#just that this is on my mind sometimes. the link between these very specific disorders

[hellyeahsickaf]

Another link to ME/CFS and fibro I can't stop thinking about is one I heard from my old therapist. I mean it's a link I've seen in just about everyone I've personally met with a dissociative disorder

I don't talk about having DID (I will likely continue not to because I feel cringe when I do) but she treated me along with many other patients with it, and other dissociative disorders.

And one day I'm talking about something related to my disabilities. She goes "I was wondering, yknow I don't know much about CFS or fibro but are they specifically linked to dissociative disorders that you're aware of?" and I mention something about ACEs scores and the link between trauma and chronic illnesses. I ramble, I couldn't tell you what I said lmao

I asked why and she said "well it's just that all of my patients with your disorder have CFS, fibro, or both. Sometimes other things too. But not just some or half of them, all of them. I started wondering what that's about, but I couldn't find any specific study on it or anything"

Like I found it super interesting to hear directly from a therapist that treats it and attests that 100% of the patients she's treated with it had the same disabilities. So I guess I just hope that potential link gets studied more extensively sometime

[somekindofsentience]

mari could have OCD - an analysis

Mari as a character is left mostly up to speculation by the player - which is partially a fault on the creators' part, but is also somewhat deliberate to allow for consumer projection and exploration. Because she's left so open, I want to explore a personal headcanon of mine - that Mari has OCD.

Disclaimer: This is my opinion! I may be wrong! I am a human and I am wrong sometimes! I do have OCD, but my experiences and how I write about them are not necessarily indicative of all people with OCD.

I want to pre-establish here that doing things that I market as "compulsive" is not necessarily compulsive behaviour, and it does not necessarily mean you experience OCD. The reality is, we can't know if Mari has OCD, or any disorder, because we don't get any insight into her mind. Cognition and thinking patterns are vital to a diagnosis of OCD. If you like to play the piano over and over again, you might just enjoy playing the piano. As with anything, if it's causing you distress, please seek a therapist!

Mari has three prevalent character traits that could potentially link to anxiety of some form - her perfectionism, tying into her compulsive piano playing; and her responsibility as the "mother" of the group. From these three traits, I think I can somewhat develop an argument for Mari having OCD.

Mari is a perfectionist; this is explicitly stated multiple times in the game. It's practically the only "negative" trait (or, rather, trait that comes with a downside) given to her, and despite that, it's still painted in a glorified light. It's somewhat implied that the recital day's events occurred due to this perfectionism, but we will discuss the piano playing later.

Now, OCD is not perfectionism, and mixing them up leads to horrific misinformation about the illness. But OCD can lead to perfectionism in specific instances. Let's say Mari believes if she doesn't play the recital perfectly, she'll be a failure and a terrible person. While it seems like an extreme jump between the two ideas, and it might feel so irrational to her, something in the back of her head just won't let that idea go. To feel more confident in her playing, she keeps playing it, over and over and over again. Every time she gains some confidence, she loses it just as fast, trapping her in a little cycle at that piano. In this case, we can see how an irrational intrusive thought could lead to perfectionistic tendencies in a person - and can see a rational cognitive explanation for Mari's behaviour.

I also want to talk about an aspect of OCD that isn't commonly spoken about - taking responsibility to an extreme extent. When we discuss mental disorders, we tend to talk about where they begin and how to treat them; but with disorders like OCD, it's actually important to consider how they continue. Everyone experiences intrusive thoughts, but there are several factors that increase the likelihood of believing them. One of them is the idea that one must take responsibility for their own intrusive thoughts - "if something bad is going to happen, I have to be the one to fix it".

Some people are naturally very self-reliant, and this can be for a number of reasons. I see this in Mari in the responsibility she holds over her brother and her friend group - she's the pinnacle of their rationality, keeping an eye on them (even in Headspace, which mimics some reality), and she's the one to save Sunny from drowning during the day of the Phobias' creation. Mari is fifteen, but holds so much pressure to monitor her friends, so it's not impossible to believe that worrying over her brother would cause intrusive thoughts. OCD is sometimes exacerbated after traumatic experiences, and having to save your younger brother from drowning is a lot to go through. Maybe she became more overprotective later on - not that I really have any evidence for that, since we don't have the most lucid perspective on Mari throughout the game.

I don't really have any way to reasonably conclude this, but I will say, I can recognise that a lot of this is projection. I have OCD. It's very difficult to see representation of complex OCD in media, since it's so hard to convey what intrusive thoughts and unobvious compulsions feel like, so it's nice to be able to give it to a character. But I feel like it has some basis in the real game, and could genuinely provide an interesting headcanon for people to use.

I dunno. You tell me.

Oh right, I forgot to mention. I wrote about this headcanon here. I'm pretty proud of the fic, so, I'd appreciate people checking it out if they're interested.

[lastoneout]

New Pinned/Intro Post!

Hi, I'm Loo(or Alex), I'm a disabled queer artist and writer as well as a furry vtuber who streams four days a week on twitch(mostly Minecraft but also Soulsborne games and a variety of other stuff).

You may know me from The Tuna Post, in which several thousand of you came together to "force" me to buy damn near 30 American Dollars worth of imported fancy canned tuna to eat and review live on stream. If you're here for it, said live review can be found on twitch and on my youtube channel. TL;DR: 10/10 would recommend.

I currently can't work, so if you like what I've got going on here and want to help me out, I take donations over on my ko-fi <3 Aside from that, follows on twitch help a lot, even if you never end up watching!

(Also, I sell my twitch emotes as stickers on redbubble!)

I don't have a proper BYF, but as a heads up I'm heavily introverted and have ADHD, and between those and my disabilities eating up my energy I often take a while to respond to messages/tags/reblogs/DMs and sometimes forget entirely. This isn't anything against you, and it's something I'm working on, but just something to keep in mind if you plan on interacting with me a lot.

FAQ:

Do you take commissions?

Not at the moment, but hopefully in the future!

What do you use for art?

Wacom Intuos tablet + Clip Studio Paint on the PC, though these days I mostly use CSP on a Samsung Galaxy Tab s6 since I can use it in bed on my low spoons days.

What do you want to go to school for?

Digital Art and American Sign Language!

You talk about being sick all the time/having health problems, what's wrong with you?

Too many things to list <3 but the most notable ones are chronic migraines, hEDS, and ADHD.

Queer?

I'm ace, bisexual, bigender, and butch. I'm also polyam but currently in a very happy monogamous relationship and don't have plans to change that. My pronouns are she/they, and while I would prefer to not have people use he/him with me you are highly encouraged to use masculine forms of address(sir, guy, dude, king, man, my guy, grandpa, dad, etc.) whenever appropriate. My assigned sex/gender at birth is none of your business.

Who's Yotsuba?

Yotsuba is an adorable little gremlin and the main character of my favorite manga, Yotsuba &!, and you should go read it right now seriously it's amazing go read it go read it GO READ IT-

What's "ask to tag"?

The tumblr equivalent of "author chose not to use archive warnings", I put it on anything that seems like it could use a trigger warning but where no one has specifically asked me to tag for that trigger yet. Things I currently (try to) tag for: flashing lights/eyestrain, insects, suicide, fatphobia/diet culture/disordered eating, my hero academia, gore/body horror, current events, us politics, politics, covid, cats, and anything nsfw goes under nsft.

I can't promise to be 100% consistent with these tho, between the ADHD and the migraines I am very forgetful, so slip ups are bound to happen.

Loo? Like the bathroom??

LOO is short for LastOneOut, I'm american and forgot people call it that, you can write it as Lou or just call me Alex if it makes you feel better.

LookingForLoo?? Like looking for the bathroom??

On websites where LastOneOut is taken I'm LookingForLoo because I'm literally looking for LOO, LastOneOut. I thought it was clever T_T

Sideblogs?

I have a nsfw alt @looafterdark (18+ only I swear to god I keep a loaded gun pointed at the follow list) and a writing inspo blog @last-scrapbook. I also once ran a couple of character ask blogs, though I don't plan on starting them up again, and I was the mod behind @pokeprofshowdown.

Who's Eugene/Ophelia/Sasha?

My ocs from an original story I'm working on. I get brainrot and post about them a lot. You are ALWAYS allowed to ask me about them!

What's your fursona/can I make art of you?

I'm a dog, kinda like a papillion but not really, and yes you may. My ref sheet is here.

Can I repost your funny text posts to twitter/insta/reddit?

Sure, all I ask is that you include the entire post and leave my username visible. You can also tag me if you want, I'm lookingforloo on twitter, insta, and reddit <3

Can I repost your art/writing?

Absolutely not.

Can I plug your art or writing into an AI program?

Absolutely not under any fucking circumstances.

Can I use your art in an amv/fandom board/as a cover for my playlist or fic/ect.?

Depends, DM me first.

Can I write fic/make fanart based on your fics/art/HCs/AUs?

Absolutely <3

Can I write fic/make fanart based on your OCs?

Art yes, fics no.

What's your stance on the discourse?

There is no amount of posting online about contentious topics that could ever match the sheer power of simply going out into your community and finding a project that helps other people that you can dedicate your time and energy to. Also wear a mask, vote(if you can), and listen to marginalized people when they speak about their experiences.

How old are you?

29

[misscammiedawn]

Miss Cammie Dawn Masterpost

INTRODUCTION

Hi all! Welcome to my combination psychology, hypnokink, fandom and personal blog! I post a ton about hypnosis mostly with a side order of mental health stuff because kink and Bad Brain are all that are on my mind.

I had bad experiences compartmentalizing my online presence years back so I keep everything in one place these days. Prevents self-loathing and impulsively deleting blogs when the shame wins. It's an all or nothing deal. Sorry about that.

We are American but born and raised in England. We have red hair. Are in our 30s at time of writing and have been active in the hypnosis community since our late teens. Presently we are prioritizing working with educators at hypnokink events and doing photoshoots where and when I can.

We are transgender, having started social transition in 2019 and HRT in 2020. We identify as transgender and consider it a very large part of who we are. We're not fond of that fact being erased, even if we mostly adhere to the gender binary in terms of our presentation.

We are sex-averse asexual but involved in kink. Our blog is adult only but we're not really that big on overt eroticism. Even the hypnokink smut we write is 100% fluff with no sex scenes.

We are fairly open about our DID diagnosis (noting that we approach our own condition through a lens of psychopathology) and the treatment we are in. We are a system of 5 though we still try to present as a single individual outside of close relationships.

Our tagging system is mostly a switch counter for tracking if any of us are missing to report to our therapist. Though we do answer individual asks on request, pending a member's presence.

