#((sorry for the mass post but there are a lot of you at once o_o))

[wisteria-lodge]

a thank you from an unburning lion secondary, with faulty bird model

I’m the lion primary who was doubting itself and who talked their way in your anon box to understanding themselves. You were pretty comprehensive and it was nice to really notice we share primaries xD One thing shocked me and left me O_O was at the end, when I left that commentary about bullies (my school knew me both for my excellent notes and my fights both bcs i couldnt left a situation alone) and you said, wow and a lion secondary.

i was shocked. Like I say this and I remember my earlier years and the problems I’ve always have talking with people and it’s my bluntness and lack of attention to others feelings which had always have my mother scolding me after going out with her or talking with friends or telling her about any interaction. Same with my father. And then I stopped. I started reading, I fell for fanfiction and manga, and lost my childhood friends bcs I coudn’t relate to them, and during all of HS until my second year of university I was so so alone. 

And I didn’t speak out about my feels. I still don’t. Not to my family not to anybody. I felt so guilty, because once upon a time I did whatever I felt and then I learnt that being so intelligent, and open about my feelings and my life was unsensible to people, and then I learnt (justly so I think) that I shoudn’t act without thinking about others. 

But I feel somewhere in the way, I started feeling guilty of being myself. I learnt I’m too much for people. Now I over-analyze every interaction I have; have i overshared anything? Did i let the other talk and express themselves? I do it before taking charge in a group assignment or outing bcs I internalised that they don’t want it, that I’m being annoying reminding them of the tasks or the things we should be doing. 

You need to sweet-talk people, and I’m bad at it and although sometimes it can be funny most often is just plain tiring. And I’m the first surprised when someone is direct about anything. I like so much, so much learning about things, I feel deep inside the correct way of approaching problems should be to consider them from every angle, analyze the facts and the feelings they provoke and then come up with a good solution; I write and I want to investigate everything before starting any story but I’m completely unable to do so. Same with my studies, same with people. 

And then I wing it and it results so much better and it’s frustrating. People say: you’re so good at this, you must study/dedicate so much time to it. And I just do enough to get an intuitive understanding of the concept and then improvise, and I feel like a fake. 

When I have time and I’m methodical, it’s satisfying (better for memorising and studying languages too) but the truth is that I function better when I hit the ground running. I think this society doesn’t like lion secondaries very much unless you’re a shit man. Then is suddenly comprehensible if not appreciated. So I picked a faulty model bird because it’s useful, right? And i like it from time to time.

But I feel like the idea people have of me, about how I act is all bird and it’s stiffling but I let myself go and don’t act in my feels or my thougths because there no reason at all to be myself and I watch myself writing this and wow. Suddenly my mother is telling me why am i not as outgoing as when i was young or my new friends are surprised because my personality changes. Like an onion: outwardly I don’t care about anything, then you discover I’m very intense about lots of things but very nonchalantly (I left clues and you have to pick them, bcs I’m not verbalising you know?), then you never know what I feel about those things except for whatever observation you’ve made. You just know the loudness. My mother tells me I never talk to her about myself, but still she knows how to pick what I feel about people and situations bcs I’m that obvious I guess.

But she was who taught me to think twice bcs nobody wants to feel stupid or wronged (neither do I, I understand). My father never liked who I was; why wasnt I more social, more normal, why did I have to be so strange so openly. (It’s mostly I’m half-sure I fall somewhere in the lower gifted range + maybe some neurodivergence, but in my country they don’t adapt nor care for above average students and a test sounds ridiculous and attention seeking and too expensive when I do fine right now.) 

Can’t deny the lion, but I never talk. Except on internet anonymously. Bcs contradictions are funny and you’re really kind. Again, about the start of this megapost. It was so surprising when you saw directly through that ask to the secondary, that I teared up. Yes, yes, that’s who I am why hasn’t anybody told me it’s ok to be sincere and direct? Why?

I was toying with bird and snake but those are covers. Trying to perform snake when I’m uncomfortable or I haven’t got familiarity with the people and bcs it’s improvising it’s easier, and model bird when I can with all knowledge I don’t even notice I have aquired reading what amounts to tons of wish-fulfilling fantasies. Like. It’s posible to burn a secondary? Bcs I think that’s what’s happened to me. And I’m trying little by little to recover that trust in my actions because I know I’m better that way, that I feel good being direct about things but I’m so afraid of others… Perseverance though!!! 

