#How does ERP work?

[mudassir-iqbal]

What is ERP? Overview, Key Functions & Business Benefits

In today’s fast-paced business landscape, organizations need robust tools to manage their resources efficiently and drive growth. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have emerged as a transformative solution that streamlines processes, enhances collaboration, and provides actionable insights. In this article, we will delve into the world of Enterprise Resource Planning, exploring its key…

[softerseasons]

Juno, out of curiosity, what does an accountant DO? What does it mean to be one? Because I know there's math involved. I've heard it's very boring. But I don't know anything else and I'm curious because you're very good at putting things to words.

Okay first of all, I cannot express just how excited I got when I first saw this message. There is nothing I love more than talking about things I know about, and usually when my career is mentioned I don't get questions so much as immediate "Oh, bless you" and "I could never"s. Which- totally fair! For some people, accounting would be boring as all hell! But for a multitude of reasons, I adore it.

There are multiple types of accounting. The type most people tend to be more familiar with is that done by CPAs- CPAs, or Certified Public Accountants, are those that have done the lengthy and expensive process to be certified to handle other peoples' tax documents and submit taxes in their name, amongst other things. Yawn, taxes, right? Well, the thing with that is that there's a lot of little loopholes that tax accountants have to remain familiar with, because saving their clients a little more here or getting a little more back there can really add up, and can do a lot for people who, say, have enough money to afford to hire someone to do their taxes but not necessarily enough to be going hog wild with. Public accountants can work for large firms or by themselves, and also do things like preparing financial statements for businesses, auditing businesses to ensure all of their financial transactions are true and accurately reported to shareholders and clients, and consulting on how finances can be managed to maximize profit (money in - money out = profit, in very simple terms).

The type of accounting I do is private accounting! That basically just means that I work for a company in their in-house accounting/finance department. Private accounting tends to get split up into several different areas. My company has Payroll, Accounts Receivable, and Accounts Payable.

Payroll handles everyone's paychecks, PTO, ensuring the correct amount of taxes are withheld from individuals per their desires, and so on. Accounts Receivable handles money flow into the company- so when our company sells the product/service, our Accounts Receivable people are the ones who review the work, create the invoices, send the invoices to the clients, remind clients about overdue invoices, receive incoming payments via ACH (Automatic Clearing House- direct bank-to-bank deposits), Wire (Usually used for international transactions), or Check, and prepare statements that show how much revenue we are expected to gain in a period of time, or have gained in a period of time. This requires a lot of interfacing with clients and project managers.

My department is Accounts Payable. Accounts Payable does basically the other side of the coin from what Accounts Receivable does. We work mostly with vendors and our purchasing/receiving departments. We receive invoices from people and companies that have sold us products/services we need in order to make our own products/perform our services, enter them into our ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning, a system that integrates the departments in a company together- there are many different ERPs, and most people simply refer to their ERP as "the system" when talking internally to other employees of the same company that they work at, because saying the name of the system is redundant) using a set of codes that automatically places the costs into appropriate groups to be referenced for later financial reports, and run the payment processing to ensure that the vendors are being paid.

To break that down because I know that was a lot of words, here's some things I do in my day-to-day at work:

- Reconciliations, making sure two different statements match up: the most common one is Credit Card reconciliations, ensuring that there are appropriately coded entries in the system that match the payments made on our credit line in our bank.

- Invoice entry: this is basic data entry, for the most part. This can have two different forms, though

- Purchase Order Invoice entry: Invoices that are matched both to the service/product provided from the vendor and the purchase order created by our Purchasing/Receiving department. We ensure that the item, the quantity, and the price all match between our records, the purchase order, and the invoice, before we enter this.

- Hard Coded Invoice entry: Invoices that we enter manually due to there being no Purchase Order for them. This is often recurring services, like cleaning or repairs, that may happen too often or have prices vary too much for Purchase Orders to be practical.

- Cleaning up old purchase orders: sometimes Purchase Orders are put in the system and then never fulfilled. Because this shows on financial statements as being a long-standing open commitment, it looks bad, so we have to periodically research these and find out if the vendor simply didn't send us the invoice, if the order was cancelled, or if something else is going on.

- Forensics! This is my personal favorite part of the job, where someone has massively borked something that is affecting my work, and so I go dig into it, sometimes going back as four or five years in records to find the origin point of the first mistake, and untangling the threads of what happened following that mistake to get us to where we are today. There's an entire field called Forensic Accounting that is basically just doing This but for other companies (it's a subset of auditing, and often is done via the IRS) and that's my dream position to be totally honest. I loooove the dopamine hit i get with solving the mystery and getting praised for doing so faster than anyone else has even begun to realize the problem to start with.

- Balancing Credits/Debits: This is more of a Main Accountant role thing, but the long and short of it is that every business has Assets, Liabilities, and Equity. Liabilities and Equity are what we put into the company/what we owe, and assets are what we have received/what we are owed. Anything that increases Assets or lowers Liabilities or Equity is a Debit. Anything that decreases Assets or raises Liabilities or Equity is a Credit. Every monetary change we process has to include an equal Debit and Credit. This is its own whole lecture, so if you wanna know more about double-entry accounting, let me know, but it's yawnsville for most people.

- Actually cutting checks or initiating bank payments to vendors for amounts we owe them.

- Vendor communication: I'm on the phones and email a lot with vendors who are wondering where their payment is, or why something was short-paid, or if I can change some of their info in our system, and so on and so on. Every job is customer service, unfortunately. I don't love it, but I do a lot less of it in private accounting than I would have to do in public accounting.

- Spreadsheets: I make so many spreadsheets I am a goddamn Excel wizard. I love spreadsheets. This isn't necessarily accounting-specific though, most people in Finance jobs love spreadsheets, or at least use them to make their lives easier. I make them just for fun, because I'm a giant fucking nerd who finds that kind of thing enjoyable lol. So if you ever need a spreadsheet made for anything, hit me up.

As for math, that's a pretty common misconception. While there is math, it is very rarely more complicated than "I paid $3 of the $8 I owe, now I owe $5" for me. There are some formulas you learn in school (Business Administration with a focus in Accounting is what I studied), but they're also pretty standard and rarely include more than like... basic algebra. Which. Thanks @ god because I flunked so hard out of pre-calc in college. I could not have done accounting if it really were all that math heavy.

Aaaand yeah! That's all I've got off the top of my head- if you have any more questions about it, do let me know, I'm happy to ramble on for hours, but I'm cutting it here so I don't start meandering on without direction lol.

