#which makes them some of the most qualified people to research the calling

[erme-maererme]

following the portrayal of the grey wardens through the games you can really see them going from this obscure culty group to full-on army. and while technically the wardens have always been supposed to be a military order, this really is not the experience for hof during the game. duncan who brings the warden in proceeds to die barely managing to spare any time for your joining. but hey at least you found some treaties in the ancient ruins in the forest. then the warden and alistair, the only remaining wardens in ferelden to their knowledge, go on to interfere in thedasian politics left and right in some roundabout ways and accept suspicious individuals into their merry band because it's apocalypse times and you might just become friends along the way. you cross the entire ferelden on foot more than once. the money you've looted off corpses is barely enough for a steady supply of health and lyrium potions. you find one blood mage warden doing some highly unethical research in an abandoned castle who might help you. you find one more warden in a torture dungeon (you have not been looking for him) who tells you you are going to die and then also dies himself. and this is what shaped the warden's idea of what the wardens do in general.

and then they make hof the warden-commander. just consider. the warden vanishes for a week. upon their return they ask the warden laying out a hundred gold on the table "i take it the trade in the vigil's keep is booming?". "idk but the darkspawn carry a lot more coin on them than in denerim, i wonder what it says about the economy" says the warden.

or

"the nobles do not like you, warden-commander"

"would procuring some mythical holy relic make them feel better? or i can just sneak into their cellars"

"um just talk to them in the hall during this important ceremony, warden-commander"

no wonder the warden quits soon after the events of the awakening and goes on to research the calling. they don't have work experience in training an army, but they certainly have the skillset for a dangerous and mysterious search quest.

[star-anise]

Currently getting my socks clean blown off by Rethinking Narcissism, by Dr. Craig Malkin. Which I found, in a roundabout way, from this video on Midsommar, grief, and narcissism.

Tonight I woke up from a nap and accidentally took my morning meds, so I'm going to be up for a few hours because of the meth. In place of sleep, I'll try to roughly sum up some basic ideas proposed by the research the book is based on:

That traits of "narcissism" like entitlement, grandiosity, and feeling special are not inherently toxic. There are times and places they are appropriate and beneficial. If you show up at a hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest, you should not sit and wait to be seen after people with earaches and coughs. (Actually, medical systems are designed to prioritize people with more urgent needs, and you qualify under that system. You are special and are deserving of different treatment than those others, which is why making your needs known, even insisting on it if you're not listened to appropriately the first time, is an extremely good idea. It keeps you from bleeding to death on the floor, and keeps the hospital from getting its pants sued off by your heirs.)

It is more useful to view "narcissism" not as an inherent immutable personality trait, but as a cluster of coping mechanisms. As previously stated, there are times they are exactly the right coping mechanism for the job. However, people we call "narcissists" tend to cling to these ones even when they become detrimental to themselves and others, often because they lack other ways of regulating their emotions and getting their needs met. And that is something they can change, if a person is willing to put in sincere and difficult work. It is not usually fast change; it's a matter of years, not weeks. But a skillbuilding approach turned Borderline Personality Disorder from an immutable curse to a fully treatable (though not quickly treatable) condition, and there's a lot of hope that it can do the same for Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Meanwhile, there's an opposite end to the narcissism spectrum, and it is also pathological and destructive to hang out there all the time. It's an aversion, or even a resistance, to expecting yourself or other people to treat your own feelings, thoughts, ideas, needs, or preferences as important. For Greek mythology reasons, its proposed name is Echoism.

Unfortunately, because most of the damage echoism does is, by its very nature, localized to its sufferer and their own personal relationships, its downsides aren't often talked about. In fact, it's often seen as an ideal moral state, a kind of altruism or saintliness everyone should strive for. As a pathological coping mechanism a person is trapped in, though, it's often more a fear-based reflex than a conscious and deliberate attempt to achieve some real and specific good. It's not actually as beneficial as being able to recognize your needs, desires, positive aspects, and areas of competence or excellence, and bring them forward in your relationships with other people and yourself.

To me this has all been a cross between a gut-punch and a cool, sweet drink of water. There have been other ways to describe echoism over the years, but this feels like the most concise and useful one I've seen in ages.

It specifically puts its pin down in the middle of the moral debate a lot of people struggle with—"What right do I have to put myself forward? What hope do I have of being seen and accepted? Isn't it better not to burden anybody else?"—and says that the problem is not feeling in touch with either side of the equation, but specifically, the inability to move from one part of the spectrum to another when it's merited by circumstances.

When I was a child, I thought Echoism was the answer. It was my ideal. I thought it was what would get me the love and acceptance I wanted, and would keep me safe from the pain of rejection or not being understood. I had no idea it would actually, in fact, be the primary cause of alienation and loneliness for the rest of my life.

Now I'm so deeply thankful I couldn't fully achieve it, in practical terms. As hard as I tried to erase myself, there were always things I loved too much to suppress. I still found ways to express and discover myself in the books I read, the stories I wrote, the intellectual work of school and the experience of pursuing hobbies I loved, my ambitions to be helpful even when they demanded I stop being selfless, and the relationships where I felt safe enough to experience love and acceptance even if I didn't think I deserved them.

There's this question I found a while back that echoed in my bones: Who am I allowed to be around you? Because that's what I felt like, as a child. If I wanted to engage with other people and minimize my risk of harm, it was my job to bend into a pretzel and fit the shape they wanted. And thank god, thank god, thank god, I couldn't fully do it. Despite everything, there were parts of me too strong and bright to lop off completely to get my arms and legs inside the carriage. I was able to take care of myself and let them grow in secret until I found social places I could let them out again. Despite myself, I found ways to grow and thrive, well beyond the trauma that said I shouldn't have.

[areyougonnabe]

SO YOU WANT TO VISIT THE SCOTT POLAR RESEARCH INSTITUTE ARCHIVES

Step One - Preparing

Use the Archives database to find the exact manuscript items you want to see. It's kind of hard to use so make sure A) you're on desktop and B) you're dragging the little gray sidebar out to the left to see the full list of contents of a given collection.

Then select the documents - each individual document or group of documents you want should begin with "MS" like this - and copy them into a note or document

Now you can out the open dates on the archive booking request page and book yourself a desk for one or multiple days. Copy your document list into the form when they ask what you'll want to look at. Don't worry, if you run out on the day or add more to your list in the meantime, you can request more stuff when you're actually seated at the archives

You do not need to be a university affiliated scholar to book a desk.

SPRI has been visited by amateurs, obsessives, cranks, and enthusiasts since before you were born. Rest assured you are FAR from the least qualified or weirdest person to step foot in the archive room (cough HUNTFORD)

Step Two - The Trip

Get yourself to Cambridge, UK! There is LOTS of stuff to do there besides the SPRI (pronounced "spry", not "spree") so for your first visit I'd recommend booking a whole weekend stay.

I would ALSO recommend going with a polarhead friend!!! You can split accommodation and also have someone to squee with which is very important

Apart from the SPRI museum itself (separate from the archives, quite small but worth an entire morning to just browse and buy stuff at the gift store) I would recommend The Fitzwilliam Museum, Kettle's Yard, & The Sedgwick Museum for museums, Fitzbillies for delicious cream tea and fancy brunching, Ark & G. David Bookstore for gifts. (But those are just my personal faves and I'm sure people have tons of other recs if you ask!)

The SPRI archives kick you out at lunch for an hour so I'd recommend taking a lap of the main university area, grabbing a snack and stumbling upon delightful spots on your own during that time.

Step Three - The Archives

The archives are run by Naomi. There used to be two Naomis so we called her "archives Naomi" but now there is just the one. She has gray hair and glasses and pretty much knows everything about everything although is very low-key about it.

Naomi will greet you when you arrive in the tiny archives room, hand you some forms to sign (and pay, if you want to take photographs it's £5), and then give you a printed out list of all the stuff you requested.

You'll indicate which item on the list you want to look at first, and she'll go back into the archives and bring out that item in a folder.

If it's a bound book you can use one of the pillow things and a snake to keep the pages open. If it's a flat document like a letter, you'll use your bare hands very carefully to turn the pages - make sure to keep them in order.

If it's a photograph or physical image, first of all you'll get it from Lucy the picture archive person instead of Naomi, and second of all you'll have to use gloves.

Most documents like letters you can take your own photographs of freely (as long as you've paid your £5). Some documents are restricted, whether because they're Xeroxes of documents held elsewhere or for other reasons — those you can't photograph and can only view & transcribe in person. You also can't photograph images but reproduction for personal use begins at £50 PER IMAGE and I could kvetch about that forever but whatever.

The rule for diaries is that you can photograph 10% of the pages of them. Yeah man I don't know.

When you're done with a particular document you'll put it back in its folder and get Naomi's attention (she's in the same room separated by a glass partition and you just kind of have to wave her down) and she'll go get you the next item. If and when you run out of items you can ask for more, or be done for the day and go hang out in the gorgeous library!

TIPS AND TRICKS

Naomi can be a little intimidating at first but if you are simply polite and normal and interested, she may deliver you Special Treats from her proprietary archivist's catalogue which is not available to the public. This didn't happen to me until my third visit and it felt like unlocking a relationship level in a videogame :')

Have your computer open next to you so that you can quickly transcribe stuff, make notes, and scan the catalogue for anything else you need. I've found I've always ended up ordering more stuff day-of, usually when something I requested turns out to be boring or not useful.

If you are not able to get to SPRI physically, they don't have a lot online which is frustrating - but instead of paying the exorbitant scanning fees, try asking on social media about a particular document. There's a chance one of us heads has been there and looked at it already and has the photographs/transcripts you need!

Publishing: if you want to use quotes from any archive documents in a blog post or published work (like.. other than a tumblr post, something professional lol) you need to send in a form. The form is hard to find so you're best off asking Naomi to email you the blank form before you leave the archive.

and lastly don't forget to say hi to Deb and admire the beautiful facade of the building!!!!!

that's all, HAPPY ARCHIVING!

