#but ppl really act like it's not the first word women also call each other in a fight

[barbatos-sama]

not twitter saying gay men aren't allowed to call women bitches even in the most light hearted context and calling it a misogynistic slur

[visible-schizo-spectrum]

i don’t vague. i am not ab that. @phoenixonwheels . let’s break down some of ur points. i assume u r open to genuine discussion since u post in the public sphere.

first thing first. “MERD” is not an analog to “TERF.” trans exclusionary radical feminism says that transgender women can never be women, and transgender men are lost women. “mental exclusion” would theoretically mean that cripplepunk is solely for the mentally abled physdis community. but this is not what happens, and the vast majority of cripples are also mentally ill/disabled.

second. calling out the use of insane/idiot/etc does not work for that exact reason. you do exactly what you seem to be upset at other ppl for doing. they assume you are able bodied and you laugh at them for telling a wheelchair user that cpunk isn’t for them. we laugh bcs you act like the average cripple is mentally well and casually using slurs as if the most popular mean cripple exclusionist isn’t bipolar and you’re not arguing with neurodivergent and mentally ill ppl every day.

third. “mental disability” in those exact words is terminology that the b/id community has been asking others not to use, but ofc nobody ever listens to intellectually disabled ppl bcs changing language is so awful. most mental disorders are what we prefer ppl to call psychosocial disabilities. even if you don’t give up this MERD thing (bcs you obviously won’t and will block me after this and cry ab exclusionism and i really don’t care) at least consider changing this language.

fourth. if your mental or psychosocial disability causes physical symptoms, THE PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS ARE THE PHYSICAL DISABILITY. if you have anxiety that causes you constant blood pressure and heart issues and chest pain then nobody in cripplepunk gives a shit where it comes from. your physical symptoms are physically disabling. your disability is your business all we are asking is “does it affect you physically.” cripplepunk communities are AWARE that these are not strict categories and the two impact each other.

you seem like you have a very poor understanding of cripplepunk spaces, likely bcs you don’t actually want to communicate in common ground terms. if you went to a community space and said smth like “i have autism which caused me pretty severe motor skill and coordination issues, i therefore identify myself as physically disabled and a cripple” no one would care. literally no one would care.

final point. how do u feel ab the idea of mentally abled cripples calling themselves insane and participating in madpunk/neuropunk?

[nothingtoseeherebyeexx]

Delicate, Chapter Four: Party in the USA…at Potter Manor? (Mary’s Version)

i had to split this chapter bc it was 9k words 😭 anyways mary meets the gang and everyone has fun!! ppl drink, dorcas and marlene are a mess, mary and lily are cuties.

< prev chapter next chapter >

Mary, surprisingly, was far more comfortable than she expected.

Narcissa had warned her that ‘small gathering’ for the Potters actually meant private met galas, but spending time with Narcissa and living with her had taught Mary that those distant, untouchable celebrities were, in the end, just human. If things got too overwhelming, Mary could always try to see this party like one of her high school proms, with jocks, nerds and mean girls. Sadly enough, it worked.

She also had Narcissa and Lily, who were extremely helpful in feeling less like a fish out of water.

Lily alone could distract her from everyone else by simply existing: in person, her eyes were the brightest shade of green, and her red hair flowed like a cloud every step she took. Her round face was scattered with freckles, (her arms, her cheeks, her nose, her forehead) and she had dimples when she smiled, that of course were the first thing Mary noticed, because the instant she had arrived at the door, Lily had beamed like a star. When she had taken her and Narcissa’s hands and dragged them to Mrs Potter, Mary was still too dizzy to worry about anything, and all the tension had disappeared.

“Effie, these are Mary MacDonald and Narcissa Black. Mary, Narcissa, this is Euphemia Potter.” Lily smiled, tilting her head.

The woman had wrinkles around her eyes and her dark hair was streaked of grey, but the look in her eyes was young and mischievous, her posture composed but not intimidating. She was wearing a bright pink sari and gold jewels that tingled when she held Mary’s hand affectionately. Her skin was a bit rough, but her palms and fingers were decorated with delicate flowers and complicated designs.

“Mary, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you! I’m James’ mother, he’ll be here soon enough. Lily has told us so much about-“

“Mary! Let me take you on a tour of the house.” Lily interjected with a tight smile, putting her hands on Mary’s shoulder and pulling her away, but she didn’t lead her really far. Effie didn’t seem too bothered by the interruption, and she soon started chatting with Narcissa instead.

Speaking of Narcissa, she seemed to have recovered quickly from her disastrous encounter with Alice, but Mary knew she was hurt. If anything, Narcissa’s polite smiles and friendly demeanour were a clear sign she was trying to act nonchalantly. Mary would talk to her about it, when they came home.

“Sadly, I have to greet the guests until the boys show up, so I can’t chat with you properly,” Lily apologised, “But I promise I’ll make it up to you once the party has really started.”

Since the room was a bit noisy and she didn’t want to shout, Mary turned her head to speak directly in Lily’s ear, pretending to be offended. “It’s a shame all these people are stealing you from me. At least Narcissa is still on my side.”

As if on cue, a loud gasp coming from a few steps form them attracted their attention.

“Oh my God. Narcissa Black?” called one of the mean-girl looking women, with a champagne glass in her left hand and the other dramatically pressed against her chest.

“Evelyn Zabini?” Narcissa answered, surprised, “Oh. My. God.”

The two ran to each other, exchanging a quick hug and affectionate kisses on cheek. Then they started talking so fast Mary couldn’t keep up, and was left on the sidelines watching the couple shoot words at each other faster than a machine gun.

“Ugh, more people are coming,” Lily cursed, turning to the entrance.

“I have to go. Zabini is with a friend of mine though,” she nodded towards the girl standing behind the woman. “She’s cool. I bet you’ll get along,” she added, giving Mary a squeeze before disappearing.

Mary appreciated Lily’s optimism, but the girl looked positively intimidating.

From a closer look Mary could tell she was younger and much taller than Evelyn Zabini, and was surely the best dressed at the party: her black hair was arranged in a complicated up-do, her locs ornated with gold jewellery, and she had plenty of rings, necklaces and bracelets to cover her fingers, neck and arms. Even her dress, white, long and figure-hugging, had gold accents, and she wore it proudly and easily, like a knight in armour. Mary was ready to bet her right heel that she was a model.

“Hi, I’m Dorcas Meadowes,” she introduced herself, politely, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ve seen you around…What’s your name?”

Okay, so scratch the mean girl part, Dorcas seemed pretty nice, despite the austere appearance.

“I’m Mary MacDonald,” she smiled, “I’m a friend of Narcissa’s. I’m releasing an album soon, so I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of me yet.”

“I like the ‘yet’,” Dorcas smirked, “But if you’re that Mary MacDonald, then I actually have heard of you before…did you perform with Narcissa for the Yule Festival?”

“Yes, I did,” answered Mary, surprised. “And you remembered me after a single song?”

“You sang really well. And, well, I have my ways to stay informed.”

That did feel a bit ominous, but Mary just nodded along.

“So…you’re a friend Lily’s. Are you also a singer?”

“Oh, I wish!” Dorcas chuckled, covering her mouth with her hand. “No, I’m a model.”

Told you.

And then, Lily was right next to her, her sage green dress swishing. There was always something in motion with Lily, Mary didn’t know where to look.

“They’re here!” Lily proclaimed, grabbing Mary’s arm.

“Is Marlene with them, too?” Dorcas asked, with renewed interest.

“Of course she is,” Lily smirked, “Are you going to talk to her this time, Cas?”

“Oh, shut up.” Dorcas rolled her eyes, and then the three of them, followed by the rest of the people in the room, walked towards the entrance.

Ten minutes in, and Mary had already lost Narcissa. Peachy.

All around her, people were eyeing the door, whispering excitedly.

“Once the others arrive, the party can really start,” murmured Lily with a soft smile.

And soon enough, a blonde girl slammed the door open, gathering everyone’s attention.

“Make way, the King is back from war! All hail Peter Pettigrew!” she announced, and with a theatrical twirl, she made space for the three boys behind her.

“He was actually on tour, but Marlene loves being dramatic,” explained Lily, radiant. Mary could read in Lily’s face that she was enamoured with her friends, and she felt a pang of jealousy in her chest: she had never really felt a connection to the people she used to hang with, being busy with part time jobs and helping her parents with chores and taking care of her brothers, so all the friendships she had in high school had quickly died after graduation.

She supposed she had grown too quickly for the other kids her age.

If the atmosphere up until five minutes before was overall calm and formal, the boys’ arrival surely changed the mood: the quiet whispers turned to shouts, the polite laughs to whistles. Two boys, that Mary recognised as Sirius Black and James Potter, had entwined their arms forming a human throne for the third young man, Peter Pettigrew, to sit on during his regal entrance, and they were all stumbling inside rather precariously. (“Lower, lower, you’ll hit the door!” “We’re trying, Marls!”)

James and Sirius lowered Peter to the ground, and immediately shielded him from the crowd, like bodyguards would do, but Peter was still greeting everyone like a king meeting his subjects. The crowd went along with it, cheering and extending their arms like insatiable fans.

Lily launched herself at Peter with a laugh, ending the ridiculous farce. People slowly went back to their conversations, but the house seemed livelier, louder than before.

“Black, King Peter is under attack! Restrain this woman!” James shouted, and tried to detach Lily from Peter, but the both of them just hugged each other more tightly.

“Her aura is too strong, Potter! McKinnon, we need help!” called Sirius.

“That’s enough, boys,” interjected Peter, slightly out of breath. “Let me say hi to our Lils. Hi, Lils.”

“Hi, Pete,” she smiled. “How was the tour?”

“Fun. Exhausting. How are you?”

“Very well. Actually,” she turned to James and Sirius, “I have to introduce you all to someone. Marlene, you’d better not have spoiled the surprise.”

Mary wasn’t really far from them, actually, but being all so focused on each other, the group hadn’t noticed her presence, yet. That of course changed when Lily, after giving her a reassuring look, gently put a hand on her shoulder and led her closer to her friends.

“Mary, these are my friends. People, this is Mary MacDonald.”

A small part of Mary was a bit scared of the heavy judgement that was bound to happen, but the eyes of her jury seemed to quickly light up in recognition.

James was the first to speak. He was wearing a bright button down and gold rimmed glasses, paired with a bright smile. Apparently, all of Lily’s friends smiled a lot.

“Hello, Mary. I’m James Potter, it’s a pleasure to meet you. You look amazing, by the way.” He offered her his hand and she shook it gladly. Before she could even reply, though, Sirius barged in with a grin. He looked like a rockstar from the seventies, with the leather jacket and flared jeans that drove girls insane.

“Sirius Black. You’re the girl who sang with my cousin, right?”

“Yes. I’ve been working with Narcissa for a few months now.”

“Damn…Willingly?” he asked, sincerely worried.

That genuinely made her laugh, and it was Peter’s cue to introduce himself.

Mary had the sneaky suspicion they were trying to surpass each other at making her comfortable.

“Peter Pettigrew. These idiots made sure everyone knew it the moment I stepped in the room, though, so…” he said fondly, and shook her hand. “Lily told us about you-“

“Mary! You haven’t met Marls yet!” Lily interrupted him, and soon the blonde had her arms wrapped around Mary’s neck. Mary reluctantly hugged her back, and let Marlene rest her chin on her shoulder.

“Marlene McKinnon. And yes, Lily hasn’t stopped talking about you since she saw your video,” Mary noticed the glare sent in Marlene’s direction.

Lily had been talking about her. Oh.

“Holy shit.” Marlene whispered, tightening her arms around Mary and blocking her from thinking too much about the implications of Lily Evans talking to her friends (repeatedly) about her.

“Marlene,” greeted Dorcas.

“Meadowes,” Marlene replied, icy, and Mary couldn’t see her face but she had the feeling she was being used like a human shield, covering Marlene by the deadly, super-model shaped threat.

“Is Regulus coming?” asked said threat to Sirius. Marlene let Mary go.

“Yes, he’s picking up Pandora. They’ll be here soon, I think.“ Sirius replied, turning to the door and glancing at the dark, empty street.

Coincidentally, a young man appeared on the doorstep, apparently searching for someone with his eyes.

He was certainly not Regulus: he was ridiculously tall and looked a bit out of place, with his white t-shirt and jeans. He had tattoos on his arms, snaking around light scars.

“Remus!” Peter called, approaching him with open arms.

“Oh, hey,” Remus answered, “I’ve parked your car, but I couldn’t find a closer spot so you’ll have to walk down the street. It’s on the right, after the yellow house,” he continued, pointing to somewhere in the dark, the car keys tingling with every movement. He had a deep voice, a bit husky, and a Welsh accent.

“Before I leave, I wanted to bring you your keys-“

“Oh, friend of mine,” Peter laughed, putting an arm around his shoulders.

“You’ve fallen into my trap. I’m now forcing you to meet the rest of my friends. Guys, this is my bassist, Remus Lupin!”

As he approached the group, Remus’ gaze travelled from Peter to them, a mix of panic and annoyance, and stopped on Lily, who was squinting at him, focused.

“I know you!” She exclaimed, pointing at him, “You played at one of my first concerts! You’re the tall dude who reads Virginia Woolf!”

Remus laughed, surprised, and offered his hand. “Lily Evans. How did you even recognise me? It’s been years!”

“Remus,” explained Lily, “You’re a scary tall bassist who reads classics pre-shows. Most people usually get high. Of course I remember you!”

“I let my hair grow, though!” Remus protested, pointing to his head for further proof.

“A haircut doesn’t completely change your appearance-“

“Now that’s a lie, Lils,” interjected Sirius, then looked at Remus. The dramatic pause felt a bit suspicious to Mary, but surely Black was not going to flirt with-

“I’m Sirius Black.”

“I know,” Remus shook his hand and added, sarcastic, “It’s your real name? I thought it was just a stage thing.”

“Watch your mouth, Remus Lupin who reads Virginia Woolf,” Sirius said with an eyebrow raised and a smirk that didn’t falter. “Do you have ‘ALPHA WOLF’ tattooed somewhere, too?”

“You’re onto me. Stick around and find out,” Remus countered, raising his palms.

Oh, they were so going to hook up. Mary generously gave them forty minutes.

The rest of the introductions were less flirtatious, although it was hard to tell in James’ case: Mary guessed that probably Potter was like that with everyone. (“I’m James Potter. Where did Peter find you, Remus? You’re handsome as hell!” “Thank you. He found me in a dumpster.” “That is correct.”)

As Lily, Marlene, Peter, James and Sirius started talking animatedly, Mary was inevitably cut off from the conversation, but at least she was in good company: she, Dorcas and Remus stood next to each other, a bit awkwardly, and their hands were promptly occupied by glasses of champagne. Not like Mary was going to drink so soon.

“This may be a bad time to confess that I’m terrible at remembering names, and there are a lot of people here already,” whispered Remus, “Is anyone else coming?”

“Sirius’ brother and another friend,” replied Dorcas easily. “Pandora is unforgettable, so I don’t think you’ll have problems with her. Regulus looks exactly like his brother, but he’s more…reserved.”

“Do you know them well?” asked Mary.

“We’re friends, have been for a while now,” then she added, with a malicious smirk, “Have you heard the rumours about Regulus and Pandora?”

“Rumours? What, they’re together?” asked Remus.

“They say so on the Internet,” sighed Mary, “But I wouldn’t be so sure. You can’t trust what they say online.”

Dorcas glanced at her, looking pleased. “Lily did say you didn’t seem bothered by the public opinion.”

“I don’t care for the words of people I don’t care about,” Mary shrugged. She had accepted to work with Lily because Narcissa and Amelia thought it would be a good idea, and even the impression she had of Lily was more than positive.

“Anyways,” Mary continued, raising an eyebrow with a smirk. “You’re friends with Lily and her lot. As much as I enjoy your presence, why are you here and not with them?”

“You-“ Dorcas pressed her lips together, stressed, and averted her gaze, focusing on the champagne glass in her hand. “It’s complicated. I mean, I’m not the one making it complicated, but-“

During the silence that followed, Mary and Remus glanced at each other, sharing that complicity only two people who are going to be annoying to a love-struck fool share.

They moved closer to Dorcas.

“What happened, Dorcas?” cooed Remus.

“Who’s breaking you heart, Cas?” mocked Mary.

“You two are horrible,” declared Dorcas, bashful. It was strange, seeing her so timid, but Mary found it endearing.

“Sirius, he’s here!” James exclaimed, out of the blue.

Regulus Black had indeed stepped into the house, holding hands with a girl that was presumably Pandora Lovegood. They made for a really odd pair: where Regulus had short, black hair, Pandora had long, blonde locs; the first had pale skin dotted with moles, the second a darker, smooth complexion; he was wearing an elegant black suit, she looked like her outfit had been weaved from clouds during a sunset. They were polar opposites, but somehow it made sense, like they balanced each other.

Sirius’ head perked up and in seconds he was approaching his brother, going for a hug, but Regulus averted him easily, letting Pandora wrap her arms around Sirius instead. The man drooped on her, acknowledging Regulus’ victory, and started swaying, crestfallen, still holding a giggling Pandora. After she patted Sirius’ sorrows away, she let him go and jumped into Dorcas’ arms, giving her a kiss on the cheek and an enthusiastic “Hi!”, and then did the same to her other friends, even when it came to Mary and Remus’ turn.