[batsu4eva]

Long rant ab the fuckass server I'm leaving AKA Why You Never Join RP Servers From Disboard

Okay so I won't name any names for two reasons: One because I'm not an ass and TWO bc I'm afraid one of the server owners will find this post n yell at me even though I don't even know if they have a Tumblr <333 anyways this is gonna be mostly bullet points where I put as much bad shit as I remember from this server I joined while it's still fresh in my mind. And ofc I wanna use my character Carrie again so if you have anywhere BETTER I could rp let me know <333 anyways now onto the hater shit

So first of all, important thing about my character is she has a mortal partner and I mentioned that, and obviously knowing how the lore is I was like "She's going to keep her girlfriend a secret though because she does realize how that would go down if anyone knew" and they straight up said no???? And me, being socially awkward, immediately left in response bc I didn't have anyone else in mind to use as a character LMFAO- and it was only then that they asked me to rejoin and they changed their tune and said it was okay?? I did have my character ghoul her gf later so it was fine but that was... weird. But ok

Another thing about my character is: She does urban exploration in deserted buildings for aesthetic pics! Very risky obviously but one of the main points I was making about my character is that she's a very reckless fledgling girl. So she makes stupid decisions sometimes. Her sire is dead y'all she's gonna be a little dumb. But anyways I tagged an ST for these types of scenes exactly TWICE and then never again because every time he kinda just sent random bullshit at me to basically chase me out of the area and whatever I was rping??? It honestly irritated me because even if they DID feel the idea was dumb I wish they would've just told me instead of this??? Idk if they were trying to prove a point here or what

I'm not irritated that my character couldn't just do what she wanted to be clear- I'm just irritated that most of the rp was straight up "no" instead of giving me anything to work with. Like if they didn't like the idea I wish they'd just have told me!!! I feel like they just didn't like me for whatever reason. Anyways

I am going to leave a screenshot here relating to our nsfw server and let that speak for itself for this next point.

Anyways… 💅💅💅

Me and other people would start rps just to be told last second "actually you can't do it in this channel because of x reason" which was irritating bc then I'd have to plan around it last second and like. Everyone in this server is an adult with a job so we don't have all the time in the world to plan around this...

People would take LITERALLY FUCKING FOREVER to respond to rps I am so serious. I once saw an rp be NINE DAYS LONG and they were hardly doing anything except HAVING TEA TIME IM BEING DEADASS RIGHT NOW THAT WAS LITERALLY IT

I don't blame the entire server on this but have a horror story within the horror story. So there was this one player who immediately wanted to ERP with me and to their credit they did ask first. So we did it because my weakness is that I'm a slut in theory <3 (it was... not good. I don't think that person had ever had sex with a woman before and the way they typed responses was SO BAD) and they kept like horny messaging me in like ALL THEIR MESSAGES and like as hyper sexual and very 18+ as this blog is I don't like talking about sex ALL THE TIME. This motherfucker somehow made SEX unsexy it was pissing me off. So they disappeared for a while and I forgot about them and then they came back and they dmed me right? And they were like "What have you been up to" and I was just like "Oh I'm actually working on a lot of stuff! :)" (bc I was) and they were like "haha me too" and sent a gif of a porn actor beating off and ngl. That shit pissed me off so bad I just had my bf take my phone and respond "He's busy rn lil bro ;)" before blocking LMAO. Sorry, I was NOT the bigger person in that situation. Anyways end of my mini horror story haha

People were using ai as their literal character profiles. Not joking. They used ai for a LOT of stuff and I was dying inside as I kept seeing it happening.

THEY OPENED A FUCKING BATTLE ARENA SECTION??????

Like there were several rp channels in the server that suddenly opened up while I was there where characters would randomly teleport there and fight to the death before being revived back in... well, Seattle because that's where this server was set. I guess that's a fun concept for a different ttrpg but this is VTM???? The whole point is that the setting is realistic and gritty and. This felt so anime MMO THAT should've been the final straw for me and it just. Wasn't.

Should also mention that in response to experiencing this for the first time one of the characters said VERBATIM "Is this... how do they say, an isekai?" That shit pissed me off SO BAD I wanted to throw my phone away lmfaoooo

Oh also for some of the characters who were mid rp when they left just. Had their characters killed off after they left. No joke AT ALLLLL

The server owners and staff had like 3895783475029380328 characters in the server and mostly interacted with each other :/

And last but not least this fuckass ruling that doesn't even make sense????

Like that literally doesn't even make sense in either V20 OR V5 or any of the versions actually but okay we are just in a made up world now I guess. GOD I FEEL INSANE

That's it though hope u enjoyed my rant!!! I certainly learned a lot from this experience haha. It felt good to get this all out and if u all have better servers I'd be glad to join bc I wanna give Carrie something better than this bc she's my fav girl <333 that it now end of post yayyyyyyy!

[hismercytomyjustice]

Some Tips for Dealing with OCD

Been going through a bit of a rough patch lately and was revisiting my notes from the International OCD Foundation's annual OCD Conference earlier this year. Wanted to share in case these tips might help other folks too.

Apologies for the chunky list!

Use self-care to stack the deck in your favor à la Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Focus on the basics first (sleep, diet, water, etc).

Build a strong foundation so you can build on it without it falling over.

Focus on how you can handle the things that are 100% in your control to increase your resilience.

Set the bar low with goals. It’s only up from there and you have to start somewhere.

Don’t worry about whether or not something is your OCD. You’re not in the business of figuring that out. OCD rule of thumb, if there’s urgency attached to figuring it out, it’s probably your OCD.

It doesn’t matter what the content of your OCD thought is about, the response is the same. The same principles apply.

You’re building your muscles, maintain aspects of ERP and CBT so those muscles don’t atrophy. This helps prevent you from ending up in a more vulnerable/susceptible place to OCD.

Be aware of when your OCD is “getting loud.”

Know what you’re going to do if a lapse or relapse happens.

Medication is 20-30%, skills and tools are the rest.

You’re always learning what does and doesn’t work. Even if exposures don’t go the way you hope, it’s okay. It’s data. Gather experiences and data so you can learn from them. Your experiences expand you and help you grow and expand your resilience. You’re always learning what does and doesn’t work.

Think of “failure” as “failed experiments” for which you’re collecting data and can learn from.

Develop strong emotional regulation to keep yourself stable.

Keep an eye on where your life gives you opportunities for exposure and take advantage of those gimmes.

Micro avoidances add up, so work hard to handle even little ones. Recognize when you’re triggered by something and choose to do it anyway. Sometimes it’s OCD and sometimes it isn’t.

Even if what you fear happens, it doesn’t mean your OCD was correct. Your OCD is never correct.

Self-compassion is hard work. It’s not about being positive about everything but rather about being real/more realistic.