[comicaurora]

I've started making my way through the playlist hbomberguy made of actually good video essays by queer creators and spotted a comment of yours on the one about the relationship between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, which was fun xD red in the wild!

Anyways, just wanted to appreciate how both you and Blue and you are very good at showing your sources! It's always nice to know that the people you've watched for years have good habits after an event like this, and I hope you guys are among the people that get some new fans after this whole debacle, because your channel definitely qualifies for "good educational videos made by queer people"

I'm glad! Blue's much better about listing his sources and follow-up reading than I am.

To be honest, I loved the video, but my imposter syndrome always flares like crazy when I watch an essay like that. It might be the ADHD or it might just be who I am as a person, but I feel like I've lived my whole life striving to make everything I do the best it can be, and still managing to fuck up and get criticised for things I could've done better if only I never missed anything. It's an actual gut-drop when it turns out a source I used wasn't trustworthy, or when in older videos I only went wiki-deep for some claims and didn't check every source to be 100% sure I wasn't being goat-fish'd. And this being the internet, I can get criticized at any time for things I've gotten wrong years ago, since it's evergreen online and to the new-viewing critic it's as fresh as yesterday. It makes it hard for me to stay proud of my work past the first moment of "oh I would've done that different now". There's a cocktail of complicated, scary feelings around this space, no matter how little I actually have in common with the bad guys of this scenario - it's less about the reality and more about who my imposter syndrome tells me I am. I saw several people saying that the video actually made them feel much better about their own work because it made it clear that accidental plagiarism on that scale is impossible, but if my anxieties listened to reason I would've successfully machete'd them out of my skull years ago. I just hope I never fuck up badly enough to deserve an hbombing of my own.

But my own stress aside, the hbomb essay exposed a level of laxness, laziness and entitlement on the part of these plagiarists that I think is almost incomprehensible to people who actually create for a living or even just the joy of it. How hollow do you have to be to take in someone else's writing and not consider it, digest it, let it reshape your views and then formulate your own interpretation on it, but instead to file off the serial numbers and pretend it's yours, trusting that the person whose thoughts and words you valued enough to steal will never be powerful enough to call you out on it? I go down research rabbit holes because I love the frustration and thrill of putting something together! How joyless it must be to skim the surface and borrow someone else's conclusions!

I've sometimes had people email asking for sources on parts of my interpretation of various myths, possibly in the interest of source-citing for school papers (a nightmare concept in and of itself) and with very few exceptions I usually have to tell them "the only sources were the english translations I used of the primary source where the myth was originally written, like I said in the video, and the part where I said I was conspiracy-boarding has no source other than my own analysis of the given source, which is why I called it conspiracy-boarding" and I was always a little baffled by those emails - half the videos are introduced like "this is The Prose Edda" or "this is in Ovid's Metamorphoses" or "this bit is Hesiod" so what else could they want - but seeing the hbomb of the week made me realize that truly original analysis might not be what most people are expecting from a "thing summarized." They might be expecting a compilation of other people's summaries instead.

[astra-ravana]

Must Love Demons

Demon originally meant "spirit replete with wisdom", that is until Christianity gained supremacy and began negatively labeling every spirit or pagan deity as a demon. Today it still  conjures images of horror movie monsters and torturous possessions. When I tell others that I choose to work with demons, even other witches, I am met with everything from concern to disgust to morbid curiosity. But, I'd like to take a moment to clear up some misconceptions and ease fears regarding these brilliant and misunderstood spirits.

First off, what makes a spirit a demon? Well, as it turns out, lots of things can qualify you as demon. Many of the demons of the goetia started their spiritual reverence as pagan gods, then were disgraced by early Christians for going against their god by simply existing. Most of these beings are very complex in nature, but not evil as rumors would claim. Here's some things angels, spirits, and deities did to gain demon status:

• Knowing astrology/astronomy

• Being one with nature

• Taking back stolen books

• Falling in love with a human

• Helping spirits connect with mortals

• Being a "beast"

• Being a woman and refusing to submit to a man

• Connecting with/assisting the dead

• Doing magick

• Teaching magick to mortals

• Divination

• Having horns

• Being part animal

• Having too much confidence

• Inspiring love

• Teaching people science

• Being a strong goddess figure

• By doing nothing at all

So, would you be considered a demon? I know I sure would. As you can see the criteria by which a spirit is designated a demon is incredibly broad. Most demons mean no harm and conversely, have a wealth of knowledge to share with worthy mortals. These spirits are as diverse as human souls, having preferences, flaws, habits, different areas of expertise, personalities, and emotions. Some of them lived lives as human beings and/or were worshipped as deities.

When you begin researching demons you'll discover that this label encompasses a large, intricate pantheon of spirits, each with their own domains and abilities. Chances are, there's a demon out there who would resonate with you.

When I first started my demonic journey I was answering the call of a spirit that had been reaching out to me in my dreams since childhood. He was patient, however, and when I finally was brave enough to reach back he was overjoyed. This was the demon king of Hell, Paimon. I had never had such clear communication with a spirit and at times I forgot we were on different plains of existence. I had never had a spiritual connection with anything, not like this. Soon I began introducing myself to other spirits. I identified a demon that had protected me my whole life, befriended another, reached out to one to ask for knowledge, and my circle grew. Today I work with dozens of demon spirits and still find them to be the most relatable, loyal, understanding, and patient entities to work with.

I guess the moral is not to judge a book by its cover. I mean we know by now, being condemned by the church means very little in the realms of morality and actual goodness. As witches, our history with the church has a lot of common ground with demons. It's only natural we work together. I hope this maybe makes some reconsider any prejudices they may have towards these spirits. They are individuals, like us, chaotic, charming, loving, angry, divine, wise, and very real. They can bolster your spiritual growth and magick, gift you knowledge, and be a friend too. Can you learn to love a demon? It might just be worth finding out.

[sophieinwonderland]

Debunking Anti(-endo's)Misinfo. AKA: How are anti-endos so bad at sources????

(The original)

Oh, well good on you for trying to cover everything! Nice of anti-endos to finally start trying to use science to prove their arguments. I'm sure these sources will totally be reliable and will prove your points beyond a shadow of a doubt, and that you won't just be falling flat on your face with every single attempt at basic reading comprehension, and end up repeatedly make a complete fool of yourself.

Let's go!

Off to a pretty strong start, acknowledging that many endogenic systems don't have DID or OSDD. Sadly, that basic fact is something that seems to escape most anti-endos. So with this in mind, I think it's safe to say the goal of this post is going to be to prove...

You can't possibly have DID without trauma.

You can't possibly have OSDD without trauma.

You can't be a system without DID/OSDD.

Let's read through and see how they'll do at proving their points by the end. I promise you, the results... won't surprise you. 😉

Well, there goes that strong start.

The source here is a Carrd and so-called "common sense."

Meanwhile, in the World Health Organization's ICD-11, alters or dissociative identities are described as "distinct personality states." In the same page, it's stated that you can have multiple "distinct personality states" without a disorder.

This is information from the World Health Organization affirming that you can be plural without a disorder. And I think that prevails over your so-called "common sense."

See also these screenshots from the plurality chapter of Transgender Mental Health, a book published by the American Psychiatric Association:

Finally, I really want to put a focus on this line of logic: "you cannot have alters without having a disorder, this is common sense as it's not normal to have alters."

Normal has multiple meanings in different contexts. The ICD-11's boundary with normality uses normal to mean "non-pathological." But this post seems to be using "normal" in the lay way to mean "common."

And that makes this particular rhetoric extremely dangerous and harmful to many communities. "If it's not common, it's a mental illness," was the basis for homosexuality and being transgender being listed as mental illnesses. "Most people don't think this way, so there's something wrong with them."

This could also easily be used to pathologize Otherkin and other alterhumans as mentally ill because it's not "normal" to identify as an animal.

The modern World Health Organization and American Psychiatric Association recognize the fact that simply thinking unusually or differently isn't an illness or disorder.

Statements like yours do not exist within a vacuum, but harken back to decades past when any non-typical thinking would have you labeled as having a disorder that needed treated.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

Let's be thankful to live in a world today where our differences aren't considered disorders. And let's not resort to ideologies that threaten to return us to those days past.

Wait... who suggests this? Who are they? I think I need more info...

So... "some researchers."

Also, can we talk about how this starts off with "sometimes called multiple personality disorder." I checked to see if this was before the name changed in the ICD (which I believe was 2015) and it doesn't seem to be! Oldest archive I can find is 2020!

Rethink.org is a charity.

These are not peer-reviewed papers.

The page references "some researchers" without names or sources.

I have no idea who authored this or if they're qualified at all in this field.

This is a terrible source. A web page by an anonymous author citing other unnamed authors with no reason to think anyone who wrote this had any idea what they were talking about!

This says DID is caused by many things, and lists trauma as only one that's included. This doesn't back up the idea DID/OSDD can only be caused by trauma, and suggests the opposite.

Oh, and "it's also known as split personality disorder." 😔

Go home WebMD.

Usually associated with doesn't mean it's a requirement, and in fact implies that it isn't always.

"Is associated with." "Can be a response to trauma."

Reiterating that the first two goals here were to prove you can't have DID or OSDD without trauma. And these aren't doing that.

An association doesn't mean there's a causation, and it doesn't mean that association is there in 100% of cases.

"often develop."

Like with "usually", you wouldn't use the word often if if something always happened. The choice of wording implies you can have dissociative disorders without trauma.

Are... they messing with us right now???

I swear, you can't have a post that sets out with the goal of disproving the existence of endogenic plurality, and then use quotes that seem to consistently imply there can be other causes for DID and not pick up on that theme!

Oh, yay! We finally got a quote that's actually trying to argue the point we started with.

But, again, this runs into a similar issue to the ReThink.org one. This is a random independent organization. There is no author for this article. It hasn't undergone peer review like an academic paper would.

There is no evidence the person who wrote this article is actually educated in dissociative disorders.

And finally back to "usually."

You must be so proud...

Source Round-Up

There was a lot here, so let's just recap.

