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sarucane · 5 months

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Why didn't Ed always protect Stede?

I'm a bit late to the party and only really got into OFMD with S2, so I've started watching S1 really thoroughly only recently. And I've noticed that there's this narrative in the fandom that Ed and Stede are super protective of each other, particularly Ed--but as I've gone through S1 (number redacted) times, it's been driving me nuts how much Ed doesn't protect Stede.

Sure, there's the meme we all love when Ed stands in front of the firing squad--but for most of the scene before that, he's been standing and watching Stede beg for his life. He's upset, but he doesn't intervene until it's nearly do late. And before that, Ed doesn't say or do a thing about Calico Jack treating Stede like shit--sure it's believable that he just doesn't notice the passive aggression, but not even catching the "Steve" thing? That's something that isn't even intervening, Jack could be making an honest mistake. But the thing no-protection moment that's really driven me nuts is this moment

In the scene before this, Ed and Stede have just had an incredibly emotionally intimate conversation. Ed is clearly at least half in love with Stede at this point. This is a relationship that means something important to him, this is a person he cares for deeply. And…and Izzy almost murdered Stede in front of him, because of him, and he just looked away.

But at the same time, Ed does love Stede, he does intervene to protect him from the English--at great personal risk and cost. By the end of S2 Ed's much better about this kind of thing (though I'd argue he's never as super-protective as I've seen suggested).

So what was going on here? Ed's a total softie inside, especially with Stede, so why was he like this?

And I've got a theory! Here goes:

Mr. "greatest pirate who ever lived" is, in fact, an overachieving rule-follower (cough teacher's pet cough).

Ed doesn't intervene to help Stede because Ed conforms himself to the rules set by whoever has the strongest personality in a room, or whatever "code" is being pushed on him/is easiest to follow.

I think this is part of why Ed often struggles to identify what he wants, or hold onto a firm sense of his self-identity. And I think it's a lot of why he's so attracted to Stede, and why that relationship is so important to his development: Ed is much less likely to follow the rules when he's one-on-one with someone, and spending a lot of time alone with Stede gives him much more mental space to understand what he wants.

And just like Stede is most successful when he doesn't try to follow the traditional rules of pirating, Ed is most successful--in his relationship with Stede and outside it--when he doesn't obsess over bending to the rules, and instead picks and chooses which ones to follow and which ones to discard.

I have a partly-written super-long version of this where I go episode by episode looking at how the rules theme works with Ed's character mechanics, but I'm just going to focus on the topic question here (I might get around to posting the long version, but I also might be distracted by something shiny;) )

So let's start with The Art of Fuckery and the thing that was driving me crazy.

Ed's core conflict in this episode was whether he'd going to send Stede to "doggy heaven." Why would he follow Stede to doggy heaven? Because according to Izzy, Stede is categorized as a pet, and Ed has "a policy regarding pets aboard your vessel." It's a rule. Ed has to follow it.

And Ed fully intends to follow it, right up until the kraken turns up and the rules go out the window. And then he's in a safe space with Stede, drowning in memory of the good rules he broke (don't kill people you love). But Stede rejects the idea that Ed breaking that rule makes him a bad person. He appeals, instead, to friendship. And offers his own rule: that they could pretend the murder thing never happened.

Because that's the amazing thing about Stede: he lives at the intersection of aristocratic and pirate rules (which isn't supposed to exist, and which drew Ed to him), and he makes up his own rules.

When Ed's with Stede, he can follow different rules, unlike anything he'd imagined. Can even sometimes make up his own rules. Can actually pay attention to himself, think about what he wants, what he likes and fears.

But when Ed's in a crowd, or alone with someone trying to impose something on him, he conforms. So when Izzy invokes Pirate Rules and steamrolls Ed ("no you're not doing this,") Ed lets him.

It's a character flaw, and it's a serious one...but it's also one Ed works on when he stops complaining about the treasure hunt business. And when he and Stede discuss the idea of co-captains, and arrangement that would break the rule that "a ship has only one captain."

Which Ed is able to do because he's in a safe space. Calico Jack disrupts that, and introduces a succession of games with clearly defined rules, which Ed follows one after another. And Ed has so little self-awareness, is so easily swamped by Jack's personality, that he doesn't notice how Jack's treating Stede, let alone defend him, and he bows to every hint of pressure.

And all that culminates in Ed having to make a decision: follow pirate rules, where everyone's just at "various stages of screwing each other over," or do what he wants. Go help his friend, the guy he loves.

Which just ends up with him being absorbed right back into the pirate system of rules. He tries to use this at first, faking a confession on the grounds that he's a "life is cheap sort of guy." But Izzy's outsmarted him, and Izzy invokes pirate rules again: that Ed told him the rule for a first mate was "above all loyalty to your captain."

Ed doesn't call out for the Act of Grace until the last minute. He could have done it at the trial--he didn't. This is a hard thing for him to do, because he's surrounded by rule-following pressure, from Izzy and from Chauncy. The last time he was in a situation like this, Ed just looked away and let Stede die (he thought).

But the thing about Ed is that he's "half insane." For years, he used the combo of being considered "mad" and also having Izzy around to have his cake and eat it too with rules, to be the world's greatest pirate and also hang onto his own authentic self.

As a result, Ed got good at finding loopholes. Places where you can follow the rules and break them, at the same time. Getting run through, but in a place that missed "all the important bits." Being sentenced to death, but asking for an Act of Grace.

It's a big deal when Ed steps in front of Stede like that. He's acting against pirate rules, risking being absorbed by the rules set by the English.

He does it for Stede--and that starts to set him free. After that, Ed's never just following the rules again. He actually can't, even when he tries: his going kraken at the end of S1 and start of S2 is doomed from the start and full of contradictions, starting with the fact that he's on Stede's ship, the ship with hidden passages where rule-breaking can be hidden until it's needed.

Ed struggles a lot to figure out which rules to follow ("I will abide by the guidelines"), which rules to set aside ("Can we take it slow?"), when to make up his own rules ("So we're innkeepers now."). And Stede helps him, telling him things like "This can be whatever we want it to be," and "you're not a dick, life's a dick."

I don't really have a clever conclusion to this particular meta. It's a messy thing, and individual figuring out how to their life does and does not intersect with society. This theme doesn't resolve neatly, it just stops at the end of the season, like the tension between Ed/kraken/Blackbeard.

