#my experience and knowledge is my own and some may disagree or have different experiences and knowledge

[queerprayers]

begging for christians to remember jesus was jewish. like, that is an inescapable part of him. yeah he's also universal but like it's incredibly fucked up to say he would've been palestinian when that's factually not true

Hi, beloved, I agree with your first two sentences! I'm going to try to write this response as neutrally as I can, as I don't think answering this is the best place for me to elaborate on things unrelated to your specific statement. I am not an expert, but I don't think any of these paragraphs require expert information—though of course further nuance can be found elsewhere.

There are many different ways to look at calling Jesus Palestinian, and for much of my life I was not aware of them. I had always called him Palestinian—for instance, there are hymns I grew up singing that reference Palestine. This is not a new phenomenon, although of course knowledge and discussion of that term has increased in recent years, and currently is very tied to specific ideological and material conflicts. This was also not a political statement—neither a Palestinian nationalist, anti-Israel, or antisemitic one (do note that I am differentiating these positions)—especially because anything written before the founding of the modern state of Israel did not (and could not) take that into account.

It is common practice to reference where historical figures are from with what the land is now referred to—saying they were born in "modern-day ___." Bethlehem is currently annexed as part of the West Bank, so it is accurate to say he was born in modern-day Palestine—while this is obviously politically controversial, as some wish to make that land fully a part of Israel, and whether Palestine should be considered a legitimate state is not agreed upon, we can at least agree that is currently in a territory named Palestine.

To use the geopolitical language of his time, Jesus was a Judean (although the name Palestine was used for parts of that land by the Greeks previously, and the phrase "Jewish Palestine" is sometimes used). I would agree that it is inaccurate to say Jesus was Arab, which I think is what you're getting at. The modern ethnic identities of Middle Eastern peoples were not in place, and Islam had yet to unite areas the way it did later. I would agree that "Jewish" is the best way to refer to his ethnicity, and this was his category in the Roman Empire.

The people who call Jesus Palestinian for further reasons besides his hometown being in modern-day Palestine have a variety of opinions—some are Palestinian Christians who identify with his experience of hardship, some are nationalists who support reclaiming the entire land as Palestine, some find that the most historically encompassing term, etc. These reasons can obviously be antisemitic and an attempt to distance him from Judaism, but they can also be reclamations of a complicated identity or simplified/summarized historical reasons, and I don't think they're all "fucked up"—which brings me to the last thing I want to point out:

"Palestinian" and "Jewish" are not opposites, nor are they mutually exclusive. Of course the modern usage of Palestinian has been narrowed and tied to Arab ethnicity and Islam, but there are Jews living in Palestine, and furthermore, there are Arab Jews. Israel has a history of mistreating Arab (and African, and probably other categories of) Jews, even those who are Israeli. To call Jesus (or anyone) Palestinian is not inherently to erase his Judaism, and I think to say it is in fact erases the lived experience of Jewish people who are minorities even within their own faith. It is also to tie "Jewish" with "Israeli" inextricably, which makes it harder to have nuanced conversation, and binds all Jews to a state they have differing opinions on.

You can (and should) disagree with some of the reasons people call Jesus Palestinian, or you may not consider it the most accurate/relevant/useful way to describe him, but please leave some space for the word Palestine to be a reality, and allow the complicated history of a land to produce many ways to refer to the people who have lived there. And when people do introduce more political reasons into the conversation, those experiencing genocide finding solidarity in their religious figure being born in the place where they live is not my priority right now—especially when there are actually people being actively antisemitic in their politics.

These are discussions that others more knowledgeable/relevant than me have had, and I will link some examples and sources below. 

<3 Johanna

"Was Jesus a Palestinian?" (Got Questions) 

"Was Jesus Palestinian?" (The Conversation)

"Jewish Palestine at the Time of Jesus" (Encyclopedia Britannica)

"Is Jesus Palestinian? Palestinian Christian Perspectives on Judaism, Ethnicity and the New Testament" (Dr. Michael J. Sanford)

"Who are Mizrahi Jews?" (Vox)

"The plight of Ethiopian Jews in Israel" (BBC)

"There is a Holy Land Called Palestine" & "Christ is Alive! Let Christians Sing," two examples of the kind of thing I grew up with (Hymnary)

[lifeweaverspeach]

My thoughts on Hazard's design

[link to the pic]

Before I say anything - this is all just my personal thoughts on the design. It's absolutely okay if you disagree with me. I also wanna add that in order to be punk, one does not need to look like a typical punk to say it like that. Punk is about music, culture, and belief first and foremost.

Also just in case of any mistakes or lack of knowledge - as much as I think of myself as part of the alternative community, I don't have that much experience with cuz I don't really have alternative friends. So please feel free to correct me on some things!

If you don't know, I have already stated on my Twitter that I am disappointed with Hazard's design when it comes to his look. And that's probably because I was hoping for something else than what we got

Like I said, I know that not every punk or alternative person have to look alternative to be a part of that group. However, I just say I was hoping for some good representation. Punk to the max as I would say.

I guess I was hoping to see a mix of a typical punk with overwatch elements - as in lots of body mods (piercings, tattoos) along with some crazy hair and punk attire (choker, patches on jacket and pants, perhaps boots with laces code)

I must say that I find the design to be pretty boring and maybe a little basic/generic. For me it really lacks that alternative/punk edge, since being alternative is about embracing yourself and not being afraid to be yourself.

I was really hoping to see a hero that's stading out a lot because they don't conform to the norm.

I may not know that many alternative characters in the media, but I guess I was hoping to see something similar to what Hobie Brown is in Spide-man: Across The Spider-verse

That's something what I ws hoping for, honestly. Lots of piercings, jacket that full pins and spikes (bonus points if it was clear that it was diy-ed). Not to mentioned that you can tell that Hobie made his spidersuit out of the thing he most likely just hand in his reach, so he did it all by himself and he's obviously rocking it.

I just feel really disappointed with what we got and I honestly wonder if there was someone there who perhaps said to tone Hazard's design down so it doesn't stick out of the norm that much, to say it like that. Like come on, give us a character that's sticking out! There's literally nothing wrong with not fitting in and looking different!

I also wanna mentioned this redesign(?) of Hazard and I honestly would die for it if it was his actual design [link]

I think that's all I wanted to get out, feel free to state your own thoughts and opinions in the comments! ^^

[centrally-unplanned]

それをもう問うたかもしれないが、日本語話せるの？

("I may have already asked this one, but do you speak Japanese"?) No, not really! Like of course I do know a bunch of Japanese, so my level is "some", sure, but I do my translation work through a hybrid machine-assisted approach and couldn't do it without at any speed. I spelled this out elsewhere a while ago (and have a note on my blog about it so anyone using my translations is aware of the limitations) but obviously no one would keep track of that - I have a multi-model LLM set-up where I OCR document text and run them through the disparate models that are tuned differently, and then give the text a quick check myself. If all the models agree with each other, and nothing red flags, then I more-or-less accept the translation as is - when they disagree I go in by hand and manually translate them to resolve it. (I also manually translate anything I directly quote, versus just reading for learning/research purposes.)

Doing all of that has had me develop a kind of funny skillset where I know a lot of Japanese grammatical rules and the like, because that is something you need to know for that task. But memorizing kanji outside of topic-specific niche vocab is nearly useless because lookup for kanji is trivial (due to Japan's lack of spacing and such kana can be trickier so you need to know more). And meanwhile you will have jargon for certain topics so I have studied a lot of say anime industry vocabulary and such. This leaves me with a weird skillset! Plus, If I am doing a "deep" translation I typically have to do a bunch of spot research to figure say what specific 90's culture reference this or that word is pointing to, which is it's own skill.

When experimenting with set-ups I did blind tests between the LLM-mixed methods and my own or fluent-speakers results and they passed with flying colors; the technology has progressed dramatically, and even since I have been doing this kind of work the need for corrections has gone down notably. We aren't at the point where you can simply throw out single-source translations with no corrections too reliably if you want anything quotable, but if you want to read a document yourself and get a 90% accurate read of it with no language knowledge at all, I think we are there now. I don't like to pretend I am uniquely skilled - I am instead simply putting in the work. Others can too, and I definitely encourage it - never before has global culture & history been more accessible than it is today.

[sir--crow]

🫵 SUMMONING FELLOW AUTISTIC PEOPLE 🙌

Autistic college student here 🫡

would anyone be interested if I posted a quiz for my research paper?

I'm writing a term paper that explores the Autistic Language Community. Here are some of the subjects I'll probably be covering:

how social bias against autistic people has impacted language acquisition from a young age.

how autistic peoples' language differs from Allistics'.

How masking impacts language in adults (mimicry, language suppression)

How the Autistic Language Community varies, such as hyper verbal people and non verbal people.

How the physical effects of being autistic impacts language (going nonverbal due to meltdowns)

Tone and speed of speech.

Misunderstandings of metaphors, taking language literally, or delivering language literally (the social perception of being blunt)

How Autistic and neurodiverse people created tone markers in text (/s, /j)

Body language of Autistic people (eye contact, stimming, being open or closed off, not "paying attention")

How biases and language ideologies have impacted the Autistic Language Community, and Autistic people as a whole.

I know that might be a lot (it has to be a 15+ page paper, keep that in mind) but as I research this subject I'll be trimming down and focusing on highlighted subjects as I go.