6 out of 8 of these sources only say that DID is "usually" or "often" or "can be" caused by or associated with trauma. These actually imply there are cases where it's NOT caused by trauma, going against the original goals of this post.

Finally, there were two sources, Rethink and Mind.org, which did suggest DID is just caused by trauma, full stop. But both of these are extremely questionable as sources.

Neither named their authors. There's no indication what the review process is for their websites. And "Rethink" merely said this is what "some researchers" believe.

So let's double back to those goals set at the beginning.

You can't possibly have DID without trauma: One source says this, but the reliability of that source is questionable. Another source says some researchers are saying this but doesn't name any researchers or cite those sources. Meanwhile, the other six sources imply that it IS possible for DID to exist without trauma.

You can't possibly have OSDD without trauma: Neither of the two sources that suggest DID can only be caused by trauma mention OSDD at all.

You can't be a system without DID/OSDD: None of the sources suggest you need DID/OSDD to be a system or to be plural.

So far, you've failed to prove you can't be a system without DID or OSDD. You've failed to show you can't have OSDD without trauma. And the case for DID being exclusive to trauma frankly looks weaker than before you started talking.

Incredible work so far!!!

And I mean that in the way that nothing about this is remotely credible!

Ugh. There is SO much wrong here. First, no sources for their claims about tulpamancy.

Now, tulpamancy draws its name from a Tibetan Buddhist practice called sprul pa.

This is not the same practice though. And the Tibetan Buddhist practice is NOT CALLED TULPAMANCY.

Something which should be obvious to anyone who knows even the most basic facts about language, with the -mancy suffix being derived from Latin. And tulpamancy as a practice generally isn't religious.

From Dr. Samuel Veissiere of McGill University:

The community is primarily divided between so-called psychological and metaphysical explanatory principles. In the psychological community, neuroscience (or folk neuroscience) is the explanation of choice. Tulpas are understood as mental constructs that have achieved sentience. The metaphysical explanation holds that Tulpas are agents of supernatural origins that exist outside the hosts’ minds, and who come to communicate with them. Of 118 respondents queried on the question, 76.5% identified with the psychological explanation, 8.5% with the metaphysical, and 14% with a variety of “other” explanations, such as a mixture of psychological and metaphysical.

When discussing the research into tulpamancy, we're not discussing a religious or spiritual practice that's been validated by psychologists.

We're talking about a primarily psychological practice that's been validated by psychologists.

And as for the DSM quote, it confirms that religious practices aren't a disorder. Cool. But it also implies that religious practices can result in multiple distinct personality states. Hence why they needed that criterion. It's not stated as explicitly in the DSM as in the ICD, but the implication is there, especially when taken together.

Whether you call these "alters" or not is up to you. Most endogenic systems aren't using the word "alter" to describe their headmates.

But regardless of the word, what the research is showing is that there are multiple phenomena which can result in people having multiple self-conscious agents sharing the same body.

I mean, you've still done a really bad job at showing DID and OSDD form purely from trauma, with many of your sources straight up saying the opposite.

And remember, a lot of mixed origin systems will say that their other headmates aren't caused by or related to their disorder. And there are documented cases of people with DID both having alters associated with DID, and having non-aversive entities they commune with outside of that, as Kluft references in this paper:

The woman he describes here, who experienced ceding control to another entity who talked through her, would qualify as a mixed origin system in the modern plural community.

SIX OF YOUR EIGHT SOURCES LEFT THE DOOR OPEN FOR DID TO FORM WITHOUT TRAUMA!

NONE CLAIMED OSDD COULD ONLY COME FROM TRAUMA!

NONE CLAIMED YOU NEEDED DID OR OSDD TO BE PLURAL!

Your sources are NOT claiming what you think they're claiming!!!!!!!

If this is "all the proof you need," to say endogenic systems aren't valid, it's clear you were only ever interested in confirming your worldview.

But surely you can't seriously think this will convince anyone who isn't already indoctrinated!

Not even addressing this in full. It's such a blatant strawman that it's not worth my time.

There are similarities between plurality and being LGBTQ. Especially to the many trans systems out there who are seeing anti-endos use the same rhetoric that transmeds have. Or like you did earlier, are endorsing the same types of views that led to homosexuality being pathologized until the 70s. But nobody is saying it's the exactly the same!

I'm not sure what this is specifically referring to. But it might be about the line in the differential diagnosis for DID in the PTSD section where it's stated DID may not be preceded by trauma or have co-occurring PTSD symptoms.

It does also say in another section that DID is associated with trauma, but it never actually says that's the only way to get DID.

This is a straight-up lie. Most sources used by endogenic systems are less than a decade old, with some being as recent as 2023.

Here's the breakdown of some of the dates in @guardianssystem's doc, for reference:

I mean, I feel like part of the reason nobody has been able to disprove it is because a lot of its more specific claims have been really hard to test.

But that's neither here nor there.

The bigger issue you'll run into is that the creators of the theory you're citing have stated that there may be other ways for people to be plural. Or as they phrased it, having "conscious and self-conscious dissociated parts."

The above quote is from two of the three authors of The Haunted Self, the creators of the theory of the structural dissociation.

The TOSD is made to propose a way trauma can cause dissociative disorders to develop. But it does NOT suggest you need to have dissociative disorders to be plural, and I doubt the authors appreciated their work being twisted like that

Final Grade:

F-

This started with three goals.

Let's look back at them one last time.

You can't possibly have DID without trauma.

You can't possibly have OSDD without trauma.

You can't be a system without DID/OSDD.

By the end of this, have any of these claims successfully been proven?

I don't feel they have.

The first claim is what all the sources tried to focus on. But most of the sources didn't say that and didn't support it. All but two implied that DID could possibly form other ways.

And for the others? Nothing suggests OSDD can only be caused by trauma.

And you failed to provide any sources that suggested you couldn't be plural without DID and OSDD.

You completely and utterly failed to find decent sources to back up your claims, and to make a compelling case for them, at every conceivable juncture.

If I were you, I would be embarrassed to have put out something of such poor quality.

What have we learned:

Non-disordered and endogenic plurality has been supported and validated across the psychological field, including the World Health Organization's ICD-11 and Trasngender Mental Health which has been reviewed and published by the American Psychiatric Association.

The creators of the theory of structural dissociation believe it might be possible that "self-conscious dissociative parts of the personality" might form without trauma and that this needs to be further researched.

Tulpamancy is a mostly psychological practice that has been studied and validated by psychologists.

Anti-endos are really bad at sources.

Conversely, the majority of endogenic sources are actual peer reviewed academic papers. And contrary to false claims here, many of the papers are actually very recent.

(Tagging some tags from the original post)

[hyperpotamianarch]

I guess I'm writing erraticly lately anyway, and no one on tumblr ever really tried anything else (do tell if you know a Tumlr user who blogs in an organised manner), so it's about time I talked about Piyutim.

Of everyone around, I'm... not really the most qualified person to talk about it deeply. I am keenly aware that my interest in Piyutim never got all that deep. However, compared to the average tumblr user I probably do know a little bit more, so here goes.

The definition of a piyut is very simple: a Jewish religious poem (it may well be that poem and Piyut come from the same original Greek word). Some of them are said during prayers, some sung around the Shabbat table, or during holidays.

I would start talking about the history of Piyutim, but as I mentioned - I'm not really qualified for it. If we were talking merely about the history of religious songs, I could start with the Song of the Sea, the Song of the Well, Deborah's Song and such things, ultimately arriving to Psalms and moving onwards. But those aren't Piyutim. Some are ancient epic songs, others are songs of prayer or praise, but... I don't know. Maybe they can't be considered Piyutim because the word didn't enter the Jewish lexicon yet. Or maybe we should actually call Tehilim the first book of Piyutim, IDK.

The oldest Piyutim we still have today can maybe possibly date back to the Mishnaic period, a little less than 2000 years ago - between the destruction of the Temple around 68 CE and the codifying of the Mishnah around 220 CE. There's an old Midrash saying about Rabbi El'azar B'Rabbi Shimon that he was a Paytan (read pie-tan, more or less), a writer of Piyutim. We don't really know much about that, however. The earliest Paytan we know the name of and still have Piyutim of, however, if Yose Ben Yose. It was believed by some that he was a Cohen Gadol, Great Priest, during the time of the 2nd Temple, as he wrote a Piyut about the order of work in Yom Kippur and this idea had added to it. However, modern researchers place him far later, around the 5th or 6th century CE. He lived in the Land of Israel, where the tradition of Piyutim started.

The most famous of the Paytanim, though, came a little later: Rabbi El'azar Birabbi Qallir.

All right, so, I'm making here a huge claim and many of the more Mizrahi-leaning Piyut enthusiasts are very likely to be baffled and annoyed by that claim. Mostly because it's very likely they didn't see many Piyutim by the Qallir. At least, so I assume. It would take long to explain that point, but basically: there is scarce Ashkenazi Makhzor which doesn't have at least one Piyut by the Qallir. Ibn Ezra, when criticizing early Paytanim in his exogesis on Kohelet (ecclesiastes), focuses on the flaws of the Qallir. The Tosafot said, at some point, that the Qallir sets precedent to adding Piyutim in the middle of prayers because they believe he was a Tana, from the period the Mishnah was written, and thus could disagree with things written there. Long story. Modern Hebrew scholars sometimes laughed at his weird Hebrew - but the point here is, he was their prime example.

And with all that, many modern Jews don't actually know many of his Piyutim, including Ashkenazi ones. Because his Piyutim were written to say in the middle of the prayer, and this type of Piyutim was cut out of most prayers lately. So outside of a few samples from the High Holy Days, many people are less familiar with his work.

He still set some standards for future Piyutim, though, along with his fellow Paytan of the same period, Yanai: they were likely the first to sign their Piyutim via the acrostics. Also, they possibly were the first to make them rhyme - so if you like to write non-rhyming poetry, do remember it can still be considered a Piyut same as old school Piyutim. On a side note, if you've heard the Piyutim VaYehi Bachatzi HaLaylah or Ve'Amartem Zevach Pesach on the Seder night - both of those were written by Yannai. The acrostic is only the Hebrew alphabet and not his name, but it's still known to be his.

