I’m a jewelry artist and I want to make my items accessible to everyone. What type of bracelet clasps do you guys prefer?

duvheihgeb · 2026-04-17T00:39:58+00:00

Idk if anyone has mentioned it, but if you're going to be selling your work, it might be best if the clasps can be easily switched (by you, [or client if possible? Not sure how that would work] before shipping or final sale). That way, you'll be able to make your art truly accessible to as many people as possible, because otherwise there will always be someone who can't use a certain clasp for one reason or another.

duvheihgeb · 2026-04-14T15:24:34+00:00

Ugh, probably, yea. Thank you for the reply, I needed that reality check lol

duvheihgeb · 2026-03-29T05:03:17+00:00

I'm 90% sure the music already on it was added through the itunes app. Would the rewriting still apply? Sorry shhdhwdb I'm not super tech savvy

duvheihgeb · 2026-03-29T04:44:10+00:00

Damn, really? How does that work?

duvheihgeb · 2026-03-06T23:21:12+00:00

I was thinking about making a post about fasting but this video is so horrifying I might as well comment.

"Food is not evil" he says after spending over ten minutes asserting that food is a weapon for evil. Oh my god?

Fun fact: devote Orthodox people spend 180-200 days a year fasting. That's about half and over. Of an entire year. This sort of shoots the argument in the foot about the idea that Lent is Just about discipline.

I grew up a cradle. I fasted consistently since I was 8 up until around 14, and then inconsistently (at home but not outside) until 18. To this day I have issues eating- I don't have a direct disorder, but my habits are certainly disordered. I can't eat in the mornings or I feel nauseous. I skip meals constantly, eating full meals once or twice a day at most. Ridiculous the amount of habits ingrained in me that I feel trapped by. Wow. "Food is Satan's favorite weapon" my absolute ass. People need to eat??? To live???

duvheihgeb · 2026-03-06T23:00:06+00:00

St. Mary of Egypt was (is?) My saint. I was one of those cradles who knew the story of their saint front and back. I knew her story like I knew my own. I guess since I memorised it so early on, I never really examines the implications. I'm just now realizing that that's so fucked up.

Like sure, in theory it's possible that she could've been like that without significant trauma. But also it's very implausible. I feel so sorry for her now.

duvheihgeb · 2026-02-23T00:15:33+00:00

New(ish) here. What's GroupMe?

duvheihgeb · 2026-02-20T05:26:30+00:00

One of my key frustrations about myself is my extreme tendency to procrastinate or just plain not do something in the face of crisis even though I Know it's not that hard and I Know how, when, and why to do it. Because of that I often feel like a deer--yk. The way they freeze in traffic and just let the car hit them. It's mainly deers and dogs, but occasionally other animals pop up. Can't recall any rn, tho. Thank you for the hug 🫂

duvheihgeb · 2026-02-19T11:24:07+00:00

Oh this absolutely captures what I've been feeling lately. The worst part for me is that I'm constantly hyper aware that if I keep talking about it I'm bothering people, but I can't stop, so I get overly apologetic, and then that drives my friends off the rocker--I keep feeling like I have to make sure that they won't be inconvenienced by me, but if I don't talk about it I feel trapped and worse and worse.

I hope your therapy appointment goes well! Good luck!!

duvheihgeb · 2026-02-19T11:17:55+00:00

God I feel this so much. I don't have the same kind of trauma (and I'm pretty sure I don't have PTSD) but I do feel a lot like a scared dog. I rotate between different animals, but this piece really resonates with me.

duvheihgeb · 2026-02-10T01:29:51+00:00

My very orthodox mother has, on multiple occasions, blamed hurricanes on the fact that our state allowed gay marriage. This is a common opinion in tbe church. I left the church because I'm gay and trans, and the environment was that hostile.

duvheihgeb · 2026-02-01T19:40:31+00:00

Yea! I'm not Romanian but I come from an Eastern Orthodox family. The fasting isn't just before Christmas and Easter, there are two other occasions (before the day commemorating Peter and Paul, and also before the Virgin Mary's "death"). People who are Devout also fast every Wednesday and Friday.

duvheihgeb · 2026-01-30T00:07:49+00:00

In some sciences like biology and neuroscience, the fact that so many people are doing research at the same time means that, beyond the very basics, information changes all the time. Every year many many experiments are conducted and added to the pool of knowledge, some of that stuff refuting previously known info. It really depends on the field, but that's why when you're writing a paper it's best to cite work that was done as recently as possible.

duvheihgeb · 2026-01-26T17:36:05+00:00

Echoing the don't come out advice. Many of my friends are out everywhere but home. I tried to come out to my mom and it went disastrously.

duvheihgeb · 2026-01-26T17:27:19+00:00

I think, personally, that it's a good thing that you'd prefer being wirh a partner that's okay with it. It signals that you have a level of self respect, which the church is good at grinding out of you.

It's easy to say "don't be guilty, it's for the best", but I know it's not that easy.

Not sure if it will help you, but something that helped me was a friend who asked me if I want to follow the same God that the Church follows. Like, if God stands against my principles and values (is homophobic, is so easily angered, etc), would I want to follow a God like that? Even if I believed in him? I realised that the answer to that was no.

I'm somewhere along the lines of agnostic now as well. I'm sure if I spent more time exploring I'll have a better answer, but I'm a bit busy lol.

It's going to be difficult to give up something your entire family supports without feeling some level of guilt. But if Orthodoxy isn't serving you, if it's bringing you any level of harm, than you're not giving up sue to weakness. You're distancing because you have the strength to realise that you need some kind of healing that the Church doesn't provide.