The quiz would be an assortment of questions relating to the subjects above. Such as, "do you agree or disagree with this statement" "do you have experiences with this subject" "what are your thoughts on this", essentially agree-disagree questions (like personality quizzes), word questions, and maybe more? I would love to hear your guy's thoughts on it, both from a subjective stance and personal stance. I'll be using my own personal experience for this as well.

Also please note that these are questions with the intention of gaining data and perspective, not questions that have an exact answer. Nobody is incorrect, there will be no incorrect answers. Everyone's answers may be different, and that's completely fine!

The option of being quoted, either openly or anonymously, is completely up to you. I'll have a question at the end asking for permission, so know that you have options. you can take this quiz and completely opt out of being mentioned at all!

Mainly, I want to write this paper with the perspectives of adult autistic people. There are so many papers on autistic children and not adults that it baffles me... I mean those children will grow up and become adults, autism doesn't vanish.

So, if you're interested, let me know in the comments or reblog! Also, if you have any ideas about this subject or think I'm lacking in knowledge about something within this subject, I would be happy to hear from you. Especially if you think I'm approaching a subject from the wrong perspective, I still have a lot to learn which is why I'm writing this.

Thank you for your time if you've read all of this, I appreciate it! Any feedback is truly appreciated.

Thank you!!!<3 :)

[clownshifting]

autosexuality and feeling like you're not getting enough out of it because of how society shames the lonely.

1,386 words total.

_____________

The loner, depicted as either this mystical type of being that closes off others to save themselves heartache or a repulsive weak-willed being that can't be liked by any mass. There isn't much in between when it comes to those two, but they have their own subsets.

Both are inherently negative depictions. Being alone, in society's eyes, means that you're always capable of doing things alone. It means that you're not liked, or that you're found to be repulsive. Being alone means you have no one else to go to, and that the gestures of pity you reject are made for you to accept because you look "so lonely".

You are being shamed by society, by popular media, and by the internet into believing that loneliness is a epidemic that is ruining the lives of our people, specifically men.

In some way, I am glad that the negative media exists, for if it was all positive, there would be nothing to criticize about this - and there would be no work needing done to discuss how the loner is a trope that is overused to push the narrative that you should simply be "fixed" by introducing yourself to the overstimulation that is outside of yourself.

It's not a coincidence that asexuals are often told they just "haven't found the right person", and that their disattraction is a phase used to hop and skip from temporary loneliness to glorious joy in a cishetnormative relationship. And if it's affecting asexuals, it's most likely affecting those under the acearo spectrum too. To many, being a loner is something that someone has to fix and change, a disease that makes you less popular and less likely to get ahead in life. But I see loners who work successfully and make due when they need to because they are alone, and that shines hope in my eyes. Whether these people be outlandish, speak bluntly, or laugh like a hog - it doesn't matter because they have found that loneliness isn't an illness needing to be cured, loneliness is an interpersonal relationship itself between a single party and that being who experiences it shouldn't be shamed to experience anything other. They should be encouraged to find safety in themselves and have faith in who they are, their abilities, and their individual knowledge. That is all.

There are many cases of people claiming that "if this person had friends, they wouldn't have done what they did," but I disagree. Friends don't make you less likely to commit or to harm others, all it does is quell that urge in people already willing to do it - so they need support systems, and not all support systems come in the shape of friendship. Some appear as a hobby, some appear as a routine, others may choose to look like toys and dolls, and other times it may as well be religion. Violence is a trait falsely attributed to loners, a trait that comes from media that portrays loners as aggressive doomers with nihilistic belief systems, leaving themselves out of the equation for the Earth because it's "better that way". Violence is a trait attributed to loners because society fears them.

You kinda have to understand it from a species perspective. Humans are quasisocial, meaning that they all have individual systems to focus on, but still focus on being as close to other humans (such as their spawn or mates) as possible to participate in brood care and community building. This is a nightmare for some who are deemed loners, but other solitary humans may find solace in knowing that they can choose to be included whenever, as quasisocial society is not forcing one to be social but rather implying that it is going to be better "their way". Their way, being involved in society's efforts and their trials of community strengthening.

This then trickles down into what I'd say is the most important difference... large circle, small circle, and unicircle relationships.

Large circle is what I had just described with humans, that bigger community, extended family type. Small circle is your closer companions that you let see into your nest once and a while but ultimately don't want and/or need to involve them. Unicircle is the circle around your body. That circle exists between you, yourself, and whatever is part of you or makes up what is considered "you".

Unicircle relationships are relationships that should not be taken lightly and without grace. As an autosexual, I have found unicircle relationships to be the only thing that has ever worked - not because I am a loner (I am a very social chimera), but because they tickle the dongle in my brain that lets me know that I still have some form of agency over who I am, what I do, and how I behave. I am always there for myself when no one will be for me, and I am showing myself the benefit of the doubt because I have always been the social introvert that wishes to be with you without having to disregard the unicircle relationship I built, for that is the only thing keeping me from untangling into nothing.

Just as the aspecs get treated, autosexuals have the ring hit their already broken nose. If you're autosexual, you must be narcissistic, therefore people are repulsed around you and your love for yourself because it's unnatural and unwavering to be palatable to the masses. If you're autosexual and married to yourself, you're deranged and therefore violent and unstable around others. At some points, autosexuality will feel like it is not enough. You feel as though you must truly have to fit in and embrace an external relationship in order to feel as though you are complete or made whole by them - not by your choice to open your unicircle relationship. Someone from outside must always save the loner and cure the wickedness in them. It can never be that one's identity is strictly their own and acted upon with themselves instead of having business with others.

It is why I often feel as though I am missing out or that I am crazy or that I am taking others away from real relationships when I indulge in their escapades for fun. I have guilt, severe guilt, over closing myself off to me because if I am then I must be selfish, even after financially supporting friends, pets, partners, and the like. I am selfish and am only in their lives to use them for my own gain, and society paints me as the loner archetype because I wish to caress my own hair and kiss my own wrists and buy things for me, me. Society can't see the difference between an autosexual and a loner because they don't have a look, they have stereotypes, and those are often ableist or just plain invasive of what is supposed to be thought of as a safe space - yourself.

I feel without joy for autosexuality and my trials. I truly do lose that feeling of ever being wanted by myself, and for someone like me, that is the same as saying you are falling out of love with your spouse. It hurts me to admit but I once wanted something more. I really wanted to fit in and attach myself to a heteronormative relationship even knowing that I am not sought out that way because of my deranged autosexuality and because of my urge to balance both and still have the fruits of my labor - I am consistently guilty about the greed I so happen to embody by leaving myself for myself. I am always aware of how much someone may want me but know they'll always be stunted by the competition that is my own attraction towards myself.

Yet, autosexuality is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Introvertedness aside, I am awkward and alone and afraid and paranoid and a creative that would have been sniffing paint and eating drywall if I was born just a few decades earlier - but not because I am afraid of heartache or repulsed by all but because my existence has nothing to do with you, so be it if society labels me a loner, I'll have loner sologamous sex on it's grave and enjoy every bit of it.

[angrbodic]

Alice is not insane, the people around her are the ones who are insane.

Alice is not insane, the people around her are the ones who are insane. After the last post regarding Alice and her emotional state, I want to go deeper with this.

I've talked about this in DWRP settings but I never talked about this here.

So, in the games (and even out of the games), Alice is always referred to as "insane" and I personally, have always disagreed with that.

And the reason for that is that if Alice was treated in modern society, she would have been in intensive in-patient treatment in hospital at her worst times and given out-patient services upon release. Alice would have access to medication, like maybe even benzos, SSRIs, and anti-psychotics. I, myself, am diagnosed with C-PTSD, so I speak from personal experience when I say this. You see therapists that specialize in trauma (if you're lucky, in some cases) that handle people like Alice.

The real reason why Alice is considered insane because Victorian society didn't have the knowledge to treat psychosis and severe C-PTSD. Things in the modern era are not 100% perfect, but we have things that have come to light to treat C-PTSD, even after the release after AMR.

So, from my last post, I talked about two different things that I want to delve deeper into:

People underestimate Alice's self-regulation and control. She is high-functioning with her psychosis.

Alice is not an inherently violent person unless she has to defend herself.

Throughout the games, Alice remains really level-headed, she is a very collected person. She is rational (although, again, some may call her irrational), thoughtful, and more of a realist than an idealist. If you have a chance to read Lewis Carroll's original work, even a younger Alice is a realist while the Wonderland inhabitants are the most irrational people who act based on their emotions. Alice doesn't always do this.

Although, if she is put underneath enough duress, Alice will react with her emotions. In certain circumstances, like exploitation, manipulation, and blackmail, Alice will lose her cool. She'll lash out at others (like the meltdowns Pris, Wilson, Nanny, and Radcliffe mention specifically) and it will trigger her psychosis as well as other PTSD symptoms. But she never lashes out violently -- even in the past, she's turned that violence onto herself. I won't get into details but you can read some more in Dr. Wilson's Casebook.

I would say outside of Nanny, who is arguably the most supportive and caring to Alice, everyone expects Alice to act out violently. She never does, unless pressured. People already have this mental image of Alice as an unstable, violent, and delusional person and they do not go beyond that, they don't have conversations with her. Nanny may to a degree, but Nanny is also guilty of assuming Alice is unreachable, despite her being the only person who cares for her.

