#even though that's also a term with no relation to reality

[kirigear]

all future ads should pack it in, you'll never beat the raw persuasive power of the phrase "naturally flavored with other natural flavors"

[la0hu]

masha broke a bowl by accident in the kitchen and when i brought her the broom and dustpan and asked her if she was okay, she looked at me, straight-faced, and said, "no, i'm not okay." and then i realized she meant that she still feels emotionally abused by the house somehow, and i felt a flash of anger because i am so sick of her shit, and i rephrased, "are you physically injured?" and she gave me another look and said "i'm physically okay." and then when connie asked from her room "what's going on?" masha replied "nothing new." like fuck off ohhhhhhhh my god

[unproduciblesmackdown]

an approach of "everyone inherently deserving to have autonomous choices" as juxtaposed with, fundamentally opposed to even, "a select few entitled to limit others' ability to do so, making themselves more able to choose what happens to other people, enforced through power"

also the way "direct interpersonal exposure to an abusive party is sure like how other interactions in relation to power differentials / no principled approach that everything isn't a hierarchical competition actually, like taking up space, communicating; ft. double standards in favor of the winners" wherein it's like, it's not even just like "being in the haunted house of living with an abuser is like a Metaphor for existing amongst broader power disparities / w/selectively applied (by others) increased vulnerability / at the whims of w/e authority" like, more like a Model. it's the same principle and the same system and the same bullshit, just more confined / a smaller isolated unit of [nuclear household] or [romantic partnership] or w/e interpersonal specific social grouping. been training to recognize "wow just like [a reality of such experiences]" all my life actually

the difference of the possibilities of You Can Choose This versus limitations of arguing to the existing power structure to possibly acknowledge that you Have to [pursue certain option] b/c it's the only way, Objectively, so if only they can be shown this they would allow it....despite this situation not requiring "or you could've just been able to choose to do that freely in the first place" & by extension not requiring [threat to that power structure]

the pressure to [hey. don't unionize] like, the numbers always being against the few at the top, so it's required to have these iterations where other people can prop up this world of Gotta Have Power At Others' Expense by supporting people playing by the rules and keeping others in line; being someone who helps / supports the overall system of oppressive power structure and can enjoy wielding the granted power / being supported/insulated at others' expense / having a sense of entitled authority themselves. while people can be mad at those who are in the same boat / aren't actually wielding that structural power and scapegoat anyone like, well this is why we'll never get treated better by [group / individual in power], you're ruining it / responsible for those choices/actions of those in power....which doesn't challenge that empowered party's ability to choose those actions that are affecting everyone

versus support in the face of vulnerability to that, being what allows people to make choices for themselves / exist more freely. rejecting the idea of "well [person] fucked up so now i won't deign to reward / Not punish everyone after all" as being [person]'s fault; like "well if we all only acted perfectly Deservingly / in just the right way, those in power would have to go 'oh okay everyone can be treated as inherently deserving now :)'" is the answer, when even then, b/c of the power structure putting them In Charge anyways, at most, they simply Could do that and Could graciously rescind that power. and if they don't, oh well, you didn't all do it right after all, assign blame amongst yourselves to stay in continual competition and avoid recognizing that actual improvement requires a different approach where you have to support each other instead of criticizing / blaming / competiting and just hoping there's always someone else to get the brunt of the most negative attention / harmful treatment

thinking of queerness as an expanse of possibility and autonomous choices. versus the limitations of "patriarchal society atomized into nuclear family units" concept of sexuality & gender, Cishet Ideals. existing outside those ideals as being a matter of what people Can do. versus what they Have to do. arguing that the guiding light, the defining principle here should be recognition of people who Have to be gay, for example, as what doesn't really challenge the power structure that requires & reinforces homophobia. while "what if it doesn't matter if people are objectively proven & universally recognized as Having to be gay. what if people Can all choose to do some gay shit regardless, without these choices being limited by their vulnerability to harm, such that Everyone is pushed into [patriarchal nuclear family unit ideals] life." even if you argued everyone ever is straight, actually, the problem is in whether you can define what that means and enforce it on everyone. people who Are straight are harmed and made more vulnerable by patriarchy & the imposition of [your only source of social support is within the isolated nuclear family unit]; Cishet Ideals are also an impossible standard that can also be used to blame anyone, including people who could would consider themselves cishet, for their inevitable failure to live up to them as the reason that [isolation & domination sucks actually] is hurting them. like how cis people also never live up to supposed Cis Gender ideals and are subject to trying to better earn, & objectively prove, their quality as a member of their gender, thus worth, & be under constant scrutiny re: gender & able to be blamed for failing to live up to the ideals. while, of course, the fractalized iterations of power structures means cis people still get to be gender cops at the expense of anyone more vulnerable

language as an art & science, necessarily always evolving & in flux, rather than prescriptive & static. the way that Static Prescriptive approach may be marginally associated with "well this helps Coordinate; streamline; reduce confusion" but Uncertainty is also possibility. Allistic Social Ideals seeming to be about [minimize confusion, streamline, coordinate] in the best light, but also being affected by ableism, and this approach being used to Other people, as enemy &/or lower on the social hierarchy, to be diminished/harmed either way. this being able to be used against any individuals or groups that can thusly be [othered]; ableism also affects everyone: the logic that we don't think we should all support each other / respect autonomy, we're instead all subject to an eternal Meritous test to prove who has the Capacity to Deserve to have more power than some others. ableism also needing to be understood in juxtaposition with / the context of racism; vice versa. the "you Can't" in applied authoritative power being not just [i won't allow it] but [i won't allow it b/c you are literally incapable anyways]....in every power disparity, the empowered supposedly deserve it on a merit that grants them Superior Abilities. e.g. patriarchy requires ableism, women Cannot do the things that men get to do, in their bones & minds & souls they must be shopping; the same logics play out like they do in ableism, patriarchy is only bolstered by "oh well you're good at Other things that I'm not good at :)" which conveniently means in ways still exploited to support those who already have more power while you stay more disposable; acknowledgment of those who "overcome" being disabled, or a woman, to do the thing abled people or men can do, which just means All of you should try harder and then you'd all be equal to us, it's your own fault :) and/or simply taking ideas, recognition, credit from them. even "gotta colonize & subjugate the world, which is good actually b/c it's for jesus" is like, legitimately oh you're welcome for now having The Capacity to go to heaven: but also to justify violence & oppression based on who's Inherently more evil from this christian evangelist perspective, which happens to deserve death or exploitation (work & suffering good for your inner christianness. you're welcome)

white man's burden, how Easy women have it, can't believe 5 cents of my taxpayer money might've gone to a disabled person somewhere to barely live on b/c "see how even Institutionally Recognized As Legitimately(tm) 'Disabled' people are treated?" has to be a threat for all / not display what it could be like to actually support anyone's genuine wellbeing, including their having the support to have more expansive choices in their life, vs just barely hovering over the constant threat of dangerous increased vulnerability....

that those in power will very readily consider themselves Constantly Besieged, Wronged, Threatened By Any & Everyone; versus those actually negatively affected by being low enough on some hierarchy to be harmed & denied autonomy by others with more power being the ones who have to struggle to even stop blaming themselves or at least people who Aren't the ones with that power, who are more likely to cling to "well, it's my fault, and i Can earn my way out of this" narratives....which actually would be a situation in which one theoretically Does have more autonomy; thus more palatable than believing that anything's truly out of your hands / there isn't so simple a solution here / [other person; people] are/were never going to actually start affording you respect as a person

back to the expanse of possibility of language, subjective & in flux & developed by the mutual Effort to (more) successfully communicate....thinking about being autistic and someone talking about how the demands in Trying to be understood verbally means innovating and developing Language thusly. an art and a science. creative and experimentally backed. (also math/science as approaches are also creative / Not the antithesis of art, thanks). thinking of how sure nt (another socially constructed Ideal that doesn't exist to describe reality but to demand everyone just try to stop failing to have earned better / congrats on bringing it upon yourself, you're responsible for my feelings & actions) people might generally approach communication like "??? idk i don't have to regularly have a conscious approach, so i don't. i just Am Normal" versus when your communicative approach, for any various reasons, is Not considered normal, thus not considered ideal, so you Do have to interact with people consciously, Translate for their benefit as best you can. thinking of the idea of Poetry as a work understood to require a third space between two parties: it's not colloquial, the poet is using language in this noncolloquial context to communicate a concept, perchance create a link to an effect they can't invoke with a preexisting word for it, while the reader/listener is understood to likewise have an active role, be consciously trying to not just "correctly" receive the meaning, but explore the possibilities of various, even ongoing, interpretation, in conversation with the poet's efforts and the reality of them as being another person, and also perhaps allowing for the spontaneous mutual discovery of possible meaning for the third space / conversation between speaking and interpretating. (versus artist as authorititative vanguard, communicating something static & definitive that others can only Fail to interpret correctly, which is just like them. lol) like, what's not Poetic, in that sense, about two people bringing mutual conscious effort, flexible interpretation / room for possibility, interest in getting it right not to bolster ego but to have had a more successfully constructive interaction. which could even include the ability to interpret someone's lack of communication in expected ways; their choice not to engage thusly; as anything other than a threat or slight to your supposed entitlement to just that. like i deserve phonecalls over emails or speaking over nonspeaking or even the Guaranteed opportunity to communicate w/anyone when & how i want to, i'm simply being so good faith curious i swear........anyways, i'm not that into reading poems, absolutely not into making them, not in this "literal" sense anyways, but again what's not poetic about just trying to communicate via this Translation all the time. the way i can latch on to phrasings from prose written by people who also write poems, and/or just sure appreciate like the entirety of some essay of theirs, the approach, its execution. anger is a type of geography. when something is ignored, it can do what it likes, sometimes.

everyone always on twitter trying to outrun some [every other day's qrt trend of "what opinion has everyone hate you" tangled meme that is sure like "and apparently you're about to acquiesce" in context but also that everyone Loves to air, actually, hence it being in constant, inescapable distribution] (i don't see it b/c successful curation ig lol). everyone trying to feel like they're more worthy vanguard authoritative Radically Non Cishet than others constantly just going off of vibes, which is to say, probably just going like "but have we considered being more biphobic" or some more tried & true similar [this is the same old shit & the Cishet Ideals are supported by it] takes that are like, "any Unleashed Edgy Freethinking standup comedian man saying shit you'd hear in a mall food court from some rando's uncle" like, we have heard of this actually, but sure you're so brave for suggesting maybe the transgenders have gotten a bit too powerful, except you're saying it in a [but this is totally queer analysis] way....queer analysis Linguistics being like, undoubtedly the favorite [i am become flynn rider swords tangled twitter meme] avenue. this like language revanchism like "this word must be returned to this specific usage" but a) it's never returning it to a way that it actually existed and b) is the prescriptive ossification of our limited preexisting language to discuss queerness, guided by the idea that it'd be bad if it was Too Inclusive, actually the principle we want to operate on here. is indulging in the level of power trip feeling of like tormenting a peer in middle school really your most serious focus and genuine efforts in supporting people's ability to exist as they are

how did the "asexuals can't be queer" stint work out for everyone? the fact that all the arguments also backed every other form of bigotry and abusive logic aside: what were the results, exactly? stuart cishet was thwarted from nefariously entering a queer space & ruining it for all, b/c he no longer had the option to cross the drawbridge by saying he was asexual, right, that was a close one. anyone amused by being like "they hate to see a meboss winning" just limited to not even arguing about "uhh but you're As Good As straight" (a crucial, supportive tool in our history, right) but rather just like....deciding it's about asexuals being cringe or something, and who could easily move on not by actually operating on better principles than "cishet ideals of controlling people's sexuality is: Don't Have Sex, right? which is also the whole of what asexuality describes or entails?" or "what's gained by focusing on making this as exclusive as possible anyways. nonrhetorically. what do you gain or facilitate. what do you lose or preclude." but just like "haha well i've moved on anyways"

your choices re: your sexuality and gender as ones you Can make. with expansive possibility borne of the support as a person that you should get merely by virtue of existing. versus "but i Have to exist like this" as an appeal to the established power structure to perhaps elect to allow Some truly legitimate gays to suffer a little less effects of homophobia. who can in turn be like "ugh, bisexuals CAN seem straight to everyone. so they're ruining it for us truer more legitimately gay people." see: it's still homophobia's fault. see: your sameness is in Wanting something else, being able to Choose something else without fear of the violent enforcement of the demands & requirements of Cishet Ideals. someone who's never had sex / dating deemed Gay Enough isn't "as good as straight." see: it's not that everyone thinks you Can't do gay shit, it's that everyone Knows you can, and that's exactly the problem, violence is required to try to force otherwise, to limit the only option for any support in life to the happy nuclear family existence (for those who deserve even that, versus mere support to someone else's nuclear household). it's not a Problem when people center transness on what you want to do, that you are able to choose to do it, support, a better life than you would have otherwise. or even to say it should be so easy that, yes, someone can Just Say that they're trans. versus the idea that the only legitimate trans people are miserable, wish they were cis, and are going through processes legitimized & controlled by "but are you really trans. do you really deserve it" roadblocks & resistance & required cis approval, and their difficulties & unnecessary infliced pain & vulnerability in doing so? is really the fault of some theoretical teen who wants to say they aren't cis b/c they just feel like it. damn them.