This sorting system has helped me see that, more than astrology. Mostly, these last years i had a wrong feeling about myself. I think this helped articulate why. This so maudlin omg xD But you received well my semi-creepy murderous self-isolating primary post so. Sorry again, and thank you.

PS: love to anybody who has ever felt like me. Also, mom is def a badger primary, now that i think about it. She really, really likes working with people, meeting with friends, helping them etc. ended up teaching yoga. She is super direct too, so maybe we share the secondary... which is rich, but also why I think she is also strict that sense. Thinking she doesn't want to see me suffering like her + why i frustrate her when i retreat into myself too. good old projection. THE END XD

My dear Lion ~ 

You sound like me. And yes, you will be “too much” for some people. But I promise you. There will be others who love you for exactly that intensity. Putting masses of planning and up-front effort into something doesn’t make the end result any better. I’m a badger secondary, that was a tough realization to have. And it’s okay to be afraid. But you seem on top of this. You’re going to be okay. 

(also, your English is fantastic. Really, really nice use of the word “maudlin.”) 

Good hunting ~ WL

[maryellencarter]

What is your middle name? -- You know, about a year ago in a D&D session, I was attempting to sass the big bad (I’m much better at sass when I have time to think about it, D&D is such a time pressure that I’ve wound up playing much more of a strong silent type than I intended), and I said “Defiance is my middle name” and the DM wound up making Defiance the name of the country my character is from. Which is a delightful sort of NYC/Vegas mashup, quite different from Defiance, Ohio. ^_^ Also the capital city is called Skreuyu (pronounced, of course, Screw-you). :D

What are you passionate about? -- Dear god. What aren’t I passionate about? O_O I could attempt a brief and incomplete list, but this is a long meme anyway. ;-) Besides, you’re here, you’ll hear about it all sooner or later. XD

Zebra or leopard print? -- Either one, but only if it’s in day-glo neon rainbow colors. And not to wear, particularly. Fake-fur blankets and pillows, mostly. Lisa Frank was... a formative influence. ^_^ If I ever have money to actually decorate a place of my own, it’s gonna look very much like Wes Janson decorated it, although possibly with fewer Ewoks. (I do have a BB-8 penny bank, though.)

Do you have any fears? -- Honestly, at this exact moment, I’m too damn sleep-deprived to know. XD When I’m awake it’s probably social anxiety stuff. When I wake up at 4am tomorrow in my car, I may or may not be having the kind of weird quasi-psychotic fears that come with a certain level of sleep deprivation, where I’m suddenly convinced my laptop is going to eat me. Right now, nothing especially comes to mind.

Silver or gold? -- To wear? Gold. My skin corrodes silver. But as a color, I like silver better.

Top three places to visit? -- Ooh. Um. That I’ve been to, or not? I want to go back to Washington DC, and someday I want to be extremely sane and go back to Indiana, and someday I’d like to go back to the Black Hills and see all the geology tourism things, because the only one I saw as a kid was Mount Rushmore, which is more of a colonialism tourism thing. That I’ve not been to... Scotland, maybe? And Hawaii and Yellowstone, again for the geology nerdery? I feel like there are places I’ve very specifically wanted to go someday that I’m blanking on.

Where are you from? -- Indiana, once upon a time. Love the place, cannot deal with the people. Miss the snow. And the autumn leaves. And the library.

First career you wanted as a child? -- Paleontologist, best I can remember. Some things stay pretty constant. I don’t have the physical health to be a geologist anymore, if I ever did, but damn, I still want to take some more classes or keep up with the field somehow.

What’s your sign? -- You know, I’m not being bothered with this at the moment. I’m sure it’ll come up in a reblog pretty soon, I do those memes a lot.

Future names of your children? -- I refuse to have any. Five generations my bio-family has fucked up, all by trying too damn hard not to be their mothers. I will be a weird adopted relative and not name anybody anything.

What are you listening to right now? -- A fifteen-minute instrumental cover of “Turkey in the Straw”, to block out the myriad noises of the fast food place so I can think words. I’ve been looping it for hours and I’ll presumably be looping it for hours more.

