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many-but-one · 3 months

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Satanic Panic, The False Memory Foundation’s Shaky Origins, and Why You Should Believe RAMCOA Survivors

(TW: mentions of RAMCOA, False Memory Foundation, child torture & death, cults, trafficking)

Pretty disappointed to see a fairly popular and well known blog on tumblr is encouraging the idea that RAMCOA doesn’t exist. Just came across this post and was pretty bummed to see the comments too.

For those that agree with them (most of my followers won’t but who knows who will stumble across this), please know that RAMCOA has been going on for much longer than the Satanic Panic. The Satanic Panic was fabricated in an effort to discredit RAMCOA survivors. It was supported by the False Memory Foundation, which was created by a man (and his wife) trying to prove his daughter’s repressed memories of trauma involving him did not really happen. [Explained further in the third article further down in this post]

For the record, false memory/planting false memories has been disproven, it’s not possible to fully plant false memories in patients. Some memories can be altered to an extent because memories can be disjointed and influence from others can cause memories to shift slightly, which is why it’s not encouraged for trauma patients to share exact detailed memories with each other. For example, if two trauma patients were abused by their father and had a similar situation happen and patient A spoke about their experience in detail, if both fathers wore glasses and patient A describes their father to have black rimmed glasses, patient B’s memory might shift to believe that their father also had black rimmed glasses, even though his glasses were gold rimmed. However, it’s not possible to fully plant memories that do not exist in a patient’s memory. The “base memory” so to speak has to be there in order for any alterations to occur, and those alterations that are possible are often rather minuscule, such as glasses or whether or not their abuser had facial hair or not, or the color of the person’s eyes. Not an entire scene of RA. [Again, explained well by the third article below.]

Repressed memory has been proven to exist. (Though it’s more accurately called dissociated memories by clinicians) It can even exist in people who have traumas that happen in adulthood. Pieces of a traumatic event may go missing in a patient’s working memory, and they may not retrieve it until they are ready to process the memory and all the emotions and information that comes with it. However, it still exists stored in the brain, just in a different area than working memory. It’s why triggers to the traumatic event (that the patient may not even realize are triggers until they occur) can cause flashbacks and memory resurfacing during said flashbacks.

Some sources explaining the False Memory Foundation and the harm they’ve caused: [a good overview of a woman who was major in the development of the idea of repressed memory being a myth, by a researcher of child psychiatry], [while this is a psychology today article, I think this explains well how misused the idea of FMS - false memory syndrome - is.] [A comprehensive article explaining the roots of the FMF and how the studies used to “prove” false memory are terrible and easily debunked, with several assertions from professionals in the field.] I want to add that while the FMF has dissolved and rightfully so, the British False Memory Society is still alive and well, as well as the Satanic Temple’s Grey Faction, and both groups still cite False Memory Syndrome as being real and claim that RAMCOA survivors have false memories of their abuse.

However, before Satanic Panic happened, people were starting to actually believe in the existence of RAMCOA and the concept of DID was brought into the mainstream. A survivor on tiktok has a very good video on this situation. And that scared people, especially the abusers themselves who didn’t want to get caught. That’s when the False Memory Foundation stepped in on the heels of Satanic Panic and literally rewrote the textbooks therapists learned from, and basically taught everyone that repressed memory doesn’t exist. Any therapists that spoke about their patients’ experiences with RAMCOA were sued. Therapists stopped wanting to treat RAMCOA patients for fear of being sued and/or losing their license or being told they planted these memories in their patients’ heads and possibly losing their licenses. It led to generations of old therapists not treating RAMCOA patients and generations of new therapists learning it doesn’t exist.

But it does exist. To outright deny that child torture cannot exist is absurd. 1-2% of reported child abuse falls under the definition of child torture. [source, TW: photos of children with serious injuries from torture included on page 7 of this document] For the record, my abuse was never and has never been reported, and most survivors—RAMCOA and non-RAMCOA, whose trauma falls under the definition of torture—never reported or plan to report.

Even if you find the mind control aspect to be far-fetched, ritual abuse most certainly does exist. I’ve seen videos on the surface web on fucking tiktok of all places of child torture and ritual abuse. Organized abuse such as sex trafficking and labor trafficking does exist. Two out of those three things in the acronym are well documented to exist. And for the record, ritual abuse and cult abuse even in adults can cause extreme mind and identity alteration, upwards to the point of nearly being mind control. Look up OSDD-2 in the DSM-V. Look up just about any cult survivors testimonies and hear how they talk about how they nearly became a different person within their cult, how the cult uses torture and mind altering drugs to get their initiates to commit terrible acts of violence to each other. Now imagine if that same stuff were happening to a child whose mind is significantly easier to mold and change. Even if the child RAMCOA survivor does not develop DID, it can cause extreme conditioned responses in which the child (or now grown adult or teen) will still do the responses even now because as a child they were threatened with torture or death if they didn’t do it.

Mind control is essentially an extreme form of conditioning, and with the plethoras of research on DID and how it functions, it’s not even a difficult concept to grasp that a cult member might learn how to split new alters in a child via torture and then manipulate those alters to do what they want individually. Anyone who knows fuck all about DID knows that alters can be triggered out via positive and negative triggers. All mind control programming is, is creating a specific trigger for a specific alter and then when that child is exposed to that trigger, that alter comes out and does the task it was taught to do—usually via torture, manipulation, and threats of harm to the child or those the child loves. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp, and with how long TBMC (torture based mind control) programmers have had to perfect their work, it’s no surprise that they’ve learned how to make alters do extremely complex tasks or hold onto specific functions, always at the ready for their specific trigger.

RAMCOA research doesn’t exist in mainstream spaces because it’s nearly impossible to be taken seriously because of people who claim it doesn’t exist when it’s not even a complex topic to understand. They just don’t want to accept that it exists. The concept is terrifying, harrowing, and at some times almost absurd—and that combination makes it easier for people to put their blinders up and decide it doesn’t exist. [Edited to add: On top of this, what little research is done on it is steeped in conspiracy theories that often have roots in antisemitism. While I’ve asserted that Miller’s deprogramming books are good reads for RAMCOA survivors, she does often sound conspiratorial, and quotes Svali, a known antisemite. While I don’t think RAMCOA is exclusively related to the Illuminati stuff she often talks about, Miller’s work cannot be completely discounted because of her beliefs of where the abuse originated. Where it originates matters much less than the fact that it happens. However, not from dark, underground, secret societies—but from normal places like churches, children’s own homes (yes, RAMCOA can be done by a single parent to a single child, it just may look different than say, a trafficking ring), trafficking rings, militaristic groups, political cults, etc. I wanted to put the above put there because I know someone is going to come at me and try to say the researchers who talk about it were conspiracy theorists. Yeah, they were. Maybe they were the only ones willing to talk openly about it because of the fact they’re conspiracy theorists? I don’t know. However, I think it should also be noted that just because the researchers sucked doesn’t mean the information taken from them isn’t useful when you weed out the conspiracy stuff. For example, a LOT of modern understanding of medicine was taken from Nazi and Japanese experiments during WWII. Arguably some of the worst doctors on earth. Do we discount everything we learned because they were horrible, evil, people? No. While those who studied RAMCOA went about it in shit ways, that doesn’t discount the information learned completely. Likewise, much of modern psych understanding came from roots that included incredibly unethical experiments that would never be allowed today. Do we throw out all of that info too? No, we don’t. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t hold these people accountable, I’m saying we cannot throw out all discussion of RAMCOA because the doctors who talked about it were shitty people.]

I wish I could decide it doesn’t exist. I have permanent scarring that proves what happened did happen. I have doctor’s visits that prove I am disabled because of the traumas I went through. I have a DID specialist who didn’t even know programming to our extent even existed before our parts started telling her what they went through and she heard it from our own mouth. She had to learn how to deprogram us on the fly because she’d never done so before. So fuck off with your “oh, RAMCOA patients only have RAMCOA because they’ve been influenced by their therapist to believe they do” bullshit.