We try to do what we can to walk the line between not suppressing our individual expression(s) without glorifying our condition and erecting further divide between parts. I avoid syscourse where I can and typically do not advertise specific things about my parts, we are all "me" just in different lights so I'll never post stuff like individual ages/genders or such. I'm open about the condition but private about the circumstances and manifestations. Please respect that.

-

OUR TAGGING SYSTEM

Last updated: 7/3/2024 -

I am addicted to tags. If you ever want to find my original content or my fandom posts you will be able to easily here. Just click on the links below and all shall be neatly organized.

Also there are secret tags which are not advertised. Those ones are for me. A little personal treat.

General Tags:

Cammie Posting - tag for a soft and playful girl. Camden Posting - tag for a traumaqueer. Dawn Posting - tag for a flirty and extravagant Fae. Craig Posting - tag for the boy that lives in the heart of a girl. Utility Tag - tag for a survival part who is learning to live.

Original Content:

Artwork Commissions - Any time I pay a lovely creator to do some art for me <3 Cammie Photos - Photos which feature this beautiful ginger in all her glory. Cammie Stories - My hypnosis related short stories. Fictional ones this time, though sometimes inspired by reality. Hypnokink Original Content - My little submissions of audio, visual or written hypnosis stuff. Hypnokink Writings - My personal opinions, info and resources on Hypnokink. Madison and Belladonna - Our series of hypnokink stories slightly based on reality going over a pair falling in love while one navigates their dissociative disorder Media Essays - A tag for my own big lengthy posts breaking down media (sometimes includes reblogs of other people's commentary) Media, Myself and I - Essays on DID representation in media. Photos We Took - We don't often share our proper photography work on Tumblr but sometimes we do and tag them here ReadOnlyMind - External link to my full length stories shared on ReadOnlyMind Scene Stories - Posts where we describe a scene that we did IRL. If I use this tag it is a recounting of real events. Suggestion Suggestions - Ideas for hypnotic scenes. Video Posts - Posts where we are on video. Voiced Posts - Posts where we record stuff and say it with our mouth words.

Personal Topics:

Asexuality - We are a kinky ace. We don't do sex or orgasms but sometimes do horny. BPD Specific - BPD is difficult to live with and impacts our relationships with others DID specific - DID is difficult to live with and impacts our relationships with ourselves. We try to educate on the topic. Mental Health/DID/BPD Topics - Watch Me Post My Trauma In Public Personal Posts - Ones which are just me venting or talking specifically about my life and experiences. Trans specific - This Is My Gender and I am Proud of It.

Meme Tags:

Bites You Bites You Bites You - Cammie has a tag entirely for biting people <3 Camus Posting - One must imagine Sisyphus memeing Fae Posting - Our loyalty lies with the Seelie Court and we must meme about it Puns - Craig likes puns and we put up with it. Shitposting - tag for when we're being silly. We Have To Meme or We'll Cry- Mental health/plurality jokes

Hypnokink Tags:

50 Days of Fetish Masterpost - Easy links to all 50 posts about why I love hypnokink with examples, audios, photos and videos. 50 Days of Fetish - Tag list of 50 different scenes and suggestions in hypnosis that gets me going and reblogs of other folx who participated in the challenge. Community Resources - Educational resources in hypnokink. Community Safety - Topics discussing dangerous topics and predators Con Recaps - Convention recaps for Charmed! and Beguiled Hypnokink conventions General hypnosis tag - General tag for all hypnosis topics. Hypnokink -General tag for all hypnokink posts. Hypnokink Art - Artwork featuring hypnosis. Hypnokink OC - Our hypnokink content Hypnokink Writings - Our posts and essays on hypnokink Hypnosis on Display - Audios, videos, demos and photos of hypnosis. Hypnosis Events - Convention information Hypnosis Fiction - Stories featuring hypnokink.

Thirst Tags:

Hypnokink Art - Did I mention we have a hypnokink? Redheads - We like redheads. We are redheads. Stage Magicians - Stage magic is hot. Do not @ me. Sword Lady Thirst - I just want my chin lifted by a sword so I have to meet their gaze... Vampire Thirst - Cammie Likes Redheads

Friends and Loved Ones:

Daja - Beloved. Double Grinch - Absolute sweetheart. Fellow Secret Mod. EllaEnchanting - Inspiration for asexual hypnokink, cool person and opinion haver. Lady Ru'etha - Goddess, Beloved. Linny Bee - Sweetheart. Hypnokink craft lady. Nath - Incredible writer. Good opinion haver. Metamour. Paperboy64 - Absolute sweetheart. Puppet - Counterpart. Metamour. Fellow Sleepyhead enjoyer. Skaetlett - Inspiration for plurality based hypnofiction. Superb person. Secret Subject - Boss. VTuber extraordinaire and good friend. Sleepyhead - Beloved. TennFan - An inspiration in asexual hypnokink content

Ask Tags:

Cammie Asks - Asks answered while Cammie is fronting. Camden Asks - Asks answered while Camden is fronting. Dawn Asks - Asks answered while Dawn is fronting. Craig Asks - Asks answered while Craig is fronting. Wynn Asks - Asks answered while Wynn is fronting. Ask Memes - Ask based games. We try to link the source but sometimes forget. Hypno Themed Asks - Asks about hypnosis.

[furiousgoldfish]

I have a question: So like uh... how can you be sure if you are traumatized? My mind keeps swapping between thinking I'm traumatized and thinking I just had a slightly weird childhood and I'm simply over-reacting like I always do. Also second question that is more optional and you might not know: If your parents are unable to save you from an unfortunate circumstance like say... a sister that is violent loud and angry to both you and the parents.... and you often were in distress from say... a sister that would scream hit and punch and took all the parent attention to them and left you alone and hiding in your room... then could that lead to you growing up with the same effect of neglect? I'm guessing you would want a more clear picture of what happened to answer either one of these question so here it is: My sister was and is (but way more stable) mentally ill. I spent most of my years in elementary from 2nd and up living in a house with somebody who can harass, mock, and sometimes hurt me at any moment. She did mostly calm stuff like only say "retard" to me for a stretch of time that feels infinite because I was autistic, and almost punch me but stop and make fun of me getting scared. Very rarely she would go above and beyond by trying to drown me over a dipute and locking me in her room and refusing to let me out because I couldn't fix her computer. I adapted though, I pretty much avoided my sister as much as I can until recently when she calmed down. One thing I could never escape though was the yelling, the screaming, the crying. Every time my sister would have a mental breakdown, which was a whole, whole, whole lot, she was loud and sometimes violent about it. I was hardly ever in the middle of it, I usually just hid in my room while being forced to hear my sister's screams and my parents trying to get her to stop with as little force as possible. It's hard to describe the emotions, and I can try all I want to make you understand what this was like but I won't ever succeed so I'll stop. My sister also tried to kill herself a lot and been in and out of the mental hospital a whole lot so there is that too. Also my parents were amazing, don't worry. The worst thing about my parents is that my dad is a bit emotional but he usually didn't engage with my sister when he could get angry so it hardly came up in a bad way but he did escalate a lot of situations. My Mom was understanding and calm and didn't really fight back against my sister but like... in a good way, it's hard to describe without you knowing my sister. Sorry for the slop of words, I was thinking about like 2 other things at once while typing this and I don't have the energy to correct anything.

You can be sure you're traumatized if you have trauma symptoms. Trauma symptoms can range from feeling low self worth, fear and anxiety around people or specific circumstances and events, struggling with feeling normal around people, struggling with thoughts of self doubt, self hate, severe guilt and shame for everything that was done to you, or what happened, to the more recognizable ones: flashbacks, nightmares, emotional flashbacks, panic and anxiety attacks, losing control over emotions, not being able to regulate emotions at all, feeling unstable, desperate and terrified of the past and feeling low feelings or even complete despair about the future. It's also visible in struggling to have close relationships, feeling like you have to keep secrets, like nobody would love you if they truly knew you, feeling uncomfortable with people being near you or touching you (non-threateningly), running into isolation to keep yourself safe, or finding safety in substances, obsessions, addictions. Trauma can also manifest in development of disorders like eating disorders, anxiety disorder, panic disorder, ocd, depression. There's a lot of more subtle symptoms, you can check this list to see if any of this applies to you: Link.

It's often that traumatized people feel like they might be over-reacting, which is caused by the low self worth mentioned above; people who have normal self worth and are not self-conscious about how their emotions might inconvenience others, thus they don't stop to think if they're over-reacting, and take their feelings at face value. If a feeling is there, it's there for a reason, and the reason is unlikely to be something you made up. Sometimes what people will see as over-reacting is simply reacting to a trigger; even if you feel like your reaction was exaggerated, it's because something in your brain reacted to prior trauma and felt the need to evoke strong reaction so you would protect yourself against this event repeating, as it traumatized you in the past.

For example, if someone reacts with terror to a dog, we'd call it an over-reaction, but if you then find out they were bitten as a child and almost died, then terror is completely appropriate. It's like that with emotional trauma too, if something damaged you so badly as a kid you felt like you would never recover, your brain will react with terror or very strong emotions, to make sure you stay away and keep yourself protected. So it's really just a logical reaction, if you consider the past event and what it did to your life.

The circumstances you lived in as a child definitely warrant a lot of trauma. You describe your sister's presence as an 'unfortunate circumstance', but I don't see even one hint that your parents put actual effort in protecting you. Two adults are absolutely able to pay attention to more than one child at the time, and it sounds like you got completely neglected, and left to make your own conclusions to why that is. And you decided that parents cannot be at fault, because they couldn't do any better. I believe they could, because no child has deserved to be ignored and left to endure insults, slurs, screaming, yelling, punching, mocking, harassment and hurt at any moment, without any protection or care. Your parents were responsible for protecting you, and caring for you at any moment that you might have gotten hurt. It doesn't matter if they had 'a lot on their plate', because you are a human being they were responsible for protecting, and they failed you.

I can think of many things that could have been done differently to protect you, your sister could have been put in a place where she couldn't reach you, you could have been in a presence of a parent or a caretaker at all times to make sure nobody can hurt you, you could have been put in someone else's care as soon as it was obvious that your sister was hurting you, you could have been asked about it and comforted and a different solution could have been reached in order to make sure you live your childhood protected from all this.