Mary thought she smelled like candy, and it was extremely fitting.

Regulus simply gave everyone a nod. Reserved, alright.

“Who are the strangers?” asked Pandora, grabbing Regulus’ hand and motioning towards Mary and Remus’ general direction.

“She’s Mary MacDonald,” explained Lily, “She’s a singer.”

“Not yet, Evans,” smiled Mary, “I have yet to publish my album.”

“Technicalities.”

“Regulus Black,” greeted the boy, politely offering his free hand. Mary shook it and found it cold, which was also extremely fitting.

“And he,” intervened Peter, grabbing Remus by the shoulders, “Is Remus Lupin. My bassist.”

Regulus shook hands with him, too.

“He was mine, first. Enjoy my leftovers, Pettigrew,” smirked Lily.

“Keep an eye on Potter then, Red,” joked Peter, winking at James.

So James and Lily had dated, then. Mary wouldn’t have guessed it, just by looking at them: they seemed pretty at ease around each other, which was unusual for exes.

“Are we going to stand here all night?” asked Regulus. “Because if that’s the case, I’d like to at least have a drink in hand.”

“I’ll make you one,” offered James, “Mum should also be in the kitchen, she’ll be happy to see you.”

“Is Fleamont here, too?” Regulus asked.

“He’s probably in his study. We can stop by, if you want to say hello.” James smiled.

Apparently, the Potter’s were used to having James’ friends around, given how at home everyone looked. Would Mary have something like that, too?

“Okay,” Regulus nodded, then turned to Pandora, who was still holding his hand.

“Do you want anything?”

She thought about it. “Mmmh…do you have pomegranate juice?”

“I’ll…see what I can do,” answered James, unsure.

And with that, he and Regulus left, and an embarrassed silence fell on the rest of the group.

“…Shall we reclaim our sofa?” suggested Peter.

~

One hour later, Mary found herself squeezed between Dorcas and Marlene, sitting on a sofa that surely wasn’t designed for six people: James, Sirius and Peter were also with them, and they kept moving around and swaying so much that Mary thought one of them was bound to fall off, sooner or later. Lily was sitting on the sofa’s armrest and talking to Remus, who was on the floor. The boys had tried multiple times to convince him to lay on them, but Remus had wisely declined the offer.

Regulus and Pandora were sharing an armchair, and Mary couldn’t help but feel conflicted: those two really acted like a couple, and at the same time there wasn’t any romantic tension between them.

There was tension between Marlene and Dorcas, though: the model had tried multiple times to strike a conversation with Marlene, who resolutely ignored her. Mary attempted to help Dorcas by trying to include Marlene while they were chatting, but the couple ended up bickering, so she had ultimately given up.

Mary had even ended up there completely by accident: Marlene at first had sat next to Lily, but then Lily left her spot for Mary ‘who never had sofa privileges’, and then Dorcas had sat next to Mary.

An unfortunate turn of events that saw Mary trying to divert the awkwardness by eavesdropping on Remus and Lily’s conversations and keeping an eye on Narcissa: Mary did lose her at the beginning of the party, but she had kept an eye on the kitchen door, since Fortescue still hadn’t left the room, so as long as she stayed there and Narcissa stayed not there, Mary didn’t have to worry.

“Oi, why don’t we play Soundtrack?” proposed James, after a while. Sirius, Peter and Marlene immediately agreed, while Lily and Regulus groaned simultaneously.

“Every time we play that game I forget every title of any song I’ve ever listened to,” lamented Lily, while Regulus protested, “Someone always ends up making it dirty. Always.”

In the commotion stirred by Regulus and Lily’s uncooperativeness (“Don’t be a party pooper Evans.” “It isn’t always sexual, Reg!”), Mary managed to make herself heard when she asked, curious, “What is Soundtrack?”

The group quieted down, probably realising that Mary, along with Remus and apparently even Dorcas, had never played the game. For some reason, James and Sirius seemed particularly shocked by the fact.

“It’s easy,” James started explaining, “Someone makes up a scenario, or chooses a topic, and the others have to think of the title of a song that best describes it. Then the group votes for the funniest pick, and the winner decides the next topic.”

“Seems easy enough,” commented Remus. “Who’s starting?”

“So we’re actually playing, then,” sighed Regulus. “I’m quitting as soon as someone makes it dirty. I’m warning you.”

“I’ll start,” said James, turning on the sofa to face as many people as possible, although it was difficult in his disadvantageous position.

“Imagine,” he began, emphasising his words by spreading his arms. “It’s Friday night and you’ve just got home from the bar, you’re a bit drunk, and have no clue where your home is-“

“I forgot James was the one with the long-ass scenarios.”

“-It’s part of the fun, Baby Black. You’re trying to find your home, and suddenly an old woman appears…”

They play some rounds, and Mary has fun, indeed. Lily’s shocked face when Pandora used the title of one of her songs was priceless (“You listen to my songs???” “Of course! Girls support girls!”), and Sirius’ explanations behind each and every title he chose were ridiculous, but James was always there to back him up. Even Marlene and Dorcas were almost at ease, despite being so close.

In the end, it was time for Dorcas to choose a topic. She looked at Regulus maliciously, and he immediately tensed next to Pandora, who was slowly slipping off the armchair.

“Describe your sexual life-“

“Fine, Meadowes, if you wanted to stop playing, you could’ve just said so.”

“Come on, Reggie,” smiled Sirius. “It’s the funniest part!”

“Not when your brother is also playing,” Regulus retorted.

“Jesus, it’s just a game! I don’t want to think about you being involved in…” Sirius made a disgusted face. “Those activities, either. It doesn’t have to be true.”

“Fine. Nobody, then,” Regulus answered, snide, like picking a notoriously depressing song for a vulgar question consisted as an act of rebellion against his brother.

Well, at least now Mary had one more reason to believe he and Pandora were not together.

“Emo bitch,” Sirius whispered.

“Supermassive Black Hole,” Peter said, looking straight ahead like a divine entity had foretold him the answer. Marlene cracked up.

“Escapism,” Mary proposed, getting a few grave nods from Remus and James, and a “that’s deep,” from Dorcas.

“Don’t Stop Me Now,” offered James smirking, and Sirius shoved him (causing the rest of the people one the sofa to squeeze even more) for stealing his answer.

“Under Pressure,” said Remus, and Sirius turned to him, this time, so quickly his neck almost snapped.

“Queen fan?”

“Bowie, mostly. But I like Queen, too.”

Mary noticed that, surprisingly, Remus and Sirius hadn’t fucked yet. She suspected Remus enjoyed the flirting but wasn’t that willing to jump on Sirius the first time they met, while Sirius, well…Sirius was a bit of a mess when it came to the scary bassist.

Mary didn’t give them enough credit.

“I have it! 4 Minutes” exclaimed Lily, clapping her hands, and James, along with everyone else, immediately erupted into loud laughter.

Mary was suddenly struck by how unbothered everyone around them was: even she had forgotten she was at a party, a fancy party, with rich, famous people. Even the young adults surrounding her, they were all supposed to feel far, far from her. Powerful. Unattainable.

But James Potter laughed, Peter Pettigrew shoved a giggling Sirius Black, and Lily Evans’ face became red from embarrassment.

It was so easy to feel like one of them.

“Oh, uhmmm…” Pandora looked troubled. “Who are you. There must be a song called like that.”

“It doesn’t count if you use a normal sentence, Dora. If it doesn’t exist, you’ll have to pick another,” said Peter, struggling to pull out his phone from his pocket. “There’s one, it’s called Who Are You, by The Who.”

Then he turned the volume as high as possible, and everyone got closer to hear.

“…Is it the fucking CSI Intro?”

The music was quickly drowned by shameless laughter that didn’t stop until the song was over.

Even Regulus chuckled, for the amusement of anyone who noticed.

“Oh my-Okay. Okay, my turn,” began Sirius, still breathless, ”Now, this was my third option, so it’s not the best,”

“Excuses. Just say it sucks and let’s move on,” interrupted Regulus, well settled on the armchair. He looked pretty entertained despite his aversion to the topic. Pandora, in the meantime, had fallen to the floor, since apparently the weight of thinking of an answer had slowly pushed her off the seat.

“A boost to the ego. Thank you, Reg. My answer was Glad You Came, but my brother brutally decapitated my confidence, so…”

Sirius was met with chuckles from everyone (but his brother, since the first rule for younger siblings is to never gratify the oldest, in any way), so his morale was still high.

“It’s a really good option,” commented Lily, wheezing, “but we still have to hear Marlene’s.”

“The best for last,” she smiled, smug, and then she looked at all of them solemnly. “Drum rolls, please?” Everyone immediately complied.

“The title to best depict my sexual life, truthfully and currently, would be Me and Your Mama, specifically yours, Potter,” and she winked at James, who immediately made a gagging noise while everyone, for the umpteenth time that night, lost it.

“Effie truly is a wonderful woman,” Mary agreed.

“I’m so glad to see you have taste,” replied Marlene, putting an arm around her shoulders. If she had accidentally touched Dorcas, she didn’t give any sign of acknowledging it. Since she was so close, Mary could see that Marlene had small freckles on her skin, and her front teeth were slightly gapped. She reminded her of those mischievous elves you’d see on illustrations of old tales, the ones that would trip lost adventurers and steal their food.

“We should add her to the group chat!” she proposed to the rest of the group. “Remus, too!”

“You have a group chat together? All of you?” asked Dorcas, and the mood instantly changed, the laughter dying in favour of an awkward silence.

Mary felt strangely guilty.

Oh, this was awful.

“…I’ve tried to add you, Cas,” intervened Regulus, breaking the silence. He seemed sincerely sorry.

“But someone, I won’t name names-“

“I will, it’s Marlene,” interjected Pandora. Marlene glared daggers at her, but not for long: it was hard to hold grudges against Pandora, Mary was learning.

“Someone keeps removing me when I suggest it.”

Dorcas nodded, icy. “McKinnon-“

Marlene abruptly stood up. “I think it’s time to do some shots.”

“I could use a drink,” lied Mary: she just needed an excuse, and at least with a drink in hand she would have something tangible to focus on. Anything to dissipate the tension.

“Me too!” added Lily, jumping off the sofa. “I’m coming with you.”

Mary and Lily watched from a safe distance an angry Marlene stomping into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of liquor Mary didn’t recognise and taking sips directly from the bottle. After five gulps, Lily decided to intervene, taking the bottle from Marlene’s hands.

“Marls, you don’t want to throw up in Effie’s kitchen.”

“But what if I did?” Marlene replied folding over the sink, but then she lifted her head.

“Never mind, I’m fine. Make your drinks and pass the bottle, I’m going for round two.”

“Round six,” Lily muttered, picking two plastic cups and some bottles. “What do you want?”

“Oh,” Mary replied, “I’ll make mine myself. I don’t really like alcohol.”

Actually, during the past months Mary had opened up to alcohol: she didn’t drink much, she had never liked to get blacked out drunk, not even before…that, but at least a glass of wine or a drink didn’t scare her anymore.

Still, she preferred to mix her own drinks, just to be sure she knew what was in them.

“…They’re not always like that, you know. They have this feud going on, but it’ll have to end, sooner or later,�� Lily whispered to Mary, pouring some vodka in her own cup. “Actually, you handled those two way better than I expected.”

“It was hard,” Mary murmured, “But also somewhat entertaining? They either ignore each other or bicker.”

Lily looked at her from the corner of her eye.

“How long until they admit their feelings?”

“Please, Dorcas would do it in a heartbeat.”

“Probably,” Lily chuckled. “Could you pass me the Diet Coke, please? It’s in the fridge.”

When Mary couldn’t tell where the refrigerator was, Lily pointed it to her with ease.

“You seem pretty at home here,” commented Mary, passing the can. She noticed a bottle of apple juice, and decided to fill a cup for Narcissa.

“I used to come here all the time when I was dating James, it really became a sort of second home for me,” smiled Lily.

“Oh, so you two did date,” said Mary, picking two straws from a container on the counter.

“Well, yes,” Lily replied, sounding shy. She looked like she wanted to add something, but stopped herself.

“I’m taking that,” intervened Marlene, grabbing the vodka bottle, left unsupervised. “And I’ll look for Alice. Still haven’t seen her,” she muttered (more to herself than to Mary and Lily), and went deeper into the kitchen, saluting the five men who were drinking shots on the table before disappearing.

“I wonder why she acts like that around Dorcas,” commented Mary, “She seemed pretty nice.”

“Dorcas is amazing,” replied Lily, “But Marlene is mad at her for something that happened a long time ago. I love her, but she’s being childish, and I’ve told her a million times, but she won’t listen.”

Her tone became more and more reprimanding as she spoke, and she ended up sipping her drink like an angry middle-aged mother.

It was kind of adorable.

Mary smiled, understanding, “She’ll figure it out, eventually.”

Lily shrugged, then hopped on the counter. She was staring directly at the cupboard in front of her, seeming lost in thought. Mary hadn’t seen Lily so serious the whole time she had spent with her, which admittedly wasn’t much, but still, this change felt new.

“I was worried, you know,” began Lily, “I thought you would refuse my offer.”

Mary frowned. Lily was talented, famous, and from what she had gathered, she was also friendly and fun. Why would she refuse to work with her? If anything, Mary should’ve been worried: but she was the inexperienced one, here.

Lily saw the confused look on her face, and gave her a small, incredulous grin.

“Do you really not know? Narcissa didn’t say anything about me?”

“Woah, Evans, don’t sound so shocked,” joked Mary.

Lily nudged her.

“I’m just saying,” she replied, smiling shyly at the drink in her hands. Mary felt the need to break the silence.

“They have sent me links about…everything that’s happened, but I didn’t open them.”

Lily’s head perked up, curious. “Why?”

“I have learnt a few things in these months. Mind you, I was never one to obsess over celebrities,” clarified Mary, “But I used to keep up with the drama surrounding the Black family, because, you know…” She rolled her eyes, ashamed. “I really liked Narcissa, so…”

“Aww, you were a fangirl!” mocked Lily, pouting condescendingly.

Mary felt her cheeks heat up.

“I stopped the instant she threw Bunny at me for the first time!” she exclaimed, making Lily laugh loudly.

“Who is Bunny?” she asked, wheezing.

“It’s a long story. Anyway, once I started getting to know her, I realised half of the things they said about her online and in magazines was false, so I stopped reading them. Sorry if I don’t know every little aspect of your life,” she concluded, closing her eyes petulantly.

“Don’t apologise,” said Lily, her voice sweet and empty of mocking.

“I like that about you.”

Mary opened her eyes, and found Lily staring at her fondly. She was dangling her legs off the edge of the counter.

“Are you not going to ask anything?”

A moment passed, and Mary was aware Lily was studying her. Her intentions, her sincerity.

“Anything you want tell me.”

“…The people you see here are the only ones I can count on,” Lily explained. “They didn’t turn their back on me when things got bad, and even now they don’t mind being seen around me-and they could mind,” she continued, noticing Mary’s crossed expression.

“Because people who are seen with me are inevitably dragged by the media. Even you,” she bumped Mary’s side with her knee, “Are not safe.“

“I’m so scared. Wow.” Mary deadpanned.

Lily smiled, but not enough to show her dimples.

“I won’t tell you much because this is a party and I’m supposed to get absolutely sloshed, not depressed. I became popular as a singer when I was sixteen. I was young, and naive, and I wore my heart on my sleeve: I didn’t have the maturity to separate private matters from my public image. I was young and stupid, the boys were young and stupid, and stupid sixteen year olds get into stupid relationships. When I inevitably broke up with my boyfriends, I had the instinct to write about it. So, I became famous because of my failed relationships.”

“Many singers write love songs,” replied Mary.

“Not many singers are sixteen year old girls,” countered Lily with a sad smile.

“But I learnt my lesson, and I grew up to become a little less stupid. At eighteen I started focusing more on my work, and when during interviews they would only ask about my love stories, I tried to divert the attention. I was still a kid, but I was more reserved about my relationships. Still, paparazzi were onto me, photographing me every time I stepped out of my house, so everything was still made public.”

“That’s terrible, Lily.”

“I got used to it.”

The party outside the kitchen had gotten louder and more chaotic: Mary thought she could hear James and Sirius singing. Well, at least they had left the sofa.

“Whatever,” continued Lily, shaking her head. “Last year I had a fight with…an acquaintance of mine. A famous acquaintance. He liked me, he wasn’t reciprocated, and of course the media found out and started bashing me when I rejected him. Things quickly escalated, and now I’m a fucking pariah. Not for long, though.”

She jumped off the counter and offered Mary her arm. “Come one, let’s see what’s going on over there,” Lily suggested.

Mary wanted to say something, anything, to comfort Lily, but all words seemed to have left her mind.

“Thank you for telling me, Lily,” she managed, “If you ever need anything, I’m here.”

Mary wasn’t sure about what she could give to Lily that she didn’t already have, but the woman’s smile was grateful, regardless. Maybe Lily was one of those who believed that ‘it’s the thought that counts’.