From then on, many Piyutim were written: by Ashkenazi Jews, Sepharadi Jews, Italki Jews, Mizrahi Jews, Yemenite Jews... basically everywhere Jews went. I mean, the Ethiopeans were cut off from the rest of Judaism for the most part, so their religious songs traditions are likely vastly different than the others, but they probably can be cosidered Piyutim as well. Among the most well know Paytanim are Kalonymus, Moshe ben Kalonymus, Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra, Rabbi Moshe Ibn Ezra (I think they're unrelated? But am not completely sure), Dunash Ben Labrat (who's older than most of the ones in this paragraph, sorry for putting him this late) and Rabbi Shelomo Ibn Gabirol. Most of whom are Sephardi, with Kalonymus and Moshe Ben Kalonymus (related, though I think not father and son) being Italkim who moved to Ashkenaz.

At this point, I might want to make an important distinction within Piyutim: they include, as I mentioned, both liturgical poems - said during prayers - and songs sung during feasts. The latter sort gets a lot of attention in general, and many people only mean those when talking about Piyutim. Things are still more complex than those divisions: there are many subtypes to liturgical Piyutim, depending on where they are to be said. Some of which have sneaked into the ones said in feasts. Two examples I always keep in mind are Agadelchah and Libby U'Vesari. Both of those were written by Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra, as their acrostic points. Both were written as preparatory poems to other prayers - as seen by their very last words being the first word of well known Jewish prayers: Agadelchah ends with "Ve'Yitgadal B'Goy Kadosh Ve'Eliyon, VeYitkadash Shemei Rabah B'Alma", which is more or less the beginning of the Kaddish, while Libby U'Vesari ends with "...Et Ki Eftaḥ Pi B'Nishmat Kol Chai". The last three words being the beginning of the prayer... Nishmat Kol Chai. It's a bit on the nose, really.

My point is, there is a division, but it's not very clearly cut. And if I wanted to make a sweeping statement, like say "Mizrahi Jews still write Piyutim today but are focused on ones for feasts"... I would be wrong. In some ways there is something to it: due to a certain Halachic development, Sepharadi and Mizrahi Jews no longer say Piyutim in the middle of their prayers. However, they have many Piyutim said as prayers unto themselves, plus the Bakashot singing exists, and... Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that much of the Ashkenazi Piyut tradition was more prayer-focused. Due to that, many Ashkenazi Piyutim weren't set to music and thus are less remembered. For example, many early Ashkenazi rabbis wrote Piyutim. If you really look it up, you can find Piyutim by Rashi, Rabbenu Tam and other Tosafot writers. There are Piyutim by Rabbenu Gershom still said in prayer to this day. But if, say, I were to talk to a fellow Jew who happens to be Mizrahi about Piyutim, he could easily deny the existence of Ashkenazi Piyutim. Especially if I, for example, admit that Moshe Ben Kalonymus was Italki and not technically Ashkenazi. Just an example, it's not like such a thing totally happened about a year ago to me.

On that cheery note, I might add that in modern day Ashkenazim really do scarcely write Piyutim. I do personally know a group that still do, specifically liturgical Piyutim, but it's rare. And after that wall of text, I can also feel safe to say a thing or two about the war.

Whoever you might be who made it this far: congradulations. No, I didn't write this wall of text to dissuade people, I really am interested in Piyutim to that level. I even wrote a couple at the beginning of this accursed war. They're... fine, I think, not exceptional.

But here's the thing: not long after I labored to write them, Yagel Harush came along with his lament on Be'eri. And, well, I should never have considered this a competition, because this guy is a proffesional singer and songwriter. He also put his Piyut to music which I did not. Basically, there is no equivalent to be made.

I'm still sad that my Piyut didn't get very far, but I'm happy to see how wide a distribution the Be'eri Lament got. It is an ancient tradition that existed among Ashkenazi Jews as well to write a lament over a Pogrom, so that we'll never forget it. The Piyutim I know by Rahsi and Rabbenu Tam are both of this sort - about the Crusades and the Blood Libel in Blois, respectively.

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

[exit-path]

Hey, remember this video? This is how tumblr made the Undertale “Stronger than You” parody.

Hi guys! Before we start, some of you on tumblr may have been in the Undertale fandom in 2015 when this was taking place, but I wasn't. So if you were at the devil's sacrament, then reblog with what you remember! I'd love to hear primary source perspectives of events.

(EDIT, 5/6/23: SO @galxie JUST PROPOSED TO ADAPT THIS POST INTO A YOUTUBE VIDEO. I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING)

(SO IF YOU'RE GOING TO SHARE YOUR STORIES THEN GET IT IN NOW)

But without further ado, let's begin, and watch as ordinary people made Internet history. (under the cut)

Part 1: gymleadercheren

It all started when @gymleadercheren drew a snippet of the Sans fight, with some Steven Universe lyrics underneath. This post caught the eye of @thepinkestpug, who had an idea.

Part 2: thepinkestpug

Later that same day—Oct 10, 2015—thepinkestpug sang a parody. Now, her Soundcloud link… how do I say it… doesn't sound very good? (He calls it "poor quality" herself.) But because he was in both the UT and SU fandoms, she was uniquely qualified to come up with these lyrics.

Upon seeing the "Stronger Than You" parody, gymleadercheren was ECSTATIC that she inspired someone with her post. The next day, she asked thepinkestpug for "permission to smoosh our lyrics together and make a comic?” If you've seen djsmell's video, you may recognize what she made next…

Part 3: The Comic

It took 3 weeks, but on Oct 29, 2015, gymleadercheren finally finished her comic. With 38 PANELS in total, the post was an instant success. She credits thepinkestpug for her lyrics, and links to an 8-bit "Stronger Than You" instrumental. Today, the post has over 20k notes.

Part 4: djsmell

Two days later, on Oct 31, 2015, @djsmell made a song cover of the comic. He NAILED the voice of Sans, and used the 8-bit song cover from gymleadercheren's post. He posted about it on his blog, while his YouTube video now has 11M views.

Part 5: alfa995

It wasn't until nearly 2 months later that on Dec 21, 2015, @alfa995 finally finished his animation. It used djsmell's audio, and filled in the gaps where the comic made you use your imagination. Today, the YouTube video has been viewed nearly 80 MILLION times.

These were alfa995's words about everything that had happened so far: "So basically someone… made lyrics for an Undertale version of [a song from Steven Universe] and a comic based off it, then someone else sung it, and now I animated it. I love the Internet."

Part 6: Reflections

And that’s the history of this video! This singular video has grown in popularity to such immense heights, it's a well-known piece of trivia that more people recognize the Undertale “Stronger Than You” parody than the actual Steven Universe song it’s based off of.

What I find interesting is how each person involved in this process had a tumblr blog. They saw each other’s posts and made more posts based off of them. By fandom standards this happened LIGHTNING FAST, the idea took 2 and a half months from conception to completion. It’s this connectivity that created the 4th most-viewed Undertale video.

The Undertale scene on tumblr spawned many more memorable fan creations, such as the “Underpants” series by SrPelo, which became the entry point for many into the wonder that is his animations.

It is this fandom that made Undertale a goliath of Internet culture. It is this fandom that made it so that Toby Fox will always have a loyal, rabid audience. Say what you want about it, whether you love it or hate it, the Undertale scene on tumblr may never happen again.

Thank you for reading, and I hope that you enjoyed!

This was my first time thinking about the Undertale fandom in a LONG time, and it was a nice trip down memory lane. Also, here’s a few things I found while researching that I couldn’t list above:

First, what's with all these "Stronger Than You" versions? I had no idea until I started researching that there were so many spinoffs of this singular video. Like, there's a CHARA response? There's a FRISK RESPONSE? THERE'S A TRIO VERSION?

And speaking of spinoffs, I want to shout out the video "Richer Than You"—absolutely phenomenal YTPMV that had a lot of effort put into it.

Finally, I want to shout out Super Eyepatch Wolf’s video, as it was my inspiration while writing this, and explains: “why did these videos get so popular?”

[bloodhivelottie]

yellowjackets headcanons dump!!!!!🐝

cuz these mfs are always buzzing around in my brain like the little bees that they are

• the yjs who got into the most shoving matches on the field are tai and shauna but nat talks the most shit just to rile the other team up lol. lottie also talks shit but in a real sassy way🙄

• jackie loves sweet foods but her mom never lets her eat them so whenever her and shauna go to the mall they sneak to get the biggest ice cream sundae known to man and share it :]

• van used to hold movie nights (at tai’s house) for the team and misty came once but she ate way too many skittles and threw up on the carpet and she wasn’t invited again after that😭

• lottie was a school transfer and didn’t have many friends at first which is why she joined the yellowjackets. the coach was crazy impressed with her skill and jackie started out really jealous and everyone was like ohhh we have a rivalry brewing!!! but jackie quickly came around and she was actually the one who started calling her lottie instead of charlotte

• van & nat were best friends as kids and lived in the same trailer park but when they were 14 vans mom moved to an apt and the two of them stopped hanging out and talking as much but they still have a bond with each other

• van and nat love the movie my cousin vinny and they still quote it all the time

• jackie was a HUGE fan of mia hamm and used to have a poster of her in her room but her mom got mad at her saying it wasn’t ladylike so jackie gave it to shauna but it’s been lying around shauna’s room ever since :[

• misty’s parents are rich doctors or something who are never home so she spends all her time either making super over the top collages of celebrity men or making a diary where she writes about literally everything and cuts out her yearbook and draws hearts around the boy she has a crush on. OR she’s up to some heinous shit researching crazy stuff. i just know she’s wayyyy too into serial killer info. and she’s prob dissected a frog or two in her time

• tai was the only one who was still able to enjoy soccer after the rescue. but i think van would’ve tried and maybe she still casually watched the uswnt until the 99’ers retired but after that she stopped watching.

