#good thing Mom doesn't have Tumblr or know how to internets in general lol

[aihoshiino]

Hey there! Love your analyses of Ai and ao3 fanfics! They're so good and you always bring interesting points to the table! I want to know your thoughts on something (it's possible that I sent this ask a while back but I have a feeling it never came through lol, my Tumblr/Internet be broken sometimes): In chapter 140 (not 100% canon, but I think the brought up subjects still resonate), page 5, Hikaru says that the student should come to the teacher, while Ai says don't just invite a man to your house. Do you think this has a link with their traumas? It also makes me wonder why exactly Ai would say something like that. Could it have a link with Ayumi's boyfriend (="man") that ogled her? I would like to know your thoughts on how this boyfriend would've affected Ai, her image on men or just relationships/sex in general. Would it even have a big impact on those factors? Thank you for your thoughts!

Thank you so much! 💜 Looking at my inbox I do think Tumblr just ate it the first time you sent this….. Functional webbed site……………..

Honestly it's so hard to know what to make of those HikaAi movie scenes in general but especially off the back of Hikaru being like "fake and gay lol" about it. The characterization feels additive and consistent with the real Ai and Hikaru but at least one of these scenes was written by an author who had literally never met them. And while they do communicate things to us about their respective baggage, it's complicated by the fact that this is in-universe fiction written by an in-universe author. So it's like - is this characterization Aka Akasaka is trying to communicate to us or characterization Yoriko Kichijouji is trying to communicate to the audience of 15 Year Lie? Both? It's a mess!

THAT SAID, Hikaru's "fake and gay lol" is explicitly challenged and undermined by the narrative and the whole point of the confrontation is slapping him with the fact that (among other things), he doesn't understand Ai half as well as he thinks he does. With that in mind and given that it doesn't directly contradict anything else we know about the real Ai, we can probably treat it as true enough for the purposes of using it as jumping off points for discussion.

I don't think Kamiki's line is super important on its own as its really just the setup for Ai's response - so the talk as a whole is really more about communicating things about Ai to us, through Hikaru's POV. And I think strictly in this context, Ai's line there is less to do with her mom and her experience growing up in Ayumi's house (I actually got the impression that the movie barely touched on that stuff? but I could be wrong) and more about her like… responding to other people's expectations without necessarily fully understanding them. I do think the specific way she phrases it is probably parroting something Ayumi may have said to her though - similarly to the way she calls her past self a 'nasty brat' in the Da Vinci interview which was just like… so pointed and unkind I can only assume it was something Ayumi called her in the past that just burrowed its way into her brain forever like that shit does.

Overall, it's part of a much broader pattern of behaviour on Ai's part of, as I've described it to friends, performing normalcy to the point of abnormality. She imitates the end of the "normal behaviour" process tree without understanding or following any of the steps that get there. I can't believe I'm reaching for this reference lol but I was rewatching a bunch of CJ the X vids last week and in their essay about Cat Valentine from the show Victorious, they describe some of the (certainly accidental) neurodivergent coding in Cat's character in a way that really pinged me as also speaking to the way Ai is also (much more intentionally) coded:

"[…] There's a big difference between following social procedure naturally and Attempting To Behave As One Might Act. […] She mimics convention, while fundamentally misinterpreting what part of convention is important in the first place."

That's really the cornerstone to a lot of Ai's behaviour - the combo of her social isolation and her neurodivergence means that she does not have the same frame of reference that most other people absorb from their peers and families as they grow up. So instead she just sort of… looks at the people around her, figures out what successful social interactions look like from the outside, and tries to replicate that to varying degrees of success.

Her argument with Nino is probably my favourite example of this - Nino is all but screaming at her to have a normal fucking human being conversation with her and Ai just sits there like ^_^ Nooooo don't be insecure your so sexy aha. no wonder nino wanted to kill her with a brick HGSJSSKS. And like - from an outsider perspective, you can see exactly why this happens! This is basically Ai short-circuiting because none of her usual scripted responses are resolving this situation. She defaults to the fawning response because she doesn't know what else to do, even though it should be clear it's making the issue worse.