queerness (see: logic of ableism in all these matters) being Suffering, what you're Limited to being by demands outside your control so please recognize this, what you Have to do (you just might be more cishet otherwise, like surely all the bisexuals or transgenders want to be. damn them), a difficult and exclusive experience that is the fault of those in the group themselves: does not challenge the [cishet ideals] including [enforcers of cishet ideals get to choose which gays to begrudgingly recognize, perhaps conditionally / temporarily, to prove to everyone else they might be Worthy too, if they tried harder to deserve it / scrutinized more people in their group for not playing by the rules and appeasing those in power enough]

while, of course, people can think they're the bravest smartest ones / the most suffering more than jesus hated ones for this. biphobia / transphobia being evergreen, while asserting that it's actually being cis gold star gays that's the most oppressed life. accepting the limits of [what Externalized Activities, like defined sexual interactions or gender presentation, are encoded into legal arguments for policing queer people] as indeed what should thus be the boundaries of defining existence outside cishet ideals, and what supports that. the hot trends over the years, i remember circa 2010 "the transes On Here are way out of line expecting way too much. they have to remember they're weird and it's sooo hard (and weird) for us." the blog i unfollowed for accepting a submission about "can't stand trans guys who hate to be misgendered but won't try to seem less feminine." the twitter i unfollowed for rt'ing a take about "can't stand bi ppl who hate to experience biphobia but won't try to seem less straight." the epic trend of "Really respecting trans people means talking over them to tell them they're now equivalent to cis people so stop talking about your experiences otherwise," i can't even trust that nobody ever Didn't take that to its logical conclusion of "straight trans people are as good as cishet." the asexuality exclusion bullshit. eternal "the most legitimate nonbinary people seem androgynous" points that would, in fact, require nonbinary to be defined by, and limit themselves according to, the gender binary & its ideals. trying to cut off the LG from the BT, as has always gone on, including just with the linguistic making shit up like evergreen Flynn Rider Edgy Meme argument about how everyone's trying to steal the word Lesbian from you to just be used Illegitimately, with bonus fallback on the fact of patriarchy. less common but i've sure also seen arguing about Gay being used too willynilly as well and arguing The Rules / pretending that there's never been an overlap with gay men, (cis or trans) women, bisexuals; apparently believing that it also would likewise be Better trying to narrow definitions into something more exclusive when all our language is to create possibilities out of what was logistically unspeakable before. when we've Perfectly Stratified all the vocab and are just standing around, what's the next step that's now more possible because of those efforts? having the LG doesn't enforce the gender binary, unless you're trying to recreate your own version of it, as people in fact always are. "um it's simple. people who are the Truest members get to decide who else are the Gay Women and Gay Men." who gets to draw these lines for everyone else, and why do they get to do it. what would be achieved by embracing Purity concretely, eternally affixed in place; versus fuzziness & expecting flux & future possibilities, where even seeming contradictions just mean there's even more here than you thought. do you Want to be queer and Get to make those choices, or not. what if You are the only True Gay in the world, everyone else is cishet and just pretending and saying they're also gay? you'd still only gain everything by that being possible. if you were the only Real Person and can't know anyone else's interiority is only an illusion: you can only lose everything by acting like you're the only real person. that's how some people already operate as individuals vs everyone else, or a member of the Truest People group vs those beneath them who are ruining paradise. you operate on those principles of being entitled to dehumanize others, you have the power to exploit that

[you can't define Woman in a way that doesn't exclude some women / include things/people that decidedly aren't women] applies for us too b/c The Gender Binary Isn't Real. it's also of course used to serve patriarchy, ableism, racism, all of it. like how we can understand / analyze Everything as political. white supremacy everywhere, all the time. ableism in all of it. every interaction or behavior existing in a medium of Power Relations. how do you define woman. why would your definition get to be imposed on anyone else. would you demand there be a "take the racist ableist misogynist gender binary, but give it a lil Gay spin" situation. is being a woman in required physical traits. in required presentation. required experiences. what's served by being mad at "i'm not a woman but i'm in community with them b/c i have [xyz] traits; [abc] presentation; &/or [qrs] experiences" and using language applied to a group considered Women b/c language tends to assume a strictly defined, Real gender binary. what's served by going "hmm, that's a problem. make this More strictly defined and binary" in response instead of focusing on the connections there and solidarity through [this is all iterations / fractalized areas of the same shit, who has the power to exploit & compound others' vulnerability] [power control abuse]. are you a woman b/c that's how you want to identify? b/c [reasons you don't have to explain, b/c on principle your choices for yourself are respected, no one has the authority to thwart this]? are you a lesbian likewise b/c of your wants & choices? great. the idea our language has ever actually supported clear lines even between gender, a binary that requires Cishet Ideals & all that that demands....? inaccurate, aligned w/bigotry, nonconstructive, unserious.

the twitter i follow of a group who supports incarcerated lgtbq+ people, and how the other year they voted to include cishet ppl w/hiv or aids. the goofs & gags like "queering our marriage b/c i have more flexibility" like yknow, i agree with the least measures that increase support / choices for any women as in fact legitimately contributing to The Queer Agenda more than people trying to make the terms masc & femme into [thee gender binary. but gayer] remix, or complaining about fellow queers who are totally ruining it for everyone else, The Establishment totally would've graciously & benevolently deigned to allow our autonomy (with a "but you're on thin ice" and ability to revoke that at any time, but whatever) until This jerk who's totally as good as cishet Made them choose otherwise for the 9000 zillionth time!!! well i'm going to go laugh at language people are developing to better describe their experiences, realities, wants, & values, b/c i'm obviously more Normal & Deserving than those weirdos. and to keep stuart cishet at bay, this is a huge threat actually so you're welcome that i focus on going "but COULD a cishet person just PRETEND to identify thus" like, yes. yes, they always could. what of it, if everyone could?

tl;dr idk things like "accepting the limitations that you might possibly only be Allowed anything if you can prove you Haaaave to / prove that nobody could possibly miserably force themself through otherwise (you can't)." "accepting the limitations of: wielded authority would always be benevolent & supportive, or even not wielded at all, if not for those among you ruining it for everyone else." that of course it's like "being queer is supposedly miserable so who would choose it? but also we have to prevent people from even having the choice" b/c they Know people would & do make those choices, and you have to enforce [marriage & patriarchy & nuclear family] life even w/cishet people, the power disparity requires constant maintaining & deflection of scrutiny / responsibility focused back on those in power. what would happen if every straight person in the world could just say they're gay. or every cis person could just say they're nonbinary now. great. say tomorrow they miraculously all do: great. the cishet ideals gender binary aren't Real. it's supposed to be so conflated with reality & unquestionable that the term "cishet" isn't supposed to exist; "stop Forcing Labels on me. hypocritical much" / "i don't know what a cisgender is but i know it shouldn't be allowed around children" style. what would happen if everyone could "claim" to be queer. epic. if everyone said they're nonbinary & now the gender binary doesn't exist. hell yes.

"everyone can just say some shit" is always true, you can always question their intentions / meaning, but when you can't prove the interiority of another person, making things Contingent on that only serves to make it impossible: like someone having to prove they're Meritously Good Enough as a person, inherently, and what's withheld / prevented by those in power b/c of it, rather than what we think everyone inherently deserves As a person, and what's provided / made possible by other people as peers b/c of it. what do people Actually Do. what do they Get to do. actions manifest externally, and affect others outside of the self. how have the possibilities & autonomy in our lives, anyone's lives at all, been supported / improved by unserious stances focused on arguing relative authority by people going "watch this. the haters" and getting up on the cross or in the middle of the swords with some linguistic arguing that doesn't think about what supports anyone or challenges existing norms & ideals or reflects reality rather than going "this is my idea of the vibe and some people agree or could be convinced." we've existed before modern terms that classify groups, and we'll have more, different terms to describe experiences and ideas going forward, which is: good. the divisions are already Not Real, how interested are you exactly in your language being like "but i think we could just have different divisions. a different Gender Binary. cishet people Have to be cishet? i'm sure that's real & fine, so: we Have to be Not cishet"

anyways april being autism acceptance month And national poetry month (u.s.)

[gothmods]

Started watching interview with the vampire since i finally got in the right headspace ( watching of heavier things requires the right mood) but yeah wheres that post about lestat prancing around like a pony on ket i thought i bookmarked it and yet

[shorthaltsjester]

no but i really can’t stop thinking about like. the intricacies of a sending spell. the fact that liliana tells imogen she loves her but doesn’t tell imogen she trusts her. the fact that relvin doesn’t say he loves imogen but does tell her he thinks of her often, he misses her, and he hopes she’s happy (and suspects she is, given how she was in gelvaan). and the fact that imogen is so filled with love in all the complicated and imperfect ways that she would have to be with the examples set out for her. my head is in my hands about the fact that though imogen is a homebody type, she was a wanderin’ spirit in gelvaan because gelvaan was never going to be a place she could stay with her powers and those people (as made clear by imogen’s attestation that she wouldn’t have lasted if laudna hadn’t come along) and the fact that we know relvin did in fact, to imogen’s words, do his best trying to mitigate the relationship between her and the town. even after she’d left, it’s clarified that relvin tried to limit the rumours that grew about what imogen did in her exit, despite the violence of it that imogen admits to.

there’s just something about the contrast of the two sendings that is really punching me in the chest in terms of like. something with the temults that i find especially compelling is the kind of . idealizing that can come when you have a distant parent, especially when the contrasting closer parent is obvious in their imperfection. because i think what’s compelling about the liliana and imogen dynamic is that, on both sides, what they’re each reaching for is an idea; imogen for the saviour from her dreams that told her to run and liliana for the toddler from her past that she set off to save. what’s compelling about relvin and imogen is the exact opposite; they’ve both seen too much of the other, imogen facing the realization that all children have eventually about their parent’s humanity, pushed to 11 because she can hear his thoughts. but i think the sending spells speak to the reality that, though the relvin relationship is certainly the one with the most obvious ache, it’s an ache comprised of presence and grief for an actual relationship that has devolved, versus the one with liliana which was never truly there, and is more melancholia for something they do not have.

the messages relayed between imogen and liliana literally say “i love you” but they’re also the update messages of a soldier conveying her perhaps ill-given trust to a potential turncoat. with relvin’s message, though he doesn’t say i love you, there’s a history to the relationship they have inherent in the contents of the message and the words imogen initiates it with. speaking to her father, imogen can say the words “thank you for doing your best” and feel the truth of them, but she does not extend that to her mother. and like. that’s It for me. that’s the deliciousness of relvin and liliana and imogen. that relvin stayed and was imperfect but there, and the reality is what stains and strains imogen’s relation to him now, but that liliana left and maintained the perfection of Protective Mother in imogen’s dreams, and the reality coming into conflict with the dream — where liliana is protective mother but for a daughter that’s as imagined as imogen’s dead mother was — is what both gives imogen hope and keeps her from committing entirely to any idea of who her mother actually is. the temults can be something so awful and wonderful and human and monstrous actually.

[divorceblogger]

I think the most difficult thing that armand struggles to come to terms with (re: his feelings about marius) is very much that marius seemingly steps into his life and performs actions that are, at a superficial glance, meant to be liberatory or empowering but are unequivocally very predatory if you start to dig into the meat of their relationship.

Marius rescues armand from starvation and sexual slavery at a point in his life when armand is actively entertaining thoughts of suicide. marius sweeps in, purchases him, and transfers him from abhorrent conditions of existence to a life of material comfort, although it’s not really a safe one, but at this point armand doesn’t necessarily have the ability to have a critical dialogue about safety with himself because he’s so glad to be rescued from slavery that he ascribes divinity to marius. he also receives an allowance and he’s taught swordplay. he’s taught swordplay. but what kind of harm could a child ever cause to a 1500 year old vampire?

