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monstersdownthepath · 3 days

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Homebrew Horror: Caligine, the Sweltering Saint

(Art by @fishfacedterror!)

The twisted, self-described "Saint of Spices and Suffering" known as Caligine has numerous other titles with varying levels of detail and alliteration, is one of the youngest and most obscure of the shadowy demigods known as the Velstrac Demagogues. As such, his cult is quite small, but it grows every day as it draws in eccentric spice aficionados, brave gourmands, and all manner of uncommon men with tastes and habits bordering (or surpassing) the inhumane. Whether they wish to experience entirely new forms of suffering or simply test their tolerance, the "Trials of St. Caligine" call to all kinds.

Because Caligine prefers to experiment on the willing rather than the unwilling (if only because the willing are more likely to appreciate the molecular gastronomy at play), he is among the most peaceful of all the Demagogues in relation to his interactions with mortal life, going so far as to place his personal workshop just a three days' walk from Shadow Absalom and encourage patronage and trade with its citizens for exotic ingredients he would otherwise not have access to... but do not confuse 'peaceful' with 'harmless,' and do not believe 'prefers' means 'will only.' Anyone who disrupts his experiments is very likely to become a part of them, and the internal excruciations he delights in causing are a far different torture the common flesh-flaying and bone-breaking of most velstrac, a fact on its own which draws fiends from all over to experience them, fiends which have FAR fewer qualms disappearing Caligine's clientele for their own hideous projects.

While most of the fatalities he causes are the results of his gastric atrocities, Caligine relishes the occasional combat, both to make use of the runoff of his many experiments (it's still good for something) and to relieve the tedium that comes with waiting for endless vats of ingredients to boil down into something worthwhile. Despite his primary occupation as both a chef and a chemist, he is a terrifying and resilient combatant regardless of the range one fights him at, either hacking his foes apart with his enchanted cleaver and breaking their bones with his wretched tongue up close, or hurling truly impressive amounts of caustic explosives at more distant foes.

Despite his ferocity in battle, the Saint is willing to live up to his title in his own bizarre ways. An offering of especially rare or exotic ingredients or powerful, unique potions and poisons may see him pausing his assault long enough for one to reason with him. He may even bargain with those he was just trying to kill to get his hands on something he's never seen before (a challenge in and of itself!), and honors all promises he makes to the best of his abilities with very little litigious twisting, something which may change as he ages. He has been known to even provide healing to victims he's butchered or slain, though his prices for doing so always include submitting to his gastronomic experiments, something which has made many a victim wish they had stayed dead.

Saint Caligine CR 27

Lawful Evil Large Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar, Kyton, Lawful)

Init: +14; Senses: Darkvision 60ft, Keen Scent, See in Darkness; Perception +29

------ Defense ------

AC 44, touch 24, flat-footed 29 (+14 Dex, +1 dodge, +20 natural, -1 size)

HP 740 (34d10+544) Regeneration 30 (Deific and Mythic)

Fort +35 Ref +24 Will +24

Defensive abilities Mithridatism; DR 20/Epic, good, and silver; Immune Charm and compulsion effects, cold, fear effects, petrification, sleep; Resist Acid 30, Electricity 20, Fire 30; SR 38

------ Offense ------

Speed 40ft, climb 40ft

Melee Cleaver of Caligine +45/+40/+35/+30 (1d8+12 plus 1d6 Acid and 1d6 Fire/19-20/x3), claw +38 (1d8+5), tongue +41 (2d6+9 plus 1d10 Acid or Fire plus grab), OR two claws +41 (1d8+9), tongue +41 (2d6+9 plus 1d10 Acid or Fire plus grab)

Ranged Bomb +48/+43/+38/+33 (10d6+8 Acid or Fire)

Space 10ft; Reach 10ft (15ft with tongue)

Special Attacks Coated Tongue, constrict (2d6+14 plus 1d10 Acid or Fire), Ring of Telekinesis (DC 22/CMB +41), Unnerving Gaze (60ft, DC 34)

Infusions Prepared (CL 20; Concentration +28)

1st- Abjuring Step x2, Anticipate Peril x2, Expeditious Retreat, Long Arm, Shield 2nd- Barkskin, Blur x2, Touch Injection, Twisted Innards, Vomit Swarm x2 3rd- Fly, Haste, Heroism, Nauseating Trail x2 (DC 21), Toxic Blood (DC 21), Thorn Body 4th- Arcane Eye, Detonate x2 (DC 21), Fire Shield, Greater Invisibility x2, Spell Immunity 5th- Delayed Consumption x3, Grand Destiny, Overland Flight, Resurgent Transformation 6th-Caging Bomb Admixture, Heal x2, Mislead x2 (DC 24), Walk Through Space

Spell-like Abilities (CL 34; Concentration +41)

Constant--Discern Lies, Freedom of Movement, True Seeing At-will--Dispel Magic, Plane Shift (self and willing targets only), Teleport (self and willing targets only) 7/day--Acidic Spray (DC 22), Beguiling Gift (DC 18), Contagious Flame (DC 24), Tongues 5/day--Caustic Eruption (DC 24), Overwhelming Poison, Wall of Fire (DC 21) 3/day--Quickened Fireball (DC 24), Incendiary Cloud (DC 25) Transmute Blood to Acid (DC 26)

------ Statistics ------

Str 28 Dex 38 Con 42 Int 27 Wis 20 Cha 25 Base Atk: +34; CMB +44; CMD 68

Feats Brew Potion, Cleave, Close-Quarters Thrower (Bombs), Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, Dodge, Improved Critical (Handaxe), Great Cleave, Multiattack, Point-Black Shot, Precise Shot, Power Attack, Rapid Shot, Splash Weapon Mastery, Throw Anything, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (Bombs)

Skills Acrobatics +24, Appraise +38, Bluff +15, Climb +22, Craft (Alchemy) +55, Diplomacy +22, Disable Device +24, Escape Artist +24, Knowledge (Arcana) +38, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +38, Knowledge (Engineering) +28, Knowledge (Geography) +25, Knowledge (Local) +23, Knowledge (Nature) +45, Knowledge (the Planes) +31, Perception +29, Profession (Chef) +54, Sense Motive +28, Sleight of Hand +24, Spellcraft +45, Survival +25, Use Magic Device +37 Racial Modifiers: +12 to Craft (Alchemy) and Profession (Chef) checks.