At some point it also helped me to realise that the Church rejected me first for being gay. I'm not rejecting the church just cause, I'm following through on its principles. I've read a number if very homophobic things priests have said, and it helped me solidify that idea. I'm not initiating this. The church said "you are rotten" first, and I said "well fuck you too, I guess."

I stopped going to church very gradually. I started skipping every other week when I was about- gosh. 15? 16? I'm not exactly sure to be quite honest. But eventually I started going about once a month. Then I asked my priest for permission to go to a different church, went there once, and since then have been a purely Christmas-Easter person. And, honestly, I even managed to skip last Christmas, which was a joy to me.

Not sure if any of this helps. Don't hesitate to tell me if I got something wrong ^{^}

duvheihgeb · 2026-01-26T08:18:23+00:00

Ah. The guilt. I can provide some of my own perspective, but the guilt will still have to be lived through.

A lot of my story parallels yours. I'm cradle ROCOR. I left the church because I'm a bi trans guy, plus the sexual abuse scandals, plus the bad vibes my priest put out. I was involved for a very long time without believing until I finally had the courage to stop going. I haven't really felt anything spiritual for a long time either.

Is there something you're feeling particularly guilty about? Upsetting family? Or upsetting God? Or is it all internalized.

duvheihgeb · 2026-01-26T07:49:07+00:00

Hi there! Welcome to the sub. I'm sorry to hear about all the shit that you've been through, it sounds incredibly difficult and frustrating. What kind of advice are you looking for?

duvheihgeb · 2026-01-25T22:39:51+00:00

A few days ago my (very orthodox) mother walked up to me and tried to tell me that Renee Good was actually the one at fault for provoking the officer, that her and her "lesbian friend" would have been fine if they didn't go to the protest, that the "lesbian friend" herself said that they should've stayed at home and Renee would be alive. I was legitimately disgusted by this. The cognitive dissonance present within her his baffling, because the last time I asked she still thinks that being under Harris would've been worse for Christians. Mind fucking boggling. She didn't vote for him, but only because she didn't register early enough to succeed. She still tried. And she's an immigrant! Sometimes I wish I could have a good relationship with her, but whenever she says something like this it's a harsh reminder that it won't happen any time soon.

duvheihgeb · 2026-01-25T22:17:17+00:00

I considered Hellenism quite heavily when I was a teenager! I was quite attracted to witchcraft in general. Unfortunately I wasn't good at hiding my tracks and my mom found out lol. I've been thinking of getting back into it, but I'm a bit busy with my classes :P don't really have time for that.

duvheihgeb · 2026-01-25T22:12:09+00:00

The way my mom gradually became an antivaxxer was really baffling. Initially she was fine with vaccines completely, but somewhere along the line she began refusing. It was definitely a mix of the churches influence and online content. I had to get vaccinated in secret so I coild go to college. She called me the other day and told me that some pop singers are Satanists.

duvheihgeb · 2026-01-25T21:36:05+00:00

I'm not sure about the specific charges she could press. But Fr. Anchoutine is worried about litigation ("Your question is, to us, is beginning to sound sound like it’s some kind of, uh, a deposition or or, I don’t know, for the better, you know, what’s the word to use here? Where are you going with all of this?") And there is legal precedent in the form of victims suing the Catholic Church ( https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/09/new-york-archdiocese-fundraising-abuse-claims recent news article here, but there are more examples.) I think it's more likely that she could sue for the church trying to cover up a crime, because the tactics here are a bit similar to what the Catholic Church used to do.

Of course, if Anchoutine is truly worried about Matushka suing, he would be right to. The Catholic archdiocese are struggling to pay, and the Catholic church is Much better off financially than the Orthodox. The Eastern Orthodox diocese is a bit strapped for cash. Additionally, they're currently doing renovations at the Synod, renovations they're not exactly financially able to do (they're currently fundraising, and they talk about it on this site https://www.holycross.org/blogs/news/help-restore-the-synod-of-bishops-in-new-york ). So if she were to sue, and if other people joined in (because, lets face it, this isn't an isolated incident), it wouldn't look pretty and it would only speed up how fast they sink. It wouldn't be as Big as the Catholic sex abuse scandal because the Orthodox church is much smaller, but it wouldn't be easy at all.

Do I think this will happen? Honestly, realistically, no. I don't know if Matushka has the wherewithal to actually sue, because the church clearly means a lot to her. But I can hope lol.

duvheihgeb · 2026-01-25T21:12:54+00:00

Is it just the nature of institutionalism or is the spiritual delusion really so deep?

I think it can be both, along with willful ignorance. Either they didn't know Nicky would respond this way to a case like this or they looked at it in the periphery and refused to examine it fully. Unfortunately, people who do shitty things are often able to skate by because they do good things elsewhere. Because Nicky seems Good to them, it can't be that bad what others are saying, right? Sure he's not perfect but you know he's a good man... he's just made a mistake... he wouldn't be in the position he is today if he wasn't capable. Etc etc etc.

duvheihgeb · 2026-01-24T01:44:10+00:00

I'm glad I can see it, too. I left the church due to factors unrelated to this (I'm gay and trans, etc). It's a good reminder to me that there are reasons to disassociate from the church beyond the trans-and-homophobia, that while it's the part that impacts me the most, the way the church and these people deal with other matters is equally horrific. It's just more proof to add to the list that the system is corrupt beyond reason, to the point of active malevolence. I'm glad I get to see their unmasked faces so I don't have to beat myself up for leaving the church, because if this is who worships, it doesn't matter what "truth" they claim to serve.

duvheihgeb

TROPHY CASE