Having one child that is a lot to manage does not mean you can now ignore all your other children and leave them to be hurt consistently because 'you cannot be bothered to pay attention to all of your kids' Also it sounds like instead of handling the child that was causing violence, they were escalating the situation and making it worse for you. Leaving one child to lash out at another is unacceptable, and it is both neglect and abuse. Protection from abuse is a part of what your parents are responsible for, and they failed you. And I can see you care so much for their good image, you're protecting them even as you're trying to talk about how they left you to fend for yourself in a world where you were harmed. Imagine if they felt that kind of compassion for you, and ran to protect you whenever you were alone with someone who was hurting you. You're showing more care for them in here, than they did for you in your childhood.

This had to be really hard for you to read, and I'm sorry for being so blunt. I'm not trying to tell you how you should see them, I'm just angry that you were put thru so much, and it didn't have to be like that. You know your situation better than I do, and if I'm completely wrong about everything, that's completely possible and you do not have to accept my opinion, your own is more important. I hope you're never left to fend for yourself in a world where others are likely to hurt you, that's not okay for a child to go thru, and it's painful and traumatic to an adult as well.

[schizosupport]

Hi! I'm kinda noticing some characters I like might experience delusions or hallucinations, and I'm interested in headcanoning them as such, but I'm a simple autistic system with no experience or understanding of the difference between various delusional (or hallucinatory?) disorders and I don't want to be offensive at all - are there any firsthand references I could look to in order to discern or something like that? thanks!

Hi there anon!! Tbh I think in some ways, there's a lack of helpful, respectful and representative first hand accounts available about psychotic experiences. In the same way as being autistic, and being a system, is very individual to each person, so is psychotic stuff.

This is a blessing and a curse to writers and other creatives! If you just look up generic information about any of these things, the characters will end up stereotypical and not very relatable to anyone.

I think a really helpful notion is to think of psychosis as something meaningful and personal, on some level. It isn't always, but often it is, and it's better to conceptualise it that way, I think.

Hallucinations and delusions are "unreal" experiences, but they are based in the individual's reality. They rely on the culture the person exists in, our personal background etc. When I am in a room adjacent to a room where any of my loved ones are, I am likely to start hallucinating that they are having a fight, and I'm likely to start making up reasons, and thinking that I'm at fault, and that they might hurt each other. This is directly related to my childhood experiences.

Delusions and hallucinations are often negative, but not always. They can be comforting, or helpful, at times. It's a special way for the brain to communicate/process, somewhat like dreams it doesn't always make sense, but it's not always a nightmare.

Another thing to keep in mind that non-psychotics sometimes forget, is that we experience these things in a very real way, and they affect us mostly as if it really happened. People can and do regularly get traumatized by psychotic experiences, even if there was no real danger in objective reality.

Think of being a child. Children are often scared of weird things, where the adults "know better". Compassionate adults still help, and take the child's fear seriously, but other children or less compassionate adults might laugh or minimize the emotion.

For many psychotic folks, this dynamic never quite goes away. We are often weary of sharing our deep dark fears and experiences, because people may laugh in our face when we do. Or call us crazy, childish or even dangerous.

...I guess I'm thinking that if you already have the existing characters, and you want to add some psychotic spice, I think you need to think deeply about the character first.

What are their complexes, their traumas, their cultural background etc. Try to think of symbolism related to this. Think "what is their worst fear?", and then imagine if their brain regularly decided to just make their worst fear feel like fact or look/sound etc like fact.

What makes them quirky and unique? Is there a way to turn this up to the max, pushing it past the edge of "oh they are just quirky" into the territory of "wait, are they being serious right now?". (Spoiler alert: They are).

I think it can also be helpful to familiarise yourself with things like negative symtoms and cognitive symtoms and other related stuff, too, and if you want to portray a specific disorder, like schizophrenia, I would consider it a necessity.

Hope this was a bit helpful..? Perhaps. Y'all, feel free to reblog and add helpful links or thoughts!

[dolleminas]

hi, my doctor has given me a tentative diagnosis of pcos and the only info I can find about it online that doesn't relate to getting pregnant is your Tumblr post. do you have any sources for the stuff about fatigue, vitamin D deficiency, etc being super common in pcos? cos I've dealt with those forever too. things are clicking into place but also with the way the NHS is I don't know if there's much point confirming the diagnosis (it's only diagnosed with transvaginal ultrasound :c) because the only treatment offered seems to be birth control and fertility treatment.

Good afternoon, nonny. Thanks for reaching out to me! And congratulations on getting a (albeit tentative) diagnosis. I know it might not seem positive, but now you know what you have and what can be done about it. At least, that is how I felt.

When I first made that post I never expected so many women to add their own experiences, talk of their their shock, their anger... or just admit that they had been diagnosed for years but that I somehow taught them things they never knew.

It's been an experience and a half. But I'm very glad that I can spread information and if that helps you, even better.

First of all, to diagnose PCOS, you need to fit 2/3 criteria of the Rotterdam concensus. Irregular periods, higher testosterone, and 12 or more follicles on your ovaries each. So, even without a hormone test you can usually tell whether someone has PCOS. Even so, I would still recommend asking for a hormone test if your health insurance covers it.

Sources

I tried looking up an English source for you since you mentioned NHS. Do keep in mind that women's healthcare is really not researched well and that there will be sources and information that will contradict one another. Here is one such article about the Rotterdam concensus.

As you can see they also mention the insulin resistance in this article, IBS, and fatigue, among other things.

Here is another one.

Here is some information about Insulin resistance in women with PCOS.

And here is some about depression.

You specifically asked for vitamin D so here is a study.

And another.

And one about fatigue.

I will however stress that these are all scientific sources and we all know that it can sometimes be biased, and again, not researched properly. My advice would always be to listen to women who have PCOS before listening to a medical source (no matter how professional it looks.)

My Own Experiences & Tips

I've not been diagnosed with PCOS long, but I have been quite thrown into studying it because it pissed me off interested me so much, and by researching (and reading a lot) here are some things that helped me, and I hope they can help you too.

Vitamin deficiencies are common in women with PCOS, especially Vitamin D. What I do is drink a glass of orange juice every morning with Vitamin D supplements. I take Solgar liquid vitamin drops, but depending on where you live they might have something of a different brand. Remember; take it during a meal.

Carbs make your sugar spike, so try to swap out some high-carb foods for lower carb. This way I have managed to lose weight, and this is often recommended for women with PCOS. And if you have a tendency for disordered eating, this will (generally) be easier than counting calories and going on a diet. After going low-carb my blood sugar level (which was high before) went down to regular levels and according to my doctor, I am now no longer immediately in danger of developing Diabetes Type 2.

Exercise! Especially weight-lifting, since it is mentioned it gives you more energy. Since starting myself, I have also noticed a difference. Here is a link for at home work-outs. Taking daily walks is also recommended for your exposure to sunlight and to help depression and anxiety.

Keep a diary of your symptoms. I have a word document with my own diary, so if anyone is interested I will be posting it. Just send me a message :)

Besides this, you do not need to go on birth control if you do not want to. My gynocologist said to me that once every three months you need to have your period. Women with PCOS can have a period 4 times a year, and that is enough! If you get your period less, then you can take progesteron pills for 7 days, and it will start your period. Again; you only need to use them for 7 days. You could do this four times a year and that would be all. Then again I am not a gynocologist so do talk about this with your doctor.

Another thing is that the fatigue could also very well be a side-effect of low vitamin D, B12, and low iron. My advice would be to get tested monthly if you can, and then try to balance your vitamins and see if this improves your fatigue.

And last but no least I recommend Meals She Eats. I made a post about it before, but even if you ignore everything else that is said (they are a bit woo-woo about organic foods and sugars) they still are very informative about the menstrual cycle. If for any reason you are unable to get your hands on the book do reach out to me in my DM's and I can help you.

If there is anything else I forgot I will reblog this and add more information, and I also will request others do too! The more we learn about PCOS and our cycle, the better.

I hope you have a nice day, anon. And I apologise if it took me a while to get to this ask!

[70eeznutz]

i’m gonna make a better intro/pinned post bc fuck it

i interact from @evervirescent, i also run a dragonvale blog @the-obsidian-equinox

about me

pronoun page

you can call me Virescent or Hades

neither are my legal name, Hades is a nickname someone gave me a long time ago bc it sounds similar to my legal name and i realized it works well online

genderfluid she/he/they

(i often get confused if someone switches between different pronouns really fast when referring to the same person if multiple people are being mentioned. also i’m afab so i’m most used to she/her but i really have no preference. i don’t mind if you only use one pronoun for me, especially if that makes it easier for you)

adult (born in 2004)

pacific time zone (california)

white & grew up upper middle class with good parents, so please educate me if there’s something i wouldn’t understand!

autistic

mentally ill, but no personality or psychotic disorders

i do have a few triggers but they’re very specific

as an attempt survivor, i have no tolerance for telling someone to take their own life. it doesn’t matter how universally hated that person might be. if i see someone do this, i will block and report them, unless i can clearly tell it’s a joke. i would also prefer if people don’t make those jokes around me unless i’ve given the okay.

blog content

in theory i can write and draw but i almost never make fan content for anxiety reasons IM DOING IT GUYS!! IM GODDAMN DOING IT!!

i usually just post memes or talk about xfohv and algebralians a normal amount

i might talk or reblog about other object shows too. occasionally.

i try to tag things that may be uncomfortable or triggering but i do not do a perfect job. if you need me to tag something please leave a reply to the post in question

sometimes I misspell words or use slang and abbreviations that likely won’t work in a translator, so if you would like me to write something in a way that’s easier to translate, just let me know!

i don’t kin or simp for any characters but i can project onto them really really hard

my favorite posts will be tagged with #pinned to the fridge

my favorite ships are sevensix, 4X, nineflop, and three x five

i also love queerplatonic eight x ten

if you want to know the exact details of everything i ship and in what ways you can go to #xfohv ship chart but be warned as i use homestuck concepts

you can repost my memes just don’t claim they’re yours (i actually get excited when i see smth i made somewhere else)

on the topic of discourse/etc (don’t worry!)

i try my best to keep an open mind and see from the perspective of all sides of various topics

i will not disclose my stance on any topics because i want to keep my blog discourse free, and i also want to interact with people of different opinions so i can privately learn and understand everyone better. this does still mean i have sides i agree and disagree with, but these aren’t set in stone and aren’t relevant right now.

i believe no one actually wants to be the bad guy and most people are only trying to help, so we should all work together to find out how to help as many people as we can. we should discuss instead of argue, and mutually work toward fully understanding these topics

i will still block people who go out of their way to harass or attack others ESPECIALLY if they encourage harm on anyone

needless to say, i have no DNI, but you still might not want to follow me if you’re not comfortable with the above information. i don’t want anyone to be uncomfortable here.