But there's a lot of hope here, I think. When Ed acts to protect Stede, and to fight alongside him, he's not just being a protective partner. It's a learned action, the physical manifestation of a decision Ed's made about who he wants to be in the world. Rules be damned.

#ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd #ofmd s2 #our flag means death #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #ed teach #stede bonnet #blackbonnet #izzy hands #gentlebeard #i swear there really is a much longer version of this this theme is hella iceberg #every single episode has references to rules guys this is A THEME running straight through EVERYTHING and i'm a moron for missing its size

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gatheringbones · 6 months

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[“Several contributors to A Woman Like That acknowledged that exploring the territory of their own coming out in writing was unexpectedly difficult. Seasoned writers told me how arduous, even painful, it was to explore coming-out memories that had long been held under pressure at a depth. One novelist said that her family’s rejection of her as an open lesbian had been too agonizing to revisit; she was unable to complete her story. Another, author of a soul-searching memoir and surely no coward, wrote a haunting piece about her first erotic experience with a woman, but withdrew it when she remembered that the words “lesbian and bisexual” would appear in the book’s subtitle.

These are indeed powerful words. I am deeply indebted to the writers who are free to embrace them.

Many writers in this collection recall childhood desire, embryonic lesbian hunger, and the innocence and mystery of those feelings on the brink of collision with the straight world. One writer asserts that she was “born queer,” while another confesses to the sin of “converting”—implying that, contrary to current rules of political correctness, some feel they have chosen to be lesbians. Some write with youthful ebullience and wit of adventures as “sex-positive” lesbians, with almost a gasp of surprise at the seeming absence of oppression in their lives. A handful write of uncommonly loyal families that nurtured independence in childhood and remain a source of strength to their unconventional daughters. Some contributors write of harsh punishment rendered for sexual nonconformity and of the survival skills and moral intelligence they have wrested from their experiences. Two write of their incarceration in mental institutions as young gay women, and of the exhilaration of release. Another, stunned by the abrupt firing of teachers rumored to be lesbians, learns that even a “progressive” environment may be unapologetically homophobic; her knowledge of danger ultimately empowers her to speak against injustice. One writer, who tells of coming out to the sons of whom she has lost custody, speaks of having cracked open their small universe—a shattering, but one that allows light and the possibility of new knowledge and connection.

A number of writers in this collection tell coming-out stories that are not about a single defining moment but rather about a continuum of experience. They recall many passages—a gradual shedding of false selves, an ongoing process of self-discovery and self-naming. One writer, nearly deported from the U.S. for her outspoken political writing, equates coming out with the freedom to explore deeper places in her own psyche. A writer in her seventies tells movingly of her failure to name herself a lesbian at a reunion of those who as children were transported to safety in England to escape the Nazi death camps. Next year, she resolves, she will come out to them. Another, Another, in the form of a diary of a week in the present year, reminds us that, regardless of how secure our identities, we are forced to come out as lesbians each time we intersect with the heterosexual world, or remain invisible as we have been for centuries.”]

Joan Larkin, from a woman like that: lesbian and bisexual writers tell their coming out stories, 2000

#joan larkin #lesbian literature #bi literature #terra preta #horror! horror! horror!#currently reading

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writer-of-the-shack · 9 months

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pls can u write ANYTHING for a pretty boy x gn! reader? no one writes 4 him n im so desperate u don't understand 😭

In all honesty, I can agree with this. The lack of Intersection Pretty Boy fics just makes me- GGGGGGGGG

Also, sorry for the long wait!! Honestly, I had to rack my small brain for some prompts that would make a good scenario so- Ehe..??? HOW MANY YEARS??? THIS IS THE LONGEST I THINK THAT A BLOG HAS RELEASED ITS FIRST POST AND I'M HONESTLY SO SORRY I PROMISE I'LL DO MY BEST WITH THE OTHERS IT WOULDN'T BE A YEAR LONG WAIT I SWEAR--

Within the Fog

The town of Nanchou-Shi was eccentric in its own right. With the obsession of the townsfolk over intersection fortune telling and the rumors of the ghost that haunts the town's tradition, the Intersection Pretty Boy. Though intersection fortune telling was something that people mostly do in search of that one seed of hope, the circulating cases proved otherwise. If not, it proved to be more dangerous than helpful.

In truth, the strange problem of the town seemed to have beckoned a morbid curiosity within you. The fact that these unfortunate souls met their ends when all they wanted was hope for their romantic struggles was a tragedy in its own right. Yet not only were they caused by random strangers that happened to pass by, but the most intriguing part was that the victims would often talk of a beautiful boy in black wearing red lipstick. He was an unknown entity that piqued the fear and interest of many.

With the mystery of the Intersection Pretty Boy's origin and identity, all fingers are pointed at your unfortunate friend, Fukata Ryusuke, claiming he was the Intersection Pretty Boy. But doubt would always wrap your mind in its shadowy cloak as you think of the connection between the Intersection Pretty Boy and Ryusuke. He never wore earrings, nor had you seen him owning red lipstick. Yet the tension of his posture and the sweat trailing down his face roused your suspicion.

As usual, the rumors regarding Intersection Fortune telling had been one of the school's favorite topics to gossip about, and your piercing gaze with the worried glances of Midori was of no help as Ryusuke struggled through the day.

Through the classroom window, it was easy to know that it was another gloomy day in Nanchou-Shi. Though the school had sheltered the students from the fog, they couldn't stay in school for long. But it was a thought that barely reached their restless minds, for what drowns their caution was the overpowering curiosity and temptation of Intersection Fortunetelling. Ryusuke never seemed to do it for the sake of his struggles, but it seemed more of a responsibility for him, one that seemed to come at the price of his well-being. As the fog hung in the air, he'd walk through the town, passing through intersections and giving advice. As days went by, curiosity crept from behind, slowly engulfing your mind as the image of what remained of your friend, Ryusuke, would occasionally flash within your mind. How thin he had become, how dull his eyes would come. He seemed like a dead man walking.

Your thoughts continued to dive deep into the intriguing mystery of Nanchou-Shi. But with the chilling hush of the wind, you were dragged back into reality, your view obscured by the overwhelming fog. "Tsk… Lost. I shouldn't have spaced out like that." Frustration clung from the back of your head as you internally scolded yourself. Helpless, you tried to navigate through the fog, wishing for something to enter your line of sight, perhaps a wall or a sign. And so, your wish came true as gray walls entered your line of sight, concealed by a veil of fog. Towards the wall, you walked. Mind running through memories to see if this wall was a puzzle piece to a place you've walked past at some point. But to no avail, your thoughts froze as your fingers made contact with the sharp turn of the wall.