Languages Abyssal, Aklo, Celestial, Common, Draconic, Ignan, Infernal, Shadowtongue; telepathy 100 ft.

SQ Alchemist Abilities, Crucible

------ Ecology ------ Environment any (Plane of Shadow) Organization Solitary (unique) Treasure Triple (Cleaver of Caligine (a +3 Flaming Burst and Corrosive Burst Handaxe), Ring of Telekinesis, Saint's Spice Bag (a Handy Haversack with three times the normal storage capacity), 1d8+4 random potions levels 1 to 3, 1d3 potions levels 4 to 6)

------

Combat: On any given day, Caligine always has 1d4+3 generically useful spells ready via Delayed Consumption, such as Death Ward, Haste, Cure Critical Wounds, Protection From Energy, and always at least one instance of Greater Invisibility, invoking them the instant they're needed. Caligine begins most fights with Greater Invisibility, then using the granted breathing room to tailor himself to his enemy's apparent might with whatever combination of extracts he feels will give him an advantage. His first order of business in any fight is restraining the hardiest-looking opponent with his tongue to suppress any resistances they may have before striking them with his more debilitating spell-likes such as Transmute Blood to Acid. As a pain fanatic, he doesn't care if he catches himself in the area of his own spells or if he grapples a creature that harms him to touch. He will use any poisons he has access to as early and often as possible, on both his enemies and himself. If his opponents prove particularly vulnerable to poison, he will often teleport away just long enough to craft some especially debilitating ones, bless them with Overwhelming Poison, and teleport back to continue. He utilizes his bombs primarily against foes who keep out of his reach, but will gladly use them against much closer enemies if they group together.

Morale: The Sweltering Saint rarely fights to the death. If brought to below 50 health, he will often concede to his foes' might and congratulate them on an excellent battle, especially if his enemies used Acid or Fire damage or poisons on him. He will attempt to placate/reward them with an offering of powerful potions and, perhaps, more alchemical items at his disposal. If his enemies reject his surrender, he will teleport or shift away, or simply flee with Expeditious Retreat. If he cannot, only then does he fight to the death.

------ Special Abilities ------

Alchemist Abilities (Ex): Caligine has several abilities similar to those from the Alchemist class:

He can can prepare and use extracts as if he were a 20th level Alchemist with the Infusion Discovery. He knows all Alchemist formulae; the above list is his most common selection if he anticipates hostility.

He has the Bomb ability of a 20th level Alchemist with the Fast Bombs Discovery, capable of swiftly hurling caustic chemicals which deal either Fire or Acid damage (Reflex DC 28 dodges the splash damage). He adds his Intelligence modifier to his bomb damage, as well as damage done with other alchemical splash weapons. His bombs have a range increment of 40ft, and he can create 42 bombs each day.

He can create items with incredible swiftness, crafting any alchemical item or poison in a single full-round action and most potions (see Crucible, below) in just 1 hour, provided he succeeds the Craft (Alchemy) check and has access to the materials to do so (he is always assumed to have the materials on-hand so long as he has his gear).

He can apply a poison or oil to a weapon as an immediate action. This includes his own natural weapons, which exposes him to any poison he uses, but see Mithridatism below.

Coated Tongue (Ex): Caligine's tongue is frighteningly dexterous, uncannily strong, and is coated with countless chemicals with deleterious effects on anything touching it. It is always a primary natural attack, and he can grapple and constrict a creature with his tongue without gaining the grappled condition himself. A creature grappled by his tongue has any Fire or Acid Resistance and/or Immunity they possess suppressed while they're grappled, and for 1d4+1 rounds after the grapple ends.

Crucible (Su): Caligine's mastery of chemistry allows him to perform feats that many consider impossible: He can have multiple Delayed Consumption effects in place at the same time. In addition, he can craft potions of spells up to 6th level instead of 3rd. However, a 4th level potion takes one day to create, a 5th level spell takes two days, and a 6th level spell takes three.

Mithridatism (Ex): Caligine is not immune to poisons, but most poisons have an effect on his physiology that is far outside the norm. Whenever he would take ability score damage or drain from a poison, instead he gains a +2 alchemical bonus to his attack and damage rolls, as well as ability checks and skill checks for 1 round. He gains this bonus for each different poison affecting him, and the bonuses stack. In addition, Caligine recovers from ability score damage at a rate of 1 per minute, and ability score drain at a rate of 1 per hour.

Unnerving Gaze (Ex): Any creature that succumbs to Caligine's unnerving gaze becomes suicidally convinced that they can survive his trials, taking a -10 penalty to the next saving throw they make against one of his spell-like abilities or a -10 penalty to their AC against the next alchemical bomb attack he makes against them.