Mary was pretty much the opposite, and because of that she hated that she couldn’t do anything real to help Lily.

They walked back into the living room, arm in arm.

[the-anime-hermit---mus-musculus]

My opinions on saiki k ships!

Video and text version below ⬇️

Hi, so people always have deferent and sometimes very intense feelings on ships. I don't want to name names, but... people who send death threats and call people homophobic for not agreeing with their ships. cough cough

But today I am not here to bash on any ships except for illegal ones, yall pedophilia is NOT cool, nor is incest. Instead I am gonna talk about my humble and changeable(possiblebly) (ya gotta make a good argument) opinions on ships in saiki k.

Hi so editors note, I think that it might be helpful for you all to understand a bit about me and my irl experience with romance to beter understand where my opinions are coming from, but if you don't want to hear about my boring real life shit, wich I totally get, skip to the time on screen, if you want to here it go ahead and stay, so i am autistic, adhd, and have multiple anxiety disorders, and I am demiromantic and demisexual and have never had a crush before so I don't know what I'm taking about.

Now to start i assume that people who aren't fans of shipping in saiki k aren't here, but if you are, I totally get it. It is a comedy anime and is about friendship, so romantic relationships aren't a requirement. You don't have to want characters to actually get together. But I and the other shippers that are here find shipping fun.

I find shipping to be a fun way to explore different characters and their interactions. So let's get on to ships I PERSONALLY ship.

Kaidou x aren

The boys are starting this list. I think they are so cute and I love how their relationship develops, and also how the characters complement each other. The irony of there friendship is part of what makes it a fun combo. We have a person who wants to live in a sort of larger than life fantasy where they are a bad ass, and the other is a person who had said larger than life... life, that wants to leave that behind and become more acceptable to society. And that last part is what I think draws me to the ship. I feel like in different ways they both want the same thing: to be a "beter" more acceptable version of themselves, and to have people who see them how they want to be perceived. And as a person who puts on a act and at one point felt like they lost themselves and never had a personality due to excessive masking( if u don't know what that means I will have a awesome video by a autistic creator that explains it) I love seeing how both Kaidou and aren sincerely believe in each other and the person that the other wants to be. I also am biased to anything to do with Kaidou. So that is why I love these 2 together, they combine to show how ppl that have seemingly different goals can really just want acceptance, and are able to find that acceptance in each other.

Okay so as I was writing this script I realized the only ship that I actively ship are these 2 precious beens: Kaidou and aren. And by actively ship I mean purposely looking for content of them. With the other saiki k ships I don't have the same "requirement" I guess, it's really not that deep but I can't think of a better word 😅, but I don't seek out other ships, i simply passively enjoy or disagree with them.

So on to ships I passively enjoy:

First one might not actually be considered a ship, i don't know... but it is teruhashi and the pig tail girl that is in love with her. Because she IS in love with teruhashi and you can't prove me wrong, mis girl literally willed herself into having a crush on teruhasi's brother so she "didn't become a lesbian". So by i ship them i mean that I love to see her pine after teruhashi, I am some what indifferent to whether or not people want or portray them as dating but I do throughly enjoy her pinning and jealousy and love to see women in love with women.

Second ship I passively enjoy:

Nendou and haido. Now this is my crack ship that I simply like to think about sometimes. These 2 boys are so hilariously gay that I get excited any time I see people ship them. Now I feel that I need to make a clarification on this, the ship is not funny become they are gay in the way of treating gay relationships as not real and as a joke, but is funny in the way that the characters act, and that they say it is a rivalry when really Nendou might not even know they are competing. And as a wise person that I can't remember the name of once said" if you make a rivalry to intense it becomes gay." And there rivalry isn't even real, there are no real hard feelings that could lead to a toxic relationship, it is just 2 manly men obsessing over each other.

Now this next one is one that I can't think of a name for how I feel about it, saiki and teruhashi. Now these 2 have a very nuanced and well developed relationship in my opinion, and there is no argument about wether or not saiki cares about her, because he dose, they are friends and he cares about her just like he cares about his male friends. But I personally headcanon saiki as aro ace, and so I am not the BIGGEST fan of any saiki ships, but I don't hate them obviously because he isn't canonically aroace, so who am i to tell ppl not to ship him because of my headcanons. And I do feel like if saiki was going to fall in love, like not just a crush, it would be teruhashi. And I would still headcanon him as part of the ace spectrum, if not aroace then demiromantic and demisexual. But he and teruhasi's relationship has changed throughout the show, it started with teruhashi wanting him simply because he didn't want her, but it changed to her genuinely caring about him, eventually it felt like to me her crush stopped being for her and started being for saiki. It went from her wanting HIM to her wanting the best FOR him. I don't know where I heard it but someone said that you know you truly love someone when you want them to be happy even if it's not with you. Now I don't think that teruhashi would go that far but she genuinely cares more about him than dating him by the end, in my opinion.

Now on to what some ppl may see as the a agonist to teruhashi x saiki, saiki x Sato. And even saying that saiki x teruhashi is the "antagonist" to saiki x Sato fells wrong, because i think that is a really toxic way to look not only at ships but at women in media, people may see that a woman gets in the way of there gay ship and hate on her. But that whole decision of how ppl treat women in media is not the point of this video. I think that saiki x Sato feels like a crush type of thing, again to me saiki is aroace so I see his infatuation with Sato as wanting to BE him not date him, but I 100% see how ppl concluded that saiki likes him, if he were to have what I imagine a "crush" is it would be on him, but I must say that saiki, at least in the anime, has no real relationship with him, to me it feels like a crush on the idea of a person and not on the person themselves, but I must mention that I am demiromantic and demisexual my self, so I may just not understand the whole crush on person you don't know well thing, so feel free to try to explain it to me in the comments.

Finally we have ships i don't like:

Now this one has very little newaunce unlike the last "mabey I'm to demi for this shit" relationship, but I don't like saiki x toritska. I get that it is a fun rare pair for some ppl but I just can't ever see them together. No hate i just don't get it, and don't see the appeal of it, so if you are a hard-core saiki x toritska shiper let me know why in the comments, I legitimately want to try to understand other perspectives, especially on something as nuanced as romance.

Now these are the main ships that I see and wanted to comment on, but if you have any ships you are curious of my opinion on please let me know, I would love to make a video that you want to see.

[tonyglowheart]

Hi, if it's alright with you there's a translation bit I want to ask about. From what I'm seeing on social media and on various translations of MDZS, 氏 always seems to be translated either to "clan" or "sect", and there are the rare instances where two parties get into a disagreement over it. What would you say is the more accurate meaning? And can both clan and sect can be used as translations of "氏" without any conflict of meaning?

Hi! Okay so. Let’s unpack this lmao.

氏 more technically translates to “clan,” “family,” or like as a term used to refer to “kinship” relations. It doesn’t.. really translate to “sect”? if you looked it up in a dictionary that’s not what it would say at all. *however.* It’s also not without precedent for there to be cultivation sects within what I’d say is, like, “wuxia classical canon” in which the sect name IS the [location][family name]氏, like what you see in MDZS. Look at the sects listed until “Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils” in this EN Wikipedia lists page.

But 氏 itself does not mean sect, I wouldn’t say, and the usages I’ve encountered before in, like, harem dramas or such, use the term to indicate family, clan, kinship relationships, etc. In harem dramas for example (I’m specifically referencing harem dramas bc that’s the specific examples I have off the top of my head lol,,), you’ll see female characters referred to by [Family name]氏 if they’re not being referred to by their titles or whatnot, and it means something like... clanswoman of [Family name] in this usage. like.. referring to her by her maiden name. (which has its own complicated politics involved and I’m not getting into that here, just as a like... related aside to this example)

I haven’t read much as far as the “classics” of the genre to say what’s typical or not, which also means I don’t know if the cited precedents in earlier wuxia novels treat their 氏 as more of a sect or a clan, or a mix the way mdzs does. But I do think that MDZS, at least, does somewhat conflate clan & sect in how the sects are treated compared to the handful of other danmei cultivation novels I’ve read. MDZS’s “sect” situation is a bit more feudal in the sense of having a founding families who are in charge of certain city-states/regions, and have followers who are part of their city-state and so are members of the “clan” but who aren’t actually a part of the clan in the sense of bloodline or familial kinship goes. Non-blood members of the “clan” are not literally adopted into the family in order to be part of the respective cohort, which is what makes it more like your typical cultivation sect within a wuxia or xianxia setting go. At the same time, you still have your differentiation of the ruling/founding family within the “sect” (which goes by the clan name). If it were just translated as Clan, I can see this becoming more and more confusing for an Anglophone, especially if they don’t have experience with the genre, genre conventions, or cultural conventions. But again I can’t speak for if this is “typical” in the genre or even how the specific texts that might be considered a sort of “wuxia classical canon” treat the 氏 there, and how that’s “typically” been treated in translation (like whether the English translations of these other novels tl as clan or sect, for example). I could look into that more, and like as far as due diligence goes I probably should, but I feel like I can answer your questions without reaaallly delving into all of that at this moment, so I’m gonna  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ If someone does know better and wants to correct me, please feel free.

Regarding MDZS specifically: I believe the choice to translate 氏 in MDZS as Sect was a specific choice that ExR made (who like. c’mon we all know they did in fact set a lot of translation precedent with their tl). If I remember correctly, I believe that ExR actually translated 氏 to Clan or sth like that at first, but then decided to change it to Sect to go along more with “typical” cultivation novels terms (isn’t there an A/N somewhere to this effect?). I actually don’t have an issue with this translation choice, lmao, I think it helps clarify some of the issues an Anglophone unfamiliar with the genre might have, or like help combat some of the connotations of using “clan” that might confuse an Anglophone. I think in English, “clan” tends to have strong kinship meanings, and like a cursory look at the look-up for clan mentions something about “common ancestor” and how in some societies clans would be exogamous, which means their members cannot marry each other. That is not the case with cultivation sects more generally, and not even the case with MDZS sects even tho it acts as a sort of deconstruction of the genre or as a sort of “proto-xianxia” society evolving out of more feudal structures. Anyway, cultivation sects don’t really follow this kind of organizational idea, and MDZS also does have discussions of the significance of bloodline within each respective Sect, which imo would warrant the distinction in translation choice. It also makes it easier to indicate who you’re talking about when you’re talking about, like.. “inner disciples” or “outer disciples” like Gusu Lan has, slash is extra helpful when the other Sects don’t already have this kind of in-built distinction in terminology.

I also kind of like this particular translation choice ExR made because I think the “Gusu Lan Sect” or “Yunmeng Jiang Sect” format lends it a formality to the naming that something like “Lan Clan/family of Gusu” or “Jiang Family of Yunmeng” kind of lacks.

(Rando note: some more “common” terms that “translate” to sect are 派, and 寨 and you’ll see some others like 帮, 教, or 门 and so forth. Each of these don’t... exactly translate to “sect” on their own but Chinese characters don’t always act as individual “words” with one-for-one translations; they sometimes are morphemes which need to be put together with other characters for form words, but can still lend the meaning of common word-constructions even when used individually, depending on context. If you looked up “sect” in an EN>CN dictionary you’d get results like 教派, 宗派, 门派, and more, which take on the meaning of “sect” depending on context and usage)

tl;dr: no 氏 does not translate to sect, per se; if you just asked me out of the blue I’d say it’s “clan” or “family” and/or referring to other kinship relations, including like a “maiden name” for women, as with the harem drama example above. *however*: there’s precedent for the MDZS-style “sect” naming structure within wuxia classical canon as far as referring to established organizations in a given novel go (caveat of I don’t know that much about those or how it’s treated in the text or in translation), and within MDZS usage I can also see why ExR made the decision to translate it to “Sect” when referring to the overall collectives, bc the members of the “sects” include not just the bloodline family members but also non-bloodline disciples who are followers of the sects, and I actually don’t think it’s a bad translation decision. It helps formalize the English translations of the “sect” names, and makes it clear(er) to an EN audience we’re talking about cultivation sects, and also helps to create a distinction for when we need to discuss the main “clan” (i.e. ppl of the bloodline of the founding families of each respective sect) within each respective “sect,” especially where other sects don’t make the distinction between “inner” disciples and “outer” disciples the way Gusu Lan does (a distinction which imo also is helped by calling the greater organization a “sect” and not a “clan,” bc otherwise we’d. probably get even more wank from anglophones arguing that “oh disciples are literally adopted into the family!!!!!!!!” and honestly there’s only so much bs I can take lmao. we already get enough “wwx is LITERALLY adopted” wank as is).

Kind of a last note and also a more context-dependent on the target-language-side approach to translation: I think the treatment of translating 氏 to “sect” as far as MDZS usage goes is, like, considering more certain “canonized” translations of certain terms & concepts from Chinese to English; with here the idea of using “sect” is because that’s the more “canonized” translation for a collective of ppl following a certain school of learning/thought in a cultivation setting.

[seoafin]

tbh,, i havent read the raws of the interview yet, only the translated ver from fan-translator and b4 i start, i think that this will be just me talking in circle and in no particular order AND a real mess (my brain does weird things after exams) but uhh here we go

gojou collects talented people, and by doing so he finds the people he can most probably relate to, except that he can't, not really, because something in the universe shifted when he was born. and it makes me think of how he's always known it, that he is special, and he's proven it, time and time again— he wants to take in talented ppl and he does, but there rly isn't much he can do for them. for they are talented, more talented than the world can understand,,

but they aren't gojou satoru

gojou took in megumi, bc he knew megumi was strong, and would grow up to be someone even stronger, but gojou can't facilitate or encourage his growth, bc for all they're similar, they are so fundamentally different. ALSO,, while geto was in his life, gojou rly judged everything according to his understanding of geto’s moral compass. gojou wears a human suit and geto is how he learnt to wear it well 🏃

the dragonfly analogy regarding to geto’s response to gojo, who was shown wearing a dragonfly patterned yukata in HI arc,, i’m trying to not think abt the fact that dragonfly symbolized victory in jpn....pain. i quoted from a web here for more explanation : In Japan the dragonfly is known as the "victory insect", or kachimushi, because of its hunting prowess and also because it is known to never retreat. Dragonflies are agile and fast fliers and can even hover, but never fly backwards

and bringing this up again, matricide and patricide are 2 of the 5 worst act to commit in buddhism, and it was said that if u commit one of those act u’re going to spend a real long time in the deepest pit of hell before continuing the samsaric cycle (higher chances to be born as an animal after that probs)— this might be geto’s divine retribution. held no power over his own body and could be considered that he’s the same as those “monkeys” 💀

ALSO the fact that sukuna's interest is "eating" rly drives home his hedonistic philosophy of seeking pleasure for himself. and he’s a cannibal...makes me think if he’ll just chomp on ppl with the mouth on his stomach

randomly, to date i think he hasn't really called himself a human, shaman, or a curse, and has held himself apart from all 3, and we've also the intro of the cursed wombs so i wonder if he’s trying to become, or is, a different entity altogether

so onmyoji got mentioned in the interview and what they practice is called onmyodo and abe no seimei and kano no yasunori were the notable practitioners,, and the kamo in jjk is the same as irl who served the imperial court back then

maybe i was right when i said that the relation between the govt. and jujutsu elders are similar to how the shogunate and imperial court work (ie, the former holds the actual power) but... lets see later,,

and i cant believe that i actually nailed it on the analogy of jujutsu practices by religion,,, so mahayana buddhism, shintoism, and taoism is present in jjk along with their respective jujutsu practices...but between the 3, it shld (?) be taoism > shintoism > mahayana buddhism (which could took a path to pure land buddhism)

it’s weird that the number of curses are supposedly higher in jpn comparable to other countries when taoism was brought from china....tengen sus

so the zenin family tree is sth like :

brothers: [toji's dad] ; naobito ; ougi

so toji, naoya, and maki & mai are cousins of the same generation

[toji's dad] → jinichi (probs) ; toji → megumi

naobito → other brothers, naoya

ougi → maki, mai

but yea i’d call anyone who’s within/close or below my age range as cousins and others above 30 as uncles/ aunts LMFAO,, i dont rly memorize my own family tree 😭😭 especially since most call the other by honorifics instead of names : aunt, uncles etc or attaching said honorifics at the end of a name for an older sibling figure/ older cousins [but like ppl in my country also call the other who are older with sibling honorific even if we’re strangers,,, rly similar to korea’s hyung/oppa—eonnie(unnie)/noona but some uses more genderless honorific] (1)

tw // topic of incest, mentions of abuse

if anyone got the wrong idea when reading this : i am not glorifying/ romanticising incest(uous themes),, i’m looking at this with absolutely no lenses of bias even tho im rly against it