You were at an intersection.

Cold realization struck as you froze in your spot. It felt like the wall was absorbing your hand, refusing to let you escape. The silent atmosphere of Nanchou-Shi felt more ominous as your eyes darted around the fog, paranoia creeping in like a silent predator. Was that figure walking towards you just a figment of your imagination? A hallucination? A tall, slim figure walked through the fog, seemingly unaffected by the heavy fog. It wasn't in a hurry like a businessman running late for work or a daydreaming student idly walking from school with their bag in hand or shoulder. The figure strolled casually, the rhythmic clack of their footsteps growing nearer and louder.

Paranoia turned to panic as your silently wary mind exploded into a flurry of thoughts. Whether you believed in the tales of the Black-Clothed ghost or thought it was just an elaborate cover for someone's crimes, you knew the outcome was inevitably grim.

The fog soon made way for the figure, revealing an otherworldly beauty. Eyes devoid of life, red-stained lips curved in a small yet mysterious smile, he wore no other color than black. The fog didn't seem like an entity of its own, but rather, it was akin to a veil that lovingly embraced him.

And as your eyes found him, it felt as if your heart froze. It was a contrast to your mind running in a storm of frenzy. Yet like the calmness in a storm's eye, one thought echoed in your mind like a voice lost within a looming cave.

Run.

With sudden courage, you ran from the intersection. Your beating heart echoed in your ears as the heaving of your breath grazed past your auditory senses. Yet none of those seemed to drown the echoing footsteps of the Intersection Pretty Boy. The image of the tall ghost was carved in your mind as you ran through the streets of Nanchou-Shi, using every turn to your advantage. But no matter how many turns you took, the chill that clung to your back didn't fade.

With the doubtful reassurance of your mind, you finally slowed your pace as you leaned on a lamp post for support, catching your breath. As you looked up, your eyes met the all-too-familiar gaze of Ryusuke. His confused gaze set upon you as he approached you with caution. "(Y/n)..?" The sickly-looking boy gazed at you, cold sweat trailing down his cheek as he took in your disheveled appearance. With the haunting image of the Intersection Pretty Boy flashing in your mind, you chuckled as you smiled at Ryusuke. Finally, in the presence of a familiar face, the veil of caution and fear slowly slipped from your mind, leaving only a tiny stain of vigilance within your mind.

"Ryusuke! " A sigh of relief escaped from your lips which curled into a smile that Ryusuke reciprocated with an uneasy smile, shoving his hands in the pocket of his uniform slacks. The fragile smile on his face dropped, unease flooding through his eyes as he looked at you as he spoke. "I didn't expect that I'd see you here…" With his hands still in his pocket, he walked past you. The Black-Clothed Ghost loomed over you, and he stood with his back straight. Ryusuke, though he hid his hands in his pocket, walked with a slouched back and heavy shoulders.

"… The fog's heavy. You should go home." He said as he looked at you over his shoulder. Unlike the ghost, who seemed at home in the fog, Ryusuke seemed like a fearful prey within the heavy fog. As his figure disappeared into the heavy fog, you struggled to take in your surroundings through the heaviness of the fog. Relief flooded over you the moment you recognized the streets.

You were finally near your home.

Finally, inside the safety of your home, you hurried towards the privacy of your room and into the comfort of your bed. After your eventful walk back home, you were too tired to get back up from your bed to change out of your uniform. The softness of the bed was just too comforting for you to leave as your eyes shut, slipping into your dreams.

Opening your eyes, you found yourself on the cold streets of Nanchou-Shi. Upon noticing the familiar fog surrounding you, your eyes widened as you sat up and looked around. Echoes of steady footsteps reached your ears, sending your blood running cold as you turned your head to see the all-too-familiar silhouette of a looming figure.

As the silhouette grew nearer and nearer, your mind began to yell at you to run. But as you tried to stand and run, you couldn't. Your body felt as if it was frozen, glued in place. Why? You couldn't move your own body, and he was nearing you. His eyes were an empty void of lifeless white. With his red-stained smile, you could feel his gaze on you.

At last, you managed to stand to your feet, taking your steps back, away from him. Set on running away from him, you finally turned away and ran deeper into the endless fog. You couldn't tell where you were going. Your mind plagued with fear as the sounds of his footsteps didn't seem to disappear the more you tried to run from him.

It only seemed as if your attempt was futile. Wordlessly, he appeared from within the fog and walked past you. Each time he opened those red-colored lips, you ran faster, not wanting to hear any words coming out of his mouth. The more you ran, the more it seemed like you were in a desolate town. You expected to run into someone, perhaps Ryusuke, but there was no one except the Black-Clothed Ghost.

Feeling your heart hammer through your ribs as you ran deeper within the fog, breathing felt heavy as your body gave out. You didn't know how long you were running, and the more you ran, the more pointless it seemed. Countless turns and intersections greeted you, and it only seemed like you were running in circles. No matter how many turns you took, he's always there.

Leaning on a wall as you tried to catch your breath, you lifted your head to find the heartless ghost walking past you with an eerie smile. As you watched him walk past an intersection, a sigh escaped your lips. The momentary relief washed over you as you thanked your luck that you stopped on the length of the walls and not its corners.

Resting your head against the wall behind you, you closed your eyes in hopes of waking up. This was a dream, you were sure of it…

… And you woke up. Not on the streets, and most certainly not on your bed. Turning your head to look over your shoulder, you found yourself leaning against a person's leg. Standing with the back facing you, you let your eyes wander upwards only to find him again. His hands hidden in his pockets, his lithe figure loomed over you who remained on the ground.

Turning his head, he looked over his shoulder. Though his eyes were empty, you felt his gaze at you, felt him staring at you with the seemingly amused smile still on his red-stained lips.

And as his red lips parted, his voice rung to your ears, his words echoing in your mind.

"Never return."

#Intersection Pretty Boy #Lovesickness Dead #junji ito #junji ito x reader #Intersection Pretty Boy x reader #Seriously I'm sorry for taking A G E S

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xxlovelynovaxx · 2 months

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One of the reasons I get so annoyed by "oh that's not kin, that's otherlink/otherhearted/yada yada yada, it can't be kin if it's chosen/temporary/whatever"

Is because we. As a system. Are pankin. It is a permanent, immutable state. The system contains every kin as a sort of potentiality and memory.