Reframe perfectionism as “I’m committing to x” and it doesn’t matter if it’s perfect or the best or whatever, just focus on that. For example, "I’m committing to exercising for 5 minutes,” and not thinking about if it’s perfect or not.

Remember when you’re having a tough time, think “I’m working on it.”

Think “yeah, and” rather than “yeah, but” because “yeah, but” often comes up when we’re negating positive things we did.

Even if you’re not certain something will give you a positive outcome, still do it. Even if it doesn’t do what you hoped, you still fought back. Give yourself the opportunity to see the outcome and with that comes flexibility. This can be as simple as making yourself a piece of toast.

Line out three small goals you want to complete each day. It can help to make the goals at night for the next day so you don’t have to deal with motivation in the morning. Use an index card on your bedside table. If the goals feel too big or intense, make them smaller or break them down further. This is behavioral activation.

[olderthannetfic]

I tried marijuana and (hear me out) it gave me some interesting insight into how purity culture minds might work.

While I was high, the boundary between thought and act/speech felt very flimsy. I was fully aware of what I was thinking without acting on, but thoughts actually felt emotionally identical to speech or actions.

I played a video game and when I thought nice things about other players it felt exactly identically the same as putting those thoughts into a public text chat. Ditto negative or uncharitable thoughts. I noticed that another player's character was very attractive and it felt exactly and precisely the same as hitting on him. Thinking that his character was cute felt skeevy and wrong, because it would have been inappropriate to send a perfect stranger a horny DM in a context where it wasn't reasonable to expect that he was looking for ERP.

Similarily, I got a little annoyed with another player's habit of running ahead of the group, and that felt exactly the same as if I'd called him rude names in public. And I appreciated yet another player's friendly chat, and that felt exactly the same as if I'd told her so, even though during all of this I said absolutely nothing in chat and no one noticed me at all (unless they noticed that I was playing poorly beause duh, I was high).

So if antis have that lack of distinction between thought and deed as their baseline, then that explains (but does not excuse) why they're so keen on thought police nonsense. It doesn't excuse it because if you aren't zonked out of your gourd, you can intellectually understand that thoughts aren't deeds even if they feel that way in the moment.

--

[wyrmguardsecrets]

Saw some woman compare actual sex work to goldshire dancing and erp and I just about lost it. I get it may be somehow, somewhat related to cam girl work or onlyfans work. Maybe. In a slim way. But to compare it to prostitution is absolute lunatic behavior.

Don’t you dare call typing /dance and writing on your keyboard to non physical people sex work.

It’s more than insulting to the women who either willingly or unwillingly have been sex workers.

And it’s more than insulting to the women who have been killed trying to make ends meet.

Not paying your sub isn’t going to starve you or your children and leave you without power and water.

You can’t be shot dead in a hotel room and become an unidentified Jane or John Doe typing /dance or erp posts.

You can’t have your actual photographs or videos posted on the internet or sent to your family to shame you.

You can’t have those same photos and videos sent to your employer to make you lose your primary income simply because the aggressor “felt like it.”

You won’t be cast out from your family and treated like trash by society for typing /dance.

You can’t be given a life altering infection that leaves you wondering about your health for the rest of your life and your future partner’s lives.

You can’t end up with a child you can’t care for or don’t know who the father is.

You can’t know the fear of being in a room with a person whose intentions may be murderous.

And don’t get me started on the unwilling women and men who have been forced to do sex work.

When you meet those criteria, then you can talk about how goldshire dancing is sex work.

If you think goldshire dancing and erp is sex work, you’re beyond delusional.

As a former, and unwilling, sex worker.

.

[graysongraysoff]

as we inch ever closer to pride i am once again thinking about how the great tumblr ace discourse of 2015-2016 has inhibited my exploration of my own sexuality and continues to do so to this day despite my own best efforts and my work with my therapist, who literally specializes in queer sexuality.

like, this isn't to say that i haven't made any progress. on the contrary, my therapist praised me yesterday for being so much more open to exploration and learning things about myself than i was at this time last year; for putting myself out there on hinge as a way of figuring out what i'm looking for in a potential partner; for taking a more analytical look at crushes i've had in the past and crushes i have at present (aforementioned youtuber, for example), as well as crushes i don't have despite my best efforts, to see what they can tell me about what i find attractive and what i should seek out; for reading books she's recommended me on sexuality (i've been listening to the audiobook for mating in captivity by esther perel recently bc the hold i placed on it came through on libby a couple weeks ago lol) and thoughtfully sorting through them for things i find helpful or that i think apply to me. like, progress is being made.

but still, for every step forward i take in this area i feel this apprehension when it comes to discussing it with literally anyone other than my therapist (unless, of course, it's in a long-ass post like this filled with backstory and qualification), because i can't escape the worry in the back of my mind of "not being ace enough." try as i might i still can't shake the fear that if i admit to even my closest friends that i am open to the prospect of having a sexual partner, that there are things i find sexy even if most explicit content squicks me out, that i can in fact (gasp) be turned on - if i admit to any of these things i become one of those people who is actually just straight but identifies as ace because they want so badly to fall under the queer umbrella, because they want so badly to claim oppression and struggle that does not, in fact, belong to them. even though i know in my brain that sexuality is fluid and that it can and does change over time, when i so much as consider the possibility that maybe i am straight or bi now (i don't think i actually am, but sometimes when i'm in these spirals i consider it) - that maybe over the last ten years or so the asexuality of my twenties has morphed into this sort of tentative straightness or bi-ness for my thirties, i worry that people will think i have been lying, to them and to myself, up until now. i worry that my friends will be annoyed or frustrated with me when i bitch about people not tagging nsfw content or fandom twitter being "just straight-up pornography all the time" in public posts and then send them a dm about a piece of fanart that i find titillating or write something a little spicy or participate in a bit of erp.

i am so, so afraid of being seen as a hypocrite, and i don't know how to quell that fear.

i'm thinking about all of this now because i was listening to mating in captivity on my commute to work this morning and it was talking about how difficult it is to talk about sex and sexuality after being raised in a society where you're supposed to keep that part of yourself rigidly private, because of course that's true for everyone who was raised to think of sex as dirty and private and shameful, but sometimes it feels doubly true for me, someone who has cultivated an image of herself as a bit of a prudey asexual. i block nsfw tags, i mute nsfw discord channels, the vast majority of nsfw fanart and fanfic makes me extremely uncomfortable so i try not to engage with it and i do what i can to limit my exposure to it. i often feel alienated in online fandom spaces where it often feels like everything is about shipping and horny-posting all the goddamn time. and with all of that in mind i feel like whenever i do have a less-than-"wholesome" reaction to something, my friends, who know me as a prudey ace, are rolling their eyes at me behind my back. and i can't help but think that i might not struggle so hard with these feelings if not for the "fake ace" discourse that happened right as i was becoming comfortable with identifying as ace myself.

i don't have a nice conclusion to wrap this all up in, lol. i guess it's just frustrating that, even as i explore and learn more about myself and my sexuality, i find it so hard to even casually bring up with even my closest friends because this perceived stigma of "fake asexuality" still clings to me so tightly. it's frustrating that i still have such a hard time feeling "proud" of being ace because part of me is still so convinced i'm a fake.