初恋 = literally : first love, or puppy love

恋 = romantic love/ deep longing

i literally don't know how else to put this...🧍and with language barrier...using a western interpretation of the eng word "love" to explain a jpnese term is not quite that simple, unfortunately

that thread omg,, i rly do understand how exactly someone could associated kindness with love bc of my upbringing, it was when i was slightly older that i was just...oh so its not like that orz,,, so the most plausible explanation would be that

but the problem is that,, akutami never specify when exactly she had a crush on them,, and when megumi answered todo’s question she had a “♡” reaction 😶,, uhmmm there’s rly no way to look past this if its this way or be in denial

i’ve seen some of "why wouldn't mai react that way after hearing megumi say he'd like someone who's compassionate when she's surrounded by men like naoya",, well I MEAN,,, that, but also mai probs admires that megumi grew up so well out of the clan, regardless of the fact that he had the foundation (10 shadows) to do so. imo she seems happy for him the way she can't be for maki, bc maki ultimately had to leave her behind

hate to say it but yea,, the 3 clans most likely still practice inbreeding in order to preserve their power and presumably their wealth too 😀

i had an idle thought abt it at first but i filed it deep in the back of my mind asap,, bc i ont wanna jump to conclusion abt this out of all things too early. it’s probably not even in jjk, but all those elite clans in other ani/mangas that produce powerful heirs and whatnot also do the same,,, but this way of (my personal) thinking was influenced when i first got into tsukihime (type-moon),,, i read abt the nanaya family background and found out that they practice that in order to keep their bloodline “pure” (to keep it short : they have an optical power),, and i had this kind of assumption ever since so there’s that

i’m,, convinced the zenins' inbreeding made it more difficult for them to get powerful shamans bc they got 2 jujutsu technique-less children with heavenly restrictions in the same generation: toji & maki

even more convinced that maki might be a bit stronger than toji bc toji could see curses without aid while maki can't so the pay-off must be higher,,, SJJASN IDK ,,, plus naoya sort of implies his older brothers are nothing compared to him, and idk if we should take that as his arrogance or that his older brothers rly are weak/powerless. it would make sense as to why naobito had a lot of sons, ig, as head of clan

i feel so bad that if one of the factors that can caused heavenly restriction is inbreeding,, toji and maki and mai had no say in how they wanted to be born but are scorned for it,, typical asian families projecting their traumas and ideals onto their kids but get mad when they realize that those ideals are ugly...😁😁😁

since the zenin are conservative,, i wonder if they still hold onto old jpnese dining traditions. where in ancient jpn, hierarchical relationships were made readily apparent even within families. a dining table where everybody sat down and ate as equals would be unheard of. rather, each individual is given their own table that indicates their status,,, someone who is not considered “strong” according to the zenin’s views most likely have no place at the table, and probs eat when those who are “strong” finished/ serve them when they are eating

if toji was tossed into a swarm of curses,, i dont think abuse during said time is below them,,,

the zenin clan was already great, but they further amassed power and strength by, what i assume to be, marrying and adopting powerful individuals into the clan 🤔 ,,, i imagine they're like the hiiragi but without doing what they did to shinya (ons reference)

BUT after all that, i like to think that since akutami’s a big horror fan, jjk might be an outlet to explore said topics or even darker ones, so i wouldnt be that surpised abt it. given that there’s more than enough “red flags” before this was dropped : a reference to “tale of hikaru genji” when a grown woman asked for gojou’s number in HI arc (out of all things); granny who transformed into the man’s daughter, sat on his lap and man just touched her waist; mei mei and ui ui ; and...this (incestous theme is in the novel btw)

lets not start with whatever the fuck in kubo’s head in the interview otherwise i’m writing paragraphs with every curse words possible,, those big 3 mangakas are so— UGH,, a planet w out (cis) men like him sounds real good rn 😌 if one of yall out there decide to do it,, pls hmu rly cant do this shit anymore

akutami said i like my men pretty and i like women who will step on my neck and spit in my face (I REMEMBERED TATSUKI FUJIMOTO’S INTERVIEW WHEN HE WAS ASKED ABT MAKIMA AND IT WAS SO 😭😭😭😭) but ykw,, love that for both of them <3

when i said 3 : one piece, bleach, naruto. aside from the blatant depiction/ characterize of women in those 3,, idk if some ppl arent aware yet but oda is friends with two (2) convicted pedos,, man...the major disappointment and disgust when i first find out abt it

anyways this is just my 2 cents (which i think rightfully belong to the trash can) so pls just take this w a lil to no grain of salt - 🐱

YEAH THE ♡ LMFAO I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST A “good answer ♡“ heart BUT NOW IM RE-EXAMINING?????

honestly i wouldn’t be surprised if the three clans practiced inbreeding. but ik people are going to be  😡😡😡😡😡 about it when the queen of fucking england is literally married to her (something) cousin. i’m not justifying it but like....love the double standards, just as always with the west 😍

DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THAT FUCKING PED* LIST THEY SHOULD ALL BE IN JAIL. JAILLLLL. it’s all so gross. that’s why i fucking hate when people look towards manga for positive representation because the chances of that are super slim to zero, especially since the industry is saturated with misogyny and ped******* and a lot of other gross stuff.

i think ppl forget jjk is a horror manga LOL so obviously it’s going to confront darker themes. the question is whether it’s going to be done tastefully or not......

[hayleysayshay]

I think there’s a difference between personal issues with alternate ships and then assuming otherwise.

Like I think I’ve realised that I really just don’t like efforts to discredit one of the first wlw couples in a cartoon and that’s why I don’t like Masami/Makorra/Irohsami endgame much. I also have other issues with these ships (Iroh is boring) but I think being honest I just don’t like seeing a canonical same sex couple split up in favour of some man. That rep does mean something to me personally. And maybe I do internally side-eye women who write mlm and wlm and never write wlw and the same for men who say they’re progressive and never write mlm for example. Like I acknowledge that is a pet peeve I have.

I think the difference is acting on it and assuming the worst. Do I go into peoples inboxes and harass them? No. Do I call people biphobic/ homophobic or whatever? No.

But again, it meaning something to me personally and really not liking doesn’t mean that the person who is doing the thing hates what you like. Like it’s perfectly reasonable that maybe they do just like those characters better and want to ship them, and honestly it is personally reasonable that people done like Korrasami. I just don’t like this reasoning.

I also acknowledge that someone could take issue with me shipping Makorrasami— why do I have to stick a man in it? It doesn’t really break up the two wlw having a relationship with each other so it doesn’t bother me personally but I can see why it bothers other people.

I also get that ppl can see me say ‘same sex’ they will be annoyed I’m not saying bisexual, their canon sexualities, but for me it was always the fact that two women started a romantic relationship with each other that was groundbreaking and meaningful to me at eighteen when I watched it still pretty confused, not the tumblr post that said the word bisexual. If someone wants to HC a sexuality that disregards a tumblr post then fine. I won’t like it if they pick straight but sure they can do it. Perhaps my lack of caring about lesbian v bisexual is due to my personal issues either my own sexuality and journey and whatever. It’s also none of your business. So maybe don’t go into peoples inboxes assuming the worst, assuming their identity just for doing whatever they want in fandom. Even if you don’t like it, and I freely say I don’t.

Like I had someone come into my inbox calling me cishet for stating that Wu and Mako would have children. Two not canonically queer characters. I don’t think their argument held water but also just the audacity of assuming because someone dared to HC something you don’t like they’re cishet. Wake up loser. Stop it.

[lovelyirony]

Hmm Im just drinking some Respect Rhodey Juice tonight and was wondering if you would write smth about his journey/struggles of life and ppl who doubt him (and then eat their words when he looks fabulous and kicks ass)

A lot of people know Tony Stark’s story. They know that he considers Rhodey to be the best person in the world. He was in ROTC training, Tony made fun of him, but they ended up bonding over engineering and some inside joke at MIT.

They don’t know the whole story.

So here it is.

Rhodey grew up in a relatively nice household in Philadelphia. He still considers some aspect of that to be home, no matter if he hasn’t lived there since high school.

He remembers his dad’s low humming on Sunday mornings when he was a kid, the way he smiled at him.

“Hey Jimmy,” he would say quietly. “Wanna surprise mama with breakfast?”

Mama acted surprised every single time, even if every Sunday she got breakfast on a tray. Rhodey would grin brightly up at his mother and clamber into her bed to steal the “extra” piece of bacon.

(His dad cooked three slices, and saved one for his son.)

He remembers that his sister Jeannette was born when he was four years old, and he did not appreciate having a sister.

“You have to be a good role model for her, sugar,” Mama had told him. She was tired from the hospital, and had handed Jeannette to Dad. “She needs a good big brother.”

Rhodey doesn’t get why his mom is so insistent on that, having a good big brother. It isn’t until he’s eight and Mama’s own older brother comes asking for a car or some money for his new business that he understands that Mama had a very different sort of life. One that they don’t talk about.

So he grabs his dollar and walks his sister to the corner store and gets her a popsicle that dribbles down her chin. She got watermelon flavor.

“Thanks Jim,” Jeannette says, grinning. “You’re the best!”

He vows to always be the best for her.

Always.

Including an academic example. He scores excellently on his tests, enough to catch the notice of the private education institution. They send a nice lady to talk to Mama and Dad about the possibility of him learning there instead of his regular school.

They agree. Rhodey doesn’t exactly want to go, but gets that this is an opportunity.

The school is nearly all-white. That’s...weird. They look at him differently, ask weird questions. He keeps his head down, focuses on studying. He doesn’t realize it yet, but these people have never had to worry about their race.

He’s still a good student. He’s in the top ten, and people whisper and say that it’s because he’s black.

He stares them down and asks if they have a problem with the color of skin he has.

They stammer out a no, but he knows. He knows that they think that he’s gotten all sorts of advantages, and some will never believe that his success is merit-based. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, and he comes home angry.

“Be better,” Mama tells him, smoothing her hand over his face. “You know you’re better than what they always say. You just gotta keep going.”

-

It’s around this time that they go to the Franklin Institute.

And it’s there that he gets introduced into flight travel and falls in love.

He wants to know how planes work. He wants to know why they use some materials but not others, how it works.

“You could go into the Air Force,” his dad chuckles one night.

“Are you gonna be a pilot?” Jeannette asks, looking up from her toys. “You’d be a good pilot.”

“Maybe,” he tells them. “Maybe.”

The military is his best bet.

Come high school, he starts training immediately. He’s a good kid, all things considered. He follows orders well, is intuitive to what comes next, and his officer lets other officials know that this kid will be a good guy.

Assuming, of course, that they let Rhodey into a position of power. He wants to be a good pilot, he wants to have a good job that’s kind of safe.

He also needs to figure out college. He knows he needs a college degree, needs something to show that he is who he says he is.

Rhodey gets a full ride to MIT. His dad sighs and looks at him.

“Son, I need to talk to you...”

“I know I can do this,” Rhodey says determinedly. “I know that I can do a college education, I know I can prove others wrong, and--”

“I know that,” his father says. “But really...Boston?”

His mother laughs for a long while, and makes her husband promise to visit their son, even if they do have to voluntarily go to Boston.

When they move him in, they’re greeted with one Tony Stark chasing after a robot who has grabbed a broom and is wreaking havoc in the apartment.

“Hi,” Tony heaves. “Sorry to be meeting you all like this, I sincerely did mean to be presentable. I’m Tony Stark, nice to meet you.”

His parents are scared of Tony, all things considered. He’s a kid with too much influence on the world. If he says one wrong thing...Rhodey’s finished.

Rhodey holds no such fear because Tony is standing in mismatched socks and chasing after a robot.

When his parents leave and his teenage sister actually gives him a hug, he’s left in the room.

“You want pizza?” Tony asks, blinking. “I’m ordering a pizza.”

They sit together and eat pizza that has too much grease on it, and Tony asks all about Philadelphia. He’s never traveled there, and wants to know if people really do run up the stairs like in the movie Rocky.

Rhodey answers yes, unfortunately, a lot of tourists do that.  Tony laughs.

He talks about New York, everything that people get wrong or right about it.

Then they decide to compare class schedules, and it turns out they have a lot of the same classes.

Rhodey likes being friends with Tony. He’s an easy guy to fall into friendship with. He’s not expecting anything from him, just that he likes some food and tells Tony to knock it off if he’s being annoying.

ROTC training is still going well. Tony makes fun of the uniform and teases him, but also helps make sure his pants are ironed in time.

“I swear to god if I told anyone you were an Iron-kinda-Man, they wouldn’t believe me,” Rhodey teases him. “Thanks.”

He presses a kiss to Tony’s forehead before he rushes out.

-

The Air Force loves him. He’s in aerodynamic engineering, getting the best grades in the class, and has proven time and time again to be a natural-born leader. His very presence commands attention, and the guys around him respect him quite well.

He’s offered a position after graduation to become a pilot.

He’s flying high.

-

His parents, of course, are proud. They host a party with all their friends and family, and Rhodey truly feels like this is it.

Of course, it’s not easy. Nothing ever is. He has to command men and women, go against what others say. He was one of the first in his unit to advocate for women to be part of the team.

“They’re too emotional,” Kennick had remarked.

“And just who nearly cried because their football team didn’t make it to the Superbowl?” Rhodey asks him. “Because it sure as hell wasn’t your wife or daughter, Kennick.”

The rest of the team howls in laughter, and Rhodey smiles to himself.

Tony is still his best friend. They call each other often, although Tony is busier with the company now. Rhodey acts as a sort of liaison for the negotiations between SI and the military.

Tony sends him care packages that host a wild variety of things, ranging from quite the bottle of Scotch to four different McDonald’s Happy Meal Toys.

“Why the toys?”

“Kids keep leaving them in the SI building after their school tour. I have to do something with them.”

(Rhodey takes pictures of them around the base and nearly compromises a secret mission.

It’s worth it.)

But Rhodey’s life is good. It has its ups and downs, but he got what he wanted. And when he sees the other kids from his school who looked at him weird, the teachers who told him to “aim a bit lower” than his goals, he smiles.

He especially likes to smile to himself when he wakes up next to Tony, who smiles at him like he has all the stars in the world.

[thoreau-up]

So i binged Blood of Zeus

Pros:

1. Very attractive character design so of course it’s gotta be #1 (i mean just look at apollo)

2. Only 8 eps 40ish minutes each so if you want to binge it in a day, that’s very possible

3. The giants were a really cool concept, (con #6: wish they werent just a plot device and had bigger roles)

4. It’s a typical Zeus/Hera story basically so if you’re into that i guess

5. You’ll root for Heron, or at least i did, poor thing was thrown into all of this

6. Very clean animation, id say cleaner than Castlevania (but castlevania was better off using the rough-animation)

Cons:

1. It’s a typical Zeus/Hera story: whatever the true mythological greek myth characterization of both zeus and hera are, it really took away from enjoying the show, like all hera had to do was castrate this man, honestly, idk if heron’s story is a real myth, or not, but if it was made up for the show they really i think could have done more, made it more complex, ya know, like how many of these “Zeus was horny, Hera directed her anger at innocent ppl” stories do we need? I think as a society we have progressed past the need for more zeus apologetic stories

1.5: the plot is super simple, i can only really describe it as bland but maybe this show just wasnt for me, they did leave it on a “cliff hanger” (idk it could be one) but like hades ≠ satan, and ik im not the only one in the tag that thinks so (a friend of mine wrote a paper on the whitewashing/christian-ifying of the greek gods and it applies here, zeus ≠ god and hades ≠ satan)

2. Beside from evil jealous female, the women really didnt have any role, barely any speaking lines so woohoo i guess

3. WHY IS THIS CALLED AN ANIME???? This really pissed me off, like, BoZ isnt what id categorize as a cartoon, but it’s clearly not anime, art style is completely different, made in the US, doesnt even have the same feel as anime; we americans should just call these animated shows aimed at adults like BoZ and castlevania ~animation~ why do we have to stick our animated shows into a label where it doesnt belong just for the sake of expanding your audience im sure if there are americans watching anime they’re also watching cartoons and other animated shows we dont need american animation pretending to be anime

4. I liked the voice actors, they had very strong voices, i just dont think they really worked they took me out of the fantasy or in other words prevented me from disbanding my disbelief and really getting into the show, but im sure other people found the voice acting fine and not a big deal and im probably just being picky bcuz i was watchign the show too closely after my first impressions

5. After looking at the tag and reblogging the very amazing fanarts and gifs of the good looking characters, i came across a post saying the cast was diverse, and....i guess? They all looked like they were based off of the standard white european set with few exceptions. Like, the only characters i found having the same face syndrome were the women, but lets face it, they were quite irrelevant to the show, idk, ppl need to relook at greece and realize not everyone there is white****, greek people just do not look like northern european ppl, like take the average greek person and comparw them to the average english person, there are distinct differences bcuz greece is a mediterranean country, there are more skintones and face structures than white, like why do we have to continue making Zeus the white ideal????? He reminded me more of a norse god than greek god liek did they use Chris Hemsworth’s Thor as a model reference? (*****Ok, upon posting this i immediately looked at rhe characters again, and i will say that the skintones arent just white, they do have a good gradient of skintones, idk, maybe this is bcuz im white myself but looking at the character designs, like they’re face structures and body types, and a lot of them just read north european to me, and not mediterranean, like it looks like english ppl with different skintones paint-bucketed in, but im picking at fine details here, i will take back what i said about the skintones, but zeus still looks like thor)

Take my comments as just comments, im not demanding you not watch it, make your own decision; i was just moved so much by the show to make this post (also i just cant spell and dont care to fix them)

[sweet-xoxo-thatcares]

1st dream I ever had of JA together was right after I started my new job at the tax spot, and Jay was texting me about a house they wanted to rent and was looking for a roommate to help cut the cost. They showed me this brown house with an upstairs and downstairs, but it was like near the Northside kinda...but near Kettering. I remember looking at the map thinking dang it look kinda rough in the neighborhood, but 800 something month sounded good split between 3 ppl.