• a lot of them turned vegetarian after they got rescued. i feel like nat’s vegetarian which is why she reacts like REALLY🙄 to misty when she eats beef jerky in s1 lol. lottie is absolutely vegan

• i like the hc people have that shauna’s jewish. jackie’s christian and she tries her best to celebrate shauna’s religious holidays w her but she always gets shit wrong but it’s the thought that counts right? nats definitely catholic but doesnt gaf

• lottie has a pet cat that she literally adores because it’s all she has to keep her company in her giant house cause her dad tells her not to talk to the maids :/

• nat can’t afford to buy her own guitar but kevyn lets her borrow his and he’s in the middle of teaching her how to play during the time she qualifies for nationals so the only song she knows how to play is come as you are by nirvana

• opposing teams HATE yj set pieces cause nat takes corners for the right side and tai and lottie are tall as fuck so they convert from corners a lottt >:)

• when shit got bad with nat or van’s family when they were younger they’d sneak out of their trailer windows and meet at a specific spot just to hang out and they’d talk all night or nat listens to her walkman and watches van practice tricks on her shitty beat up skateboard

• one time in the locker room nat’s putting a tape into her walkman and shauna notices and brings it up and they start chatting a little about their similar music taste for a minute until jackie appears and sweeps shauna away and nat’s just left there with her eyebrows raised cause she didn’t realize shauna was actually cool like that. LOL

• one day it was raining like crazy during practice and the field was muddy as fuck and tai accidentally slipped and got covered in mud. van’s crying laughing cause tai’s pissed about it until she slips and falls into the mud too. she ends up throwing some at the other girls for laughing at her and jackie gets hit and she’s like “oh so that’s how it’s gonna be huh?” and the next second everyone’s soaked and muddy and laughing and they all have to trudge back to the locker room afterwards and when they walk past coach scott he’s just shaking his head smiling

[littleredstory]

Beta Read my Story???

Little Red is red-y to be consumed as a draft, and I would appreciate it SOOO much if anybody out there would give it a read and tell me their thoughts! I know a couple people have already expressed interest, so please send me a message or email me @ spectascopes@gmail.com if you're willing to do it!!

*EDIT: SHORT SUMMARY: Russel and his older brother Stan are living on their own and working through a lot of issues from their shared past, but things are good. What isn't good is the stray, injured fairy that finds its way to their porch- fairies are a species of intelligent feline evolved to walk upright. They're a designer pet for rich people, and not a lot is known about them because of their small numbers. What's worse is that this one seems capable of understanding and speaking English just fine, so now the two brothers have to figure out what the hell is going on.

The story is 225 pages and 106,000 words long. It's a hefty beast! Because of that and the commitment it takes to beta read something so lengthy, anybody that does it and gives me their thoughts gets 1) a million of my homegrown organic kisses if they so choose and 2, more importantly) a drawing! A single character lined/shaded drawing, which you can see examples of here. One of the few ways I have to thank people for doing this for me!

I'd ideally like for 5 to 10 people to read and give me thoughts, but the more the merrier!

If you message/email to get in on this mundane once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (who else wrote a story called Little Red that they're asking to get beta-read in 2024?) I'll send you the story in whatever format works best, a downloadable file or link to a google doc, and when you're all done just tell me what you think! There's no "time limit" but within a couple of months would be great :]

I would like some detail in the thoughts, and please- be critical! Not mean, but critical! You could read it all and then do a little summary or do small thoughts chapter by chapter, whatever works. I'd say I would like at least hmmm 500 words of thought? More is better, but reading the story just to say "it was good" is not the most helpful feedback.

I'm looking for things like: did you like the characters? Which character was your favorite, and were any significantly weaker than the others? How was the pacing, did it feel too fast or too slow at any point? Did anything stand out to you as really well done or really NOT well done? These are just suggestions and not an exhaustive list of things I'd like to know, and if you have different things to comment on, chat away! It's just an example of some.

Once you do that, I'll reply with a handful of questions about potential changes to the story and if you, the reader, think they'd be positive or negative, and also ask what you'd like drawn.

Does this sound fair? Does this sound okay? I've never written a novel before! I'm going to ask people completely removed from the sphere to read it, too, because I want lots of diverse insight so I can make the story as good as it can be :]

(PS- if you beta read and are qualified to comment on things like how I, whitemen, have written the two black main characters, PLEASE share thoughts and feedback!! I want to write diverse characters, obviously, but I am fallible and human and research can only get me so far. Critique and thoughts on stuff like that, or handling mental illness, or a character with a lot of scars, or a mute character, don't hesitate to share!!)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

NYT: Want a Job in the Trump Administration? Be Prepared for the Loyalty Test.

 David E. Sanger, Jonathan Swan, and Maggie Haberman at NYT:

At the Trump transition offices in West Palm Beach, Fla., prospective occupants of high posts inside the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies typically run through a gamut of three to four interviews, dominated in recent weeks by a mix of Silicon Valley investors and innovators and a team of the MAGA faithful. The applicants report that they have been asked about how to overhaul the Pentagon, or what technologies could make the intelligence agencies more effective, or how they feel about the use of the military to enforce immigration policy. But before they leave, some of them have been asked a final set of questions that seemed designed to assess their loyalty to President-elect Donald J. Trump. The questions went further than just affirming allegiance to the incoming administration. The interviewers asked which candidate the applicants had supported in the three most recent elections, what they thought about the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and whether they believed the 2020 election was stolen. The sense they got was that there was only one right answer to each question.

This account is based on interviews with nine people who either interviewed for jobs in the administration or were directly involved in the process. Among those were applicants who said they gave what they intuited to be the wrong answer — either decrying the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 or saying that President Biden won in 2020. Their answers were met with silence and the taking of notes. They didn’t get the jobs. Three of the people interviewed are close to the transition team and confirmed that loyalty questions were part of some interviews across multiple agencies, and that the Trump team researched what candidates had said about Mr. Trump on the day of the Capitol riot and in the days following. Candidates are also rated on a scale of one to four in more than a half-dozen categories, including competence.

Karoline Leavitt, the incoming White House press secretary, declined to address specific questions about the topics being raised in job interviews. Instead, she said: “President Trump will continue to appoint highly qualified men and women who have the talent, experience, and necessary skill sets to make America great again.” Previous administrations, of course, have also been interested in whether new hires were aligned with the president’s agenda. But the distinction between Mr. Trump’s process and past ones is that the interest goes well beyond alignment on policy. The Trump transition team appears to be trying to figure out whether prospective hires have ever shown a hint of daylight between themselves and Mr. Trump on specific issues, particularly as he tried to revise the history of his final weeks in office and its aftermath. Mr. Trump has maintained that Jan. 6, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol, was actually an event filled with “love.” He has insisted that no one who was arrested was armed; criminal indictments say otherwise. He has described people convicted and imprisoned for their role in the Capitol attack as “hostages” and he has claimed, falsely, that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

[...]

‘Traitors’ and ‘Snakes’

Mr. Trump has long been fixated on the concept of loyalty, but past criticism is not always a deal breaker. Vice President-elect JD Vance once called himself a “Never Trump guy” and said Mr. Trump was “unfit” for the office. Mr. Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, once described Mr. Trump as a “con artist” who couldn’t be trusted with the nuclear codes. Many of the people who worked for Mr. Trump in his first term and, to a lesser extent, those entering his next administration have said something critical about him at some point in time, given his hostile takeover of the Republican Party in 2016. But he has transformed the G.O.P. in his image, and many of those past critics have now become vocal defenders of the Trump worldview. Mr. Trump has told advisers that his biggest regret from his first term was appointing “traitors,” some of whom came to view him as a threat to democracy. He has singled out for especially harsh attacks his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, who has called Mr. Trump a fascist; his defense secretaries, Jim Mattis and Mark T. Esper; and his attorneys general, Jeff Sessions and William P. Barr.

Mr. Barr is a staunch conservative who satisfied Mr. Trump right up until the final weeks of his presidency, when he refused to use the Justice Department to help Mr. Trump overturn the 2020 election.

[...] Mr. Trump had grown convinced that the “deep state” was out to get him during his first impeachment trial, which focused on his effort to pressure President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate the son of his political rival, Joseph R. Biden Jr.

[...] At the time, Mr. Trump brought back into the White House his close aide and “body man,” John McEntee, to serve as his loyalty cop. Mr. McEntee had no experience in government hiring but Mr. Trump appointed him in early 2020 to take over the powerful presidential personnel office — giving him the specific task of finding and firing the “snakes.” Mr. McEntee got to work fast. He and his team incorporated a questionnaire designed to test loyalty in the hiring of government employees. As they were doing that, Mr. Trump’s lawyers were quietly working on a plan, called Schedule F, that would make it much easier to fire career civil servants. Such employees have protections to keep a stable level of expertise from one administration to the next, regardless of whether the presidency switches from one political party to the other. Mr. Trump’s allies have made clear that Schedule F will be brought back in his second term.

Want to get hired on in the 2nd Trump Misadministration? You have to show loyalty to Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election outcome by expressing the false belief that the 2020 election was “stolen” and also believe that the violent Trump-incited January 6th Insurrection was “acceptable.”

[thrashkink-coven]

There’s a lot of gatekeeping and weirdly defined rules in the occult and spiritual spaces. I’m just gonna go ahead and say something that might ruffle some feathers, but hopefully it helps some confused or anxious folks out.

I see a lot of posts online and get a lot of questions about entities. Mainly “is it okay for me to work with this entity?” because of xyz reasons.

Firstly, let’s make something very clear. Cultural appropriation has a very specific definition. Cultural appropriation takes place when members of a majority group adopt cultural elements of a minority group in an exploitative, disrespectful, or stereotypical way.

I say this as a person of color that understands the negative impacts of cultural appropriation and racism. This may not be the popular opinion, but I don’t think that honouring or worshipping a God privately and quietly qualifies as this. There’s a big difference between appropriating a culture and their customs and worshipping a God you feel connected to.