It seems like everyone is pining to get Alice back in Rutledge Asylum and I submit the reason why is not out of care or understanding of mental illness is because they are not emotionally equipped to address even the most basic confrontation. They are also unwilling to put the work in to understand Alice that she is her own person, with her own thoughts. You only see a glimpse of it from one of the police officers who remarks how he admires Alice's confrontation with Jack Splatter.

Now, onto Nanny, she has her own issues and I'm sure having to be forced to work as a prostitute and being left desolate has had an emotional effect on her. So Nanny can only be there for Alice so much, she's not able to cope with the complexities of Alice's mental illness because of her own issues.

Then Pris Witless, who I would argue has some sadist tendencies, who doesn't care for individuals that were left under care as a nurse. She delights in tormenting Alice -- and we do know that she was physically abusive to her. She shows glee in a memory of Alice talking about what they did for executions. So whatever underlying mental illnesses she has is only made worse to her addiction to alcohol. Additionally, Pris does seem to be a bit delusional. She thinks she's doing the right thing in misconstruing Alice (who was a CHILD by the way) thinking the fire was her fault.

Pris has more of a social standing because she was a nurse and people are going to put her word over Alice because she was her nurse. I'm sure that's only amplified for the genuine disdain these people have for children, much less a teenaged Alice. Alice lives in constant fear, I feel like she knows to a disagree that if she spoke up about Pris, no one is going to believe her. Maybe even to some extent, Pris likely had prior knowledge that Bumby was a predator but ignored this and pushed Alice to him.

Of course, we have the opportunists, Dr. Wilson and Radcliffe. Like Pris, Dr. Wilson thinks he's doing right by Alice, he wanted her to stay with him for the rest of her life. He thought he would obtain recognition and fame by treating a case like Alice. He made her psychosis and trauma worse,making excuses or downright ignoring the abuse Alice endured. He even enables it. But when Alice is "cured" (when she finally manages to figure out how to manage her psychosis) he is upset that Alice leaves Rutledge. Doctor Wilson doesn't care about his patients, he wants the fame and likely has a streak of sadism by watching his patients suffer. And don't get me started on the twins...

Radcliffe is like right underneath Bumby because we learn in the Asylum script that he was a co-conspirator in the sex trafficking involving minors, maybe even women. He is trying to take Alice's inheritance away and I do believe, to some extent, he knows Alice isn't as unstable as some say. But then he thinks her obsession to get to the truth is a sign of her having some pyromania... but excuses. He may have had some contempt for her parents, showing how indifferent he was having to identify the other Liddells post mortem. And he is a predator as well -- he doesn't really seem at all bothered that his daughter is going to be abused and doesn't care that Alice is too. He is in it for the money, detached from reality.

Again, another person who thinks he's doing right -- but he is entitled, sees himself as superior. He sees himself as an intellectual superior to Alice and he's not very smart, I say Alice is smarter than him. He pokes and prods Alice, he holds her rabbit because he knows it upsets her, it's the only thing she physically has left of her family outside of the portrait. He half expects her to become violent but she never does.

And I think at this point, we all know Bumby and I don't feel like going into a Ted Bundy/BTK deep dive.

Does Alice ever show any violence? No. She will if she has to defend herself or, in the case with Bumby, she knew that there was no other way. You have this small group of people that others will take their word over Alice. It's a combination of Alice's history and misogyny as well as classism. You cannot talk about this without acknowledging how single women Alice's age were treated. Marriage and motherhood provided a safety net and Alice is not fond of any physical touch, for a good reason, and has been out of this society for 11 years that she doesn't readily accept societies standards.

She knows she hallucinates -- she even admits to it. So, Alice is able to tell when she is hallucinating, at times. She acknowledges that it might be problematic to want more to disassociate (i.e. "Is it mad to pray for better hallucinations). She knows deep down on a subconscious level the fire doesn't make any sense and there's more to it. She's met with countless roadblocks and resistance to her plight, but she keeps going.

This makes Alice far more logical than the others. She makes her choices based on what she knows, not just emotions. She connects the dots in her mind without recording it and does her own investigation, even if with limited means. She knows what to say or even what buttons to push. She will criticize people if she feels the need.

And Alice's empathy makes her far more stable than the others. She might feel guilty for not seeing the signs of what was happening -- but that's not her fault. I know she thinks it is her fault, but Bumby spent six months making her psychosis and PTSD worse to the point that Alice was struggling to remember who she was. But her empathy puts her on the right path and makes her exceptionally level-head compared to others. Her creativity allows her to think outside of the box and therefore, step out of the assumptions and role that keeps being forced on her.

So, no, she's not insane to me, she never was. That's the real tragedy. And the tragedy is people like these characters, like Bumby, are still getting away with their crimes because of people's stigma towards mental illness and their misogyny.

[sysmedsaresexist]

Hello same Anon from before (https://www.tumblr.com/sysmedsaresexist/772569901323993088/hello-there-im-coming-from-a-place-of-genuine?source=share).

First of all, thank you for the insightful reply, I really appreciate it and im glad I didn't cause much distress or anger there! Altho apologies for my question(s) being a bit unclear.

To reply, I do see your POVs and having read other posts, I def know that there's been issues concerning the treatment of CDD systems by those in the Plural community in the past, and that parts of the community may have harmful believes (such as the whole "Integration = Bad", etc). At the same time I have my own thoughts on a lot of things said, as well as additional questions which I have organized here.

At its core I do disagree with the idea that CDD systems should be excluded from the Plural term. Regardless of origins, any community can change for the better or worse depending on how organized they are and who can, for lack of a better term, "Shepherd" the community. I always saw the term Plural as more of an identity which is usually loosely experience-based compared to how the list of criteria for a diagnosis is usually followed strictly. While I don't think a label should be forced on anyone (and truthfully, the Plural community has nothing to gain by forcing CDD systems to adopt the Plural label), should a CDD system experience themselves in a way that fits the Plural label the all power to them; I feel when it comes to these things, individual comfort and internal narrative is something important to account for. At least with the CDD systems I know, that sense of community is very comforting; I guess the way I see it, being on the Autism Spectrum, I don't relate to those with other mental health conditions, but we do find commonality in the sense of being neurodiverse.

Elaborating on what I brought up at the start of the last bullet point, I do partly believe that a lot of the issues found in the Plural community are the result of disorganization, infighting, and many sides trying to prove their own validity and not communicating well; this is def something both sides are guilty of. For instance, a lot of what TPA says is harmful for CDD systems from what you've said, I won't deny this, but its hard to fight against it when for a long while its been the only resource validating Endo systems, as such its... bound to make various defensive. While a Plural community may not be able to provide the trauma recovery or healing space that CDD systems can get from a dedicated DID community, I see no reason that outside of recovery a CDD system can't be part of the Plural community if they want to, and in turn the Plural community as a whole can adapt to acknowledge the intrinsic differences in how CDD systems function?

Furthermore, wouldn't separating communities create an echo chamber? Realistically speaking, we are past the point that this separation can happen without having either side have some knowledge of the other. I feel such separation may result in the revival of the whole "Natural Systems" thing from back then. This in turn, can lead to harm if a system within the Plural community were to discovery they are in fact a CDD system (For some the comfort of having that community there is what helps them discover they are a system; and in turn later discover they are in fact CDD).

I hope im not bothering too much with these, im just not sure what to think.

I'd certainly love to discuss things more but gotta remain anonymous, dunno if there's any other way to reach out let alone if you'd be comfortable with that... ^^;

Before we get into this one, which is very likely to turn into a bit of rant-- not at you, in general, I'm very passionate, I need to reiterate-- these experiences DO overlap. My intention with the last post wasn't to gatekeep the term or experience because there are people who like and appreciate the term plural and the EXPERIENCE it stands for.

Dropping in a cut here just because of the length.

To summarize very quickly, I think brain scans will be the deciding factor in this one. CDDs come with very specific trauma-related biomarkers. In MY opinion, this is where the inherent differences in CDD and plural come into play. I say this little blurb frequently.

These "injuries" to the brain affect the way we perceive and relate to the world. They affect the way we think, not only in relation to ourselves, but to others. It changes the way we interact with, hold, and access memories and emotions. It's tied to inherent triggers, behaviors, and how we react to people and things around us. These injuries never go away. We can re-learn healthier habits and train ourselves to path new neurological processes, but the brain is forever altered. We will always have a CDD.

There are things that I believe endogenic systems don't experience. If they ARE struggling with amnesia and volatile reactions to triggers, it's potentially smart to take a second look at CDDs, BEARING IN MIND, that treatment for PTSD is different than CPTSD, and figuring out which you're dealing with is very important. You can have PTSD without a CDD. People seem to forget this.

This is where we really get into the anti/pro stuff, and I'm DESPERATE to hear more experiences and thoughts. My most recent post asking for replies was about this topic-- the overlap of self-determination and labeling vs a physical reality in the form of scans. The use of MRI to help in the diagnosis of CDDs may never be mainstream, but it seems likely that it'll be utilized one day. How will this affect the syscourse landscape, and what will antis do when the proof is in front of them?

Because I DO expect we'll see differences in these presentations-- plural vs CDD.

How will this kind of thing affect the interactions of the communities? What about those who label one way and appear another on scans?

This is INCREDIBLY fascinating to me.

This stance does not discount the existence or possibility of endogenic systems.

The Stanford Tulpa Studies have already shown that the brain can be trained to act independently alongside its host, theories on consciousness grew right alongside Freud's and Janet's trauma focused theories, people have been describing multiplicity in nonpathological ways for centuries under various names, endogenic and plural just being the newest ones.

