lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
lb_lee ([personal profile] lb_lee) wrote2025-08-29 12:00 pm

ChatGPT Psychosis

Rogan: Okay, I know I owe responses to folks, but am kinda blurgh, so I promise I haven't forgotten y'all, it's just been a busy couple weeks!

So, thanks to [personal profile] erinptah, yesterday I learned about ChatGPT psychosis. As I linkjumped through the rabbit hole, one thing that stood out to me was how shocked people seemed to be that folks "with no prior history of mental illness" were falling into it. And I was like, "Well, yeah, of course, why is that surprising?" but I realized that other folks may not know this, so let me tell you why ChatGPT Psychosis happens to "normal people."

The human mind is a delicate thing. You gotta be nice to it. )
lb_lee: A clay sculpture of a heart, with a black interior containing little red, brown, white, green, and blue figures. (plural)
lb_lee ([personal profile] lb_lee) wrote2025-08-25 06:11 pm
Entry tags:

@Sobqjmv-sphinx dug deeper into “headmate!”

[personal profile] sobqjmv_sphinx expanded on my research and proved it was used by multiples before DesperateFans! Check it out! https://sobqjmv-sphinx.dreamwidth.org/5620.html

We’ve updated our own post adding this note.
lb_lee: A skeleton wearing a crown of blooming roses (the bony lady)
lb_lee ([personal profile] lb_lee) wrote2025-08-22 02:46 pm

Soulbonding History: "Destroying your soulbonds is murder" color bar

When we joined the soubonding comms on Livejournal in 2007, we often saw the following bar in people's profile pages:

     
They're people, friends, lovers. NOT Satan.
Destroying your soulbonds is murder.


(Color bars of this type were common things on Livejournal at the time; I expect because it wasn't an image and thus didn't require imagehosting, saving bandwidth and work.)

Because it is in danger of being lost, I want to credit the originator of this. I also want to talk about some of the context around it, and why it got made.

This is a post about death and murder. )
lb_lee: A clay sculpture of a heart, with a black interior containing little red, brown, white, green, and blue figures. (plural)
lb_lee ([personal profile] lb_lee) wrote2025-08-21 09:03 pm
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Soulbonder Etymology: dar'morende and tai'morende

Doing these together because their histories and citations are identical.

tai'morende (noun)
Meaning: 1: originally intended to be “an alternative version of [a] character's entire world inside your head” (Eclective, 2002), but due to misunderstanding apparently became 2: a fictional character who takes on an independent life, but who doesn’t stick around for long (ibid).

dar'morende (noun)
Meaning: 1: original meaning: same as soulbond. Due to misunderstanding, it became 2: a fictional character who takes on an independent life to their creator or audience and sticks around.

Coiner: soulbonder Catherine Rain (Eclective’s 2004 glossary) on the soulbonders' Just For Writers (JFW) AOL mailing list (Eclective 2002).
When: by 1999-9-17 (Lyn)
Where: Soulbonding term, never went further.
Their rise and fall. )

TL;DR: The only reason anyone these days knows these terms existed is because of Eclective. I can’t find anyone else using it except Lyn, once; all other citations go to Eclective's 2004 glossary. These term are the least-known a term can be and still justify being in the glossary.

Citations )
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
lb_lee ([personal profile] lb_lee) wrote2025-08-21 07:41 pm

Many-Selved Etymology: "Headmate"

EDIT: [personal profile] sobqjmv_sphinx expanded on my research and proved it was used by multiples before DesperateFans! Check it out! https://sobqjmv-sphinx.dreamwidth.org/5620.html

Hungry Ghosts have discovered they can nerd snipe us by asking us, "Hey, we heard that 'headmate' came from soulbonders, is that true?" We honestly didn't think we'd discover it, but thanks to the amazing power of ljsear.ch, we got a really good start!

Meaning: 1. (RP, original term) the relationship one role-playing character (AKA a sockpuppet or "pup") had to another, as opposed to their relationship to their player (AKA "typist"). 2. The relationship between any tenants of the same vessel.
Coiner: the DesperateFans roleplaying community on Livejournal? (First used by Pollution/mr_p_white?)
When: by 2005/4/18
the rise of headmate )

TL;DR: the term was coined by 2005 by roleplayers (who, if any of them were soulbonders, they sure didn't fess up to it anywhere I saw) and spread through Livejournal into plural comms like plural_living within three months. It also spread via RPers, muses and muns (2006-01), soulbonders (2006-05), before finally getting picked up by multiples (2007-02). With the fall of LJ, the term spread to tumblr, where it became so widespread that even Urban Dictionary heard about it.

If you manage to kick the can back earlier than this, please let me know! RP was never my realm, and my trail goes cold there.