So having said this, if you feel like a God, angel, daemon, or entity is reaching out to you… seriously dude just go with it. We can’t control which things pull us and which entities interact with us. To many of them, we’re all just humans. Our ideas of race and ethnicity are extremely wishy washy, especially on a universal scale. If you feel deeply connected to a deity or concept, let yourself fall into them. Seriously, genuinely. Learn as much about the as you can, do your research, and go with it.

If you’re ever anxious about revealing that entity to others because of fear of judgement or criticism, give them a personal name.

I can’t say this loud enough,

GIVE THEM A PERSONAL NAME!!

Within religion, spirituality, and the occult, we use archetypes all the time. Cultures constantly share archetypes and give them personal names in their languages. The God that you’re thinking about was likely syncretized at one point too.

If you want to work with Aphrodite but don’t feel comfortable calling her Aphrodite, call her something that feels right to you. If you feel extremely connected to Isis but you don’t feel comfortable using an Egyptian name, then give her a personal name! Your connection with that God will be all the more personal.

The Gods like, and sometimes demand worship. Their phonetic names are not the totality of their being. Chances are most of us aren’t even pronouncing them correctly anyways. If you think about Inanna when you say that name, then you’re praying to Inanna. If you want to call her something else, that’s okay.

“What about closed religions?!”

It is nearly impossible to self initiate oneself into a closed religion because their customs are kept niche to their group. Without guidance you wouldn’t know how to do these things properly. If you feel a pull towards an entity from another culture, again, do your damn homework, don’t just rush into it. Be considerate and respectful of their origins. I’m not saying that their cultural origin is unimportant, because it definitely is and your understanding and acknowledgment of that is crucial, but that does not necessarily mean that you have to be Canaanite or Phoenician to worship or work with Astarte. Understand how they were worshipped back then, and how they wish to be honoured now.

Please understand that having a relationship with a God is not the same thing as converting into a religion or appropriating traditional customs. Not all religion is organized. I worship Aphrodite in a very non traditional way according to the Greeks. That’s okay.

And likewise, a lot of deeply closed entities with specific cultural ties simply don’t reach out to people outside of their niche. They have their chosen people and stay within their realm of influence. It’s extremely rare for the Loa to connect with non voodoo practitioners, and Voodoo is a very complex practice that requires specific sacrifices and rituals. It is ill advised to make offerings to vodous without divination and instruction. It’d be very unobtainable for most people. I say this as someone with a practicing Voodoo/Obeah bloodline, even I don’t feel secure enough to delve into that kind of magick by myself.

There’s a lot of high tensions on the internet when it comes to these things. I’ve seen posts (mostly on Reddit) of practitioners heartbroken that they have to break up with Lilith, their angels, their infernals, or some other deity because they got chastised for it online.

I think the immortality of our Gods is beautiful. While many of their original chosen people are long gone, they still live on and find ways to connect with humanity today. That is a very good thing.

So guys, honestly, unless you’re excited to share your path with others and ready to receive criticism, keep your Gods to yourself. Enjoy and worship them on your own, and if you feel compelled to discuss them just give them a personal name. If your God is Hekate and you feel compelled to give her a personal name, just say that your deity is similar to Hekate whenever you discuss them. It’s that easy. There are already a thousand different Hekates that people associate with. There’s no reason why you can’t create one more.

Please enjoy your practice and your faith. Don’t worry so much about everyone else. The Gods know who you are, and they want to connect with you because they really like who you are. That’s a very very good thing.

[girldragongizzard]

Chapter 8: Not mine

After a couple of hours of talking, and mostly listening, to Rhoda and Chapman about dragon habits and needs, I promise to help look for a better place for me to live. Though my hope is that there aren’t any.

Dammit, even after my transformation I’m still fawning.

I think I need to talk to my counselor about having human grade C-PTSD as a dragon. I don’t think she’s qualified to assess that, but she can at least listen. Especially if I get another tablet, which, by the way, Kimberly says she might have for me.

She won’t be able to bring it to me until later tonight, or tomorrow morning, but that’s fine.

It’s her old one, though, and it has a shitty battery, which we’ll need to replace to make it actually useful for me. But Rhoda is the kind of person who knows who to go to for that, apparently.

It seems that Rhoda’s favorite thing to do is networking, and she networks with everyone.

It turns out that Chapman took the day off just to get that color booklet to me as soon as possible, and was able to because work was fortuitously so slow today. Hir boss almost suggested it before sie walked up and asked.

And now that we’ve had our meeting early, sie’s eager to go with Rhoda to the library. Any opportunity to research dragons further clearly excites the shit out of hir.

The two of them make quite the pair. Tall Rhoda with her purples and maroons, with long sleeves and stockings even in the summer heat, and a cane that’s basically too thick dowels nailed together with a miter joint, and short round Chapman’s ingenious mishmash of neon queer greaser roller derby 90’s ska punk perfection, walking side by side down the street. I feel like there’s some kind of power there. And if they were baubles, instead of people, they’d be the perfect start to a good hoard.

Watching them head toward the bus depot, I realize that what I’m about to do is very risky, all for the sake of something I don’t believe in.

I’d better do it right.

It’s about half past noon now, and the traffic has gotten heavier as people are on their lunch breaks. Which means I can’t really use any of the roads as a runway.

I step out from under the awning and look up at my building.

Time to climb it.

Oh, the police are going to love this if they see me doing it.

Whatever.

Using a stroke of my wings for assistance, I leap up to grab the edge of the awning, and then flapping them rapidly I work to pull myself up onto it. And I do much better than Whitman did in a similar situation. They must have been really stunned and scared.

There’s a fire escape around the corner of the building, and I could have just gone to that in the first place, actually. I do that now, to save myself a lot of effort. No need to scale a brick face where there are stairs. And those go up to the top floor!

At the top of those, I do a repeat of my hop and scrabble to get onto the roof.

It’s not the tallest building downtown, but it’s one of the few.

I’m going to head south, so jumping from the roof down over the street I usually use as a runway makes the most sense. But I’ve got something else I have to do first.

Determined to make it known that this place is mine, I pace around the full edge of the building, repeatedly making my signature challenge call.

Let it be known that if you can hear my voice, you are in my air! And you’d better turn away and find somewhere else to be.

After about halfway around the circumference of the building, I start hearing other cries echoing back, each one very different from the others. And I can actually visualize where I think they’re coming from.

I get sort of a map in my head of where some of the other dragons are in the city. I don’t think I could draw it, but I can see the only hole I can fly through without offending anyone. Jesus, we’re densely packed. And it’s not even all fifty that are supposed to be here. Maybe twelve others have answered.

This isn’t going to be good if we can’t make peace with each other somehow.

Even though I know it’s unreasonable, my feeling is that if they all recognize my superiority, we’ll be fine.

With this thought firmly in mind, just for the determination of it, I complete my circuit, and then position myself for take-off.

I’ve gotta give one more revving Harley squawk and air-ratchet chatter before I take off, so I do. And then I fall, spread my wings, and pull up to shoot out down the street just above tree level. Then, flapping laconically and heading for the strongest of the thermals in my path, I rebuild my altitude before heading out over the bay.

And the more distance I put between myself and my lair, the more I feel like I’m personally at risk and in danger. If someone takes my home, they take my hoard, such as it is, and they take my people. And I really can’t have that. I’d have to start all over again, of course. But also, it’d be like if someone kidnapped my parents and burned down their house, but worse.

I tell myself that my declaration has given me at least a couple hours of reprieve from challengers. Everyone has to know I’m in a mood, and maybe word of what I did to Whitman has started to get around. Though, Whitman’s yawp was not among the responses. I wonder where they live, or where they went after our fight.

They had headed south, on foot.

Hmm.

—

The cave I’m looking for is at the northern end of a trail that follows along the ridge of the foothill closest to the bay, south of the city. It’s technically inside city limits, but there’s no real development there. It’s officially a park on the east side of the ridge, with a smattering of housing developments on the west, facing the water and the sunsets. I’ve delivered pizza to a few of those houses before, during the three months I worked for a pizza place.

I didn’t hear any dragons here, which is either amazing or they just didn’t give a shit. Maybe my voice didn’t make it this far.

I go as far south as I dare and look for the parking lot at the trailhead there, and then follow the trail up and along the ridge. It’s not always visible from the air, but I know where it goes. I hiked it with my parents a couple times before my chronic fatigue set in.

The rocky outcrop that’s used as a viewpoint by hikers is easy to see, and I know it’s right near the end of the trail, so I land on that.

I take a moment to stand there and look out over the southern neighborhoods of the city, toward the arboretum where I humiliated Whitman.

I suspect I’m already in another dragon’s territory, so I’m quiet and alert.

I don’t even huff, though I want to.

Then I start following the trail toward the old mine, the one I’ve been thinking about for the past day. As quietly as I can move. Which is really amazingly quiet. I think. I’m not sure my ears work as well as they used to. They’re kind of hidden behind my head armor.

Whitman had parabolic bat-like ears. If this is Whitman’s territory, I’m going to have to assume they know I’m coming.

This is so stupid.

It’s also more of a hike down than I remember. Almost halfway back down the side of the mountain. And it is just tall enough to be registered as a mountain. Though, I think part of the onerous nature of my skulking exploration is that I’m walking on all fours and being as cautious as possible every inch of the way. 

And with each step, I’m afraid I’m going to be ambushed with napalm. Or teeth the size of my own horns and jaws designed to crush small boulders. Well, maybe two watermelons at the same time.

The thing is, though, I do think that this isn’t really Whitman’s kind of terrain. I’m probably more at home here than they are. If I see them coming, I should be able to dodge around trees so much more easily than they can follow.

But that doesn’t assuage my fear at all. Because if I don’t see them coming, I’m probably dead.

But, eventually I see the big mound of dirt jutting out from the side of the mountain that marks the opening of the mine.

I stop and listen. Then I taste the air.

I taste it repeatedly and a lot, moving my head back and forth.

I could actually sort of do this before my transformation. My tongue was always way more sensitive than my nose, and plugging my nose never made it so I couldn’t taste anything. But it’s nicer and more effective to have a longer tongue that’s split and more flexible, with a sort of hole in the center of my lips for it to slip out. And it is way more sensitive than it was before.

