#their purposeful claim 'im the doctor'

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

havent really had more indepth thoughts since than the posts i made last night but i just got to the "my name is zephyr" line again

like it's meant to be heavy bc we knows names are Sacred (<- lots of worldbuilding questions there forever to remain unanswered) and so yes theres the trust in penance, but it's also like, to claim a name, "my", is to claim an identity. it's an expression that there is something more to you than just your role, your function, the cause youre in service of.

and if transition is the only thing shes ever done for herself, right? and all the rest has been in Service. what shes called at any point is just the title of her function in the circumstances. but to say My Name is to claim an identity, that exists for its own sake. as is. not for anything. just is.

and if she chose the name herself, it's like an expression of a Want. which is what i was talking abt with the joy/pleasure thing. she doesnt Want anything, really, except maybe just for "this to be over". she starts out, in this story, at like the most Unwanting state you can have. being suicidal, most of the time, rather than a positive wanting to be dead, usually it's more a negative not wanting to be alive, you know what i mean?

and she remains in that state for all of the story we get. she doesnt really Want anything in a positive sense, mostly just wants like, things not to be like this. the world not to be like this. and not to be in the position shes in. but shes stuck in that position bc the world is like this. so the only way out is to try and make it,,,not like this. which is the main thing driving her for the whole season i think.

to say "my name is zephyr" i think is an expression of a positive desire. it's i want to be zephyr. it's, maybe, i want to just live. i want to just live instead of i want to stop fighting.

[deer-trees]

The United States privatized healthcare system is a separate circle of hell you have to go to before you die

[olderthannetfic]

Oh great, everyone is all in on the ~all the kids who think they have DID are wrroooong~ thing.

Im sorry but none of you saying that are helping the community or plural folks as a whole. Even if you are also a system or have a CDD.

For DID *alone* the barrier to diagnosis is very high- arguably as high as Autism and according to one study it takes an average of 10 years in therapy to be diagnosed because so many doctors are ill-informed or refuse to diagnose it/believe it exists despite all the evidence due to the shadow of the satanic panic. The goddamn REASON people are diagnosed in their 30s and 40s isnt because you *need* to wait that long its because they look for horses before zebras and refuse to do anything else most of the time and fuck us over!!! Many of us report symptoms -the same fucking symptoms- since teen&young adult age or earlier!!!

The diagnosis has many of the same drawbacks of any other major diagnosis like autism and schizospec stuff where you can lose custody of children or the ability to adopt, face unofficial discrimination from doctors or employers or people you try to get accommodations from with it, and could even have your drivers license taken away or have to jump through hoops to keep it- and more issues!

Pursuing a paper diagnosis is not for everyone and the plural community for decades has been built on this- even before the exclusion criteria were added to the DSM and ICD that kicked a huge chunk of us of us off even getting one despite being systems (which is a good thing to be clear! If its not impairing or distressing it shouldnt be pathologized!). We have folk therapy and dyi resources and we have a lot of them for a reason.

And thats not even getting into how therapy has historically severely abused our community and how the only accepted treatment path is pursuing the fusion into one person (which has a hilariously low success rate that for anything else wouldnt be accepted as a vaild treatment) and not everyone wants that or is helped by that.

Most of us are never going to be ABLE see useful therapy or a paper dx, so we use the community to find resources and community and it FUCKING WORKS. We built our community with our own blood, sweat, and tears because no one else could or would fucking help us. And it WORKS.

Attacking these people who self-dx ONLY ever causes splash damage on the very people this kind of behavior claims to protect.

And like. If someone reports an autonomous entity that talks in their mind and takes over their body sometimes its... rather obvious they belong in the 'having an autonomous entity that talks in your mind and takes over your body sometimes' community regardless of anything else. NB4 people say psychosis; Schneiderian First-Rank symptoms are actually more indicative of DID than schizophrenia in this manner according to studies- but schizospec people with persistent personlike voices are known to benefit from the same exercises you'd do if they were ''''real'''' alters and are included in the plural community anyway (which btw doesnt require a dx- calling yourself plural or a system is not self diagnosing its an identity label the community created OUTSIDE of diagnosis criteria FOR this very purpose of self-ID).

While yes, we would agree many people say DID For Sure when they might want to hesitate there- we do NOT doubt they are plural. We just wonder if they were told the ONLY way they could be plural/a system is through DID and that is why they are saying they have it. Which... yeah thats not so great. HOWEVER informed self-dx is fine provided they havent been fed that kind of misinformation.

The solution there though is to just spread the real information about the breadth of plural experiences and people will feel less pressured. Simple as that.

Never EVER telling them its really just something else, you dont know yourself- you cant know something that extreme when something that extreme is EASIER to tell tbh because its such a unique and intense experience.

--

[theninth09]

people dont actually believe that theo killed his sister, do they?

like okay. the entire pack and probably theo himself think that hes responsible for her death, but the pack hates him and doesnt trust him for valid reasons and theo is traumatized and holds guilt over her death so hes probably convinced himself that he did kill her. i just dont believe thats true.

in s5b when hes with stiles in the tunnels (i forgot why they're down there but whatever) and stiles tells him "oh yeah, the guy that killed his own sister when he was nine?" and theo argues back "yeah. i was nine. i had no idea what was going on." and that he also still believed santa exists so obviously he believed the dread doctors when they told him she wanted him to have his heart.

first of all: this is s5b. hes long dropped his act and he has no reason to lie in this moment. he knows that stiles wont fall for his lies and hes stopped lying and transitioned into threatening and intimidating anyway. theres no good reason for theo to lie to stiles here: theres no actual benefit that would come from that.