this post may be updated in the future if i think of something i want to add but for now that’s it

[nosegayyyyy]

hiii!!!

i’m shelby, and welcome to my blog!

i’m an asian american genderfluid agrosexual red fox therian, kea parrot avian, and munchkin cat therian (i’m not that short i swear…)

being genderfluid, i alternate pronouns between she/they, they/them, and he/they, but i identify as genderfluid all the time. if you don’t know my pronouns for the day, then i’m fine with just they/them!

i’m also agrosexual, meaning i change sexualities everyday. my main sexualities are homoromatic, pan, demisexual, asexual, arosexual, aroace, and i change between them depending on my pronouns, but i also have a lot of other sexualities that i don’t feel like very often.

im asian american, specifically chinese amercian. i speak chinese, but i cant read it very well.

i also have bipolar disorder, dissociative identity disorder, depression, anxiety, and attention deficit adhd.

my bipolar effects my life by making me have massive mood swings sometimes, which makes it hard for me to properly interact with people.

my depression and anxiety have pretty obvious effects on my life, making it so that i struggle with a lot of stuff.

i don’t have very severe adhd, but it still effects some of my life by making it just a little harder for me to concentrate on things and motivate myself.

my DID has a really long explanation so i’ll link the post here

my blog is a safe space for all minority groups. non-humans, lgbtqia+, genderqueers, trans people, and etc!

i love to share my opinion and sometimes get kinda worked up so please don’t mind if i seem aggressive in some posts i make!

i’m a big cinematic nerd, and like to rant about dramas and other shows/movies such as sweet tooth, surviving summer, my life with the walter boys, enola holmes, and others.

this is really long already so ill wrap up.

alt blogs: @passerineee (old blog) @whimsical-writingsss

dni:

wilbur soot supporters

transphobics

homophobics

racist blogs

anti non-human

any other discriminating blogs

[theprideful]

I've been trying to ask this for some time actually, so here I go:

Is The Good Doctor good autistic representation? I'm afraid I might have used it when talking to my neurotypical parents about the different ''degrees'' of autism using dr. Shawn as an example when in reality he's a bad example. You're one of the only actually autistic people I can ask this to, even if it might seem a stupid question, but like... Is he good autistic representation?

Thanks for the attention anyways <3

(since this is about neurodivergence and a bit long, I'm going to bold and highlight some phrases here and there, because it makes it a little easier to read.)

so, is The Good Doctor good autism rep: in my opinion, no. are there autistic people like him in real life? absolutely. but is he a good, true reflection of what autism actually is? not really.

my problem with The Good Doctor is that it employs a lot of stereotypes, and whether or not they're "good" doesn't really change the fact that it enforces this really narrow idea of what autism is to allistics; white, cishet, nerdy male who is a genius savant and lacks social skills. autism is incredibly diverse and multifaceted, and anyone and everyone will experience it differently. so the fact that only stories like Shawn's are shown really limits our progress on combatting misinformation.

but it's not just that the show very heavily leans on stereotypes and lacks general creativity in portraying the neurotype, it's that it was really obvious how few- if any- actually autistic people were consulted. it feels like a production made for capitalizing on us without actually putting in the work to show us for who and what we really are. it honestly seems like they read a few articles online and watched "rain man" (which also has many of these same issues) and based their story off of that. it's hard to tell from a glance, but the more you look into it, the more you can see that it's just regurgitating the same narrative under a shinier lens and the guise of modernity and "wokeness." this specific story they decided to tell is quite unoriginal and reflects a very small percentage of us. that's not to say that none of us can relate or see ourselves in Shawn, but the most us can't - at least, not very often or consistently. (also, there is shown to be a strong link between autism and queerness, so it's strange that even in a time where psycho/neurological research and information is rising, the white cishet protagonist remains at the front and center of autism media.)

furthermore, some of the stereotypes and "traits" they used are not supported or even really experienced by the autistic community. for instance, his visualization of anatomical systems and functions in a hyper-realistic manner is not an autistic trait. sure, there are people on the spectrum with eidetic memories and incredibly vivid "inner-eyes", but again, only a small percentage of us have that, and it's not inherently an autistic trait. (Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds is another good example of this exact scenario.) this could, in theory, tie in with the trait of "detail-orientedness" that many of us experience. but it is likely a characteristic of an entirely different disorder or neurodivergency, which only furthers the idea that it was not researched in depth and the autism aspect was only meant to serve as a plot device to make him "interesting." i don't know about you, but i personally don't like the idea of only being allowed to exist as an autistic person if neurotypicals find me interesting or "plot-relevant."

as with the last statement, the same thing also applies to the "genius savant" stereotype. believe it or not, not many autistic people are actually savants in the quirky, brilliant way that hollywood likes to portray. we have our own skills, just like allistics. sometimes our autism "enhances" them or acts as an asset. but it's kind of a roll of the dice. the way i see it is, you can have red hair and be left-handed, but neither is an automatic, promised precursor for the other. you can be autistic and a good doctor or genius scientist, but one does not necessarily cause or even influence the other. again, in this story, it's not inherently an issue. but this narrative is pushed so much, all the time, that it's really starting to feel like it's the only way we'll be accepted. but also, it solidifies this concept of "two types of autistic people at 'opposite' ends of the spectrum," where Shawn is the "high-functioning genius" type. it's a really narrow definition and caricature of a really diverse group, and it limits the way we are perceived by allistics and neurotypicals.

sorry for the long response, but in conclusion, no, it's not really good representation because it only shows one very small fraction of autism and is not entirely accurate.

one good thing i will say, though, is that I do appreciate the writers revealing his traumatic past. many autistic people experience trauma and develop PTSD, depression, and anxiety (and possibly obsessive compulsions) because of lack of understanding, so it was refreshing to see some actual multidimensional backstory that is realistic to autistic people. anyway, overall it could've been better rendered and I think if the writers weren't afraid of losing the cherished white cis-het male protagonist trope and dramatization of neurodivergence in a way that they actually stopped describing that disorder*, it could've been a lot more realistic and actually relatable/applicable to real life.

*"disorder" does not apply to all autistic people. it is a label that individuals can use to describe themselves.

if any other autistic people have any thoughts, feel free to share! i'd love to hear your opinions as well

[satanfemme]

happy DID awareness day! (March 5th)

I can’t find any good posts to reblog about it, so I’ve decided to just make my own. here’s some things I wish people (read: singlets) were more aware about:

DID is more than just having fictives.

DID is more than just having alters in general.

DID is a trauma disorder and goes hand in hand with PTSD, occasionally being described as a more severe/specific type of PTSD.

DID can either be visible or covert depending on the person, the situation, where you’re at in life, etc.

a person with DID can often choose to some degree whether to be visible or covert with their disorder, and that decision is entirely theirs to make and/or later change.

there is no possible way for you to spot when someone is “faking” DID. correct misinformation when applicable, but never call out a system for “faking”.

-

some people choose to see their alters as completely separate from themself. some people choose not to differentiate their alters from themself at all. in my experience, most people fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum.

medically speaking, alters are not completely separate from the host of the system, but are different “self states”. what makes alters distinct from each other is the amnesia (of multiple kinds) between us. this amnesia gives us all different worldviews/identities/memories/symptoms, and therefor for all intents and purposes makes us different people, but in the end we are all still parts of one complete whole.

frequently, alters will even blend/blur into each other, sometimes to the extent that the two (or more!) blended alters are completely indistinguishable from each other. side note: this is usually a very uncomfortable experience.

medically speaking, DID is not a spiritual phenomenon. if a system/alter chooses to relate their own DID to spiritual beliefs, that’s completely valid and understandable, but it’s important for singlets (people who aren’t systems) to be aware that alters are dissociated parts of one whole. so on one hand please don’t refute a system/alter’s personal beliefs or write off their beliefs as “ridiculous”, but also don’t ascribe someone else’s trauma symptoms to reincarnation, spirits, possession, some “mental link” between souls, a connection to other universes, etc, without having their permission to do so. this is true in the case of fictives as well.

-

the host of a system is an alter too. all identity labels, symptoms, or traits that any other alter could potentially have, could also all apply to the host as well. additionally, the host is not more inherently “real” than the other alters, nor does the host “own” the other alters in any way.

any alter can be the host, and who the host is usually changes multiple times throughout a system’s lifetime.

if the host changes, if an alter goes dormant, if two (or more) alters integrate, or if any other major changes happen to the structure of a system, you (as a singlet/friend of the system) have not “lost” anybody. alters can not die or disappear completely, only change form. it’s valid to feel sad if you can’t speak to a specific alter anymore, but please remember that we’re all parts of one whole, so you’re never really losing anybody. you’re just seeing different sides of the same system. an event like a host change isn’t scary, tragic, nor the host’s life getting “stolen” from them, it’s just the way we function as systems.

-

DID is one of the most stigmatized mental illnesses in the media. “alter egos”, “multiple/split personalities”, and the like, are all incredibly common tropes and yet there’s literally no mainstream portrayal of DID that’s been agreed upon as especially “good”, with many/most portrayals being actively harmful. please keep this ableism in mind when discussing tropes like the ones listed above, and never refer to a real life person by one of those tropes.

DID is still very under-researched and not well understood by professionals.

DID, despite occurring in 1%-3% of the population (by current estimates, but potentially even more frequently), is often dismissed even by medical professionals as being purely fictional. this hurts people with DID when they seek out help and makes diagnosis/treatment hard to come by.

(so, like with all disorders, DID self diagnosis is valid.)

-

just be kind to systems, please. people with DID have to put up with a lot of bullshit, and the internet is one of the few (if not only) spaces we can comfortably be ourselves!

thanks for reading. I’m sending out love to fellow systems today <3 hope you’re all having a good one

[ehlnofay]

Finally, after many aeons of deliberation, I have more or less organised and written out my copious and extremely specific thoughts on Sheogorath! They’re rather poorly ordered and chaotic (how fitting) as I wasn’t able to find a better way to arrange them, but I’ll fit these basic thoughts and ideas under three sections: what it is, what it does, and what it wants (with potentially an extra bonus section on the issues I have with its canon characterisation, if I can dredge up enough energy to think of the words. If not, I vow to make a separate post about that at a later time.)