I relive my traumas in flashbacks and nightmares daily. There have been periods in my healing process where I couldn’t leave the house without someone with me for months. I couldn’t hold a job for nearly a year. I didn’t know any of this happened to me until I was in my 20s. I thought my memory was just bad and the only parts of my childhood I remembered were little blips of good things, usually involving my parent that was not involved with the cult or memories with friends at school or when I was hanging out with my sports teammates. Living with this stuff is hell. You think I want to live with this stuff? If I could permanently erase it all from my memory forever I would. But I can’t. I don’t have that luxury.

It happened. And I’m not the only child it happened to, both in the area of my country I live in and in areas all over my country and the world. This is not an isolated phenomenon. It is more common than anyone tends to realize (though still rarer than most DID cases, thank fuck). I was lucky to survive. I survived because they wanted me to. I saw a lot of children, teens, and adults who were not as “lucky” as I was. If you won’t respect survivors and their stories, at least respect the ones who didn’t survive. They didn’t deserve their final moments to be so full of pain. All of the children in these groups deserved to be loved and cared for and treated with softness and compassion. So do adult survivors like me and many others.

If I could end on one thing, it would be to urge the doubters to have some fucking compassion and empathy for people who have been through things they cannot even begin to understand. My past feels like a nightmare I will never be able to escape. I cannot erase it. I can only try to heal from it. So heal I will do, and in the process I will continue to speak the truth of my experience as safely as I can.

You want proof it’s real? Survivors are your proof.

WE are the proof.

[Edit: changed some wording for clarification + added a section after rereading a couple hours later]

[Edit 2: I realized I said my abuse has never been reported, I meant my RAMCOA related abuse. Want to make that clear. I reported sexual abuse done by my church to CPS and nothing came of it. CPS actually wrongfully claimed that since they had no reports existing of that church harming kids they wouldn’t pursue it since it happened so long ago, when a cursory google search of said location shows they’ve been reported multiple times and all reports were dropped. Why, I’m not sure.]

#ramcoa tw #torture tw #cult tw #death tw #trafficking tw #ramcoa survivor #false memory foundation #ramcoa #tbmc survivor #tbmc tw

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octopus-punching-union · 4 months

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I'm writing this up for the second time since Tumblr ate my post :( so this probably won't be as much detail this time around.

The darker side of Darkwick

There's been a lot of allusions to shady stuff and harsh punishments at Darkwick since the very beginning, and it was so satisfying to see it come together this chapter. Quick recap of what's happened so far—

Haku gives some omimous warnings about harsh punishments when MC is trying to run away. He mentions Articles 77 and 78 (which are more fully explained in the Hotarubi chapter) and that ghouls can be punished for taking any actions outside of their missions.

This is constantly backed up since the very beginning. MC not being allowed to go home even briefly. Permits are required to leave campus and it's not unusual for recreational permits to be denied. Even with a permit, you can't be out at night unless it's for a mission. Stopping to get a snack while on a mission is potentially grounds for punishment. Entire Houses get punished for the misbehavior of a few people, and a House can be blanket banned from leaving campus.

When MC returns after that escape attempt, Kaito is upset as he's just now realized that he could be punished as an accomplice. Up until this point, he's been sympathetic to MC wanting to go home.

Haku also reminds Rui of the dangers of deviating from the mission and it seems that Rui is subject to particular restriction and surveillance. He says that a punishment would be particularly bad if Rui was involved.

Haku makes an odd comment like "since there's a chance we'll go home after graduation." Combined with Ritsu's comment about the Laurel Crown being the best way to get independence from Darkwick... I have a lot of thoughts about this and will write up a separate post later.

Budgets are fucked up, with Haru personally responsible for funding repairs to Jabberwock. (I'm also gonna write a separate post about this later.)

On to the new stuff from Hotarubi chapter—

We learn that Darkwick has a secret prison which was run by Ultio, one of the defunct houses. Lyca is being held there due to prejudice about him being part werewolf. He was imprisoned while being investigated for murder, but despite the discovery that he is innocent, he is still locked up because he could potentially be dangerous.

Articles 77 and 78 are explained. They allow for the imprisonment of ghouls who deviate from their missions and anomalies that are deemed too dangerous to society. Lyca is being held as a dangerous anomaly because he is part werewolf.

Subaru's first mission at Darkwick was to kill Lyca. He apparently decided to investigate instead and attempt to prove Lyca's innocence. He has been petitioning for Lyca's release, to no effect.

(This makes me wonder if Subaru was always in Hotarubi? The facility was being run by Ultio at the time, and why would they bring in someone from another house to kill a prisoner? If the initial mission was investigation using Subaru's unique stigma, it would make sense to bring him in from outside. But Lyca says that he knew Subaru had been sent to kill him from their first meeting. Related, Subaru also says that he and Zenji have been in the same house since first year, but he does not say that they were always in Hotarubi.)

We also get confirmation that there were multiple fatalities during the Clash. Zenji, who was killed by a rogue anomaly and is now back as a ghost, wasn't the only one who went "past the point of no return."

Finally, when MC and Haku go to the Chancellor and Moby to ask for Lyca's release, they are both very against it. The Chancellor starts to say, "What if we have another case of a ghoul—" but is silenced by Moby. Moby also seems like he's kinda threatening Haku in this scene.

#tokyo debunker #subaru kagami #lyca colt #haku kusanagi

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upsidedownwithsteve · 7 months

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A message.

I’d like to start by saying once more (due to it being the cause of so many hateful messages) that I support Palestine.

I donate to charities that fund several of the organisations that help and I use my business in the best way I can to give my services for free to fundraisers that also raise money for these causes. Shy of showing you my personal bank statements and private emails between myself and my clients, I don’t have any ways of showing this on tumblr.

I have several social media platforms, I have a business that I run, I have friends and family I talk to, I have an entire life off of this website. I choose to use tumblr to post my writing and for the most part, it’s become a really important space for me. Writing is one of the few things I truly do for myself. I enjoy it immensely and it can really bring me a lot of peace.

I choose not to blog anything other my writing, other people’s writing and general fandom related things on my blog because I like to keep it as that small space for myself and one of the things I love most. I understand wholly that that is a privilege in itself and I will not shy away from that fact.

However, I will not condone being hunted for the choices I make. For the vast majority of you, I am a stranger online and no one, absolutely no one, knows what I do off of this website. I won’t allow anyone to judge me on what they don’t see and don’t understand.

The size of my following was not a choice I made, it was not something I deliberately aimed for and it was not something I tried hard to make sure I achieved. It wasn’t the goal of this blog. I don’t deem myself capable of “influencing” anyone in anyway. I’m a fanfiction writer. I’m not a politician, I don’t claim to be the most educated person on political and worldwide matters. I simply would like to believe that everyone tries to help in anyway they can. I know not everyone has the financial means to donate and instead they choose to raise awareness in other ways - that’s absolutely okay.

But I - and others - do not have to follow the rule book someone else deemed law. You see, I gave my views and reasons and it wasn’t good enough. And now, if I chose to reblog certain things, I’m pretty sure I’d be dragged for being performative, or “back tracking.” I fear that with some people, who like to hide behind an anonymous button, I cannot win. Despite an argument revolving around real life issues, I think I can safely say it came across as a very personal attack.

As other people have mentioned before, I also don’t enjoy the idea of writing smut and happy ever after’s about our favourite fictional men and then reblogging the death of others in real life straight after. I know that’s the world right now. I’m aware. I read articles, I watch the news, I follow accounts on Twitter, on Instagram and I try and keep myself as up to date and as educated as possible. I just don’t show that on this one platform.

As many of you know, I do run my own business. I’m also five months pregnant. I’m definitely experiencing more stress than I usually do. I’m very happy and enjoying my pregnancy immensely but I struggled with sickness and tiredness for the majority of it so far. Whats to come in the next four months and beyond fills me with excitement and anxiety and nerves. Coming onto tumblr and writing about fiction is a little reprieve from that - again, a privilege I am so aware of.