[icbtforocd]

Why We Need to Spread Awareness About ICBT for OCD 🌍✨

The world needs to hear about ICBT (Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) because far too many people battling OCD don’t know there’s another way—a way that doesn’t demand constant confrontation with their fears or endless reassurance.

1. ICBT Respects Your Mind

ICBT doesn’t ask you to fight your thoughts or force yourself to face your worst fears head-on. Instead, it focuses on understanding why those thoughts seem believable in the first place. It’s about shifting the perspective from "Prove your fear wrong" to "Why does this fear even matter?"

Sharing this approach could open doors for those who feel stuck in traditional methods, like ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention), which might not work for everyone.

2. It Shifts the Narrative Around OCD

The stigma surrounding OCD is still huge. Too many people think it’s about being neat or liking things “just so.” By sharing ICBT, we can start conversations that show OCD for what it really is—a disorder rooted in doubt and faulty reasoning patterns, not personality quirks.

The more we talk about approaches like ICBT, the closer we get to breaking down these harmful misconceptions.

3. Empowering the Unheard

So many people with OCD feel unheard and misunderstood, especially if traditional therapies haven’t worked for them. ICBT gives them an alternative—a framework that helps them question the root of their distress without constantly engaging in their compulsions. Awareness means empowerment.

4. It’s a Gentle Yet Powerful Option

For some, the intensity of exposure therapy can feel overwhelming. ICBT offers a different path, one that’s less about confrontation and more about curiosity. It allows people to untangle their fears with compassion and logic.

If more therapists knew about this method, imagine the lives that could change.

5. Spreading Awareness Saves Time and Pain

Think about how many people spend years trapped in the OCD cycle, never knowing there’s a treatment like ICBT that could help them break free. By spreading the word, you could shorten someone’s journey toward healing.

What Can You Do?

Talk About It: Share posts, articles, or books about ICBT with friends, family, or on social media.

Advocate for Mental Health Options: Encourage therapists and organizations to include ICBT in their training and services.

Break the Stigma: Speak openly about OCD and its impact to help others understand the importance of tailored treatments like ICBT. _________ The ICBT Workbook for Overcoming All OCD Types !

[consequencesofargentdawn]

@The ERP mentioning text below; I agree to 50%.

There is only a very small percentage that write their erp well. As with any other form of art, not many can achieve greatness in it. It's just writing smut in the end, with someone else doing half the work.

I can agree that people who do erp are much more immersed into their characters and see it fully through. Even if the goal is focused on erp, atleast there is a staying of in character and (possibly) developing a long term romance through it.

Depending on the race, what your character portrays and your own writing skill, you will be sought after too. By those you know and strangers alike.

Unfortunately this can lead to certain stigmas and approaches you would best avoid. Female dwarves, draenei and night elves are 24/7 targets for futas. Or people assume your character is a futa and/or lesbian. While vulpera and worgen are oftenly put away with the stigma of their character being gay. On Epsilon this extends to (RIP Horde side on AD, yes it's dead let's not kid ourselves) trolls. Where almost every female is a lesbian and every male is gay.

It's a completely different perspective on the hobby. Somewhat like a world on it's own. Erp does not equal quality writing. Even worse, finding quality erp with emotes written that hold any worth are very rare. It's quite similar to combat emoting. Some people do combat rp to "win". Translated to erp that means they only want their own preferences fulfilled. What it comes down to is they do not write in a cooperative manner with your character (or react to the other persons emotes) and instead roleplay at you. Not with you.

An even worse case is if someone takes the erp as a note that your character and theirs are together now or have feelings. Double worse if the other person gets jealous OOC. Which opens a whole new can of worms.

All in all? It has the exact same issues than 'regular' roleplay. Mainly that to find quality writing is difficult and crazy people will act crazy no matter what. I understand why so many people want to avoid erp entirely. Nobody can deny however that it's a very big part of Argent Dawn. Even if it isn't in public. Those that seem the most unlikely to erp are usually the ones that write quite well. I don't know how aware you are of the on goings but the erp scene on Argent Dawn is huge. Sure the PCU was/is against it and some players are too. I see and know many more that actively do erp and are fully ok with it than those who aren't.

The community of Epsilon seems to have the same opinion where I call utter bull. Man, Epsilon has a phase in Feralas that is 100% about erp and it's also the most active phase on the entire server. Even despite needing an invite and being private. The entire starting area of Epsilon is Goldshire. You can whisper almost any person there and they will be down (of varying degrees) to erp.

Keeping that in private though is the key. Nobody wants to read your kinks or fetishes in public. Especially not the roleplay in itself. The PCU liked to say "most people are against erp" where I also call utter bull. Most people are fine with it to downright seeking it out actively if the situation of their character calls for it.

A very well thought out and detailed post, many points of which we agree on. Any attempt to 'stop' ERP is doomed to fail and ultimately attempts to stop it can border on abuse and harassment. We have always been of the opinion that private interactions are no one's business but those involved in them.

[newinsightsbehavioralhealth]

What We Don’t Know About OCD: Exploring the Complexities Behind the Disorder

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is often misunderstood, both in terms of its symptoms and its underlying causes. Many people associate OCD with cleanliness or being overly organized, but the reality is much more complex. This disorder goes far beyond common stereotypes and continues to perplex both researchers and healthcare providers. Despite growing awareness, there’s still so much we don’t fully understand about OCD, from its origins to the wide variety of ways it can manifest.

At New Insights Behavioral Health, we work with individuals to manage symptoms of OCD through personalized medication management plans. In this blog, we’ll explore what we still don’t know about OCD and why understanding these gaps is essential for better treatment.

1. The Origins of OCD: Unanswered Questions

One of the biggest unknowns about OCD is its exact cause. While research has identified certain factors—such as genetics, brain structure, and environmental influences—that may play a role, there’s no single explanation for why someone develops OCD. Some studies suggest that abnormalities in the brain’s communication system, particularly in areas that control decision-making and behavior, could contribute to the disorder. Yet, the precise mechanisms remain unclear.