#pathfinder #Homebrew Horror #original concepts

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materialsscienceandengineering · 17 days

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Julian W. Hill (1904 - 29 January 1996)

Though less famous than his one-time boss, Wallace Carothers, Julian Hill was an American chemist who was instrumental in the development and discovery of the polymer nylon. Born in the state of Missouri and educated at the University of Washington in St. Louis, followed by MIT, Hill is typically specifically credited with the discovery that the polymer could be stretched and pulled when heated as well as its appearance and texture when cooled to room temperature.

Sources/Further Reading: (Wikipedia) (1996 news article) (ACS)

Image source.

#Materials Science #Science #Scientists #Nylon #Polymers #Science history #ScientistSaturday #2024Daily

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misscammiedawn · 21 days

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I Am Also A We - Integration and Functional Multiplicity in sense8

CW: sense8 depicts suicide, transphobia, medical trauma, deadnaming, chronic alcoholism, drug abuse, homophobia, homophobic slurs, intense sexual themes, plays sexual assault towards men for humor. Check DoesTheDogDie for more information.

If you watch the show be warned the first episodes involve a family forcefully trying to (allegorically) detransition a transgender woman and circumvent her agency in a medical setting. This may be more than most can handle.

"I've been thinking about my life, and all of the mistakes that I've made. The ones that stay with me, the ones that I regret, are the ones that I made because of fear. For a long time, I was afraid to be who I am because I was taught by my parents that there's something wrong with someone like me. Something offensive, something you would avoid, maybe even pity. Something that you could never love. My mom, she's a fan of St. Thomas Aquinas. She calls pride a sin. And of all the venal and mortal sins, St. Thomas saw pride as the queen of the seven deadlies. He saw it as the ultimate gateway sin that would turn you quickly into a sinaholic. But hating isn't a sin on that list. Neither is shame. I was afraid of this parade because I wanted it so badly to be a part of it. So today, I'm marching for that part of me that was once afraid to march and for all the people who can't march - the people who living lives like I did. Today, I march to remember that I'm not just a me but I'm also a we. And we march with pride." Nomi Marks (sense8 - Season 1, Episode 2)

Humans are fascinating and varied creatures.

Imagine for a moment, a transgender hactivist in San Francisco, a closeted homosexual movie star in Mexico City, a cop in Chicago, a Nordic expat DJ living in London, an orphaned gangster in Berlin, a bus driver in Nairobi who has never lived in a home with running water, a Hindu bio-chemist in Mumbai and a kickboxer in Seoul whose father owns a powerful investment firm.

Lives so disparate that it would be simple to create walls of division to keep them wholly separate and incapable of acting as a whole...

And yet the show is all about erasing the division between people and as the show goes on these 8 people with all their unique and individual perspectives and backgrounds, will become one and many. A collective as one.

That seems like something I may want to talk a little about.

sense8 is a Netflix drama that ran for 2 seasons (and had 2 specials) between 2015-2018. Created by the Wachowski Sisters of Matrix fame and J Michael Straczynski of Babylon 5 fame.

It is a show about radical empathy, the full spectrum of the human experience and the virtues of living openly and connected in the face of a world that pressures the marginalized to hide and remain divided.

Yet in listening to our contributors, especially those with Indigenous ties or who identify as people of color and/or not bound by the ties of Western medicine, dissociation as it’s been described so far [...] can mean many things that are not helpful. A general consensus from these contributors is that trauma survivors ought never be shamed for doing what they have to do in order to survive, especially because so many of the contexts into which people are born promote division, disconnection, and marginalization. Usually this context is shaped by a dominant culture that relies on separation in its most unhelpful and wounding sense to uphold the power that the dominant culture so readily craves. (Dissociation Made Simple - Jamie Marich)

To acknowledge the flaws in both shows and creators, The Wachowski's tend to have a lens of privilege and blind spots to their works that undermine their messages of radical empathy, most famously their fumble in the diversity of Cloud Atlas' cast and the use of white actors in Asian roles (Natalie Portman was originally offered the role that went to Bae Doona).

sense8 is not immune to this and does have issues with connecting the 8 main characters without consideration to certain biases. Some mild examples are that the Christmas special having all 8 unanimously celebrating the Christian holiday (including a Hindu and a character with religious trauma centered on Christianity specifically) to the unchecked Copaganda and the show completely erases asexuality as a valid lifestyle with dialogue even going as far to say that sex is why we exist and to deny it is to deny being human.

Also as someone with an extreme aversion to depictions of suicide... this show does like to offer suicide as The Only Way Out a lot. The show opens on a suicide and the final episode involves no fewer than 3 attempts by various characters when they are cornered. One even succeeds. Lana's experience with her suicide attempt was important to her coming out as a trans woman. A version of that moment is even depicted in the 4th Matrix movie with Neo (allegorically Lana herself) helping someone else wake to their own identity in a suicide attempt. I do not want to rob her of the transformative power of that event and memory. It's clearly important to her and her work, but it's troublesome that averted suicide attempts are always depicted virtuously in her work. Again... it's a matter of blind spots and biases.

I acknowledge the show is flawed in these and many more respects but it does speak to empathy and connection in a way that though not perfectly placed upon the screen, is a message worth internalizing. Though it's okay to be uncomfortable with how it is presented and opt out.

Regardless of imperfect execution and the early cancellation, it is still a miracle of a show. In many ways it is a show that shouldn't exist. It cost $9 million per episode and its filming schedule required flying between 11 cities for 3 weeks of shooting a piece. It features full nudity, multiple sex scenes involving huge swaths of the cast at once.

To put all of that in perspective, the entire experience is literally bookended by a rainbow strap-on glistening from use.