This stance only seeks to investigate those differences and correct misinformation on CDDs.

Point blank.

But to me, the plural vs. CDD divide may be the hot ticket everyone is looking for. Antis really just want a division in language, so these experiences are notably different for new people coming into the communities. The biggest fears antis have TYPICALLY have to do with vulnerable, young CDD systems falling into plural spaces and causing more harm for themselves. This happens. A lot, honestly.

In my opinion, by presenting plural and CDD as different experiences, we can make it easier for those struggling with their multiplicity to figure out where to go for help.

A divide in language doesn't call for a divide in spaces, and I didn't clarify that in the last post. I HAVE a mixed origin space with people that I respect and adore that have helped me become a better person. These shared spaces have value and benefit, so long as differences are acknowledged. My friends accept and understand that I don't relate to "plural" at all, but I equally respect their experiences, and we use the language that's comfortable for each other. These things don't need to cause arguments or fights.

This is a really watered-down explanation, like I could ramble on and on, but I hope that kind of gives a bit of a glimpse into my thinking?

So, let's push on and get into a history lesson.

Now that I've clarified that I don't mind plural for those use who want to use it, let's get into why I REALLY hate it.

Speaking of, to pause here, if you come off anon, I won't post it, but I'll reach out from my main if you want to talk more and we can go from there! The option is there, if you'd like, or we can just continue in asks if you want to carry on :) You seem very knowledgeable, so there's a big chance you're already aware of a lot of what I'm going to say now, so what I'm about to get into is for everyone, and maybe you, maybe not, let's see!

HISTORY TIME

Plural was coined specifically to be an anti psych alternative. Plural was the word used to get away from multiple, which was seen as too similar to MPD. It's a word based in anti psych rhetoric because its entire purpose was to get away from psychiatry by choosing a word about grammar instead to describe their nondisordered experiences. Here's the coining post.

I have a hard time understanding why any CDD system would want to use it, and it's incredibly frustrating to see anti endos co-opt the term as their own and then demand endogenic systems make a new one. They did that. It's plural.

They did the thing antis wanted. Of course, it's not good enough, but they did.

System is such a vague, overused word that no one has a claim to it. Let everyone be systems, and let plural and CDD be that dividing line.

Again, I don't get it, but I do. CDD systems can relate heavily to the plural experience and what it stands for, and while I want to say all the power to them, I also wonder where they got the idea that the CDD experience is so limited that it can't have those same sentiments of personhood, family, wholeness, and health.

Oh, wait, yes, I do. TPA. Sorority. Crisses. Big names that actively shit on CDD systems daily, push debunked research, and say it's a limited experience based on misreadings and misinformation.

This doesn't even get into my favorite topic-- sophie is going to hate me, GO REBLOG YOUR OWN POST ABOUT FREUD, THIS ONE IS MINE, SHOO

Freud's use of "endogenic" to refer to the fantasy theory, which was completely overlooked by the coiner, who then attacked those upset by this fact.

Personally, prefer plural over endogenic.

I 1000% agree that disorganization on both sides is a huge problem, but IN MY OPINION, it boils down to a complete lack of interest in researching CDD history on the plural side. Antis react to that with anger and scream for extreme separation that often leads to straight up fakeclaiming plurals. Syscourse happens. Just as a very simple example, mediumship is very much a system-adjacent experience, but there's no fighting there and people know the difference quite well because the language doesn't overlap. I think this can happen for plurality and CDDs, too.

I want to jump in here to say, I'm not discounting the damage antis do to the plural community. I see it, I hear about it from my friends, I'm learning. It's not something I can speak on, I haven't experienced it firsthand. I imagine it's a terrible feeling, and it's this behaviour that made me leave the anti community. My own unique way of contributing to syscourse doesn't directly address this and I don't know how to help, other than to keep trying to educate antis and promote kindness and discussion over hostility and total separation.

There HAS to be an exchange in these conversations. For example, if I'm going to broaden my very personal spiritual beliefs to talk to someone, or reassess my entire understanding of human consciousness, the least they can do is acknowledge the history of the term endogenic.

As a reminder, that didn't go very well.

I think it boils down to both sides not wanting to be the bad guy. The plural community has harmed the CDD community just as much as the anti community has harmed the plural community (note that CDD/anti distinction, some of you all are getting way too comfortable conflating the two again), it's just different types of damage. If we're going to organize both communities, this needs to be acknowledged, worked on, and put in the past.

Unfortunately, we're still working on getting it acknowledged, and there's still a lot of work to be done.

Which goes into the next point-- echo chambers.

Having clarified that I DO support shared spaces, this is a bit easier to tackle.

... I don't actually really know what to say. I think both sides are stuck in echo chambers, but how do you even fix that? My reach is limited, and just because of who I am, my following, my past, my activity in syscourse, I refuse to join discord servers unless invited, and I think these servers are the biggest culprit.

In an ideal world, it could be really simple. Have someone look over the rules and any resource channels, make suggestions for changes, help educate the moderators and prepare them with standard replies for when arguments come up between members. Maybe it's a standard outside resource shared around, but I've YET to see one created by plurals that DOESN'T include the paper Normal Dimensions, which is a fucking paper fakeclaiming all systemhood.

And despite me pointing out this paper to several creators of these resources, only one has ever removed it, and it took a different person bringing it up to FINALLY have it removed.

But going back to the "bad guys" thing, no one actually wants this. No one wants to acknowledge that they had bad information up for others to view and integrate into their own thoughts.

I'm not suggesting myself, I'm one person, I'm educated, but I've been out of the field for over a decade. How do you determine who's trustworthy to assess this information?

Echo chambers are a massive problem... I have no idea how it could be tackled.

All I can really do is just keep pushing BOTH types of research out to BOTH sides of the community, and trust they're making the right choices about what resources they're pushing to their members, to further spread themselves.

We're still in the acknowledgment phase. Tackling some of these problems is a LONG way off.

I hope... this was okay??? I hope it answered your questions.

[dn-838]

In defence of Undertale Yellow, how it can work with Undertale’s canon

So, I have seen a lot of debating recently on Undertale Yellow and whether or not it fits what we know already about the lore in Undertale. Of course Flowey’s presence in the mod is the primary thing that has sparked this debate, with many believing that he can’t have existed at the same time as the Justice Soul and that it is a major hole that breaks the continuity of Undertale. I however, as someone who has spent way too much time with Undertale and has vast knowledge about even the most obscure of details in the game, disagree. I believe that Undertale Yellow fits the original games canon well… maybe a bit too well, and I am here to give my own arguments against the things that I commonly see people say doesn’t fit the original game’s continuity. This may contain a few spoilers for Undertale Yellow, so unless you’ve already seen all 3 routes or for whatever reason don’t care about having the game spoiled, don’t read further until you are done.

Argument 1: all the Souls were already collected by the creation of Flowey and the amalgamates

Okay so this one I don’t really have much to say about. Yes Flowey and the Amalgamates were created using the SOULs of some of the collected humans, however it’s never specified that it was from 6 humans, all that’s made clear is that Asgore did have human SOULs (in plural) that were used in the experiment.

Argument 2: the timeline doesn’t match up

The timeline has always been a confusing topic among the Undertale community. While the most likely estimate of the gap between Chara and Frisk falling is 100 years due to what Sans tells us during his date.

There are a few reasons for us to believe that the gap is much smaller, especially considering the weird nature of the Deltarune timeline and the supposed grudge Chara seems to have against Snowdrake in Genocide (who is stated to only be a teenager).

However, no matter how you view the timeline, unless you have specific dates in mind for things like when Gaster was the Royal Scientist and when the fall of Integrity-Justice happened, or think the gap was REALLY short, Undertale Yellow doesn’t really contradict it too much. The game itself is meant to take place just a year before Undertale, with all the same characters existing in similar positions to how they do by the time of Undertale, however we never encounter them due to being on a completely different path that takes us to very different parts of the underground, being why they don’t behave like they encountered a human before in Undertale.

Integrity is a bit more interesting, because it can vary massively depending on how you view the lifespans of the Ketsukane’s, Starlo (Starlo won’t be important to this, but I mention him since he was childhood friends with Ceroba) and Dalv. It is strongly implied that as a kid, Dalv was best friends with Kanako, and was attacked by the Integrity human some point before the games events. At first you’d assume that this was all not meant to be long before the events of the game, however, Integrity was killed by Axis in UTY, a robot that was being worked on by Chujin back when the Steamworks were still in operation, which we can assume was long before the events of the game due to the state of the Steamworks itself and the fact it is stated to have been used as the source of all power in the underground, which would mean it would likely have shut down around the period that the CORE was first put into operation, so all the way back when Gaster was still the Royal Scientist, whenever you think that was (Axis wasn’t sent to kill the human until after Chujin was fired from his position, however due to the way Axis is locked up and deactivated before we wake up the Steamworks, we can assume he was shut down with the rest of the facility). On top of all this Dalv is shown to be a lot older than he presumably would have been when he was attacked by Integrity, and with him being a Vampire, you could say that he aged that much at a slower rate than a human would, with the Ketsukane’s also aging slow, 2 of them being Boss Monsters and one of them being a 9 tailed fox. We know that some monsters do likely age at very different rates due to monsters like Gerson who lived through the war.