2. OCD Beyond Cleanliness: The Spectrum of Symptoms

Another aspect that remains widely misunderstood is the spectrum of symptoms associated with OCD. It’s commonly depicted as an obsession with cleanliness or order, but OCD can manifest in many different ways. For example, individuals may have intrusive thoughts that are violent or disturbing, or they may feel compelled to perform rituals that have nothing to do with cleanliness. These obsessions and compulsions are often distressing and can interfere with daily life.

What we don’t fully understand is why OCD presents differently in various individuals. Why does one person develop contamination fears while another struggles with fear of harm or religious obsessions? This variability makes diagnosis and treatment a more nuanced process than most people realize.

3. How OCD and Anxiety Interact

OCD is often grouped under anxiety disorders, but the relationship between OCD and anxiety is still not fully understood. While anxiety often accompanies OCD, it’s not always clear whether OCD is driven by anxiety or if it’s its own distinct condition. Researchers are exploring how obsessive thoughts create compulsive behaviors, which can, in turn, fuel anxiety—but this cycle isn’t always easy to break or understand.

4. The Role of Trauma in OCD Development

Another mystery about OCD is the potential link between trauma and the development of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Some research suggests that individuals who have experienced trauma, especially in childhood, may be more likely to develop OCD. However, the evidence isn’t definitive, and the exact relationship between trauma and OCD symptoms remains unclear. More research is needed to understand how past experiences influence the onset and course of the disorder.

5. Treatment Gaps: Medication and Therapy

While cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), specifically Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), is considered the gold standard for treating OCD, medication can also play a crucial role in managing symptoms. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are often prescribed, but even with these treatments, many people don’t achieve full relief from their symptoms.

One of the things we still don’t know is why certain individuals respond well to medication, while others don’t. There’s also much to learn about alternative treatments, such as deep brain stimulation, and their long-term effects. At New Insights Behavioral Health, we work closely with patients to create tailored medication management plans, adjusting as needed to provide the best possible outcomes.

6. The Future of OCD Research

As science continues to evolve, so does our understanding of OCD. Researchers are investigating everything from genetic factors to advanced brain imaging techniques in hopes of uncovering new insights into the disorder. While there are still many unknowns, these efforts are critical in paving the way for more effective treatments and better outcomes for those living with OCD.

Final Thoughts

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a complex, multifaceted condition that is often oversimplified in mainstream conversations. What we don’t know about OCD is just as important as what we do, as it highlights the need for continued research and a deeper understanding of the disorder. At New Insights Behavioral Health, we are committed to staying at the forefront of OCD treatment, providing compassionate, evidence-based care that helps our patients manage their symptoms and improve their quality of life.

If you or a loved one is struggling with OCD, our experienced team of APRNs is here to help. Contact us today and fill out a new patient form to learn more about how we can support you on your journey toward better mental health.

[remington-zero]

Just wanted to say first off that I love your artwork so much and it’s so fun to just scroll through. I’ve also become curious about playing 커뮤/commu (or trying to put one together) and would love to learn more about how they work.

Like for instance, how do character sheets and classes/powers work for a system that seems very open RP-based? Is there a particular omni-genre sheet or system that people often use for 커뮤? Or is that that something entirely up to the admins?

Give my love to Nero, Soren, and ESPECIALLY Charlotte

in the end it's very much like an dnd server on discord! except it's public and usually very short term (7-30 days)

essentially a commu is like a tabletop rpg with as much dice as you want, the admin team is the dm/npcs, and you recruit members based on their character sheet that they submit based on the template you make

so the foundational pillar is the admin team, which:

does all the worldbuilding, including setting boundaries and parameters for the characters

sets an event schedule and/or sets up a plot -- there's some really casual ones you go with your friend you ship your OCs with where they do couple games, and then there's one i just got out of that had time loops and also forced us to choose between executing a bunch of innocent people and completing our mission which was pretty intense

basically you are writing an rpg one-shot module! it can be as complex or as simple as you want, i've gone to ones that had stats and ones that didn't. this essentially means that you are writing a whole system! so if you want to include combat, you...are probably making a combat system from scratch, which means you usually have to also think about balance

you also probably want to determine a rating. most of the ones i went to were pg13 but there's specific ones rated R for either gore/violence or ERP

often people make a temporary website with notices, world info, rules, character sheet templates, and FAQs

the admin also moderates. if someone's being unfairly left out, you give a general warning, for example, or if someone is being an asshole you give them one strike, etc.

then you make a template for applicants and essentially pick the ones you think will make for the best story. historically, this has caused some drama. there is so much drama in commu

usually the commus that incorporated stats had specific roles (dps/tank/healer) and you had up to a certain amount of stat points that affected your skills (so a dps character might calculate their damage by idk ((attack)d6)/2) or something). so the roles would be part of the character application template, and the applicant would distribute the stats how they wanted it

so yes, in the end, the sheet is entirely up to the admin, and the applicants generally get creative within the space you create! soren, for example, had a power ranking (A), role (tank), reason for participating in the commu storyline (he didn't care but his friends did so he's doing it on their behalf) but i made up his ability (turns into a gryphon) and stuff about his family, past traumas, etc.

while the commu is running, applicants generally RP with each other and make their own relationships and mini plotlines (soren is now bffs with another character because they both lost siblings/students) but the admin administers a scheduled plot to keep things moving (nero, for example, was part of a group that went around stopping monster dungeons around the world so every week the admins would say ok they're going to peru now. and then florida.)

while commus are usually short, sometimes they have like...seasons? one of my friends ran one based on the uma musume setting and recently they did a season 2 of the same commu with new applicants

back when twitter was whole, two comms i went to also had a sparring system using a bot and keywords (so you'd type [attack] or [evade] or whatever and depending on your character's stats, which the admin entered into the bot, you'd get an automated reply that gave you the result of your actions), gacha (same as above, and also included things like...pet eggs and equipment and whatnot), a store with potions/etc., i know one that had like literal mini-rooms with pixel furnitures that people could buy through currencies earned doing daily quests or whatever....that was really intense though lmao people usually do not go that far

commus also often have like....specific disclaimers written for good reason, usually to do with code of conduct and not being bigoted/being inclusive (unfortunately female characters often get ignored in rp, and also oh my god so much casual bigotry)

TL;DR making a commu is essentially writing a whole oneshot module that you're publicly recruiting players for! honestly though it is a Lot of work setting it up and then maintaining it even for the short time it runs

[garpond]

i feel like i have a lot to say about ocd now that ive been working towards teaching myself ERP for the better part of a year.. probably one of the most useful things to me was learning to visualize OCD as something like an ai large language model. or generative image ai or something if your ocd comes in more as visuals. but thats the best way ive found to explain how it works. even though your mind really knows how to hit on your worst fears, its important to remember that the part of your brain responsible for intrusive thoughts doesn't actually know what it's saying... it only learns what is a "threat" and what isn't based on your reactions to things and the thoughts that happen in your conscious mind. but that's all it is- the use of your conscious awareness/memories/learned information/etc to pick out patterns and use those patterns to send you thoughts.