So first: at its core, what is Sheogorath? Obviously, the canonical answer to that is madness, but madness is so archaic and ill-defined that it’s really more of a storytelling idea than a real concept. I prefer to think of Sheogorath as the embodiment of disorder, more broadly – not just in minds but in everything. Sheogorath is chaos and entropy and dysfunction; it’s the concept of things not making sense, of things not working the way they should. This still manifests primarily in terms of human experiences and behaviour, though it is not solely limited to the fields of psychopathology or even an individual’s psychology – Sheogorath’s influence can be felt in any interpersonal situation where there is discord and dysfunction, from the bitter breakdown of a relationship to a war between nations. It’s not limited to people, though. Sheogorath is in everything that breaks, everything that never worked to begin with.

Second: what does it do? In terms of being a sentient entity rather than just an active concept, not a whole lot; not anything very specific, anyway. There are no particular aims or grand plans, no noble goals or evil ambitions it follows. It does things, sometimes hurtful and sometimes helpful, mostly on a whim. Sheogorath dismantles and disrupts and inches things toward disorder. It’s important to note the absence of morality in this discussion. I see Daedric princes and other deity-adjacent beings as less on a scale from good to bad and more on a scale of benevolence and malevolence. Sheogorath is neither consistently. It possesses an equal capacity for kindness and violence. It’s no more likely to snap your ribs and turn your heart upside down in your chest than it is to sit cross-legged on your bed and promise that I can help you. More often than not, it finds a way to be both. It is violently kind; it is kind in its violence.

Third: what motivates it? What does it want? It’s simple: it wants to exist, which means it wants to grow. Entropy is an active concept – it’s not something that just is, it’s something that happens. If Sheogorath ceases to act it ceases to be, and it wants to continue being. Being means growing; it means continuing to happen, to sow more discord, to destroy more order. Its actions are what it is.

 And now, because I am feeling generous and also because I hate to half-ass things once I’ve committed myself to them, here are three less-thought-through subsections of my assorted Sheogorath thoughts. I could probably make these into separate posts: I will not.

Miscellaneous Sheogorath thoughts number one: Sheogorath’s relationship to mortals is unique, as so much of the outward manifestation of its sphere is directly linked to them. It has a simultaneous understanding of and disconnect with mortals, able to perfectly comprehend the deep-rooted and subconscious biases, traits and influences that affect them while fully unable to predict a highly ordinary behaviour or response. Though intrigued by mortals and, every now and again, absolutely desiring a positive connection with one (or several), it fails to understand what, by mortal rules, qualifies as an act of compassion or an act of cruelty. (This relates to my earlier statement about its kind violence and violent kindness. Even when well-intentioned, it can break the people it tries to help, often without ever realising it. Its nature is to dismantle. Who’s to say that’s necessarily a bad thing?)

Miscellaneous Sheogorath thoughts number two: how does the iconic “gentleman with a cane” guise fit into this interpretation? It’s more of an inside joke than anything – only no-one is really in on it. The Gentleman’s behaviour is often exaggeratedly unpredictable, a pantomime of the madness it’s associated with by mortals. It’s unclear whether Sheogorath is making fun of the mortals or itself; it doesn’t quite remember. Now, the Gentleman is more or less the only fixed point in Sheogorath’s perception and presentation. Again, Sheogorath is not a static being, it is built around actions; it is a lot of little things breaking at once. As soon as it has a handle on itself it is something slightly different. The Gentleman, for all his volatility, is reliable; he is always the same. He’s the easiest person to be when Sheogorath has to be anyone. His appearance, however, is not part of the bit; Sheogorath tends to present itself as a person who is just a little off. A well dressed man cradling an eyeball in his palms is right up its alley.

And finally, the promised Miscellaneous Sheogorath Thoughts number three: my issues with Sheogorath’s canon portrayal. Like I said earlier, the concept “madness”, which Sheogorath’s canon portrayal is built around, is an archaic, unspecific, and deeply neurotypical description of mentally ill people and behaviours. There’s no clarity as to what it means – whether it means anyone with any kind of mental illness or only specific ones that present more overtly, or whether it means anyone with any disordered thoughts or behaviours at all, and whether it incorporates neurological conditions or purely psychological ones – it’s very literally just what somebody who knows nothing about anything assumes a mentally ill person is. And keep in mind, I’m not writing this as a somewhat offended mentally ill person (though I am that), I’m writing this as someone who’s been fascinated by psychology and psychopathology since I was ten years old. Sheogorath had huge potential – the inversion of logic and order, embodying all the ways that people can go wrong? The literal personification of psychological dysfunction? Sheogorath could be fascinating and lovable and terrifying! And they went the heehoo funny crazy man route. Not to mention unpredictable and insinuated to be violent, because that’s the portrayal of mental illness that we really need. It’s vaguely offensive, and frankly, it’s BORING. It isn’t interesting or original! Where’s the flavour in that? Where’s the creativity? I’m not saying you’re forbidden from liking Sheogorath in canon – in a lot of ways, I do too. I just think I could have liked him so much more. There could have been some genuinely interesting dissection of mental illness and its perceptions! There never would have been, of course, but there could have. But then, that’s where I come in, isn’t it?

[my-hyperfixation-trash-can]

Hetalia’s Russia and DID/OSDD 1-b

Hey! So @autistic-hetalia your blog said you accept neurodiverse head canons and I thought maybe I could share this one with your blog!

I believe the Hetalia character of Russia has OSDD 1-b (Otherwise Specified Disociative Disorder or possibly DID, being Dissociative Identity Disorder) and this is why.

Just a note,

There is no such thing as an evil alter. Do not demonize people with DID or Other Dissociative Disorders! Those with this disorder are victims of Trauma and are likely to continue being victims of abusers, rarely do they become abusers!

Anyways, -cough cough- I’d love if anyone wants to add to this with more evidence!

1. Russia had a traumatic childhood

He is shown to have had abusive bosses who would punish him. He is threatened by one to invent steam power by the end of the week or be punished. Tartar Yoke mentioned by Lithuania as one of his bosses was also known for his cruelty. So the Authority figured in his youth were often cruel and held power over him.

His environment is cold and unforgiving much like an abusive home. Russia often describes his home as cold, quiet and lonely. He rarely found support from his land and often struggled to get by. The environment and home were harsh with little support. It is also implied he froze to death each Winter, and celebrated the year he didn’t.

This is on top of having to deal with other nations attacking him, making him feel helpless. Many nations “bullied” him in attempts to conquer him. He was mobed and pursed every day by Mongolia. That is exhausting to have everyone around you be a threat. (Lithuania and his sisters were the only nations kind to him in his youth) Early on, he learns that force and strength are what matters.

Next point tw sexual abuse and assault

He also felt a great deal of responsibility to care for his sisters. He was close to them, as they were experiencing similar issues and not violent to him. He had to be the strong one. Belarus and her unhealthy attachment to Russia depending on the age she started her behaviors may have also contributed to his trauma. All of the siblings have unhealthy attitudes towards boundaries with their bodies and the bodies of others, implying another type of abuse. Ukraine and Belarus took victim roles. Russia took on an abusers. Ukraine only ever suggests using her body to get what she wants as if never taught anything else, even as a child that’s what she knows. Belarus I don’t know where to begin, but her staring off is certainly dissociative like, paired with other trust issues. In a diary entry she is stated to have possibly messaged Ukraine’s breasts, once again showing more unhealthy boundaries with attachments to loved ones. Someone taught her that. And Russia, who internalized his abusers, acted out his abuse on others as implied with Lithuania looking distressed dressed as a maid and Russia holding a whip. In another non canon game Himaura worked on, Bulgaria in the bad ending is shown tied up and naked implied to be whipped by Russia as Russia says this is “tradition” or possibly more routine implying this is something he does often.

The idea with dissociative disorders is that the repetitive trauma that happens has to be too much for the mind of that individual child in comparison to the culture they’re raised in, and it conflicts with getting their needs met. And to the countries, all of them know Russia has had a life with far more conflicts in his youth than most, and a great deal of pain.

2. Russia has General Winter (GW for short)

General Winter manifests when Russia is being attacked by other nations in order to defend him, or to be a tormentor to Russia himself (such as freezing him to death each Winter).

This is oddly similar to what is known as a persecutor alter. These alters have the goal in mind to protect the host or body, but they’re a bit misguided in how to do that. They might take on the form of an abuser, or something outside the body, this turns into being an Introject. I’ll post a link to more info on DID/OSDD at the end of the post. The educational videos playlist will have a video on alter roles.

Russia’s bosses often abused him, and if he had an alter like this it would make sense that it would take the form of a general, someone in power who feels so much bigger and stronger than him. A boss who can push him around and make him behave in a way that will avoid further trauma from the real abusers. Winter the season, being another tormenting force of the environment, is another abuser, and it makes sense GW would take that into his identity. Russia feels helpless to it. It is also worth noting that other nations who also had to deal with Harsh winters do not have General Winter as an ally. He only protects Russia.

It would also explain why General Winter protects Russia from others attacking him. He took the ideologies of his abusers to heart, so GW pushes people away and treats them like threats. He feels strong by holding power and fear over others and force. If I can be stronger, no one can hurt me or would dare try, this is the mentality.

I believe GW can manifest as he does because Russia has magic. It’s canon that Russia can do magic or has a strange magic of his own, so whose to say GW can’t utilize it too. Perhaps even to let himself manifest sometimes in his spirit like form. This is more a headcanon or idea though.

Russia himself however is shown to be very passive with his bosses. These are people who hold power over him that he can’t really run away from or fight. So his response is to faun or freeze. This is basically stated in the comics (picture below.) and it’s often that alters have a specific role. Russia’s would be to people please those who he can’t fight. Making General Winter’s job to defend from attack.

3. Russia is shown to dissociate

When he is told to do an impossible amount of work, he just straight up loses himself in a fantasy immediately to escape the reality of the situation. There are other instances too, some in his childhood directly, but this was the most overt. This is from To your Hearts content, Russia!

4. Russia Is Inconsistent

There are times when Russia feels very different from moment to moment.

He goes from open about himself to swiftly sadistic and cold. He has moments of childish behavior to moments of maturity. These, when combined with the rest of my points, are worth noting. He both wants to hurt (possibly destroy) the others, but also be liked by them?

You can’t destroy people and have them like you.

The baltic Trio who lived a substantial amount of time with him still are confused by his unpredictable behavior. Each encounter The Baltic’s have with Russia is marked by a fear of what he might do. And not having certainty, thus they say things without knowing if it’s safe or not.