But I won’t be tolerating any more hateful messages, I won’t be arguing with anyone. I’m not lowering myself to it. You can talk about me passively aggressively, you can choose to hate me, that’s fine. I’m happy blocking people and moving on. Anons will be off indefinitely, it’s been proven that too many people are willing to hide behind them. After the messages regarding myself and my unborn child, quite frankly, there’s not a lot of trust left when it comes to knowing how far people will sink.

I’ve said all I’d like to say on the matter, I’ve told people where I stand, my views on the genocide that is occurring, what I’m able to do about it in my personal life and why I choose to keep this particular space the way I do.

I hope everyone can try to understand and respect that. If you don’t, that’s fine, that’s your prerogative. I don’t go out of my way to challenge, or police, or demand things from people I do not know. I hope that no one thinks that they have the right to do that to myself and others. I’m under no obligation to follow someone else’s rules.

I don’t know what the future holds for this blog, pregnancy and real life is very much taking priority over writing at the moment, but I do like to try when I can. I can’t lie either, the messages and their content that I received really left me feeling dejected and frustrated, this fandom really has turned into something rather poisonous. I’d like to be able to rise above it and in the mean time, even if I’m not always present, I’d like people to be able to access the stories I worked really hard on.

Thank you for reading,

Emmy 🧡

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clover-system · 3 months

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The longest list of anti-endo sources I've ever seen

While trying to find something else using Tumblr's infamous search engine, I came across this absolute gem:

NINE SOURCES!!! That's a record!! This is incredible!

@radpocalypse, listen. I am about to tear these to shreds, but before I do, I want you to know that you have my respect for not only compiling the longest list of sources I have ever seen an anti-endo provide, and not only doing so seemingly not directly prompted, but typing out every single link by hand, on mobile, without making a single mistake. Incredible work.

And also, to be completely honest, if I had nine sources supporting a belief, I almost certainly wouldn't look into them this closely. But, hey, that's what strangers on the internet with opposing views are for.

One more thing before the debunk: Endogenic systems do not claim to have DID etc. without trauma. They just don't. Whether it could be possible is often debated as an edge case, usually just to win an argument against someone of the opposing side, but really, it's irrelevant for 99% of the community. A good chunk are questioning OSDD based on later trauma, but as far as I am aware, no one on this website is claiming a completely endogenic plural disorder.

However, I don't want to dismiss entire pages based on this alone without further commentary, and it's a fun intellectual exercise regardless. So, whenever I use green text, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate under the premise of "If I was claiming to have DID without trauma (which neither I nor anyone else afaik is), would this source actually debunk that claim?" My syster will also occasionally pop in with purple, since she was cocon while I was writing this.

My dad just walked into my room and literally said "hey how it's going". You know, like. Like that one post. Amazing.

Anyway, civility established. Now come along with me on this long long journey of ten minutes of reading. Maybe put some music on in the background, if that will help you get through it. I had Near's Theme on while writing.

Here we go.

Link 1: McLean Hospital

Ok, main thing that caught my eye was

According to a 2010 Psychiatric Times article, only 5% of people with DID exhibit obvious switching between identity “states.”

Very interesting! Even with all of the "idk who's fronting" memes, 5% is really not that high. Though maybe online spaces like these help train the ability to identify it? The reference trail leads back to a book by Kluft but I don't really feel like going through dozens of pages for this. Definitely making a note of this though; I wonder if there have been any follow-up studies on this.

Not much to say here other than that. No mention of plurality outside DID.

DID is associated with long-term exposure to trauma, often chronic traumatic experiences during early childhood.

Dissociation—or disconnection from one’s sense of self or environment—can be a response to trauma.

Dissociative identity disorder—a type of dissociative disorder—most often develops during early childhood in kids who are experiencing long-term trauma. This typically involves emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse; neglect; and highly unpredictable interactions with caregivers.

Why "associated", not "is caused by"? Why "can", not "is"? Why "most often", etc.?

Why such weak language?

Not that it couldn't be weaker.

I vaguely remember McLean getting into some hot water regarding a video they posted about DID, but didn't find anything concrete. Half-remembered anecdote aside, the author seems well-qualified.

C-tier debunk of this position. It's not nothing but it could be a lot better.

Link 2: Psych Central

It occurs in women 9 times more often than in men.

Very interesting statistic, but no citation provided.

Alters can show striking differences. For instance, one alter may speak with a different accent or have a softer way of speaking. They might have different opinions or a different gender identity, and even physical differences — like left- or right-handedness, or the need for a glasses prescription.

That's quite a stark difference here compared to the McLean article. What happened to "alters aren't that noticeable"?

But whatever, these are just interesting tidbits. None of this has anything to do with endogenic plurality. Nothing like "this is the only way to be multiple", no comment whatsoever.

DID is usually associated with adverse experiences in someone’s past and traumatic memories.

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a mental health condition with strong links to trauma, especially trauma in childhood.

Bruh. This again?

In fact, the American Psychiatric Association reports that 90% of people with DID have a history of childhood abuse and neglect, based on research from the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Bruh. Seriously? 90%? You know what that leaves, right?

According to your own source, 10% of DID systems are endogenic.

But let's break this down. There's a big difference between the system being endogenic, and the DID being endogenic. This statistic is specifically referring to childhood trauma.

The wording's plenty vague though. This can absolutely be read as completely endogenic DID.

One review article from 2017 about the causes of DID noted that there was relatively little research on the condition to date.

The authors said researchers hadn’t yet investigated potential genetic and epigenetic factors. With epigenetic factors, the experiences and behaviors of your parents and ancestors can influence the function of the genes they pass down to you.

The authors of the review said scientists needed to do more research to investigate whether a person with DID might carry genes that can influence if they develop the condition or not.

This is particularly promising because studies have already shown that genes can influence dissociative disorders in general.

So you're telling me DID might be able to be passed down one or two generations? Wow. Again, this still has nothing to do with endogenic plurality, but I'm really glad I decided to play with this second angle, because it's so much more fun. We're certainly not at intentional self-inflicted DID here, but we are at this point a long way from certainly needing childhood trauma in all cases.

And also the reviewer is a military psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD. So uh. Not bringing our best here.

Link 3: Mayo Clinic

Gotta love an article that's nice and short. This is just a brief summary of a bunch of dissociative disorders. Again, nothing about endogenic plurality.

Starting to run out of things to say about this. This whole post could probably be a fifth the length if I didn't feel like playing on hard mode.

Formerly known as multiple personality disorder, this disorder involves "switching" to other identities. You may feel as if you have two or more people talking or living inside your head. You may feel like you're possessed by other identities.

Each identity may have a unique name, personal history and features. These identities sometimes include differences in voice, gender, mannerisms and even such physical qualities as the need for eyeglasses.

Hey, that reminds me of someone.

There also are differences in how familiar each identity is with the others. Dissociative identity disorder usually also includes bouts of amnesia and often includes times of confused wandering.

Again, McLean looking really odd with its declaration of DID's covertness against great detail like this. However, its author is so far the best qualified. This one just says "Mayo Clinic Staff". Can't even know which of them worked on this. Some of them are psychs, but if any of them specialize in dissociative disorders, it doesn't say so.

Dissociative disorders usually arise as a reaction to shocking, distressing or painful events and help push away difficult memories.

I won't bother quoting even more wishy-washy language because this post is already at an ungodly length (about 1300 words so far) and we're barely a third done. But yeah, suffice to say, no nail-in-the-coffin 100% link to trauma.

Link 4: Rethink

We are a trusted information creator and accredited by the Patient Information Forum (PIF).

Their bold, for once. That's an alarm-ringing corporate phrase if I've ever seen one. Also, first thing on the PIF's website is "balancing the risks and benefits of AI in the production of health information". So this article might've been written by GPT. Awesome. And yeah, a lot of this whole website looks to me like a bunch of interconnected pages with stupidly long articles written by stitching together LLM generations. Does pass GPT0's test though.