And the material reality is that marius is not really interested in empowering armand at all. he actively fosters an unhealthy codependency between them, he withholds information about his nature, he performs sexual acts on him even when armand doesn’t necessarily comprehend that these acts are sexual in nature. he also strategises methods that he reasons are supposed to sexually liberate armand but these instances just contribute to the overall conversation on how he grooms him. armand is 15 years old when marius sends him out to brothels “to learn how to couple properly”. do you remember that he was supposed to be forced into prostitution. marius now offers him the illusion of sexual power by allowing him to experience sexual pleasure instead of offering it to predatory customers instead. but armand also says that he doesn’t enjoy the experiences at the brothels because he craves sexual relations with marius solely, to a point where he feels resentful about being asked to participate in these acts even when he derives sexual pleasure from them. he endures the experiences because his master gives him no other choice, but it’s also in these brothels that he discovers that sex doesn’t have to be associated with pain as it often tends to be with marius.

When he returns ‘home’ from the brothels he’s perceptive enough to understand that marius really sent him to receive a sexual education on marius’s behalf and attempts to replicate these acts on him. he unconsciously takes up the role of a sex worker, but again he’s a child, and it’s horrifying that he thinks he’s harassing marius by initiating sexual relations with him. it’s also not very surprising that when he does display sexual interest in other people marius emotionally shuts him off (because these experiences were never instituted with armand’s interest in mind) and these moments shape up to be very harrowing experiences for armand - he’s been taught to crave marius’s affection and never do anything that might displease him. armand often has to beg his way back into marius’s good graces and allow himself to be subjected to corporal punishment to achieve this. it’s terrifying that one of the first ideas the boys in the villa convey to armand despite the language barrier is that their master will never hurt him.

And the alarming fact about armand’s transformation is that vampirism serves to just further reinforce this abuse, even though, once again, it might seem like an empowering act. his newly acquired powers don’t change his reality - he’s still under marius’s control the whole time. he’s also further isolated from boys his age who share his interests, and his nights with marius are insular and suffocating. the corporal punishments continue. they’re now adjusted to account for his vampirism. “usual brain jarring blow” is a term floated in the book. marius calls armand’s coffin a “crib”. he very seriously asks armand if he’s ever been cruel to him soon after he transforms him. armand’s codependency with marius is in fact further reinforced by the vampiric transformation that marius carries out. so much of armand’s initiation into vampirsm is once again rooted in sexual instruction, once again evoking patterns of behaviour that are associated with grooming. it’s very in-character for marius to teach him the fundamental principles of seducing his victims before killing them. he also advices him to develop emotionally frigid relationships and never reveal his true self to the people he cares for, further establishing marius as the most significant figure in his life, as the person he constructs his entire identity around. how was he ever supposed to turn out well-adjusted?

[thehigherseekerastro]

Random Astrology Observations (Alternative Meanings Love Edition) 🤨❤️🤔

DISCLAIMER: I am in no way, shape or form a professional astrologer, modern or traditional.

I HAVE been studying astrology for a while now, and analysing charts available to me, as well as my own, and noticed a lot of the info you find online doesn't make sense in real life, because it is too reductive, stereotypical or lacks broader context. So I thought I'd share some of my personal observations to see if it resonates with anyone.

This is NOT the end all, be all. Apply it as it makes sense to you.

PS: I don't know how to edit posts, and this is my first Tumblr post, so it's not gonna look pretty.

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The 10th House 🕰️

The 10H gets reduced to "career and work", but it goes much further than that. The 10th house represents your highest honors, which, in a capitalist modern world, will often be directly linked to your career success, but it's not the success that's built around the career. It's the other way around. It talks about the career that leads you to success. The main point is NOT working itself, but success. 10H will also describe your public image, your reputation, your public persona, your long-term goals, your social influence, your social status, your legacy and the image you wanna project.

(e.g.: your biggest legacy could have nothing to do with something that made you money in this life. It could have been starting a non-profit that changed lots of lives. Or you could become prestigious in your social circle for your personality, which presents you with opportunities in life that aren't directly connected to acquiring material things [because the 2H is the house of materials and possessions])

Going off of the first topic – 10H synastry, specially house overlays – does NOT mean workplace romance. In fact, your significant other may not even work or, if they do, may not even work in the same field as you, let alone be co-workers. Like I said, the 10H is much larger than "career", but also, career and work are not exactly the same thing. If they do happen to be involved in your career, it may have nothing to do with your workplace directly, but with your career in a general sense. So, instead of meeting at WORK, being co-workers, and all the reductive things people claim, you could meet them through your CAREER.

(e.g.: You work at an insurance company, but are studying to become a lawyer, and you happen to attend a conference related to the lawyer part of your ambitions, not your actual job, and there you meet your significant other./You work as a waitress, but your dream of becoming a model. So you attend an event to network with people in the modeling industry, and there you meet your significant other, but they just happen to be somebody's friend who got invited to go to the event, even though they themselves are not in the industry at all).

Since the 10H also rules your highest self, your "best case scenario", and your status and legacy, having 10H synastry with someone could simply mean they will change your life significantly, either positively or negatively. They will shift the foundations of how you are perceived and perceive yourself, and may even change your status in life. In that sense, the person who eventually becomes your spouse and the parent of your children could have 10H synastry with you. They will have changed your public status, as well as your legacy. Broaden your perspectives without thinking of keywords.

The 9th House 📖

A lot of astro observations are very Americanized/Euro-centric, and lack perspective and social and cultural context. The 9H is much broader than "foreign things". In fact, it's the most expansive house of all 12, so to reduce that "expansiveness" to foreign travel because it's big and wide is too simplistic, and doesn't take into account people whose realities simply do not include access or contact to foreign cultures and places. It COULD indicate foreign travel and cultures, but it will most likely be "foreign" in the context of abstract things, such as beliefs, philosophy and worldview. The "traveling" of the 9H also does NOT have to be literal, and could very often mean intellectual and moral, such as "traveling" through the acquiring of knowledge, or "traveling" through exploring new spiritual practices and teachings.

(e.g.: The 9H will talk of higher education, but that's not a reality for a large portion of the world. So, instead of thinking in terms of university, think more of "higher education" in terms of evolving studying of concepts and notions. In that regard, life experience is ALSO included in the 9H)

Going off of the previous topic – 9H placements do NOT immediately mean you will marry a foreigner, or somebody from a different race/ethnicity/culture, or even that you will definitely travel abroad and meet somebody there. Not only is the idea of just up and moving to another country like it's nothing wildly unrealistic, it centers itself in the easy access Americans and Europeans have to foreign travel. Most of the world outside of those places will either not have the financial means to make foreign travel that easily, nor will they have political access to it (such as a passport that allows them to travel to other countries with no restrictions). Most people will not ever even leave their country by the time they've reached life milestones like marriage, job and children. Not only that – but the extreme racial divide seen in the United States is a very particular and individual experience, only seen also in major European countries (so very Caucasian-centric). Most people will not be making huge deals about marrying somebody who's from Korea, or Africa, or Brazil, or India, as if they were a totally different type of species.

(So the whole ordeal about "you will marry someone from a different race/culture is bogus. Countries like Brazil have a VERY diverse population, yet, they are very seamlessly integrated, so being of black, white, asian, Arab descent is not relevant, as they will see themselves as "just Brazilians" living the same Brazilian experience over all, regardless of their ethnicity.)

Having 9H love placements (such as Venus, Mars or Jupiter, and Juno) or having 9H synastry with someone very likely will not indicate a foreigner or finding love/starting a relationship abroad. It will 9 times out of 10 indicate somebody who expands your horizons, somebody who makes you question things and seek deeper understanding of the world around you, somebody who challenges your mind and spirit, somebody who will expose you to new and inventive ways of seeing, understanding and interacting with the world. That COULD mean they do that because they come from a different country or cultural background. But it could also mean they just think and act very fundamentally different from YOUR personal culture, and will bring up topics that teach you new ways to approach life. Not to mention that it could just describe accessing different cultures THROUGH them.

(e.g.: You and your spouse may be from the very same country and very same race, but upon getting together, you two end up moving to an area that has a lot of foreigners in it, a large population of foreigners, or through your partner you become acquainted with mutual friends who come from a vastly different cultural background than your own, and that, in turn, expands your worldview as if you yourself had traveled to another country or learned about another culture directly./ Or, to put it in more plain terms, your partner may just be a very freaking smart and knowledgeable person who teaches you things you would only learn in college.)

Still, with that said, the basic repeated meanings you see online COULD also still apply here, for anyone, but specially if you are white and from a country from the Northern hemisphere, as those descriptions apply more to their individual realities.

The 6th House 🧹

The 6H deals with daily, repetitive, routine things, which is why it deals with work, health and caretaking, because those are repetitive, orderly, constant tasks.

(Just like 10H is a "career" house, but it is not necessarily a "money house", the 6H is a "work" house, but not necessarily a money house. The money houses are the 2H (which deals with money you earn yourself), the 8H (which deals with money your manage for or earn from other people's possessions, such as an inheritance or your spouse's money), and – to an extent – the 11H (since it deals with "struck of luck" moments and could indicate coming into unexpected money).

You are more likely to date a co-worker having 6H love placements or 6H synastry than you are with the 10H, because the 10H deals with CAREER, which is not necessarily your workplace itself (could be a side business you're trying to take off), while the 6H deals with WORK itself. Since the 6H deals with daily routines, and a co-worker is someone you see on a daily basis at work.

(Not to be confused with the business-related side of the 7H, which will talk of business partners or having a business with your partner. It's like: the 10H will have your partner RELATED to your career somehow, but maybe not directly. The 6H will have your partner be a co-worker, but not necessarily share your career goals and plans. The 7H MAY describe starting a business with your partner eventually.)

Health is another thing that may or may not be a key factor in your relationship, or even for a long time. You might have 6H synastry and health never becomes a theme of your connection. You might be dating for 5 years and health is never a theme, and then you get married and for most of your marriage health is still not a thing. But then, by the time you two are old, one of you may develop a condition and the other one becomes your caretaker. Or another aspect of the 6H that is not talked about is daily life with your children together. The 6H is not the house of children, but the routine of taking care of a child together night be influenced by the 6H synastry, depending on the sign its happening in.

The 11th House 🫂

The 11H is VERY underrated for romance, because it doesn't manifest as quickly as people think romance and passion should. But it is, in fact, an extremely powerful house for synastry, when combined with other romance-inducing aspects. The 11H deals with, amongst other things, friendship. You'll often find that having 11H overlays/synastry means a platonic relationship or, at the very best, one-sided, but that only happens if there are no other aspects pointing towards romance – HEALTHY romance.

(It's also important to note that 11H synastry is deeper than people think. Just because it's a social house doesn't mean it's a detached house. Houses and signs are not the same thing. Aquarius ruling the 11H and Aquarius being stereotypically described as emotionally detached does not mean 11H synastry is detached. On the contrary, the 11H is very deep because it is the house of hopes, life dreams and aspirations, so it will describe things we idealize in a very pure and hopeful way.)

With 11H synastry, specially moon, Venus, Mars and – sometimes, Sun, if it's a water sign –, there will be a very strong bond of friendship, regardless of other layers to that relationship. And who do we trust more, if not our friends? Those are people we are not related to by blood or law, who do not share our immediate environment, whom we have no obligation to whatsoever, but we choose to give them unopposed access to our private world. So with 11H synastry between lovers, there is a deep foundation of friendship, which means that if it ends badly, it will have a very painful effect on the psyche and heart, because it will feel like losing a lover AND a best friend.

(That means that 11H includes a very important component of TRUST, an aspect that is only talked about with the 4th and 8th houses, but is also present in the 11th. Both for comfortability and feeling of betrayal. Also, that intensity also comes from the fact that with 11H synastry people tend to project their hopes and dreams onto each other. Like thinking they are the best person ever, all-in-one, ticking all the boxes, lover AND friend... So if that breaks at some point, it can make people feel really stupid and embarrassed.)

Like I said, 11H synastry in romance doesn't play out as quickly as people think love should be, so it gets dismissed in the romance department. But the 11H is a Saturn house. It takes time, and it needs structure. It means that friendship will ALWAYS come before romance. Now, does that mean that people will always be friends-to-lovers? No. They might start off as lovers, but they won't reach the potential of their intimacy until there's a well-established foundation of camaraderie and friendship, and once they do, that bond becomes very unbreakable, because they become partners in crime and each other's favorite person. IF IT'S IN A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER ROMANCE ASPECTS.