Do you believe in fate/destiny? -- I have a lot of weird conflicting opinions about things like fate and destiny. I think if the universe is being... directed, by a god or fate or destiny or anything with intelligence or purpose, it’s an asshole and ought to be punched. It’s not actually any less depressing if the universe is being run by random chance and just happens to shake out in ways that make it seem like it’s being run by an asshole, but it’s less angering. *tries to word* I do get the feeling, the... desire for shit to have a purpose and to make sense, but a big part of me thinks that’s pareidolia or something related. It’d be nice if all this bullshit was eventually gonna shake out to me being either a stable human being or an epic hero, but I strongly doubt it. (And even if it did, a smart enough god should be able to get me there with less suffering, if it wanted to. So at minimum, if there’s a fate or god or destiny directing me, it’s either sort of incompetent, or motivated by priorities like taking the most direct route rather than minimizing the chances for me to die along the way, or it’s kind of a sadist. Sorry, I have Feelings about this one.)

Ethan, however, has a take that I think is... relevant, to the state of the world at the moment. He thinks the specifics of the world at any given time are all determined by chaos and random motion, but that there’s a cosmic balance between... stuff that’s very hard to give names to. “Good and evil” is part of it. “Order and entropy” might be a little closer. “Light and darkness”, whatever. But there’s this cosmic balance, and if, say, the Forces of Evil or whatever you want to call them... if something pushes too hard in one direction, tries to make one side win, the universe is gonna bounce back. There’s always gonna be that push-pull. Lots of people can get hurt or killed in the process, but because Ethan and I both read LOTR at formative ages, where we wind up at is the line “They cannot conquer forever”. You can’t have... you can’t get stuck. This is probably terribly Manichaean or something of us, but right now that’s the best I can word. That there’s always gonna be the thing you are Against, but there’s also always gonna be the thing you are For, even if one of them gets pretty squished for a while.

What are your career goals? -- Sometimes what you want to be when you grow up is “paid”. ;P I’d like to reach a point where I never have to ask the internet for money again, while continuing to be alive, and maybe can even give other people money. Help support my friends, travel around doing meetups, go to conventions or whatever, maybe do some cosplay. What exact job I’d be doing, Chaos only knows.

What is your favorite color? -- Blue. Royal blue, midnight blue, cobalt blue. Often with stars on.

What is your favorite flower? -- Uh. I’m gonna say these little striped white and purple crocuses that would come up through the snow in the spring? I loved those.

What was the first concert/show you attended? -- The Monkees 45th anniversary reunion concert. I said at the time that I’d blown five years of luck on the improbable string of coincidences that led to me getting there, but I’m so damn glad it happened, because I enjoyed it immensely, and Davy Jones died before what would have been their 50th. And hey, that was 2011, maybe I’m accumulating some luck again. ;-)

Something you are working on right now? -- This meme? XD In more general terms, reblobbenating some really old posts from my previous blog, as well as filling up my queue from same. It’s pretty slow going.

Have you ever had a near-death experience? -- Not the sort where you see a tunnel of light or go out of your body. Just the kind where you nearly die. :P

Are you a procrastinator or do you get things done early? -- Pfffft. Time management is something that happens to other people. ;P Occasionally I do get something done right away, but mostly it’s the night before deadline, or sometimes the night after. o_O Maybe when I have some spoons I’ll be better at that.

Left or right handed? -- Right. Very much so. My left hand is clumsy enough that I never did really get the hang of playing the piano with both hands, and I still struggle with video games that aren’t Mass Effect. (I’m good at Mass Effect because I’ve been playing it for something like five years at this point. ^_^)

TV Shows and anime you watch regularly -- Hah. I don’t watch anything regularly. I don’t even read books regularly, I go through phases where I don’t read a book for months and then suddenly I’m reading ten in a day. And I don’t do open canons, anyway; they interact badly with my particular anxieties and stress levels.

Halloween costume idea for this year? -- I generally default to a cowboy or a pirate. I also have a witch hat now. But I might come up with something else. Living in an apartment complex, though, there will be no trick-or-treaters, so unless I wind up working somewhere that does Halloween costumes, the point is rather moot.

What is your relationship status? -- Single, aromantic, have never dated anyone, would rather like a primary relationship at some point but that’s an issue for when I can support myself. :P

Last movie you just watched? -- I genuinely don’t know. Probably Black Panther? No, that was like February. Hot Fuzz?

A song that’s been stuck in your head? -- This very seldom happens to me. I think the last one was Janice Buckner’s “Strange Friends”, a little-known ‘80s children’s song, of which I can remember neither the tune nor the lyrics. Usually I can at least remember the lyrics even if I don’t know what tune they went to.

A book you want to read/have recently read? -- Erm. I just reread Aaron Allston’s X-wing books, if you can call it rereading when I was mostly skimming looking for good tumblr URLs (I found a lot, but none that felt like me). I’m not really in a reading phase at the moment, so.