This one is so long. I'll take the ten minutes to read through every word, which I don't think @radpocalypse did, just to make sure there's nothing here, but one thing that does catch my eye scrolling down to near the bottom is that they misspelled their first citation.

A quick look at this Carolyn Spring shows a lot being sold and credentials nowhere in sight. Awesome.

So already I don't need to read this. The information here is not at a high level of trustworthiness. It's maybe better than nothing, but seriously, one can and should do better. But I'll read it anyway, just for bonus points. Thanks to AccelaReader for making this bearable.

Many people will experience dissociation at some point in their lives. Lots of different things can cause you to dissociate. For example, you might dissociate when you are very stressed, or after something traumatic has happened to you.

Some of the symptoms of dissociation include the following:

You may have clear multiple identities.

It‘s important to remember that you could have the symptoms of dissociation without a dissociative disorder.

So according to this, multiple identities can be caused by intense but non-traumatic stress, and might not necessarily be a disorder. So, while I admit this is a little bit of a stretch, we're four links in and this is the first mention of plurality in general, so I'll take it. One point for endogenic plurality. (And again, none of this really matters anyway because this is the worst source so far.)

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is sometimes called ‘Multiple Personality Disorder.

If you have DID you might seem to have 2 or more different identities, called ‘alternate identities.

Two missing closing quotes. Really not a good sign.

They suggest that DID is caused by experiencing severe trauma over a long time in childhood.

Aha! Finally, something concrete against endogenic DID! Too bad it's buried in the worst source yet. If we believed we had DID, we would absolutely not reconsider that based on a sketchy webpage with suboptimal syntax and no credentials.

Ugh, finally done with that one. What a slog.

Link 5: DID Research

Aha! The infamous psych student's blog! That's what Sophie said, anyway. Not taking her word for it though. Let's see what we can find here, independently.

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is the result of repeated or long-term childhood trauma

Why wasn't this first? First sentence, so crystal clear. No two ways about this, transDID destroyed right out of the gate.

DID cannot form after ages 6-9 because individuals older than these ages have an integrated self identity and history.

Why wasn't this first? It's so plain, so refreshing after four pages of strategic ambiguity. Nothing left here for green. But still no mention of non-disordered plurality.

The author is impressively credentialed but doesn't seem to specialize quite near this area. She's certainly better than most, high above any random Tumblr user talking out of their ass, but the good stuff would be to get a DID specialist to explicitly spell out that endogenic systems are not possible.

Also should make note of this big fat legal disclaimer:

While the author strives to make information on this website as complete, reliable, and accurate as possible, the author makes no claims, promises, guarantees, or warranties about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the contents of this site and expressly disclaims liability for errors and omissions in the contents of this site.

If we did claim to have DID, this would rattle us a little but could ultimately be brushed aside.

Link 6: SANE

As usual, literally nothing about endogenic plurality. I'll just greenmode this.

The majority of people with DID have been through severe trauma in early childhood

And now back to our regularly scheduled nondefinitive language.

Fun fact: highlighting text on this website turns it invisible. Awesome.

A person needs to meet the following criteria to be diagnosed with DID:

- Two or more distinct identities or personality states, each with its own way of thinking and relating. - Amnesia and gaps in the recall of everyday events, personal information or traumatic events. - The experiences are not part of normal cultural or religious practice, or part of childhood imaginary play. For example, a child having an imaginary friend does not mean they have DID. - The symptoms are not because of substance abuse or other medical conditions.

Ah finally, a direct quote from the good ol' DSM. Notice the lack of a trauma requirement.

Funny enough, using only these criteria in isolation, we actually would count as having DID due to our grayout memory gaps when switching. DID is also listed in the dissociative disorders section of the DSM, not the trauma disorders section, so there is no implied criterion there either. However, there still remains the universal criterion of distress, which we do not fulfill. We are quite happy with ourselves.

DID is caused by severe childhood trauma, such as physical, verbal or sexual abuse.

Well, which is it?? Is it a majority association or a direct cause? Why the contradiction? Or is the emphasis on early childhood trauma?

Eh, whatever. Point is, green is once again shut down. But there is still no mention of endogenic plurality anywhere here!!

And no indication of who wrote this article, though the citation for direct cause is a dissociative disorder specialist. Does he actually say that in the cited paper, though?

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is multifactorial in its etiology. Whereas psychosocial etiologies of DID include developmental traumatization and sociocognitive sequelae, biological factors include trauma-generated neurobiological responses. Biologically derived traits and epigenetic mechanisms are also likely to be at play. At this point, no direct examination of genetics has occurred in DID. However, it is likely to exist, given the genetic link to dissociation in general and in relation to childhood adversity in particular.

I hope you have a dictionary on hand. That sure is a lot of big words that aren't in Firefox's built-in spellchecker. Still, after making sure I got everything, it's clearly not so cut and dry here. And we're back on the "it could be genetic" point.

Tangentially related: I do like the dismissal of the iatrogenic model on the basis of the brain scans.

Neurobiological differences have been demonstrated between dissociative identities within patients with DID and between patients with DID and controls. Given the current evidence, DID as a diagnostic entity cannot be explained as a phenomenon created by iatrogenic influences, suggestibility, malingering, or social role-taking. On the contrary, DID is an empirically robust chronic psychiatric disorder based on neurobiological, cognitive, and interpersonal non-integration as a response to unbearable stress.

Anyway, we're not even on the original page anymore, so I'll call it here. No mention of endogenic plurality, and the citation that claims to dismiss endogenic DID doesn't.

Link 7: NAMI Michigan

While the causes [of DID] are unknown

I'm tired. Aren't you tired?

Treatment for DID consists primarily of psychotherapy with hypnosis.

Yeah I'm calling BS on this one

And no citations on this entire page, nor even the author's name.

Statistics show that DID occurs in 0.01 to 1 percent of the general population.

Research has shown that the average age for the initial development of alters is 5.9 years old.

No sources listed. This is definitely the worst link. Literally on the same level as a rambling Tumblr user in terms of credibility.

Doesn't matter that it says

This disorder is believed to be triggered by physical or sexual abuse in childhood

Couldn't even get this dogshit source to be firm.

This one gets an F.

Link 8: The Psychology Practice

Got scared for a moment there that it said ai. No, that's AL, a name. Also this was written in 2022, so we're definitely safe. Can't actually find any other info on this AL character, but at least we can look up the co-author.

Hm, can't find anything on her, either. Well, at least this is a step up from the previous link. Let's see what it has to say.

According to the Dissociative Identity Research Organisation (2018), DID is formed in childhood due to repeated trauma in early childhood (before age 10) before the personality is fully integrated.

I do like that these later links are direct with this. They don't seem to have a citation for that DIRO, though. Unless...

No. Oh no.

Ok, so this one was written by a couple of clowns who definitely didn't do their homework. Cool. I'm getting tired of humoring awful sources like this, so moving on to the grand finale.

Link 9: NAMI

Wait, this is the same group behind the zero-citation article from Michigan! But that was just Michigan. Maybe the main site can do better.

Ugh, it's just another list of dissociative disorders instead of DID specifically.

The symptoms of a dissociative disorder usually first develop as a response to a traumatic event,

Aren't you tired? Aren't you tired? Aren't you tired?

Often these identities may have unique names, characteristics, mannerisms and voices.

Often? Wow. Sure is a far cry from 5%.

Dissociative disorders are managed through various therapies including: - Psychotherapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) - Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) - Medications such as antidepressants can treat symptoms of related conditions

No mention of hypnosis, allegedly the primary method of treatment?? (/sarc)

and there was no mention of plurality being exclusive to dissociative disorders

Oh, and no listed authors either.

So, after three thousand words of analysis, all we've come up with are nothing burgers, dogshit, and dogshit nothing burgers. Out of nine links, only one briefly and indirectly touched on endogenic plurality, and it was in favor. Even the argument against the traumaless DID strawman is weak at best. These sources are bad, to put it lightly.