It would be sooooo easy to just make this a one sided instance of Nino being cruel to her but it's really just the inevitable and unavoidable conclusion of Ai's instincts towards avoidance and fear of vulnerability. And it's not Ai's FAULT she's like that. it's learned behaviour. she is the way she is because allowing herself to be sincere and vulnerable only ever gets her hurt, but it still hurts her and the people around her as a result (like with Kamiki).

oh my god i'm like 5k words in and i haven't even touched the question you directly asked LSKDJKSSK. I MEAN, I ASSUME AT THIS POINT PEOPLE SEND ME ASKS LIKE THIS KNOWING THE RISKS OF GETTING AN ESSAY IN RETURN…

ANYWAY, I definitely think Ai's experiences growing up in Ayumi's house (incl. ayumi's pedo boyfriend lmao) were a huge part of why she ends up with such an utterly fucked concept of love and relationships. When I see people talking about this aspect of her character, I feel like it gets downplayed because the series itself is more about her life as an idol but her childhood is the literal foundation of everything that follows - Ai becomes an idol because she wants to know how to love people and be loved in return and the reason she's never experienced that is because of how Ayumi raised her and how she failed to protect Ai from and properly respond to Ai's narrow brush with that type of victimization.

It's hard to really say exactly how this specific incident impacted her with how little we know about how all that went down, but I definitely think it was part of a pretty consistent pattern in her childhood of having failed/toxic relationships modeled for her - there was All That with Ayumi's boyfriend but we also know that Ai's biodad was not in a relationship with Ayumi at the time Ai was growing up and that she saw him pretty infrequently. It's not hard for me to imagine that Ai's kind of wishywashy confusion as to wtf marriage even is expressed in 45510 is the result of seeing dogshit relationship after dogshit relationship fall apart in her formative years. And I definitely think The Incident (& Ayumi's reaction to it - she herself admits her behavior escalated as a result) probably planted the seed in Ai's brain of her being like… more aware of sex than she should have been at the age she was?

In fact, ironically, Hikaru's line about 'giving your body to body to receive love' was actually how I've always interpreted Ai - pretty much the entire time I've been brainrotted about her, my interpretation has always been that Hikaru was not her first boyfriend or sexual partner and that she had probably run through a couple of extremely fast burning short term relationships before they met.that escalated to physical intimacy very quick and burned out just as fast.

I don't necessarily have a ton of capital-E Evidence for this other than a line or two in the series and also just Vibes. Not only can abuse and neglect in childhood lead to premature sexual behaviour in teens (as a sort of attention/intimacy seeking mechanism) but Akane specifically pegs Ai as having obvious emotional imbalances typical of a person who engages in this kind of early sexual behaviour, but then notes that it settled down after she turned 15 and notes 'did she meet someone nice?', implicitly tying her improvement in behaviour to Kamiki - but then of course, that means her destructive behaviour can't have been the result of sleeping with him. In addition, the TL that was available for the manga when I was getting back into the series had Ai refer to Kamiki as an ex during their phonecall, implying she had more than one.

This is one of those things where like… if you are normal about this character it probably doesn't really matter but unfortunately for everyone else i'm insane ;SKFLSNMSLSMKA So stuff like this is really interesting for me to dig into. One of the things I find really fascinating about Ai that mostly exists in subtext and idk how intentional it even was on Akasaka's part is this sense of internalized shame and even disgust she has directed at her own body and sexuality. She calls herself 'dirty' and 'impure', and her final words to Ryosuke are her more or less apologizing to him for that - and idk, I think that aspect of her character (and OnK's ongoing refutations that Ai being 'dirty' in this way is in any way something she should have been rebuked or punished for) is that much more interesting if all that is the case vs the more straightforward and "pure" (for lack of a better word) version of events where she met Hikaru and they fell in love and had sex… if that makes sense.