Even to Lithuania, (Whom Russia often shows Vulnerability to, in moments like bloody Sunday and Sharing his dreams in Outsourcing Sequel)living with Russia feels a strange theme park where he never knew what to expect. Lithuania has been shown to be great in strategy and games of wit, and a commendable leader with great people skills, yet he only has a general idea of Russia’s behavior? He is seen advising Prussia and Moldova that Russia likes it when people laugh or cry easily (This being predictable to Russia and thus easier to navigate social situations with) so it’s not like Lithuania isn’t paying attention. Russia shows moments of vulnerability and his thought process in panels like Bloody Sunday, which is quite telling as to what he believes are his responsibilities, and how the world works.

Now the real question is “why is he like this?”

He only understands the world from the point of view of someone who still lives in the abuse and knows no other options. He never had anyone teach or show him different. His world is ruled by who is the strongest, and if you can obey the strong you won’t get hurt or discarded. “We don’t want children who can’t play nice,” sounds like something an abuser told him frequently in his youth.

Russia just doesn’t have a support system due to his strained relationships with everyone. So he keeps relying on old defense mechanisms, hence letting General Winter step in when something threatens his sense of safety.

Nearly Every time (at least that’s what I noticed) Russia is emotionally vulnerable to someone, he suddenly changes to be sadistic or scary. It successfully pushes the person away and Reestablishes the fear of Russia in the individual, returning him to a state of being feared and alone where none of the other countries can hurt him. Examples below.

France talking to Russia after meetings and asking him personal questions would result in Russia ending the conversation by scaring him with a scsry remark and aura suddenly.

Russia Comforting China after Japan turns on him, he is kind and compassionate at first, but suddenly changes at the end.

The Baltic Trio never knows what to expect. He frequently uses fear and force to keep them.

This behavior seems directly contradictory to wanting friends and having a warm and lively home. So GW still reacts with a trauma response, and Russia reacts in line with his wishes of making friends and having others around him. The Use of force and intimidation is naturally the middle ground between their wishes. Russia believes everyone is his friends, and doesn’t see how his behavior is pushing people away. Other times he seems to want friends to like him back, like when he sent France an anonymously written letter to his radio show. However he has wishes that contradict.

Now, I think he sees friends as people he can keep near him that he enjoys the company of. (This doesn’t need to be mutual or involve trust, just force) but those wants directly contradict.

I think GW is passively influencing him with some of the behavior rather than switching out right, but either option still would have the same effects. Passive influence is when an alter is close to the front, or feels/thinks something strong enough that it affects the person at the front. Making them behave in a way that is ooc for them, but not the other who intentionally or unintentionally influenced them.

This would explain sudden shifts to a cruel threatening position with other nations, something that will most likely always be a threat GW needs to defend against. He is particularly cold and defensive with anyone that has a chance to hurt him, (or tries to look into his psyche) regardless of if they made a move to do so.

More on passive influence can be found in the sources at the bottom under educational playlist.

5. Misc. Points of knowledge

Russia’s character originally was meant to be a cry baby, and only when he drinks, has a complete switch in personality. Frankly I’m glad he was changed to the complex guy we have now. However I think this concept wasn’t fully lost.

His character song, Winter, seems to talk of him experiencing freezing to death each Winter. Further adding to his repetitive trauma.

It is not unheard of for nations to have disorders and conditions. Australia has ADHD, Prussia is Albino, Lithuania has severe anxiety (and possibly PTSD), so who is to say a nation like Russia can’t have a dissociative disorder?

It is stated in one of Russia’s character bios that “General Winter is always with him”, however where? I don’t physically see him, but perhaps we can’t because he’s sharing a body with Russia.

In summary

Russia dissociates under stress

Russia has repetitive traumas and an ongoing history of abuse all his life

Russia has inconsistent behavior and attachments

General Winter could certainly be a separate personality and functions exactly like an introject/persecutor alter would to their host.

Russia acts out and damages relationships, acting in inconsistent ways that might play out his own abuse, and/or reflect his desires to keep others near him.

As a note, I actually have DID, so this could be my projecting, but please don’t yell at me about how I made a “villain” have DID and feed into evil alters and split Stareotypes. I would only like to raise interest and provide an example of what a misrepresented disorder can look like. And the links below are there if you want to make your mind up for yourself and educate yourself if this inspires your portrayal of him! This isn’t meant to be insensitive, I’ve been working on this post for months to word it as sensitive as I could while also acknowledging Russia is still responsible for his and GW’s actions. Saying he has DID isn’t to excuse it, just explain it.

Don’t erase his victims, but don’t erase that he also is one.

(This blog below was also really helpful, but this post covers a lot of Russia’s earlier trauma and his mentality)

https://ellawritesficssometimes.tumblr.com/post/175060886956

Research for DID and OSDD 1b below: (along with links to comics)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm56LzW0BA_P7-yL3rK7INZDDozTayJvJ

https://www.hetarchive.net/blog/tag/russia/

http://hetarchive.net/tag/russia/

http://www.hetarchive.net/blog/2013/10/11/blog-entry-1411/

https://hetalia.fandom.com/wiki/Russia

https://www.hetarchive.net/blog/2019/01/29/about-the-fact-that-russias-history-is-too-scary/

Below is for an example of dissociation:

http://www.hetarchive.net/blog/2019/02/28/to-your-hearts-content-russia/

https://youtu.be/ZV3ToVA5BqQ

https://did-research.org/origin/comorbid/dd/osdd_udd/index.html

[scripttorture]

I have a character who was a slave but was rescued and freed after about 2 years in slavery and eventually goes on to rescue other people in slavery. While in slavery, he was punished often with denial of food as well as being whipped and beaten when he refused to work. He also had his tongue partially cut out as a punishment. I already have a good idea about the psychological effects he is going to have, but I’m struggling with the physical effects and how long it would take to recover

Part of the answer here depends on this character’s age because while adults can generally make a good recovery from periods of starvation the effects on children (especially young children) are a lot more long lasting.

 The best places to start for the effects of starvation on adults are probably the Minnesota Starvation Experiment and the World Health Organisation (WHO, general link here, 1999 pamphlet on malnutrition in all ages here).

 Recovery is generally pretty quick unless someone’s at the point where they’re near death.

 Refeeding syndrome can be an issue in some cases (especially famine or forced labour camps) but it doesn’t have to be one here. If the character is eating normally (as opposed to being fed by IV for instance) then refeeding syndrome is less likely. My understanding is that this is because the body suppresses appetite during starvation so that it only takes in what it can manage (appetite recovers quickly as the patient regains weight.)

 There’s a detailed NHS guide to refeeding in adult here. It should give you an idea of how at risk your character is and how much food he’ll be able to handle in his first few days of recovery.

 A physical recovery period of around 1-3 months depending on the degree of starvation is reasonable. In this case by ‘recovery’ I mean being able to do normal physical activity, a return to previous healthy weight, or higher weight, return to normal appetite and nutrient levels.

 Recovery can be delayed by additional illness: it’s easier for starving people to contract diseases or infections and it takes longer for them to fight them off.

 There’s also a difference depending on whether you’re talking about a character who is consistently under fed and forced to work versus a character who is usually provided with enough food but sometimes denied food completely/on very reduced rations for periods of a few days. Consistent starvation and malnutrition is much more usual in slavery and… much more likely to be fatal.

 A character that has short periods where food is denied them (no more then two days) and is then allowed to eat as much as they want is probably not going to need hospital supervision/treatment for starvation. If that doesn’t sound like your character then the procedure is usually just to let the person eat as much as they want of whatever they want. The difficulty for people at this sort of stage is more about organising giving out food then it is about keeping doctors on hand to monitor them.

 Now I know less about this but I think there is some evidence that this sort of pattern of intermittent starvation (ie periods where the character is starved, then allowed to eat and this is repeated) can cause some pretty serious health effects. It can also make disordered eating behaviour more likely.

 On a cosmetic level it’s also linked to weight gain.

 Which ever option you’re picturing the following effects are all likely:

loss of muscle mass

lack of coordination

weaker bones

higher chance of hypothermia or heat exhaustion

fainting

poor circulation

higher chances of disease and infections

longer recovery time and more difficult recovery from disease and infections

 A survivor can get to a point where they’re no longer at immediate risk before they’re back to full health. It takes time to recover bone and muscle mass. It takes time for the internal organs to get back to normal. It takes time for enough fat to build up so a person’s body can regulate heat properly.

 There’s also a difference between someone being at peak physical fitness and getting back to average. My understanding is that if someone’s survived significant periods of starvation they’re… unlikely to reach peak physical fitness. If this character was an athlete or a super hero or otherwise had a physically demanding profession, they’re likely to notice a difference even when they’re ‘better’.

 They could improve with time and practice but they may never get back to their prior ability level.

 There’s evidence of epigenetic effects; the children of people who recover from starvation are likely to be shorter then the children of people who have never starved.

 The Minnesota Starvation experiment theorised that after a successful recovery there were few long term effects of starvation. There’s some evidence now that this was an optimistic conclusion but it’s difficult to get a clear picture because of the ethics around studying starvation.

 For young children starvation results in an adult who is:

physically weaker

less intelligent

more prone to illness

less able to fight off illness

has a shorter life expectancy

is physically smaller

 Starvation of children represents a blunting of potential: they will never reach their full strength or intelligence even if they may be stronger/smarter then some individuals. And there is really nothing that can be done to treat that. They needed food over a crucial period and did not receive it. The damage is done and can not currently be treated or healed.

 Beatings over a long period of time and forced labour both have a tendency to cause chronic pain in the joints. Shoulders and knees seem particularly common.

 There are a lot of possible causes for this sort of chronic pain. Ligament and muscle damage s possible. Beatings with objects can cause bone fragments to uh break away and lodge in soft tissues. Soft tissues around joints can be damaged.

 And there are also psychological causes or combinations of both physical damage and psychological causes.

 For instance this is something I saw in an account from a survivor of child abuse. The survivor had been punished using standing stress positions and he found as an adult that he got shooting pains in the backs of his legs while stressed at work. With the help of his doctors he found that when he was stressed he leaned forward on to his toes, mimicking part of the stress position he’d been subjected to as a child. This put more strain on his legs and caused the pain.

 These kinds of responses can be very difficult to stop.

 What I’m trying to illustrate here is that disabling pain is really common in survivors and you don’t necessarily need to know a specific cause for it.

 Chronic pain can cause long term problems to do with mobility and performing everyday activities. Most often it means that survivors need to rest more often, they may have less stamina and they might need to do things in ‘odd’/unusual ways in order to comfortably perform the activity.