Like... imagine you for some reason decided to train an LLM to generate messages that scare you. at first the messages arent tailored to you at all, just random potentially scary things it's drawing from its machine-learning understanding of what concepts are "scary". most of them don't bother you, but eventually it makes one that really freaks you out. in response, you give a positive rating to this message, and the Ai knows that *this* is what you want when you say "scary". so after this, the AI just keeps using this positively-rated message to make related scary things, or even just re-hash that same exact message and repeatedly send it to you. since it got your feedback on that one, it now knows that this is what it is "supposed" to be doing, so it's just going to keep doing that, even though it doesn't actually understand WHAT it's saying the way a human being would.

that's basically all OCD is, believe it or not. it's a type of anxiety disorder that occurs when a random thought from your subconscious was reacted to with an amount of fear and distress that signaled to the brain that the content of the thought must be a threat, and that something needs to be done to neutralize it. but again, your brain doesn't actually understand what the thought was, or what the threat was supposed to Be. All it wants is this: to "warn" you about the Scary Thing all of the time, since clearly you are very worried about it, and to get you to do something to Protect Yourself From Scary Thing. It doesn't know wtf is going on!! For all it knows, maybe your house is filled with deadly snakes and that's what you're so afraid of all the time, so it needs to remind you to watch out for snakes and it can only relax when your brain activity indicates that you Have in fact watched out for snakes. But it doesn't grasp the situation itself- only the mechanics of it. This snake situation could just as easily be "oh my god what if i dropped my credit card in the gas station I need to walk around the whole building again staring at the floor and then check my bag and then check my bag Again and" and your brain genuinely will not know the fucking difference. It only grasps "scary thing, neutralizing thing" chain of events, and your level of fear when it sends you the prompt to Watch Out. This is how OCD perpetuates itself- it sends you a Scary Thought complete with a large fear reaction, and when you Do The Thing, it serves as positive feedback for the brain and it thinks "wow, looks like there was a threat! I'm doing a good job. I'll continue." It's not trying to hurt you, and it doesnt KNOW anything about the situation that you don't... it just has no idea what's going on because it wasn't built to, and it's doing its best. It didn't evolve to understand situations the way your conscious brain does. It only evolved to make you react to things that scare you fast enough to keep you alive. And so consequently, it doesn't grasp whether or not the thing it's making you worry about actually makes any practical sense. And this is where ERP comes in, because the way to get your brain to Let Go of that topic is to train it in reverse. Just like you'd train an AI, basically. ERP preventing a response is basically teaching you how to train your brain that there is no threat, and that's why we don't have to do the action. The less you do the action/compulsion, the more times you send your brain the message that this thought isn't important, this isn't something that needs to be worried about, and it doesn't have to keep sending you that intrusive thought and anxiety. And it works!! If you would have told me a year ago that I would make as much progress as I had I probably would have started crying because I didn't think it was possible but here I am. It's possible to take your life back and learn how to keep OCD manageable! It just takes patience, trust in yourself (which you have to build from the ground up which is HARD and SUCKS but please keep at it), and a willingness to learn about OCD and how it functions. but it's been helpful for me, so helpful that I cannot recommend it enough

[khaosophist]

I don't exactly remember when I started journaling. I have a vague recollection of a time where I'd write everything down with the time next to it. But, I don't think that was the first time I journaled. But I do remember journaling in a Diablo book I got in 2008 in France. I wish I'd find that book. It would be like finding myself all those years ago.

I realise everything I journal is past. Could one even journal about the future?

I want to become strong enough to lift my wife, and be her wolf to her Twili. It's an interesting thing to think about that our identities react to each other like that.

I don't know why. Why now? Maybe it's the lifestyle change...like my paternity leave showed her who I was. Something I couldn't do for my studies. Like her heart couldn't join with mine until it was sure. Even after twelve years...even if she felt love at first sight. Because of course, a creep like me was lucky to have a woman have a 'coup de foudre'.

Is she truly still riding that high? I'm not that man anymore. But, I recall her saying she felt my potential, or something like that.

Twelve years.

Where the fuck did the time go?

One moment I'm smoking weed every night with no responsibilities...then I'm a father of three...I haven't even trained for a month, and I'm already way stronger than before. I was convinced being in one's thirties was being old when I was in my late teens and early twenties. Fuck...I went through Chemo when I was 26. It really prepared me for office life. Lol. Sitting on my ass getting poisoned for a few hours to kill something worse. I learned to love boredom. The problem isn't boredom. It's the constant need to be doing something. That inaction cannot lead to action.

In any case. I think of Kierkegaard sometimes. I...I think I got over his aesthetic stage or whatever. I thought I wasn't like that, that I was in the moral stage for a while. But I was using morality to justify what I saw as vices in myself, like porn or ERP...God I wish I could ERP with my wife. Make love with her in the theater of our minds...I've always felt like that. No true complaints since I realise how lecherous I was, or still am. Like I've said before, I'm still learning to see affection as affection instead of seeing affection as a way to get sex. I never knew what love was. I might not know it still.

Reading philosophy sometimes feels like the analogy of colour as a concept and the experience of colour.

MOTHERFUCKER THAT'S ANOTHER FORM OF THE CAVE ANALOGY!

A person is in an institution that gives her everything in black and white, and is described in words. After a time. They open the door. She knows words like 'Red' and 'Blue' that the wavelength of red is 'x', and blue 'y'. So, a scientist shows her a picture of a colour in colour.

Does she recognise it?

The concept of logic is not the experience of logic. Bah... whatever...

I think it's hard to find the right artist. I'm really shit with communication. So I dread just...working with someone. Like even If I tell a network to generate 'Black Opalescent scales' it might give me smooth skin. But that's expected.

There's something I find weird to expect that an artist will get it wrong, and that it's okay not to be satisfied. My mind is all over the place all the time. So sitting down to draw is hard. It's not like playing music, or a videogame. Drawing or painting always got to me in bouts of inspiration. Maybe it's just me that's afraid to be seen as...well...what would you call someone that wants to see his persona drawn with another persona? A delusion in love with another delusion. An ephemeral life.