So to give the whole timeline, basically, Chujin worked in the Steamworks and made Axis back before or during Gaster’s time as the royal scientist. After several failed prototypes that eventually got Chujin fired, Axis was sent to chase down and kill Integrity. He managed and Chujin kept the Soul hidden and over the span of years recorded a few tapes for what he had planning, meanwhile Dalv, who was previously attacked by Integrity, went into hiding, locking himself into a mostly dark and unknown part of the ruins. At some point when Alphy’s became the Royal Scientist, Chujin started to mentor Martlet, which led Martlet to enter the True Lab and get some strange serum. Eventually Chujin died around a year or two before UTY, revealing his hidden tapes to Ceroba, which Kanako overheard. This led to Ceroba attempting to inject Kanako with the Integrity soul, leading to Kanako falling and being donated to Alphy’s, and her of course then becoming an amalgamate.

Argument 3: Asgore killed all 6 of the other humans

Okay so this one is interesting, because Undyne does imply that humans before Frisk did make it to Asgore, with her saying that “no human has ever made it PAST Asgore” rather than “no human has ever made it TO Asgore”

The thing is, that other humans reached Asgore is all this really does imply, it doesn’t necessarily mean all humans made it to Asgore. You could argue that most of them died to Asgore, with Integrity and Justice being the only exceptions. If you really want to stretch you could even say that this line was actually just another attempt from Undyne to make Asgore sound like a powerful and threatening force (since she tries to make him out like that quite a bit in her fight, such as by saying that killing us is an act of mercy right after this), although I find this unlikely.

There is another line of dialogue that I sometimes see used to try and prove that Asgore killed all 6, and while it’s not used close to as much, I’ll still just quickly clear it up.

This doesn’t really mean that much, all it’s saying is that all the humans that leave the ruins inevitably die. She likely wouldn’t know any details on their deaths do to her isolation, and even if she had some knowledge she would probably still place the blame on Asgore due to his part in waging war and coming up with the plan to kill 7 humans in the first place.

Argument 4: The introduction of new incredibly powerful characters makes no sense

Okay, so this is a weird one, however the explanation for it is fairly simple. Nobody in UTY compares to the original Undertale cast when it comes to how “powerful” they are. We struggle so much against the opponents we face as Clover because well… Clover is much weaker than Frisk, bosses like Ceroba and Axis pale in comparison to Undyne and Mettaton, they just seem much harder since we are playing as a human with much less determination than Frisk. In Pacifist Clover fights a depressed fox lady, meanwhile Frisk fights a literal god; in Neutral Clover goes through a struggle fighting through Flowey’s mind after having his Soul absorbed, meanwhile Frisk holds on against Flowey with 6 Souls until those Souls rebel; and in Genocide Clover takes some time to finally destroy Axis, the failed prototype that got Chujin fired, meanwhile Frisk atomised Mettaton NEO, The greatest invention of the Scientist who was selected to replace Gaster, in a single blow.

The only Undertale Yellow character that I’d say surpasses any character in Undertale would of course be Zenith Martlet, but even then LV 19 Frisk would mop the floor with her, while LV 19 Clover had to go through a lot of effort to beat her, only ever managing to surpass Flowey in Determination after doing so. At LV 20 both Clover and Frisk have massive boosts from LV 19, however Frisk is far stronger, having awakened Chara and caused the destruction of everything, while Clover just destroys Asgore with a super laser blast directly from their Soul and leaves.

Argument 5: miscellaneous

Just to clear up any further confusion, I’ll give quick explanations for some more minor points that I have encountered

Nobody in the original Undertale apart from Flowey, Toriel and Asgore meets Clover, so the other monsters in Undertale acting like they had never met one makes sense.

Flowey not just stealing Clovers Soul is explained well by the game itself. He plans to, however he doesn’t get the chance in Pacifist; sees that we couldn’t surpass Asgore in Flawed Pacifist; steals our soul but is unsatisfied with the outcome and resets in Neutral, and gets gunned down in Genocide.

Toriel believing that it’s been a long time since a previous human fell when she sees Frisk in Undertale doesn’t mean much, she mostly lives isolated in the Ruins, with the other monsters being too afraid to speak with her, considering this and just generally how much seemed to have happened within that year, time could have felt much slower. Alternatively you could argue that the 6 humans all fell within months of each other, and that a years gap is a long time in comparison to the rate the first 6 fell (or 5, since she says the exact same thing to Clover).

Both Flowey and Clover using file 1 at the end of Genocide doesn’t fit what we know about save files no, however I feel it is a little nit-picky to use it as a definitive reason to discredit how well UTY fits into canon, after all the only thing you’d need to do is change the numbers and this would be fixed.

The Gunsmith having been born a week before the Human Vs Monster war doesn’t go against anything we already know. As stated before, we know that at least some monsters like Gerson do live for a very long time.

Flowey having more determination than Clover also doesn’t break anything. Flowey was injected with DT from 5 human Souls. The thing is that Frisk was special when it came to the amount of determination they had.

Unlike with most of the other cast, nobody in Undertale actually indicates that Flowey never met a human prior to Frisk.

Chujin being a boss Monster doesn’t contradict what we know about Boss Monsters. We know that the Dreemurrs are boss monsters, but nothing tells us that they are the only boss monsters.

Argument 6: the nature of the SAVE files contradicts Undertale Yellow

Here we go, the penultimate argument I shall argue against. Never did I expect for this obscure piece of Undertale lore to be the bane of my existence but here we are. For a short time I thought that this could not be countered, only after I had walked away from a discussion completely defeated did the pieces finally start to come together, and now finally… I have an explanation.

First things first, let’s look at the 10 save files. The files go from file 0 to file 9. We know that File 0 likely belongs to Chara due to it being the one that we save with in Undertale, and that file 9 belongs to Frisk since it works as the games Autosave/Checkpoint system. File 8 would then of course belong to Flowey, not just because it’s the one just before Frisks but because File 8 appears in your files after you beat Omega Flowey to mark your completion of a Neutral run, likely implying that his previous SAVE was of course when he was Omega Flowey. Flowey also uses files 2, 3 and 6 throughout the Omega Flowey battle, and since Toriel implies that other humans who fell were also able to save and reset, we can assume that 2-6 likely belonged to previously fallen humans.

Now the only files that need an explanation are file 1 and file 7, and I’ve seen 2 interesting theories for this. The first is that file 1 belongs to Asriel after he took Chara’s Soul, and the other is that file 7 belongs to Lemon Bread since they know what a SAVE point looks like and tries to trick us with it; but the thing is, which one of these are true? Surely it can’t be both since we know one needs to belong to the 6th… okay I’ll cut that out you already know I’m going to say they are both true.

So for Asriel having file 1, he absorbed Chara’s Soul so should have all of their determination and therefore should also have overtaken their ability to SAVE. Of course it’s unlikely that Asriel would have made anything out of it since the idea of saving and loading was fairly alien to Flowey, however that doesn’t necessarily rule out the possibility that Asriel didn’t SAVE or at least have a file created.

Lemon Bread is a bit more complicated, and we are gonna need to look into the order of events within the True Lab to try and work this out. Firstly, we need to look at some of the true lab entries.

ASGORE asked everyone outside the city for monsters that had "fallen down."

Their bodies came in today.

They're still comatose... And soon, they'll all turn into dust.

But what happens if I inject "determination" into them?

If their SOULS persist after they perish, then...

Freedom might be closer than we all thought.

This is entry 6, when the fallen down monsters are given to Alphy’s and have Determination injected into them.

I've chosen a candidate.

I haven't told ASGORE yet, because I want to surprise him with it...

In the center of his garden, there's something special.

The first golden flower, that grew before all the others.

The flower from the outside world.

It appeared just before the queen left.

I wonder...

What happens when something without a SOUL gains the will to live?

This is entry 8, Alphy’s gets a hold of a golden flower that she injects Determination into.

“One of the bodies opened its eyes.

This is entry 13, when the fallen monsters started to regain consciousness, 7 entries after they were first delivered.

Seems like this research was a dead end...

But at least we got a happy ending out of it...?

I sent the SOULS back to ASGORE, returned the vessel to his garden....

And I called all of the families and told them everyone's alive.

I'll send everyone back tomorrow. :)

This is entry 15, by this point all the monsters that had fallen down were awake, and the still not conscious Golden Flower was still just a Flower, being returned alongside the human Souls.

no No NO NO NO NO NO

This is entry 16, the fallen down monsters started to melt together and create the amalgamates.

the flower's gone.

Finally, we have entry 18, when Alphy’s noticed that the Flower seems to have disappeared from the garden, 10 entries after she first selected it.

So, why are these entries so important? Well we know that to have ever held the ability to SAVE, Lemon Bread would have to had held the right amount of Determination before Flowey first became conscious in the garden, and did they? Yes, yes they did. Flowey could have awakened anywhere in the timeframe between entry 15 when he was returned to entry 18 when Alphy’s noticed him gone, however all the fallen down monsters that were injected with Determination were already awake by this point, and therefore prior to Flowey waking up, they would have been the most determined beings in the underground, perhaps with enough determination that whichever monster happened to have the most was able to SAVE. The time that they would have had with the ability would also have at least been for longer than Asriel had it since Flowey can’t have awoken until after a couple entries later at the bare minimum. Of course since this follows the idea that Lemon Bread had the SAVE ability since they knew what a SAVE point looks like, we can assume that the monster in question would have been Shyren’s sister, since I doubt that the Moldbygg and Aaron that also make up Lemon Bread would hold such a role.