But... this is not a show about dissociative disorders. Mental illness is only represented in that characters briefly question their sanity. So why am I talking about it in my Media, Myself and I essay series on positive representation of dissociative disorders in fiction?

Well... it just so happens to also feature the best depiction of Functional Multiplicity in all of television.

Functional Multiplicity or "Integration" is a goal in treating complex dissociative disorders where the dissociative system are able to function as a single person with minimal division between parts.

It is important to note that intergration and fusion are two separate concepts and are both valid outcomes for treatment within CDD therapy. Where fusion is the concept of merging all dissociated personalities into a single unified personality, integration allows the system to communicate and cooperate with full access to memories and skills with no inner-conflict exacerbating symptoms.

The final approach in Fraser’s article addresses the issue of fusion or integration, a strong area of potential controversy for those diagnosed with or identifying as DID. Many individuals with DID strongly resist or oppose a psychiatrist or any other provider’s insistence that they integrate the various aspects of their personality into a cohesive whole. This process can feel disrespectful to the members of a system, and if you are reading this passage and have ever felt triggered at the suggestion that you need to integrate, you are not alone. (Dissociation Made Simple - Jamie Marich)

The terms “dissociation” and “integration” have long been synonymous with one another—meant to signify that the only reasonable goal in working with splitting and compartmentalization must be the fusing together of dissociated parts to create one single “homogenized” adult. Daniel Siegel, however, makes a strong case against defining integration as fusion. He asserts (2010a) a different view: “Integration requires differentiation and linkage.” Before we can integrate two phenomena, we have to differentiate them and “own” them as separate entities. We can’t simply “act as if” they are connected without noticing their separateness. But, having clearly differentiated them so they can be studied and befriended, we then have to link them together in a way that fosters a transformed sense of the client’s experience, facilitating healing and reconnection. - (Healing the Fragmented Selves - Janina Fischer)

Acknowledging the separateness and clearly differentiating people to befriend, link and foster a transformed sense of experience, facilitating healing and connection.

Now that sounds like sense8 to me.

As mentioned above the shows protagonists are from different walks of life. Nomi, Lito, Will, Riley, Wolfgang, Capheus, Kala and Sun are all "born" into a "cluster", a nest of 8 connected minds who share their every thought and experience with one another.

The core 8 are able to share control of one another's bodies as well as speak telepathically in one another's heads. "Sharing" and "Visiting" respectively, if we are to play the YA Novel game of naming every single concept in a fictional world.

Each character has their strengths and weaknesses and connections that make up for their weaknesses.

To give an example Lito is an actor who has a little bit of a diva streak. He's good at lying under pressure, he can flirt with women effortlessly, he is deeply in touch with his emotions and he lives in absolute terror of his homosexual lifestyle being discovered for fear it will ruin his career and the comfort he has earned in life.

Wolfgang is ruthless and blunt and so leans on Lito's ability to lie under pressure, something that he is typically incapable of doing because he does not value roundabout methods of deception when he can just brute force his way to solutions. Lito helps him lie when the situation calls for it.

Sun is emotionally repressed, choosing to work her emotions through her fists, though she is one of the most privileged members of the cluster she has more than enough reason to be sad with a father who refused to show her love, the worst brother on the planet, a dead mother and a plot that involves her being wrongfully imprisoned and subject to multiple assassination attempts. She can offer the rest of the cluster her fighting skills but it is Lito who helps her to be able to cry when she needs it. In a beautiful scene late in season 2 a depressed Lito is crying in Sun's hotel room and Sun admonishes him saying that she is the one with reason to cry and Lito responds plainly "But you never would. Maybe that is why I am here."

On the flipside whenever Lito is in conflict about his life in the closet he pulls up Nomi, a transgender woman who has been through the entire coming out process, and leans heavily on her.

Though it takes much of the first season for the characters to understand what is happening to them we eventually get to see all 8 of them completely at home with one another's thoughts and perspectives.

They are separate, yes. But they are of one mind.

This is akin to the end result of trauma focused parts work in therapy. When a person is not yet treated for trauma based dissociation their inability to integrate their experiences creates a fracture and a disharmony that breeds emotional volatility and a breakdown in inner experience.

Disowning requires selective attention, a focusing away from whatever is “not me.” The senses fail to register what is taking place around us; we don’t feel our emotional responses, good or bad; we are in a zone. We can’t “own” our anger or dependence or fear when we don’t feel them. We can’t “own” traumatic events that we haven’t witnessed. We can’t know ourselves as whole human beings because only those qualities valued in a traumatic environment are accessible to consciousness. Segregating intense feelings, though, results in affect intolerance: if we can escape our emotions by automatically and involuntarily shifting into a different part of the self or different feeling state, we never get the opportunity to exercise our “emotional muscles,” and all feelings gradually become more and more intolerable. Inner conflicts are never resolved, just distanced. When that happens, acting out (self-destructively or addictively) and “acting in” (through self-hatred, self-judgment, punitive introspection) become the only avenues for regulating emotions and autonomic arousal. Splitting or fragmentation must become more complex and creative. - (Healing the Fragmented Selves - Janina Fischer)

As the main cluster of the show are able to expand their horizons via empathy and connection to one another they are able to challenge their blind spots and achieve a level of comfort in their world that was not accessible before. From our above example Sun can process her emotions thanks to Lito.

In a similar fashion, in Season 2 Kala becomes guilty about her lifestyle because she discovers that the company she works for is sending inferior medication to Capheus' region of the world and through experiencing life through Capheus' eyes she is aware of her position of privilege and uses her power to make positive change.