and his behavior points towards him telling the truth. instead of deflecting or making a joke, or any of the stuff he usually does to get his way, he starts explaining and defending himself. he seems almost agitated that stiles claims that he did kill tara and argues why he didnt.

and ofc stiles doesnt believe him and tells him "i think you pushed her. i think you liked it." which is, sorry, utter bullshit. i understand why stiles says this (yk. theo killed his bffie and all that) but i think stiles is purposely turning everything that he knows about theo into something evil. he doesnt want to believe that theo was a victim of his circumstances, because that would make him human, that would explain why he became the person that he is. its easier to fall back onto the "hes just purely evil" argument, because then he can hate theo for what he did.

stiles is smart. thats his whole thing. thats his whole thing with theo, that he was "smart enough not to trust him" as theo says to the sheriff in s6a. stiles knows that theo was a child, that its likely that theo got manipulated and groomed by the dread doctors. but, i think, he decides not to care about that, to ignore that. he hates theo and he wants to hate theo, but if he starts looking at the reasons for why he did what he did, he'll begin to understand him. and while he'll still never forgive theo, that will reduce this fury he has for him because, newsflash, theo was a CHILD.

people argue that tw doesnt show us enough of his back story to back this up and yeah, i kinda agree. we dont get enough of his story because teen wolf ALWAYS does this. with every character. they insinuate something, they start something interesting that could give their characters depth and then they abandon it and its like the characters just forget about it. all this show has is small details for fans to focus on if you want to analyze anything, because this show is objectively not good enough to actually do that.

+ theo is a side character. he wasnt even meant to stay as long as he did and cody did his best to work with the material. if your argument is that theres missing context and only vaguely shown stuff, im sorry but thats so stupid. thats not a good argument for in canon. "oh but we never see theo do this or that" HES A SIDE CHARACTER. he wasnt even supposed to come back! and tw is not a very good show! obviously they added more depth to his character in s6 because cody came back. like yeah theres stuff that doesnt make sense (like the show saying he didnt have a heart condition), because his back story got added as an afterthought in s6. you cant only look at s5 and judge his character based on that. his depth comes from s6 and its not the characters fault that the show has bad writing.

and if you simply dont like theo, cool. i dont like a bunch of characters in tw. but i find this argument that hes actually evil and deserved getting tortured and whatever exhausting and annoying.

if you dont have empathy for his character in s6 bc you just hate him, fine. i dont care. but if you're talking about this in a more analytical way? fuck off. he was a child, the show points towards him getting groomed and abused by the dread doctors and guess what? even during his villain arc, hes still a child. yes he should take responsibility for what he did, im not excusing any of that stuff. but theres reasons for why he did all that.

and again, dumb tv logic reasons, but most of the villains getting away unscathed, fucking peter hale and deucalion being allowed to just kinda wander around while theo is in an eternal time loop of torture? like this technically erases the packs rule of not killing because i dont think its weird for me to argue that getting non-stop tortured without the ability to die is objectively worse than actually dying. and yeah, tv logic, but if you think that (in canon, not just bc you personally dont like theo) he deserved that, idk. weird. very weird.

[thealias0]

I might have came up with alternate resolutions for both The Giggle and Empire of Death in the shower

I think that those resolutions are both really underwhelming and deserved more. So, let's start what i came up with The Giggle.

Originally, The Toymaker was defeated by him just messing up. No clever play from anyone. 14 and 15 haven't displayed one of their biggest traits, which is their Time Lord super intelligence. They only displayed their ability to play catch, which is just such a waste imo. My proposal: Game of catch goes just like it did in the episode, but eventually 14 and 15 look at each other in understanding. They have cooked a plan. 14 catches the ball and throws it to 15, but he misses and ball falls off the edge of the rooftop. Both act shocked and 15 immediately sprints into the building. Toymaker looks at what just transpired and laughs and screams. "Go ahead, run if you wanna play hide and seek next. You will not escape me anyways." Turns to 14. "Are you proud? Your next incarnation revealed himself to be a coward! I expect many things from you, Doctor, but that sure surprised me. Now, you lost the game, so now's time for me to collect my reward." 14 smirks. "I wouldn't be so sure, as I believe... it is still falling" The moment he said that, the ball hurling from the entrance to the building hits The Toymaker and falls to the ground. In the way stands none other than 15 visibly exhausted from running and expression of relief on his face. Toymaker visibly angry, scared and confused asks: "Wh- What?! How did you... No... don't tell me-" "That's right, Toymaker" 15 expeled. "There are no rules forbidding the usage of time machines" 14 finished the thought. Then the flashback plays out showing the whole thing from 15's perspective. He runs as fast as he can straight to the TARDIS passing himself on the way, travels to the time and place where the ball is supposed to land, catches it, travels back and runs back to the rooftop passing himself on the way back. The rest transpires as it did in the original. I'm not claiming it's the best, great or even good alternate ending, but i think it would be more satisfying than what we got.

The resolution for Empire of Death is one of the most disappointing events I've ever seen in Doctor Who. It made Sutekth into a complete joke. Are you really telling me that the supposed most powerful being in existence. A god so powerful and terrifying that even The Toymaker ran in terror, wasn't able to handle a fucking rope? I don't care if it's a "smart rope" whatever that means. Toymaker was able to turn bullets into confetti, people into bunch of bouncy balls and implied he could turn galaxies into figet spinners or whatever. Sutekth is supposed to be more powerful than that and he couldn't do anything about it? Sutekth deserves much better than this. So this is what i came up with. It isn't nearly as detailed as the toymaker stuff, but i hope you'll enjoy the concept. So, i decided to actually use the spoon to save the universe in hopefully interesting way. I didn't think of any good scenario yet, but here's my idea for the concept itself. What if Doctor defeated Sutekh by using his power against him using the spoon. By that i mean that The Doctor could psychologically manipulate Sutekh into believing that the spoon through some classic Doctor Who technobabble, power of love and fairy tale salt spilling mumbo jumbo became an actual weapon capable of defeating him. Sutekh being a god and having power over reality itself could subconsciously make that story a reality and unknowingly empowering the spoon with his own power, which then Doctor could use to defeat him.