@radpocalypse, if you're reading this, firstly, thank you for powering through your ADHD and dyslexia to read thousands of words dunking on your masterpiece. Secondly, if you have any more sources that you think are backing you, feel free to send them my way. Just uh, maybe read them more closely next time?

And that goes for everyone here. If you think you have a better source, or if I made a mistake or missed something here, I am open to correction. I am open to the idea that I'm wrong and I have some unknown trauma to work through, but I certainly won't go digging unless I have good reason to believe it's there, and I haven't seen any good reason. And if you haven't either, maybe it's time to reconsider your position.

One last thing before I go.

Have you ever actually seen a pro-endo carrd, let alone one cited in standalone? I haven't.

Here's a much longer list of much better sources than yours supporting endogenic plurality compiled by the traumagenic Guardians System. I don't expect you to read anywhere near the whole thing; just pick a few links at random. And yes, while many of them are peer-reviewed papers, some of them are Tumblr posts, but those Tumblr posts cite peer-reviewed papers, so it's all good.

Thanks for reading.

#syscourse #sysconversation

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decolonize-the-everything · 11 months

Note

You are literally going to get people killed by pushing them to vote third party. People voting third party is why Trump won in 2016, which allowed him to stack the Supreme Court with conservative garbage which is going to negatively affect us for DECADES to come (already has, since it led to the repeal of Roe v. Wade which has LITERALLY killed people). I'm baffled, because you've done so much good work on this website (like I still go back and regularly reread your posts on whiteness etc because they're so informative), but advocating for voting third party going into one of the most important elections in recent memory is actively harmful.

Like have you heard of Project 2025? In case you haven't it's literally like a 1000 page manifesto for the Republican party to reshape the federal government to essentially let the President become a dictator. It also expressly mentions plans to roll back rights for women, the LGBT community, and pretty much any other minority you can think of. I know things are bad now - not arguing that at all - but if Republicans win next year, things will get EXPONENTIALLY WORSE.

You can sit there and yell about Democrats being "just as bad" until you're blue in the face, but it's literally not true. The Democratic Party itself is obviously just another problematic institution and there are definitely Dems who showed their entire asses with supporting Israel, but like... Progressive Democrats do exist and while they're obviously not perfect, it's absolutely a step in the right direction. Not to mention Republicans literally need to cheat by gerrymandering and attacking voting rights for minorities in order to even get elected in a lot of places, whereas Democrats tend to win when more people are registered and actually show up to vote. They are not the same, and the harm they do is not the same.

Again, I have a lot of respect for the work you do, especially with your recent posts on the Palestinian genocide. But I vehemently disagree with your stance on voting third party in this upcoming election. Ideally I would love if we could vote third party and actually have multiple options that more accurately represent us as a population, but our current system is a two party one and unfortunately we literally do have to vote for the lesser of two evils, because one option sucks but preserves what little democracy we have (and gives us a chance of making it better) and one will literally bring genocide against trans people. I would personally rather not see that happen.

How can you say this and mention the Palestinian genocide in the same ask.

Democrats are getting people killed. In fact they're committing one of The worst crime against humanity possible and then only thing you're worried about is that things might get worse for gay people if a Republicans wins.

I'm the biggest queer I know. I'm native. I'm brown. I'm almost definitely on a watch list. And listen to me and understand the depth of my words when I say: my people have been oppressed the way Project2025 outlines.

And maybe you personally cared or helped us protest that. But most people didn't. In fact I can't remember the last time the US supported native rights at all.

But now that YOURE under threat I'm supposed to risk my life because the queer community can't be bothered to stop discoursing about neopronouns long enough to actual give an shit about saving the community?

Y'all got a lot of damn nerve, let me tell you.

Go bark up some other tree cuz this is not the one.

Also I'm not pushing anyone to vote 3rd party. I'm laying out facts. Facts are a Gallup poll says 63% of people would vote 3rd party. Facts are my Tumblr poll says that number is STILL at least 45% on the hellsite.

And since people are interested in voting 3rd party they should know their options. The people who say "I would vote 3rd party but they don't have support" also deserve to see the articles that said 63% of people would join them.

They deserve to know that 3rd parties currently hold a not insignificant amount percentage of support from the two main parties. 20% of votes. When 33% is an even split are good odds. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sorry, blue Fascists, but this country is in fact still a democracy and just because you Want people to vote blue doesn't mean they have to and you feeling they're the best doesn't make you right!

Other people aren't "wrong" for not wanting your conservative Jurassic party in power anymore.

They can vote how they want.

And if you see a poll that says 63% of people would rather NOT vote for either major party and your first thought is not: wow 63% is enough to elect someone we want, I'll support that.

And instead you go: how can I force them to vote for my party instead.

Then please understand it is not THEM splitting the vote. Biden will get MAYBE 40% votes. You gonna force 63% of the country to vote for someone they don't even want?

There's a name for that yeah?

How'd it work out in 2016 when y'all "forced" us to vote for Hillary by putting her on the ballot? She lost and she wasn't even actively commiting a genocide.

But you think Biden will not only earn votes from that 63% but he'll also win the election. Against trump. Which less blatantly shitty democrats have struggled to contend with?

Democrats are legitimately delusional.

Your problem is you see Democrats as being better than Republicans. While the rest of us see less and less of a difference every year. And you can only say you're "better" if you're different enough.

See this is what happens when you vote for the "lesser evil." Eventually that evil balances back out and you're left with the truth that your two main options are just evil.

Now the only people actually different enough to make that argument are third parties.

Coincidentally, that's what people are drawn to right now.

I know, go figure. It's almost like it makes sense to lose support when you consistently prop up shitty candidates nobody asked for every 4 years.

We do not have a two party system and you know that, that's why you sent this ask.

Cuz you're stressed dems might lose. Cuz you KNOW people have other options.

Good. Cuz they will lose if Biden is the democrat's nominee and Claudia de la Cruz stays in the race, which she will since she's running with PSL not democrats. So there's no competition. Her party is organized and chosen her and a VP already, she's guaranteed every one of their votes because her party works like a union does.

It's a wrap.

Biden can't use his "lesser evil" script with Claudia De La Cruz on the ballot actively challenging his genocide and imperialism.

Vote Claudia De La Cruz cuz you are a scooping water out of the Titanic trying to get 63% of Americans to think voting for a Genocidal warmonger is what's best for any of us, let alone the planet. And we didn't want him BEFORE he did any of this.

#asked #answered #voting

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northern-passage · 11 months

Note

As someone who doesn't know much about the whole israel-hamas war going on, do you mind explaining a bit of the history behind why israel is considered as colonising palentine? do you have any books that you would recommend?

first i would not call what's happening a "war" of any kind. Israel has cut off power, water, food, medical supplies, and now all internet and cellular access to civilians as they continue to bomb them. the prime minister has made his genocidal intent very clear. not a war.

to start you can visit the website i have linked here dozens of times over the years and that many others have linked as well, DecolonizePalestine, which is run by two Palestinians. they have an entire introductory course, a section debunking a lot of popular mainstream myths, a reading list, and a breakdown of what rainbow washing is (you've probably seen pinkwashing mentioned a lot on tumblr recently at the very least)

i'll link you to this masterpost as well which includes books, movies, video essays, articles about Palestinian culture, as well as organizations and people to follow. unfortunately, we are seeing in real time some of these accounts getting wiped as social media websites try to suppress Palestinian voices.

as the US vocally declares their support for genocide along with the blackout happening now and the horrifying air strikes being carried out in the dark, i urge you to share these resources & pay attention to what's happening. at this point you cannot remain neutral or "uninformed."