General Things ✨

ASTROLOGY is NOT MAGIC. It will not cause anything to happen in your life. Don't just rely on placements and aspects. It means absolutely NOTHING if you got 4H synastry with the one you love, but you yourself have problematic 4H/moon aspects in your natal chart that you do nothing to work on (and vice versa). That 4H synastry could turn toxic at the snap of a finger, and no amount of "comfort" is gonna prevent it. If you can't process your emotions well, you could date all the Cancers you want, or you could be a cancer yourself, you WILL NOT engage emotionally in a healthy way. You can't give nor receive something you don't have or don't understand. So, instead, learn about the makeup of your charts, but then use it as a study to improve yourselves, not just to think you will magically live in a Disney movie happily ever after just because his Venus falls in your 4H.

Astrology is not a hurricane. Not all things are happening at the same time all the time at all times, as of they were things flying around in a chaotic hurricane. The energies of your individual natal charts, as well as the energies of your synastry will play out in their own time, and may play out slowly, over time. Like house overlays, for example. One particular aspect of the 2H may play out at the beginning of the relationship, but if you eventually get married, another side of the 2H synastry may be unlocked. Or your husband could have an specific placement for his love life that will not be activated until he gets married, which means that for the entire time you are just dating, those things will not be happening. As with all things in life, astrology follows its natural course, and develops and changes over time.

Astrology does not bless or doom a relationship. It won't tell you whether you can/should or not be with someone. It doesn't MAKE YOU do anything. However, for the relationships that end in catastrophe, you can always go back and check the synastry/composite, and it will probably be obvious there, you just couldn't see it before. With that I don't mean to go out planing your life and connections around astrology, because that's very impractical, unrealistic and low-key immature, as people are ALWAYS growing and maturing. But I AM saying that if you are in a relationship that feels draining, toxic, abusive, unstable 24/7... trust the synastry, because you're probably trying to force something that is very clearly laid out for you, and that ONE or two nice aspects or placements are not gonna save you from obvious ruin. BE RATIONAL.

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That's it! Thank you if you've read it this far!

I might have come off a bit harsh (I hope I haven't), but I promise I'm nice lol.

Hopefully this resonates, as well as helps somebody understand a bit more. This was my first post, so it's a bit clumsy, but do let me know if you'd like me to share some more thoughts on astrology, and I might do another round.

MASTER LIST

[jiminjamms]

sex therapy :: 30. breaking news

chapter tags/warnings: manipulative! naoya. physical aggression. verbal abuse (not to reader). infidelity/adultery. extremely strong language. corruption. family drama.

word count: 3.4k

notes: thank you again for your patience with the chapter! life update: i resigned from my company (on good terms, even though the work had sucked my mental and physical health), and i am soon doing a trip to japan and southeast asia as part of my recovery. still, i will be actively writing and responding since this community is so important to me! also, has anyone been keeping up with jujutsu kaisen's manga?! likes, comments, and reblogs are much appreciated. xoxo

fic masterlist | 01. 02. 03. 04. 05. 06. 07. 08. 09. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

Life without a sugar daddy was rough.

As Toji Fushiguro's ex-wife and Naoya Zenin's ex-mistress, Mari faced this harsh reality since no one threw their money in her direction anymore. She slept little this past week, overwhelmed by financial stressors. While she still subsisted on the younger executive's credit card (with his fortune, Naoya hardly noticed the charges on his bill), she realized that she actually had to work for an income.

Such was the case as Mari walked home one evening after interviewing for jobs, her body and mind exhausted from fielding mundane questions about her previous professional experiences (which she had little of).

Upon unlocking her apartment door, she was immediately greeted by the sight of her illuminated living room.

That struck her as odd.

She always switched the lights off before she left.

However, when she spotted a familiar face down the hall, she found the answer.

"Tsumiki." Mari dropped her purse by the door. "What are you doing here?”

The woman had not seen her one and only blood-related child in months. While she knew that her daughter—who was, without doubt, a fantastically accomplished and intelligent young lady—just completed her second year at Oxford University, she thought the girl had chosen to remain in England for her summer break. Didn't Toji mention that she did not want to return to Tokyo?

Not that Mari complained. She was just...confused.

Admittedly, Mari should know the answer to her question, but she had been too ‘occupied’ to contact Tsumiki as much as a good mother should. As a result, Mari found herself in the dark about the girl's life in the United Kingdom, her plans for the university holiday, and her recent classes in…what was her field of study again?

Surely, Toji and his twerp son Megumi would know all the answers since Tsumiki had always been closer to her Fushiguro stepfamily. Quite a shame, since Mari would have considered her daughter as the most perfect angel otherwise.

She toed her shoes off.

“When did you arrive in Tokyo?” Mari continued with a plastered smile and approached the girl sitting with crossed arms in the living room.

Genetics ran deep between mother and daughter. Uninformed observers might even mistake the pair as sisters, the physical resemblance uncanny in how Tsumiki presented a more youthful version of the older woman by sharing the same warm chocolate-colored eyes, long dark hair, and flawless porcelain skin.

Yet, physical similarities meant nothing when Mari could not fully decipher her own flesh and blood.

“I came back to Japan earlier this week,” Tsumiki responded a terse edge in her tone.

“But I haven’t seen you until now.”

“Because I’ve been staying with Dad.”

“Oh.” So, she meant with Toji. “You mean your stepdad.”

“No,” she corrected sternly. “He's my dad.”

Theoretically, Mari could go into a whole tangent on how Tsumiki’s actual father was some middle-class nobody whom she hadn’t seen or spoken to since her first divorce (and that was many years ago). Or how the Fushiguros technically were Tsumiki’s ex-stepfamily since Mari had divorced her second husband Toji earlier this year.

But she spared her daughter from the reminders.

“Well, I’m glad to see you back, honey.” With a bottle of unfinished cabernet sauvignon in the fridge, Mari meandered to the kitchen to pour herself a full glass. She returned to living room and joined her daughter on the sofa. “How have you been? I’m guessing England has been treating you well? I have never been, so I wouldn’t know. Heard that the fish and chips are good there."

No response.

Am I being ignored? Mari commented inwardly and swirled the red wine in her chalice.

She took her first sip amid the long and awkward pause before switching the topic to encourage conversation. "Anyway, whenever you would like, you’re always welcome to stay a few nights here. Wouldn't hurt to spend some more time with your mother."

Only for Tsumiki to quip, “We’ve talked about this before. I don’t want to live with you.”

Now, this—Mari believed—was certainly uncalled for. "Watch your tone with me, young lady."

"For what? I am not here because I miss you," her daughter resumed. "If I had a better option, I would not bring myself to show up here and be in front of you."

The older woman placed her glass down and tried to appear calm. Hearing Tsumiki speak with such contempt twisted a deep knife into Mari's heart. Once upon a time, her daughter had been the sweetest girl—warm, full of life, and eager to express her innocent thoughts with anyone she encountered. Now, however, that same person had been tainted into someone cold, guarded, and withdrawn, demonstrated by her disrespect to the very woman who had given her life.

"That is no manner to talk to your mother," Mari cautioned.

"Well, maybe because I have my reasons."

"Which are?"

"Do you want to know why I did not bother to text or call you these past several months?" and Tsumiki did not wait for an answer before she angrily added, "Because I am so upset that you filed a divorce with Dad!"

While Mari had hoped to not bring up the topic before, she had no choice but to do so now.

"That big, burly, bulky man is not your father," she snapped. "He and his emo Harvard-bound son are not your family! In the eyes of the law, there is no longer any relation between you and them. But, I am your mother. I had given you life, and this is what you think of me?"

"Because I love them!" Tsumiki opposed through a hardened glare. "Dad and Megumi treat me more like their blood-related family than you do!”

Mari could not believe the preposterous words her daughter spewed. She always presumed that the Fushiguros had been corrupting her child, and to see her suspicions confirmed had Mari standing up promptly from the couch.

"How dare you say after all I have done for you, Tsumiki?" Mari interrogated angrily. "Did you think that I left your biological father and then divorced your stepfather for what...for fun?! These choices were difficult for me, too! But I made those judgments because I wanted to give you a better life in which we didn't have to worry about where our next meal, our next piece of clothing, or our next rent payment would come from! Your biological father is a no-name nothing. He could’ve never supported the lavish lifestyle you had experienced during your adolescent years. In fact, if I hadn’t married Toji Fushiguro, you probably wouldn't be studying at the University of Oxford right now! I, alone, could never have afforded all your years of expensive tutors or private school tuition. Please, think before you speak. I know I did not raise an ungrateful brat.”

Tsumiki furrowed her brows from the comments.

“You're the ungrateful one, Mom!” she insisted, and the said woman visibly reeled back when the girl continued to seethe with antipathy. “All the money that you had spent while married to Dad, he never asked for a single cent back. Never. In fact, he still pays for my university. In his eyes and mine, I’m as good as any blood-related child to him. He hadn't asked you to chip in because he knows you wouldn't have the money to. Divorcing the man you've been leeching off of isn't a sign of appreciation, Mom."

To hear her child defend another family, Mari wasn’t sure if she was going to laugh or cry at how ridiculous this scene was, the only thing she could process being the pain and betrayal that slammed her with one bitter blow.

"Well, did you want to become a laughingstock?" the woman rationalized. "Given our ties to the Zenin name when Toji left the company, those nasty journalists would've clung onto any scrap to label you a buffoon. You know what those tabloid writers are like! I had the foresight to divorce that man. I did not want the disgrace if we remained attached to the Fushiguros."

After that response, Tsumiki turned quiet with one sharp exhale as her eyes snapped shut, and Mari, whose entire body had undulated from heavy and irate breaths, thought that finally—finally—she had won this godforsaken argument.

Until she heard the younger girl speak again.

"Yet, you have humiliated me more than anyone," and noticing how her mother quirked a brow, Tsumiki went on. "Who are you really trying to protect, Mom? Are you truly making these decisions for my benefit? Or is it...for yourself?"

Despite hiding a gulp, the older woman noticed her heart race. "What do you mean?"

"How can you explain this?"

As though that was her cue, Tsumiki reached for her phone. She tapped onto the front page of the Yomiuri Shimbun, the most highly circulated newspaper in Japan. Before Mari could read the bold title labeled as 'Breaking News,' Tsumiki provided her with a verbal summary:

"The world knows you're a homewrecker, Mom."

Naoya found no surprise when Naobito Zenin burst into his executive suite as an angry bull would charge toward a provoking cape.

Plenty of times, his father barged into his private office completely unannounced, slamming the door open with enough force to rattle the wooden bookshelves behind him. Usually, the dramatic entrance would be followed by a slew of harsh admonitions, and this encounter—Naoya could tell—would be no different.

The astringency cast on his father's countenance gave the executive no other choice than to rise from his seat, his office chair sliding back so he could pose tall and confident as the heir to Japan's largest conglomerate should be.

"Father," he greeted, curt.

Taking hurried steps around his mahogany desk, Naoya aimed to meet the older man halfway until he instead came into contact with one harsh blow that sent his face flogging to the side.

Naoya froze, his gaze lowered.

Instinctively, he reached for his throbbing cheek with one hand as the other wiped briefly over his busted upper lip. To have his father approach him physically like this didn't even register as a surprise. Despite his title as the Zenin CEO, Naoya continued to be scolded, lectured, and outright ignored because, in his father's words, he 'never seemed to get anything right.'

Even now, the older man found no hesitation in cursing out his only child.

"You fucking son of a whore! Want to explain why your affair with Toji's ex-wife is all over Japanese media?!"

Slowly, Naoya lifted his eyes from the floor. He had suspected that this would be the topic of discussion. In the last hour, Naoya saw his name plastered over tabloid pages, news websites, and social media feeds as an anonymous whistleblower tipped publishers in regards to his scandalous affair with Mari—and the millions Naoya spent to hide it. Evidence ranging from supposedly long-gone paparazzi photos to screenshots of money transfers circulated quickly with the internet.

Naturally, Naoya had seen the headlines too...

'Zenin Corporation CEO Exposed for Concealing Affair with Predecessor's Ex-Wife' 'Everything to Know About the Zenin Household's Uncovered Drama in Family, Business, and Love' 'Billionaire Naoya Zenin Entangled in Cheating Scandal, Accused of Bribing Press to Silence Coverage'

...and the comments:

'That’s why you can’t trust rich people. They never have any shame.' 'His wife and company deserve better.' 'Disappointed that this is the scumbag leading our country's largest company.' 'The Board should fire him.’

Now, that last comment struck a very particular chord, especially since the Chairman of that very Board stood before him.