But not every member is every type. There are types that are unheld, sitting essentially empty in the core of the system until such time as they are needed. Members sometimes can choose which of the system's permanent, immutable kintypes to take on, and can sometimes put on or discard them at will, and while they are that identity they are that kintype through their connection to the core.

They may also use other identity labels that reflect the transience or chosen nature of that type, but they are very much still otherkin because of how our plurality intersects with our otherkinity.

No one gets to tell us we're using it wrong, misunderstanding the term, or misunderstanding ourselves. Not when we have members who have completely permanent involuntary kintypes individually, but also not just in general.

Us having a more complicated relationship with our otherkinity than you are capable of understanding (or at least more than you're willing to bother to try, and certainly more than you're willing to not be an ass about whether or not you understand) is not our problem.

It's the same recycled bullshit about bi lesbians and multigender people and intersex trans people and all the other people with complex identities who use a word slightly differently than you. tbh, if this is you, kill the cop in your head, build a bridge over their body, and get over it

#otherkin #alterbeing #alterhuman #plural #plurality #otherlink #otherhearted #tbh if you wanna argue with us about how we define the intersection of our plurality and nonhumanity #then do us both a favor and block us. and additionally if you're a singlet go fuck yourself #other plurals doing it is annoying but singlets barging in to tell us how we can exist as plural otherkin is just like...#like hey actually you know jack shit sit down and shut up #we haven't encountered as many plurals who identify as completely human (whether they use alterhuman or not) that have this problem

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sgiandubh · 9 months

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Imma need an in-depth breakdown of Puff please! And I’m not being sarcastic either. Puff pre-dates my time in the outlander fandom.

Regards,

Your curious anon.

Dear Puffy Curious Anon,

If my cantankerous boss would have summoned me at 03:03 pm EEST (when your request landed in my inbox), just to tell me "Imma need an in-depth breakdown of the Greek trade unions' position on the current critical understaffing of the HoReCa sector", I would have politely answered "yes, ma'am, when is the deadline". I would have then turned on my heels, rolled my eyes, sworn like a drunk sailor under my breath (fuck my life comes to mind, pardon my French) and quickly be done with it.

You, bless your Anon heart, wrote: "Imma need an in-depth breakdown of Puff, please". Wee difference, Curious Anon: you are not my cantankerous boss. That being said, since the question has been asked by several people in the comment threads of the day's posts, I am gonna give you my two cents on Queen Pufflander, even if you've been around before I even knew this weird place existed. And hopefully put to rest this nonsense forever (wishful thinking, doubt it will happen).

Once upon a time, when S&C's bantering was the plat du jour on Twitter and this fandom a considerably less toxic place, Puff the Magic Dragon of the US East Coast was one of the Queen Bees of Shipperville. Her blog was witty and no-nonsense (if a tad verbose) and, as *urv, she quickly earned her fair share of side performers: Stella and Deep Throat (SOURCES) or the tarot reader(s) immediately come to mind. People loved Puff and that is only fair, to be honest: I bet the farm she was great fun. Little by little, information traded in DMs started to pile up in her famed Vault, from which she was generously sharing, from time to time, sibylline rants ("maybe they did or maybe they didn't, but don't worry, something happened and all shall soon be revealed"). I can critique that forever and a day and tell you that all this sent people's expectations up the roof and beyond, of course. But, again: I was not here. It is unfairly easy to judge all these things with a historian's eye, and people who lived to tell the tale are far more entitled than me to comment their fandom experience, circa 2015.

When the whole Shatner/Watchtower baliverne started (early 2016, if memory serves) things ugly escalated and rather quickly so. People started jumping ship. With McSideburns already in the house (EIFF comes to mind and a certain poignant S&C penguin picture, too), enter Flukenzie Floozy. Thus, after IFH, Puffy decided to pack her crystal ball & tent and move to greener pastures on Wordpress. There, she held court with a keen eye for the Byzantine politicking of this fandom, not unlike what Perfidious Albion did with regard to the Thirteen Rebelling Colonies, after that Boston Tea Party. Her main moments of intersection with the rest of the shipper community are Covfefe Pics (of course) and Remarkable Week-end (of course). With regard to Covfefe, she quickly cried wolf, but by the time Remarkable Week-end happened, she pulled off a mighty witty breakdown of The Nuptial Charade of the Century. Blaze of glory was Quarantein Ha-wa-wee (of course), when she blamed S for all the world's evils and then some more. After that, she concentrated on her Neverending Feud with *urv (a Private Investigator was, at some point, hired and paid for via crowdfunding), which somehow managed to end (nevertheless) with a Report she might or might not have sent to S, "for further consideration".

As all good prophets, Puffy finally went into Occultation circa 2021, not without warning us that she was torn between Gay Sam & SamCait intellectual traditions, with a wee penchant for the first (reason why I completely ditched her peddling, because IYKYK).

I can understand why people might think I could be Puffy. I am, however, very sure about my own identity, whereabouts and creed: to state the opposite would really, really be mental. I fully assumed my responsibility and went ahead to actually prove you, this morning, I wasn't. Reading her rants was useful, but also taxing. I doubt Stella and Deep Throat were anything else but narrative helpers in a sophisticated Greimas actantial model. Something I would never do, for example: I am confident enough not to need any crutches. And I am very, very sorry for this word vomit: it should come, perhaps, as solace its length could never compete with Puff's storytelling marathons.

To wash my sins (not really: because I really love that picture), here's S,C, a penguin and a cakebox (?), at EIFF 2015. This is, you can be certain, the purest thing on this page, Anon:

#Anon

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classpectpokerap · 3 months

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How do you feel about the portrayal of plurality in Homestuck? Because it’s not good.

Cherubs are “supposed” to predominate over their other personality. With Calliope being portrayed as naive for trying to co exist.

Horuss is mocked for being a system. But I’d say it was a king fun of people who pretend to be mentally Ill on social media for clicks.

