That, my dear Fox, is nitpicking. Most men are weakwilled and well you know it. When a welldressed female enter a complex, the male's free will leaves and his primal urges takes over. Please, dear, you have seen it, experienced it and yet you say you haven't messed with a male's free will?! Nitpicking and well you know it...
Besides, it isn't my problem if they are spineless sniveling little cretins out to get blown away... derisive sniff
Let them grow a spine...

Your POV seems to say to me that you do not think of M'Lady Mantis as a totem.
Yet therein lies a contradiction:

Possessed by Mantis?? I beg to differ. I was chosen by her and I Recognized a part of me in her and she in me.
Possession, indeed... derisive sniff
I have offspring of my own and a lifemate who is wise. Mantis and I have made a Pact. Why take meta/humans when you can breed like meta/humans do?
Toyota salesman, used car salesman.. derisive sniff
Please, Fox, some style and grace would be more suitable from you.. This is so guttersnipish... sniff

Very true, as i said, the current guides are showing completeness and gathering their followers.

Is the incubus evil, or merely hungry? Where do you define the difference? Those who seek to declare some methods of gathering "good" and others "bad" are merely trying to justify their own hypocrisy.

Wow, the bugs have humor. Neat.

Hey, I am guilty of using magic to get bed fellows..But I don't eat them.Well, I don't kill them.The next day they go home,happy.

And let's face it, death is something you don't come back from, sex is.So in the heat of lust,a man, could think he wants something,and at that point it maybe true..Then again not everyone thinks what or where they will be in a year.So they throw their lives away. Next you'll blame drug-usage on the users...
Different-days

What of the Loa then? They possess their practishioners at whim, it that a problem for you? An insect possessee retains more of her original mind than one possessed by a Loa. Is the difference that the Loa appears to leave, while the insect obviously remains?

I am not sure what world you live in but it is a scary place. All those things you list do exist, except for control. Control on the world is an illusion. You od have control over your choices, right or wrong, good or bad. I suggest you stop using BTL's and come live in the real world, and while your at it, kill a few mantids.

I would really like to see some evidence to support the "destroy and mimic" that cannot also be explained by the "two minds become one."

Also, if a spirit of one kind can copy and alter a person's psyche over the brief time a merge requires, why can't a spirit of another kind alter a person's psyche during a possession?

The only difference is how familiar the spirit looks and how long it remains obvious. A spirit that looks like a man will be trusted by a man before a spirit that looks like a monstre will be trusted by a man. You suspect the bug spirits because they look different than you, yet you trust the Loa to be honest because they look just like you. If the promises of the Loa were made by spirits that looked like beetles, and the promises of the insects were made by spirits that looked like men, would you still accept the first and fear the second?

Bulldrek! Even we bugs do no more than merge with our hosts. Those who join with us are not lost; they become a part of something much larger!

You humans cast each other aside like wilted pettles and then call us monsters! Liars! Hippocrates! You are the monsters frightened by something better than your meaningless lives!

We take those who come to us and embrace them with love, give them shelter and purpose! Things your so called civilization has scorned to those not born into your made up castes!

We give all unconditional love! All who become one with us survive forever!

Heh. Whether control is an illusion or not depends on your point of view. Influence is certainly real, and Power is better than a BTL anyday.

Your chummer has first hand experience of what a spirit told him. If you think that spirit was the ultimate impartial voice of wisdom, you have learnt nothing since the first dragon awoke. Humans, dragons, spirits, and whatever other sentiences you find act according to their own interests. They are honest when it suits them, they lie when it suits them.

You cite hearsay to declare that a first hand witness is a liar. No court would accept such a weak argument.

Shadow, your statement shows that the only hope for you to actually grasp the situation is when you experience a major alteration. Maybe the manaflux will give you a silky coat of fur and some pointed teeth, and then you must try to convince others that you are still yourself and not a wild beast. Then you may understand how little difference there is between yourself and that which you fear.

Pointed teeth I got, Omae. They point upward as they jut out from my lower jaw. More'n one seemed to think that made me a wild beast. I may not have had ol' haley pull a number on me, but that don't mean I haven't seen my share of racial prejudice.

And you're damn right I'll trust a friend who knows as much about a topic as mine does. In a court he could give expert testimony on the topic. Courts don't dismiss that kind of thing. Like I said, I'm not the expert, he is. So if I don't have the terminology he does, pardon me.

And Kanada Ten, what makes this Dweller fella an enemy of yours? Seems more than 1 wizard knows about him and the few I've ever known have said anything outright bad about him. Is this Dweller guy the one keepin' ya on yer own side of the bridge unless yer summoned?

HAHAHAHA OMG I can't stop laughing. I'm a night elf omae, teeth and fur I got. And I have lived my whole life under the shadow of prejudice. But I am still me. I am still the soul I was born with. Can you say the same of those infected by bugs? I have seen them kill without mercy or remorce. Devoure body and soul ones they once called friend. You are no different than a metahuman turned Vamp. The person that was is gone, all that remains is the demon.

And you would slay without mercy or remorse, all it takes is to convince yourself that your target is not worthy of life. My statement still stands, if you were to change, those around you would doubt you. You are now a furry elf, but if tomorrow you were covered in scales, those who know you would doubt that you are still yourself. The vampires you despise are as inhuman as a man dying of VITAS. When a man knows he will die, and can do nothing to change it, they change, that is the same transformation you see in the vampiric.

Find a mage, ask him how much his life changed when he first saw the astral. Some were mildly aware their entires lives, some had the possibility thrust upon them, but all mortals who wield magic experienced a great change when they saw how little their world had been.

