a part of you and that it impacts those around you, but if you can, please make the effort to reconnect with your culture. it does wonders for your identity and sense of self.

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anti--transid · 1 year

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Radqueers trying to explain why its okay to fake a disability to steal resources from actual disabled people, why its okay to culturally appropriate and why they "aren't in the wrong for harassing former radqueers"

#yes this is because I have gotten an influx of radqueers flooding my inbox angry that Im not a radqueer anymote #anymore #🎀 {talking}.#tw cultural appropriation mentions #anti radqueer #anti ship #anti trace #anti transabled #anti transage #anti transid #anti transx #former radqueer #anti transautistic

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nyaskitten · 8 months

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my anon hate to you is that ras is a furry. i said what i said

THAT IS A SLUR AND ALSO CULTURAL APPROPRIATION YOU CANT SAY THAT!!!!

#tw furry #unfortunate use of the furry word #for those who dont get it.#chima fan who thinks saying 'furry' is saying a slur and cultural appropriation #anon asks #raine's shitposting

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werewolf-cuddles · 1 year

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i'mma keep it real with you chief, homophobes literally do not care about the difference between gay, bi, pan or even trans people.

To them, we're all faggots.

Sorry to break it to you, but nobody made you the language police, and you have absolutely no right to dictate what slurs other queer people are and aren't allowed to reclaim.

And no, it ain't bisexual erasure for a bisexual person to call themselves a faggot. Don't misuse terms like that.

And yes, if you're wondering why I screencapped, OP disabled reblogs because they knew people would call this dumbass take out for what it is.

#f-slur tw #d-slur tw #also in the tags they called it #''appropriating homosexual culture''#give me a fucking break

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dragonturtle2 · 1 year

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The Collector’s Magical Kingdom of Appropriation

The Collector’s reign over the Boiling Isles is actually a huge illustrated metaphor of cultural appropriation. Sure, there are the more blatant signs of full on colonialism and genocide. We plainly see the entire native population is either enslaved or hidden away in fear, while Collector takes their territory for himself. But The Owl House has always spent time being a mirror held up to the consequences of the fantasy genre, and the desires of its fans.

Think of the stars with eyes that Collector uses to decorate the Isles, and deploys as enslaver drones. Why the star shape? It’s not just a reminder of how he/they are technically a little kid. It’s the overriding aesthetic of the Collector society. They seem to live in the cosmos itself, their clothes have celestial bodies all over them, and each one of them apparently had a phase of the moon stamped on their faces. So in order to make the Boiling Isles more appealing to himself, Collector stamped his local iconography all over them. He/They took one look at the native architecture and design and decided it wasn’t suitable to his wants. Along with morphing the citizens into wood and plaster, he gave them redesigned and rebranded outfits. Even the local ecology and vistas were crudely plastered over, to the point that a newcomer like Camila Noceda couldn’t distinguish what elements were original.

And these aesthetics are designed to wage war with each other. The inhabitants and architecture of the Boiling Isles are modeled after the free-range bizarreness of Hieronymus Bosch. The most mundane utilities are steeped in the macabre, and nobody even blinks an eye at. This reflects how the Witch civilizations have mimicked the dead giant that gave rise to their existence. Possibly how they’re so at ease with the very concept of death, since they live with the reminder of it’s inevitability, and how it can bring beauty.

What Collector prefers is an 80’s G-rated fantasy kiddie cartoon in the vein of Care Bears.

There’s also the metanarrative aspect with how Luz’s entire story has been passed on. The Collector has spent all these months play-acting Luz’s life; all her accomplishments, and all her sacred bonds. Yes it was King’s suggestion; “the Owl House” game. But Collector obviously loves it. Yet Collector has nothing but contempt for Luz herself, even as a concept. He/They get pouty or mopey whenever she gets referenced. We’ve all seen this pattern of thought with bad faith arguments from chuds online, when it comes to certain franchises. Where they don’t actually have any problems with the story or the particular tropes, they just get pissy when the protagonist is a female or person of color. Collector calls Luz “that human,” like who she was born as is an insult.

The only person Collector treats anything like a peer is King, because he is also a species that reaches Godhood. All the lesser species can be treasured pets, at best. The Collector shares a mindset (or at least outward habits) with bigoted gatekeepers, where the joys of a story or franchise aren’t deserved by people who don’t remind them of themselves. Even if those different types of people are the ones who created the story in the first place. Their accomplishments are only worthwhile if HE can use them, including stamping his name and face on them. Colonialism doesn’t just steal the fruits of labor, they steal your stories of the past, present, and future.

:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:

As an aside, the actions of erasure also extend to the only remotely real bond Collector has, King. Which isn’t surprising given that he’s literally redecorating and playing games with the corpse of King’s dad. The process King’s gone through is assimilation by way of involuntary adoption. King is dressed in Collector clothes, lives in a Collector palace (built atop his dad’s resting place), and learns Collector lore as he reads Collector bedtime stories. Meanwhile, his mom and auntie are living behind bars while they scrounge for their prescriptions.

Although this isn’t quite the intended assimilation like Collector has done for the entire Isles and witch-kind; he/they are just offering King what they enjoy most, which mostly defaults to what they’re already familiar with. That’s just normal for kids, and people in general.

I believe this is a different kind of warning Collector poses to anyone who enjoys stories, and all us involved in fandom. Not just the terror of artistic gentrification. It’s seeking out stories, characters and settings to only fulfill our own desires and preferences. Searching for only baseline wish fulfillment can trap us in a bubble that stops us from growing. Then if something is unique or incongruous, we either throw it away or end up mangling the interpretation. And when art is swept aside and destroyed, we’re also degrading where it came from. It’s creator, it’s people, and it’s country.

:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:

youtube

When King first came into his Titan power, I thought it seemed strange that it was a vocal attack. Just because the actual physical noises of the Titan - speech, language, cries - have never had any prominence in this show. Descriptions or theories of how that species have never been included in the lore reveals, or the musings or sayings of the local populace. The closest we’ve gotten is Belos’s original lie, “I am the voice of the Titan.”

I assumed it was meant to contrast with King’s squeaky voice and grand boasts being his main source of comedy. And just basic symbology about puberty. But after writing all this, I’m convinced it was setting up how to save the day from whatever Belos and Collector will try to inflict.

King will stand with his mother and sister (and hopefully aunt and Hooty) and they ALL scream out that what they have is perfect. They scream to prove they exist, and they don’t need to write any coherent song or reasonable argument to prove or earn that right. Their identity, their self perception and self respect, is their power. The most basic of expression can annihilate oppressors, as long is it’s honest. And of course, coordinated noise is a great opportunity for some musician to get involved.

youtube

Big thanks to @marztheincredible for Beta’ing the preceding essay concerning this very histories and complex subject.

#the owl house #toh #luz noceda #toh the collector #toh collector #king clawthorne #cultural erasure #tw cultural erasure #cultural appropriation #owl house Titan #tw colonialism #Youtube #toh king #toh titan #toh analysis #owl house analysis #owl house essay #marztheincredible

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im-not-your-nice-jewish-boy · 6 months

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look in a mirror

I've taken some time to think about this, and I've decided that I'm done with giving the benefit of the doubt here.

I remember listening to another Jewish person talk about why she doesn't write about the Shoah, specifically her saying "I can feel the weight of my ancestors" near the end. And you know what? She's right. Every time I think about the Holocaust, about how the entire world turned their backs on us Jews and the Romani beside us, I feel that loss to my core. You can't escape the scars of that time as a Jew. It becomes part of the double helix of your genes like the will to survive that keeps us here despite everyone wishing we weren't whether they say it out loud or not.

With that in mind: fuck Caelan Conrad and all their ilk

A hearty shut your mouth and consider your life to everyone who tries to appropriate the Holocaust like it's some kind of badge of honor or a fucking game.

For people who spend so much time laughing at the people who you say want to be oppressed so badly, you're doing something that's exactly the same. Is it not enough for you, the state of the world when it comes to the threat to the lgbtqia+ community? Only I'm painfully aware that it's not that. It's the fact that you, yes you oh passionate defender of human rights, want so very badly to not have to think about how much you hate Jews. You want so very badly to erase that the Holocaust was about the Jews and the Romani far more than it was about queer people.

And before you get started with that: I am queer

I am trans

I am gay

I am on the asexual spectrum

Those are all important things about me, yes, but when I think about the Shoah, I don't think about my status as a queer person. You know what I think of? The fact that people in my family died. The fact that if that hadn't happened, I probably wouldn't be in the American part of the diaspora. The fact that there are still fewer Jewish people in the world now and somehow people still act like "oh, it was forever ago" and "it wasn't really that bad".

Fuck you

Like I've said before: you've stolen enough from us

You don't get to steal our trauma, our murders, our ghosts, our bones

You don't get to act like that was about you

The Holocaust isn't a fucking statement; it was a tragedy played across the entire world focused primarily on the wholesale slaughter of the Jewish people and the Romani people

It is something we still feel to this day

Take your thieving, sticky fucking fingers far away and keep them to yourself until you learn to stop taking shit that isn't yours

You claim to be so much better than organizations like the catholic church?