Why? It's a question only she would answer. Why love an abomination? My LARP is pretty straightforward...I'm a chaos abomination...just...I've taken care of their children for years, and STILL, they equate me with evil. I let their children paint, and play, and express themselves as they left to party. Their marks forever in my book of eternal chaos.

I'm still hurt. Maybe it was a mistake to commission my monster costume design to a guildmate. If she's still asking me if I'm evil or not after so long...As if all the colours and flowers of the world don't matter if it means the bloom will end...maybe I'm exaggerating...but...well...I just want my body. Ten hit points and instakill on touch is worth it...I'll be my monster self one day...and maybe I'll meet a cute shortstack...and maybe she'll love me...and I'll spend my whole life asking why...I'll show our kids the heritage of imagination...of our chaos.

Mother of gods and dragons...blood of mortalkind...awaken my heart...

Maiden of strife, bane of divinity, lift me beyond eternity.

Crone of Chaos, Grand mother of titans...great grand mother of gods...make the life of my years flow deeper than the void...

I used to play pretend. My most vivid memory of it was when I pretended to be dark exodia from yu-gi-oh.

I don't know why the evil monsters were awesome to me. It created a difficult tension of, being a good guy, but looking like I was going to destroy the earth...my favorite card was obelisk.

During college, I'd wear a different colour of vest every day in a rotation. If you paid attention, together it would be a rainbow. I have no idea if anybody noticed. So much in plain sight...

My wife is short, and I love it. All I do is think about her. She's fucking magical. My persona is crazy because I'm ordinary. It's cliche, I know. But I believe it's cliche to try not to be cliche.

I am boringly boring...

[staring-at-a-blank-pagee]

soooo I had a dream that ffxiv had Tumblr but everybody was like. really mean and incredibly unhinged, and this is the result of me trying to recreate it lol

⚔️ pvyou Follow

Whether you like it or not, I WILL duel you. I hunger, for blood, for glory.... For VICTORY!!!! RAAAAAH!!!! Prepare to die!!

🪄 hardcastingverraise Follow

There is something deeply wrong with you people.

⭐ worlds-sleepiest-astrologian Follow

..... Oh my gods, were you the Red Mage who got us all killed last week by not moving the giant meteor away from us because you were too busy, well, hardcasting verraise? The resurrection fees from that almost drove me bankrupt!

🪄 hardcastingverraise Follow

Probably, yeah. I do that a lot. Sounds like a skill issue on your part though tbh

957 notes

💧 cinimininamon Follow

I don't know what you guys were doing in the Tempest with Emet-Selch but I sure know what I was doing 💦💦😉

💀 arr-vet-sendhelp Follow

The multiverse was a mistake.

751,018 notes

⚕️ forestspirits-deactivated039562

Look, I'm not rolephobic, DPS are just objectively stupider than the rest of us. All they have to do is "hurr durr stand around stab enemy", and they still fail that half the time! I can do better damage than a DPS.

🛡️ protecc-attacc Follow

Um. No, that literally is rolephobia. It's 1577, are we really still talking about this? You're a pathetic excuse for a White Mage if you can't stop being toxic for two seconds and consider that DPS are just as valuable as you or me.

⚕️ forestspirits-deactivated039562

Damn I can't believe you really think that 💀 They got you good. You probably multiclass, don't you? A real tank would never act like you.

🛡️ protecc-attacc Follow

Lol, that's the funny thing. So I did some digging and found your public licensing information, and wow, how funny... It looks like you have Dragoon up to 90! I suppose that was somebody else stealing your licenses and racking up experience on them, right? Because surely, you would never stoop so low.

🛡️ protecc-attacc Follow

THEY DEACTIVATED LMAOOO

623,419 notes

💛 honeybee-leiver Follow

HONEY B. LOVELY I LOVE YOU MORE THAN ANYTHING

TO DIE TO YOUR SWEET VENOM WOULD BE THE GREATEST PLEASURE OF MY EXISTENCE

LET ME BE YOUR WORKER BEE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PL

🐝 honeyblovely-official

Aww!! Your support means the world to me! <3 My little bees, I love all of you so much!

🔮 firefirefirefirefirefirefire Follow

I don't get it, honestly. What's the hype?? She just seems like another overblown idol, no offense.

🐝 honeyblovely-official

165.14.82.307

58.6392

32.0268

63.75.529.01

8.8.8.8

1,569,827 notes

🐾 sundown-nightclub-official Follow

[18+] [RP] [LGBTQ+] Come check out the Sundown Nightclub, TONIGHT from 9pm - 3am EST, in Cactuar (Mist w8 p24, Goblet w16 p1) and Exodus (Shirogane w30 p28, Mist w13 p22)! Hang out with other like minded-warriors, have drinks, watch the dancers, gamble, and make new friends while listening to our awesome DJ! You'll have the time of your life, especially if you go for our special offer 😉😉 More details can be found at discord.gg/sundownnightclub/hJmw83D9s ~

🐰 hats-or-die Follow

I'm so tired of ERP bots. They're single-handedly ruining wolblr. Like, seriously, this is ridiculous.

57 notes

💎 bestwolever Follow

Does anybody know how our Azem crystals work, anyways? Are we all just like, from parallel universes or something and we can use the crystal to summon 7 other versions of ourselves to help us in battle? That's really confusing though, and I am, admittedly, just a simple catgirl. Somebody explain it to me pleaseee :33

🫂 crystal-lover Follow

Hold on. Wait a moment. You guys have been using the crystal to summon 7 other people for battle????? 😳

66,978 notes

🌱 spreeng-sproot Follow

why doesn't my tomestone let me open wolblr :((

👝 botomless-pockets Follow

Are you actually stupid?? Why in the hells would any app open on a tomestone. The currency. It's not an electronic..... It's literally currency. Lmaooo you're never gonna make it out here if that's your intelligence level, idiot.

🌱 spreeng-sproot Follow

I look forward to watching you die as I pull w2w and shirk all of my enmity into you. I will find joy in watching you struggle hopelessly to stay alive as countless wounds pile up, slowly, painfully, until at last the light leaves your pathetic, sunken eyes. And as soon as you return, sick and shaking, a new trauma falling over your shoulders, I will look you dead in the eyes and say, "Oh no, I'm so sorry!! >.< I'm new, I don't know what I'm doing yet but I'm trying my best! Please forgive me!! 🙏" And you will feel obligated to forgive me, since I'm just a widdwe spwowt..... And then, I will run right back in and do.

it.

again.

thanks for answering my question!!! :33

856,988 notes

[mercifullymad]

Oh my good thank you for the post about ocd

Honestly I feel like it’s one of the diagnoses where all the discourse I see is incredibly medicalized and focused on acting as if ERP is literally the only way to treat it and anything else is A Lie and basically immoral to recommend to someone with ocd, lol

When, in my own experience, erp techniques have helped me break out of a few obsessive cicles, but other therapy approaches have helped me a lot more, honestly

Like. I would love to have a conversation about this, if you want to, because I have a lot to say on the subject, and would love to hear more about your perspective, lol. But yeah, the “fighter” approach is so tiresome. And I really hate that erp culture has people promoting attitudes like communally refusing to provide reassurance to someone with ocd because it’s agreed to be universally Bad For Us, without considering specific circumstances, harm reduction or personal authonomy, to give just one example.

