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a thick forest made up of thorny bushes, countless scraps of fabric and armor tangled in the thick of it from past victims

underwater plants that grab on if they are touched but rather than pulling down, they wait until their prey tires and drowns, sinking down to the ocean floor all by themselves

a cemetery where people are laid in bushes and by morning are fully cocooned in vines

deadly berries that, like a parasite, grow alongside the root of a bush with edible berries and imitate their berries perfectly, so that no one would know they are picking poison

dead trees stretching as far as you can see with flourishing wildlife in between

a cursed land in which everything that grows flourishes, but is deadly if consumed, until no creature can live there anymore and it becomes eerily silent, not even a bug to be heard

giant flesh eating plants growing on top of fortifications

plants that, once ingested, take on parasitic properties and grow inside their host until the host passes. the plant uses their body‘s nutrients to root down where they died and flourish quickly, roots intertwining with the host’s skeleton

You're floating in the water. She gently grabs you, pushing you down. You try to be at peace, but you squirm and flail, she guides you back up. You pant, looking at her, tears in your eyes.

"I can't do this"

You say, looking at her hopelessly.

"Yes you can."

"Next time, no matter how hard I squirm, don't let me go, okay?"

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. You have my consent."

You take a deep breath and she pushes you below again. Down down down. You squirm, you struggle, your body aches for air, your lungs feel compressed. But then, peace. Your mind focuses on the hand, her heartbeat in her thumb, you close your eyes and give yourself up. You are a peace, the water is just natural, just like you. And so whatever happens is natural too.

You drown.

You awaken different. Your body looks the same, upon examination. Everything where you remember. But it feels heavier. Not in a bad way, but like something changed. Like a weight you'll carry for the rest of your life. You look around at the room, bedsheets mottled with stains, walls inked with geometric shapes on a white background. A pink fades in and out of your vision as you blink.

"Fuck," you say. But it's not really you, is it? Don't you feel.... disconnected? Like this someone else is you? The words aren't yours, nor the movements, but the body is, and it says them. It moves the limbs and soon the feet stand.

You stretch your back, using the chance to get a good look at the ceiling above. It's a painting of a meadow. What a strange meadow, to be seen at this angle. Every view of it seems tilted. There is a door. You open it and walk through. Tentatively, like this is your first time here.

It is your first time here, after all. You've never been here before.

The lights in the hall flicker. An annoying, electric sound accompanies them. You close your eyes and blink, hard. Some pink shading appears, so you blink it away.

It lingers longer this time. Takes more blinks to fade. But you manage. The hall leads to another door, which you open.

Outside is a meadow. It is a meadow. Just a meadow. The grass's tickles sting as you walk past. The yellow of the dandelion makes you smile. Does the smile feel like a pull? Like a man grasping you from nowhere? Does it feel like a soreness?

You look around, hesitant, like a fawn exploring without its family. Finally, you hear a river. You rush to it with a speed you do not recognize, arriving in a trip, crashing into the rocks. Inspecting yourself, several spots of blood appear. You shrug and step into the water.

A lot of us were raised with the idea that “its normal for wives/children to get hit! it helps them learn– only white folk don’t get beaten when they misbehave”. That’s not true, white people aren’t the only ones who deserve a safe and abuse free environment. Black and brown people can and do have loving families. 

so... we may have made something.

have YOU ever thought like this?????? i know WE hate the current plural diagnostics!!!! so! WE MADE OUR OWN!!!!!!!

it's 44 questions long, you can receive a total of 50 points!

it's unfortunately hosted through google forms for now unless we find something better...

we are not doctors, do not take your result as medical advice.

feel free to reblog with your result!

the idea behind this quiz is pretty much exactly that. these are all fairly normal symptoms. on their own, none of these are a sign of plurality.

however, they start to become a sign of something more when there's a large percentage answered "yes"! all diagnoses are collections of symptoms, that was the core idea behind this :) we sent this to several singlets to make sure it worked, and every time, singlets got a significantly lower score than systems!

a lot of plural quizzes have confusing, vague questions that are really hard to answer when you have, y'know. a disorder that causes memory issues. so we wanted to help that by making the questions as simple and, like, normal as possible. that's why we say that systems(not all, but many) usually get a score of about 60% ^^

of course, there is overlap with other disorders that cause disassociation, we are 100% aware of that. like we said, this isn't a diagnosis!! 🫶🫶

THIS THING SHOOTS 6.5mm CREEDMOOR WHAT THE FUCK. FOR REFERENCE, THIS IS WHAT THAT ROUND LOOKS LIKE COMPARED TO A 9mm

GOOD TIME TO SHARE THE BATTERY INFO AGAIN SO YOU CAN SHUT THESE DUDES DONE

[image: first tweet in a thread by Dr. Sarah Taber, who is quote-tweeting The Verge’s tweet that reads “They’re putting guns on robot dogs now” and depicts the said robot dog. Dr. Taber’s full thread is quoted below:]

PSA for anyone who might be dealing with robot gun dogs, from a farm robot specialist who wasn’t really looking at robot wrangling from the public safety standpoint but here we are.

I haven’t worked w police/military robotics so I can’t speak to exactly how these are built.

But I can tell you, IME roboticists can be really naive about environmental conditions: making robots sturdy enough to handle rain, dirt, & other outdoor realities.

For example! I’ve worked w a couple startups that do fruit picking robots. They build the thing, *then* call me in to figure out how to clean it.

And half the time you can’t. Bc the picking arm has all these delicate cameras & servos that can’t get wet.

Folks who build robots at this time tend to be focused on making it do cool things like see, jump, run, & somersault. So they can release teaser videos that make everybody go “wow what a fancy robot”

They tend to be less focused on actual service performance: DURABILITY.