How about you act like it then and stop pulling the same moves they did when it comes to your antisemitism; this is one of the oldest dirty moves in the book and it doesn't look any better on you than it did on them

#antisemitism #cultural appropriation #tw shoah #historical revisionism #jewish history #the holocaust isn't about you #never forget #never again #am yisrael chai #whether you like it or not #leftist antisemitism #leftist hypocrisy #this is spicier than is probably wise #i don't really care #fuck you people

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thedivine-transsexual · 1 year

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I’m really interested in reading about closed cultures more and their texts (as a UU, one of our sources is all world religions afterall) but I’m scared of somehow culturally appropriating stuff. Like I’d internalize the teachings too hard or somethin??

One thing our forefathers have always warned against is cultural appropriation and it’s just the right thing to do (obviously), I’m just nervous about fucking something up.

#it’s also a constant #‘am I allowed here? am I allowed to read this or learn about it?#maybe I’m thinking about it too hard #tw cultural appropriation ?

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eeveecraft · 1 year

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Guess Who's Back

That's right. It's us, the Dragonheart System. We're fucking back.

[Rylazide] Hi, everyone, I hope everyone is okay and is having a good day!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, our blog got terminated without warning:

Just... out of the blue, no warning, no reason given. As you can imagine, I was kinda freaked out, but I calmed down and contacted support.

We were stuck, waiting for Tumblr to do something for multiple days, and as you can imagine, it wasn't fun, not knowing whether or not 4+ years of our system's history, informative posts, and more were just... gone for good! Well, they're not.

And from some people who were looking out for us (you know who you are, thank you for being thoughtful towards us) basically let us know that sh!t kind of hit the fan in the Plurality space on Tumblr because of it. This is because the timing of our account termination was just... too suspicious. Literally soon before our blog got fucked, I reblogged a reblog from Sophie about that one system who said some pretty sh!tty things about us in an attempt to counter this post, and all my addition to the post was was just asking Sophie if she could provide evidence for her claims. Because what she was saying about that system would explain a lot of their behavior in the "tulpa = appropriation" discourse and would basically out them as a fake endogenic-supporter, but then... our account was nuked after that reblog was made.

Look, I'm going to be straight with every system here:

Tumblr Trust and Safety never stated WHY our account got terminated. Not when our account was initially terminated, nor when it was reinstated. In posts on both our Youtube and Plural.Cafe accounts, I said it could've been possible that we were mass-reported by sysmeds. I said this because that's exactly what happened to @sophieinwonderland over a year ago, and given the timing, it's not a crazy assumption to make because of the circumstances and history preceding it.

It just seemed a little odd for our account out of the 4+ years we've had it to be nuked during the height of what can metaphorically be described as a war in the #tulpa tags. Especially after we criticized the 'counter' to our original post, or the post by that one syscourse blog we have blocked to name-drop us could've absolutely stirred a bunch of sysmeds to witch-hunt us. It's happened before, it absolutely can happen again.

But, I can't say for sure because Tumblr decided to be frustratingly vague. However, I think a good way to know for sure is to see if these sysmed fucks try that sh!t again, then we'll know for sure. Because again, when Sophie's account was brought back the first time, sysmeds got it taken down a second time. It was so bad that Sophie had to personally ask Tumblr Trust and Safety to whitelist her account from mass-flagging. If we get terminated a second time, we're going to do the same thing Sophie did.

Also, please, please do NOT go after the system who originally criticized my post. After Sophie called them out for potentially being the reason our account got terminated and for spreading disinformation, they were apparently so stressed that they got hospitalized because they have trauma over having disinformation spread about them (you'd think they wouldn't do that if they personally know how harmful it is, but sadly, the abused are more likely than the average person to continue the cycle of abuse and become abusers themselves. It's really sad.).

Does it excuse them saying blatantly false things, spreading harmful disinformation about several users, and potentially (cannot confirm) encouraging sysmeds to mass-report our blog by name-dropping us and saying things that would absolutely encourage sysmeds to mass-report and silence us? Nope. There's no excuse. I don't care how traumatized they are, being traumatized is NO excuse to turn around and do the same to others. Plain and simple.

But still, it sucks that this happened to them, and I hope they're okay. Like, sure, I fucking hate sysmeds, anti-endos, whatever the fuck, I hate the harm they've done to not only us, but so many other people, and how they actively tear the community apart when we need to stick together and look out for each other. However, I don't wish any harm on sysmeds, only that they eventually let go of that bitterness and learn that what they did was wrong and stop doing it. We don't need to stoop to their level; they're just a loud minority that doesn't have any actual footing to stand on besides pure emotion and bigotry.