Then their are the sprites

okay so

i guess we're doing this

HOMESTUCK AND PLURALITY: A PRIMER

BECAUSE JESUS CHRIST THERES SO MUCH

SO SO SO MUCH

okay. so

homestuck is one of the best pieces of media of all time for plurality and i fuckin mean it. no shot do not pass go i have NEVER seen anything that is more built from the ground up to Support plural reads. like, to the point where it feels impossible to read homestuck without it.

as a work dealing with two huge primary themes of a) finding yourself/identity/growing up, and b) ideas coming to life, plurality is pretty much the Perfect intersection between the two of them. like.

take rose for example.

rose is plural and it's great.

when the doomed timeline evaporates, future dream rose does not actually "cease to exist." she ceases to exist as her own person -- her memories, experiences, personality, thoughts (or, as shorthand, her selfstuff) all flows back into rose prime. and that experience is just something rose has to roll with. one becomes two -- that other rose is still in her mind.

jade's plural and it's great.

when her dream self awakens as jadesprite, jade has a horrific argument with her. if you're plural i'm sure you understand. fighting with an age-regressed version of you, stuck in a traumatic past, who WONT FUCKING LISTEN -- we've all . been there.

she has involuntary barks, she can't stop seeing images of fire, she wants to go back to nonexistence but she doesnt want to die and it's torture,

and then in cascade, jade fuses with her.

dream jade is still in there. that part of her she has to grapple with is still real. her dog who she loves is in there, too -- but, yknow. woof

then grimbark gets forcefully introjected into her. i've seen a few fics play with the idea that the grimbark personality is still residually there (read ygtpoasu), but it's not a huge thing that's explored in the text. more backgrounded. but still! her crisis of identity is in there.

wanna know what's NOT backgrounded

tavros's plurality is like, a pretty big factor in his character!!!! it's one of the bigger points vriska uses to bully him with (because she's projecting because she's projecting because she's projecting, because she's also plural and kins mindfang), it's like. a big thing that he has to cope with and figure out.

kanaya suggested tavros treat his self-confidence as his own brain guy, like, completely sincerely. she genuinely thought it would help, and it sorta did!!!!!

and like

it is FAR from the only positive example of plurality in the comic.

like. look at sollux and aradia defending "alternate reality copies" of characters -- which can be pretty easily extrapolated to them talking about fictives

like. !!!!

i dunno, man. i think that homestuck is a DEEPLY plural story. you should read mtm and kgtac for more exploration of these themes. read detective pony too while you're at it. like.

i havent even TOUCHED on horuss or dirk or karkat here because there is just so much. there's so much! like ultselves. oh my god i completely neglected to talk about ultselves or cherubs or --

augh

but anyway here's The Screenshots from mtm

homestuck is, like, the single most fictive compatible fictional work i've ever read.

"oh im being sent to another universe as a brain ghost? that happened to my buddy dirk"

"oh im one of many incarnations of myself, and perhaps not even the most 'canon compliant' one? haha dream bubbles moment"

"ive been isekai'd into another world? lol sburb"

it. yeah. god. i could literally talk about this all day. but instead im gonna direct you to my ao3.

check out no metaphors and then scroll through the "multiplicity/plurality" tag on my page

and if youve got more specific stuff, send in another ask!

#hs meta #homestuck #plurality #etch asks #tavros nitram

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nellasbookplanet · 2 years

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Thinking about Molly, and Kingsley, and Lucien, about memory and identity and the nature of personhood.

Because what is personhood, really? Molly wasn't Lucien and Lucien wasn't Molly, but Molly remembered enough of Lucien to know he didn’t like him, and Lucien remembered enough of Molly to keep him from killing the Nein.

Kingsley isn't Molly. Or is he? He has emotional memories of the Nein, Yasha especially. He dreamed of a circus. Is he the same piece of soul that once grew into Molly, washed clean once again? Or is he just the same body, carrying recollection etched into the flesh like muscle memory? What’s the difference between body and personhood, anyway?

And even if he truly is Molly, wiped clean and new, is he actually Molly? Because what are we if not our memories, the experiences that shape our personalities? Molly 'grew up' in the circus, gained his idea of style from there; Kingsley, meanwhile, having never had anything to do with a circus, took one look at Molly's outfit and declared it garish.

In the end, it’s irrelevant whether Molly and Kingsley are the same person. They decided to make themselves, create their own identities out of what they'd been given. Maybe on some physiological level they are the same, but functionally they are not and never will be, because they do not share experiences and memories.

This intersection of body, choice and identity is something of a theme in c2. Veth and Nott are the same person, but they are also not. Nott is reshaped not only by the trauma she experienced, but also by being trapped in a body so different from her own. Her feelings get heightened, her personality a little sharper. Bren and Caleb are the same, but also not. So much of Caleb's journey is shaped by letting go of the guilt his past self carries, while also embracing and forgiving the manipulated child he used to be. Yasha was not the one who chose to commit the evils she did while mind controlled, yet she remembers doing them, and carries the guilt of them as well. Both she and Molly have holes in their memories where they know they must’ve done bad things, but while Molly decided someone other than him carries the guilt, Yasha does not. Both of these are valid choices. They themselves decide who they are.

The entire Kryn dynasty is built around the concept of being born as one person, shaped by childhood and family, only to in your teens experience anamnesis and remember being someone completely different and much, much older, and being expected to step up and take this stranger's place (god I wish we got to meet one of those Empire kids who were actually reborn Dynasty citizens).

So what is personhood, really? When can you choose who you are, and when do you need to accept your sins and face the music?

#anyway time to be fascinated by identity and personhood on main #i really do wish we had gotten to meet those reincarnated kids #or gotten to dig more into consecution and anamnesis in general #fingers crossed for c3 #critical role #cr spoilers #cr2 #critical role meta #mollymauk tealeaf #kingsley tealeaf #lucien #nella talks cr

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mistystarshine · 6 months

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Finnegans Wake 3 - Denji I

Denji lays back down, looks back up at the sky, and asks, ��Do you think Aki wants��to be in hell forever?”

“I don’t want to answer that,” Angel mutters.

“So you do.”

“No,” Angel says, sharp and bitter. “I think that he thinks he does because it’s easier than acknowledging the reality of what he is and what he did.”

“Oh,” Denji dully says. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”

#Chainsaw Man #CSM #Akiangel #Hayakawa Family #Denji Hayakawa #The intersection of memory and identity #Finnegans Wake #CSM fic

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dailyadventureprompts · 5 months

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What of vampire races? Like there's a primordial "source" that represent the abstract ideas of "being a vampire", and it splits into different forms?

There's a vampire infection that creates the dramatic, domineering, "superior race" type of vampires. There's a bloodline infection that creates the bestial, or chaotic vampires. There's a bloodline creating the hyper intelligent, 'prophetic" vampires that use science or mystics to gain knowledge. These "types" of vampire characters can be diversified as different bloodline infections, which creates the vampire's with different motivations to ....*be vampires*.

