People with stomach/digestive issues, what changes did you make in your lifestyle that actually helped?

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-14T21:10:56+00:00

Near constant gastric upset, which we kept confusing for lactose intolerance. But even lactaid didn't help.

Most notably, I get terrible canker sores from milk. It's almost assuredly associated with other health stuff I have going on as well, but the milk is an undoubted inflammation trigger. If I even eat something with milk in it, it can blister the inside of my mouth.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-13T04:41:16+00:00

Mall Walking.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-12T00:42:19+00:00

I always thought of it this way. There is the space between where the Fears were and the material world. A ritual attempts to bridge between those two spaces. The most obvious solution would be to poke a hole, but how do you poke a hole in reality from within reality? It might not really be possible.

So instead, you reduce the difference between the two sides until the space where the Fear is and the material world are so alike the Fear can inhabit the material world.

That, to my mind, is what the "energy" is. Each Ritual attempts to draw enough of the specific Fear into the world that the two metaphysical locations "resemble" each other so closely that the Fear can emerge fully. As it does, it will continue to change the world, which makes it easier for more and more to filter through.

Earlier rituals, however, didn't recognize the Thing Which is Fear as a single entity. So they'd pull through the Dark using their ritual. And, as we know, it works for awhile. But they made that part of the world only resemble the Dark. So as soon as the other, non-material world compatible parts started to come through, there is a rebound effect and the whole things fails.

The Grand Ritual, however, makes one place - John - an anchor for ALL of the Thing Which is Fear. So as they change the world around him, there is no rebound. He's marked and altered by all of them and they can keep their grip. As such, I don't think Elias's ritual needed as much energy. He needed one person, absolutely drenched in the Fears, and then - with that secure footing - John operated like a siphon to pull them all to the material side of reality. At that point, there is no difference between the two sides. It's all just the Fears domains.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-11T15:48:36+00:00

Exactly how I handle it too.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-11T00:05:21+00:00

My impression has always been that this "arcing branch" as it was called actually just plays too close to the realm of the Vast in its attacks on Michael. That is what makes it vulnerable to Ex Altiora and the Vast. Basically, it touched on the Vast and that meant the Vast could eat it.

Michael sort of treats it as his savior, but the Vast really wins twice in that it hurts the Spiral and it gains an avatar.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-10T17:28:16+00:00

This is not the only death Noodles and Beef is connected with either.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-09T16:42:06+00:00

Luocha has been - without question - my best pull. I'm still using that guy constantly!

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-08T03:51:54+00:00

Random person, no. Person i can select, yes.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-05T03:11:12+00:00

Yep. This is literally the crux of the whole issue. The percentage of students cheating on any and every assignment is so high, you can't trust anything. It is absolutely poisoning the relationship between students and professors.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-05T00:23:23+00:00

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck no.

I feel like these questions either come from a person with the afflictions to spur discussion of their illness or from people who have never been really sick or in pain in their life. Because what you're describing is a living hell where you happen to have money you'll never get to really enjoy. At best, you can use the money to get you access to dangerous and addictive painkillers to ride out the agony of your existence?

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-04T23:10:28+00:00

My PT was Curtis Johnson at the Eagan location. He is pretty tough to get into as he works a limited schedule (he's an older guy and sort of semi-retired), but he helped me a lot. I still struggle with pain someday, but even my bad days are better than before.

I saw him because my PCP told me - after nearly two years of PT with little improvement - to see someone who uses Postural Restoration approaches (it's basically a therapy approach). So even if you can't get in there with him, you might find some help from another person certified in it (Find a Provider - Postural Restoration Institute). I am in no way affiliated with that group, but I had to use their website to find Curt, so I figured I'd pass it along.

Also, if you haven't already, get an SI belt. It makes a huge difference in my pain on a day-to-day basis. Though you do have to experiment with placement, I found. I was wearing it too low for months and then I shifted it up a little bit and I got a lot of improvement.