#the main reason i've been sharing links and articles here is because i want people to see it and learn #and i have a decent sized platform here which is why i've been posting on this blog specifically so more people will see #ask #anonymous

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janmisali · 3 months

Text

Super Mario Bracket: HONORABLE MENTIONS

so then! now that round one is wrapped up and the first batch of round two's polls have been posted, (note: tumblr glitched and posted this too early so that's not in fact true yet as of when this is being posted) now's a good time to go through some of the characters from the preliminary nomination process that didn't make the cut!

the ones that barely didn't make it

while every character with at least six nominations made it into the bracket (with the exception of four ineligible "characters"), only the "first" few characters with five nominations (with the tie-breaking order decided by who had their first nominations earliest) made it in. so, here are all the characters that got five nominations that aren't in the bracket, in order of when they were first nominated (there's quite a few!):

Talking Flower, from Super Mario Bros. Wonder

Antasma, from Dream Team

Big Daddy of Blooper-surfing, from Super Mario Sunshine

Thwomp, from Super Mario Bros. 3

Koopa Troopa, from Super Mario Bros.

Big Top, from Mario Party 8 (I don't know why the Super Mario Wiki has MC Ballyhoo and Big Top as two separate articles. Big Top is MC Ballyhoo's hat)

Thwimp, from Super Mario World

Joan of Arc, from Mario's Time Machine

Bouldergeist, from Super Mario Galaxy

Shakespeare, from Mario's Time Machine

Bob-omb, from Doki Doki Panic / Super Mario USA

Reznor, from Super Mario World

Julius Caesar, from Mario's Time Machine

Diddy Kong, from Donkey Kong Country

Baby Luma, from Super Mario Galaxy

Eggman Nega, from Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games

Cosmic Mario, from Super Mario Galaxy

Goombette, from Super Mario Odyssey

Lakitu (Mario Kart referee), from Super Mario Kart

Lumalee, from Super Mario Galaxy

Watt, from Paper Mario

Pyoro, from Mega Microgame$!

Johnny, from Super Mario RPG

Inspector Gadget, from Super Show!

Lakitu, from Super Mario Bros.

Yamamura, from Super Mario Maker

Princess Shroob, from Partners in Time

Larry Koopa, from Super Mario Bros. 3

Mad Piano, from Super Mario 64

Bowsette

a lot of people wanted to nominate Bowsette, but since she doesn't have a Super Mario Wiki article she is not eligible, and in fact the nomination form mechanically prevented people from submitting a nomination without providing a Super Mario Wiki link. however, if I had counted nominations based on what conceptual character people were trying to nominate instead of just looking at the provided Super Mario Wiki article, Bowsette would have made it into the top 128, and I would have had to exclude her manually.

the nominations that mentioned Bowsette by name consisted of:

one nomination for Bowser

three nominations for Peachette

one nomination for Undodog, inexplicably

three nominations for Bowletta

three nominations for List of references on the Internet, the actual Super Mario Wiki article that covers Bowsette (among other topics)

one nomination for the Super Crown

one nomination for File:Peach Bowser Concept TAoSMO.jpg

technicalities

as you might have noticed from the 128 characters that did make it into the bracket, a lot of nominations were for subjects that, under some technicality, qualify as a "Mario character". disappointingly, the technicalities that didn't make it into the bracket were, generally speaking, really boring. the main types of not-really-Mario-characters people nominated were:

crossover characters, Sonic characters especially

real-ass people. I'm pretty sure every single person in the Super Mario Wiki's Category:People was nominated at least once. after making a poll about it, I decided that real people are only eligible if they appear in some piece of official Mario media as a fictional version of themself, so real people with entirely nonfictional relevance to Mario are disqualified

non-characters. none of the specific nominations of this type that didn't make it into the bracket are really worth highlighting; it's just random stuff that happens to have a Super Mario Wiki article

typographic characters, which were disappointingly uncommon. Letter (Super Mario Odyssey) only got one nomination!

the Super Mario Wiki's Mario Awards polls (concurrent)

at the time of writing, votes are open for the Super Mario Wiki's 2023 Mario Awards. here's how many nominations each character in their "favorite character" polls got for this bracket!

Favorite Major Character

Luigi: 104

Rosalina: 101

Waluigi: 90

Princess Daisy: 81

Yoshi: 71

Mario: 56

Wario: 45

Bowser: 45

Toadette: 31

Princess Peach: 27

Toad: 21

Bowser Jr.: 15

Donkey Kong: 10

Favorite Supporting Character

Catherine: 66

Nabbit: 42

Captain Toad: 24

King Boo: 22

Funky Kong: 22

Kamek: 20

Ashley: 14

Professor E. Gadd: 10

King Bob-omb: 9

Toadsworth: 8

Cappy: 8

Pauline: 7

Poochy: 6

Diddy Kong: 5

Prince Florian: 2

Dixie Kong: 2

Grape: 1

Stella: 0

Favorite Mario RPG Character

Vivian: 215

Fawful: 59

Dimentio: 51

Goombella: 45

Count Bleck: 34

Geno: 16

?????: 14

Admiral Bobbery: 12

Popple: 9

Bobby/Bob-omb: 8

Mallow: 8

Huey: 6

Booster: 4

Rabbid Peach: 3

Goombario: 2

Olivia: 1

King Olly: 1

Lord Crump: 0

#super mario bracket #jan misali

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whencyclopedia · 18 days

Photo

Arapaho Creation Story

The Arapaho Creation Story is the account of how the world was made from the mud at the bottom of the endless waters by Father (also given as Pipe Person in some versions) with the help of the duck and the turtle. The story is similar to one of the versions of the Cheyenne Creation Story.

Eastern Painted Turtle

Greg Schechter (CC BY)

Both of these accounts are also similar to the Lakota Sioux Creation Story as well as those of other Native American nations, many of which begin with the world as a great expanse of water and feature a central character – usually supernatural – who brings the earth into being with the help of waterfowl or the turtle. The Arapaho tale is also similar to that of the Cheyenne and others in that there is no mention of the concept of 'evil' or corruption. The Father, inspired by the Grandfather above, creates a perfect world, completely in balance. Any aspects of life humans will later find objectionable are entirely so because of their interpretation, not because of any flaws in the creation itself.

In some versions of the story, the Grandfather is the Creator God Be He Teiht (the Great Spirit) and Father (or Pipe Person) is understood as the First Arapaho, meaning the spirit of the Arapaho people, not the first man. In other versions, Father seems to be the Creator God and Grandfather is not mentioned or the Father figure goes by the name of Flat Pipe or, as noted, Pipe Person. There are also variations in how humans, plants, and animals are made in different versions, but, in all, the world is created for the greater good and its inhabitants, all related as family, are expected to share it generously with each other.

Versions of the Story & Arapaho Religion

These different versions of the Arapaho Creation Story are all fragmented and some incomplete because they were passed down through oral transmission by the people's storytellers, and so many of these were killed by US troops and settlers in the latter part of the 19th century – in conflicts such as the Sand Creek Massacre – or died of diseases or malnutrition on reservations that the story was almost lost completely. The best-known and most complete version comes from Traditions of the Arapaho by George A. Dorsey and Alfred L. Kroeber in 1903, given below.

In this version of the tale, after the duck and turtle have brought up the primordial mud, Father creates the earth and then the sun and moon before creating humans out of clay. In another version, he accomplishes this through prayer-thought – purposeful thought generating change – and literally thinks the world into being. All things, therefore, come from the mind of the Father, and are all closely related. This is a core belief of Arapaho spirituality – the close connection of all living things that inhabit the World House together. In the World House, every living thing is a brother or sister and all children of the same Father. This belief informed Arapaho rituals, including the Sun Dance, as well as the "medicine" objects (spiritual artifacts) the people carried. Scholar Loretta Fowler comments:

the Arapaho origin story focuses on Pipe Person's creation of the earth from mud below the surface of an expanse of water. Pipe Person, through prayer-thought, created all life, including the first Arapahos. Arapahos henceforth kept a replica of the Flat Pipe as a symbol of their covenant with the life force or power on which Pipe Person drew. Rites centered on the pipe bundle helped ensure the success of Arapahos generally and of individuals specifically. Seven men's and seven women's medicine bags contained objects and implements that symbolized forms of power, and these passed from one custodian to another. Prayer-thoughts could affect events and lives, and the sincerity of a petitioner's prayer-thought was validated by sacrifices of property or of the body by flesh offerings and fasting. (1)

Although the Arapaho observed the Sun Dance, they did not engage in the self-torture aspect of that ritual as the Sioux and other Plains Indians did. The "flesh offerings" Fowler mentions would be sacrifices of an individual nature, though still performed for the greater good. The Sun Dance was known as the Offerings Lodge to the Arapaho and, instead of self-torture, they would donate personal items or space (land) to the community. The flat pipe was (and still is) central to the Offerings Lodge ceremony – as it is to other Arapaho rituals – as it symbolizes their connection to the Creator just as the Sioux ceremonial pipe does to that nation. When the Arapaho separated into Northern and Southern, and were then forcibly relocated to reservations, the Northern Arapaho kept the flat pipe with them, and the Southern Arapaho kept the sacred stones symbolizing the pipe. These are still used in rituals today.