Honestly Ai's relationship with like, sex and intimacy and sex in the context of a loving relationship being healing and reclaiming for her is one of those things I have so much fun writing in the context of RP and stuff but if I continued rambling about it here I would go on all day lol and this post is already so long. IN ANOTHER ASK, PERHAPS……..

[oncominggstorm]

Random numbers: 7, 14, 25, 36, 50

7: Do you get along with your parents? Why or why not?

Well my dad died last March so I guess I get along with him now lol? Before, it was complicated, he didn't really understand autism or adhd or chronic illness, and so there were a lot of misunderstandings.

My mom, no. She's really toxic. I basically raised my little sister for her, helped pay her bills, was her therapist from like age 11, etc. Lately she's gotten worse and says really hurtful things and won't apologize, and continues to cross boundaries. The final few straws happened this summer, once when I told her I wanted to kill myself and she said "good," once when I was having a meltdown while on a trip with my sisters and reached out to her to help me calm down without messing up the trip for my sisters and she was horrible to me and made it worse, and once when she showed up at my house unannounced AGAIN and just let herself in AGAIN, and when I got mad and told her to leave she threatened me and pushed me. I don't really remember the order, they all happened around the same time. But that was it for me. Now I'm like, cordial with her at family events for the sake of my sisters and grandma, but that's about it.

Wow that was long sorry lol I guess I needed to vent

14: What’s a bad habit that you have?

Lol most of my habits are bad if we're being honest. I pick at my skin, I use weed as a coping mechanism when I don't wanna feel my feelings, or I push down my feelings and just spend all my time daydreaming so I don't have to think, I overshare to people on the internet apparently, lots more I'm sure but that's probably more than enough lol

25: Have you ever/do you liked someone you know you can never be with?

Once my freshman year of college I had a crush on my RA but then I found out he was gay so I guess that counts lol. And then like, celebrity crushes obvs.

36: How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?

I can be ready in like, 10 minutes. But I PREFER to take like an hour or two laying in bed, and then eat breakfast, and scroll through tumblr, etc etc

50: State five facts about your personality –

So I'm like, ACTIVELY in the process of trying to figure out who I am. Like I legit was talking about that as one of my goals with my therapist yesterday lol. SO, this is kinda hard. But I will do my best:

1.) I try my best to be a kind person. I don't know if I always succeed or come across that way, but I genuinely am trying most of the time

2.) I can be kinda obsessive? Not about people, but obsessive about stuff in general.

3.) I'm one of those people who is shy and doesn't talk much when I'm not comfortable, but then will joke around and/or excitedly infodump about stuff for hours with people I'm comfortable with. There just aren't very many of those people in my life rn unfortunately

4.) I really like learning trivia. Like just random little bits of information. I think it's one of the things I like most about tumblr, because I'll just be scrolling and then randomly come across a post about like, the etmology of a specific word or phrase. Or people infodumping about their special interest on a post that's marginally related. I love random things like that.

5.) I think I can probably be a little needy and insecure sometimes lol

Wow that whole ask ended up being long and deep sorry lol.

Thanks very much for asking :)

Send me some of these numbers!

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #154

Ever had a promise ring? No, but I gave one to Sara... lmfao OOPS

Who knows your biggest secret(s)? the Internet honestly lmfao

Do you ever get messages/asks on Tumblr? Very rarely.

When was the last time you waxed anything on your body, if ever? That woulda been my eyebrows, but I haven't done that in quite a long time.

Do you like shrimp? Yes, it's the only seafood I've found that I like, but I like it quite a lot.

Are you lactose intolerant? No, that'd be pretty tragic for me, lol.

Have you ever thought a man over 40 was attractive? my Tumblr is a thirst trap for 50-60 y/o men litcherally get out

Have you ever been told your aspirations are unrealistic? Not really, people tend to encourage me, but I've been told that yes, hoping to one day support yourself with just your nature photography will be insanely hard, but I'm trying my best.

Who was the last person you sat beside at a restaurant? My mother; Girt sat across from me.