Citations )
lb_lee: A clay sculpture of a heart, with a black interior containing little red, brown, white, green, and blue figures. (plural)
lb_lee ([personal profile] lb_lee) wrote2025-08-21 06:14 pm

Spirited/Many-Selved Etymological Glossary Index Page (1816-2016)

Sneak: This is a (forever IN-PROGRESS) hub page for all our deep dives into the origination, rise, and fall of terms used for what we loosely call "spirited" or "many-selved" folks from 1816-2016, including: various forms of medical multiplicity (dual consciousness, MPD, DID,etc.), medical backlash multiples (empowered multiples, natural multiples, endogenic multiples), plurals, soulbonders, and whatever else we trip over, just so we can have it all in one place.

We are cutting it at 2016 because that gives us a good 200 year window going back to our earliest medical multi records in English, and also because we do not want to dig into the microlabel boom. Pluralpedia is better for things like that. We might later kick the earliest year back, but I doubt we will go any further into the present than 2016.

Quick Alphabetical Index:
A ~ B ~ C ~ D ~ E ~ F ~ G ~ H ~ I ~ J ~ K ~ L ~ M ~ N ~ O ~ P ~ Q ~ R ~ S ~ T ~ U ~ V ~ W ~ X ~ Y ~ Z

Previous Glossaries Used in the Making of This Document

A )
B )
C )
D )
E )
F )
G )
H )
I )
J )
K )
L )
M )
N )
O )
P )
Q )
R )
S )
T )
U )
V )
X )
Y )
Z )

Previous Glossaries Used in the Making of This Document )
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Br'er Lion & Friends ([personal profile] liondrakes) wrote2025-08-21 09:51 am
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Update on an Update: Vaguesona?

Yesterday, I chatted a bit about being fictionvague towards Orfevre, Durandal, and Uma Musume as a whole. Afterwards, something passed my mind. A lot of folks make kinsonas or truesonas to express their appearance as their 'type. Although I'm still in the middle about everything, I think a persona that's either based off of or is a derivative of these characters might help with fleshing out my feelings. So, here goes nothing:

Name: Sword of Soulaan
Basis: Durandal
Birthday: I'm an aries, unlike my basis. That's all you need to know.
Height: 171 CM
Weight: Solid form
Trainer Referral: My Lady, My Lord, Your Excellency
Strengths: Roleplaying, critical analysis of Romantic and Gothic literature
Weaknesses: Chocolate treats, lonely travels, "surrender"
Ears: Never lets a single compliment go unheard
Tail: Swishes as fast as his blade, feels as soft as a blanket
Family: He won the title of "Furniture Lifting Champion" over his father.
Secret(s):
  • He's a horrible sleeper, often waking up at random times in the middle of the night.
  • He has a soft spot for feminine, elegant Umas (ex: Gentildonna, Mejiro Ramonu).
  • Though he abhors her tyranny, he secretly respects Orfevre.
Biography: Romantic, refined yet steadfast, Sword of Soulaan is the definition of a southern gentleman (or gentle-uma?). This aspiring swordsman carries the prestige of a knight errant, and exudes the grace of a debutante, but he is plagued by a heavy burden. Without a sovereign (trainer) of his own, Sword of Soulaan wanders aimlessly on the track, lost in thought. He dreams of the day he can proudly offer his service to a worthy leader. Although he does his best to maintain a gallant demeanor, he can easily melt under pressure if caught off-guard.

Sounds fitting, so far. I look forward to working out the visual details of this 'sona, both in comparison and in contrast to canon Durandal.
lb_lee: Rogan drawing/writing in a spiral. (art)
lb_lee ([personal profile] lb_lee) wrote2025-08-20 07:37 pm

Spaceman, by Marc Hempel

While doing sci-fi library magazine organizing, I found this short comic, "Spaceman" by Marc Hempel, that does realitymashing in a really effective cool way! He needs barely any dialogue or text to express the visual concept of daydreaming; it's so good.

And someone on Pillowfort kindly digitized and uploaded it!

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Br'er Lion & Friends ([personal profile] liondrakes) wrote2025-08-20 07:33 am
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Curious Cases in Equinehood: Linking/Questioning Uma Musume

Inspired by Shyvana’s journal on linking Bitter Glasse, I’ve decided to take my heart link with Uma Musume and reconstruct it. Although I’ve been trying to establish the group (Umas) as a hearttype and Cinderella Gray as a hearttale, I haven’t had much success in either venture. I’m very passionate about the characters of Uma Musume. Each of them have surprisingly rich stories, and I’ve come to enjoy the series as a fan who doesn’t play the game itself. Given my personal hang-ups with gacha games, I choose to stick with the manga and its anime adaptations. I figured this link would eventually be dropped, but reading Shyvana’s post was like a breath of fresh air. I hesitated to switch this linktype from a heartlink to a fictionlink, largely because I was adamant about not being an Uma Musume.