Native American Sun Dance

Jules Tavernier and Paul Frenzeny (Public Domain)

In yet another version of the Arapaho Creation Story, this one incomplete, the flat pipe is featured prominently. In this tale, the Creator God is known as Flat Pipe and he walks about on the endless water with his pipe (a flat pipe) looking for some place where he can safely rest it. His entire purpose in creating the world is for a place to securely rest the pipe because, from this pipe, he will draw the power to begin the work of creation. He appeals to a flock of ducks flying past and they dive down into the water for him, bringing up some mud. This is not enough to create land from, however, and so he then asks various other creatures for help. One by one, they dive into the deep, six times, but none of them are able to reach the bottom. The seventh time, the turtle goes and brings back the right amount of mud for creation to begin.

Although the name of the main character and certain details differ in these versions, the central message remains the same: as all things were brought forth by the Creator, all are related to each other as family. One should therefore treat the earth, plants, animals, and others as kindly as one would one's own blood relatives because, in fact, that is what they all are.

#History #Arapaho

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dutchdread · 6 months

Note

Hi, I'm sorry if this question has been answered before, but what are your views on the whole Cloud not answering Tifa when she asks if he loves her. I'm not entirely sure where it's from, sorry.

Sure, it might have been asked before, I know I've answered it before, but I've talked about this subject in many places so it might not have been on Tumblr. Either way, the question doesn't bother me, it's a good question since people bring it up a lot, so having a chance to reiterate the answer isn't a bad thing. The scene you're talking about is from the short story: " On the way to a smile - Episode Tifa". Like with all these supposed rebuttals to Cloti this argument fails when you look at the situation honestly for more than two seconds, and is actually Pro-Cloti. Firstly, this argument suffers from the same problem that I brought up a while back in my article concerning "the most misunderstood quote in the LTD". Namely that for this argument to make sense you already have to admit that Cloud and Tifa are in a relationship. There is not a person on earth who would walk up to random friends in the middle of the night and wake them up to ask them whether they love them. The scene is framed as Tifa being in Clouds bedroom, and since Tifa is never mentioned to go to his room and Cloud seems to not be surprised about her being there Occams razor will tell you the most likely reason she's in his room is because they're sleeping together. So even if we look at this situation in the most pro-Cleriths way possible then we still already have a situation where Cloud and Tifa are in a relationship, because only in a relationship does it make sense to talk about relationship issues. And since the very notion of stories is to have a resolution we can also surmise that by the end of the story these relationship issues are in some way fixed, either by them going their separate ways, or them working it out. And since we've discussed the nature of the issues Cloud is facing in depth on this page and have discussed how they are resolved, we know the answer to these questions. The issues are resolved by Cloud returning to Tifa and the children, as has been explicitly stated by the developers.

Inside, I felt one thing was for sure: Cloud and Tifa would be together. Everybody would be back home where they belonged. ~ Nojima - Reunion files - pg. 70

Let me stress this again, the most PRO-Clerith version of this argument has Tifa and Cloud being in a relationship and working it out by the end. And in reality it's even more pro-Cloti than that. The very fact that Tifa is concerned about Cloud not loving her implies that him loving her is in some way the standard. It's not that Tifa and Cloud are friends and it's going so well that Tifa is wondering "wait, does he maybe like me more as just friends? does he perhaps....LOVE me?" no, the implication is that the accepted state of affairs is that they were two people in love, and that she is now questioning whether that's actually the case. Now note that Tifas insecurities by themselves mean nothing. Tifa can be extremely jealous of Aerith and completely convinced that Cloud is depressed because he actually loves another woman, and yet be completely wrong about that, as is clearly the case. Whatever insecurities Tifa might reasonably have, they're pretty clearly shown to be false by the sub-sequent events of Advent Children and all the quotes surrounding it. We know the reason Cloud was depressed, we know the reason he left. As I have discussed in depth here: "why does Cloud think about Aerith if he's not in love with her" as well as on other articles. In short, Cloud is depressed because of Cherophobia, PTSD, Fear of failure, and guilt, and his ultimate reason for leaving is due to his Geostigma. Tifas romantic worries are shown to be unfounded. Concerning the scene itself, a lot of people pretend that Cloud doesn't answer Tifa, that is incorrect. Cloud is asleep when Tifa asks the quote. When this wakes him Tifa changes the question to "do you love Marlene". The reason she does this is most likely because she's scared of the answer, she chickens out and instead of repeating the question, which he missed on account of BEING ASLEEP, she changes it to something less directly threatening to her heart, "do you love Marlene". The most important thing to note is that Cloud answers in the affirmative, he DOES love Marlene. Most importantly, this answer also serves as an answer to "do you love me?", either because Cloud straight up heard Tifa (I don't think he did, but some people pretend he did) and is answering her indirectly, or because this is how you use storytelling to provide an indirect answer to the viewer. The scene illustrates, in general, that Clouds issues are not due to a lack of love. There is a different problem, what is that problem? Well, I've already provided you with a link showing just that. Let me also quickly touch on what happens later on in the short story in general:

Cloud is looking for a way to atone, which he finds through Denzel.

“So the problem was resolved?” Tifa asked. “Which problem?” Cloud responded. “Your problem.” “Oh…” Cloud thought about it. “It’s ok if you don’t want to tell me.” “I can’t really explain it well…” Cloud warned before starting to talk. “The problem isn’t resolved. Well, I never tried resolving it for a long time, I think. You can’t retrieve lost lives.” Tifa nodded silently. “But maybe we can save the lives who are in a crisis just now. Maybe even I can do it.” “You mean Denzel?” “Yeah.” “Hey, do you remember what you said when you brought Denzel here?” “What did I say?” “A lot of things. Even if I opposed it, you would bring him back with you. I could just feel it.” “That…” Cloud was making a face like a kid who thought he would get scolded. “Tell me. I’ll decide whether I’m angry or not after I listen.” Cloud nodded and continued. “Denzel had collapsed in front of Aerith’s church. That’s why I thought Aerith lead him to me.” Saying all that in one breath, Cloud looked away. “You went to the church.” “I didn’t intend to hide it from you.” “You did hide it.” “I’m sorry.” “I’m not saying you couldn’t go. But next time, I’ll go with you.” “I understand.” “And you’re wrong, Cloud.” Cloud was perplexed as he looked at Tifa. “Aerith didn’t bring Denzel to you.” “Ahh, I only thought that…..” “I didn’t mean it that way.” “Aerith brought Denzel to our home.” Cloud gazed at Tifa and finally smiled. __________________________________

This provides further evidence that the issues between Tifa and Cloud weren't due to a lack of love, but were due to Cloud suffering from the guilt of failing to protect Aerith. He doesn't know how to deal with that because this is not something he can take back: "You can’t retrieve lost lives.”. However, he is looking for a way to atone and thinks he's found one by protecting those who are still alive, in this case Denzel. Subsequently his situation with Tifa seemingly improves. But then the story ends with Clouds sudden disappearance, and Tifa wondering if the improvement, and the accompanying smiles, were a lie. The story lets that question linger, it is a cliff hanger, the set-up for Advent Children, advent children is supposed to answer the question, and it does. The answer to the mystery of why Cloud suddenly disappeared when things appeared to be improving, is that he contracted Geostigma.