Thank you; I’m glad you liked that post and could relate!

I differ a bit in that I don’t think OCD is not particularly unique in being medicalized; the discourse around nearly every mental illness diagnosis is these days. Nor do I think it’s particularly unique in framing recovering from OCD as a “fight,” either — as I mentioned in the tags of that post, the idea of “[X disorder] fighter” is also very popular in eating disorder circles. 

What the framing around OCD does seem fairly unique in is the insistence that there is only one technique for effectively treating it: ERP. With other diagnoses, such as depression and eating disorders, it’s more accepted that a range of techniques, treatments, and/or approaches might help (talk therapy, medication, exercise, etc). But with OCD, any approach other than ERP is framed not only as ineffective, but actively harmful, and this is where we arrive at the conclusion you mentioned, that reassuring someone with OCD is harmful — or even immoral — and shouldn’t be done under any circumstances. Interestingly, this element of the “morality” around (not) reassuring people with OCD is somewhat less (or differently?) moralized than diagnoses where one specific type of medication is framed as The Only Right Treatment, since reassurance is interpersonal and relational. 

To be transparent, I have not done a ton of structured ERP therapy — I've only done a couple months' worth, and it was over Zoom, so very different than doing it in person, at least if I wanted to "more effectively" address my obsessions and compulsions. I was also wary and critical of the ERP framework going in, which definitely contributed to my decision to end treatment "prematurely" (before being "cured," essentially). However, in my limited experience, I have had a similar experience as you around what ERP has and hasn’t helped. In some areas, repeatedly exposing myself to anxiety-inducing situations helped bring my anxiety down over time. In other cases, it did nothing but perpetually raise my anxiety for the length of the exposure treatment. 

My real gripe with ERP is that it removes even the option of attaching meaning to your anxiety, thoughts, and/or experiences. I understand that framing your thoughts/compulsions as “invaders” to your brain or as “just OCD” as opposed to part of “you” can be relieving. It’s easy to see why, and I have also found this framing relieving at times and in certain situations. But in cases where exposure therapy hasn’t worked, I’ve found the most relief and freedom from exploring what meaning might be found in my experiences (and sometimes this relief and freedom comes from simply reframing/shifting/re-relating how I view and think about my experiences). 

I very much agree with your last comments that believing it is Universally Bad to provide reassurance without considering harm reduction, personal autonomy, and individual circumstances is a harmful (and calloused and depersonalized!) approach. And I would love to hear what else you have to say on this topic!

[rinwellisathing]

Get To Know People Better Tag Game

I was tagged by @graysparrowao3! thank you!

Three Ships:

So I assume this is like favorites? Okay, I'll try to do separate fandoms as well to keep it interesting and I'll try and make it less common ships, not exactly rare ships per se because like... I am very shy and anxiety prone so truthfully iunno what's rare and not because I don't engage a lot.

Thunderweave (Gale/Rolan) : I really like this one, even more since my fiancee and I RPed it with the idea of transmasc Rolan. It's really kind of interesting and also Rolan deserves a better fellow wizard than Lorroakan and I think Gale is a great fellow wizard being both talented, secure in his abilities, but also willing to see the potential and power in another person. Also I super identify with Rolan and my fiancee does a really good really convincing Gale for RP and cosplay. Kabru/Mithrun: I initially preferred Kabru/Laios, which I still really like honestly, but I read a longer post about Mithrun's disabilities and his trauma and how Kabru treats him like a person when most people don't and like as a heavily traumatized person who became suddenly and severely disabled as a result, I really really relate and hope that my partners will show me that same level of care when they are able (distance has been the main reason why not, my mom has mainly been the one taking care of me since I became disabled so I don't really know what my partners will do in person because one lives far away and one has been called away on family issues since before this became a major issue) Thraina (Thrall/Jaina) : This is the only hetero ship I consistently come back to. I usually prefer Sylvanas/Jaina, but realistically I don't want to put that one here for only one reason. Sylvanas/Jaina has a lot of basis in what it could be (No one at Blizzard who has been there consistently through their entire development is talented enough to have made it work so it's all theoretical and based on what much better unpaid fanfiction writers decide). Thraina, meanwhile was unintentionally somehow written as one of the most equitable, healtyh, equal, and level relationships in all of WoW and it wasn't even canon...mainly because Metzen is a weird creepy misogynist (one of the main reasons I actually mainly write Aggra/Jaina as a ship actually, because both deserve better and are, in theory, better than that bag of derivative Marvel obsessed dicks allows them to be) but anyway, it's just fascinating to me how the healthiest ship in WoW was axed, shut down, and denied despite how genuinely good it was. I could write essays on this, I *HAVE* written essays on this, but I'll spare you. First ship: Domon Kasshu/Chibodee Crockett (G Gundam) but also Meg Giry and Christine Daae (Phantom of the Opera) these were simultaneous, so honestly I had to put both.

Last Song: Where You Are (Moana Soundtrack)

Last Movie: it was this obscure random horror movie I found on Peacock called 'Wait Till Helen Comes' about a child ghost. I tend to since I've been unable to work stay up late making costume pieces and writing and pick random horror movies for background. It wasn't bad, honestly.

Currently reading: Humblewood campaign setting book for an actual play I want to do Faerun 3.5 Player's Guide for flavor bits for my BG3 fanfics and location lore for my BG 3 sequel campaign Cinderwich by Cherie Priest

Currently watching:

Interview With a Vampire Crispy's Tavern Currently Eating: Opera Cake Currently craving: The nastiest, filthiest Durgetash ERP, preferably with my fiancee as Gortash. Favorite color: Purple

Current Obsession: BG 3 Prehistoric ocean animals Junji Ito Sharks in general Costuming Fatal Frame Last thing I googled: Sophia Loren Favorite Season: WInter

Skill I'd like to learn: Shoe making Metalurgy Best advice: You're never done learning until you're dead...even then, let's assume we get reincarnated and then rinse, repeat, start learning again. I'm tagging @iron-bullogna @vialae @vestigialpersonality @dm-dragonpuff