Argument 7: Flowey’s backstory

I really thought I was done with this infuriating Flower, but it appears not. For there is a single hole I need to clear up… Flowey’s Genocide speech. Of course this should be fairly simple to clear up-

Ah… well okay this makes things interesting. If Flowey didn’t know where the Souls were stored then that would make it very hard to believe that Flowey ever encountered a human before Frisk since if that were the case then Flowey would definitely have an opportunity to sneak by and see where they are hiding, however this is not what the dialogue actually means. Flowey knew where the Souls were, he sneaks in to steal them in Neutral while we are talking to a defeated Asgore, his only issue was that he wasn’t able to get them out without Asgore. In repeated Neutral runs he still just waits until we are distracted with Asgore to take the Souls, and in Pacifist he takes them while the main cast are all distracted which again is when the canisters are open and available.

On a last note, here’s some dialogue that actually helps the idea that Flowey encountered another human.

It’s made clear all throughout the underground that humans have far greater Determination than monsters, and while you could argue that Flowey was just overconfident in his abilities, it’s still fairly strange that Flowey would still find a human having the DT to overwrite his abilities something special, unless of course he’d encountered a human previously who wasn’t able to do as much.

Conclusion

So, that’s about all I have to say, honestly I’m just glad to be done with it. This was a lot of work, and I’m excited to see this post which I’ve been working on for 3 days get completely dismantled almost immediately. Anyways, wish everyone reading a good day and goodbye!

[bellepeppergirl]

I've heard tell that some people are upset with Nightreign cuz they think it's not going to give us lore for based Elden Ring, but I honestly disagree. I do think there will be lore. Obviously they aren't gonna give us everything in the network test, they always change stuff from those to launch. The tests solely just there to show off things we can expect and see what might need fixed. They have to keep stuff for later.

Additionally, Nightreign being an alternate timeline can still give us insight. Most obviously, it will likely give us more info about the Nox, given their experiments and attempts to make the Nightlord were successful here. Seeing how the world changes when different scenarios occur will give us info into how things probably went down in the main timeline. For example, Margit here seems to have embraced his Omen blood. He uses it not only a lot more readily, but his attacks also use more of it. Instead of a few slashes here and there, he straight does a Vergil DMC with it. And being called the "Fell Omen," it almost seems like he's rejected Morgott, his Demigod name, to embrace Margit, his Omen side.

We may get other stuff like this; seeing what might have happened to the other Gods and Demigods had they gone down alternate paths. We may also just get additional information about them and the world, whether that be via the characters, the items, or the environments.

The game will likely also work sorta like the FNaF books. Now, that may be scary considering the absolute mess that the FNaF lore is at this point, but the idea of this not being canon while still containing canon information or parallels that we can draw from is still a pretty neat idea, I think.

Nightreign also still shares the same world, even if it is a different timeline. The story would still be pretty much the same up until the divergence point, whenever that may be. The game itself will also likely just contain info about the world that we didn't see before, which will expand our knowledge.

Personally, Nightreign has already shaped some of my own thoughts regarding the lore. We meet the Nightlord after accessing the tower, which has a tree wrapped around it, and looks very similar to the Divine Towers. The Divine Towers themselves in the base game look as though there was once something connected to them, and this has led to a lot of theories, but I now personally think that they all once had trees around them.

The other idea I have regarding these towers is that they lead to other worlds.

The boss rooms at the top of the tower in Nightreign are impossible from a realistic standpoint; we have clearly been taken somewhere else. The Suppressing Tower, located in the Shadow Lands, mentions it was once the center of the Lands Between. As we know, the Shadow Lands are no longer connected to the Lands Between, and it appears as though the Suppressing Tower was likely originally in that giant gap we see at the center of the map. I think that the tower was used to send the Shadow Land to another world.

The towers themselves likely no longer work, seeing as there is no longer any trees around them. This could possibly be due to simply the course of time, or maybe Marika did away with them, especially after sealing away the Lands of Shadow.

The idea of structures, and trees for that matter, leading to other worlds also isn't a new concept. In Dark Souls 1, we find Ash Lake, which is full of giant trees that also could not possibly exist, making a lot of people speculate that these Arch Trees led to other worlds. I think that this is the case here. At their full power, with a tree wrapped around them, these towers could be used to access other worlds or, clearly, banish entire chunks of the continent to other worlds.

And with Dark Souls on the mind... the Dark Souls bosses could also lend credence to this idea. I don't think that the Dark Souls bosses are literally the same bosses from Dark Souls, though it is entirely possible that there is some form of multiverse here, but they still seemingly come from another universe. There are no Demons in Elden Ring, at least not that we know of as of now, yet the Centipede Demon is here. The Nameless King and Duke's Dear Frejya were also seen in the trailers for Nightreign. Given this tower has the tree around it and seemingly remains able to link worlds, I think that could very well be the reason why these beings who aren't supposed to be here have crossed over.

But hey, maybe the Nightreign Not Containing Lore thing is not even that big of a deal lmao

But I still will take this chance to throw my ideas out there

[gumasantan]

i'm reviewing for my exams tomorrow...but i've been thinking a lot about 1000xRESIST lately.

it's a game, not a film or a show or a book. 1000xRESIST is a game about...many things: surviving an alien invasion, living underground, clones of human beings, stubborn parents, angst of a teenage girl, generational trauma, and a lot of things. i don't exaggerate when i say the title describes just how much themes the game dives into. since i finished the game a week ago, a feeling of longing has grown and grown inside me that can only probably be helped by replaying the game, but i can't anymore. i want to restart my memory just so i can play it again without any prior knowledge. we all feel like that sometimes, right? when we deeply resonate with a piece of media we now consider a transcendent level of art form we just wanna keep replaying it and have our minds reset, so that we may able to uniquely experience them again and again, forever, even.

i attached a pretty landscape of hong kong to not only help reel you and others in reading this, but also to remind myself how this game made me long for a memory i never had. it connected with me so much that everytime i try to recall parts of the game, it's difficult for me to dissociate myself from them, and so, i end up with a mess of thoughts, unable to properly communicate what i'm trying to say; the memories of watcher, iris, (two of the game's main characters) and i seemingly fused together into one. heck, it is not explicitly a "self-insert" type of game where the devs intend you to project yourself into it so that the story makes sense.

so, why do i reminisce about hong kong when i haven't even visited the place? for context, the troubles during the 2019 hong kong protests are ultimately what sets off the events in the game, even though the game takes place around 3047 onwards. it is one of the few games where i actually see and feel the emotional impact that such a historic moment had on the lived experiences of fictional video game characters. fictional, in name only, but they are very much real in our world: expatriates who had to flee persecution as a result of resistance. one could say that this game is dedicated to these courageous people. not only to them, but to their children who are yet to exist.

i mention this because iris was born from these people. walked on earth away from hong kong, and as she grew up, came to realize how homesick she was about that place she was a stranger to. iris and i—we are as different as we can be. i was born and am living in my native country, doing my best to live since birth. i shouldn't ever feel homesick, but weirdly, touching this game and seeing iris' life through watcher's eyes, i can't help but go back and revisit the life i swear i lived in hong kong.

i'm not the only one who feels like this, however. watcher feels the same way. of course, watcher was cloned from a clone that was cloned from iris. it's only natural that watcher retains some of that "irisness" two generations down. though she is aware that she is reliving an amalgamation of hers and iris' memories, i relate to her struggle to separate her own consciousness from iris'. this is my belief: when you keep confusing someone's memories with your own, that just proves that you two are more alike than you would think.

i said before that iris and i were as different as we can be, but by my own words, that shouldn't be true. am i hypocritical? delusional? i'm contradicting myself, but not intentionally. i would 100% disagree with myself here had i not played this game and this predicament came up in another situation, but after playing the game, i don't know. the more i think about it, the more i get convinced that iris, though raised in very different circumstances, ended up sharing some of the same traits as i do. i would argue that there are just human characteristics that we all just happen to share, kindness for example, but no, these ones—they're too personal for and very understood by me to say "no, we're different."

at the end, the game rewards you for sticking to the end: a future of your own choosing. this may be a part of the game where some people would get stuck in for more than an hour, or as short as a minute, depending how much the player sticks to their own convictions. for me, i don't know how to build a future i want because i don't know what i want out of it; i don't know what's right. the game slapped me in my face with my own hypocrisies and dared me to stick with these foolish principles. eventually, i did reach the epilogue, but it didn't feel like i actually crossed the bridge.

i'm still trying to understand just as much as i'm trying to examine every minute detail in the game. the game's mechanics are mainly built around memories and the more i keep playing the game and watch multiple playthroughs of it, i realize just how important each memory is to conveying a message that's ultimately different for all of us. a thousand different lessons for anyone to learn; it is THAT complex.

if you stuck around this long, thank you. please, please, PLEASE play 1000xRESIST. there's something here for us to learn, a thing or more. these things about hong kong and memories are part of a bigger whole that i will want to talk about once i know how to express it. especially to my fellow asians, this game will speak to your heart. i've never felt a surge of emotions this strong since i finished signalis, another masterpiece which i may get around to talking about later! (play that too!)

[hexehaus]

Wondering & Debating

NOT a hoodoo spell. And THIS is how herbs go on a candle. Powdered, NOT whole! 😂

Okay. Hear (or read) me out. Years ago, about 10 years...someone from a prominent hoodoo site tried to ruin my Etsy store's reputation because I accidentally used one of their images. They put my store up on their site and called me a fraud. I had no idea the image was was theirs and I took it down. They refused to take the fraud shit down. I did a spell and it fucking disappeared. So I ain't crazy about hoodoo.