Why do some vampires want to continue progressing in their inecion till they reach a sort of evolution, while some just like to be constant beasts, while others are basically forced to feel like they're starving all the time which is why they hunt humanoids? Why are some vampires only able to sustain themselves from humanoid blood (even it only being humans sometimes), while others can mix blood and are shown to just like draining people of their blood? Why are some vampires more scientific, while others are using dark magic and behave more supernatural?

Maybe all the "visions" various vampire groups or lineages have of a vampiric "holy land" and Utopia, are memories of a "blood world". Where their specific vampire infection,is able to thrive the way it behaves. This "race" idea, isn't involving physical body morphology nor does it need to separate infected individuals of other races and "born vampires" (however that works in your story), from eachother. But its extending vampirism to a bigger conspiracy. Of an extraterrestrial infectious existence, that has their own "home worlds".

The cosmic history of those vampire bloodlines and "blood worlds" affecting eachother, or other races of beings can be to your advantage. It also provides vampires identity outside of an individual lineage of a specific species.

Friend, this is a d&d blog. If you want vampire the masquerade/requiem try the place down the block.

Jokes aside I find it funny that whenever you get an intersection of nerds and vampire groupies you end up with this idea of "superior bloodlines" that fundamentally separate vampires from what makes them narratively relevant.

I'll probably do a monsters reimagined about it later, but as undead vampires are only interesting when you consider how their vampirism reflects who they were in life, and how their nature as a bloodsucking monster relates to the themes of the story they're in.

I understand the desire to identify with monstrous outsiders, but when you distort the concept by piling in more and more powers and talking about how special and cool you they are, you dilute what makes vampires fun and just make them into goth-elves.

A vampire story that isn't in some way based in tragedy isn't really a vampire story at all, now is it?

#vampire #prompt postage

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thefiresontheheight · 7 months

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Fire on Every Horizon - Looking for Beta Readers!

Eli Yuen is a witch and an exorcist in the gig economy, which means late nights, bad pay, and a shitty apartment. Between the sea of ghosts that haunt everywhere in America, her teacher and boss's ridiculous rules, and the memories of her dead daddy, she's barely keeping herself out of the darkness lurking in her chest, even with the help of her girlfriend Paladin. But when her teacher disappears and a strangely attractive diner worker offers her a lucrative job exorcising a ghost lurking back in Appalachia, the darkness will no longer be something she can deny. Faced with fallen angels, abyssal gods, the specter of Communism, and her own past, Eli will at last be forced to confront the question that has troubled her for so long. Is this really all there is to life? 84,000 words long, Fires on Every Horizon is a new adult, new weird, rural fantasy, horror-adjacent story about trans, polyamorous witches and the end of the world. And you can read it right now, for free, for the low, low price of commenting and being a beta reader for me! Find the link here, and please make sure to read the content warning before going further: Link In particular I am looking for trans, butch, lesbian, poly, bi, Filipino, Appalachian and formerly cult-affiliated beta readers, and those who exist at the intersection of all those identities. Reblogs are appeciate, and thank you!

#beta request #writing #writers on tumblr #new adult #urban fantasy #new weird #fires on every horizon

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queerbting · 5 months

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ok, i know i'm a couple days late to this... but i listened to hbomberguy's video on james somerton and....... man.

i only really watched 2-3 videos of somerton's dating back 1-2 years ago, and he had long-since fallen out of my youtube recommended, but i think it's important to chronicle why i (and potentially other, especially casually-viewing, queer people) believed him, and how insidious that trust-based belief was/is. for context, i'm gen z, and the videos of his i watched were (paraphrasing, based on memory) on the "rich"/complex/intertwined history of queerness and vampires (+ the monstrous in literature and film), the connection of current unrealistic body standards among gay men to an ideal which started with the "hyper-perfect bodies" of nazi soldiers, and one last video on the tie between queer perfectionism and self-harm in film that i do not remember as well. regardless.

i.... am unsure how much my experience of queerness, especially when i was child/teenager, aligns with other people's experiences, but the majority of the media/social environments i was in, despite how non and/or loving they were, were decidedly non-queer. i was the first currently-living relative in my family to be openly queer/explore queerness as a teenager, and that meant i had to explore what queerness meant/was, on my own. i had a few queer friends as a teenager, but most of us were still coming to terms with our identities and/or had not fully formulated who we were, yet. we're much more open with each other now than we were back then. in short, that mostly meant going online and trying to find and connect with other queer people online, even if i didn't realize that's what i was reaching out for at the time. there were no queer elders around me, or if they were, i did not know they were there. i, as well as the other queer people around me, were effectively isolated from these parts of ourselves irl.

in those circumstances i think it's fairly normative to look for other sources of information, then. as i got older, the queer and queer-aligned people in my corner grew, but i was still used to the format of outsourcing knowledge from queer elders online and when i was lucky enough, in person. i had fundamentally accepted that i did not know a lot about the community i found myself apart of, or at least that i would never know as much as i thought i did (especially when it came to intersectional identities/experiences involving queerness). i had to get used to being wrong, and/or learning about perspectives that i had never even thought of/considered before due to the inherently limited nature of my own experiences.

so, when i stumbled across a video of james somerton's detailing the deep, intertwined history between queer people and vampires as depicted in literature and film, i assumed this was just another part of queer history that i had not heard about/been a part of. i think the lack of transparently cited material, in a way, made me feel like these were novel, true-to-the-queer-experience observations and/or real queer histories that had deliberately not been passed on by wider society, a history that was passed down verbally inside the queer community in spite of those which intended to suppress it. it's naive, looking back on it now (specifically how i took his narrative of queer people at face value), but i don't know how else i could have viewed it given the information/level of emotional open-ness i had at the time.

i thought of the body image video similarly— james somerton was in some ways, was a queer elder, or at least someone who i had established in my mind as more well-versed in "true" queer history/culture than i was due to the vampire video. i had never experienced life as a fat, white gay man from canada growing up with the social pressures of staying in the closet/disassociating from being perceived as queer due to issues of direct social safety. i had never downloaded grindr or seen what gay male social-sexual subcultures were like. how was i not to know that these experiences somerton described, this through-line to a history long past, were not genuine? the nazis were horrible, so why couldn't it be true that some of their aesthetic/social ideals passed on to our own negative performances of gender identity, especially in relation to unattainable masculinity?