The dream that night was us in this small looking house in the forest, but we were happy until we actually went outside towards our backyard and there was the trees. Pine trees to be specific. We started running towards it because we were playing a game,, idk if it was tag or hide and seek...all I know is that it felt like we both were playing, me and Jay running with Ayunna nearby running too, and then all of a sudden we had to start running back to the house cause a bunch of peopl started coming out of the woods chasing us, before we even hit the trees.

We ran for our lives, at almost full speed, but I don't remember who hit the house first and no they didn't look like zombies. It was just a burst of a bunch of people covered in black, from head to toe chasing us, going as fast as we were. I remember when I got to the house I couldn't find everyone and I told my lil sister (idk why she was there) to go check downstairs and low and behold Ayunna was whispering, calling someone on the phone as she was in the living room and I was peeking in on her through the kitchen. She said my name and said it sort of alert, but kept it on hush hush like a teacher calling a student's parent. She said "Kylee's shaking and freaking out about it."

And I think she meant it like I was ready to go home. I thought she was calling her mom, cause I didn't plan on telling my mom about moving out with them at the time.

Because I was scared and paranoid about being far away from home with strangers chasing us from the woods. I didn't see Jay when she made the phone call, Interestingly enough. I remember there was a closet filled with supplies with like an orange kayak, some sports gear, some oars, and some other stuff. I don't remember what I was looking for in the dream, I was just trying make sure nobody from outside got into the house.

Crazy right? And this was in 2019. Had I said anything, I'm sure they would have just thought it was a bad dream. The house in the dream didn't look Nothing like the house Jay had shown me. It looked sorta different, because there wasn't no carpet on the floor except in the living room. The house in the ad had carpet everywhere.

Also, as gross as I'm willing to admit....the 1st sexual dream of Jay happened in January right before we got let go of that bookstore temp job....

Jay was grinding on me fully clothed and kept grunting the words "respect it" with each ride/hump on my..... I woke up wet and confused because I didn't understand why Jay would have said that to me, hovering over me, starting with a serious face, one hand over my left shoulder, the other between my right arm and right side of my body. As if I was supposed to be scared or something....like wayyy too rough.

Now that I see it, I think Jay wanted me to respect their privacy and their body. Because around that time, I was questioning if I was even gay and how I could possibly even like them when I didn't even know if they had a dick or not or nothing at all....I was concerned and confused because Jay was taken and why was I thinking about it so damn hard for like a solid week I didn't see them at work and it drove me nuts not to know, but I couldn't ask cause that's rude. I kept trying to prove myself wrong with counteraccusations like "how can you know you're gay, when you haven't even kissed a girl? We don't know if she or they has boy parts?"

I felt really guilty about liking Jay, someone out of the spectrum and not my normal type....cause they weren't normal. They were like an alien to me, I usually could observe people 1st before talking to them and trusting them to see if we would even be a good fit or so....but in Jay's situation....i needed to do some research before I was the curious George asking too much information that I shouldn't have been interested in knowing but still wanted to know for my own sake. Like how to address non binary ppl, how to say they and use the pronouns, and xr./xrs. or etc...but Jay wanted to be called Mister later on.

I made sure I knew alot more than my coworkers to be prepared for conversation matters so I didn't come off like an ignorant associate who didn't bother to Google it before saying it out loud. Cause with anything new, I always google 1st and look on reddit for unfiltered personal opinions about stuff.

Which is still the reason why I think Jay could actually want to date/have sex with men in the future. after taking hormones so many ftms said once the dysphoria felt like it was gone and they were comfortable being themselves, as a man...they started opening back up that door they once closed towards men. Some even went girls only, to bisexual, to just gay (dating men). And there were a bit more reddit asking why there isn't as many straight ftms and why is there more ftms turning gay after transitioning....which sorta sucked to hear but I needed to know in case I had another panic attack again from being shocked from any more unexpected, extreme news from someone who always acted like they were anti-dick. Even to go as far as declining dick offers from sugarmommas they told me about.

It was gross to hear that they offered me up to that same random sugarmomma without even asking me if I was comfortable or even wanted to have sex with another stranger. Cause I sure as hell didn't. They just offered my name up to her, like they were selling me off as some hoe-sub. Being petty cause I started looking for an actual commitment on tinder.

I hated them for doing stupid, inconsiderate, uncomfortable shit like that, thinking Imma just go along with everything just because I liked them.

I'm still mad about that too. That jealous pig. Man whore themselves. They've slept with more ppl than me and had the nerve to call.me a "bedhopper" when you're the one getting yourself emotionally caught up and cheating on your girl by breaking rules she told you not too. Petty, angsty, stupid bitch with man issues. Didn't want nobody checking them about they behavior cause I guess they thought they were being overdominated.

This idiot thought I was tryna challenge their dominance (red flag #142🚩lol) when I said sarcastically "I wasn't gonna buy you none, anyway" when Jay interrupted me with "oh I don't want any candy." after I said as we waited in the avengers movie line "I should have gone to the dollar party to get some candy, had I known it was gonna be this long of a wait." They thought I was being hostile....when noooo I was just stating the candy wasn't for you, and why should I give a fuck? Lol 😆 I always do that with my sisters and parents at home. That's how we talk to each other, sarcastic assholes and smart jokes. I asked Jay is your masculinity sensitive after they called me out about making that comment that I thought wasn't offensive...but I guess it rubbed then the wrong way?? But like how, cause it was about candy and I wasn't mad at them when I said it.

They took that candy comment way too seriously. Cause even ayunna agreed with Jay that I was challenging their dominance? Like wtffff how can I challenge someone's dominance without even being aggressive, pushing a button, or getting in your face?

I think they thought I was just the nice girl who never talks back. Bullshiiiiittttt I have a mouth. I'm allowed to speak 🤣😅 fucking idiots and they thought I was the sensitive one. Jay sensitive too. Any time they felt less like a man, they took it out on us, like a lil crybaby, like a punk. But I didn't say anything....cause it seemed like anything I said to defend myself they would get into my head too about how it don't make sense.

Truly I think we just came from 2 different backgrounds, one where I was taught to obey but speak my mind. And Jay was taught that control and making others controlled by fear, while they got to be enabled to do so...was their life at home being the oldest. I never like even my own manager for doing that, controlling, poking, and bitching about stress then then taking it out on us because he has anger and commitment issues at biglots.

Jay came from "I'm the man, you're supposed to shut up and be quiet when I say it." I came from a house that woulda whooped yo ass for saying shit like that to my own momma. We don't play that shit around here and I grew up in the south, and southern raised folk. You always respect women just as proper and equal as men too. Yes sir, thank you ma'am, and do you need some napkins, that southern hospitality and respect for other people, friends, and family I was taught that. Jay must have not been taught manners and stuff like I did. My momma and daddy a mind even teachers made me be nice and be a good listener, and a good student always ready, alert, paying attention. You got off task, you fall behind in school, so always pay attention. Dad always was hard on me reminding me to do my best and treat people the way you want to be treated.

[eclecticash22]

For the anon asking about the Norma Jeane anon! LD goes into more depth on this.

**Trigger Warning: sexual themes, self harm, suicide**

Also, before you begin reading I want to make sure that we’re on the same page. No judgment is welcome here. Anon doesn’t want to be judged and I do not want to see judgment. You’re entitled to your opinion, but if you have anything negative to say, then I ask that you keep it to yourself. This is a judgment free zone and it will not be tolerated! Thank you for being kind human beings.

Hi this is LD from the Norma Jeane ask. I was gonna answer this in your ask but the letter limit made it hard to explain. I ask that when you post this that my username remains unknown. To respond to the other anon, I asked another psychic on tumblr who I was in a past life. She said a European woman between the 50’s-70’s. Now I’m not sure what made me decide to look up Marilyn Monroe but I did and I just felt something. I’ve looked into her and we really have a lot of similarities and synchronicities. Our childhood is similar. My mother is someone that part of me loves but another part would rather stay away. My dad is in my life, but as rarely as we see each other he may as well be absent. Norma Jeane would go to the beach with her mom sometimes and she’s always loved the beach. The beach for me is one of the few places where all of my worries disappear. I overthink a lot. But being at the beach, there’s just one thing on my mind and that’s the water. ( I’m also the same person that asked you if I was a mermaid sorry😅). Anyway, like Norma Jeane I’ve also been sexualized at a young age. Like her, it started with ppl in my family. Idk i just always seemed to attract ppl in that way. I had mixed feelings about it at first. I loved the feeling of sex, craved it lots of times(I heard that not everyone who has been sexually exposed at a young se stays away from sex and the opposite may happen instead). However on the other hand, I felt dirty for the ppl that I’ve had those intimate moments with. It was never rape because i was never forced. It would just be suggested by a friend or cousin and I would give in. I always had a hard time saying no to ppl. I felt guilty and ashamed whenever I would touch myself( I probably should’ve warned from the beginning that this might get a bit sexual). However, I’m starting to embrace my sexuality and am learning that whatever attracts ppl to me is my own kind of power, so long as nobody takes advantage of that. I’ve never been in any foster home or orphanages but I remember my mom threatening me a lot of times about cps taking me away and telling me I would live in a foster home. I’ve stayed in numerous of different people’s households. Some family members. Some friends who I clung to( I think I have abandonment issues, I get very attached to ppl I like). Idk I was just always looking to stay with a family that wasn’t my own. I’m also very shy now in contrast to my friendly younger self. Despite that I’ve always been told that I’m good with words and speaking. I’ve always loved reading and am good at writing, although I don’t really like writing much. If you knew that Marilyn Monroe loved to read and wrote poetry, then congratulations you know more about her than most ppl who walk around with her on shirts and posters of her on their walls for aesthetic reasons( something that bothered me at first but whatever). I’ve also been into acting. My mom told me that I was good with speaking in public and that I should try it. She encouraged me to join in middle school but my shyness and fear of being embarrassed or made fun of prevented me from doing that. I tried out tho in high school. Although that was short lived because the theatre teacher left, she told me that I was good and I enjoyed acting very much. Animals are something else that I really loved. I always wanted a dog, but because I’ve lived in apartments almost my whole life, I always ended up with fish, which was probably a sign from my higher self that I was a mermaid but that’s a different story. I’m sorry I’m all over the place and I keep losing track. There’s just so many things to cover. Los Angeles is another place I’ve been interested in going to. Specifically Sherman Oaks. That’s because I had an obsession with the late Cameron Boyce, who now that I look back on had a few things in common with Marilyn Monroe, such as height, where he lived, being an actor, writing poetry, and dying at such an untimely age. My walk is something else that I think we have in common.

This doesn’t happen often because it’s not really noticeable, but every now and then someone would point out how I would twist or how my hips would sway whenever I walked. My mom looked at me funny once when I was younger when I walked in front of her. This is because I’m a guy. A bisexual guy specifically, which makes sense since Marilyn has been with many men. Maybe she’s been with a few women as well, or maybe I’m fully gay and just won’t accept it yet idk. I’ve always been feminine as well. I don’t identify as a woman, but I do feel like one lots of times. I’ve also been told a few times that i should be a model, mainly I think because of my long legs. A trait Marilyn also had. Maybe because of my face too but I don’t think I’m THAT good looking. Then again, there were ppl who didn’t find Marilyn attractive enough either. I’ve also been in a mental hospital once. I’ve had suicidal thoughts and even tried it a few times. I’ve seen a therapist, and right now, with how I’ve currently been feeling I wonder if I’m bipolar. I also suffer from insomnia and anxiety. Again, if you know more about Marilyn Monroe than just looks and glamour than you’ll understand. I also love the 50’s aesthetics. Although I’m a fan of the 80’s and 90’s as well so ig that probably doesn’t mean much. I love roses and been interested in gardening. I’ve also always wanted to live in one of those Spanish homes. I always found them beautiful.I love love. I love men, I love children. I have a lot of fantasies. Part of those fantasies are of being with various men(I’m not getting into details). But other fantasies involves being with a secure, fun, intelligent man who really loves me and having children. Which is weird since I’m a guy but Marilyn has always wanted to marry with a man she really loves, have kids, and be a good wife. After she settles down and retires from her career ofc. It hurts me so much that none of my relationships seem to last. They always leave. I’m currently trying to recover from a “break up” right now. I’ve determined my beauty and value based on how many guys are attracted to me, which is cruel and untrue. There are times when I feel like I can’t really live and be happy without someone by my side. I have a huge fear of being alone and rejected and unhappy my entire life. Just the thought depresses me. I can’t express enough how much I’ve loved and gotten attached to boys, thinking I would be loved back and live a life together, only to be heartbroken. I think in this life, I have to learn lessons that I didn’t learn in my past life to not depend so much on men to keep me happy and that I shouldn’t get so attached. Not all relationships are forever. There are probably more similarities but that’s all I can think of for now, and this is long enough already. Now, even with all of these similarities it still doesn’t prove that i was Marilyn Monroe. I’m pretty sure a lot of ppl can relate to most if not all of what I just said. So I went to you Ash to ask if Joe DiMaggio was my twin flame in my past life(yes that was me too Ash I’m so sorry). I feel like Marilyn and Joe were twin flames in that life and I’ve had dreams of this guy who looks very similar and have similar characteristics to Joe. When you told me Joe DiMaggio was in fact my twin flame, I saw this as another confirmation that I could’ve been Marilyn Monroe in a past life, however I still couldn’t be 100% sure so I decided to just pop the question I really wanted. I asked Ash if I was a girl named Norma Jeane. I didn’t feel comfortable saying Marilyn Monroe because I didn’t want to be seen as those egocentric nut jobs who claim to be the reincarnation of famous ppl. I also knew less ppl would know who Norma Jeane is compared to if I put Marilyn Monroe. In fact it’s these very reasons why I’m hoping that what I’m telling you doesn’t get out of hand. I don’t like TOO much attention and I don’t want to be backlashed for believing in this. Speaking of which, Marilyn also

Didn’t like all of the attention and invasion of privacy a while after being famous. She would walk around in “disguises” and give fake names whenever she checked into hotels. Which is somewhat similar to things I’ve done before. Marilyn and I both seemed to be secretive and enjoy our privacy. Not that we weren’t honest or open, it’s just not everyone needs to know everything you know. Also I’ve always said that I wanted to die in my sleep. I’ve always said that because I wanted to die a peaceful and painless death, not knowing that I did die in my sleep in my past life. Anyway, yeah so I asked if I was Norma Jeane and I got a yes, which was a relief. I’m sorry anon that this probably what you wasn’t looking for. I didn’t have any psychic moments. I didn’t have any dreams or recall any memories. Marilyn Monroe didn’t appear to me and tell me that I was her in a past life. Everything that I learned is only due to research, signs, intuition, and these two lovely and helpful tumblr psychics that I mentioned. Ofc part of me will always have doubts whether or not I really am Marilyn Monroe. It’s only natural to have doubts. Just like how I have my doubts if I’m really a mermaid in the astral or spirit realm or afterlife or whatever you call it. But until I get proof that I’m not Marilyn Monroe or a mermaid or that Joe DiMaggio wasn’t her twin flame, I will go on believing these things to be true or at least a possibility. But I’ll never be 100% sure until I’m dead. This has honestly been painful to talk about considering I’m bringing up not only my past life but also my past in THIS life, which some of it still hurts. But it’s been nice sharing this. Thank you❤️.