I realize that hoodoo is supposed to be of African descent, but not as it is presently, no. It differs greatly from the practices that I've learned. And no, sorry - Lucky Mojo isn't the be all to end all. Real hoodoo that I know utilizes Lẹ̀, in Yoruba - or in Spanish, palos, meaning sticks. I don't know Kikongo. So I'll use Spanish or Yoruba.

So I've read that Devil's Shoestring and herbs like Rue, Wormwood and Comfrey are good for protection from evil. I know they are very powerful, but I also know that there is a palo that is very powerful that has much older associations that go not only back to Africa, but we can also get it in America and Europe. It has awesome power of protection from evil and hexes and it is sacred to the Orisha Obatala who owns this plant. Known as Saúco, or Elder, this palo precedes the hoodoo herbs that you usually find listed online. Africans had been using Elder longer than the Celts, it does appear.

So much for authenticity in hoodoo. I don't believe Devil's Shoestring, Wormwood, or Comfrey were available in Africa. Elder doesn't have a quirky name, so I suppose its not hoodoo? Lol! It does have nicknames. Its just that ppl go insane if something doesn't match "the culture" and I'm just showing that a tree that most think is European is also in Africa, used for not only protection, but also purity/purification (Obatala), wisdom (also Obatala), divination (Orunmila or Ifá the Sage diviner), healing (again Orunmila, as the Divine Physician), fertility and renewal.

I'm not against hoodoo, its just not my cup of tea the way ppl practice it today. I originally learned hoodoo from a Wicca book and it was better than most stuff that I see online. That was 1993 though. 🤔 And not a Llewellyn book, actually a Citadel book. Still got a copy.

Just wanted to say that palos actually are a lot stronger than herbs. Sticks hold more "juice" than herbs and so do roots. Herbs are the weakest. Berries should only be used when fully dried and best in hanging bags or in concealment. Disagree if you will. I have 30 years of herbalism experience. I love Yoruba ewe which I'm learning. I fell in love with Prodigiosa, the mighty consecration ewe because of Ifá and other African practices that I've learned. I'm not just book learned. I had training in Ifá. 😊 And...sooo many years of Palo now!

One may ask where to find knowledge about the palos. Sorry! Very hard! Its in Spanish but I have no books. Its also called a Tata, or Palo priest. No books in English. The ewe, are probably in books. Some Santeria books have information, though with good authors like Migene Gonzalez-Whippler, the plants are in Spanish. And not able to translate because they are not native. Even Santero/Palero Carlos Montenegro, much is in Spanish or you have to read between the lines or...is totally missing! He has the best candle color correspondences I've seen besides Charmaine Gray though! The correspondences here on tumblr leave much to be desired.

Off topic!

If anyone wishes to disagree with my words, make a comment but please no rude insults or accusations. Civility reigns here at Hexe's.

M.M. 💖💀💖

[broomsick]

hey, broom! i come to ask for your advice/your suggestions: i'll soon start to work in a new team. it's the same workplace but a totally different branch where i'll still have to find my place both socially and professionally (i'm kind of a newbie, only graduated last year).

i'm really nervous about what lies ahead and it makes my anxiety act up again. do you have any suggestion to which norse god i could turn to for help/reassurance?

it's a position which requires confidence in your knowledge (tax law, mostly), keeping up with new developments in law-speaking and dealing with (sometimes difficult) subordinates and citizens. i have very little experience with leading people, so the latter is what concerns me the most...

i'm definitely striving for a good and harmonic workplace environment but also don't want to be stepped on by the more nasty-tempered coworkers.

i thought that maybe Odin would be a good pick to turn to but maybe you have someone else in mind as well!

thank you and have a wonderful day! 🤗

Hi there, have a good day as well! Thank you so much for the ask. I love questions like these because they leave so much space for discussion. If you asked ten other norse pagans, you would get ten different replies!

First of all, however, I want to congratulate you! Good luck in your new team, I'm sure it will be a great opportunity for you to meet new people, learn, and fulfill yourself.

Now, turning to Óðinn is indeed a great option! I find him to be wonderfully versatile as a deity (he IS a shapeshifter in the myths after all!) that I tend to call for his help in a number of vastly different circumstances. In your situation, for example, he might help you to put the different skills you've acquired to good use. You may call upon him if you feel unsure of what step to take, or if you have trouble focusing. All in all, he's a great help when it comes to all things mental health and stress. Praying to him, you could ask for him to bless you with his celebrated skills as a leader! He is also a deity who encourages us to understand each other, to put ourselves in other people's shoes and to try to see from their perspective. In the workplace, this can greatly help with seeking middle ground!

Still, if I were in your situation, I believe I would call upon Týr! I've read and re-read your situation well, and it appears to me that you might need the most reassurance when it comes to dealing with people you might meet in the workplace, some of whom you might be required to lead, and others you might disagree with. To me and to so many other heathens, Týr embodies the spirit of compromise, patience and settlement. I envision him as a deity who is extremely wise, especially when it comes to interacting with others. He is cool-headed but warm-hearted, the very embodiment of a good leader, willing to talk things out when there are conflicts. If my own experiences may be brought to bear, he seeks to help us navigate conflicts in a manner that allows us to stay true to ourselves, all the while nurturing good relationships with others. I believe he might help you not only to develop your skill as a leader, but also to understand your boundaries and to share your opinions confidently, while seeking compromise in a peaceful manner. One of my closest friends is a devoted Týr worshipper, and I know he has helped her so much with her confidence.

As always, however, there are so many kind and great Gods for us norse pagans to call upon! For example, if I were in your situation, I would most probably ask Baldr to soothe and reassure me! In so many ways, he is a God who seeks to help! And in my life, he has always been a caring, grounding presence who always seems to know how to calm my heart. I envision his presence as a light before me, like the flickering of a lantern, guiding me in the dark to find my path.

It would also be possible for you to pray to Freyja for confidence, and/or Thórr for courage. And now that I've mentioned Freyja, I also feel compelled to bring up Lord Frey! He is strongly associated with the concept of peace, which could be very useful to you, who wants to nurture a harmonious work environment. What's more, he's generally associated with prosperity and financial matters as well, which makes him a popular deity to pray to when it comes to matters of work and career. It's quite common for worshippers to work with both Freyja and Freyr, as a duo. In your situation, one could bring you the strength and confidence to defend yourself against any "nasty-tempered coworkers," while the other helps you to preserve a peaceful mindset, and to stay happy in your workplace.

There really is no need for us to only worship one deity at a time, and it is not disrespectful to pray to multiple deities for help in a certain situation. On the contrary, doing so is really is quite logical! After all, as they are found in myth to be part of a pantheon, it's completely normal that we would worship them as such, although some prefer to devote themselves to one deity at a time. As for me, I sometimes pray to the Gods in general, as a group! It's always interesting to wonder which of them will answer!

I wish you the best of luck in this new team, please don’t hesitate to reach out if you want any more of my advice!

[beastiebytes]

Had a post now where I got frustrated at doms who think they know their subs better than the subs know themselves, as though holding a whip gave you some kind of special insight.

Then I was like. Wait. Is that something I do?

Like - okay. Mental states where a person can't make their own decisions exist. This is why people so drunk they can't recognize their surroundings can't consent.

In the act of domming, most doms accept they will be putting their subs in some kind of altered state - trance, subspace, whatever. It is understood if during a session a sub asks you for something they nixed earlier, you should refuse, because their judgement is impaired.

Similarly, people can make bad decisions out of inexperience or low standards or bad mental health. As a dom if I believe this is the case, I do think I have a duty to give the person as much information as I can in an effort to let them make an informed decision.

But the difference is, ultimately - each person is the only source of truth regarding their own experiences. And they have their autonomy, and violating that is horrible.

I can make predictions about people with the information I have. They may agree or disagree, the predictions may be correct or incorrect. But ultimately - if I put them somewhere they don't want to be, in the best case I made a horrible mistake, and in the common case I violated their consent and acted immorally.

All the negotiation techniques that exist ultimately come down to all sides knowing how to put the scene's participants in states they want to be in.

So I can make predictions, and give information, and let the person decide where they want to go. The destination may be "utter devotion" or "a world of pain" or "an action I genuinely wouldn't want to do left to my own devices (but doing it anyway fulfills some need for me)". But they choose it.

Maybe, with familiarity and trust and care and communication, some of the decisions may be given to the domming side. For me? That's not in my risk profile, not even a little.

And the doms I'm thinking about mostly operate with painfully partial and nuance-less knowledge, actively refusing to consider the source of knowledge right there in front of them: their sub, expressing wants and needs.

[all-i-do-is-live-in-daydreams]

loki has become such a complex character and has TWICE NOW gone through pretty well done character development. first, throughout the thor movies. second, through his own tv series loki.

there are of course things that I don't agree with or disliked. one of those things being, well... sylkie. I'm not gonna go on a giant tirade or anything, but just know I fully disagree with the choice and find it weird. moving on from that thought process, we enter season 2 which brings back my hyperfixation and a brand new thought process which means ANALYZING !! :D feeling like a true tva analyst.