So that's what i came up. I am not a writer, so i apologize if that's an unbearable slop of a read. I'm not claiming that the dialogue i wrote is any good, as im just not experienced in writing. All i did here was not very thought through and only served the purpose of conveying my core ideas about the alternate resolutions for those stories. Hope you enjoyed and have a nice day

[bluegekk0]

so you have voice claims for grimm and fpk? im curious to know what they sound like in your head, and the rest of the family too haha

I already answered a similar question a while back but I'd love to revisit it! I'll drop some samples/clips as well, like I did last time.

Vyrm in my head sounds like Rory Williams from Doctor Who. Here is an example of what he sounds like. He does speak rather quietly, though, so this short clip from another video is probably an even better example. Whenever you talk to him, you definitely get the impression that he sounds like this on purpose, like he doesn't want to be too loud and bother anyone. It's almost like he's constantly half-whispering.

Grimm, to me, sounds like Mads Mikkelsen. Particularly his role in Doctor Strange, like this clip. One thing to note though, he speaks in a much stronger accent with trilled R sounds. But the depth and general sound of his voice would be very close to Mads.

EDIT: The accent part is still accurate, but I now imagine his voice to be more similar to Chronos from Hades II. The god-like otherworldly echo is only present whenever he's angry (or wants to scare someone), otherwise he speaks normally.

In the previous ask I said that his Nightmare King form has a different voice, and I still stand by that. Back then I suggested another Doctor Who character, The Beast from the episode "The Satan Pit". But while replaying Horizon Forbidden West, I realized how much I love how Hades sounds there and I think I much prefer that for NKG. Here are the voice lines. It sounds incredibly ominous, but also oddly soothing, which I think fits Grimm/NKG perfectly. Though like I said earlier, he would have a slightly different accent. Also, it fits especially well considering he's much weaker after his banishment, so I think it would be really interesting if his voice in the Nightmare Realm reflected that.

Hornet has in-game voice lines, and she'll surely have even more of them in Silksong, but my interpretation of her sounds a bit different. Ellie from The Last of Us is basically how I imagine it. No additional comments here.

Holly is a bit tricky since they don't talk, but they still make sounds. More specifically, the void within their body can rumble, producing low-pitched, quiet sounds, just like the Abyss ambience from the game. I've never thought about their voice if they were able to talk, for some reason I just can't imagine what that would sound like. Them being voiceless is a very big part of their character for me.

Zote... He probably has the most extensive voice lines in the game, so I never actually looked for a voice for him. Since in the AU he's not an old man like many people think, it makes some sense that he'd sound younger. I definitely think he'd have an overdramatic, borderline cartoonish sound to his voice. You know, Oblivion's voice acting is really goofy but it might just be the lead. Maybe he'd sound like the Bosmer from that game? It's fitting cause they often sound like absolute jerks hahah

Lewk, like I said before, would sound like young Simba from The Lion KIng. It just fits in my mind. And continuing the Lion King inspiration, I like to think Milo sound like young Kovu from the second movie once he's Lewk's age. And Asta would sound like young Nala, just to complete the trinity hahaha

I'm not 100% sure about Zote and the twins, so if I find better voices I'll probably update this post or make a new one.

[annahxredaxted]

Ripping the teeth outta the back of my mouths the closest you’ll get to my wisdom.

Lowkey felt NFs song lyric was appropriate for this fic no matter how long it is~ antiways

Pairings: angel/David

Genre: 100% purely comedic purposes

Tw: mentions of drugs/ anesthesia

ALSO THANKS @itsdaifuku For helping with the dialogue for some of this fic!!!

࿎࿎࿎࿎࿎࿎࿎࿎࿎࿎࿎

“Thanks doc, yeah I’ll tell them. Okay thank you. Bye.” David hung up the phone with the doctor and turned back to im his severely drowsy partner.

“He said you need to be on meds for about about one to two weeks.” David claimed to angel, gently stroking their cheek and sighing

“No.” They said muffled.

He knitted his eyebrows together

“Yes.” He said defensively

“Don’t wanna.” They said once again.

“Angel.”

“Davey.”

He sighed and just looked at them.

“You need to in order to get better.” He said in a caring tone.

They grumbled and muttered something under there breath.

࿎࿎࿎࿎࿎࿎

“Angel, get- get back here, you have to eat!” David was chasing his mate who was running under a hell of a lot of anesthesia how? He’s not sure.

“No!” They said jumping on the couch and running across the entire house, while David was right behind them attempting to catch them, but failing miserably.

“How is it that when your not on meds your sitting around and lazy, but the second you get on drugs your as hyper as a damn hyena.?” David questioned out of breath.

“No!”

“Is that all you know how to say?!” He said trying not to pass out from exhaustion.

Angel suddenly stopped. Tears welled up in their eyes,

“Am- am I being bad?” They asked crying

Shit

David forgot the doctor said they’d be a lot more sensitive then usual

“Wait no, angel I’m sorry.” He said trying to be nicer

“So,” they sniffled “, I Have too eat?”