Anyway, I'm rambling and am going to shut up now. I'm sorry our account getting fucked caused such a stir in the community. Let's just hope it doesn't happen again.

7-31-2023

#tulpamancy #plurality #actuallyplural #endogenic #tulpa #long post #cultural appropriation #sysmed mention #sysmed tw

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antiendovents · 7 months

Note

[ Vent Below ]

TWS: Cultural Appropriation, very very brief gun mention

I'm confessing my sins to you, and I pray this never gets traced back to my actual account. I just have never, EVER been able to share this with anyone. Ever. I don't think you will necessarily be a "safe place" either, but this is a vent/rant space with an anon option. I feel very slightly safe. No one in the system community would accept me if they knew what I did, so I'm like "anon vent mode".

When I was thirteen, I ''''''created'''''' [heavy quotes because it isn't an actual thing] an alter who we will call A, since he'll be a reoccurring part of this all. I did not call him an alter at the time. To be honest with you, mod of this account and I guess anyone who reads this, [my first sin] back when I ''''''created''''' him, I called him a tulpa.

We found out later that the professional who diagnosed us with DID [because, yes, we are a medically recognized system] had done so without bringing it up being a possibility up a second time. I mention second time because the first time she had brought it up, she commented that the specialists she talked to said that they would be hesitant to diagnose me [rightfully so]. She, in hindsight, probably didn't mention any of our trauma to them because of HIPPA. i [alter front] personally believe she diagnosed us around this time.

The second time it was brought up, it was actually an entirely separate alter than the one she told about the hesitance to diagnose. The alter at that time was like "I think we may have to consider DID.. It sounds like what I experience...." and she was like "I already diagnosed you months ago, I talked to 3 other alters".

Talk about a surprise pikachu moment for that alter.

When I first joined the system space, I was a semi-newly discovered system. I had already known about several alters-- A and his creation was what made us be able to communicate with as a system, but all communication was slashed when we had a new host front for three years , which was the host who got us diagnosed. So when we were joining tumblr, we were just establishing good contact again, and when I made my blog I was diagnosed for, like, idk a year before [social media scares us, community spaces scare us, and this is our first time using tumblr again since 2013].

We forgot about the whole term of ''tulpas'' because of amnesia, straight up had a different alter eat those memories to keep the system functioning [in hindsight, its beneficial to know about, but also not]. I had ENTIRELY forgotten the actual term for "tulpas" [in quotes bc its not the actual Buddhist practice]. I just remembered it as "oh i made this dude, he was a ball of light and then suddenly he was having full conversations and chose his own appearance and personality, and why did he choose to be a dickhead [a joke at him /lh]".

Up until making my blog, I didn't engage in plural communities. Not even the tulpa community when I engaged with the content. I was a traumatized kid terrified of everyone, i simply learned how to 'create' a 'tulpa', did it and it worked better than I thought it would, and then fucked off. It was the most traumatic period of our life [when I made A], all I wanted to do was have someone to be with me so I wasn't alone with it all. He very much took on a protector role from the beginning, fronting once for 3 days in a blackout amnesia episode because another alter felt silly [he was an anger holder and was very angry, to sum it up].

Then I joined Tumblr. Because of joining system spaces, I have since re-found the term Tulpa, and ffs?? The absolute guilt and shame we feel is so immense. Not only because I appropriated a cultural practice I have no fucking right to be in, but also because I'm also someone made a mockery of the very disorder I have. It feels like I don't even deserve to be diagnosed.

That's why I don't fit completely into anti-endo spaces, but I don't fit endo spaces either.

We were posting to a small audience of 0 notes in system spaces, which felt safer for us. So we were going ham on our blog, enjoying our time, but we got our first ask.

"You guys seem so nice,,, why are you anti-endo?"

I'm like??? anti-endo?? wtf is that??? what's an endo?? oh foolish, sweet summer child,,, I had not put it in anywhere that I was anti-endo, which makes it so much worse to me. I guess this was probably someone testing the waters or something. So we go look it up, look up endos and we get reintroduced to the culturally appropriated term. And it's like fuck. It was a moment where I realized I had gone against my own morals in a way I was extremely disgusted with. I ended up dipping for a whole month because of it, which caused a system uproar and a shit ton a bad stuff happening while we were also going through new tons of new trauma at that time [thanks to our ex-bestfriend, a silent fuck you to nem. already so stressed, tell that to her, and then it flies over nirs fucking head so she beats a dead horse but ANYWAYS].