*Hey, LD! Thank you for sharing your story. And no need to apologize for asking about being a mermaid or Joe DiMaggio! I’m happy to answer your questions  ❤️ ❤️ *

[umbillicalnoose]

i think that you would think im pretty and would like my poetry and i want to share it with you. im shy.

to be honest, im very apathetic these days. im not the nice “cutesy baby flower petal boy” i used to be. a lot has happened & im bitter & sullen & all in all, a pretty shitty friend/person to know. i used to possess some redeeming qualities, believe it or not, even if they were construed by the subconscious in an attempt to be likeable - a facade, even tho its only a facade, is still tangible, still there, is still something, even if not authentic. is poorer character forgivable in the name of presenting more authentically? but nah. that makes it sound like im putting effort into being a better person, which im not. im just sort of fried & done. its been a very long time since i played the role i built for myself on here of the “small fawn boy who wants to help girls” lmaooo. how embarrassing. altho, i was just a kid, & i guess, if you had a tumblr as a teenager, you went thru some cringe (i know the use of that word has fallen in on itself & adopted its own definition but for lack of a better one) ass phases, whether it was kinning or malingering mental illness or oh fucking christ, all that gender bullshit, etc etc. from what ive observed, tho, loosely following kids im still casually friends with that i met on here, i think we’ve all managed to Grow The Fuck Up, at least a little. most of us have jobs or r in school or have partners - growing up & moving on is a very surreal experience to watch/go thru. im moving at my own pace & ive accepted that - im still currently using & starving myself & concocting a suicide plan every day but at least i use clean needles as much as possible, i actively & honestly do strive for the bare minimum calorically, & um able to work with the mentality of “well ill have this when i need it but todays not that day” a lot more readily, in relation to suicide shit. ive finally found a therapist who Really Gets It, is a frontrunner internationally on ritual & extreme abuse & mind control. its pretty incredible what a few years with a good therapist can do. anyways. im sorry, i know you didnt ask for all this & im not even sure why i divulged. i guess, what tipped me off, was your attempt at sounsing “cute” - dude, cut that shit out, i promise youll be a lot better off. & i know everyone interchanges aspects of their personality based on who theyre talking to/who they percieve themselves to be talking to, but i feel like not a lot of people give enough credence to the internet & its hand in shaping/molding young people, kids, vulnerable dumbasses, especially tumblr (tho, i get that its a relatively new phenomenon) - u get a bunch of the “weird”, “alternative”, ““ostracized” kids together on a website, of course its gonna nurture a culture of hypervalidatoon & pretending to be sick in order to fit in to the point that its not an act anymore & exacerbation of symptoms & basically, just sucking each others dicks, sitting in ur own shit, & never ending coddling. & then, you have the older group of kids, who have played this game before but instead of helping or ignoring the Dumbshit kids, they indulge their own normally-buried-but-unleashed-by-internet-anonymity sadism/human instinct to just be fucking dicks & so now you have this vicious cycle of anger & hatred & fucking melodrama up the urethra. im sorry, i know im comig off as/am being harsh but god fuckin dammit yknow? also, this isnt directed at you, specifically, more of a generalized thing, @ myself included. so uh. i mean, if u still wanna share it with me after reading all this, id be happy to read ur poetry. i used to be over the top nice & then reverted to Major Asshole & am now trying to find that sweet middle spot - honoring & allowing myself to share my pain without putting it on others. which is really hard!! cuz becoming a Dick was difficult in that it forced me to be more honest with my true self & as such, more vulnerable - now in trying to become Kinda Nice again because despite being a pulsating scrotom, ive had the intense desire for friendship & human interaction, while simultaneously doing things that i was consciously aware was pushing others away - but then, if i pretend to be nice, where does that authenticity i worked for & was so scared of go? & i dont mean telling someone their new haircut looks nice even when it doesnt - thats just not being a dick. but i guess, those r the normal trials & tribulations of any relationship & adolescent developing identity. which is weird too - dealing with “normal” issues, i mean. whats the point if your life/limbs/breaking point arent at risk? whats the point when your best friends already dead. im sick of people calling "survivors” (despise that word, so fucking female-originated & overdramatic) “brave” & “strong” - surviving is not brave or strong. its just survival. you wouldnt call an animal brave for running for its life from a predator but you would call a dog courageous for going into a burning building to save its owner. premeditated action on the notion that you are probably going to be hurt is brave. being subjected to pain with no choice is not. theres no “silver lining” or anything “good” to be drawn from it either - sure it may have made x a more compassionate person or made y more introspective & gentle but you know what would have been even fucking better??? if the shit hadnt happened in the first place! let x be an asshole & y be self absorbed - the “benefits”, so to speak, do not outweigh the cost, not by a long fucking shot. its not only patronizing to hear garbage like that, but a slap in the face to know that anyone could possibly see anything good coming from that nightmare & that the characteristics, good or bad, you developed either in response to or as a result of, are worth praise. dont tell me im strong for doing what i had to to escape a torture chamber - tell me im perseverant for studying my ass off & passing that test last week. in the words of one of my dearest & most fucking brilliant friends, “pain doesnt owe me/you purpose - the need to intellectualize & assign meaning to pain & death is not only futile, but harmful.” & honestly, i think that it stems from weakness (in most cases - i realize theres a plethora of other reasons such as those who r just desperate for something to hold on to or r hyperintellectual & analytical or who have been pressured by external “support” systems to find the “good” etc etc) - while the majority of people view the person who “can find the good in everything” (strictly speaking only in relation to trauma/tragedy here & more in denunciation of those that celebrate this trait as opposed to vilifying “survivors” who respond this way, though in my experience, its very very very rarely the “survivor” that perpetrates this ideology ) as strong, i sort of see it as a weakness - their inability to sit with & absorb their own pain or that of others is so strong that not only do they have to frantically pull rainbows out of the teeth of a meat cleaver, they also have to exist within this strange (tho, not malicious - more subconscious) superiority complex. like, nah, dude, some times shit is just awful. you cant tell me anything fucking good came out of a four year old girl being kidnapped, gangraped, & tortured for two years, before being impaled & left to die on a stake. her mom opened a non profit organization? oh well thank fucking god for that!!! those that believe the latter to be more “enlightened” or whatever the fuck r the same people who say shit like “dying is easy - living is harder” & i get that that its supposed to be interpreted metaphorically for the most part - giving up is easy, trying isnt (which also.....isnt true??? admitting defeat & fully accepting the fact that ur fucking helpless is beyond hard lmao???) - but pretend youre somewhere, anywhere outside ur sunny little fucking yoga studio full of white women whos biggest issues r the pta & johnny whos failing math, & lets say your life is in real, imminent danger, a gun is to your head & i want you to not scream or cry or beg for ur life since dying is “easier”. if dying is so easy, why do the majority of ppl cling to it with such desperation - why is suicide illegal? why do some ppl go thru 100s of chemo treatments even tho the doctors say theyre just prolonging the inevitable, ppl who cut off a diseased arm so it wont spread, those who walk dozens of miles every day for food & water, etc? & i know & understand the survival instinct better than anyone, even when i wanted to die more than anything, my natural instincts would kick in with no conscious neural input & id do what i had to do. im not condemning those who cling to life (ok - a little. ur wasting resources out of ur own fear. but i also realize thats just me being a Fucking Asshole As Always cuz technically, im doing the same thing tho its more due to lack of opportunity rather than fear. i just think, societally, death should be more normalized, discussed, & not made out to be so unknown & scary), instead just reprimanding those who say shit like that (inspirational facebook quotes). especially cuz most of the ppl who do spew that shit have never gone thru anything even remotely difficult - their worst nightmare is a Big Scary Black Man grabbing them on the street, mugging them, & touching their tits. & i also know that these stupid ass sayings are to be applied to bullshit like exercise & fitness (“no pain no gain” is another one of my Favorites) & not fucking torture or even just ur run of the mill rape, even that would probably smash the rose tinted banana republic shades off their beverly hills tanned faces. but ive heard the no pain no gain one a handful of times in the last few weeks, specifically from doctors performing procedures in preparation for my bottom surgery. & i know its supposed to be encouraging & they have no way of knowing, but its just like, buddy, u have no idea who youre fucking talking to. & im starting to understand what THEY mean when they say it - pain with a reward is infinitely more tolerable than pain just for the sake of pain; like, a tattoo, it hurts, but u know, when its done, its gonna be sick as fuck. when u r able to fall back on the idea that its for something u rlly want, its A Lot easier to handle as opposed to pain thats Just Pain - theres no reward for it except, i guess, that the more u experience it, the closer u r to the end of it lmao. i mean, i still hate when ppl say it cuz for most of my life, pain was just pain, & the “reward” was the opportunity to go home at the end & so whenever ppl say that, my mind just immediately resorts back to that & im just like haha fuck u. but im trying to remember my experiences r definitely not universal & im starting to sorta understand what they mean i think. but, flipping gears here, & going back to the sentiment of “everything happens for a reason”, the base philosophy of psuedo deep Fuckwads - a girls dad didnt fuck her “for a reason”, everything doesnt happen “for a reason”. like ok, hypothetically, the kid he impregnated her with & that she was forced to have at 12 may surpass all odds & not become a homeless junkie & instead become a world renowned doctor who finds the cure for cancer. but she wasnt raped repeatedly from the age of six for that “reason”, no matter what anyone says & honestly, the liberation of the masses does not justify the suffering of one, especially a child. in my eyes at least. but again, im a bitter asshole. sorry i just Went The Fuck Off here oh my god.....if u read all this, thanks, pal. if not, thats cool too. but yea, send me ur stuff, id totally be down to read it. as for me potentially thinking ur cute, i have to look at my disgusting shitstain of a “face” every goddamn day so everyone else to me is fuckin aphrodite. but im also tryin to not put so much worth into physical appearance- its not something that should be complimented cuz its just smth a person was born with which is the same reason it shouldnt be insulted. this is gonna sound gay & stupid but i personally find that a persons essence & personality really permeates. you can meet someone who, objectively, isnt all that great looking, but once u get to know them, u really see their beauty - how the sun catches in their hair, their dilated pupils looking up at u from under long eyelashes in the dark, the birthmark on their right shoulder that they despise but that is so Them, the gap in their teeth, etc. & idk how to phrase this without it sounding like “well ur ugly but at least ur a good person”, cuz that only reiterates the societally indoctrinated emphasis on appearance & my kneejerk reaction to assure the person in question that thats not what im saying is only another result of that!!! its inescapable!!! but no, really, its not just a matter of “its on the inside that counts” - physically, they change or maybe, actually this is more likely, when i first meet them, my “default” eyes r just looking for features that i know im immediately attracted to (tall, blonde, sickly as in sunken eyes sticklike pale but still looks like she could & will beat the shit out of me) but as i fall in love or get to know them better, my eyes adjust & i notice & adore the beauty that was there all along. so uh. idk if ill think ur “cute”. but probably, yes, ill think ur an angel.

[gotatext]

          whats up ! its ur local feral goblin nora ( 23, she/her, gmt ) bringing u yet another baby i dug out of the trash and vomited onto the dashboard. a fake psychic slash rodeo bull sensation studying at hendrix but born in marfa, texas. luvs wearing gingham print dresses and cowboy boots n always in loads of rings and necklaces w flowers in her hair. very into art and pornography, and particularly the combination of the two. wants to do a PHD on gender studies and female autonomy in porn (yeehaw!). this is a pinterest board. without further ado, here’s frida !

hendrix template.

( cis-female ) haven’t seen FRIDA CALHOUN around in a while. the ELIZA SCANLEN lookalike has been known to be (+) SCHOLASTIC & (+) PLUCKY, but SHE can also be (-) DOGMATIC & (-) SINGLE-MINDED. The 18 year old is a FRESHMAN majoring in GENDER STUDIES & VISUAL ART. I believe they’re living in AUDAX, but I popped by earlier and no one answered the door. ( nora. 22. cowboy time. she/her. ) 

 aesthetics.

a red gingham print dress from your childhood that tugs at the seams and hitches at your thighs. brown cowboy boots still thick with the dirt of a marfa desert. stripper heels decorated with hello kitty stickers. a crystal ball you bought for a dollar from a one-eyed woman at a thrift store. dead flowers clinging to the braids of your hair. a rucksack permanently packed for the move. a streak of red across your lips. roller blades, cut knees, not eating your greens. smiling with a mouthful of blood. the female orgasm cut and pasted from pornhub and superimposed onto renaissance art. sweet wrappers scattered over the vinyl seats of an older man’s car. also this pic here is a big frida mood

connection to eva & did they choose her name during the watershed?

study abroad mentor. when frida moved to the netherlands to study, she was assigned a mentor to help her settle into campus life, since she was not of dutch heritage. eva was her mentor for her first few weeks of study, though they weren’t really friends. occasionally they hung out if they saw each other out at night, but they weren’t like... super close.

ok,.... so first up ! despite going to uni in amsterdam, this gal was born and raised in the ole’ U.S of A. she’s from marfa, texas. it’s a very arty place. she was surrounded by art wankers as a child and it kind of educated her to a lot of shit, but also meant she grew up p fast?? like she learned about sex and death and violence from all these art people who thot they were Freeing her Superego n makin a genius child bt rlly.... they shd hav just let her play with dirt rather than showin her artistic representations of the inside of a dead bird.

 BACKSTORY TIME.. her mother was from the wrong side of the tracks, wanted 2 go to art school and started working as an erotic dancer to pay for college but then jst.... ended up staying there. one of those girls u see in the documentaries who had Big Plans but ultimately never got to pursue them n jst got.... sucked in by the money

 frida was raised in dressing rooms surrounded by sparkly costumes and nipple pasties and leotards and the like. as a kid she’d try to trot about in her moms heels n yearned for the day she’d be able to be on stage. 

if you’ve seen pretty baby its a bit similar to tht..... her mom works in a brothel n has her quite young n the expectation is her daughter will probs end up working at the brothel too when she's old enough. no1 really expected frida to get into a good uni or anythin

frida was p much raised by the town, to be honest. most of her youth was spent scurrying about half naked in cowboy boots and glasses too big for her face. a smol feral child

as a kid used to lie about being able to see dead people bcos she thought it’d make her seem cool and interesting to other kids n it got the attention of the girls her mom worked with. but when her mom realised people were willing to actually believe a 7 year old had seen their dead scorned lover, she saw it as an opportunity to swindle some extra cash and registered her as a child psychic n started putting adds out in local papers for palm readings and tarot predictions. 

when her mom hit 30s she couldn't hack being a sex worker any more, so she set up her own fortune telling business and hired a load of the girls from the club to be fake psychics. it was sort of a fortune telling parlour slash brothel, bt they kept tht very under wraps. palm reading upstairs, handjobs downstairs. the reason why some of the women from the strip club agreed to work there was because it was a business actually run by a woman who got what was going on, n not jst someone trying to make quick cash out of old men wanking

as a child, frida was on a few tv shows in the netherlands  making psychic predictions in front of live tv audiences and attempting to reach out to the spirits of their loved ones. this con continued into her teenage years, she even did youtube videos n had minor success, though she was accused of being a cheap horoscope predicter and packed it in shortly after a twitter backlash. 

if pressed, frida still claims to have a gift, but that it's not as simple as switching a light on and off, it comes when it comes, you can't summon it, and that's how she gets out of being labelled a fraud if anyone who recognises her demands a reading.

ws street smart, but also did super well at school? quite charming as a kid and good at winning adults over because of a life growing up basically conning rich white women out of their money just by telling them stuff they wanted to hear. was moved up a grade in junior high and graduated early. attended a summer school, before choosing to study in amsterdam because of the appeal of the red light district. very interested in the lives of sex workers and the way they express themselves. is only a freshman but, is like, 50% through her degree already jst cos she’s..... super passionate about her subject getting recognised as a legitimate brand of academia

she wanted to study gender performativity in the lives of sex workers and plans to do her thesis on the porn industry. it might be because of her childhood, growing up surrounded by sex workers, but she's obsessed with it, looks at mathematical structures and symbols in porn through a lens of politics and art history. very interested in visual art.

some ?mildly amusing? facts

owns 4 tarot decks and a crystal ball she bought frm an old lady with one eye

favourite drink is cherry coke

part of a burlesque collective at hendrix university who run speakeasy nights. is trying to set up her own small-scale grassroots burlesque group in one of the more mainstream clubs along the strip bcos there’s so much money and female tourists go wild 4 it

sells nudes on twitter. whenever she gets low on cash she contacts one of the seedy old men who used to visit her mom's club to venmo her $500 in return for pictures

that girl who’s always harping on about body positivity on instagram while wearing cute underwear and looking absolutely bomb 

really good at rodeo bull riding. the club in marfa had one so as a youth she got really good at it bcos she was constantly tryin to outdo her friends on who could stay on for the longest. a video of her staying on one for like 4 minutes after downing several jager bombs went viral once.

smol baby. 5′4. wears a lot of cute summer dresses n big boots. gingham is her usual dress style, or like red plaid, n then she’ll either have big white cowboy boots with spokes on the back or the really long doc martens. also owns a lot of abba-esque gogo boots and 90s creepers. flats?? who are they. has her hair in braids a lot, and usually has flowers or feathers threaded through it to add to her whole “mystic” vibe

micro-doses acid for mild depression bcos she didn’t believe in “that CBT bullshit”, thought that therapists, like her, were jst con artists so always a bit spaced out

her flirting technique is absolutely offering to read your palm. she used to do it all the time at school its how she met most of her eighth grade boyfriends. 

volunteers at one of the local galleries but mostly just rants to old white dutch men about how cis white men have dominated art for years :/ is one of those SJW-types but only?? when it comes to art?? 

has a pet rat called popeye

takes photographs of dead animals to use in her art and often posts them side-by-side with stills of women in porn to show the shelf-life of female sex workers in a patriarchal-dominated industry or some bullshit idk

big into spoken word poetry, even if its shit. likes savage depictions of femininity

wrote a thesis on art as an act of masturbation that got published 

big into capitalism and commodity culture. loves it.

wanted plots, fucker

ppl who are also studying @ hendrix but speak english !! bcos frida finished her exams a year early at like 17 n just up and left to amsterdam cos she knew if she got in-state tuition she’d never leave texas, she came to the netherlands with like, 40 dollars and a phrase book. eva was kind of her study-abroad mentor to help her settle into amsterdam campus life

ppl she met at an inter-school maths championship competition or something really fuckin nerdy like that. she probably got entered in a spelling bee or two, she was her high school’s pride and joy until people started calling her a slut in toilet door grafiti 

hook-ups !! frida does not do relationships, she had several girlfriends as a kid but she enjoyed the thrill of the chase more than being with one person. pan, but not about befriending straight men. very much fuck-em-and-chuck-em wham-bam-thankyou-ma’am when it comes to guys. that said, if u think ur character cld get under her skin n try n change that by all means be my guest

other ppl who wld be in burlesque with her. also she goes to strip clubs n peep shows like every day, thats basically research for her, so if ur characters would be into strip clubs they might see her there

she volunteers at a few galleries, tht is also a possible place where they cld kno each other from

i feel like she’d be on student council if they had one of those. shes that kind of bitch, turning up like elle woods with a big feather pen or a light-up heart marker, slamming down some truths before upping and leaving to go for her 11am chai latte break

mayb someone she’s trying to coach into being more body confident through self-expression in burlesque.

som1 who attended the art institute in marfa for a summer n maybe knew her when she was a bit younger ??? idk

drama. angst/ horror. someone accuse her of being a fake psychic and she’ll predict your horrific untimely death

nice bike rides in amsterdam please

yea like this if u a) want to plot or b) think the self is as undefinable social construct and i will slide in ur dms to further discus ruckus  x x

[almarchive]

     hello, its nora bringing yet another problematic character. this is a spoiled daddy’s bitch, raised in a farmhouse in vermont, who’s never really had to work for anything in her life and doesn’t want to. studying class civ cos she thinks it makes her sound smart, but actually hates fuckin latin and just loves learning about feckless hedonism and the festivals of bacchus. was expelled from princeton in her first year so her parents basically paid her way into lockwood. loves the smell of libraries and listening to french music from a tinny record player in knee socks. has a twin brother called otto who is basically guy bellingfield from the riot club and tbh knowing my lack of self control i‘ll probs end up bringing him here too.

bio is below the cut, like this post to be bombarded with plotting messages x

it might be HER SOPHOMORE year but I still think ALMA OLIVE PUTNAM looks exactly like ALICE PAGANI and sometimes I think the FEMALE is actually them. Of course I’m wrong, as they’re 20 and studying CLASSICAL CIVILISATION while living in AUDAX here at Lockwood. The TAURUS can be rather TENACIOUS and MAGNETIC, but also kind of FANCIFUL and DOUBLE-CROSSING. Their most played song on Spotify was LAISSE TOMBER LES FILLES by FRANCE GALL, so I think that says a lot.