David nodded.

“Okay fine..” they grumbled and hopped down from the couch and sat down, and ate the soup.

࿎࿎࿎࿎࿎࿎

“Water. No angel stop. Water, drink it.”

David put a bottle of water in angels face

“No.”

He sighed

“Angel.”

“No.”

“Angel, drink the water.”

They grumbled and passive aggressively took it from his hands.

“Okay chill.” He said

“I’m sorry, davey am I being mean again?”

“What? No your just being difficult.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

‘ This is like 100x then validation they usually need.’ He thought to himself.!

༛࿎࿎࿎࿎

Angel laid vertically on the couch, watching Hamilton, drowsy, fully medicated, half asleep as their husband, well at the moment they forgot he was said Husband

“Angel. How are you feeling?” He asked pulling a chair over to sit in front of them.

“Okay, but can I tell you something,”

“What is it?” He was confused

“,This might be to late, since your wearing a ring, but I love you.”

They said drowsy, and dramatic.

“Angel were married.”

“Oh.”

࿎࿎࿎࿎࿎

“Davey it’s gross.” They said closing their mouth into a tight line.

“I know baby, I’m sorry, but the doctor said you have to take it in order to heal.”

They grumbled And pouted to look away.

David was sad, he hated seeing them like this, sad, and frustrated, even more upset that he had to make them do something they hated.

“Angel, please..”

He said calmly brushing their cheek. They looked over sensitively, and sighed and opened their mouth.

David sighed in relief and gave them their medicine, they gaged and had a rancid look on their face.

“Davey can you hand me my water please..”

They asked and he obliged

“Of course angel, here.”

They took a couple sips before handing it back to him.

Even in this state of pain, and awkwardness, he still admired their beauty and grace, they were always beautiful, but something about this new vulnerability level made him feel like they trusted him even more, even if they were married, the only way you can go is up.

They made a whine, and a yawn, and stretched their arms, while struggling to keep their eyes open,

“Sleep angel, it’s okay.”

“Oki. Love you davey..”

“Love you more.”

He said tucking them in, leaving a soft and slow kiss to their cheek, smiling as he turned their movie off for complete silence.

“Sleep well angel, I love you..”

[rgr-pop]

okay my job is Very blue collar, can you talk more about being told to go to a… doctor’s appointment???? for inappropriate workplace behavior? is this common? obv not saying you were actually inappropriate. but if someone was homophobic at your workplace, hr can tell them go to therapy??? like a tumblrina scorned???

yes well i can do my best! officially i can say all this now Technically but dont rb but if you are in the field im happy to speak to colleagues, i had a disciplinary action filed against me for privately correcting a coworker for using the wrong pronouns for a trans girl student. she is on the school board and she works closely with someone who lost a city council race in large part because she had worked with bethany christian services and was discredited. so of course i very innocently talked to our director about how im soooo worried about her possibly being radicalized by this issue on the school board--have you watched the news? no? are you not getting the ALA emails....? so i had a conversation with her about she pronouns, she screamed in front of patrons that nobody can tell her what she has to call them. she called our student a karen. i asked my director to handle this, specifically said if you ask me to handle this i will feel like its undue attention as a queer person in the workplace please have someone else do it. set up a process for pronoun stuff, i found him some training resources, the whole thing. his solution was to force me in a meeting with this person in which she said that pronouns quote reminded her of being enslaved. i was not allowed to leave, cried, made five or six on paper and recorded on video claims of quote homophobic retaliation. the other person filed a complaint against me which means she cant face any disciplinary response. officially my report on paper you can probably FOIA it says that the discipline was for using the word homophobic and transphobic. well actually my discipline was for rude behavior in that meeting plus saying the words homophobic and transphobic but they found in my hearing that i was appropriately apologetic for raising my voice and crying but that i refused to apologize for saying homophobic and transphobic (they didnt ask me to but obviously i would not have. so thats what my report says. a little birdie told me that in the hearing discussion the words quote religious freedom were tossed around. its unofficially prohibited to communicate about someones pronouns in the library until further notice and ive been told they will get a procedure on paper next year. as a consequence for my behavior (saying homophobic and transpobic i face mandatory counseling. can they do this - i think yes but i really think its a legal technicality that has never seemed a winnable fight to anyone. my understanding is that it is probably common. what i believe is typically the case is that employers will partner with something called an employee assistance program. the employee-facing component of these orgs is access to mental health services as a benefit (in the case of me, in lieu of healthcare benefits(. employers partner with these orgs to offer those employee-facing mental health services while contracting the company for other org psych/HR services. here is one of the big companies that does this, based in detroit, who i believe does this work with state of michigan employees (who i am not( - https://hmsanet.com/managed-behavioral-health.html the employer contracts this company to provide employee benefit limited mental health services and also uses their services for various disciplinary, mediation, crisis management, probably also consulting purposes. in my case, im being required to have a counseling session with a counselor through what is described by the company and my employer as a voluntary program, but i have been instructed that doing so is mandatory.

interestingly, in the past when ive worked with union members who got this disciplinary action, it was posed to them as they could choose to go to counseling or have a higher level disciplinary action. i was expecting this to happen to me, but i was not given the false option. mandatory referral through your employer are the words used. im required to sign a release of information allowing the counselor to disclose information about my participation and progress and it appears that this will likely be in the form of a checklist certifying my compliance. obviously what i would prefer is to create an even more complete paper trail of them doing homophobia on purpose so were considering the strategy...