However, life is a funny, fickle thing. I’ve been having cameo shifts as an Uma. Initially, I thought nothing of it and assumed it to be partially equine shifts (kemonimimi shifts, in this case). I’d only experience phantom ears, a tail, and horseshoe-like protrusions underneath my feet. I didn’t feel distinctly like someone else until I’d experience cameo shifts as specific characters within Uma Musume. Among these cameo shifts, I experienced being: Symboli Kris S, Orfevre, Durandal, and Fenomeno. There’s only a couple of similarities from these characters: their maturity, their resolve, and their sense of duty. Besides that, they had both aesthetic and characteristic differences between them. Of the four Umas, I felt myself gravitating around Orfevre and Durandal the most. I’m no stranger to royal aesthetics. I have fictomeres where that went beyond aesthetics for me, and none of them turned out great. It doesn’t surprise me that it’s these two in particular who caught my attention, or at least my shapeshifting’s attention. Although I respect Orfevre’s commanding presence and confidence (traits I want as my own), I think I’m more like Durandal in terms of behavior. There’s also the fact that her hair (including the white patch) matches my coat as an American Quarter Horse. Learning that she excels in short distances threw me through a loop, too; AQHs are known for doing well in that field. Before doing anything else, I want to learn more about this world’s Durandal. We’ll likely have nothing in common, seeing that I feel represented by the fictionalized version of him. That said, I want to do this out of courtesy.

I want to link the traits of Uma Musume’s Durandal, but I think this situation is more of a questioning process than the building of a linktype. If so, my best guess is that this falls within the psychological department of experiences, but I’m not confirming anything without further introspection. Who knows, I might have to give Orfevre another shot if this doesn’t go anywhere. I’ve always had a weird relationship with my equinehood. I didn’t think it’d carry over to reincarnated horse girls, though. It’s strange since, as a horse, I’m not a racer. One of my breeds can qualify in races, but I regard myself as the type of AQH to either do ranch work or compete in cutting competitions. Otherwise, I take pride in being depended on for draught work. Perhaps, it’s our mutual interest in servitude that ties Durandal and I together. It’s not the same kind of servitude, but both involve putting our bodies— especially our physical strength— to the test for those we work with. Again, I’m not confirming anything yet. I still need to learn more about this world’s Durandal and Orfevre respectively. I plan on watching both characters’ in-game stories as well. This may give Orfevre a chance in this process. May the best horse girl (or version of me) win, I suppose.

Honestly, I should’ve seen this coming when those kemonomimi shifts started happening a lot more often. But, what can you do, y’know? Sometimes, you wind up questioning something you never thought you’d question. Then, as you go through that, it turns out a lot more pressing than you thought it’d be. Such is the case with alterhumanity.

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Br'er Lion & Friends ([personal profile] liondrakes) wrote2025-08-18 10:54 am
Entry tags:

Omega-Level Mutants: Don’t Believe The Hype!

THE OMEGA PROTOCOL

While it is believed that a greater dynamo is possible through collective means, it is a current priority for the mutant nation of Krakoa to protect and nurture its greatest natural resource: Omega-level mutants. 

All efforts are to be expended in order to secure the future of the state.

"One people. One tribe. One family."

As I'm reconnecting with my history as an X-Man, another memory dawned upon me. It's not a memory of an event, but a feeling I had as Miracle. I loathed the status of "Omega-level". It's hard to ignore when the leaders of your people make a point of referencing mutants like you at any chance they get, even worse when non-mutant humans do the same thing except by treating you like a disaster waiting to happen. You're either an asset or a threat. There's no in-between. Either way, you are weaponized in some form. For a brief but important time, I hated my mentors for that exact reason. Many things drove a wedge between us students and veteran X-Men, but one thing that sticks out in my mind is the weaponization. Plenty of them were products of it too, but we realized that one way or another we'd wind up the same way. There's only been one time where I've felt truly seen in my source, albeit without me being present. My class decided enough was enough and shut down our mentors for trying to rope us into another plan as combatants. Pixie got us out of there both in my memories and in the comic itself. That still sticks with me. 

Around the time Krakoa was founded, I was hesitant to go. I got into a fight with my former counselor, Storm, about it. Part of why I was hesitant was the Omega Protocol. I am not a "natural resource". I am a person. I am to be treated like a person, not another addition to Charles Xavier's arsenal. Eventually,  I went and didn't regret it, but I kept my stance on Xavier and his approach to Omega-level mutants. I didn't care that he classified as one; his perspective of us was crystal clear. We're a resource, a crop to harvest and bear fruit at the expense of our humanity. I detested the label "Omega-level" then and still do today. I won't hide who I am, though.