THE SHORT FORM.

—  born in vermont in a big old farmhouse. her great-great-grandfather moved to america as an immagrant and worked on a plantation, made his wa up cos he could speak a lot of languages and therefore win more people over. for the last two generations, putnam men have owned the farm and do little of the dirty work. big in the meat industry.

— both her parents had Large Personalities, so alma’s never really been shy around adults, even as a kid she’d speak to them in a forthright, confident manner, and because she was always surrounded by adults, she’s always seemed a bit Wise Beyond Her Years. — very much a consolidation of every character in the secret history. has a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs. obsessed with w.h. auden and the beat poets. — ”aestheticism is the only thing worth pursuing and even that is pointless” — is majoring in classical civilisation. can read ancient greek and latin. also speaks french. — studies hard and plays hard. she gets top marks but it’s because academia is literally her life, she loves the smell of libraries, the ancient smoke of learning, of feeling like old wine in a new bottle reincarnated from the bones of some old, dead witchy woman who invented a cure for cowpox or somethin. — isn’t a foward-planner, however. frida prefers to leave her options open, play the field, live in a spontaneous manner so her study style is mostly cramming a few days before a test, or staying up all night writing an essay on a massive adrenaline boost powered by red bull or probably adderall, scribbling (or typing) furiously into the night. — pretentious motherfucker. LOVES poetry, especially the romantics, loves morbid ones too, edgar allen poe, sylvia plath, allen ginsberg, she just loves them all. can’t get enough. her favourite films are like…. wanky artfilm independent european cinema. especially french new wave. “what do you think of goddard’s work??” while snorting a line off someone’s sink at 5am on a school night, but you can bet she’ll make it to that 9am class. — very Intelligent and Beautiful and knows both of those facts. vocal feminist. soapbox sadie. Very Passionate about Issues. plays devil’s advocate. humanitarian, vegan. — judgemental but takes great care not to appear so. — just wants to be Loved By All. a party girl ; doesn’t rlly enjoy it, jst feels she Should enjoy it. — tries to be an Enigma. wants to be mysterious and unreadable because that’s what books have taught her makes women Desirable and Interesting and Cool. — obsessively devours mystery and thriller novels. she herself is a gillian flynn book waiting to happen. — act like the flower but be the serpent under it. is a user. manipulative. leads people on. will throw another student under the bus to demonstrate her own intelligence and integrity — heavily involved in the theatre society. loves attention. — has an addictive personality. seems unable to do anything in a small dose, she has to let it utterly consume her. with sports, she’s fiercely competitive, runs track, played lacrosse at school, now is a cheerleader probably. with alcohol, it’s never a shot, it’s a whole bottle – wine or whiskey – she’ll be table dancing before the night’s up and making out with someone she’ll regret in the morning. — her clothing style is like…. vintage thrift store but make it preppy. berets and cute hats, neck scarves, large fluffy cardigans or like those leathery jackets with big suede fringes on them, mini skirts (very 70s), and knee high socks or boots. quite often she’ll be in sports kit, maybe a cute tennis skirt, n when she’s feeling casual she’ll wear like, a talking heads tshirt with a pair of mom jeans and converse, but otherwise, the library is her catwalk. — relates to ophelia from hamlet and sibyl vane in dorian gray. weirdly obsessed with women who commit suicide. loves jackson pollock paintings and abstract art. – likes old things. old books, old music, old houses, it reminds her of happier times like when she wasn’t alive. buys all her music on vinyl and has a gramphone because “The Sound quality is Better” kfdsjj.

PLOTS.

here are some generic wanted plots but by all means message me so we can flesh them out more if any strike ur interest:

study buddies !! someone who is equally unprepared and so spends all night in the library with alma before a big deadline, maybe they even met in the library

if they’re from new england or vermont, then cousins . second cousins / extended family / family friends –  probably spat volavons on your character once as children, omg childhood friends !

people who live on the same floor and only know each other from brief interactions in the lift or the canteen

frinds !! unlikely friends !! toxic friends !! former best friends separated by sporting or academic rivalries !

hockey / cheer friends who are on other teams but who she absolutely loves playin against!!!

fellow academics who like meeting up to discuss latin and greek ! gimme a secret society bonding by their love of ancient learning

i reckon she’s in a lot of societies, definitely the film club, maybe works as a projectionist at the uni cinema if they have one so give me ppl affiliated with that, give me fellow wanky pretentious art-lovers and poets and historians who will go to museums and galleries with her and listen to the velvet underground on vinyl

people she gets mortally fucked off her tits with at parties

people who think she is throwing her academic potential away by caving to hedonistic impulse

people she has drunkenly made out with, hooked up with, or regularly sleeps with casually, maybe even a friend w benefits she is repressing feelings for, i love angst,

people she used to date or unrequitedly likes, but to them it’s just a physical thing, give me all the thirsty angst plots, and maybe some softness too, i need some religion in this girls life, she is a roman catholic after all

FULL BIOGRAPHY.

alma olive putnam.

intro.

            The girl is a knife. Razor-sharp, double-edged, the bright shine of a two-faced, lovely thing. Silver like the secrets you magpie thief from other heads. You’re a scavenger of knowledge, of tidbits, of gossip to lock away for later use and late-night re-inspection. A mind is like a clock if you get to learn the pieces. Bit by bit, you dismantle the inner workings of the brains that tick around you – how easy it is to change it’s path, how words and their meanings can make a person laugh or cry in an instant. To have the power to control that is to be a God. It’s the power trip you crave wielding pom-poms in your hands; a possessive need for control that a younger you, small and weak, never had as a child. Small lips, smaller smile, a doll clutched in your too-hungry fingers, hard enough to shatter the bones of a real infant. You cut your hair with your mother’s kitchen scissors before the autumn falls, rendering you out of season, unfit for the cold weather that beats against the nape of your neck, where a stick-and-poke marks the star you were born under ; the bull. “Mama, when will I be a Queen?” As soon as they find a crown small enough not to slip from your head.

biography.

            If you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart. Hands red, stained by pomegranate seeds, the empty pulp of its shell splattered on your thighs you find yourself wondering – what would it be like to want? In the beginning, you never knew hunger. Twins, born under the same star, you first, him second -- a nuclear family. Never a sister to compete with, you were always the cherry pie of your parents’ hearts. Raven-haired, blue-eyed, beautiful baby of mine. The townhouse in Vermont and the summer house in Lyon, you wanted for nought, showered with attention, saddled with gifts - hardly a wonder you came to rely on such affection as a confirmation of your own worth.

            At eight years old you first met death, blood on a gingham-print dress, a smear of it over your cheekbone and the pulp of a mangled animal at your feet murdered by the hands of a stable boy. “Alma, my precious baby, you get away from that filth,” your Mama would cry from the upstairs balcony – cigar in one hand and a bloody Mary in the other – though whether the filth she referred to was the dead pig or the boy with a kernel of corn in his mouth, you never did find out.

            Your family earned their keeps in farming, great-grandfather Wolfgang Hildegarde a German immigrant, great-grandmother Maura Lisbon a prairie girl. They fell hopelessly in love between troughs and pig-shit, working for three dollars a day at a farm their descendants would later own, trade deals with the Indians, vacations to Calcutta, your father Todd Putnam in the kind of sheepskin coat his father’s father could only dream of owning. He worked hard so that you’d never have to. Your mama once asked – you heard it through the window, rounding cartwheels across the picket-fenced lawn – could he not find a respectable career rather than selling shrink-wrapped pork for a dime a dozen? That blood money had no business raising a child. You look far back enough, Edie, your father had said in his low, strong voice that could bring a Civil War to silence, and I think you’ll find that all money is blood money.

            Language was never fickle on your tongue, French dinner time talk by the time you were out of your Hush Puppy shoes, your mama fixing the au pair a smile as she fixed herself another martini. You learned the clarinet at four and how to dance with the grace of a swansong at six, ethereal under a spotlight, an audience captive in the palm of your hand. By eight you knew that you’d always been destined to be loved. Loved so hard they would want to taste you, bite into the soft plump of your cheek and eat you alive. That was how magnetic you wanted to feel. But mother hamsters eat their own young when penned in together too long, and soon you became too wild, too restless, another package on your father’s delivery invoice, box-shipped out to English boarding school.

            Fitting in had never been something you had to concern yourself with. You were always the shiny new toy the other girls wanted to play with, bright like a dropped coin from a magpie’s beak. Wherever you went, you seemed to leave a trail of awe, pig-tailed Harriet’s adoring you, imitating you, teachers forgiving your class-time chatter for the sake of your wild heart and the restless spirit you possessed. Tell us what it’s like in the States, Alma. They’d coo, enamoured by your Hollywood drawl. Does your father own a gun? You hardly knew. Barely even knew the colour of his hair, for the scarce amount of times he’d stoop to kiss your cheek, though you’d tell silver-tongued tales if it’d guaranteed you an audience. When you learned how to smile at the right times, and that flattery would get you everywhere, it soon became apparent that charm would pave the yellow brick road to success even when your lack of drive couldn’t.

            The road you followed – gum-snapping, roller-blading, friendship bands all up your arm – eventually led you to small-town fame. Bright-eyed and gingham skirted, you’d always known you were more. There was a hunger in you to be something extraordinary, a want so adamant to be imagined and desired that it was almost savage. In leather-bound volumes and a circle of stones, you were Helen of Troy, the girl for whom they’d launch a thousand ships. But there’s so much rage within you, collecting like sawdust in cavernous parts. Hockey helped. There was something grounding about the feeling of a stick clasped in your hands. Sweat. Stiff knuckles. Feet pounding the earth. The smash of wood against flesh in the scram of a game, passed off as mere enthusiasm. “Slipped, sorry.” Hockey is the one thing you had that was yours alone – a feral instinct that motivates you to play; something primitive within you that sparks an energy like no other. On the pitch, you feel alive.

[thepricecaulfield]

Some thoughts about the relationships between Chloe & Rachel and Chloe & Max

I want to start with that this is my entrypost into this tumblr world. I posted here and there, youtube, reddit, discords, steam, elsewhere, mostly sat there and listened and wrote small texts, not big walls of texts, like this one is going to be.

I’m insecure if I should have posted this, but well, I give it a try, it is a text filled with analysis, personal experience and some theories, I tried to clear that in the path.

Warning! Spoilers ahead for LiS and BtS!

Here you go:

First of all: Pricefield and Amberprice are both valid ships, I prefer Pricefield and stay there, forever.

Chloe and Max harmonize in many ways, like Yin-Yang, they are total opposites of each other. They had a deep relationship (friendshipwise, platonic) in their childhood and were at their edge to puberty, but it wasn’t meant to unfold because of dramatic changes in their lifes: Williams death - Chloe in grief, not able to overcome that trauma, Max leaving her (Not on intention.). Max on the otherhand may (My opinion, since we have no proof, but when we take her psychical condition into account.) had the same problems, since she refers to William as her second father to her, so she may suffered also from grief and pain and was not able to handle all of this and how to comfort her best friend.

The Max and Chloe comeout is building up more slowly in LiS1, more deeply in my point of view. Max is insecure, not sure what her feelings are, I tend to say she has zero experience with sexuality in general and has no clue what she is into (f/f or f/m). She has some sort of developmental disability (such as High Functioning Autism/Asperger Syndrome), as she is in an IEP (Individualized Education Program, a program usually reserved for students with said condition) according to her Student File. She feels guilty for leaving Chloe and there is always this “Rachel Amber” reference in front of her during those five days. That makes things complicated as well. And we have the circumstances of a mistery around us and that Max is building up a lot of feelings towards Chloe later on.

When we have the chance to kiss Chloe the first time, Chloe is not shocked, but overrun, not expecting that Max is actually doing it. When we did the right things, Chloes smartphone background is replaced with a picture of Max. Several dialogs point into the direction that Chloe is interested in Max in a way, Max is not thinking of first. Some moves and dialogs of Chloe during the first episodes also hint in that direction (”Same sex marriage” dialog/messages for example.) The pool scene is the first real direct hint what Chloe is up too in my eyes.

The relationship/come out builds up more slowly, Chloe on guard somehow, but interested in Max. Max seems to get comfortable with the situation over the course of the episodes when we follow her diary.

The Both have a deep relationship as stated before from her childhood, that was overshadowed, but it was rekindled, since it never really broke, and I tend to say, that Chloe was into Max already before LiS, but in her heart. The dream sequences from BtS where William hints into the direction that a greater beauty is yet to come after he warns Chloe of the fire and shows her the sky filled with stars maybe the hint.

Rachel, I don’t hate her, but I don’t like her either in some way. She is elusive in many ways. The whole BtS plot reminds me of my own teenage time, first love, fulled by passion, a short episode, built to last not long enough. Passion is the keyword in here. Rachel crashes in there with passion, shows up on scene for Chloe, when she needs someone the most. And Chloe falls for it. I know this feelings, when you are alone, lost beloved people, in grief and pain shrouding your mind, puberty and adolescence is complicating everything, your whole world is burning and breaking apart.

An interesting part is, that Chloe is saying the following words to Joyce during her conversation after the Firewalk concert: “And sometimes, when we’re incredibly desperate and lonely, we choose the absolute wrong kind of people to let into our hearts…..” - this is somehow blowing my mind, since she just ignores her own words a few hours later.

Chloe has major/minor mental issues and falls easily for someone like Rachel. Rachel seems perfect, but is broken inside. But she is manipulating people around her to her needs to a certain degree with great sucess. She is flipping switches as needed and attracts people she is interested in. I think she can be considered as being in her playphase, not sure what she is about sexualy and eager to find out what she is into, so she is willing to test it out with Chloe. But I pretend to say, that she is not gay, but more considered to be bi-sexual during her teenage years or later on when Frank and Mr. Jefferson get into play out of her experimenting phase. I know some people who had those phases in their teenage years between 14-17 and found their sexual identity not before they were 18. (Proud to say I know some gay women/men/transgender/bi-sexuals who found their identity and had their coming out.)

Several ppl analyzed the Tempest scene and mentioned that the roles where chosen perfect, that Chloe is a hostage to Rachel, mentally. I tend to say they are right.

Quote: “First things first: a tempest is a storm, the title of this mini-series is Before the Storm, and in Life is Strange, Arcadia Bay is about to be decimated by a giant storm that Max spends the latter half of the game trying to prevent from happening. This connection is obvious. Furthermore, all three episode titles for Before the Storm are references to quotes from The Tempest:

“Awake” references the Act I, Scene 2 call to Miranda from Prospero: “Awake, dear heart, awake! Thou hast slept well. Awake!” “Brave New World” is from Miranda’s speech in Act V, Scene I: “O brave new world, That has such people in’t!” “Hell is Empty” is from a much-quoted scene with Ariel in Act I, Scene 2: “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

Prospero is the architect of all that occurs around him, manipulating the relationship between Miranda and Ferdinand, and using the spirit Ariel and Caliban to mess with his shipwrecked enemies. He is the person who shapes the story of The Tempest, from creating the storm to treating other characters like puppets.” (Full article here: http://fandom.wikia.com/articles/life-is-strange-before-the-storm-the-tempest / There are many more articles about this around that state the same since the roles of Rachel and Chloe are given and the represent somehow the same roles in the play like they do in their life.)