Had the show have been able to continue on this empathy would have been the center of the show with Capheus running for political office, Lito embracing his role as a queer icon who can inspire others and Riley risking exposure by touring her music and making contact with other sensates.

Alas. We'll never get the promised potential of the show's premise.

Another factor that was promised but was not fully paid off on was the concept of blockers.

In the show other sensates could visit (but not share) with a single member of a cluster if they make eye contact (Cloud Atlas which shared 3 directors and 3 writers with this show also included this concept of eye contact creating a human connection) and the only way to prevent their intrusion was to take blockers. A medication that cut off their empathetic connections and turned off their psychic ability.

The blocker allegory was about masking and hiding and working to blend in with the dominant culture without standing out. Part of the show's humanity was the characters wishing to go against the narrative that they needed to hide and to live loud and proud and inspire others to do the same.

It would have been interesting to see each of the sensates on blockers learning to act in ways their cluster would without being able to let them take control of their body. Show that the integration of the system is not a matter of separate parts in their own boxes but a cluster that is fully connected and capable of sharing their sole life.

To go back to my discussion on functional multiplicity, the concept of being able to share memories and skills is emphasized as a part of both integration and fusion models.

Sharing roles, responsibilities or tasks also enables other parts to help the System’s successful functioning in the outside world. Then, these parts can grow and mature individually. It also gives the System the opportunity to feel first-hand appreciation for what parts have done and contributed to the System’s survival and success, as well as better understanding of what it takes to keep the System functioning well today. (Got Parts? - ATW)

We are all in this together.

A beautiful thing that the show displays outside of the core cluster is the radical empathy and acceptance that exist within the side characters.

In the final episode of the show Wolfgang's surrogate brother and only true family Felix arrives to the help the cluster Capheus rushes over to him and embraces him exclaiming "MY BROTHER, FELIX!" and laughing with joy. This was Capheus' first time meeting Felix but the empathetic connection travels between them.

The same connection causes Kala's love for her husband to be felt by Wolfgang and allow the three of them to engage in a polyamorous relationship. The final orgy scene of the show literally climaxes with Kala's non-psychic husband exclaiming "My god, I didn't think such things were possible" after a threesome with his wife and Wolfgang who share the same love for him. This is the very last line of the show.

In a dissociative system conflict can breed between parts that are not integrated when their needs, desires and drives are not in alignment.

To give an example from our own life, Wynn is a part that is capable of turning off our empathy. When she perceives a threat to us from the idea of someone emotionally manipulating us (a parent trying to shame/guilt us into ceding to their demands or a partner threatening suicide) she will lock out the rest of the system who may be swayed and force us to act with hostility and coldness. More than once this has ended with us in further danger or emotional turmoil and it leads other parts to over compensate to try and "fix" the damage done when we were "emotionally compromised" by the part acting in our interests of survival over the harmony of the system and our relationships. Especially because the dangerous situations that necessitated her existence are not part of our present and her reactions may no longer be appropriate.

This kind of divide is natural in a dissociative system early in their healing journey.

The range of emotional experience, including both positive (e.g., joy, love) and negative (e.g., anger, fear, grief) affects, plays a vital role in human adaptation by promoting closeness in relationships. Relational distortions result when emotions repeatedly fail to achieve their purpose, when they are persistently activated, or when their expression is blocked or punished. Distortions in emotional regulation (and associated defensive distortions of behavior) refl ect distortions in care (Bowlby, 1969/1982) that manifest as dysynchronies between caregiving behavior and child emotional experience and needs (Sameroff & Emde, 1989) [...] A lasting split between self-preservation and integrative self-regulation leads to a vicious cycle. Extreme affective states become infused into the person’s selfand other-representations (“bad objects,” Benatar, 2003), producing disorganized and unstable mental representations, which further destabilize and fragment affect, perception, and behavior. Thus, dissociation results when extreme stressors necessitate a lasting split of the integrated relationship between self-preservation and selfregulation. (Dissociation and Dissociative Disorders, DSM-V and Beyond - Paul F Dell)

But towards the end of therapy parts, even when activated, are able to act in a way that benefits the stability of the shared life, preventing further dissociation and division between parts.

It is when one part, who wants to deny our condition to prevent thinking about our trauma, accepts that our multiple nature is integral to who we are and how one of our closest relationships function and in accepting this allows for us to carve spaces in our life to exist as a system. To take off the mask. To stop hiding.

To march and state boldly I Am Also A We.

There are times where we worry about using the term "Plural". We view our condition through a lens of psychopathology and constantly try to justify our existence through reading psychology textbooks and working with our therapist and constantly justifying.

We play by the rule books written for us and about us but not by us. Not by others like us. Well... mostly.

One of the quoted books in this essay is from Jamie Marich who is openly a diagnosed dissociative system. Her book is written from an insiders perspective there to promote love and acceptance. I selected her quote at the top of this post with care. She does get it. Got Parts? Is also written by collaborators with DID sharing lived experience.

There are so many things which divide us as people who experience plurality. There is syscourse raging in Tumblr inboxes Just Asking Questions about whether a person should be diagnosed to openly present as a system, there is fakeclaiming trying to witch hunt those who really have a CDD and those who are "roleplaying", the tone policing in support communities that admonish anyone who glorifies or fetishizes that which is a hard to live with disorder...

Over the years we internalized many of these narratives ourselves. We lived in fear of scrutiny, worried for the day we were exposed as Not Traumatized Enough, Not Performing Our Disability Correctly, Not Divided Enough or a number of other accusations.