[slug-cube]

on mha fandom changing deku: it bothers me so much. that boy is insane. he broke his arms on purpose daily for like 2 seasons before a doctor was like stop that maybe? so he decided to break his legs instead. he can throw a bus. he's weird and off putting. he's everything to me.

(also it bothers me when people write bakugo to be all suave and cool like because (and i say this with love) that guy's a loser. but that's a whole other thing)

YES THANK YOU. i would litteraly document these losers if i had a chance to. like midoriya is that one cryptic fucking creature everyone assumes is harmless, and katsuki is a phony deliquent. hes nothing but a nerd and i do not give 2 FUCKS on what everyone else has to say about that. they are litteraly both huge, fucking losers. they are both just GUYS. just teenage boys doing shit.

one more gripe i have with a few people: i hate when ppl just wash their hands of their history because its to complicated or they think they could never possibly love each other because of what happened. but ship them anyway. the WHOLE POINT of that ship is still loving someone despite their flaws or their past of being an asshole. people dismissing that and making their past never happen is something i could never agree with. i also dont agree w/ people saying they "fall in love" later in life, NO WAY. you look at these assholes that are so clearly obsessed and intertwined w/ each other and go "yeah no. they dont love each other yet or cant because of blah blah" FUCK OFF!!!! midoriya has been stake claiming his nerd since day 1 btw. "kacchan" is an endearing nickname that he uses for bakugou, WHOM, BY THE WAY, has NEVER!! stopped him from using that nickname.

bakugou has also, just recently, stake claimed his nerd. nobody uses midoriyas first name "izuku" from what i can tell, they just call him by his hero name. deku. so that means "izuku" is bakugous own form of "kacchan" now

they have been both obsessed with each other since middleschool. midoriya always stayed around in bakugous bubble and bakugou has always watched midoriya despite not wanting to. complicated feelings and all that on BOTH sides. midoriya couldve at least tried to cut bakugou off if he wanted to, but instead said fuck that im going to stay near him anyway. (its almost like? they both couldve been part of the fucking problem? wow. nobody has thought of such a thing before. wowza.)

anyway, my point? idfk i just wanted to rant. but i am and always will be obsessed with both of them. nobody gets me. except my mutuals and followers. but the fandom can fuck off as a whole. yup.

[selamat-linting]

There are millions of things that were once considered supernatural that have since been proven as scientific reality. Platypuses, for one.

At some point "I don't believe in the supernatural" becomes "Science has already discovered everything there is to be discovered".

Which is factually incorrect.

One could argue that space aliens are supernatural. They are also incredibly likely to exist, somewhere out in the infinite expanse.

You don't just believe that magic isn't real, you also believe that if something is real it cannot be magical.

In a world where children's laughter exists?

How silly of you.

maybe you should understand the context of what im writing first asshole. in my country, we have faith healers, people who say they can fix a stroke with a massage, people who believe the stars align someone's career and personality, people who claim they can double money with some chants and help from djinns, people who put graveyard soil on their competitors' shop. people who ate convince thousands of severely ill people to stop chemo treatments to drink prayer water. people who collect gemstones and call it magic then sell it to a high price for desperate people down on their luck. and sooo many grifters saying they could speak to the dead. that is the "magic" im talking about. where in the world did i refer to magic as a metaphorical descriptor for something beautiful?

"magic" in my life, is a code for grifters, people using the naivety, desperation, and grief of others to drain them of money, giving them false hope, or worse. you have no idea how many cases of parents that were misled by local witch doctors saying their kids arent actually dead forever in the woods, theyre just taken to the realm of invisible beings and will come back someday. or mentally ill people and neurodivergent kids literally tortured in an effort to exorcise ghosts and bad spirits. spiritual gurus sexually harrassing vulnerable women for cleansing/ritual purposes, or faith healers and mediums who realized they cant keep up the lie anymore so they started killing and raping their clients. do you want me to send you a fucking of all that news stories that happen in my country? my country doesnt need more magical thinking, we need scientific and secular education, and a conscious effort to get rid of those superstitions or else we'll be stuck praying to various entities and magic items instead of actively revolting and working together to make a better country.

also where the fuck did i say science has already discovered everything? im saying im a skeptic, that means i believe everything has a scientific explanation, but that doesnt mean science have already figured everything out nor that its free of criticism. i dont doubt i will die with the knowledge that we only know so little about the universe we might as well call ourselves cavemen.

also where the fuck did i bring up aliens you freak?

forgive me for assuming but, let me guess : you skim read my personal post and instantly paint me as a stuffy skeptic bro who adheres to reason and hates whimsy despite barely knowing me or my life. youre shadowboxing over someone you created in your head but youre convinced youre fighting me. well i may be wrong so i apologize beforehand

but anyway, i hope youre just a stranger who never reads this reply. if youre not, then you really should have read my pinned post before deciding to follow my blog or be my mutual. i already write it down there that im critical to any form of magical thinking and supernatural bullshit. leave my fucking blog if you cant handle it.

but no matter who you are, i hope you got scammed by a faith healer and had a botched suicide attempt after realizing youve fucked up your entire recovery process and lost all of your money and potential. or yknow what, cut the middle man. just kill yourself tonight. youre into magic right? you believe in those signs of the universe and lucky numbers stuff? cmiiw but if its true i hope you know that this is a sign from the universe to kill yourself.