 For instance someone with chronic pain in their shoulders might struggle to hang wet clothes on a line that’s above their heads. So they might get in the habit of lowering the clothes line, attaching the clothes and then raising it by pulling on the cord at waist height. They might have trouble moving their shoulder to put on jackets, so they could use their body weight to ‘flip’ the arm joint to the correct position without involving the muscles of the shoulder.

 Someone with knee pain would probably be more particular about the height of chairs in their house. They may stop keeping things in low drawers or shelves.

 Consider where your character might have pain, what activities might make it worse and life style adaptions you can work in to your story.

 These can actually be a great world building/character detail. Especially because healthy people have a tendency to assume these adaptions are eccentricities rather then necessity, prompting conversation between characters.

 There is one part of this scenario that worries me: mutilating the tongue.

 Cutting out tongues is one of those things that comes up a lot in fiction and is generally… less survivable then people assume. Tongues are not just for verbal communication: they’re a pretty essential part of how we swallow food and water, not to mention detecting whether said food/water is edible and they contain a lot of blood vessels. There’s a reason things like tongue splitting and tongue piercing don’t tend to show up as traditional body modification practices.

 The process of partially removing a tongue is life threatening in and of itself. Victims can drown in their own blood. Inflammation can block the airways causing suffocation. Infection can make breathing, eating or drinking impossible (increasing the chance of death from infection.)

 If the victim survives (some definitely did) they’d have trouble eating and drinking for the rest of their lives. This means malnutrition is likely, leading to shorter life expectancies and higher chances of disease (apart from the conditions malnutrition itself causes.)

 It also means recovery from starvation would be significantly longer. Which means a longer period when the character’s more at risk from infection and disease as well as the general uh ‘problems’ starvation causes.

 I’m not saying you’ve created an unsurvivable scenario. We know from history that some people have gone through stuff like this and survived.

 What I’m saying is the survival rate is low. Those survivors (and your character) got lucky.

 Keep that in mind when you write this scenario.

 In terms of long term recovery I honestly have no idea how a removed tongue is treated, I’m not a medic. I can guess at some lifestyle adaptions though.

 Because it makes eating more difficult I think it’s likely a survivors would have smaller meals and more frequent meals rather then large portions that might be cold/unpleasant by the time they’ve finished eating. They’d probably learn to cut their food into smaller pieces and might avoid tougher foods that require more chewing. Their sense of the taste and texture of food would be impaired which might effect their enjoyment of food which could in turn effect their motivation to eat and their recovery.

 Overall I think the take away message here is that while most of the physical long term effects of slavery are not immediately life threatening they have a massive effect on long term quality of life.

 A lot of survivors of modern slavery come out of similar time frames to this disabled by a combination of chronic pain, joint problems and untreated injury or disease.

 One of the recurring themes in Kara’s interviews with slaves is that slavery physically ages people. The combination of extreme distress, physical abuse, overwork, sleep deprivation and malnutrition makes survivors appear much older then they are.

 But the reasons why, the injuries and marks of abuse are often not immediately obvious.

 I hope that helps :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[sunflower-stella]

Hello there! I’ve seen a lot of posts going around, defining different terms and communities that you might come across while exploring the age regression side of tumblr. However, I’ve never seen an overall guide, so I’ve set out to make an easy-peasy guide to all the complicated terms you might encounter! This guide includes 1) Minor-Safe Age Regression Communities, 2) Kink Tags, and 3) Common ‘DNI’ Terms.

Please let me know if there’s a term I’ve missed, or a community I’ve misrepresented! This is a pretty basic introduction to a lot of complex concepts, so if you have more questions please feel free to get in touch with me.

Even if you know the basics, this guide is probably worth a scan to see if there are any terms that you haven’t seen before, and you can also fact-check my writing while you’re at it, helping out anyone else who reads this in the future.

With that said, let’s get into it!

Part One: Minor-Safe Age Regression Communities

Age Regression: The term ‘age regression’ as an umbrella term that is used to describe any experience where a person returns mentally to childhood. It can be a coping strategy to deal with stress, a reaction to trauma or mental illness, or just a natural part of someone’s life. In tags, ‘age regression’ is often shortened to ‘agere’. (Be aware: kink communities also sometimes use ‘agere’ and ‘age regression’ tags! They aren’t inherently minor-safe or non-sexual, so use caution and common sense.)

CGLRE: Stands for ‘caregiver/little regression’. Cglre is one of the oldest regression communities that exists on tumblr, as well as one of the most popular.  Cglre is controversial because it uses ‘littlespace’ terminology. (A regressor is called a ‘little’ and their caregiver is usually called ‘mommy,’ ‘daddy’ or similar parental titles.) Littlespace terms are used in cglre to describe regression, but they’re also used by kink blogs to describe submission. On the surface, this means that cglre looks similar to kink blogs, but most cglre members are very dedicated to being minor-safe, separate from kink, and discussing therapeutic, coping-related, non-sexual age regression.  

(Note: CGLRE subcommunities and tags are abundant! The tags ‘liltot,’ ‘agere society,’ ‘nsre,’ ‘dxlg,’ and others are all cglre-based communities. You can find huge lists of cglre subcommunities on this blog because there are too many to cover here!)

CHIRE: Stands for ‘child regression.’ Chire evolved as a response to cglre, as a regression community that doesn’t allow littlespace terminology, or interaction with blogs who allow it. Because of the harsh lines they draw between communities, they are also a controversial group, but many people have positive experiences with it!

Non-Comm Regression: Short for ‘non-community regression.’ Non-comm regressors don’t identify as part of cglre, chire, or any of the smaller sub-communities that exist under age regression. Often, they interact with multiple communities, as well as with other non-comm regression blogs.

Pet Regressors: Some people feel less like kids when they regress, and prefer to identify as animals! ‘petreg’ or pet regression is the word for people who regress as animals. This might be connected to otherkin identities (people who self-identify as something not human, possibly an animal or possibly something more abstract) or might just be their own way of regressing!

Age Dreaming: Age dreaming, which is sometimes shortened to ‘agedre,’ is a minor-safe community focused on recapturing childhood outside of regression. Age dreamers take comfort in childish and nostalgic things while not mentally regressing (or not fully regressing, depending on the age dreamer).

System Littles: The term ‘little’ has a different meaning when applied to someone in a system. A ‘system’ is formed from a variety of experiences, including childhood trauma and dissociative disorders, when a mind copes by developing rifts in their memory and personality, forming different people within one body as they grow older. This collection is called a system. System members may interact with age regressors for multiple reasons. Firstly, some systems have littles, which doesn’t refer to an age regressor when it’s used about a system member. A system little a system member who is a child, contained within an adult body. Some system littles find community in age regression spaces, but most prefer to keep separate from agere groups. Secondly, some system members are age regressors, or ‘age-sliders,’ which is an experience kind of like regression, but is specific to system members. So systems have all kinds of reasons to be part of the age regression community!

SFW Agere: This means ‘safe for work age regression.’ This usually means ‘non-sexual age regression’ or ‘minor-safe age regression,’ but not always! Please see the sections on ‘sfw kink’ down below.

Dual-Comm: Short for ‘dual community’. People call themselves ‘dual-comm’ regressors if they are sfw age regressors that also participate in kink communities in their adult headspace. People with sfw regression blogs might indicate that they are dual-comm regressors so that people can block them if that makes them uncomfortable, or because it is an important part of their relationship to regression, even if they don’t post about it on their regression blog.

Part Two: Kink Tags and Communities

(Note: I won’t go as deeply into kink communities because I’ve created this guide for age regressors, and want to mention kink groups mostly to raise awareness of what can’t be reblogged onto a minor-safe regression account.)

Cross-Tagging: The act of ‘cross-tagging’ is when someone tags a post with both minor-safe community tags like ‘cglre’ and kink community terms like ‘ddlg.’ This is bad because it exposes minors to kink communities, which is dangerous for everyone involved. It also might expose regressed people to sexual content, which can be triggering depending on their experience of age regression. That’s why it’s important to know which tags belong to kink communities, so you can block and avoid them if you want to have a minor-safe regression blog!

Age Play: ‘age play’ is an umbrella term for any kink dynamic in which one person consents to being treated as a child for the purpose of submission.

DDLG/CGL: Stands for ‘daddy dom/little girl’ and ‘caregiver/little,’ respectively. These are kink communities that use littlespace terminology to talk about sexual relationships. There is also ‘mdlb’ which stands for ‘mommy dom/little boy,’ and same-gender variants like ‘mdlg’ and ‘ddlb’. (If you run a minor-safe tumblr blog, it is very important to have all of these tags blocked so that you don’t accidentally reblog from an unsafe source!)

ABDL: Stands for ‘adult baby diaper lover.’ This is a kink community centered around diapers. They might also identify with the term ‘omorashi’ or use it as a tag on their posts.  

SFW Kink: Stands for ‘safe for work kink.’ This can be used to refer to non-explicit kink posts or to platonic, non-sexual kink. Either way, kink being ‘sfw’ does not mean that it is minor-friendly!

NSAP: Stands for ‘non-sexual age play,’ which is an approach to age play often (but not always) linked to coping with stress, rather than explicit sexual gratification.

(Note on non-sexual age play: There is a misconception in the age regression community that all kink is inherently sexual. Some people use age play as a coping strategy without involving sexual elements. That said, even non-sexual age play isn’t minor-safe because it is still a power-play dynamic that minors cannot (and should not) consent to. I say this because it is important to a) not cross-tag nsap with minor-safe communities and b) not bring power-play into sfw agere spaces. If you are an adult and you are more drawn to the rules and discipline of littlespace, please explore on the non-sexual kink side so that we can foster a safe space without power dynamics for minor regressors!)

Part Three: Common DNI Acronyms

Content Warning: mentions of transphobia, eating disorders, and pedophilia.

(Note: We’ve already covered a lot of the acronyms that you might see on people’s DNI in Parts One and Two. Here are some more you might see. As a general rule, if you’ve never seen the term before, it probably doesn’t apply to you, but it’s always best to Urban Dictionary an unfamiliar word!)  

DNI: Stands for ‘Do Not Interact.’ A list of communities that a person doesn’t want to interact with their content, usually for personal comfort. It is always important to read a person’s DNI and respect it. A person’s DNI can be on their post in the form of a banner/image, or in their blog description, their ‘BYF’ (Before You Follow) page, or linked in their blog description as a ‘carrd.’

TERF: Stands for ‘Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist’. TERFs are threatened by trans women in feminist spaces, and believe that womanhood is intrinsically linked to biological femininity (ie. having a womb).  