I don’t taste anything that I’d identify as another dragon.

And, also, the mouth of that man made cave isn’t any warmer than its surroundings.

I think that means that if there’s a dragon there it’s not Whitman. But I can’t bring myself to be sure that it’s vacant.

Maybe I should make a strategic noise. A call of challenge for this one only. Quiet, but not too quiet.

I’d rather call them out, bristling and ready to fight, than to stick my head into a gout of napalm.

Or maybe I should just leave, because this was a bad idea.

Experimentally, I rumble. And I stand there and rumble for quite a while, and nothing happens.

Realizing that it’s not working, I then make a squawk about the volume I’d use to call to someone across a crowded pub.

It sounds a lot louder than I’m comfortable with.

But there’s no response.

I stay still a while longer, still tasting the air and using my ears. My hearing might not be as good as it was, but I’m not not using it! I’m also keeping an eye out for any movement.

When I’m certain that there’s no dragon here that’s going to make themself known, I approach the cave.

But at the mouth of it, I taste the air again. Or, rather, I don’t stop tasting it the whole way, but I pause there to wave my head back and forth some more.

If anything, the air tastes like forest duff and vaguely of human urine.

Gross.

There is no heat in the cave. Even an endothermic dragon would likely be warmer than their surroundings. I think that once they got as cold as their surroundings, they’d need to warm them up somehow to not go into torpor, with how cool it is in there.

I’m just guessing. But it’s what I’m telling myself to get myself to go deeper in.

I move so slowly, one footstep at a time. Nothing.

Nobody.

As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I can tell clearly that the cave is completely empty. It doesn’t even go that far back. Maybe thirty feet, just as I remember.

I also remember my parents telling me not to go all the way back, because in an abandoned mine that’s maybe a hundred years old, that’s really dangerous. Even though the walls and ceiling are solid rock. And, of course, it’s a square shaft.

Still, now I’m curious if I could even make it a comfortable home. It’s pretty small, with no room for even what I call a hoard. But I could put something in here and if I can turn around alright, maybe it’ll do while I work to assert my dominance over a larger region.

I want to know how it feels, and I just… I just…

It might be nice to sleep in here. Like, right now.

A Tumblr post I reblogged just last week comes to mind, and I’m sufficiently alarmed. No, no, no. I’ve got to get out of here quickly.

I’ll die.

I start backing up, scrunching up as I go, getting my head out of the back of this mine as fast as I can, when I hear, or rather feel, a powerful thump behind me.

In a horrific panic, without even really thinking, I scramble up the wall and across the ceiling like I’m trying to leave the bathroom in my apartment after using the toilet. And, wings held tightly against my ribs, tail scraping along the lower corner of the wall until it whips out behind me, I land facing the entrance without having advanced any further that way.

A quick breath gives me more oxygen than before, which is good.

Because there, right in front of me, are all the teeth of Whitman, coming right at me.

Two steps back, and another quick intake of air, this time not into my lungs, and I just barely avoid having my head snapped off.

We’re nose to nose, and I don’t even know if they can see me around their snout.

Their mouth opens quickly again to make another attack.

And I exhale.

The result is not good for either of us.

There is fire everywhere.

And even though my nictitating membranes have successfully protected my eyes from burning and from being hurt by the glare of heat, and my scaly hide seems to shrug off my own napalm just fine, the fire is eating up the oxygen in the mine extremely fast.

I have to get out as fast as I can. But to do that I have to go through an enormous flaming Whitman.

And they’re thrashing about in terror and pain, slamming their head against the sides, ceiling, and floor of the mine shaft, and I know better than to get any closer to that.

I can’t stop myself from taking another step back, despite that way being certain death. But I also can’t stop myself from making a noise.

At first it’s my ultra bass rumble, low enough that pebbles on the floor of the mine dance. Whitman’s got to feel it.

But they’re too distracted by napalm in their gullet to care.

I can’t even really see what’s going on. My eyes are cloudy with natural protection, and fire and chaotic movement is creating an unintelligibly blur of light and shadow. And I think I’m asphyxiating.

Needing as much oxygen and breath as I can get, I take a big breath of dangerous air, which might be a huge mistake, and start making the most humiliating sound I can think of. Humiliating for Whitman.

I fill the cave with a fire engine’s siren. No honks, no braps, just a constant, long warbling wail. And I start advancing, to make it get louder.

I want those ears to bleed.

Visually, I can’t tell if it’s working. My own snout is probably still aflame. But I do hear thumbs, scrapes, and yawps as Whitman continues to struggle and thrash.

They didn’t come very far into the cave, because I wasn’t all that far in there. They should be running out of walls to hit if they’re backing up. But I keep going, because I have no other choice. And I’ll know if I’ve misjudged when I get hit in the face with a hippo-dragon snout.

I lower my head, present my horns, and brace my neck to make a plunge, and then, convinced I’m committing suicide, I charge.

There’s a thump, a “Grawp”, and a big sliding sound as I move, but I don’t make impact.

Instead I come flying out of the mine through smoke and flames, and scrabble right over Whitman as they’re sliding down the far slope of the mine’s discarded rubble.

And I keep running. I’m not going to face that monster any longer than I have to.

I’m not on my own territory.

At some point I find a good place to take to the air, and I start heading home, out of breath and wobbling in the sky.

I notice when the fire on my snout goes out from the wind and exhaustion of fuel, because I can see again.

And I need to rest somewhere soon, but I’m headed straight for home over the territories of other dragons, and there’s nowhere safe between here and there.

—

The next morning falls with dew upon my head, and grows with a ravenous hunger in my belly. And I can hear seagulls crying out, begging me to eat them.

I’m on the roof of my building, where I collapsed after my flight home. And it seems I’ve slept unchallenged there for fifteen hours or so, if I’m reckoning time right.

Tentatively and gingerly licking my snout with my tongue, I find that I have not been burned by my own flame, but I can taste the traces of chaired fluids on my scales. My nictitating membranes flick into place as I lick my eyes, successfully cleaning them. And then I raise my head and look around.

I didn’t do any damage landing on the roof, so it seems I had a reasonable amount of control even then. Though I don’t fully remember that part.

I remember the flight as being longer than heading out to the cave, and filled with challenges from below. And I remember being quiet, because I needed my breath.

I remember gliding as much as I could to conserve energy and let oxygen build up in my blood.

And I remember deciding, no longer in lucid thought, that my building is my domain and determining to keep it, regardless of what any human says. It’s so fragile, and another dragon could knock it down or set it aflame. But it’s mine, and I’ve just got to do whatever I can to keep it safe.

And now I think about Whitman.

They’re in such a bad spot, with no shelter but a forest that doesn’t suit them, and hardly any people to call their own, unless they do have claim to the west side of the ridge.

I know it’s a bad spot, because they fell back to it after making the effort to drive into the heart of the city and try to take mine.

They must have been watching and tracking me, too. And used their infravision to pick out my apartment. Which speaks to a calculated scheme.

Do I, by chance, have a coveted spot? Or was I just the most vulnerable looking candidate in the downtown area. I am nearly in the center of it, and the nearest other dragons are in other neighborhoods. Which seems unlikely, by population densities. Statistically there should be another dragon or two nearer than that. I think.

Maybe Whitman was another downtown dragon, and that’s why they attacked so viciously and desperately.

I get up and stretch and raise my head to the sky.

After a long and loud challenging cry, I hear reports from my neighbors.

I almost feel reassured by them.

I do it again, and they repeat themselves.

Another.

It feels like they all enjoy this.

I wait.

Someone else calls out, and everyone else replies, including me.

I wonder what the rest of the city is thinking as we do this, joining the birds in the morning song.

And then when we’re done, I start looking out over my domain, looking for likely breakfasts.

I suspect that eating a seagull or two is going to be a confusing experience for me, but it’s going to happen.

[shmowder]

Hi it’s immune reader anon back again! Here to submit my Patho oc i actually have two Patho self inserts but for privacy reasons not submitting either of my self indulgent sillies :D so please accept my offer of the third Patho character I’ve made

The basic stuff is that Her name is Franziska Novikov, her age is a good question as she doesn’t have a birth certificate her parents would only accept a son so they refused to register her at all! Treating her like a shameful secret who needed to prove she deserved to even be alive at all but she’s close in age to Dankovsky possibly a year or two older even. Job/Credentials: she mostly wanders town from town trying to sell snake oil cures so basically she’s an MLM girlie who might also lit your house on fire for fun! If you call her out on being a snake oil salesman

Healer, Bound, or NPC?: I imagine her more so working as a bound but her as a healer would be insane as she straight up has no clue what she’s doing so she just gaslights all the town leaders into thinking shes qualified for this situation. Dankovsky absolutely hates her and at any turn tries to expose her for being a scam artist to everyone unfortunately nobody wants to listen to the capital dandy. she is one but damn let the girlboss scam people bachelor (bachelor stop the girlboss immediately!) Nevermind she’s a healer now…

She only gets involved in the events of the game because she views this as another town to pass through, sell her miracle cure for an over charged price then depart with her riches only to get stuck in a situation where people genuinely believe she is a qualified health professional and now she’s gotta deal with the plague, all the while getting increasingly more and more paranoid which leads to setting fires compulsively in order to ease off the stress… she refuses to believe in any of the more mystic things at play constantly scoffing at the mistresses claims as if she lies for personal gain then everyone else is as well! She projects her own guilt of her lies at everyone else…even when the proof is right in front of her she simply refuses to acknowledge its existence due to her own lies. She doesn’t make any friends for the most part at most she has respectful conversations with Maria and aglaya but they are not friends at all but maybe in another world Franziska would have loved to be friends…but not in this life, she’s actively hostile to everyone else but gives the occasional nice interaction to Clara and yulia on rare occasions. Her interactions with Aglaya and yulia would absolutely have some queer subtext to them as Franziska is a repressed lesbian so deep in the closet she’s found the Bermuda Triangle.