LOA, I couldn't tell you one thing about being possed by them.But Jager, a spirit that I let into my body is rather mean, and cruel.But I let him into my body, and he leaves.When Jager is my body, I see every thing, fell everything,but it is as if I am in a dream.

Now, when ameno, is me I just feel as if I need to be a better person..And trust me it feels good to let Ameno in.Don't get me wrong when Jager is me, I ama tank.Well, more a killer.See Jager is a killer,fighting fair is for Sole.

But no mater what spirit is in me,I am in control, or at least still in the car.Again,I am a gifted one,but tell me, have you seen the souls of those possed by mantids?And those possed by LOA...

different-days

Hush Child, you speak to the deaf and paint for the blind.
They wish to know nothing, they wish to see nothing but their world of petty cruelty, lies and the oh so cold credstick. They wish to cuddle to their inferior and debased morals, they wish to lash out at things they cannot reprehend nor wish they to do so. Meta/humans are an uncaring lot. If they seek proof of that; Look out the window or the news... Faith I lost in meta/humanity long time ago.

Every one who wish to know more of Magic knows the Dweller upon the Threshold. He is wisdom and intelligence and he is the first test for those who wants to see more of the Magic Within and Without.

Shadow, dear Shadow; If you had lived in a different age you would have been judged for as devil and thus burned upon the stake. What you do to me and my fellow mantid shamans are the same.
How good of you to be true to the meta/human vices, faults and imperfections.
It warms the cockles of a true mother's heart. This is the world I chose to place my daughters in. I am glad that I gave them fangs and weapons to defend themselves with.

Greece, I believe.

Vampires are diseased individuals who can only survive by draining the lifeblood of other metahumans. A mantid can happily go out for a burger at Mchughs and feels no desire to devoure the counter help or look at the playground as a snack pack.

To bring up mages is a wonderful example. The magically aware are changed. They have powers an abilities far beyond their fellows, they understand the nature of the world in a way different from 99% of the population but in general they are accepted as members of the community, even sought out professionally for their ability to perceive the world differently, but because people think they understand a mage most people accept them as a part of society, but a mantid spirit, which has similar powers, indeed their powers are more natural than a shaman's becasue they do not cause fatigue, is reviled becasue it's source is something different, but how much do mundanes know about the power of mages?

Mages or ladies who share their being with mantids both grew up in the same neighborhoods and at some point they have a life altering experience that makes them different from the normal population. Both can go out to dinner with friends, help out at bake sales and interact with the spirit world, but a mage is just a "human" while at the point someone realizes a what a mantid is its "Call Lone Star."

Centuries ago mages were burned at the stake by the hysterical population who said their powers came from a poluting source. If someone tried that today they would be called idiots or mindless brutes. Only a few decades ago this was done to metahumans in a blind panic, a night that is now remembered with shame and sorrow.

Only a year ago we saw a new panic of SURGE as some people were twisted, "mutated" was the ugly word bandied about by the irrisponsible press, so why is it so hard to accept Mantids?

They have claws and teeth? So does any troll-massiver muscles and horns or tusks. Orks have rough skins and savage teeth, and most of these races, if we deal in broad sterotypes, have a much harder time dealing with the cognitive process than does any mantid.

I cut through your story to the pertinant parts, you came between the mantid and her prey, the ant, who coming at you from behind was certainly trying to take your bodies to twist them into something alien.

the fact you do not list any "strange" desires to revisit the woman shows that you retain free will on the subject, if, as others claim without belief, they just use men as fodder, surely she would have "snarred" your spirit and devoured it, but that isn't how they work, it is just bad press, like saying that 17th cenbtury witches worshiped the devil.

Shadow: You feel desire to revisit the scene because as being awakeend you feel the desire to better understand the nature of the world, and understand that there are things beyond metahuman's ken. I'm sure if you arranged an interview with someone she would be happy to help your understanding.
By your own story the women were just defending themselves from a gang, what would you do? Surely if they were as monsterous as some claim they would have hunted down everything in the area, but they didn't, they merely defeated the people attascking them and went back to their business.

because I talk of a bond formed by trust, not slavery.When,I let them into me,it is because I know they will leave.They leave when we both feel the task at hand is done.

What Mantids do is move in,and at best run your the rest of your life.At worst, you are no more.

The spirits, I deal with at worst move in for a wile and take over my life,for a wile.Long enough to make sure that that harm passed.Mostly, they act like guides, to bring out what I sometimes forget.By the way, when I was in Aztlan hunting,I had Jager in me a month.I spent two months as Seraph, fighting up in Golden Gate.But look,I am still here.No,spirits in me.

Then again, you seem to only wish to see one side.But, if I am not mistaken,your a UCASer,and well....


Different-Days

If that is case, it should be legally equivalent to suicide. With some exceptions.

I have been providing debate. As usual, those who do not wish to think show the most classic arguments for genocydal fanaticsm as their reasons to hate. When their logic is shown to be weak, they attempt to attack the voice that vocalizes opposing view.

The purpose of even the oldest "forums" was to create an environment where the prejudices would be forgotten, and the worth of ideas would be debated. I will only respond to those providing rational discourse, not the thoughtless prejudice.

Doesn't it kinda depend on the situation?

Doesn't the husband deserve to know? What about what the wife wanted done with her remains?

Not to mention, shouldn't the husband be warned before his wife tries to take his head off? Literally? (And no Bobbitt jokes, please)

-Siege