Naoya clenched his hands, yet he stood mute. With every wrong move certain to cost him far too much in return, he was completely powerless in front of the family patriarch and, as a result, his first logical reaction was to defend himself.

"I do not have the evidence yet, but I am certain Toji had planned this, Father. Him, and also Sukuna, Geto, and Choso. All four leaked these details because they didn’t want to see your son succeed. I will resolve this. I am going to call Toji immediately and—“

"You're right," Naobito interrupted coldly. "If Toji had still been CEO today, he would've made sure that none of this bullshit would’ve happened.”

Naoya widened his eyes in bewilderment, not anticipating his father to twist his logic like that. He already received a literal slap across his face, but to realize that Naobito still compared him to his older cousin all these months later drove him insane!

"No, Father. What I meant was—"

"Oh, there is no need to correct me. I know what you meant," Naobito tested in a low voice. "What I gathered from this conversation is that I have given you a million chances in life, and you know what? You blew every single one of them. You're an asshole, you're a cheater, and you're a complete humiliation. I can always count on you to paint me as a failed father."

Outrageous.

With the bitter staring contest between father and son, the latter boiled internally listening to the insults from the man who sired him. For the ruthless Naobito Zenin, Naoya meant no value as an heir without the ability to achieve his high standards. 

"Some twisted brain you have for sleeping with your cousin's ex-spouse,” Naobito then chided, yet amusement remained absent in his tone. “Was that the low-class tramp I saw in the photos with you on the private jet the other day?"

The blonde kept his mouth shut.

But his father wanted an answer. "Well?!"

Suck it in, Naoya. That's all you can do now. "Yes."

What a sight, to see how someone blazing as a furious flame then erupt into a violent volcano. Naobito grabbed his son's collar, pulling him forward and shoving him against the wall. His fists shook as he sought the other's gaze.

"You're fucking married, you realize that?!" he snarled.

"I do! Which is why I have cut Mari from my life! I don't talk to that woman anymore."

Unimpressed, Naobito tugged forcefully at Naoya's shirt again. "I am truly astonished by what an idiot you are. Your answer doesn't change shit." He tightened his grip and did not care that his son wrapped both hands around his wrist to prevent himself from choking. "Let me tell you something, boy. I did everything—everything—to convince our Chief Operating Officer to let his treasured daughter marry you, you despicable bastard. He didn't want to hand the girl over because he knew—oh, that man is wise!—he knew that the union mainly served as a tactic to improve your public image and that there was little obvious benefit for his child. Power and money did not interest him when compared to his daughter, so the one promise I made is that you would love her," and he roared, "so, what the hell have you done?!"

Naoya had heard his father’s warnings countless times, yet he previously brushed each one aside with an ambivalence he now acknowledged as foolish. Unlike before, the threat to his hard-earned position suddenly became very, verypalpable. He grappled with a strange fear, unable to pinpoint what precisely unsettled him the most. The scorn from a world that no longer saw him as an honest businessman? The sneers from relatives with an undeniable reason to mock him? Or perhaps the fury from his draconian father, whose disappointment cut deeper than any public disgrace?

"I—" Naoya's choked voice resembled a croak. He could hardly breathe. "I apologize. This entire situation...this got out of my control."

Alongside his callous disregard for his son’s feelings, the Zenin patriarch even scoffed.

"This isn’t about getting out of your control, boy. This is about your complete lack of judgment. In fact, Daisuke called me when he saw the headlines, and you know what he told me?" and he had to refrain from flinging his son onto the ground before he continued, "That Y/N's been staying in her family residence again because she is going to leave you!"

Naoya held his next breath. Fuck, he knows. Naoya intended to keep his recent arguments with you a secret, hoping to resolve the situation first. However, since your father snitched...lying would be a dangerous move.

"I have not seen Y/N in a week because we've had a few fights." Naoya did not dare admit the details about how you two became arguing spectacles, first in his cousins' presence and later on at the café. "Just...marriage quarrels. We will get over—"

“She would be a moron to stay married to you,” Naobito cut off. "Y/N and your unborn child deserve more than to have a public disgrace like you in the household."

Right. Had he not been reminded, Naoya would've forgotten that he had lied to his father about your pregnancy, too. His hands grew clammy where they still seized his father’s wrist.

“There"—a cough—"there is no child,” Naoya blurted out, determining to rip all bandaids off in one go.

Naturally, his father became perplexed.

“Excuse me?” His hold loosened just enough for Naoya to gasp properly for his next breath.

“Y/N is not pregnant,” Naoya repeated, his voice hollow with resignation. “During our last family dinner, I only said that because I wanted to please you.”

The older Zenin became still, appalled by the younger one's bravery to say those words. For a moment, Naoya braced himself for another physical blow before his father released him, shoving Naoya backward such that he stumbled.

“If you weren’t so disappointing, there would be no need for you to lie to me,” Naobito pointed out coldly. "Not only to me, but also your wife, your colleagues, and your shareholders on matters about your family, your marriage, or your commitment to the company. If Toji had not brought this to the media's attention, how much longer would you have manipulated the truth for your benefit?"

There he went again.

"I don't understand," Naoya protested, unable to contain his frustration any longer. "Toji doesn't belong in this family anymore! Why do you keep talking about him? Father, you forced him to leave earlier this year, citing his threat to our family and company's reputation."

"You're the one to talk!" Naobito shot back. "At least Toji has the brain that you utterly lack." Before the younger man could react, the Chairman had already turned on his heel. "I have made my decision."

His decision?

A confused Naoya watched his father head for the exit.

"Wait, Father...!"

"Enough!" The infuriated man raised a hand right as he neared the door, a warning for him to not speak further. "Our discussion has concluded. Effective immediately, Toji Fushiguro has been re-instated as the Zenin Heir and CEO."

Instantly, Naoya slumped forward in disbelief.

Even as the older man disappeared, the room appeared to spin dangerously. Toji Fushiguro...re-instated? As the heir and CEO?

Naobito Zenin could never make up his mind, now could he? In Naoya's head, this must be some cruel joke.

Ever since he comprehended his ability to bend fate to his will, he had promised himself to fight tooth and nail to defend the (very rightful!) position that he worked hard to earn. He had disposed of his cousin through slander, he had to put up with shitty corporate politics, and, hell, he had to even marry you!

Some may label Naoya's current negative publicity as irredeemable, but he held hope the situation would normalize once the steam blew over.

With these thoughts in mind, Naoya regained his balance and rushed out as well. "Father!"

However, by the time he reached beyond the doors, Naobito Zenin was no longer there. Even his secretary could not be found as, instead, two imposing figures stood by the desk where his assistant should be. Naoya didn't recognize them. The men were tall and well-built, their muscled arms and thighs visible despite the fabric that covered their tattooed skin.

"Nice to meet you," one started after the long silence. "I am Eso and this is my younger brother Kechizu."

A stumped Naoya frowned.

"May...I help you?"

"No," the other answered nonchalantly, "because we are here to knock you out."

"Wha—"

And Naoya's vision went dark.

last chapter || next chapter

end notes: Note that Eso and Kechizu are Choso's younger brothers in JJK. (Both are not completely human in canonverse, but we shall suspend beliefs.) Also, I cannot explain the satisfaction as I wrote about Naoya and his mistress finally getting wrecked! Talk about justice being served! There were many ways these scenes could have played out, but I strategically chose Tsumiki and Naobito as the agents in the discussions. Freed from corporate America handcuffs, I plan to post again soon. Love you all!

taglist: @dissociatingdiva @httpsplanetmarsdotcom @nemoyr @huangfairy @shadowarchon @203steph @agentdedf1sh @cloudybabes @lynn-writes-things @illicitwriter @7oji @kikuchimi @chaoticjojofan @musicisme333 @kumocchin @s-guru @mwahilovemylife @hey-gurls69 @cloudsinthecosmos @moon-mumu-moon @kazscara @skilerfrostfairy @funicidals @nico707 @proteovaldez @tsukiyohanayome @marimoares @qirbys @puffaloxx @sakanoshitaa @arizzuruu @kissditrio @lewd-bunny14 @mistyheart @szired @supsii @yvy1s @lazyassfinals @katkbc @tokyometronetwork @downtown-roponggi @the-cosmos-network

[transmutationisms]

Why are communists against postmodernism?

in very crude terms: 'postmodernism' has historically been defined / defined itself by the rejection of claims to access 'objective' truths, narratives, and knowledge. in its strongest form, this stance precludes the defence of a materialist (including marxist) theory of history or society: if we cannot truly access an objective reality or know for sure that we are doing so, then clearly any discourse referring to 'real' material conditions or relations is rendered untenable, or at least heavily asterisked. in other words, a strict 'postmodernist' sees marxism as defending only a naïve realist position, à la feuerbach. the strict marxist, in turn, considers the postmodernist position to be a reactionary discourse that invokes the social construction of knowledge in order to defend (knowingly or not) ruling class interests by denying the possibility of understanding and therefore changing the material conditions of the world.

in practice, few people beyond a select few polemical academics have ever committed to the 'strong' versions of these claims. in particular, to read marxism as naïve in this manner is fundamentally a misunderstanding of marx's appropriation of hegel, which entailed not just 'turning him on his head' (that is, reversing the relationship between material world and ideal Spirit) but theorising dialectically. marx's claim was not that material reality could be known naïvely, or independently of our ideological schemata or modes of thought; nor was it that materiality (base) operated independently of, or solely in determination of, ideality (superstructure). and, though you may still hear some communists / marxists shitting on postmodernism, that term is mostly unfashionable these days anyway, and any serious communist analysis is itself predicated on quite a bit of social constructivist critique.

so although it's certainly true that communists are (rightfully) scornful of reactionary bourgeois postmodernist ideology that denies the basic premises of material / class analysis, in truth any decent communist these days is already making fruitful use of constructivist and post-structuralist critiques, and is also hostile to crude positivist / determinist ideology even when it brands itself as marxism. which is just to say that like a lot of philosophical debates, this one looks very different when we consider the substance of the arguments imputed to each 'side', and are attentive to when and how those arguments are actually deployed, rather than accepting at face value the sort of ideological coherence and consistency that is often implied by labels like "postmodernist" or debate parameters like "communist v. postmodernist".

[riding-the-sunset-bird]

Another day, another post dissecting Our Life's code! This time we'll be going over how Our Life decides whether your Cove will be Studious, Sporty, or somewhere in the middle!

If you've already seen my post on how the game decides where Cove is on the spectrum between warm and cold, then most of this will feel extremely familiar, but you don't need to check that post to understand this one! I'll be going over everything exactly the same.

According to GB Patch, getting a sporty or studious Cove is primarily based on what you do with him activity-wise.

Part of it is what Cove literally ends up doing in the events. There are multiple times where he can do something more physical or do something more low key. Another part is a somewhat meta “the player is creating their reality” type of deal. For example, if the player makes it clear that their MC is the sporty one around, that would have to mean Cove isn’t the sporty one. So even without interacting with Cove directly you’d rack up a lot studious points for him because your choices are describing a world where Cove isn’t that into sports. That’s not to say it’s impossible for the MC and Cove to both be into sports. Describing your MC specifically as the one into sports is excluding Cove from being super into sports, but he doesn’t have to be excluded. The most straightforward way to get a sporty Cove is to just really focus on it. Whenever there’s something that could possibly make him more interested in bookish things, lean away from that. And whenever there’s a way to encourage him to like or do physical stuff, do it. So, for example, don’t accept just being a silver medalist in Grown-up, don’t say that the MC is a faster runner than Cove when trying to get away from Shiloh, do ask him question that lead to him talking about outdoorsy activities he does, etc.

Calling it "points" is very accurate because it's very much a points system. Whenever you do certain actions with/say certain things to Cove, the game will add a "point" to either Cove being studious or Cove being sporty (in extremely rare cases, it will add two instead of even subtract one).

(also, shockingly, reading the book with Cove in Sleepover actually has zero effect on Cove being Studious/Sporty; I even had to read through the script to confirm and the only reasoning I can imagine is because it's related to getting a CG and the devs wouldn't want players who want the CG to feel forced into making Cove more studious just to get it)

The tutorial of the game also vaguely details the studious to sporty spectrum:

[Cove']s interests fall along a sporty-mixed-studious spectrum. It works similarly to the personality one. When he's young, Cove has a variety of interests. As time goes on that can stay the same, begin to focus on more athletic/outdoorsy activities, or become more interested in academic/indoorsy ways to spend time.