[pegasusknightsonly]

this is spinning off a post i reblogged to my main but i want to talk about fire emblem so im jumping in here fully aware that it will be somewhat incoherent and lacking context: what is the purpose of categorisation is not gleefully arbitrary distinctions. ok.

one thing that i have not seen mentioned in the criticisms of engage I've found (which doesn't negate their criticism in any way, i just want to tack this on) is any kind of closer reading or analysis of how engage creates and presents authority: who has it, why they have it, why they get to keep it, etc. which feels strange to me because the vast majority of the engage cast are either monarchs-in-waiting or their personal guards. the closest things engage has to representation of the common people are Jean (bourgeois doctor's son in training to be a doctor), yunaka and Anna i GUESS but i think engage Anna is one of the least coherent entries into the anna canon (annon)

everyone else is either a monarch (alear, alfred, céline, alcryst, diamant, ivy, hortensia, timerra, fogado, arguably veyle) [side note: it is so hard to remember these names off the dome but I'm doing it!] or directly employed by the monarchy (all the retainers obviously [including mauvier, if he calls her "Lady Veyle" there's a power differential] and also Saphir is a royal knight, Lindon was a royal priest, if there is anyone not covered by these categories they're either DLC or i forgot they existed) so you may think engage takes the general stance of "your boss has authority over you as part of your contract of employment", etc. well .

what engage actually says, over and over and over again, is that you're either born into authority or you're not. and that's it. alear is allowed to make life and death decisions for every single person they meet on the basis of their authority as Lumera's child despite being asleep for like a thousand years and knowing absolutely nothing about the world. alear's social power is granted on the basis of them being born into the correct family to wield it and the later revelations about the circumstances of alear's birth don't change that (mostly, i think, because engage had completely given up on the idea of characters knowing or not knowing information actually meaning anything for the story) so being APPARENTLY the right kind of birth is sufficient for your claims to authority to go unchallenged

"but tama," you might say, "alear is challenged all the time". yes! whenever alear expresses an opinion on their own emotional state, they are challenged on it. if alear says they feel scared and don't want to proceed with the suggested course of action, their advisors will immediately tell them their feelings do not matter and every single time alear says "oh ok" and does it because if they were allowed to say "no i really don't want to to fight these guys" then engage would have to provide a narrative that does not merely exist to propell the player between maps

alear is imbued with authority because they embody the authority of the state; they are not allowed any authority over their own physical and mental state. alear's body is not their own, it is the body of the Divine Dragon, an object of literal worship and it is not allowed in the text and the paratext of the game to be divorced from the functions of religion and state

states appear in engage ONLY through the persons of their royal families and it is made clear that the monarch has absolute authority over every aspect of their state. an attack on queen éve threatens all of firene. this is also demonstrated with the Queen of solm; military encroachments from elusia (personified in hortensia, who leads them) only matter to the story when the queen of solm is potentially threatened. we see nothing of the battles before hortensia reaches the inner castle, because as far as engage is concerned, they don't exist. the people of solm are not real people in any meaningful way for the story. the only threat that matters to the state is the threat to the monarch

and isn't that .... you know, isn't all that "the health of the leader is the health of the state" nonsense fashy as all hell???? especially when there is no authority beyond the authority of the state as embodied in its leader: there are no opposition political parties, there are no grass roots political movements, there are no possibly avenues of challenge! you are born into power and thus justified to use it however you see fit or you don't ever matter at all!!!

it's bleak

[unwelcome-ozian]

Hi this is the system that asked whether or not you knew about computers being used as a "script". I'm not sure what kind of programming we had? At this point right now it seems like a mix between "beta", "intelligence(? not sure what to call it)", and "military-esque training". And other things, it's all confusing I'm not sure what to make of it. We often felt like we had no one true purpose in the group, like we either had many roles to be trained for or they didn't know where to place us. I'm certain it wasn't a religious cult, but I don't know what type of group it was. I do know there was some military and police personnel involved occasionally as well as "doctors" and "therapists" (I'm unsure about the claim of the doctors and therapists being legitimate practitioners though). As for a script, I'm not sure if we have one? It could be AiW, or thats just happens to be a coincidence im not sure.

And to clarify more on "computers being used as a script" i mean structurally(?) putting everything into and creating "files" "folders" "documents" and "jpegs" saying that they are "recycling" "deleting" or "archiving" certain alters or things, saying that they can move items around the computer (our brain), making "software updates" and doing "reboots". Insisted that our brain had a computer ship that had all the information in it. etc. The biggest update they did they "installed" a "holographic computer" in our innerworld to further help with memory and organization that typically only a select few can access. It was very buggy at first and caused issues. We wondering if you have seen any other people with similar makeup or if our group was just being experimental with us.

Two men, Walter Pitts and Warren McCulloch are the ones who started programming with computer terminology.  Basically, the programming is completed as if your mind were a computer.

Parts can be ‘files’, there are operating systems (programs), RAM, and subsystems called DRDRAM for instance.

Oz

[raindropsonwhiskers]

Hi there! I know that this is really out of the blue but im asking for a favor or some help w/ my cats current medical needs. Please if you have an extra time to boost/share it for us so that we could get some traction or it could reach more people, it would definitely help a ton! I understand if its not okay, Im so sorry for taking some of your time and I wish you to be safe and healthy always, xx.(Please considering answering my ask privately or probably hit me a msg if its fine! 😭🙏

This is far from the first time I've gotten one of these, and I'm feeling spiteful, so I'm going to walk through why this is almost certainly a scam, for anyone who isn't already aware of these.

This is the pinned post on the blog:

It was made at 1:17 AM EST today, Jan 31st. Based on the timing and phrasing of this post, the emergency happened last Tuesday, as the poster seems to be in Montana and thus made the post at 11:17 PM on Monday. The vet hospital (VSS West) and the group Shelter Friends do exist, though Shelter Friends seems to be exclusively a "shelter assistance and networking group whose purpose is to help homeless pets find rescue or adoption" (their website).