While I'm gone, an alter takes my place. I'll call him P. and P? Well,,,, P takes my spot as host [im now one of 4 cohosts, P is not one of them]. P sees tulpa, P sees other spiritual stuff in the endo spaces, and P goes, well, gee,,,, spirits and talking to them exists [a belief we do hold, but i would have to explain eons of shit to explain why we do], I can almost see how it would work. P responds with 'we're not anti-endo' [my second sin].

And then I'm back. It's been a month, things have carried on without me and we are an 'endo neutral' blog with more than two followers, and posts that hit more than 10 notes [which,,, I hate public attention. The thought of more than a few people engaging with the stuff I post is terrifying to the point I might puke if I think too hard about it /gen. 3-10 notes is the ideal. Maybe like 5 followers? i didn't think about that, dont want to].

I relearn about endos, I go 'fuck no??? are you fucking kidding me???' but then I remember A. That? Well, That ruined EVERYTHING for me. Suddenly I'm having to figure out how to manage having people perceiving me in a scale that terrifies me, but I also have a fucking turkeyball mix of followers. Endos, Anti endos, Endo Neutral, Endo Apathetic. All while truly standing as an anti-endo behind those good ol' closed doors. Then I have to look down the barrel of the gun and accept i did something that goes wildly against my own fucking morals. I didn't remember A, I didn't remember Tulpas, and now I wished I had never joined any system space. I wish I had never tried to find community. I don't even know how to right what has been wrong, I don't have anyone to tell me how to fix this.

I don't feel like I belong anywhere. There is no space for me with anti-endos because of what I have done, and there is no space for me with endos because of my anti-endo beliefs.

When I made my blog I wanted a space to be me, to be us, but now I don't even want to be me. A's presence was needed to keep me alive, I love him, but I can't even be cocon with him or I end up having a breakdown. Whether it be from the guilt of the shitty thing I did that I can't make up for because he's literally forever going to be there, or the fact that because I can't be around him, and considering I'm a host, he's secluded to his own section in the innerworld. Alone. Literally like how we were when we made him. It's wicked fucked up to me, but i guess it probably shouldn't be, considering his 'origins'. What once saved my life has become something I can't even face.

I feel like shit. I feel like this is a lose-lose situation. The one time I tried to step out of my comfort zone and do something that I think will be beneficial for us, it ends up being the worst thing to do. All I wanted was friends like me, only to find out, no... I'm not like them and I probably don't even deserve the diagnosis I have. On top of that, I engaged in harmful behavior, cultural appropriation. Furthermore, the people I could've engaged with would've been people I entirely disagreed with.

I feel like i should self undiagnose, if that makes sense. Like I do not care whatever professionals said I am, I'm just,, IDK a shitty person?? A cultural appropriator?? I've been diagnosed more than once, but I feel like I still shouldn't even claim being a system. I feel disgusted with myself. I feel ashamed. Cultural appropriation has a permanent scratch in my brain, a permanent mark. I feel like this is something I can never fix.

I'm confused on what to do. How do I fix the wrong of being a cultural appropriator in such a vile way? Even if I actually am a system, which I don't even know anymore, what the fuck would I call A? What do I even do about getting over the guilt? My therapist isn't equipped to deal with this, I have no friends, and the only people I talk to are my abusers. I'm to scared to talk to people online, and considering my circumstances, who would I even talk to about any of this? Am I even an anti-endo if I practiced what the endos preach? I'm just,,, ugh, It's been a lot, but thank fuck for the anon ask on a blog amirite?

Sorry to dump all this on you, and feel free to ignore it/not upload. I've just needed to talk about this for a while, and this felt like a safe space for a lil bit.

this is complicated but i'm going to try give the best advice i can here. cultural appropriation is bad yes, but you were a child. you didn't know what else to call A at the time, it seems. you admit you have done wrong and you seem guilty over it and really i think thats all you need to improve. you are a system, you are diagnosed as one, yes you made a mistake but so have many others. ex-pro endos are welcome in this community and always will be. as long as you have learned from your mistake i do not think you are a bad person. as i said, people make mistakes all the time, it doesn't mean they're bad, they just need to learn better, and by the sounds of things you have. i really hope you find your place in this community or even a different community. if you need help leaving pro-endo and pro-tupla communities i would recommend slowly distancing yourself, unfollowing or blocking some accounts that may interact with you and maybe even announcing you're anti endo if you feel safe (this isn't required, but it does help avoiding them). if necessary i would also suggest maybe making a new blog / account if you feel like you can't fix the current one (even a side-blog might work). good luck anon and i while i don't speak for the whole anti endo community i am sure you will at the least be accepted by most of us.

#tw cultural appropriation #tw gun mention #tw abuse mention #anti endo #actually did #did #did system #plural #endos dni #alters #system #did osdd

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