What’s this mean?

The joints, motors, cameras, & other sensors are more exposed than they should be.

It’s easy for water, road salt, grit, etc to get in there and cripple the robot.

I mean look at this thing. That housing’s got more nooks & crannies than a dang English muffin. You think that’s watertight?

For robots that work outside, not even watertight is good enough.

Farms add surfactants (like dish soap) to sprays. They make the sprays stick to leaves & get into all the nooks & crannies of the plant.

So farm robots need surfactant-proof seals. Not just waterproof.

Otherwise after a few hours in the field, you have a mix of dew, mud, soil & grit, and whatever surfactants you put in your last pesticide

mixing together & working their way into all the robot’s delicate parts. Scratching up the cameras. Jamming up the joints & motor.

If there’s any salt or acid in the mix, it’s even worse!

Some soils have a lil salt in them, or an acidic pH. It’s actually pretty common!

The salts or H+ ions work their way into the machine & corrode the shit out of EVERYTHING.

Bye-bye expensive farm robot!

Now let’s apply this to street settings.

Water. Dirt & grit. Road salt.

Just a little salt destroys metal! Even faster if it’s mixed with water, acids, surfactants, &/or grit.

And again, dirt & grit destroy joints.

They scratch up camera lenses & otherwise interfere with sensors.

They also scratch up any corrosion-proof coatings the engineers may have put on there, & expose the metals to water, salt, & acid.

These robots look super-vulnerable to normal wear & tear.

They look even more vulnerable to a super-soaker filled with common household items like salt, vinegar, & just a lil dish soap. Maybe with a lil diatomaceous earth to bump up the scrubbing power.

If they don’t go belly-up from short circuits immediately, they’re still looking at either an expensive tear-town, clean, & rebuild (takes the robot off the street for a few days)

or it’ll go belly-up within a week or two.

Both options are REALLY expensive & frustrating for own

Especially if they get hit with water/salt/acid/grit/soaps ASAP the moment they hit the street again.

Then the robots wind up spending more time in the shop on life support than actually doing their job.

That’s actually a pretty common outcome for automation!

Everyone gets excited about this fancy new machine that’s going to replace people. Then in real life it turns out to be broken all the time, can’t do shit, it’s a giant money pit, & eventually the sponsors give up.

idk just some thoughts on outdoor automation from someone who buries the corpses of failed robots for a living

it’s just really funny to me that these are supposed to be scary but probably can’t stand up to a water balloon full of pickle juice

uh… if you like “agricultural technology & the public good” you will love my book, for which there is a fundraiser with just a few days left [as of 2021 October 17] & it’s really close to the goal already 🍻

a lot of "signs of plurality" lists focus heavily on introjection and alter communication, two things that we have very little of. we wanted to lay out some experiences we had prior to syscovery with a focus on memory loss, identity confusion, dissociation, and unconscious masking since these are what we experience most. we hope this helps someone.

this is not an exhaustive list and identifying with it does not guarantee anything nor does not identifying with it mean you are not plural. we are one system and these are our experiences, which have heavy overlap with our other comorbid conditions. you know yourself/ves best, use your own judgement when reading.

feeling as though i was never a child even when my body was, that i was always an "old soul"

feeling as though i never stopped being a child, that my body aged without me

feeling as though it is my first day on earth and nothing has existed before the present moment

experiencing all of the above so strongly at different times that i cannot imagine feeling any other way

"i don't hear voices, i just have multiple overlapping trains of thought all reacting to and arguing with one another. probably the ADHD"

feeling upset as a kid that my imaginary friends didn't act the way i wanted, or that they didn't like me

remembering my childhood in third person, as though watching a movie of my own life

feeling as though i am having lines fed to me when talking about myself

remembering times that i was upset, but with the inciting incident cut out. being unable to understand why i felt the way i did

feeling as though the "real" me died a long time ago and i took their place

being talented at acting and lying. feeling like i have spent my whole life acting, as though "i" am a character i put on for other people

being afraid of voicing opinions because i know they might change suddenly, being upset when someone tells me a supposed opinion of mine that i no longer remember or agree with

knowing when i am supposed to have an opinion on something but not knowing what it is, having to make up my own opinions based on what i think "i" would most likely say

"what did you do today" i don't know "how do you feel" i don't know "what do you want" i don't know "did you have work yesterday" ...probably?

feeling like my body sometimes says things that my mind does not remember/agree with, or that i'm surprised to hear the things i'm saying

reflexively lying about things i didn't do because i assume i must have forgotten about it

being freaked out when someone touches my stuff without telling me, because i assume i moved it and forgot entirely. being afraid of how quick i can forget things

having excellent memory as a young child and terrible memory as an adult

"face blindness" where i can tell that people look familiar but feel like i have never met them, being unable to put faces in context

feeling like i have never actually met my own friends and loved ones

"i don't have amnesia, i can objectively tell you what happened. even when i do forget, i can usually put it together through context clues."

"it can't have been that bad, i barely remember it and don't feel upset when i think about it"

"i can't have DID, nothing bad has ever happened to me"

no name ever feels right longterm

creating alt accounts due to a desire to "pretend" to be someone else

lacking a solid sense of identity, feeling like a hollow husk of a person who occasionally experiences moments of clarity and wants to be treated as someone other than the "me" i present to the world

"i've never had a switch, i just have an inconsistent sense of identity"

"i've never had a switch, i have always felt exactly the way i do right now"

feeling like my mind is being pulled in several different directions, especially when i'm upset. being unable to act because different "parts" of me want different things

feeling jealousy when seeing other systems be open about their plurality. feeling like it's something you're not supposed to talk about

feeling guilty for being happiest when i'm "faking" plurality

feeling drawn to stories about possession, secret identities, or doppelgangers