SWERF: Stands for ‘Sex-Work Exclusionary Radical Feminist.’ SWERFs believe that sex work is inherently linked to sexism and gendered violence, and that women cannot freely make the choice to engage in sex work. Some SWERFs believe that women who make this choice are encouraging sexist objectification.

Transmed/Truscum: These terms refer to someone who believes that being transgender must be linked to dysphoria and a desire to medically transition.

Anti-Mogai: The term ‘MOGAI’ stands for ‘marginalized other genders and intersex’ and refers to a community of trans/gender-nonconforming people who use very specific and personal titles to describe their gender. People who are anti-mogai are often part of the transmed community.

Ace Exclus: Short for ‘ace exclusionists,’ it means someone who believes that asexual or aromantic people shouldn’t be welcome in LGBT spaces.

REGs: stands for ‘reactionary exclusionist gatekeepers’ and is an umbrella term for all of the groups above: pretty much, anyone who ‘gatekeeps’ (limits) who gets to be part of the LGBT community.

Anti: I’m not sure what this is actually short for, but I always think of it as ‘anti-ship’. An ‘anti’ is someone who believes people shouldn’t be engaging with problematic media and ships (such as racist media, pedophilic ships, and fanfiction that romanticizes abuse).

Anti-Anti: An anti-anti is someone who doesn’t agree with the above people.

Endogenic Systems/Anti-Endogenic Systems: There’s big debate about whether it’s possible to have a system (see ‘system littles’ in section one) that isn’t formed in response to trauma. The term ‘traumagenic system’ refers to a system created by childhood trauma. ‘Endogenic system’ means a system that is not related to trauma.

Pro-Ana/Thinspo: Stands for ‘pro-anorexia’ and ‘thin inspiration,’ respectively. This is a community based on the encouragement and romanticization of eating disorders. Understandably triggering to a lot of people!

MAP: Stands for ‘Minor Attracted Person,’ which is another word for pedophile (adult attracted to children). Tumblr has an unfortunate community of pedophiles who choose not to seek treatment, and take pride in their identity. They use a miscellany of titles, which is important for people to research and block for safety, especially in age regression circles where there are a lot of vulnerable minors. (Note: If you experience persistent attraction to minors, please talk to a professional about it.This is not your fault but it is your responsibility.)

Littlespace: Some people list ‘littlespace’ or ‘non-system littles’ in their DNI to block kink blogs that use littlespace terminology, as well as CGLRE and related communities that use the same terms. These people aren’t always insinuating that the two groups are the same, but rather that those words make them uncomfortable. So it’s important to respect that if you use littlespace terminology on your regression blog!

18+: This confuses people all the time. Ninety-nine percent of the time, if a person has ‘DNI if 18+’ on their post, they mean don’t interact if you run a minor-unsafe, 18+ only blog, not ‘if you are over the age of eighteen’. (That said, there is a one-percent chance that they actually mean that it’s a minors-only post, so do check if you’re unsure!)

--

Congratulations if you’ve made it all the way to the end of this guide! I don’t expect you to remember everything you’ve read, but this guide will be here if you ever want to come back to it to check on a new and confusing term. I’ve spent years being confused by all of these different labels, and there are new ones coming out all the time, so don’t worry about screwing up every once in a while! We can only do our best, and correct ourselves politely when we make a mistake. I hope you have an awesome day, and I’ll see you around in our chaotic little virtual neighbourhood!

[nikibogwater]

A Shot in the Dark: Chapter One (Author’s Commentary)

(read the fic here)

General Notes:

(So I kind of stole this idea from my friend @unexpected-possibilities after she made an author’s commentary post on one of her fics, and I was like “Oh. Wait, I actually find this kind of stuff SUPER interesting to read." So...yeah, here’s mine for anybody who feels similarly lol)

I have been dying to write this kind of story pretty much since the completion of my second Wizards/ToA fic back in August, but it took me a while to suss out the plot. I generally try to keep my fics as canon-friendly as possible (not that I have anything against AUs, that’s just not a direction that I usually go in) so it was tricky to create a high-stakes adventure story that didn’t mess with canon too much. 

That being said, Chapter 1 is pretty chill, apart from the scene at the end. But it is incredibly important to the plot, because it sets up elements that will be very relevant later in the story. It also serves to re-establish the three-way relationship between Douxie, Archie, and Nari, which will give their interactions in the future chapters more weight. 

One last general note before we get to the passage-specific stuff: The song “Protector” by City Wolf has always been my go-to theme for the Douxie-Archie-Nari relationship, but I think it really captures the feel of this story in particular (or at least, it will once the whole thing is posted lol). I’ve never associated a particular song with any of my other fics before, but this one really was a huge part of what inspired this story, so I highly recommend that you give it a listen, if you are so inclined.

Passage-Specific Notes:

Two pairs of luminous golden eyes were hovering uncomfortably close to his head and staring at him fixedly. Douxie yelped and threw off his covers, scrambling upright and fumbling for his magic vambrace nearby. A small green hand held it out to him politely, and after a bit of confused blinking, Douxie finally registered the faces of his companions. Nari and Archie were sitting on the floor next to his mattress, looking at him eagerly. 

Two short things: One: I had no idea how I was going to start this scene, and then I remembered that one Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin wakes up to find Hobbes hovering over him menacingly, and I was like “Yes, that will do nicely.” Two: I still have no idea what Douxie’s magic bracelet-thingy should technically be called, so I settled on vambrace. I know Merlin refers to it as a bracelet in the show, but Merl, I’m sorry, but you clearly know nothing about jewelry. That thing is NOT a simple bracelet. (Also I had to research the difference between bracers and vambraces in order to determine which word to use. Bracers are apparently protective gear that is exclusive to archery, while vambrace is a more general word for any kind of armor worn on the forearm).

“It’s also the day you promised to bring Nari to Central Park,” Archie informed him.

This is a callback to a previous entry in the series, Home Away From Home. Although each entry in the Immortal Bonds series is written in such a way that it can be enjoyed as a standalone, I do weave tiny threads of continuity throughout all of them.

Mornings for Nari looked very different than they used to, she realized as she set the kettle on the stove, stepping back so Archie could light it (due to her somewhat complicated relationship with Bellroc, she was still wary about anything that involved fire). As a demigoddess who had existed for hundreds of millenia, she had never had much experience with something as human as family domesticity.

The scene where Nari and Archie make Douxie’s tea was originally going to be much longer and feature a lot more introspection on Nari’s part (I even researched the British tea-making process for it, since I’m fairly certain Douxie is the one who taught her how to make tea). I was going to start exploring the idea that Nari is still insecure about her place in this little found family, but I realized after about three paragraphs that there’s no way Nari doesn’t know how much Douxie genuinely loves her--she is already proficient in reading his emotions at this point. So that’s an internal conflict for another day.

“Keep very still for me, Nari.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his aura flowing out and wrapping around her like a warm, familiar cloak. “Celare,” he murmured, and Nari felt a sharp tug on her spirit as the spell washed over it, cool and comforting like the shade of an old tree.

If you’ve read previous entries in this series, you know that I can wax poetic about the physical sensations of magic for DAYS. It is one of my favorite aspects of writing Tales of Arcadia fanfiction. Also Celare (kel-ahr-ay) is Latin for “Hide” or “Conceal.” I had to get outside help for this because I don’t speak Latin, and Google Translate is (as I found out) completely unreliable for even the simplest, single-word translations (it gave me the word for “clothe” when I used it 😑)

The first time she had walked the streets of New York City, Nari had been on the verge of tears. There were so many sensations assaulting her mind at once, the feeling of countless souls buzzing around, a crowd of spirits so thick that sometimes it felt like a wall. Even without tapping into her roots, she was drowning in a sea of tangling energies, as hundreds, even thousands of voices echoed in her soul all at once.

Oooooops, is that a parallel for Sensory Processing Disorder? Well, how did that get in there??? *shoves my own mental health issues under a rug with my foot* I have no clue.

This is probably as good a time as any to discuss auras vs. life energy. Basically, aura is the energy radiated by the presence of magic. Magical creatures who share close bonds can become very sensitive to one another’s aura, and because magic is so inextricably linked to emotion, Nari is able to read Douxie’s aura to pick up on whatever he’s feeling (though this is because she is extra sensitive to magical presence--Douxie is attuned to her aura, but he can’t read hers the way she can his). Life energy, meanwhile, is the energy given off by every living soul, magic or otherwise, and that’s what Nari is able to sense via her powers as a demigoddess. I sometimes interchange the word aura with spirit or soul or something similar, but if Douxie or Nari are sensing one another in any capacity apart from their actual physical senses, it’s their auras. Archie also has an aura, but it’s not as intense as that of a true magic-wielder.  

He was fashionably dressed, (“business casual,” the humans called it), with an elegant black trench coat hanging nonchalantly off of his arm. He had dark brown hair, handsomely trimmed and styled, just a bit shorter than Douxie’s, and was wearing a large pair of expensive-looking sunglasses. He looked thoroughly uninterested in the world around him, and had the appearance of someone who was waiting to meet up with a particularly tardy acquaintance. But Nari couldn’t sense that he was waiting. She couldn’t sense anything from this man. He emitted no life force, no aura or energy of any kind. He was like a standing, breathing corpse.

I have had this character floating around in the back of my mind since August, and I was just waiting for the opportunity to use him. Also fun fact, he was originally conceived as a sort of prototype for who I thought Mordred Le Fey would be in the ToA universe. But since canon is technically still ongoing and the ToA writers could still bring Mordred into the picture, I decided to adapt him into the original character Rivan (whose name will be properly revealed in the next chapter).

Beside her, Douxie’s aura was rippling with unease. But a moment later, his spirit stilled, and he put an arm around her to turn her away from the alley...

...A minute later, the crosswalk signal changed once more, and they continued on their way. Though Douxie’s spirit was radiating a placid energy, Nari couldn’t help noticing that he kept his arm around her for the rest of the journey.

It was important to me that Douxie not look like a complete idiot in this scene, which was a little difficult since this part isn’t told from his perspective. Homeboy absolutely knows better than to ignore something suspicious like this. But he is also acting as Nari’s brother/guardian in this scene, so he tries to play it off to keep her from worrying too much. He promised her a fun day in Central Park, and he’s not willing to bail on that just yet. But I’m hoping that the fact that he has to force his aura into a state of calm and physically holds Nari close to him as they walk are good indicators that he has gone on high alert.

And that’s a wrap for this week! Next Friday, all hell is gonna break loose, so definitely come back for that. If you have any questions/comments, definitely hit me up either in my Ask Box or over on Ao3. As always, thanks for reading! ✨💕