Yes, there are a lot of people, including me, that didn't like loki and sylvie as a pairing and still don't, BUT!! I've started seeing it through a new lense. Which adds to Loki's character which of course I love!! I love character development and details! Loki is not familiar with love, romantic or platonic, in a healthy way or in a way that would make him knowledgeable in a lot of the different aspects of it. He's been so completely separated from anything like that in so long and as we see, he's going through a lot of new emotions while being in the TVA. He's exploring himself more than he has in a very long time and confronted some things about himself that ik he tried to keep buried. He's also experiencing new relationships. Such as a new friendship with Mobius or a partnership/friendship with Sylvie. Two different people, he has two strong connections with. Sylvie is someone he can relate to, someone who can understand him like no one else and Loki has never really had that. I don't think he had that even with his own mother, as close as they were. And so of course he's going to feel strongly about her!! He's going to form a strong connection!! An attachment! And it is an attachment. That's obvious in the way that he's so reluctant to let her go. Why he keeps thinking of her and bringing her up. Loki is going to be feeling things he's not used to feeling and being unfamiliar makes it hard to discern what exactly you are feeling.

(speaking from my own experience, emotions are hard to discern for me, what I'm feeling, and sometimes I grow very attached to a person just bcuz I can relate and I dont have that very often and I desperately dont want to lose that.)

Loki is just going through a lot of emotions in a short span of time with no time to stop and think. Loki isn't in love with himself, with Sylvie. He may love her, yes, but not in love.

[surviving-cptsd]

The Beginning - Diagnose of CPTSD

Hello and thank you for taking the time to read. Some of you may know me already from interactions with my shop or maybe through my community. I am the designer and owner of Little Home Mades and my name is Jessica. I am a wife and mother of 4 children and 3 step children so a total of 7. I have been mauling over the idea of writing a blog or a book, or anything for some time. Most times I am on Facebook in my select groups and will post whatever I can to help ease mothers and fathers who are struggling with their children or certain situations and will attempt to share bits and pieces of my knowledge with them without trying to overwhelm them. I worried about writing a book or a blog because I knew how complicated my life has been. Some may feel it's even not real or a lie and I've always had difficulty processing that kind of response because that's part of my trauma growing up - not being believed. I've had mix reactions to people through other social media platforms so whenever posting my own issues, I will usually post it anonymously. I do this to remove any bias and also so I don't feel shunned in the community I'm in for future posts. I'm sure many have run into this group with Facebook and Twitter groups is people will click your profile, pull up old posts and then judge you based on your past responses if you disagree with their views and openly share that disagreement. This is what ultimately lead me to start this blog. I wanted to share my experiences to make sure people know, they are not alone, that they are heard, and that it's okay to feel the way that they feel and it's okay to be not okay. As my blog plainly points out, I am diagnosed with CPTSD which stands for Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for those who don't know. Also for those who need to know the difference between CPTSD and PTSD, PTSD is one traumatic event, CPTSD is many over a long span of time. You're basically re-traumatized over and over and over again. When you feel you're finally over one event, another happens. This leads to multiple different symptoms and the biggest one I've seen lately is the fact that people don't realize they even have it. They're just so used to these events, they're almost normalized. They also tend to feel like they can handle another event because of the intrusive thoughts of "I've dealt with worse,", "It could be worse,", or "It's not as bad as other's experiences,". Every experience is different and every reaction is different, there is no mold. When you are formally diagnosed it is a form you do with many many questions with a therapist who is specialized in trauma. Some of them sound like trick questions, but the overall score of your answers is what gives you the actual diagnose. Some people may have nightmares, where as another person has insomnia, or some people may duck and cover to fireworks, whereas another person has a panic attack while sitting on their computer. You don't have to have every symptom listed to have CPTSD, you may only have a handful and feel they are minor occurrences or not even worth mentioning, but when they're all laid out in the open, a pattern emerges that you may have never noticed before. I say all this because this is what happened to me. For a long time, I had unexplained pain in my chest that would randomly occur starting in my early teens. I would feel like I couldn't breathe. My chest would become tight and best way I could describe it back then was that "I can't expand my lungs with too much air without excruciating pain". I once told my father about this happening to me, and he told me that he had the same thing, that it must be genetic. He also told me that his stopped as he got older, so I took that and ran with it for years.

Finally in my very late 20s, I reached out to my doctor. I don't go to the doctor often because I feel always ignored about any complaint I may have, but I just wanted his opinion on it. The last episode I had before going to see him was when I was playing Civilization VI on my laptop reclined on my couch. Literally nothing triggered me, and then BAM! I'm screaming at my husband that I can't breathe and I practically threw my laptop as I scrambled to get up off the couch. So I scheduled and went to my doctors and told him about this pain I'd been having. To my absolute shock, he almost panicked. He told me he felt I was describing the symptoms of a heart attack, but I was only in my 20s. It actually scared me, suddenly I'm being told that this is not normal and that something must be wrong with me to have these issues. He scheduled multiple tests including an MRI, and EKG and ultrasound of my heart. When I came back from the tests, he told me I had a slight murmur but otherwise I was in perfect health. That's when he told me "You're having panic attacks". I was taken aback hearing that and I honestly didn't believe it. My understanding was that a panic attack is when the eyes dilate and you think you're under attack. Having chest pains out of seemingly no where in non stressful situations didn't compute to me as a panic attack. He then told me he was going to recommend me to a therapist. Overtime this therapist told me I had CPTSD and I didn't believe her either because again my understanding of PTSD was that it had to do with huge events like life threatening situations or going over seas in the military. I had felt I never had any that would warrant me having CPTSD but subsequently I discovered, as I started to recover, that they were right all along. So I am now writing this blog, almost 40 years old, because I hope it will help others or at least let them know they're not alone. Overtime in my blogs I will speak about my childhood and my events that happened throughout my life. These things may be difficult to read for some and hard to understand. I will do my absolute best to post these events in order and supply as much detail as I can to help alleviate any questions. However, if you have questions, please feel free to ask me anytime or comment here, there will be no judgement from me. Before I end this blog I wanted to point out the phrase I chose to make my title, "I don't know how you do it,". This is a common phrase I hear almost weekly if not daily - to this day. I know the people who say it mean well, they feel they need to praise me for putting up with so much. However, this phrase actually can be fairly damaging to those who have experienced any kind of trauma. The reason being is this sentence implies there was a choice, that the person is only strong because they endured their painful event. There wasn't a choice, so that is always my response to those who say "I don't know how you do it," I say "I didn't have a choice,". I encourage those who speak with others who have endured any difficulty, not to use that phrase. The phrase you're looking for is "I'm sorry," or "I'm sorry you went through that,". It may sound like a bland response, but it is the most meaningful. You are recognizing and acknowledging this person's story and that's all a person wants is to feel heard. You can do so much by giving someone affirmation when they open up to you about something that has happened in their life. So I will end this blog today - here. And the next one I will start off with my earliest childhood memories and will build from there in future posts. Please feel free to comment or ask any questions, I am not here to judge you, I am here to hear you and help you to the best of my ability. Have a wonderful day!

[velvetporcelain]

I’m divorcing pain and committing to pleasure

Today seems— odd- I don’t really have anything to say but you know me void, I have tons of backlog hidden deep within my membrane.

Any thing, any thought could send me down the most dangerous or most beautiful of wells. It no longer scares me because I have proven to myself time and time again, that I can swim. I can swim well.

I love indulging in this beautiful game we call thought. I don’t think most people do because they are hypersensitive to their own minds. Which brings me to the ultimate question-

Does work indeed set your free? Does it confine the mind with boundaries? Invisible margins do not set us free, we only like to think that they do. I understand that “free thinking” may be considered a privilege to some, but I would have to disagree solely based on the fact that all humans have the ability to think.

Materialistic things are easy to achieve. Mentality is not. Thinking intentionally is not. I push the boundaries of the mind by simply implying what else there could be. Endless possibilities. One’s man’s trashy thoughts are certainly my treasure. Bending the perception into perspective with just a few “what if’s.”

Watching your child grow into an adult is probably one of the most terrifying things I have ever witnessed. Throwing them out into the oblivion in hopes that you have prepared them with the correct amount of “facts” and the correct amount of “opinions.” Hoping they jump at every opportunity they have to live life. Cultivating a mind is the biggest responsibility I have ever had, and ever will have. Sorting what services them and what does not. Thinking about the human race in its entirety. Preparing them for love and for war. What a contrary concept.

Today’s house hold chores did not limit the amount of thinking I did today. In fact, it allows me to think deeper. It gives my hands something to do which keeps my brain alive. Have you ever heard of drawing randomly on paper while you are reading something? To keep the stimulation going on both spheres, or else you will lull your mind to sleep.

Today I was thinking much about pain and how we tend to gravitate towards it because it seems much more relatable than pleasure nowadays. So I decided to become impeccable to my word. Counteracting pain with pleasure, because they are the opposite and equal reaction of one another.

If you have experienced pleasure with another human and after you have disconnected why do the memories bring you pain? Because we long to stay in pleasure. We can most certainly apply a great lesson to these memories without over analyzing what we could have done differently. That is extremely transformative and will also bring you great pleasure.

Acceptance can be a bitch, yes. Sometimes we are left with many unanswered questions and Hines sight tends to not do any justice for the past, only for the present and future.

I am so glad I have had the chance to experience grief and pain in this way. It now has set the bar of pleasure for me. Confidently considering what my next move would be.

I hope you consider countering your painful memories with the knowledge and power that you have now, where it really matters, and are able to transform them into something so meaningful and memorable that you are able to thank it and give it a proper burial.

-x