(note: im paraphrasing my understanding of his videos here in an intentionally simplistic black/white good/bad manner, but at the time, that's what they meant to me. his videos took advantage, in part, of my lack of knowledge and reinforced/restructured concepts that were harmful and/or blatantly untrue, yet seemed socially plausible to me due to my own pre-existing moral biases)

i was watching other queer youtubers at the time, and (luckily) ended up sticking with them for much longer than i did somerton, but not insignificant portions of somerton's ideas still stuck in my mind as something "true" to the queer-historical canon. i was not immune to his lies, plagiarism, or propaganda. even when he used it to subtly bash other people, including women and other queer identities. i just assumed he knew better about the intersection of social queerness in film/specific historical contexts, and used my personal feelings of queer-communal inferiority/imbalance of information to squash the parts of myself that squirmed with discomfort at some of the things he was saying. maybe women (whether they were queer or not) did actively contribute to the suppression of queer men, and could be automatic bad actors from this point of view? maybe current beliefs on body image and fatphobia in queer male spaces did derive from n*zi propaganda absorbed by american/allied soldiers. i don't know.

my lack of knowledge surrounding queer history/identity in those specific instances caused me to dig my own shallow grave. it feels unsettling to look back on. after looking at hbomber's video, i think some of my own internalized misogyny and biphobia, even back when i was identifying as bi, and my subsequent distancing from those two facets of my identity, were in part influenced by media like the videos created by james somerton. and regardless of how i feel now (as a person who often feels more aligned with being perceived as queer/nonbinary) that's really..... fucked up.

because regardless of how i identify and feel today, knowing that part of my perception of self, as well as my perspective on queer people, queer community, and queer history comes from a person who so blatantly rips off, demeans, and misrepresents queer people and women? it feels..... really awful in a way that i can tell hasn't fully settled in my stomach yet.

and i can't help but wonder how many other young adult queer people he convinced as well, even in small ways. i feel like i was searching for understanding and acceptance, belonging in a community i didn't fully understand but wanted to align myself with, and instead i was, in part, taught to subtly mistrust and hate myself and the people around me. to insidiously dismiss and demean queer/straight women and bi people, in the way he did. to give my dignity up, to squash the internal, wary voice in my head in favor to white cis men like him, and remember that they, ultimately, know best/the most of anyone else. to trust their word like it is an untapped facet of academia, or an inherent truth of my own community— of my own identity as a bi person, a queer person, and as a woman. (and arguably my identity as an indigenous person, as it is wrapped in so much of how i love, what i believe it means to love, and how we engage in community)

i flip-flop between the differences for myself when it comes to queerness and bi-ness (queerness and lesbian-ness, as well), then between womanhood and queer expressions of gender (including and especially nonbinary/lesbian expressions of gender), and to think that a portion of what i've been internally wrestling with and trying to figure out for myself has been based off of straight up.... lies and disdain? based off of the hacked-up and stolen works of other queer people, intentionally cut of their personal unique contexts to better suit his own identity as a canadian white gay cis man who felt snubbed by women in high school?

i can't fully articulate how awful that is to realize for both myself and in consideration of the people i love, in all of its overt and subtle forms of influence.

.....and this is all with me only really watching 2 videos from the guy, arguably 3. what is it like for people who has been watching somerton's videos/keeping up with them more religiously ?? i don't know. i just know that is/has been harmful, even in subtle ways, and i wanted to record and chronicle this viewpoint, somehow. idk if anyone will see this post let alone read it due to how long it has ended up being but i hope it is helpful.

i think hbomberguy was entirely right in pointing out the directly harmful effects somerton's videos/actions have had on lgbt creators, i just couldn't also help but think of the negative impact his videos will/have had on younger lgbt people, and the way it influences the way we engage with queerness itself. good night

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teecupangel · 9 months

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man I know you've got a million what ifs and I don't expect you to spin this anywhere but I was just looking at some Yusuf fanart and wondering how Desmond would feel if he was reborn as Yusuf

It would be such a weird intersection of Ezio and Altaïr memories for him

and the twin pulls to go to Ezio and help him however he can, and the rancid bile that is Templars making their home in Masyaf

and of course the Petruccio problem, that Desmond feels like he took someone else's life, someone he knew enough to know he's not him, that he's an identity thief.

(And also the continued tragedy of Desmond being born in Ezio's era, but too late to help him in his youth.)

We can keep Desmond from going ‘fuck it’ and either joining Ezio or doing something about the Templars’ occupation in Masyaf thanks to Yusuf’s backstory of having no father and only having his mother raised him. His mother would be the only reason why Desmond continued to stay in Constantinople. Honestly, what we know of Yusuf’s life is from the novelization of the movie where his descendant relived his early years. From that though, we can get Desmond into accidentally creating a Brotherhood made up of street urchins. They’re more on the side of thieves than actual Assassins because Desmond focused on keeping everyone alive and healthy.

So when the Brotherhood heard of an organized Thieves Guild, Ishak Pasha is the one to look into it.

There, he meets up with Desmond (who goes by Desmond with only his mother being the one to call him ‘Yusuf’) and Ishak mistakes Desmond as one of the leaders’ main messengers.

Desmond didn’t bother to correct his misconception and lets Ishak watch them in action with Desmond talking to himself in 3rd Person much to the amusement of his fellow ‘thieves’. Ishak learns they call their leader ‘mentor’ and realized that a lot of them move like Assassins.

When he sees Desmond’s Hidden Blade which he had received from his mother a few years back, Ishak finally realizes that Desmond is the mentor.

After this, we can go either:

Desmond and his Brotherhood of ‘street rats’ are taken in by the Brotherhood for formal training or

Desmond and his Brotherhood remain to be a separate organization that are closely allied with the Brotherhood but do not bow to any mentor.

I feel like Desmond would pick to remain independent for various reasons but mostly, he decides to be independent because he doesn’t see himself as an Ottoman Assassin, clinging to his Levantine roots. Ishak might even think that Desmond was truly a descendant of a Levantine Assassin of old, maybe of even the great Al-

No.

Probably not.

With Desmond’s Brotherhood being an independent organization, he gets to train people he trust to keep his mother safe. Once he’s sure they’d be fine by their own, years have passed and Desmond…

Desmond knows Ezio would be making his way to Masyaf this year.

So…

He goes to Masyaf as well.

Okay, so we know that Desmond would searched for the Masyaf Keys as soon as he could and we can give him maybe most of them… except one. The key that seemed to have disappeared, most probably in Templar hands that Desmond is still searching for.

This way, we have an excuse for Ezio to go to Constantinople with Desmond after they cleaned up Masyaf.