OMEGA LEVEL MUTANT: A mutant whose dominant power is deemed to register or reach an undefinable upper limit of that power's specification classification.

NOTE: Omega level is a classification of a single mutant power. While it is quite common that mutants manifest multiple powers, only one is normally of Omega level
 
In layman's terms, to be Omega-level is to be very gifted at a specific power. The extent of your abilities are hard to clock, and oftentimes, you can do pretty incredible things with those abilities. Typically, one ability within your mutation(s) reaches Omega-level. Take my mentor Storm, for example. Storm is an omega-level mutant. Although Storm has a wide range of abilities, weather manipulation is an ability of hers that classifies as omega-level. She's among the best of the best in the demographic of weather-centric mutants. For muis, our first mutation is being a winged mutant (Cheyafarim). That mutation isn’t Omega-level, though. That would be our secondary mutation. Wei fall in the same omega-level class as Legion: Power Manifestation. How it works for us differs from Legion since wei don't have individual mutations amongst us. Rather, wei all have the ability to will something into existence as long as its change is physical or biological. This ability can trigger verbally and non-verbally. For example: wei cannot will victory into existence, because that is a change based on chance. However, wei can will resistance or invulnerability against psychic mutants into existence because that would involve directly changing muir neurology. Wei could make muirself entirely invincible to other mutant abilities if wei saw fit. Wei don't because wei are honorable to a fault. 

Furthermore, muir ability of manifestation can extend to others. Wei discovered this when Tariq, one of muir facets, fronted and went to attack a Purifier base. Wei still don't know why. Wei'll have to figure that out eventually, but wei do recall him setting off a gas leak and causing an explosion within the base. However, those within the base didn't die. Muir intent wasn't to kill, but to send a message to Stryker and his lot. After further investigation, it was discovered that the inhabitants of the base were temporarily altered to survive the explosion. Wei willed their survival into existence, briefly making their bodies invulnerable to flame and durable enough to take the impact. Their bodies returned to normal some time after. Wei probably would've learned wei're omega-level another way, but that's how it came to be as far as wei remember.

In retrospect, I don't mind having a parallel life where I have the ability to protect others to such a tremendous extent. I do mind being treated like a tool, though. I know things don't have to be that way for us, but it's exactly how mutants of this status wind up. I just want my community to live in peace, and I know Xavier wanted the same thing, but we are not "natural resources". We are people. 
lb_lee: A colored pencil drawing of Raige's freckled hand holding a hot pink paperback entitled the Princess and Her Monster (book)
lb_lee ([personal profile] lb_lee) wrote2025-08-17 09:45 pm

More Neat Finds in the Sci-Fi Library

We're sorting the boxes of magazines now! And found neat things, including...

  • Original black and white WaRP floppy comics of Elfquest, #9-20. (We put them in plastic sleeves, but them in binders corresponding to omnibus volumes, catalogued them, and added them to the color omnibuses of Elfquest vol. 1 and 3 we already had.)
  • A card with poem and letter in it from 1971. (Asked the senior members, they figured out who "Chris" and "Wendy" were, and we're mailing it out to someone who knew them, since at least one of them is now dead.)
  • Some weird anthology of comics from 1971 with Wally Wood and stuff in them. (And Neal Adams who... dude was weird even then. Added to the "catalog me" pile)
  • A 1999 multimedia e-zine of music, poetry, art, and fiction... on a CD! (Put it in a proper container, labeled its contents, added it to the "catalog me!" pile)
  • More stuff for the pluralstories catalog, mwahaha!
lb_lee: A clay sculpture of a heart, with a black interior containing little red, brown, white, green, and blue figures. (plural)
lb_lee ([personal profile] lb_lee) wrote2025-08-17 02:12 pm

Returning Home and Claiming the Center

(all quotes are from Akwaeke Emezi, "claiming the center: Akwaeke Emezi," Locus: the Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field #773 June 2025, pg. 58-59)

In terms of talking about my work, people often take the spiritual side as an allegory or a metaphor for something else--sometimes for queerness or transness, but for me, it's not. [...] When I use Western language to describe myself, I'm translating. Even when I call myself queer, or I call myself trans, I'm stepping away from my actual Igbo spiritual center, and using Western language, and translating to make myself more accessible. It's honestly a form of masking, because indigenous spirituality is illegible in a Western context. Because of white supremacy, but also because the West does not acknolwedge indigenous realities as real...


On returning home, and how the work of Akwaeke Emezi opened the door for us. )