Her ending unsurprisingly doesn’t end with her curing the plague no instead she gets the town wiped off the map completely! Not to mention before this she takes it upon herself to burn both Dankovsky and burakh’s research as she truly believes that if she can’t claim the fame and fortune from creating a cure then nobody should!, her view of life is distorted she only views her existence as one to be proven she has to get fame! Show everyone she deserves to live but in the quest of the broken girls, she dooms the town not out of misplaced good intentions she does it out of selfish desires fueled by an utter obsession to prove herself….she sacrifices all of the damn town leaving only her and the other three healers left…she’s absolutely going to go back to the capital and get executed for her crimes…she’s an absolute awful person but seeing what led to her acting so cruel is tragic I love my evil tragic daughter so much!

That evil tragic lesbian daughter sounds like she'd fit in with our already colourful cast just fine!

A 31 girlboss con-woman who gets people to sign up for her MLM snake oil pyramid scam.

And her having a slight soft spot to Clare is so precious, especially since Clara forces people to tell the truth with her magic sometimes. By all definitions she should be an conman's nightmare yet this fine lady is fistbumping her on the street before giving her a piece of old candy or two.

Any character that adds to the misery and frustration of Dankovsky has a special place in my heart, the Capital dandy being forced to come to terms with how the real world works and that your actual qualifications do not matter as long as you have high enough charisma to convince people snake oil is a viable substitute for antibiotics.

I see Anna Angel falling for her scams on multiple occasions, because Anna already gets scammed like twice ingame canon. Maybe even Peter who just drinks the snake oil? But then you'll have a very vengeful pissed off Andrey on her trail. Oh! Katerina is definitely falling for her scams, much like she fell for the rat prophet ones.

God I love a repressed lesbian who's so deep in the closet she discovered Narnia. Especially her talking with Yulia, Aglaya and Maria. The lesbian icons of the century.

When you mentioned fire and her wiping the town off the map, one idea came to mind. Fire technically eradicates the plague right? She might have set them off to vent stress but indirectly she "cured" these buildings from the plague.

So what if in a last ditch to not be exposed as a fake healer, she pretends that the only way to cure the town is to set it whole ablaze. After burning Daniil and Artemy's research so there is no other alternative.

[babydollmarauders]

For media management how did she become friends with Nico Dawson and Marino as closely as she did. Like what were the moments that solidified those friendships

so, i’ve been open about the fact that Jack was her first friend on the team! back then she was just a little 18 year old intern that was still getting used to everything. but besides Jack, Nico was the first one to show her compassion! her first week there, he took her out to lunch as a “welcome to the team” celebration and y/n is very much a “you showed me love so now you’re stuck with me” kind of person. so she started researching swiss meals and desserts and she would bring them to him as a thank you for always being so kind to her and then Nico was immediately like “yeah this is my best friend and i’m never letting her go”

as for Dawson, that time SHE got to be the one to be welcoming! as soon as he showed up as a rookie, she swooped in so fast! she took him to lunch like Nico did for her, and at first he was sorta stand-offish, mostly because he knew she and Jack were dating and he didn’t want Jack to think he was trying to steal his girlfriend or something. but then when he scored his first nhl goal, she was waiting outside the locker room after the game and ambushed him with a big hug and was basically bouncing on her feet and talking a mile a minute about how proud she was of him and how amazing it was! she then, in true y/n fashion, baked him cookies and brought them to practice the next day! that was the moment that he really warmed up to her and ever since then he kinda just realized that she was there for him and really cared about him and that she had worked her way into his heart!

lastly, John! y/n was super nice to John, but she didn’t try and take him under her wing as much as she did with Dawson. for the most part, they were just coworkers… up until during an intermission at a game in november. they were on a roadie and he overheard some security at the arena telling her she couldn’t go in the locker room, even though she had a clearance pass. they accused her of making a fake pass and called her a puck bunny, when she said she worked for the team and her boyfriend was on the team, one of the security guards made a joke about how it “must be nice for your rich little boyfriend to pull strings and get you a job you’re not qualified for”. y/n was used to these type of comments for the most part, but she was having a hard day and was really emotional, so she started crying, and John did not like that. so he went out there and gave the security guards a piece of his mind. he went off saying that y/n is if anything over qualified for her job and how she got the job before she started dating jack and was just defending her. he did not let up. and at the end, he pulled her in the locker room with him and apologized that she had to go through that, which just made y/n even more emotional and she hugged him, despite his sweatiness from the game, and was crying on his shoulder and profusely thanking him for sticking up for her because people rarely did that. and that’s when John decided he wanted to do everything he could to make sure she always had him as a shoulder to cry on.

[rainyfestivalsweets]

2/4/24

The MLM hack list

Alright. So there are a bunch of MLM diet companies that make a shitload of money of of us and yet our obesity rates in developed countries are thru the freaking roof.

How many times have you gotten the messages on Facebook, Instagram or whatever and it's like: Hey girl, haven't seen you since high school, let's get coffee... OR... they just post the precopied message & ask about your goals, & proceed to add a flurry of hyperpositive social media messages, like my friend recently did to me.

Did anyone in high school like you? Not me! Do that screams danger from the start. I was horrendously bullied in elementary school. I was gone to a parochial school for a couple years so the only reason that I avoided constant bullying in high school was because... they forgot who I was.

Here are some ideas I stole from various companies, cheaper:

Herbalife: this company's stuff works, for 2 reasons- you replace 2 out of 3 meals with shakes. However, alot of people are not successful if they make their shakes at home and if they add in all the snack bars. People do, however, lose weight if they get their shakes from a "nutrition" shop. Why? Because they blend those shakes super thick with a metric shitton of ice & I think alot of them add sf pudding, which enhances the thickness. Also, you get an iced tea, normally with added fiber. So the answer is- you have 2 drinks that take a long time to finish AND give you added caffeine & fiber. So? Just do it at home: keep your shake calories low, make it extra large & thicker than a snicker, & follow with a caffeinated tea & add fiber to it. I like the herbalife brand but I order it off Amazon so I don't have to get the whole shpeel. Now brand has "prebiotic fiber" that is cheaper. There is also benefiber from Walmart. It is cheap, so why not?

Beachbody: you don't need to spend a billion dollars on protein shakes or meal replacement shakes. I do, however, love some of their workout systems.

Tai Slim: this company's great idea was the chocolate gluccomannon chews, I just didn't know ot at the time. I have tried to order it but have been unable to so maybe they don't make it any more. So my hack would be- the chocolate calcium chews, some gluccomannon tablets, & a large glass of water.

Modere: this company was all over tik tok & reels for awhile, while the reps were trying to schlep people into this scheme. The Golden Child was the liquid CLA chocolate, probably because it tastes like a chocolatey treat while it is actually a CLA supplement. CLA can be purchased at almost any health food store, way cheaper.

Plexus: the pink drink. More research needed on this, but I think it is just a fiber drink. Hack: gluccomannon powder & a Starburst all pink flavor packet.

Most of these companies often sell an associated "fat burner:" often something with caffeine, ecgc from green tea, etc. You can get something similar at a health food store for a fraction of the price. If you want something fancy, there is Ember from the Ambrosia Collective. Use the Google. MFINGCOO is a discount code that I think still works, but it isn't mine.

Buy In for then"tribe:" Weight watchers (not an MLM, just a diet culture sales supergiant but they still somehow acquire affiliates, idk if that qualifies as a True MLM), beachbody, herbalife are pretty cultish in nature-- they rope you into a bunch of meetings, calls, and online groups. If someone calls you to ask why you weren'tat Power Hour, you may have bought into a cult! It works by reprogramming certain thought & behavior patterns..... Basically a bunch of people are sharing ideas regularly and getting involved in their cultish antics.& promoting it on social media. (Example: OMG have you tried the new WW/herbalife/beachbody PROTEIN BAR?? Only $15 for 4!! What a deal! LINK IN MY BIO) You can do this on your own by finding your own people. You can get your own seminars by watching a lot of youtube. Anything that focuses on reprogramming you to cook at home and eat primarily whole foods will probably work. Join free groups. Disregard anything outside of what works for you ( I have to ignore a lot of dessert recipes because they cause bingeing for me).

Lipozene: pretty sure this is just gluccomannon. You can find gluccomannon tablets way cheaper at a health food store. Walmart also was carrying a generic version.

Hydroxycut: pretty sure the active ingredient here is HCA? I don't have a bottle currently to look. But isn't HCA just garcinia? So much cheaper at a health food store. I personally cannot take hydroxycut, it makes me RAGE. I like, get upset and freak out at work, so I don't even think I am willing to try it again.

It works: I think the skinny coffee would be comparable to the "slim coffee," which was cheaper but seemed to be chromium. You can just pick up a chromium supplement... & seriously, you can just drink coffee. Don't add calories to it.

Apple cider vinegar gummies: Just take shots of apple cider vinegar. You can buy a gallon at walmart, it will last a long time. Play with shot recipes, you can do good girl moonshine (ala Trim Healthy Mamma), & use it liberally for dressing recipes.

L-Glutamine: don't remember the company, but this is available at more health food stores, not for $100 a container.

Maybe I have bought so much shit so you don't have it. Is there an MLM company I missed? 🤔 let me know and I will check it out for future posts.

Remember- whatever you do, stay safe. Research your shit. Focus on your daily habits and remember that what you are eating outweighs almost any supplement you could buy. Eat whole food, walk, have an exercise routine & stop expecting a 30 day result for a body that took you 40 years (or whatever) to create.

I definitely don't think the ozempic trend is worth the cost, but if there is no other way for you & you have the money, it is worth a shot. Just don't expect your insurance to pay for it. Many insurance companies are currently not covering it, and I don't really know if they should consider it.

Surgery? If there is no other way and you want to, go for it.

The way that these things work though, is by changing what you are eating. Period. These are all systems to change what you ingest and you can change what you eat for free.

I am still on Nomorbidity & Alkemi from the Ambrosia Collective. I have not found suitable replacements for them but I am also not looking hard, they have a reasonable price point to me.

Edited: To reword, as WW is a diet culture vulture, not quite an MLM. Just a big money making company.