And, if you've ever been in the Cove Creator, you'd know that there are five "states" that Cove can be in when it comes to his interests, with one state being between Studious and Mixed while another is between Mixed and Sporty. However, as far as I can tell, the game will never actually check for these two states, meaning that Cove is either Studious, Mixed, or Sporty, without any sort of Studious-Mixed or Mixed-Sporty at all.

In terms of the first check of the game - after the end of Step 1, of course - the game will examine the points you've gathered and decide where on the spectrum Cove is. If you have more Studious points, then the game will look only at how many points you've gathered there and vice versa with Sporty points. If you have an equal amount of Studious and Sporty points, then there will be a sort of "coin flip" to determine which points the game will check (this actually happened to me once where I had to go back on a save and got a Sporty Cove instead of a Studious one even though I'd done nothing different, simply because I'd accumulated an equal amount of sporty and studious points with Cove).

The remaining points in the other category are thrown away, and if you don't have enough sporty/studious points (depending on what you had more of or what the game chose in the "coin toss"), then you get a Mixed Cove.

Interestingly enough, the game is actually uneven in how it calculates a "fully Studious" or "fully Sporty" Cove. If you have six or more points in Studiousness, then you get a "fully Studious" Cove, but the game only asks for five of more in Sportiness to give you a "fully Sporty" Cove. This means that you could have six points in both Studiousness and Sportiness, which would give you a "fully Sporty" Cove if the coin flip picked Sportiness, but if the coin flip picks Studiousness, you'll only get a "Studious-Mixed" Cove.

As stated above though, the Studious-Mixed and Mixed-Sporty states don't really exist and serve as Studious and Sporty respectively anyway. In the grand scheme of things, it won't matter, but I digress.

Keeping that in mind, the game only cares if you have three or more points in either Studiousness or Sportiness. If you have three or more Studious points, you get a Studious Cove, and if you have three or more Sporty points, you get a Sporty Cove (and a coin toss if you're equal in both to decide whether he's Studious or Sporty). If you do not have enough points in either, you get a Mixed Cove. A Mixed Cove is most likely if you either play through Step 1 without playing any moments or avoid leaning Cove towards anything Studious/Sporty at all.

Cove's personality and appearance are also unrelated to whether he's Studious or Sporty, excluding moments where a multiple choice option might affect multiple values at once (but this is coincidence rather than direct correlation and, yes, I'll mention them when they come). Cove will also still do things like go surfing in Wave even if he's Studious, it's just that he'll be an awkward surfer instead of a graceful one (no comment if he's Mixed).

In terms of things that affect the player directly, the gummy bear toss in the Step 2 DLC moment Birthday is one of the biggest things that come to mind, as you'll lose if Cove isn't sporty and your MC hasn't been given any "sporty points" of their own (since this post isn't about the MC, I'll keep it brief and just say that the game keeps track of your own athletic ability during Step 2, such as if you tell Kyra that you like to swim). If that matters to you, you can opt for a sporty Cove and save yourself the trouble as there's no Studious equivalent of the gummy bear toss.

As for all of the moments in Step 1 where you have a chance to influence Cove's Studiousness/Sportiness, here they are!

Step 1 - Prologue

When Cove and the MC try to flee from Shiloh (if the MC agrees to go along with Cove):

He was fast, but you knew you could outrun him if you had to. [sporty +1]

He was not that fast, you knew you could outrun him if you had to. [studious +1]

He was not that fast, but neither were you. [studious +1]

At that speed, you weren't sure if you could go fast enough to reach him. [sporty +1]

Shopping

When Cove is staring down absentmindedly at the sand:

"Are you looking for snails?" [sporty +1]

"Are you looking for shells?" [studious +1]

"What is it?" [studious +1]

"You didn't feel the need to ask why." [sporty +1]

When Cove goes back to not saying anything on the beach:

You didn't either. [sporty +1]

"What did you want to go to the shops for?" [studious +1]

"What do you usually do on the beach?" [sporty +1]

Grown Up

When Lizzie tells Cove and the MC that they won silver in the pretend Olympics:

"Silver sucks. I don't want silver." [sporty +1]

"I'm okay with that." [studious +1]

"Hey, we can do better than silver!" [sporty +1]

"Silver's not bad. Nice." [studious +1]

You stayed silent. [no change]

Long Day

When Lizzie asks the MC if they're a chicken who doesn't want to ding-dong-ditch the mean grandparents:

"Yeah. Cluck-cluck." [studious +1]

You'd rather just avoid them. [studious +1]

You thought they deserved worse. [no change]

"I'll do it." [no change]

When the MC gets to decide what they see in the clouds:

You saw a dolphin. [studious +1] {note that this will give Cove the dark blue short-sleeved shirt}

You saw a car. [sporty +1] {note that this will give Cove the red salamander sleeveless shirt}

You saw an alpaca. [sporty +1] {note that this will give Cove the dark blue short-sleeved shirt}

You saw a smiley face. [sporty +1] {note that this will give Cove the red salamander sleeveless shirt}

You saw cloud shapes. [studious +1]

Sandcastle

[NONE]

Fireflies

When the MC notices Cove lagging behind the group while en route to poppy hill:

"Are you not gonna come?" [no change] {but will give Cove cold +1}

You tugged him along. [sporty +1] {note that this will give Cove cold +1 on Indifferent and warm +1 on Fond/Crush}

You walked with him. [no change] {but will give Cove cold +1}

You waved at him to hurry. [no change] {but will give Cove warm +1}

You ran off. [no change]

When Cove fails to catch a firefly after the MC catches one:

You encouraged him to try again. [sporty +1] {note that this will give Cove warm +1}

You told him about the firefly you had. [studious +1] {note that this will give Cove cold +1}

You made a joke about what happened. [studious +1]

You did your own things. [sporty +1]

Library

When the MC chooses to go with Cove rather than participate in the quiz:

[sporty +1] {note that this will give Cove cold +1}

When the MC and Cove are about to be interrupted in their game of hide-and-seek (dependent on how good the MC has been at the game; answers marked with a * are the correct ones):

1st round of hide-and-seek

Next to a Peter Pan poster.

*Beside the fairy tale display.

*Behind the solar system model.

2nd round of hide-and-seek

By the fire awareness station.

Near the stuffed animals.

*Under the giant piece of fruit.

By the outlaw poster.

*In the fantasy section.

Near the toddler books.

3rd round of hide-and-seek

*In all the old Christmas stuff.

Next to the kid detective poster.

*Behind the Willy Wonka statues.

Final Tally

the MC won zero rounds (Cove will say "I'm doing good.") [sporty +1]

the MC won one round (Cove will say "I'm doing good.") [studious +1] [sporty +1]

the MC won two rounds (Cove will say "I can still win.") [studious +1]

the MC won all three rounds (Cove will say "I need to do good in at least one round.") [studious +1]

If the MC chose to go do the quiz instead:

[studious +1] {note that this will give Cove warm +1}

Ghost

[NONE]

Barbecue

When the MC is racing the other kids to catch the girl with the squirt gun (if the MC chose to go play with the kids in the first place):

You outran them easily. [studious +1]

You outran them with effort. [sporty +1]

You weren't as fast as them because they were speedy. [sporty +1]

You weren't as fast as them because you just weren't fast. [studious +1]

You moved to the side to let them pass; you didn't wanna win this race. [no change]

When Mr. Holden comments on his interests:

"Those are things Cove likes." [sporty +1]

"Wow. It's a good thing you live by the beach." [studious +1]

You stayed quiet. [no change]

Runaway

[NONE]

Sleepover

[NONE]

Step 1 - Ending

When Cove tries to skip a rock across the water (if the MC chose to stay with him):

You were impressed over how far he got it to go. It sailed way out into the sea. [sporty +2] [studious -1]

It was a good toss. That was pretty neat. [sporty +1]

It wasn't a long throw. But he didn't care to try for that. [studious +1]

The rock sunk kind of... like a rock and fell back down almost right after he tossed it. [studious +2] [sporty -1]

And that's all of them! A few surprises are in there, but it's mostly straightforward in either prompting Cove to talk about outdoor/active things he does or choosing options that imply he's particularly good/fast (whether compared to the MC or in general). Particularly tricky are the ones that might change Cove's appearance/personality when you didn't intend for that to happen and are trying not to use the Cove Creator to get the Cove you want.

Still, it's definitely easier to gauge than Cove's appearance or personality, so whether you wanted this for a guide or just for the data, I hope you enjoyed! :D

[pastelalleycat]

About the Single Pea- after watching the commercial video, I think this section on the cookbook page relates to the video itself, especially the ending:

When Eddie is handed his pea on a plate, he's surrendered his role as mailman to the other neighbors for the day. He's at Wally's homewarming party, but he's the only one without something to do. And when he consequently dissociates and gets a fourth-wall break, he's the only one seeing beyond the curtain of the puppet world. This is a set, with felt and fabric and props. Drawn out with pencils and pens. His world is real, but it's also just a story.

Eddie's being ignored prior to Homewarming was not a freak accident- whoever orchestrated everyone to forget him (Home, possibly?) was trying to make him feel like nobody needed him so they could erase him from the neighborhood and pull him into our reality.

Why would this happen? What could be so egregious with Eddie's character that his existence would be declared unnecessary?

Well, who's always seen alongside Frank, portrayed as his best friend, their shared love for nature playing off each other like a harmony that may be just friendship but may be something even deeper?

How are mailmen and entemologists related, actually? How could they ever be as compatible as flora and fauna? They simply clash too much, it's not natural, it's not right.

(though Julie is often too exuberant for the more mellow Frank, and his seriousness and logic and Eddie's earnestness and love of literature blend together perfectly; also Frank is nonbinary and Julie is genderfluid and they're gay and pan respectfully so no combination of the three is really "straight"; people aren't confined to narrow strands of fate but puppets are subject to their masters)

And yet, someone pulled Eddie back to his side, called him by his first name when they'd only been on last name terms before.

Two peas were placed close together.

(edited to fix a grammatical typo and add extra clarification at the end)

[heliads]

first of all i just wanted to say that i’m actually in love with your writing and i can’t wait to read more from you!! anyway i was thinking of some good ol’ peter hayes x fem!reader where they were both in candor together and hated each others GUTS, but then when they transferred to dauntless, peter starts developing feelings for reader so he follows her around like some puppy but she’s still on the peter-hate-train. maybe also like he starts talking to some other female dauntless initiate and stops giving reader as much attention and she finally realizes that she likes him

(this is such a long request i’m so sorry)

thank you so much!!

'Bad Liars' - peter hayes

masterlist

Starting out life on your own terms. A fresh page, a blank slate. This is why you decided to switch factions in your Choosing Ceremony, why you agreed to never see your family again except by something as meager as coincidence. Friends, neighbors, blood relations, all left behind with one swipe of a knife against your palm. It’s worth it, though. Running through the streets of your city like your world is on fire, you’re free for the first time in your memory. It’s just you in this new, grand place they call Dauntless.

Well, you and Peter Hayes.

Of all the people to come here with you, of course your fellow transfer from Candor would be Peter. Bold, callous Peter. Peter, who’s had it out for you since you were kids. No child should know that much bitter hatred, but the two of you have been arch rivals since you were small. You’d be lying if you said that leaving him behind didn’t factor into your decision to transfer from Candor to Dauntless even a little bit, but yet here he is anyway. Turns out you couldn’t run that far from him after all.

To you, it makes perfect sense that if Peter Hayes had to go anywhere, he would go to Dauntless. All throughout his time at Candor, for as long as you can remember Peter, he had been crafting his words to inflict as much misery as possible. In the eyes of the faction leaders, anything he said was fair game so long as he was telling the truth, and Peter did just that. He told his truth, which was precisely like reality except warped to cause as much hurt as he dared. 

Peter’s words were honed to a knife’s sharpness, easier for drawing blood than the syringes of your faction’s truth serum. Of course he would go here, where bullets are no longer how he shapes his syllables to spike into your throat but a real thing. Why bother with figurative pain if you can produce the genuine article?

The two of you had ended up here for precisely opposite reasons. Peter wanted to hurt, you wanted to fight back. Candor is full of self-righteous bullies who believe they’re doing the right thing by being uncommonly cruel to anyone they pass. In Dauntless, everyone is finally on a level playing field. If someone insults you, you fight them, and no amount of callous words can save you then. Talk is nothing if you can’t back it up with prowess. For someone who had to swallow plenty of poison back in Candor, Dauntless is like a holiday.

However, the one thing that makes your paradise fall short is the fact that Peter decided to come here with you. He had made his decision independently of you, of course, but you’re still infuriated about the whole affair. This was supposed to be your fresh start, your one chance to escape your past and become something no one expected of you. That’s the whole point of the Choosing Ceremony, isn’t it? To kill off the old you and transform into the best version of yourself?