They claim their cat is being held until they can pay the bill (pictured at the top of the pinned post, ~1600 USD) in full. This is a red flag, since as far as I'm aware, no respectable institution does this. Additionally, the timeframe on pickup seems uncertain - it goes between "picking him up tomorrow" and "cleared to come home by the next couple of days".

No goal amount is listed, nor is there any sort of tracker. This is extremely strange, since almost every signal boost/mutual aid/etc post I see these days has the OP pretty much constantly updating how much they have left to go. Not being upfront about the amount needed, or how much they already have, is a decent red flag for a scam.

They say they haven't made a GoFundMe because it takes too long and takes a fee. However, VSS West's website says payment is due upon service (see screenshot). Therefor, they must have known about the price for at least 5 days (assuming wiggle room from last Tuesday to the time of the pinned post) and - more importantly - they should have already paid for the surgery.

But let's say they delayed the payment and... used their pet as collateral or something. Here is a screenshot from GoFundMe's website:

So the fee bit is bullshit, too.

Now that we know why the scenario is a whole bunting's worth of red flags, let's tackle the blog itself. The earliest post is from 1:08 AM EST, Jan 31, 2023. AKA today, 9 minutes before making the pinned post.

The URL directly references the cat, Tonka, so surely the blog was created to be about him. It can't be a sideblog - those can't send asks. It could be an alt account, but why make one just for your cat's health emergency and then reblog ATLA posts, posts about the new Mighty Nein animation, and some random aesthetic photos?

And this is just me being pedantic: the name in the header, Nicolai, doesn't match the Nicole used elsewhere. On the bill in the pinned post, the name Susan appears in the client field, just before the blacked out phone number.

But even assuming this person did genuinely decide to make a brand new blog on tumblr and try to crowdfund for their cat, there's a few more red flags around the message itself.

1) This blog has never once interacted with me before. Not shocking since it was made less than 24 hours ago, but still. Not even a follow before sending me a scam? Rude.

2) They ask that I reply privately or via DM. This is very suspicious and VERY convenient for a scammer, because it's harder to provide evidence of the scam when nobody else has seen your correspondence with them.

3) They asked a random niche Doctor Who blog to signal boost them. Of all the demographics, Doctor Who Extended Universe shitposting was the one some desperate person worried for their cat chose? Yeah, right.

All that being said, I hope this post helps people be more aware of these sorts of scams in the future. There are a lot of genuine posts looking for help with their pets, too - but those posts come from real people with established blogs, who aren't sending demanding asks to strangers, aren't trying to hide how much money they need/have already, and aren't trying to take advantage of people. Always do some due diligence before donating to a cause; the worst that can happen is you spend a little time looking through someone's blog and find that they're a real person.

[hauntedmoonstone]

For Both: Scars and doctor

scars:  how many scars does my muse have? where are they located on my muse’s body? how did they get them? what do they look like?  doctor: how often does my muse visit the doctor? do they tend to go routinely, or only when something is wrong? 

Mikaela: Mikaela has a few scars to be honest little nicks on the finger from using knives in the kitchen/in her witch craft a couple marks on her knees and legs from tumbles she's taken in her childhood but she does have a scar on her left temple that goes into her hair line a bit from she was younger and learning how to surf! Take a tumble in a water and knocked her head. Her father was terrified at first and was so scared she wouldn't go back into the water etc but Mikaela bounced back not a worry ready to go out and learn the next day (obviously her father didn't let her until he was sure she as full health) She also has a scar on the knuckle of her pointer finger on her right hand that's in a slight crescent shape from when she was cutting a treat for her rescue rabbit Cathlulu (yes its spelled wrong on purpose. The curse of dyslexia mikaela spelt it wrong on vets paper and just never bothered to change it... For doctor Mikaela tried her best to be healthy and treat any colds with home grown plants or plants foraged from the woods etc (her and Claudette would get along so well....) But she does go in yearly/biyearly check ups and for when colds turn into the worse. She's nervous of doctors because her fathers health decline was impart of doctors ignoring/brushing off symptoms and misdiagnosis. (To this day she wonders if he could have lived longer/been cured if that didnt happen....) Haddie: Oh gosh you could make a map with her scars so many from her adventures and monster hunting. She has a bit of her ear missing (haven't decided on which side tbgh) from a dog bite (she claims it was a hell hound in stories to Mikaela and others but in all honestly it was a ratty little white dogs one of her aunts had as a kid....) She has three dominate slashes on her upper arm from a monster clash and the marks on her face is from various claws and knives. She has a slash on her lip as well. Her hands have many many from barbed wires, knives, falls, etc she honestly couldnt tell you the origin of most of them. She gets knicked so often so much sometimes she comes home and Mikaela is like omg babe is...is that a new fucking scar and haddie is like uuuuh...idk i guess it is KJHKLJH. Only ONE scar of hers she doesn't talk about often at all. She also has a bite on her ankle from a stranger "mermaid" like creature she came into contact with in an underwater cave. When it comes to doctors and health? You best know haddie is toughing it till death KLJHKLHK she doesn't like going to doctors at all and will wait until it gets unbearable or if Mikaela forces her to. She has learned many first aid skills just to avoid doctors on her adventures (how to clean and stich wound etc etc) If Mikaela knew how many times she's just stitched up claw wounds and didnt even bother going to the doctors.......But Haddie is INCREDABLY resilient and healthy(?) her body can handle a lot and rarely gets infections and sicknesses at all. But when she does.....she's a pathetic wet sniveling cat who bundles into a cocoon of despair and groans of im dieing as mikaela cares for her. (She simply has caught the seasonal cold) But- She is very diligent about keeping up with vaccines etc and being aware of diseases etc to watch out for her international travels. She may groan and fit but she does her work and research. The only issue she has is chronic migraines from her powers and just plain having them in general she actually has gotten migraine piercing's! (Also know as daith piercings) One of the very few things except for Mikaela spell work when its a power inflicted migraine that helps and prevents them.