We still are. It's terrifying to think that at any point someone could just deny all of our truth and no amount of paperwork, testimony or evidence would be able to make us any more legitimate than we already are.

In some regards we shouldn't be proud of being who and what we are. The fact that there is always going to be a part of us stuck in London reliving the worst experiences of our life is not a source of pride.

But we survived.

We survived. We kept one another alive. The part that needed to be an adult when we were a child kept us safe. The part that needed to seal off our heart kept us safe. The part that kept our emotions alive kept us safe. The part that pretended to be what our abuser wanted us to be kept us safe... and yes. The part that handled erotic concepts kept us safe.

We survived and we protected one another and we are the only Family who have been here the whole time. Experienced everything. Shared in all the pleasures and all the joys. We survived. And we will continue to... but not we're not surviving anymore. We're living. And we choose to live together. We choose to be 5 and 1. We are an I.

I am proud of that and this show helped us feel just a little bit more confident in saying that outloud. We are plural... and there is no shame in that. None at all.

Forgive me for the less than stellar work on this one. This essay was more a vehicle to talk about positive integration and use the show as a framing device for the topic. Plus I just wanted to be a bit Plural Pride because the show made a compelling argument as to why I should be.

The promised Act 6 of In Stars and Time essay and the Umineko follow-up essay are both in the research phase. Act 6 of ISaT is looking at characters who share a common history and I want to make sure I have some good examples without treading on other creators I respect's toes and the Umineko follow-up requires replaying all of Chapter 7 of that game and it's a long one.

Media, Myself and I is a series of Tumblr Essays for positive depictions of dissociative disorders.

Other essays include:

Time Loops and Dissociation (In Stars and Time) A History of Murder Alters Discworld and Plurality Incidental, intentional and accidental representation Gender, Dissociation and Clinical Stigma in The Third Person Recontextualized Memories in Umineko Derealization in Night in the Woods and Metal Gear Solid The Dangers of Hypnotic Personality Play in Penlight System Origins in The Incredible Hulk Relationships with Systems in The Incredible Hulk The Healing Journey in Mr. Robot

#dawn posting #sense8 #did #dissociative identity disorder #plurality #media myself and I #watch me post my trauma in public #cluster fuck

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scotianostra · 7 months

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On March 11th 1955 Sir Alexander Fleming died.

The discovery of penicillin came in September 1928, when Fleming was forty-seven. His account of it has been questioned and he did not make a note about it at the time, but according to his recollection he returned from holiday to his cramped little lab to find a pile of petri dishes, on which he had been growing colonies of bacteria, still waiting to be cleaned. He noticed that on one of them a mould had grown which had inhibited the growth of a colony of staphylococcus germs. The mould was Penicillium notatum, commonly found on bread, and Fleming called the liquid from it penicillin.

The thing is Oor Alexander could not find any important practical use for penicillin. He wrote a paper about it in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology, but it attracted no attention. He later pointed out that there had been no trained chemist in the St Mary’s lab. Sir Henry Dale summed up in the Dictionary of National Biography that ‘neither the time when the discovery was made nor, perhaps, the scientific atmosphere of the laboratory in which he worked, was propitious to such further enterprise as its development would have needed.’

t was not for another ten years or so that penicillin’s astonishing properties were established at Oxford by the Australian professor of pathology, Howard Florey, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany named Ernst Chain and an Englishman called Norman Heatley. They followed up Fleming’s original paper and turned their Oxford department into a prototype penicillin factory.

The relationship between them and Fleming was distinctly prickly. Almroth Wright wrote to The Times in 1942 claiming the credit for penicillin for Fleming and St Mary’s, and Fleming, Florey and Chain shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1945.The media made Fleming the hero of the saga, partly because the accidental discovery was a good story and partly because Florey had no time for the press while Fleming was pleasant and approachable, your archetypical genial Scot.

A national hero he duly became. So much so that after his death at his home in Chelsea in 1955, his ashes were interred close to Nelson and Wellington in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral. Flags flew at half- mast and the cathedral bulged with academic and medical grandees, ambassadors, representatives of societies, staff and students from the hospital, as well as personal friends. A memorial plaque was unveiled in the crypt the following year and Fleming’s original lab where penicillin was discovered is preserved in the museum to him at St Mary’s.

#scotland #scottish #history #scientist #microbiologist

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brookstonalmanac · 25 days

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Birthdays 8.30

Beer Birthdays

Samuel Whitbread (1720)

Johan Van Dyck (1975)

Stacy Marie Fuson; St. Pauli Girl 2005 (1978)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Lewis Black; comedian (1948)

Molly Ivins; writer (1944)

Fred MacMurray; actor (1908)

John Swigert Jr.; astronaut (1931)

Ted Williams; Boston Red Sox LF (1918)

Famous Birthdays

Elizabeth Ashley; actor (1939)

Geoffrey Beene; fashion designer (1927)

Joan Blondell; actor (1909)

Shirley Booth; actor (1898)

Timothy Bottoms; actor (1951)

Warren Buffett; gazillionaire (1930)

Michael Chiklis; actor (1963)

Robert Crumb; cartoonist (1943)

Jacques-Louis David; French artist (1748)

Agoston Haraszthy de Mokcsa; vineyard importer (1812)

Cameron Diaz; actor (1972)

John Gunther; writer (1901)

Jean-Claude Killy; French skier (1943)

Peggy Lipton; actor (1947)

Huey Long; politician (1893)

Raymond Massey; actor (1896)

Tug McGraw; NY Mets/Philadelphia Phillies P (1944)

John Phillips; singer, songwriter (1935)

Andy Roddick; tennis player (1982)

Ernest Lord Rutherford; New Zealand physicist (1871)

Theodor Svedberg; Swedish chemist (1884)

Frederique van der Wal (1967)

Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff; Dutch physicist (1852)

J. Alden Weir; artist (1852)

Kitty Wells; country singer (1919)

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; English writer (1797)

#Birthdays

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lboogie1906 · 1 month

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Second Lieutenant William Conan Davis (August 22, 1926 - March 16, 2022) was a professor emeritus and was chair of natural sciences at St. Philip’s College. The William C. Davis Science Building is named in his honor.