Rachel can be seen as manipulative in that she charms everyone around her — her teachers, her classmates, and most of all, Chloe. She is the focal point that moves the story of Before the Storm forward. Rachel is also the thing that brings Max and Chloe together in the original Life is Strange, with her absence and the mystery around it bringing the two together.

Chloe builds up an emotional und psychic dependence (I tend to say borderline obsession.) for Rachel and Rachel sticks to that. She wants to be a rebel with Chloe and get out of Arcadia Bay pretty fast. But she tends to go her ways and switch ships to her needs later. Frank is one ship, and the Jefferson ship is real to, there is that crumbled letter on the junkyard. (http://life-is-strange.wikia.com/wiki/Rachel_Amber?file=RachelChloeLetter.png) (http://i.imgur.com/0f9UIFB.jpg)

Rachel is Chloes angel for the moment, her saviour for a short time, but not for the greater good. The realtionship they build up is not going to last long without severe damage for Chloes psychic health. The dependence Chloe is driving into is not healthy for her, but she gets there easily.

But we know from the third dream scene vom BtS that William predicted, that there will be a greater beauty to come and that Chloe has to be cautious because of the fire. The theme behind this dream is not truly clear, but many people back the theory, that William warns her about Rachel.

What I believe is that this is the truth and that the greater beauty to come is a reference to Max.

To summarize it:

Max & Chloe have a pure, deep and sure true love going on, build upon something they can rely: They complement each other with their traits and help each other to become better selfs. Chloes gets back into track, trying to beging a better life and keep her feet on the ground, Max gains selfconfidence, breaking the shell around her.

Rachel & Chloe have a passionate, stormy, and sure emotional love going on, build upon…..well, I don’t really know: They both corrupt each in some ways/many ways, Chloe infects Rachel with her rebellion to certain degrees and Rachel creates a dependency on Chloe that makes her easy to manipulate and worse, leaves her with this tendency of always putting Rachel first, basically not focusing on her own life that is a real mess.

Thanks for reading.

[kendrixtermina]

For the Love of Socionics

First I find it important to note here that I am not necessarily promoting this concept; I just thought it was interesting to discuss.

As such, I will try both to present it as the concept as it was so you can form your own opinion but aso add my own thoughts/ comments later.

So, today’s concept: Love, as in, human attachment bonds, or depending on whom you ask, the ideal, “true” state thereof.

It’s a word that has been used to mean many things in many context and ppl spend thick lyrical volumes debating its meaning so ever since the olden days ppl have been looking in ways to characterize it futher, all the way from modern terminology desgned to describe, say, a-spec people, to the most basic stuff drawn up by the ancient greeks.

Just like they gave us one of the first personality theories (the 4 temperaments), they codified the “Four Loves” at least for the western sphere of culture.

Turns out some socionists also got in on the act, and speculated about a connection to the Funktions!

But let’s start at the beginning:

The Classical List

Eros - Romantic Love (Romantic as in “couple” not as in “poetic and idealized”)

Philia - The infamous Power of Friendship!

Storge - Family Bonds

Agape - “Spiritual”/Selfless Love

At first, this was a sharp classification of the basic kinds of bonds that humans form in their many relationships: You have your folks, partner(s) and friends and they’re distinct in a couple of ways, as is the kind of idealistic drive that might drive you to risk your life to protect a fellow vhuman being or care for the downtrodden out of charity.

For example, you generally screw your girlfriend (unless you’re ace of course), but many would find the very thought of doing that with family, longtime friends or favorite deity hugely gross; You choose your friends and partners (well, hopefully), but you’re just stuck with your family (unless you’re adopted)...

You can tell by the brackets that things are a bit more complicated than just those sharp delineations - You can, for example, be best friends with your girlfriend, regard either your lifelong friend or spouse of many decades as part of the family, and many a parent would sacrifice everything for their child...

Often enough these are seen as all having their place and importance, though sometimes people would imagine a hierarchy here somewhere, depending on their culture - The ancient greeks being kinda misogynist devalued Eros as inferior to Philia as an equal bond, as do many “My spouse is such a nag!” type people im told are still around today, whereas modern believers in the “friendzone” seem to see Friendship as a consolation prize if not an insult (??because the worst thing ever is ??Cogeniality??), a lot of cultures insist you should obey your parents over everything even if they’re abusive asshats and of course religion always claims that invented and has the monopoly on any important human universals and praise abnegation as the highest good; Certainly the love of gods (particulary the monotheistic sort) for their creations is often described as such unconditional sacrifice, while those same religions decry attraction they disagree with as “low, carnal urges” to the point that medieval clerics questioned wether women have souls (because everyone is hetero & ladies don’t exist outside of being ppl’s wives amiright?)

It’s worth noting that various ancient societies had something like “blood brothership” which was for best friends was marriage is for romantic partners in that you could get some legally binding, indefinite formalization that made you part of each other’s clans. Meanwhile a romantic partner who is also a good friend is basically what people call a “soulmate” once you strip away the supernatural predestination myths around it; It’s sure how the Sims 4 implemented that XD

And obvsly we no longer see these as restricted to gender in that way. Two dudes can have eros. A guy and a chick can be friends.

And speaking of “low carnal urges” obviously shallow infatuation exists, but can’t friendship or family likewise driven by base instincts, such as they monkey drive for social rank and influence and the urge to procreate and make/raise babies which is probably older than pair-bonding. (which resulted in the potential for romance - a lot of animals just screw and are done with it.) Abusive Parents and fairweather friends everywhere attets that true love of any flavor can be hard to find.

Agape doesn’t really have a primal counterpart like that because it requires the human ability to even conceive of a “greater good” or “ideal” but in devotion there’s the danger ofyour kindness being abused, as well as that of zealotry - people who would kill or die for their ideologies, gods and dictators.

So perhaps a more differentiated view would be as these things as phenomena that can  but don’t have to co-occurr depending on the relationship, all of wichhave their good and bad sides - you can have a perfectly fine “girlfriend” or a more ambitious “soulmate” and likewise a “buddy” or a “blood-brother” etc.. and those would not be the same.

Likewise further concepts have been identified and added, often in the more specfific context of various components for a romantic relationship to have, though you could quantify any sort of human attachment through various combinations.

Extended List

Eros - The one strictly romantic or at least sensual aspect. Attraction to the partner’s beauty and other sensual attributes, and also expressed through physical touch, closeness, a lot of togetherness and sexuality (Though Boinking is not strictly required; Be it because of young age, orientation or circumstances preventing the couple from doing the deed.) A passionate type of bond that can form quickly and involve an element of loss-of-control. This can, however, lead to impulsive actions, Soap Opera plots and burn itself out unless there’s something deeper connecting the partners.

Philia - The defining ingredient of friendships. A bond based on mutual sympathy. The involved parties enjoy each other’s company, find each other’s character appealing and may share common interests, opinions , hobbies or joint pursuts.  Ideally this would be an equal bond that is all about giving each other freedom, echanging ideas and supporting each other through cameraderie. This one is largely unrelated to physical characteristics - Indeed most of ppl’s friends will not be romantic partners. On the other hand people who look for this sort of dynamic in a romantic partner will care more for personality and commonalities than looks.

Storge - Affectionate attachment based on familiarity. This can be the stuff of family bonds but also what you feel toward old childhood friends or pets, but also perhaps when you take a caretaking role towards a spouse, between a mentor a disciple, or in ‘found family’ type dynamics.  It is mosty formed just by living in close proximity, and represents a source of stability and repose, but also a sharing of duties and responsibilities. This is perhaps one of the more ‘mundane’ bond flavors, but also one that engenders the strongest loyalty, even if the person screws up big - After all, Ohana means nobody gets left behind. If this type of bonds are high on your priority list, you will want to get to know the person well before opening up or comitting to anything.

Agape - Selfless Love  - based on empathy and compassion for one’s fellow beings and the desire for their happiness with no expectation of reward.. Self-Sacrificing, unconditional, idealistic and far removed from the realm of material concerns and thus at times described as ‘divine’ or ‘spiritual’ - what we know as Charity, Altriusm and forgiveness. Random acts of kindness and thankless work for the greater good are classic examples; In an interpersonal context, it means to place the other person’s happiness before your own and accept them as they are. If this is a priority for you, you may be looking for an idealized, profound bond and be willing to be giving and devoted in return, but you’ll do well to keep your own needs and limits in mind.

Ludus - Playful love. Attachment and everything related to it as a source of personal pleasure, as well as pleasure as an aspect of relationships. Often involves some manner of sensuality or sexuality, but in contrast to eros, the primary emotions here are freedom, excitement and satisfaction.  This is usually present at the ‘getting to know’ phase of a relationship, but can also be pursued for its own sake through conversational flirting, ‘just for fun’ sex and all manner of kinky stuff. A lot of relationships fail because the partners failed to keep alive a spark of playfulness through the years - but on the downside, there’s a risk for irresponsible behavior - So make sure to use condoms and establish clear communications so no one gets their heart broken.

Mania - Dramatic Love. The intense, consuming, shakespearian sort of love that many poems, songs and stories were written about - though this may also be felt toward someone one simply admires. Involves dynamic feelings centered on the partner, who is held in high esteem while the relationship itself is given high importance. Interactions with the partner strongly influence the person’s mood, leading to pronounced moods that go through ups and down; At the heart of the matter is a subliminal desire to receive validation from the partner - but if said partner is not really the Mania sort, there’s a chance that they might be spooked or overwhelmed instead. In excessive extremes, this can lead to disproportionate jealousy or even obsession.

Pragma - Sometimes called ‘enduring love’ but in itself probably best described as the relationship between allies, it is a bond pursued for and sustained by practical, reasonable concerns, to be willing and able to work together toward joint or individual goals, to put in effort, patience and tolerance, and make compromises in order to make things work and mantain the relationship throughout the drudgery of everyday life. The partners are drawn together by common priorities, compatible views, dependability and having compatible life plans. This is glue that keeps a good working relationship or lasting arranged marriage going, though any bond may need its share of this in order to stand the test of time, be it a friendship or a romance. People for whom this is a high priority often show that they care by helping you in everyday practical matters - however, they can also have pretty high standards and expectations for their relationships

Philautia - Self-Love or Self-respect. Not really to do with interpersonal attachment per se, but obviously relationships can impact it for better or for worse, and likewise this helps us to choose good relationships.

As if those weren’t enough, the person who made this paper - a certain Mr. Meged - made up some of his own which he felt still merited terms:

Meged’s Additions

Victoria - Love as conquest, that is, interpersonal relationships as a means to “win” recognition, respect or the attention of everyone around, to seek stimulation in the thrill of satisfied ambition or vanity. Despite or perhaps because of that, they prefer and respect potential partners who present them with a bit of a challenge or surprise; In that case they show their interest through vying for, if not demanding the person’s attention in which they can be somewhat persistent.  This probably why people like stuff like Dominance-and_submission roleplays,  sexy vampires, or the Princess-In-The-castle trope, and why phrases like ’you belong to me’ are sometimes considered romantic or hot. Sometimes ppl with this as their main approach to bonding can be somewhat inconstant, or selfish especially if they’re extroverts (since there are always new ‘conquests’), the introverts may prefer a stable uncomplicated setup.

Analita... eh that word sounds too much like a fancy term for buttsex imma just gonna say “Analytic Love.”, meaning something in the direction of ‘fascination’, yet more specific than that. These folks are typically reserved and try to analyze the object of their  fascination from the distance, with a marked intellectual component - They try to understand how the other person “works”, that is to analyze their behavior and find connections betwenn their actions and reactions. The goal is to have the partner “figured out” by means of building a logical model of them, but when something doesn’t quite fit into it, they might just pique their curiosity even more and lead them to make futher observations to “observe” that model, which often has an abstracting-generalizing nature - indeed folks for whom this is a they have an idea of what a relationshgip should be like in terms of guiding logical principles on which they may not readily compromise - they’re looking to balance both their physical desires and intellectual needs and are drawn to people who are dynamic enough to be interesting to them, yet consistent enough. so even though they don’t idealize the partner or relationship the way some of the more ‘dynamic-feelsy’ flavors do,  they can be picky and liable to dissapointment.

A/N: I do think that these are Things and that there should be words for these. I was actually looking for a word for the later or perhaps something more general than that. I mean these definitions are ovsl. a bit too tailor-made for what he was gonna do with them, but I do think he’s onto something more universal there.

But why, why couldn’t he pick something that sounds less like “Anal”? I finally find a word for this and then I can’t use it, because butt.  

So what was this dudes’ point?`Well, he though that each function came with a characteristic type or range of them feels and therefore an affinity to a characteristic flavor in their attachments.

In particular, he drew these associations:

The Theory

Victoria and Se. Because socionics Se is aggrotastic anyways; There’s sure a tendency strive toward status, mastery/competition and stimulation/ excitement that is probably reflected in the courtship process as it is everywhere else.

Eros and Si - Largely drawing this connection because of the ‘sensual’ aspect, but also note that SJs tend to seek a harmony in both a physical and feelsy sense resulting in great loyalty and a willingness to overlook some of the partner’s flaws for the sake of stability and work to and create a nice environment for them, if anything they may try to adapt their partner to their needs - that said if they do not find the desired harmony, they will get dissapointed and part ways with their partner easily.

Philia and Ne - Bond will be based on a kinship of ideas, interests and motives and an underlying friendship with a sense of deep respect and understanding. A relatively selective mechanism that primarily unites like-minded people and stimulates growth of capability. To these folks equality is very important, so coercion or dictates and won’t remain loyal to anyone who dissapoints them, and, if the parther is too different in their thinking or doesn’t meet their expectations, they part ways without much regret.

Storge and Fi. A tenderness that includes deep understanding and compassion, complete with the ability to compromise and  smooth over disagreement. These folks will characteristiclyshow much solidarity to their partner, leniency towards their shortcommings and a general striving toward a harmonious, stable, pleasant and laid-back style of interaction.  It’s mostly about a connection of the sould more than anything else, but its crucial that the partner shows sensitivity.

Agape and Ni - Because they’re all abstrac-y and conceptual I guess.

Analita and Ti - Well yeah, he clearly made it up to fit this b/c he didn’t find a more fitting word in literature - that said he’s already heavily bending the definitions with some of these. (especially eros & Storge, for exam,ple; That’s not rly what was originally meant by that though I guess I see where he sees the applicability)

Pragma and Te - Choses partner by sober, pragmatic and ‘sensible’ parameters. Though the importance given to one’s personal priorities can be read as ‘egocentric’ , these folks are in fact oriented toward a ‘fair’ balance of giving and receiving, and presumes that one respect and understands the partner; There is a strivng toward the satisfaction of mutual interests.

Mania and Fe - desire for prolonged emotional intensity and exaggerated valuation of the relationship. This can be a a dramatic, demanding, evem possesive feeling with a fierce desire for complete reciprocation, but is at the same time capable of great compromise sacrifice and endurance. These are the sort of couples that argue a lot as changeable, dynamic, momentary moods play a big role.

Then, of course, it does was socionics often does and spends the greater part of the article bending into a pretzel in order to hamfist perfectly fine observations or ideas in that forced duality framework.

For the last time, Mister,  I am NOT marrying an ESFJ!

(No offense to the ESFJs. I’m pretty sure they would want to marry me even less, especially since this Meged guy recommends that you do all the household chores for me like TF? How can  “One person does all the work” remotely considered a functioning relationship?)

My 2cents

Hm...

I mean there are 2 basic ideas in here that I think should be differiented here -

A - that functions, especially the ego block functions, influence bonding behavior in specific ways and that it’s worth exploring what those specificificities are.

B - that those specifics are as postulated above, and that doesn’t have me wholly convinced.

Amusingly enough it seems to fit my priorities pretty well where my own main functions are considered - part of me is relieved to see that there’s a word for the Ti thing & how it’s actually very different to what the Te folks have going on, “logical principles” feature in more as general laws of whats fair & reasonable & you might pursue a not wholly reasonable in a Te sense connection because it’s interesting - in a way its closer to what Fi ppl do in that sense of wanting to “understand” the other person, but also very different in some parts, especially in the lack of that idealization Fi sometimes has - Your average TP is probably very aware of their loved ones’ character flaws, doesn’t place any exaggerated importance on relationships and won’t take anyone’s side just because they like them - it depends on wether they’re right or wrong, after all.

But IDK about the rest.

Many of the Fi users I know would indeed be in the “cute and stable” flavor of bonding and likewise I’ve encountered some SPs who were very much natural tops or Ni doms with a hidden romantic side (which I’d blamed on tert Fi TBH) but I’d hesitate to make that generalization - We can think of Fi users what we’d rather sort into the Mania or Agape categories, with the Fe users yeah the dramatic sort exist but the “reasonable, reliable, srz bzness” ones that would go in a Pragma or Agape direction  are probably the majority and the Si one doesn’t seem to make sense at all?

What do you guys think? After all I don’t really have first hand experience with, say, a high Si user’s POV.

Random idea/speculation:

Could this be an enneagram thing instead, again with a proportionality related to stuff like wings & trifixes?

1 - Agape

2 - Eros

3 - Pragma

4 - Mania

5 - Analita.

6 - Storge.

7 - Ludus

8 - Victoria

9 - Philia