That had been your plan, at least, and then Peter had made his choice. You wouldn’t go anywhere but Dauntless even if your entire faction transferred over here, but it did complicate things. You had hoped that you and Peter would always end up on opposite sides of the room, then opposite ends of the faction, and never come in contact again, but as per usual, it looks like Peter isn’t much inclined to follow your whims.

From the first day alone, you knew he was going to be trouble. You were one of the first to jump, fresh off the exhilaration of the free fall plunge from the top of the roof, and reeling in the lingering aftereffects of your largest adrenaline rush to date while waiting for the jumpers to take their turns off the edge. The room was crowded, more so with each new jumper to make their move, yet somehow in all that chaos, Peter managed to find you. It didn’t bode well for the remainder of initiation, to say the least.

You had been hoping that the two of you could exchange silent, wary eye contact and then move on, your past shattered and gone for good, but instead Peter wove his way through the throngs of people and came to a stop by your side.

“Look who we have here,” he says, drawing the words out, “Y/N L/N. I never thought you’d have the guts to come here.”

“And I always thought you’d be too much of a coward to leave Candor,” you reply. “Looks like we were both wrong.”

Peter’s eyes widen and he chuckles, evidently not expecting your retort. “Careful, L/N. Didn’t know you had such a sharp tongue.”

“You’ve known me for years,” you say, eyeing him coldly. “If you didn’t know that, you’re about to be very surprised indeed. I hope you didn’t set your hopes on making first place in initiation, Hayes, or you’re going to be sorely disappointed.”

Up ahead, one of the initiation leaders is calling for the trainees to fall in after him. You take this opportunity to breeze past Peter, who’s standing there and staring openly, mouth agape. You’ve put up with his bullshit for many years now, always taking it silently in fear of jeopardizing your position in your faction, but no longer. You’re on even footing again for the first time in a very long time, and you have absolutely no intention of ever caving to Peter Hayes again.

For Peter, it seems, your decision is a very rude awakening. You immediately fling yourself into the intricacies of fighting and running and shooting, which causes you to rise quickly through the ranks of initiates, much to Peter’s chagrin. Although he’ll tell anyone in earshot that he’s only letting you do so well because he thinks it’s funny to watch you struggle, you can see the panic in Peter’s eyes when you crush one fight after another. You meant what you said, after all. It’s first place or nothing, and you don’t intend on settling for anything where Peter’s concerned.

Your rivalry becomes just as well known among your new friends in Dauntless as it was back in Candor. Hardly a day goes by without you and Peter getting in each other’s way, whether it be slamming each other into the ground during a fighting match in the ring or running yourselves ragged in an attempt to be faster, stronger, better. It’s like you can’t get away from him. 

Everywhere you go, Peter is there too. Staying late after initiation to get some more practice with throwing knives, he just so happens to choose the target right beside you. Walking over to the training gym in the middle of the night because you can’t sleep and might as well use the empty hours to improve, Peter seems to have the same bright idea to practice with the punching bags even despite the midnight hour. You don’t like the fact that Peter seems to have such a good knack for telling when you’re awake or asleep, you have half a mind that he might get frustrated of the close competition and take you out while you were sleeping, but he’s never gone that far.

Your friends seem to have a different view of the whole affair. Every time you complain to them about Peter never letting you have a moment’s peace, Tris and Christina, your closest friends in initiation, just exchange knowing looks and begin to tease you. They seem convinced that Peter doesn’t hate you but actually harbors a crush, which is beyond you. There’s no earthly way that Peter likes you. The two of you have despised each other since before you could talk. The whole idea is absurd.

Still, if you were nothing more than an unknowing bystander, you supposed you could see how the situation might be misconstrued. A lifetime of truth-telling in you has to admit that maybe it is a little suspicious that you and Peter can’t seem to go an hour or two without running into each other, that Peter is both your greatest threat and the object of your every waking thought. It’s just because you want to beat him so badly, of course. Of course. If it weren’t, though. If you were thinking of him not because of hatred but for something more–

You wouldn’t. You would never be so foolish. This is how Peter wins, by twisting his way inside your mind until you’re second-guessing every single thing he does, and you’d die before you let him win. If he’s willing to play the game, though, you’ll do anything to beat him at his own technique, so you up the ante and repeat it right back to him. 

Sarcastic comments slip from your tongue whenever you see him. When Four takes the initiates out on guided runs, you make sure you’re jogging right by Peter the whole time, your pace steadily increasing until both of you end each race at a sprint. The rest of the trainees have learned to leave two targets side by side for you two whenever it’s time for sharpshooting practice, and heaven help the hapless initiate who asks one of you to spar as if the other wasn’t standing right there, guarding their territory.

It doesn’t mean anything, though. You still hate Peter to the ends of the earth, and everyone around you had better know it, too. You despise him as much as it’s physically possible for a human being to hate anyone, but then he starts spending a lot of time with someone else, and suddenly the hatred is far harder to come by than it ever was, and you’re not sure what to do with yourself at all.

He’s spending time with another girl. Which isn’t bad, of course. He’s got friends. You do too. But. One time at dinner, you heard Tris saying that he’s looking at the girl the same way he used to look at you, and she wasn’t talking about hate, and you cannot tell whether you were supposed to deny that he’d ever done anything but hate you or be furious at this new girl for stealing his attention away from you, so you didn’t answer at all. You didn’t sleep a wink that night, and gave up a few hours in to try and train some more. He didn’t follow. He always follows. Not this time, though, and when you came back, he was quietly whispering with the other girl. Hatching sinister plans, no doubt, or planning to stab someone in the back. He didn’t even look at you when he came in. It was like he didn’t even care.

You feel sick to your stomach. You intentionally ask other trainees to spar in the ring– look, Peter isn’t the only one capable of moving on– but it’s like he doesn’t even notice. You want to slam your hands against his chest and shout in his face, do anything to make him look at you, but instead you stay sullen and quiet and pretend like nothing has changed even though everything, everything, has.

It hits you, about two weeks later, what the problem is. Like a lightning strike in the dark of night, all of a sudden you know, a knowledge that had been blank and absent before but totally unavoidable now. You like Peter. Hell, you might even love him, if you gave him that chance in your heart. Peter might have liked you, but you brushed him off for so long that he moved on.

It hurts like a jagged hole in your heart. Someone has reached inside and broken your ribs to claw this feeling out from where you’ve so cleverly hidden it, and there’s no disguising the horror of the wound now. You couldn’t escape it if you tried.

You found out this truth about yourself in the middle of a Dauntless party, and it kills your mood completely. You can’t stand the loud music or flashing lights anymore, so you put down your half-empty cup on one of the debris-strewn surfaces and make your way out. No one notices you leave. You’re a ghost on the outskirts of a celebration of life, and there is nothing here for you anymore.

You wander until you end up on the bridge overlooking the pit near the center of the Dauntless complex. You stand as close to the edge as you can, hands gripping the flimsy railing until you’re not sure your fingers could peel away from the rusting metal if you tried. If you’d felt any buzz from the party at all, you’ve sobered up by now. You have no idea how long you’ve been standing here, skin chilled by the drafts of the pit, and then a voice sounds from behind you, and you’re abruptly dragged back to reality once more.

“I thought you’d be back in there with the rest,” Peter says, coming to a stop beside you.

You don’t dare to look at him, opting instead to keep your eyes firmly trained on the drop over the edge of the pit. “I could say the same thing about you.”

Peter sounded genuinely curious when he asked, but your tone is harsher, colder. You still haven’t forgiven him for moving on just when you realized that you liked him, and it’s leaching into your voice. Peter chuckles even still. “No, not me. The best part just left.”

You risk a glance his way, and to your surprise, he’s looking at you. “Are you being honest with me, Peter?” You ask.

His face twists into chagrin. “Looks like we can’t beat the Candor out of ourselves after all, even despite all the training sessions we’ve pulled. I’ve tried, though.”

“You’ve done a good job,” you muse. “It’s me who needs to be fixed the most.”

Peter’s brow furrows. “What are you talking about?”

You shake your head. Maybe you weren’t as sober as you thought. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“Says who?” Peter asks plainly. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

You regard him suspiciously. “You haven’t always.”

Peter has the grace to look embarrassed. “I’ve done things I regret.”

“I don’t believe you,” you say, and laugh to hide your heartbreak. “I know you, Peter Hayes. I know what you do. I’m not falling for it. Not again.”

“It worked before?” Peter asks, genuinely surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

This time you do laugh for real. “Why would I? And give you another weakness to exploit?”

Peter flinches as if you’ve slapped him. “I deserve that, probably, but I’ve been trying to be better.”

“Why?” You ask. “You’ve never cared what I thought, and you certainly don’t care about being better. Nothing about you makes sense, Peter. You’ve got a girl back there in the party who’s probably looking for you now, but instead you’re trying to apologize to me. You’ve never cared about that before.”

“But I do now,” Peter says, voice unexpectedly strong. When he turns the force of his gaze back on you again, you feel totally rooted in place, unable to move even if you wanted to. And, when he starts to move closer to you, one hand coming to rest on top of your fingers, you’re not sure that you do. “I do care. I’ve been trying to tell you that for weeks.”

“I thought you were excellent at telling the truth,” you whisper.

“So did I,” Peter replies. Hesitates, then says, “Only other people’s truth, it turns out. You were always my best secret. I wanted to keep you the most.”

Your breath sticks to your lungs, refusing to grant you release. None of this makes sense. Peter would never– But he is now, standing in front of you, telling you as much as he can. Peter still wants you. It’s up to you if you want him, too.

After everything he’s done to you over the years, you owe him nothing at all. He’s hurt you more times than you could count. When you’re cold, bitterly cold, freezing down to the bone with no way of rescue save your own rough and ragged principles, you burn everything around you. Clothes, shoes, furniture. Even people. Peter burned you, and so severe was the flame of your mutual hatred that it made it impossible for anything to grow between the two of you but a jealous wrath. 

Peter has left the cold of Candor and traded in his shivering bones for Dauntless’ natural warmth, and now he finally has the room to put out the fire again. He’s stamped out the inferno, or tried to, at least; but upon inspecting the last flattened spark, Peter can’t tell if he went too far. It is immensely difficult for him to discern if he has left anything of you but char and ash. 

What could have been a beautiful thing went up in smoke the moment he first raised a harsh word against you. Peter loves the truth, loves most of all to twist it, but in the end, the truth cannot help him here. Peter knows what he wants the truth to be, but the truth is no substitute for reality. It is up to you if you can ever forgive him, and no amount of pretty words on Peter’s end can change that.

It’s up to you, and for the first time since you came to Dauntless, you know precisely what you want. “I know what you mean,” you tell him carefully.

Peter’s face cracks in a tentative smile. “You know? So you–”

“I do,” you interrupt. “I like you, Peter.”