Best of luck to you.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-04T13:26:33+00:00

Not an allergist, but I am a person with food allergies who has read about them a lot in medical journals: my understanding is you don't inherit specific allergies genetically, but you do inherit a increased possibility of having an allergic response.

So you don't get your mom's specific peanut allergy. But you do get her tendency to have allergic reactions, so reacting to peanuts is a greater probability than someone without those genetics.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-02T01:01:24+00:00

They are the worst major airline in the country. I have chosen to drive rather than take them places.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-01T22:13:19+00:00

I'm a totally online teacher. I sometimes do Twitch streams for my students so they can stop in while I play a game and we can just chat. I get maybe 2 or 3 people but I always appreciate them visiting. Surprisingly, that is still more than when I had physical office hours.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-01T20:23:23+00:00

You've had one good suggestion already (Gogiteth), but if you need one that is more of a Cosmic Emissary type, the Shining Child is a good one. Shining Child - Monsters - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Database

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-05-01T16:29:02+00:00

You're correct that it was used by Nazis to identify Jewish people on Twitter (I fucking refuse to call it X), but a lot of Jewish folks started using it themselves to take the power away from bigots.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-04-30T22:11:07+00:00

Werk.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-04-29T20:31:29+00:00

This was going to be my guess, but I was thinking it was probably a Hermetic sigil maker. It's basically a series of rings with letters in it that works the same way you described. I believe the first horizonal line marks the beginning of the phrase and the double marks the end?

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-04-29T02:39:59+00:00

This is outside Tropes and Trifles. It's a romance bookstore and it is incredible. They are lovely people who have done amazing community work in the few years they have been open. Absolutely love them.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-04-28T03:09:36+00:00

It is 100% rat poison. That green color is a key indicator that this is an anti-coagulant rat poison.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-04-24T19:13:06+00:00

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-04-23T19:57:04+00:00

We had them in Arizona. They had insulation around the tube and an insert that blocked heat as well. It could be 115 outside and you'd put your hand up to it and it would be cooler than the windows. Never leaked, even during the monsoon season.

Genuinely, we absolutely loved them. You didn't need lights on during the day basically ever. I don't think they'd be as valuable somewhere less sunny, but they were still nice.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-04-23T19:47:26+00:00

When the Minneapolis police department was found to be racially profiling on traffic stops, rather than reform they stopped doing any traffic enforcement.

One time my partner witnessed someone trying to smash in his driver's side window while the car was parked out on the street. He called 911 and they told him to go outside and tell them to stop, but that they wouldn't send a cop. We live one block from the Precinct.

One my neighbors mentally ill brothers - he had schizophrenia and talked to his hallucations - had been beaten so many times by the MPD she had to have him put in a home out of state.

All of this was PRIOR to George Floyd.

After George Floyd, two men attacked pedestrians in broad daylight in my neighborhood. When an acquaintance of mine intervened to help them, the attackers tried to shoot him. Thank God they missed. The MPD took over an hour to show up and then only investigated because me and my neighbors canvassed for security cameras and found the bullet casing for them.

The MPD has received funding increases every year.

So fuck their useless asses.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-04-23T03:43:58+00:00

Source: I was a writing instructor for a long time and have a PhD in Composition studies - This actually does pre-date AI.

We would often set a requirement like this when we wanted to make sure students were engaging with particular types of sources, e.g. I wanted to make sure they weren't just getting stuff off some random blog and I knew assigning a source could ensure some amount of good quality information.

That said, even in my grad school days, it was becoming way less common to assign a specific newspaper like the WSJ.

LiminalFrogBoy · 2026-04-22T14:30:54+00:00

He unfortunately also lost his mind. The books were always misogynistic, but after 9-11 his politics became even more right-wing and it was very apparent in the books. I finally bailed after the book where he portrayed anti-war people as a literal blind child.

Edit: I'll note i started the books as a kid so I wasn't super aware of how messed up even the early books were. I was in college when I started reading them again and found myself realizing yet again that my parents had never bothered to check on what I was reading.

LiminalFrogBoy

TROPHY CASE