He was born in Waycross, Georgia to Kince Charles Davis and his wife Laura Jane. He was employed as a railway construction engineer and crew boss, a position that brought him threats from the kkk. He started a herbal medicine business, the only source of medical care accessible to many Black people in Georgia. He spent time during the summers with his maternal grandfather Jonnas Franklin.

He received a high school diploma from Dasher in 1944. His family was active in civil rights and supportive of their children’s education. On one occasion Kince Davis drove his sons William and Kenneth to Tuskegee Institute to attend a workshop with George Washington Carver and Henry Ford. This experience fueled his interest in becoming a chemist.

To prepare him for college, his family sent him to New York City. He lived with his older brother, actor and civil rights activist Ossie Davis. He attended the City College of New York but was advised to transfer to Talladega College where he could get more individual support in calculus.

He was enrolled in the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. He was drafted to serve in the Korean War. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers. He served in Germany and was awarded a Purple Heart.

He completed his BS in Chemistry at Talladega College. He was one of three students chosen for a George Washington Carver research fellowship to attend Tuskegee Institute. It was almost impossible for a Black scientist to train for a professional career in research in the US. Even at Tuskegee, the usual career track was to train as a teacher, with a specialization in one’s area of interest. He worked with Clarence T. Mason of Tuskegee and studied the hydrolysis rate of compounds in jet fuel. He received his MS in Organic Chemistry. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

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archivist-crow · 7 months

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On this day:

THE MAN WHO DOES NOT DIE

On March 2, 1784, a fake burial was conducted for the Count of Saint Germain, a man surrounded by intrigue and whispers of having magic powers with unknown origins. Confidant of the French King Louis XV and Madame Pompadour and then King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, he knew the secret of both the Elixir of Life, which gave eternal beauty, and the Philosopher's Stone, which gave eternal wealth. For over a century, he never appeared more than fifty years old and had a dazzling amount of riches.

Known as an alchemist, a secret agent, an artist, a linguist, a musician, a chemist, an inventor, a brilliant conversationalist, and a magician, Saint Germain was part of a conspiracy that placed Catherine the Great upon the Russian throne; was arrested in England as a spy; painted remarkable pictures of bejewelled fig-ures; spoke nearly all of the European, Arabic, and Oriental languages; was an accomplished violinist, pianist, and singer; and created new chemical techniques for making cosmetics and oil paint, dyeing cloth, curing leather, treating wood, and turning flax into silk.

The search for lost knowledge carried Saint Germain to the Himalayas, Egypt, and Persia. He said he could turn several small diamonds into one large one and make pearls grow to spectacular sizes. It was believed he could astral travel, teleport, levitate, walk through walls, influence people telepathically, and charm snakes.

Saint Germain's diet was vegetarian, mostly oatmeal, and he never ate food in public. Jewels were hidden in his clothing, and the value of the diamonds that he wore in his shoes and garters could support a small country. His final known residence was with Prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel. Some reports say he died in 1784, but he was documented and seen all over Europe and the Far East for another hundred years.

Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009

#on this day #march #count of st germain

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gorbalsvampire · 11 months

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Wild Roses was my lockdown chronicle, running through 2020 and 2021, set a couple of years earlier (starting on the night the Glasgow School of Art's Mackintosh Building burned down... the second time...)

Meet the gang! L to R:

Frankie, played by @mxviatrix: she/they goth milf with a past, acts like a total airhead but surprisingly good at sound engineering, public speaking, money wrangling and seducing Tremere boys. Toreador; Siren; Anarch (because they genuinely believe the Movement is right).

Callum, played by @stained-glass-sphinx: dancer, parkour enthusiast, recreational kleptomaniac. Not especially keen on the whole vampirism bit as it's absolutely torpedoed his career and everyone's so very petty about it. Most likely to engage with Golconda. Toreador; Sandman; Anarch (because the concept of the Camarilla does his nut in).

Cali, played by @pathogenic: sculptor, ciderpunk, insufferable prat. Arrogant to a fault, already done with your nonsense, but if he's decided he likes you he'll throw down for you any day of the week, and he is actually a bit tasty in a scrap. Toreador; Scene King; Anarch (because it's a lot easier to get ahead when nobody's got the right to keep you down).

Sorcha, played by @wellharkather: Mafia princess, precocious brat. Gifted chemist and high-functioning drug user. Born to be Kindred, but came through too soon and is now eternally fresh out of sixth form and looking for trouble. Technically my OC, but run here as a guest star/assistant ST. Her perspective on things, and occasional RP activity, can be found @sorchamidnite. Thinblood Hecata; no Predator Type she's baby; Anarch (because she's got a surprisingly big heart and she wants to help).

Finlay, played by Scottie, who does not Tumblr. Vicious bastard, legitimate businessenby, totally not running guns through their pub and responsible for the most artisanal of knife crimes. Screwed over by the family and successfully evened the score. Hecata; Sandman; Anarch (in name only, following their mentor and Baron into the night).