Cloud never had a candid personality to begin with, and although he started living with Tifa and even started working, he obtained a peaceful living he’s never experienced before, and this conversely made him anxious. And in the midst of this he contracts Geostigma himself, and rather than being able to protect the people dear to him, he instead was forced to face his own death, and so ran away.”-Nojima in AC prologue.

Case closed, Cloti wins again. Like always, whenever you look at any scene in the larger context you come to the conclusion that it perfectly fits the overall story and concepts proposed by Clotis. It's the remarkable coherency of this interpretation that in my opinion is it's best proof. Cleriths propose a very shallow story, they never look deeper than "Clouds actions revolve around romantic love, therefore, every action has to either directly prove romance, or disprove it, there can be no unrelated issues". There is no nuance there, no understanding of deeper concepts. There can't be, because as soon as you try to add those the interpretation falls apart at the seams, you run into a hundred conflicting quotes and a thousand themes that don't fit together or are downright bad. You get stories about a man abandoning sick kids because he wants to die to be with a dead girl, for no other reason than that he knew her for one week and now is obsessed with her. There is no story here, no beauty, no lessons, no morality, just a weird shallow death cult, and the biggest proof that it is a cult is how they can look at a scene like the one you proposed, and delude themselves into actually believing their shallow misrepresentations constitute "a good argument".

#FFVII #ffvii remake #cloti #advent children

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olderthannetfic · 2 months

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Thought you, too, might have fun with this particularly stupid set of Christian homophobes trying to advance the "whyyyy can't two guys just be friendssss why must fandom make it gay? whither the sacred male platonic friendship????" tired old argument and think that we won't notice what they're doing or the various other posts they've made on their blogs making their true feelings clear: https://www.tumblr.com/cardassiangoodreads/755697074146820096/hey-some-reading-comprehension-questions-is-this

since i know you've enjoyed debunking that crap in the past. (If you're not in the mood though, feel free to ignore)

My favorite is one of them gave as her example of "things chronically online people made up on Tumblr" is interpreting Jonathan and David from The Bible as a gay relationship. You know, a centuries-old interpretation of that relationship, far from universal enough, but common enough that even the homphobic dudes who edit Wikipedia articles manage to mention it in a few.

But sure, entirely made up by fangirls on Tumblr.

David and Jonathan?! Next, they'll be saying that Rope is deeply straight.

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iwanthermidnightz · 11 months

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Ahhh did you see the new rolling stone gaylor article ?? I'm so impressed.

When Taylor Swift released the long-awaited rerecording of her genre-leaping album 1989, fans eagerly pored over vault tracks, theories of double albums, and limited edition vinyl releases that could predict Swift’s next re-record. But for Gaylors, a dedicated Swift fanbase that’s existed for over a decade, Swift’s prologue and a mention of her feelings surrounding speculation about her love life have dampened what should have been an exciting release.

Thinking about the 24-year-old she was when 1989 was released, Swift writes, “I swore off dating and decided to only focus on myself, my music, my growth, and my female friendships. If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn’t sensationalize or sexualize that — right? I would learn later on that people could and people would.” Many users online interpreted that line as a subtle callout to Gaylors, supporters of the niche theory that Swift is queer or leaves queer messaging in her songs. But several members of the Gaylor community tell Rolling Stone they’re actually not convinced the callout is about them — and are receiving targeted and homophobic harassment in the process.

For those not extremely online, Gaylor is an unproven theory that Swift is queer and leaves messages alluding to past relationships in her work, a fan theory that originated on the blogging site Tumblr in the mid-2010s. It is also the fan name for groups of people who believe there are queer interpretations of Swift’s songs. (While Swift has been a vocal ally and advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and representation, she has never publicly commented on Gaylor and has only been in public relationships with men.) Gabriela, a 27-year-old Gaylor, tells Rolling Stone she doesn’t believe Swift’s prologue is about the Gaylor fandom specifically, but she’s frustrated at the use of the word ‘sexualize,” which she says has long been co-opted by fans who think Gaylor is harmful or inherently rude.

“I think it’s a call-out yes, but more to the media at large, rather than just about the Gaylor subset of her fandom, which is only a small piece of her complaint. [Swift] doesn’t want to be assumed to be in a sexual, romantic relationship with anyone she is seen next to,” Gabriela says. “Hetlors [those who object to the Gaylor discourse] are cherry-picking to make it about her ‘shutting down gay rumors.’”

As an internationally beloved artist — one capable of selling more movie tickets than Martin Scorcese and convincing an entire fandom to rebuy her music her way — Swift professes an unusually close relationship with her followers. The lyricist often hides clues in her work and visuals, encouraging fans to decipher what coded messages and hints she’s leaving behind. But Swift has also verbalized how upset slut-shaming and assumptions about her love life make her. Anna, a 23-year-old Gaylor who uses they/them pronouns, agrees that the prologue wasn’t about Gaylor specifically but says they do think all Swift fans online could operate with more boundaries.

“Of course, I’m a little annoyed that people are pulling one or two lines of the prologue out of context and using it as a justification to be homophobic and send death threats to my friends, but I don’t think Taylor is at fault for people misconstruing her words and I think she has every right to call out things that make her uncomfortable,” Anna tells Rolling Stone. “’Shipping’ culture across the fandom seems to have gotten really ugly recently on all accounts. I’ve seen people speculate on her sex life, openly and graphically, track her location, insinuate that she wants/has children and just overall cross a lot of boundaries. It may be unpopular for me to say it, but I do think members on all sides needed to be put in their place a little bit.”

All of the Gaylor fans who spoke to Rolling Stone expressed that beyond the prologue, much of the reaction to them as a group has stemmed from a lack of understanding about why the fandom exists and has lasted for almost a decade. Liv, 26, says that the Gaylor community has been a large part of her life — it’s even how she met her current boyfriend. And she tells Rolling Stone the identity has allowed her to have a deeper understanding of Swift’s lyrics.

“It’s always fun for me to think about what inspired a song. So even if it’s not what happened in Taylor’s life, it’s interesting for me to think about a song through a queer lens, because I feel like it adds a lot of layers that a song about a guy might not have,” Liv says. “And I don’t really know any straight people who are that deeply obsessed with Emily Dickinson.”

The X account @gaylornews has over 12,000 followers. The admin behind the account declined to include her name but tells Rolling Stone Gaylor isn’t just a fun internet conspiracy theory, but means a lot to the community.

“Analyzing her lyrics through a queer perspective is more about defying heteronormative narratives and finding representation and not about invading Taylor’s privacy or sensationalizing her personal life,” the account owner says. “Gaylor is about queer people finding a safe space which straight people not only find but already have everywhere, is about all the things you never learned about yourself, is about feeling seen and genuinely understood.”

Regardless of what people think the prologue is about, Gaylors are worried about one thing: targeted harassment from more mainstream fans of Swift. In an April 2023 report from social media tracking firm Graphika, researchers found that Gaylors made up nine percent of active Swift fans on social media, but are often exiled and isolated from neutral fan spaces. The study also found that anti-Gaylor accounts, also referred to as Hetlors, “play a key role” in how the theory is presented to mainstream audiences and often misrepresent commonly held Gaylor beliefs, which can lead to the harassment and doxxing of neutral Gaylor accounts. Each of the Gaylors who spoke to Rolling Stone detailed targeted harassment, hate speech, and homophobia they’ve received online, something they all believe Swift would stand against.

“I think that people who are against Gaylors think we’re way more serious about it than we are. A lot of the things we say are jokes or ideas or possible theories,” Liv says. “And at the end of the day, none of us know what the truth is about her personal relationships. And we shouldn’t want to because [Taylor Swift] is entitled to her privacy.”

(link)

#wow well done!

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