Who is popular in your country? (Singers, actors etc.) lol I barely even know who's "big" anymore, I pay zero attention but uh, I know Pedro Pascal is a newer big focus of love, the whole country seems likely to defend Keanu Reeves with their lives basically, is Lana Del Ray still a thing?, Billie Eilish, Post Malone, Jason Momoa, Tom Hiddleston, uh... I dunno.

What did you watch today? Mostly let's plays but also some clips from the Rammstein concert in Lithuania today.

Peaches or plums? As a kid I woulda said plums, but I haven't had one in years, the texture might bother me now. I like sliced peaches, though.

Do you understand art? I think I've got a pretty decent idea. I obviously don't understand ALL of it, but I'd say I'm pretty open-minded with seeing and often identifying purpose in most art.

Do/did your parents buy you a lot for Christmas? I felt like it was a lot, especially when my parents had three kids similar in age to get stuff for, and apparently they tried to get the same amount of gifts for us, obviously varying a bit with the price of gifts. I know they struggled, especially once Dad left, and my mom NEVER thinks she gets enough, but she does, nowadays especially for Ashley's kids. Ash has told her basically every year that she gets way more than what's necessary, but my mom doesn't care lol.

Out of all the cultures in the world, what culture do you find the most interesting? Probably Native American, but I'm not SUPER familiar with most cultures, to be real.

Do you like ramen noodles? Literally only the Yakisoba spicy chicken one. At least, that's the only one I've found I enjoy, and often I don't have the taste for it anyway.

Who/what was that last thing that you slept with? Technically my cat and Mom's dog for a little bit, but the last person was Girt.

Do your parents do things that "embarrass" you? My dad has ZERO filter and knows how to be rude, and he also has zero common sense (I got it from him lol) so is difficult to get to understand things, and especially in public that can lead to embarrassing interactions.

What IM service do you use the most? Discord.

Who was the last person to IM you? Girt.

When you eat take-out, do you just eat it out of the containers provided? Generally, yes, but one specific case where I never do is when getting fried rice from Chinese places; I pour it into a bowl.

Would you need to sleep with someone before considering marrying them? No, sex just isn't important enough to me for that. If they wanna wait, that's fine.

Do you carry condoms? No.

How organized are the files on your computer? They're pretty sorted. I like putting stuff in appropriate folders.

Did you have a childhood hero? Were they real or fictional? Steve Irwin, of course. Real person obviously, with a heart that was so impossibly good and vibrant. So full of basically neon life to the very end.

Would you consider dating a psychiatrist or psychologist? I mean sure, but we'd absolutely have to set boundaries so they don't become my therapist; I don't think that's good for relationships.

For each person you’ve kissed, describe your feelings in one word: Nostalgic, confused, deep dislike, and adoration.

How do you react when you trip or stumble? In the moment I freak out big time, because me falling, with my weight, is considerably dangerous, even for an adult. Bruises are a guarantee. And then with my legs, I struggle very much with getting up anyway, so.

Are you good at the game Twister? As a kid I was, there's no way in hell I could do it now, I have to keep strengthening my legs.

Do your friends trust you around their bfs/gfs? This isn't really applicable to my life, I don't have real life friends I hang out with almost ever and I don't know their partners.

Would you rather make the first move, or your crush? The person I like, for sure.

If you have a camera, when do you use flash? In reality, I basically never do because it's just not applicable to what I'm shooting, but I have a mounted fill flash, which is generally best used when a foreground is underexposed.

What would you do if you found a gun in your best friend’s bedroom? I'd be extremely fucking freaked out; first I'd worry that he wasn't okay and wasn't telling me so, but I also don't feel that his mother should be in a house with a firearm because of her own mental health history.

What do you call your grandparents? I feel like both I've always just referred to them as "Grammy" and "Grampa."

What would be a cool earring design? Oh, there's so many! They tend to be ones that are heavier and dangle though, which I can't wear and it sucks. :( I semi-recently saw a pair that were a bunch of grapes, called to mind decorative fruits you put on a table, and I absolutely loved it. I'm also super big on those cute ones of animals hanging through your ear, I've seen lots of those, they tend to be cute and derpy.