You have seen Peter furious, filled with righteous vengeance. You’ve seen him bloody and bruised on the other end of a sparring ring. You thought that the brightest emotion you’d ever see on him was the pure flame of hatred, but it turns out there’s one thing better than wrath, and that’s sheer, incandescent joy. He wears it now like the finest of luxuries, and you decide that you’d like to see it many times again. As it turns out, you’ll have plenty of chances.

divergent tag list: @blondsauduun, @gods-fools-heroes, @23victoria, @manyfandomsfanvergent, @imwaysthelastchoice, @crazyhearttragedy, @drinking-tea-and-be-obsessed, @alex-1967s-blog, @aoi-targaryen

all tags list: @wordsarelife

[determinate-negation]

Hollywood has made a lot of movies about the Holocaust, but not a single one has shown a romani perspective, even though half of Europe's roma population was exterminated by the nazis. I can't really think of anything coherent to say about this, do you?

because it is not of interest to western audiences and doesnt fit the pre-established popular narrative structures of mass culture relating to ww2. whats going to be a popular movie has nothing to do with the real magnitude or importance of something. the big space that ww2 and nazi movies occupy in mass culture also has little to do with the real history of the holocaust for any of its victims. in fact the holocaust was pretty absent from american consciousness post war, it wasnt seen as part of why the us was fighting ww2, survivors didnt talk about it, and it first started to enter popular american consciousness in a big way because of a nbc tv series in 1978 called holocaust about a fictional jewish family. and although this series was the first time many americans had even seen or heard of many aspects of the holocaust, it was still criticized for sanitizing the true extent of nazi war crimes and how horrific conditions were. all this is to say that very few of these popular culture representations really have to do with showing the full reality of something, there are calculations in terms of everything relating to the mass market for film and tv. theres on one hand a western fascination with the third reich (just go to any book store and see how many books there are about hitler) that i think motivates a lot of these representations and on the other hand the transformation of memory of the shoah into a political tool for us interests and the rise of the israel lobby in the us, thus american films are more likely to feature jewish narratives. jewish protagonists in world war 2 movies will likely be more relatable to an american viewer than roma people, straight up, because most mainstream holocaust films with jewish main characters are about middle class ashkenazi jews who lives are much like middle class americans. even though most of the jewish victims of nazism were poor religious eastern european jews. its the fear that it could happen to you, and thats less apparent if the story is about victims you cant relate to. also, theres a lot of jewish directors in america and not a lot of roma directors 🤷🏻

further reading:

The Culture Industry

[myoddessy]

out with the old, in with the new | w2s/harry lewis

summary —new accounts, new lifestyle, new clubs every night. an insight into just what—and who—youtube's non-youtuber it girl got up to during her split from harry

*once again following the lead of @whoetoshaw and her bog universe's iconic breakup era ALSO, one of the twitter threads is rlly grainy and I'm sorry abt that, i couldn't properly fix it so you have to just zoom in on it 😭

2023, January

2018, July.

liked by zoeleonards, taliamar, masonmount, and 11, 824 others

yourusername lay all your love on me 🌻🍹☀️

tagged: zoeleonards, chloemitchells

zoeleonards london reality, greece fantasy 💔😞

yourusername ibiza couldn't come sooner!

wroetominter OMGOMG IVE DREAMED ABOUT YOU RETURNING TO SOCIAL MEDIA

ynfan omg shes glowing 🤩🤩

chloemitchells mykonos has never looked better 🤤😍😘

yourusername love u, lover girl 😘😘 ❤️❤️

2018, August.

liked by chloemitchells, tobjizzle, leahwilliamson, and 20,349 others

yourusername snuck behind a dj booth and had a blast, had a few more shots than I should've, fell more in love with my girls. ibiza, you will forever be famous 🍾✨️

zoeleonards it was nice having the hotel room to just myself and Chloe for a bit x 🤣🤭

ynfangirl DOES THIS MEAN THE MASON MOUNT RUMOURS ARE TRUE??

chloemitchells @ynfangirl who's that? never heard of him 🤷‍♀️

ynloverrrr it HAS to be true

freyanightingale beautiful girl ❤️

yourusername ❤️❤️❤️

sidemenfav the way that her, freya, and talia still like each others posts and support each other 💔

liked by yourusername, taliamar, and freyanightingale

ynandharry tobi likes every one of her posts, too. they really are family no matter what 😭

2019, January

liked by pierregasly, zerkaa, mabel, and 30,568 others

yourusername we're able to have semi-classy girls trips, who knew?

tagged: zoeleonards

chloemitchells gutted I couldn't make it, I miss u two beautiful girls 😭❤️

yourusername CHLO!!! it wasn't the same without you, babe xx

zoeleonards I missed placing bets on who y/n was gonna make a move on 💔

yourusername IM NOT THAT BAD ZOË JESUS

chloemitchells yeah, give her some slack... it's usually placing bets on who's gonna make a move on her 😉

ynfanpage queen we need tips on how to live our best lives because you are teaching us all rn

yourusername 1) the only long term relationship you need to focus on is the one with yourself. 2) surround yourself with people you love and support & who will love and support you. 3) learn to not give a fuck what anyone else things because everyone's too busy in their own heads to care ❤️❤️

taliaminterr how is your life so aesthetic?? irl gossip girl vibes!!

yourusername babe trust my life doesn't look like this day to day, I only show the fun bits. rn it's 4am and I've got four day old greasy hair, dried mascara under my eyes (I watched UP without taking off my makeup first), and I'm eating cereal and drinking flat coke zero. I am not the standard you should aim for 😭😭

ynslover I love how open and honest she is about her content. she's actually such a good role model

liked by taliamar, freyanightingale, chloemitchells, and 19,519 others

yourusername apparently people think the party life in my photo dumps is my day-to-day? babes, if I can teach any of you one thing in life, it's that half the shit you see online is fake. half the 'candid' moments are staged, same goes for almost every picture you see. so here's a little dump of my actual reality

zoeleonards yeah guys she's actually so messy it's insane. it makes me want to move out

yourusername SHUT IT. zoë has about three different vases of dead flowers in her room because she forgets to take them out.

zoeleonards that's nothing on the old cups in your room

yourusername BLOCKING U

ynslover how does it feel to be the most relatable influencer ever even though you're not an influencer?

taliamar omg you've still got the vinyls!!

yourusername ofc, babe! I needed something to remember our days of charity shop hopping

2023, January

[bizarrebazaar13]

FL-inspired book recs!

brought to you by hotel wi-fi

Locations

The Royal Bethlehem: “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Room in the Tower” by E.F. Benson. these are short stories, not novels, but they are fairly quick reads and are about locations where reality becomes twisted. the yellow wallpaper deals with mental illness and medical neglect, while the room in the tower is more about the overlap between dreams and the real world.

Port Carnelian: Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. ok, hear me out on this one. if you’ve ever thought port carnelian would be great if it actually dealt with British colonialism and racism in a meaningful way and also had a murder mystery, you might like this book. a much younger Mycroft Holmes goes with his friend Cyrus Douglas to Douglas’s home in Jamaica to investigate a series of mysterious deaths.

Ladybones Road: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley. Nathaniel Steepleton finds a gold pocket watch in his bedroom one day, but he cannot open it or even hear it ticking. six months later, it opens on its own, and an alarm goes off at the precise time that a bomb explodes in Scotland Yard. he then goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori, who claims the watch was stolen from his shop. Mori has a gift for elaborate clockwork, and though he seems kind and relatively harmless, Nathaniel is sure he is hiding something.

Ambitions/Major Storylines

Early Light Fingers: The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz. it’s a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, but it can still be understood and enjoyed even if you don’t share my Sherlock Holmes autism. I specified early light fingers, because the mystery of what exactly the house of silk is, and the theme of corruption in highest levels of society, reminds me a lot of exploring and learning about the orphanage. just a heads up, this book is centered around a murdered child, and deals with the systemic abuse and neglect of children in victorian london. its biggest content warning is also its biggest spoiler, so I won’t give it here, but feel free to ask me. I had it spoiled for me on accident and still liked the book a lot.

Late-game Nemesis: “The Moonlit Road” by Ambrose Pierce. another short story, it recounts in three parts the murder of Julia Hetman, as told by her son, her husband, and Julia herself. it specifically reminds me of the dreams of the dead section of nemesis.

Evolution: Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. Tory Stewart becomes obsessed with mermaids after her sister Anne’s disappearance. Anne was filming a mockumentary about mermaids in the Mariana Trench, but the ship she was on disappeared, and was recovered weeks later with no trace of the crew. footage was found that appeared to show the crew being murdered by mermaids, but it’s largely believed to be for the movie, not real. seven years later, Theodore Blackwell recruits Tory as part of his mission to return to the Mariana Trench and capture a live mermaid. it hits sort of the same spot for undersea survival horror that the diving bell section of evolution did for me.

Exceptional Stories

The Bloody Wallpaper: Sign Here by Claudia Lux. hell is an office. literally. Peyote Trip sold his soul while he was alive, and now works in hell, convincing other people to do the same. he’s one deal away from a big promotion, and all he needs is the soul of one last member of the Harrison family. normal laws of space and time don’t apply, the real hellscape is capitalism, and secrets don’t stay hidden forever… sound familiar? in terms of violence and body horror, I don’t think it gets much worse than the text of the bloody wallpaper. one of the main characters does have a pretty brutal backstory involving christianity-related child abuse though.

Totentanz: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. set in late 1920s Mexico, the story follows Casiopea Tun and the Mayan death god Hun-Kamé on a journey across Mexico and eventually into the underworld. Casiopea finds Hun-Kamé’s bones in a chest in her grandfather’s house, and when she cuts her finger on one of the bone shards, Hun-Kamé becomes bound to her. together, they must find the rest of his body, which has been scattered around Mexico by Hun-Kamé’s brother Vucub-Kamé, who took over control of Xibalba from him. Hun-Kamé intends to retake Xibalba, but he and Casiopea must face sorcerers, demons, and twisted family dynamics- and that’s before they even get to the underworld.

[bupsafr3ak]

Satisqueer

Satisqueer (or problaqueer) is a queer posture that focuses mainly on receiving people rejected by the community, not only LGBTQIAPN+ or MOGAI, but many others, this includes the paraphilic community, subs(edtwt, sh etc) among others. Our idea is to question social constructions and discuss whether everything that is considered wrong by the majority is, in fact, wrong as they say. More satisfied people should analyze reality in a material and not moral way and, in this way, have their own conclusions about the world and its functioning, position themselves before the rules and expectations that have been imposed on us.

Satisqueer also uses a lot of empathy trying to understand how others feel and support them and offer support to improve, in relation to how bad or problematic it seems to be, we welcome many fragile people who are often excluded and left aside by their disorders and coping mechanisms.

This queer posture may or may not be involved in speeches, whatever the reason, they have no obligation to discuss with whoever they judge that the discussion is not worth it.

Pro:

Controversial identities (gaygirl, lesboy, hetero-gay).

Alterhuman, otherkin(foodkin, objectkin, kin em pessoas reais).

Paraphilias, parafilic disorders and fetishes (taboo or not).

Endo, transplural and created system.

ANY type of hetero and Cisdissidence (including mono mspec, multiorientação, cistrans, iso...).

Non-monogamy.

Relationships between lesbians and men or gays and women.

Aldernics and extreme body modifications.

Paraphilias, paraphylic disorders and fetishes (tabu or not).

Pro-contacts of CONSENSUALS parafilias.

Sh, suicide and alimentary/mental disorders as artistic performance (may include assisted suicide).

Mad pride and anti-assylum movement

Autonomy on your own body (including abortion).

Consensual cannibalism.

Self-diagnosis / self-identification and any type of systems.

Destigmatization of mechanisms of unhealthy copings such as the romanticization of traumas.

Toxic, obsessive, abusive consensual and/or mutual relationships.

Proship and pro fiction / anti censorship.

Furry and other harmless communities.

Communism and anarchism.

ACAB (1312).

Feminism.

Legalization of all drugs.

Blm and other movements of racialized people

Sex workers.

Xenogenders, stetigenders, lexics, allions, vior, perspeque...

Xenosexualities and parasexualities.

RCTA

Transpara (transid in general).

Transition to trace.

Transautistics use identification badge/transable use wheelchair/crutch (things that match their disability).

Identify with things for fun (even though they are harmful).

Ed/shtwt among other subs.

MIF (minors in fetichism).

Incest (consang or not).

Radshifters.

Mahou shoujo irl.

Radqueer/inclus.

Sexual education/ children know their own body.

Loli, shota, kodo and nanacon.

Ageplay, petplay, rapeplay etc

CNC

Autopara (autopedo, autozoo, etc)

Fictosexuality

Neutral:

MUDs

MAP (just if the minor is 14+).

Claim and resignification of insults and offensive terms.

Transition to transharmful

Symbol of the puzzle to represent autistic people.

anti:

zoo contact.

Necro contact.

pedo contact.

Contact of any paraphilia that is done in a non-consesual way.

CP/CSEM/CSAM.

LSDqueer, basedqueer, kandiqueer, xenosatanism and similar.

Anti-therian

Bullying and harassment.

Conservatives, rightists, especially Nazis, fascists and capitalists.

Transmed

Sysmed

Cis/heteronormatividade against LGBTQIAPN+ people (ex: invalidating a trans boy for dressing in a “feminine” way and wearing makeup)

Radfem, radgay, genitalists, transphobics, exorsexists, binarists...

Misogyny, misandria and femism (not feminism) and similars.

Religious intolerant

Identification emoji idea:

🫧🌈 /🗂🌈 /🌈🌪

CURIOSITY: where did the idea of the name Satisqueer and problaqueer come from?

“Satis” comes from Latin, and means “quite” - who chose this name was lilico - and "probla" its from "problematic", indicating that we include a lot of communities, regardless of how problematic or bad they are (no matter how ‘shat’ it is). We fight mainly against cis/heteronormativity, transmed, capitalists and moralistic people.

No one is better than anyone else and has no wrong way to express themselves, identify or deal with their problems, I believe we should claim this label with pride, embrace the unusual and inconvenient ways of dealing with things as part of our identity and struggle.

Creator of the term: meee :3 (with the help of @transidiotloli )