[truebluewhocanoe]

sorry to barge into your asks out of the blue but - i have long been plagued by the thought emet selch has huge master vibes but i dont know anyone who likes both ff14 and dw to tell me whether they get it too or im just making a huge reach.

it's specifically like, the friendly enemy take of ones like missy or delgado moreso than say simm. villains who are eccentric and dramatic and capable of being charming and affable, and also view humanity as insignificant playthings to kill on a whim, but also once had a very close and intimate relationship with the protagonist, and happen to be immortals from a powerful civilisation now destroyed

Don't worry, if I didn't want people asking I wouldn't have my asks open!

As for the Master and FFXIV parallels... I must admit I've thought about this way too much. The Ancients have serious Gallifrey vibes, what with the advanced civilization that held power over life and death, now ruined by one of its own, with a legacy carried on by a select few- most of which are crazy. (Listen to To The Edge and tell me it isn't the most Time War thing you've heard.)

For specific character parallels, I'd say there's three characters who the Master has similarities to: Emet-Selch, Hermes, and Zenos.

Let's start with Emet-Selch. As you said, he has a complicated friend-enemy relationship with the protagonist, but contempt for practically every other living person. He even disguises himself for the purpose of long-term plans. Quite Master-like! However, there's one big difference between the two: Emet-Selch is motivated out of love for his people and grief over losing them, while the Master despises the Time Lords. They would not get along!

That brings us to Hermes. Driven to desperation by the society of the Ancients, he turned on them and welcomed the Final Days. Reminds us of the Master burning Gallifrey over the Timeless Child, no? Also, just as the Master was resurrected to fight in the Time War, but immediately ran, Hermes was 'reborn' as Amon and raised to the seat of Fandaniel, but didn't further the Ascian cause at all. (Also, Amon being a scientist who spurs an empire to war only to then claim heritage from the Ancient civilization is a sort of inverse of the Third Doctor's circumstances.)

Lastly, we have Zenos. He's obsessed with the protagonist, positively psychopathic, and wants nothing more than the protagonist to accept that they are The Same Deep Down. He even comes to help the protagonist in the hopes of getting their one-on-one attention. They're pretty damn similar. I don't like Zenos though so I'll leave it at that.

[gallifreyborn]

( now i’m thinking about it so i’m going to talk about it so im not depressed by myself.

thinking about how in her first incarnation, romana wanted to leave gallifrey and travel. she was always very much a daughter of gallifrey, but gallifrey itself wasn’t enough for her. and when she finally was sent to travel with the doctor, she was so excited. and it was nothing like what she had expected- it was even better, and she saw so much, and had her eyes opened to the wider universe, and grew so much.

and then she heard pandora, and she knew that she had to regenerate, and she regenerated into astra’s form, but so much of her personality emulated the doctor. romana had so much control over her regeneration- her appearance was purposeful, and so was her personality.

romana regenerated to separate herself from gallifrey, even if she couldn’t remember why she regenerated. and she continued to travel, and she fell more and more in love. and, yes, she did need to leave the doctor in the end. she needed to find herself, and while she loved travelling, she also wasn’t satisfied with always moving on- she wanted to be able to stay and help and see that what she did was making a difference.

but she stayed in e-space so she wouldn’t have to return to gallifrey. she wanted to stay to help the tharils, but she also wanted freedom that she couldn’t have gotten on gallifrey.

but, then, she returned. maybe it was pandora’s subconscious influence - because she couldn’t be imperiatrix if she didn’t return, after all. maybe it was just romana’s own sense of responsibility eventually bringing her to return. romana herself wouldn’t even be able to say for sure, but it doesn’t really matter, because she still returned.

and when they wanted to make her president, it hadn’t been something she planned. that wasn’t why she went back. but she grew up on gallifrey, and she felt that she had to accept, and she knew that she could do some good. she didn’t really expect to be president for too long. she just thought she could do some good, and then move on again.

but only a few weeks in she was captured by the daleks, and she spent twenty years where her only worth was in her presidency, and in the knowledge she held as a result of that. and she knew that she was romanadvoratrelundar, she knew that she was not unit 117, she knew that there was more to her than what the daleks claimed, but even the strongest of people wouldn’t be able to go through that treatment for that long without internalising some of it.

and etra prime taught her how to work until she couldn’t physically work anymore. it taught her how to set aside her own desires, and even basic needs, to do what she had to. it taught her how to neglect herself, it taught her that her worth came from what she could do, from what she was, not who she was. it taught her that freedom was something to be yearned for, but never grasped.

and she rescued herself, and she returned to gallifrey. and she went right back to working. she went right back to being the president first, romana second. for years and years, she just kept working, kept fighting, until her entire sense of self was so enmeshed with gallifrey and her presidency, she forgot what it was like to be anything else altogether.

and, then, she tried to fight the time war. and she lost. and she was trapped, cursed to archive gallifrey’s history forever, with her friends lost to her, with no one to talk to but, occasionally, the man who was holding her captive in the first place.

and isn’t that so depressing! all she wanted from the beginning was to travel and be free, but instead, time after time she was trapped- by pandora, by the daleks, by gallifrey, by rassilon, by herself. i love a tragedy but ouch )