And the eyes up top? Alistair Fucking Dunsirn. Coterie Mawla, retired gangland moneylender turned Kindred hatchetman. Sorcha's da. Started out using three idiot Toreador for political gain, things escalated, they decided he was father material and now he's a turtle-pole Baron.

Art by GameMasterVirtuoso

#vtm #vampire the masquerade #chronicle: wild roses #clan toreador #clan hecata #dunsirn #hecata #toreador #vampire oc #vampire rp #vtm rp #ttrpg #oc: sorcha dunsirn #oc: alistair dunsirn

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dadbodbuck · 2 months

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I’ve had to work with an state Environmental Council for work, and have had the pleasure of hearing in-depth explanations of how someone measures PFAS in soil. < Although that’s not why I’m in your inbox…

What got you into ecology? And what has been your favorite part of your studies?

ooooh, PFAS, everyone's favorite (/s)

i've always been kind of feral and a little bit of a hermit (runs in the family, our family reunions look like a bunch of cryptids in a cabin in the woods awkwardly not making eye contact) and i like to joke that i told the college advisor "i want to walk into the woods and never be seen or heard from again" and she pointed me to this major, but honestly it was probably something i was always going to do. i've ALWAYS loved nature and environmental ed programs (especially the st louis botanical gardens because i grew up right next to one!). it was between this or music, and i fear i would have burned out of music if it was my 24/7 gig.

as for my favorite part, it's DEFINITELY the interdisciplinary nature of ecology. ecologists are like, a third of a chemist, a third of a physicist, a third of a biologist, and a third of a poet. unfortunately, we're zero parts mathematician. point being, my audhd LOVES having twenty different disciplines to study and put together into one big picture. i've taken meteorology, hydrology, zoology, environmental education, environmental law, forest ecology, stream ecology, mammalogy, ornithology, the list goes on! ecology is a beautiful tapestry of tapestries, a system of systems, and i also don't have to do nearly as much math as other stem majors. if you want to hear me wax more poetic about ecology forever, stay tuned for my ecologist buck fic which i WILL be writing.......... at some point.................

#i may be math stupid but i'd fucking love to see an engineering major yap like an ecologist #can't be done! we're superior #ecology is stem for humanities majors and i'll die on that hill #jay lore #fic tag: kitchen table ecology

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clairelsonao3 · 8 months

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Happy STS! So, while recently thinking about the words depolymerize, neodymium, ammonium persulfate, and other chemistry-related terminology for no reason, I found myself wondering: How do you go about your chemistry-related research for GSNBTR, and how do you decide which compounds, etc. to name-drop for the scientific elements of your story?

Happy STS, Kate!

Hmmm ... what a funny question to ask, being that I'm an English and creative writing major with absolutely no knowledge of any of those concepts. 😅

The truth is, a layperson can sound fairly authoritative (at least to other laypeople) using a combination of knowledge gleaned from AP science courses, years of having read widely but not particularly deeply, and, of course, Google. 😅

It really does help if you do have some baseline knowledge, although you don't need much. For instance, I'd heard of the concept of neodymium magnets, although not what they were actually called, so I googled "strong magnets used in scientific research" and they came up instantly.

Same thing with depolymerization, basically. And then as I was reading about that, it emphasized the importance of catalysts, of which ammonium persulfate is a common one -- essentially chosen at random, though I tried to go for something plausible. Reading about that, in turn, led me to the process of electrolysis, which is the common way it's synthesized in the lab. In that way, one concept can lead you to another.

The key, for me, is to go lightly on trying to explain concepts I myself don't fully understand, or I'll end up sounding ridiculous. If you're fairly sure you understand something, chances are your readers will, too. And have faith that your scientific wunderkind of an MC can handle everything else 😁

And of course, all of this is predicated on the assumption that nobody reading my work is an actual research chemist, because if they are, they're sure to hunt me down and hurl a beaker of sulfuric acid in my face (yes, I googled that, too). 😂

(For anyone confused by this delightfully tongue-and-cheek answer and question, the words Kate mentioned all appear in Ch. 31 of GSNBTR, posted yesterday. )

#asked and answered #sts #gsnbtr #my writing #writeblr

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taxxpayermoney · 1 year

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My father, a noncommissioned officer in the cavalry of the Imperial Guard, was at that time stationed in the capital; he sympathized with this underground party, which demanded “bread and liberty” for the people of Russia, and had no more than about sixty members and two or three hundred sympathizers. Among those responsible for the assassination, Nikolai Kibalchich, a chemist and distant relative of my father, was arrested and hanged, together with Zhelyabov, Ryssakov, Mikhailov, and Sophia Perovskaya, daughter of a former Governor of St. Petersburg. In court, four of the five condemned to death defended their libertarian demands with dignity and courage; on the scaffold, they embraced one another and died calmly.

Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary

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materialsscienceandengineering · 1 year

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Chemists develop unique design for tough but stretchable gels

Chenfeng Ke, an incoming associate professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, developed a unique design for tough but stretchable hydrogels, reported Aug. 23 in the journal Chem. The new material is both flexible and durable thanks to a ring-shaped sugar molecule that encases its polymer network and allows it to stretch without sacrificing strength. Ke can 3D-print the so-called crystalline-domain reinforced slide-ring hydrogels, or CrysDoS-gels. He and his co-authors also created a materials library and offer methods for how the material can be added to existing materials to enhance their durability, such as in plastic additives to enhance the durability for parts in automobiles in the future. "There are a series of tradeoffs with these traditional plastic materials—they're usually one or the other," stretchable or rigid, Ke said. "But if you connect two things with a slidable joint, you have very interesting properties of both."