Ezio tries to reason that even if they kill every single Templar in Masyaf, they’d just bring in more and finds Desmond’s insistence to clean up Masyaf as a fool’s errand. At the same time, he’s jealousy of the passion Desmond has for the Creed but worries of how Desmond seems to be stuck in the past as well.

Desmond would be a bit cagey of who he is but he’d tell Ezio that his name is Desmond. Ezio would be surprised but he wouldn’t believe Desmond is the same Desmond that Minerva talked about because, as far as he knew, Desmond was meant to be alive centuries from now. Desmond didn’t bother to tell him the truth. Not yet, anyway.

Maybe after they have said their goodbyes to Altaïr…

Maybe.

The Petruccio problem will definitely rear its ugly head every time his mother would call him ‘Yusuf’, the first time Ezio would learn his real name is ‘Yusuf’ and whenever he sees the Brotherhood have a different mentor instead of… the real Yusuf Tazim.

That was also a reason why he decided that his Brotherhood (maybe we’ll name it the Brotherhood of Shadows? It would be funny if Desmond goes “we’re the Hidden Ones” without having any ideas that that was the original name of the Brotherhood) would work independently. He’s trying to step away from Yusuf Tazim’s footsteps, like an exact opposite of the initial plans of the Desmond Miles who became Petruccio Auditore.

He wants to carve his own path because he believes he’d only be sullying Yusuf’s memories if he pretended to be him.

……… Wanna fuck with Desmond some more?

Of course you do XD

So…

How about Suleiman and Desmond actually meet and they sorta-kinda grow close in a ‘I think of you as a friend’ way for Suleiman and in a ‘I know you’re gonna be sultan later so I’m being nice to you’ way for Desmond.

But the more Desmond talk to Suleiman, the more he notices…

Suleiman sounds a lot like Malik.

And his memories of Malik make Desmond feel… a kinship with Suleiman that may or may not even be there. And Desmond is now worried.

That Suleiman would become the Lorenzo to his Giovanni and compromise them all.

(And yes, I did think of this because Suleiman and Malik have the same voice actor!)

#it’s still annoying that they got malik’s voice actor #but didn’t bother to add malik in any of altaïr’s memories #i feel like they planned to #but the yearly releases fucked with that plan #anyway #sorry for ranting in the tags #if you want to go rare pairing route #suleiman x desmond is definitely a left field pairing XD #ask and answer #assassin's creed #desmond miles #ezio auditore #yusuf tazim #suleiman the great #teecup writes/has a plot #fic idea: assassin's creed #you might not expect much #but i will still do my best #because that's how i roll XD

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sophieinwonderland · 8 months

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I cut out the link since I'm blocked by the account. Tumblr doesn't give clear instructions on what to do if you get an anon ask about a blog that has you blocked, but this seems a safe practice to protect the individual in question.

I would also ask people not send me links to this particular blog in the future.

With that out of the way, non-western society isn't some monolith and treating it as such is itself western-centric.

Maybe there are some places where endogenic plurality is less stigmatized. I might question their conclusion that it's trauma responses being stigmatized as opposed to trauma accusations. Most childhood trauma is from family, and loyalty to family is a higher priority in many cultures than it is in the West. And admitting to being a traumagenic system is usually the same as accusing your family of abusing you which is going to be interpreted as a betrayal of your family.

But while some areas may be more accepting, on the other hand, there are also many non-western countries where people are tortured and killed in exorcisms for what's interpreted as spiritual possession.

Another thing they try to do is dismiss abuse over pluralphobia as simply existing at an intersection of other oppressed identities. I assume they're talking about how, for example, laws discriminating against people for identifying having a different gender than their AGAB just happen to oppress plurals too because of that intersection.

I find this intersection theory to be an interesting perspective from the SAME EXACT SYSTEM who months ago suggested that I came too close to "claiming transphobia" by pointing out a certain theme in an ask.

Here's a refresher for those who missed it:

Yes, that's them.

The same exact system you linked.

The admin to The Survivor's Network.

This particular user, and their awful little bullying Hellhole of a server, has repeatedly tried to downplay and dismiss discrimination against endogenic systems, and systems in general.

They're the absolute worst.

I feel it's important to understand where these arguments are coming from and what their goal is. Anti-endos with a long history of attacking endogenic systems want to erase or minimize the harm they've done or are doing. To acknowledge all systems as being oppressed for being systems, rather than ONLY traumagenic systems due to general ableism, would require admitting that they were the bad guys all along.

But let's put get back to the topic at hand.

The position that plurals aren't institutionally oppressed is nonsense

The most stigmatized parts of DID isn't the trauma flashbacks or the chronic depression or even the lapses in memory. It is, and always has been, the multiplicity. There's a reason every horror movie about DID will focus on that and double down on the evil alter trope.

The evil alter trope is an evolution of stories about people being possessed, being werewolves, or being replaced by Fae or malevolent Fox spirits.

People with DID aren't stereotyped as murderers because they're traumatized, but because they're plural. In fact, one common complaint about DID representation you see all the time is that it tends to erase every other symptom and comorbid disorder.

The multiplicity is always treated as the defining problem with systems in society.

This is why forced fusion from therapists used to be pushed so hard, and has been so harmful to systems with DID over the years.

But DID systems aren't the only victims of this form of medical pluralphobia, even in disordered spaces.

The same is true of other plural and plural adjacent disorders and experiences. It's why Dr. Romme of the Hearing Voices Network has compared forcing voice hearers to get rid of their voices to be akin to conversion therapy to "cure" homosexulaity.

And yes, this is happening to non-disordered systems. Just a few months ago, a tulpamancer talked about their own experiences of being forced on antipsychotic medication to get rid of their tulpa.

When the user tried explaining more to their psychiatrist, the psychiatrist actually increased their medication.

This form of psychiatric abuse goes beyond simple social stigma.

And this conversion therapy approach to plurality is something that many plurals and voice-hearers have had to deal with for decades. And itself is an evolution of the exorcisms people associated with spiritual plurality have been subjected to for centuries.

I should also mention Cambriancrew has talked about medical staff over the past couple years reporting policies of denying care specifically to systems.

Plurals have never been named as a collective group until the last 30 years.

But we've ALWAYS faced this type of widespread societal oppression for our plurality.

From friends and family ostracizing and rejecting us or even targeting us for hate from others.

From psychiatrists abusing us or trying to cure us.

From religious institutions engaging in literal torture to get rid of perceived demons.

And from a society at large that repeatedly denies our very existence and our personhood.

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