Besides nightmares, what is the scariest thing about sleeping? I've never experienced it and am terrified of eventually doing so: sleep paralysis. That sounds HORRIFYING.

Do you look better with red lipstick or black lipstick? Black.

Ever had a terrible breakup? lol new to reading these?

Favorite bands? Ozzy Osbourne & Rammstein are tied in different ways for #1, but I'm also big on Marilyn Manson, Otep, Korn, In This Moment, Motionless In White, Metallica, Powerwolf, A Day to Remember, Mother Mother, and Cradle of Filth.

Favorite quote? I don't know if it's my favorite EVER, but since finishing watching a let's play of God of War: Ragnarök, I've been absolutely in love with a quote by the character Faye: "Grief is the culmination of love, and yet we love despite the inevitable. [...] To grieve deeply is to have loved fully." It hit me so fucking hard and I feel it's really applicable to various parts of my life. It makes me feel less weak grieving the loss (not always death) of someone.

Wearing any bracelets? No, I barely ever put bracelets on because I hate how they feel.

Does your phone take pictures? Awful quality ones, ugh the primary reason I want a better phone is literally the camera lol, mine is GARBAGE.

Who is your favorite neighbor? I don't really have a favorite, but I have at least MET the guy to our right; he's an old African American man that very often has his granddaughter with her, and she is a GEM. Mom loves them a whole lot, and the time I've met them (he helped my mom carry heavy stuff from outside into the house), each were so friendly and just good. They recently got a dog too, and while she barks A LOT, she's a sweet girl. The lady on our left Mom says is very nice, but I personally haven't spoken with her.

Have you ever gotten a detention? Yes, only once, and it was only because I had too many morning tardies to class, my own fault entirely. I was HORRIBLE waking up in the morning, gave my mom trouble ALL the way through high school, and it made us only a few minutes late sometimes.

Does your door have a deadbolt on it? Yes.

Have you had any soda today? I have not, I finally cracked yesterday after a pretty good period of going without it, so it's gonna be a while til I let myself do that again. I'm not willing to TOTALLY take soda away from me with just how much I enjoy it, but I'm definitely making an effort to tone it down even more.

What is your favorite scary movie? The Blair Witch Project. Also quite fond of The Crazies, and I have a soft spot for the first Silent Hill��film just because of what it is and at least it's not a pure disgrace to the franchise like its sequel, lol.

What’s the most historic thing that has happened in your lifetime? Covid, for sure.

What happens in your country regularly that people in most countries would find strange or bizarre? School shootings. (: That shit is not supposed to be normal. You aren't meant to be UNsurprised when you hear about another one.

What’s your funniest story involving a car? lol so on a date I went on with Tyler, literally our first one, he got a flat tire; someone at a stop light pointed it out to him, aaaand adventure ensued. I feel bad for how mortified he was, he obviously was worried about what I thought, when I really felt nothing negative at all, like shit happens. He got the car to a car repair place that was luckily right down the road, but we had trouble communicating; the staff didn't speak English well, but we got the message across, and then I remember we had to cross the intersection on foot to get to a store across the street for some reason, then back. We went to an Italian place afterwards as planned, where we got calzones, which I then learned I don't even like because of the kind of cheese lmfao. I genuinely don't consider it a bad date, though; sure, didn't go the way we planned, but hey, I sure remember it.

If you built a themed hotel, what would the theme be and what would the rooms look like? I wouldn't do this, but hypothetically, definitely nature-y based! I'd like to make it have a forest vibe.

Do you think that humans will ever be able to live together in harmony? Lol no, it'd be fucking fantastic and literally the best thing a human could ever wish for, but it's not gonna happen. There are too many people that would ALL have to agree to that in their behaviors.

What’s the most amazing true story you’ve heard? Maybe I favor this one because I'm such a fucking sucker for romantic shit lol, but before Jason and his brother were born, their father apparently cheated on their mom, and she left to go back home to New York, but their dad chased her up there (getting to NY from our area takes at least 10 hours by car) to talk it out, and then they stayed together as an extremely loving, loyal, happy couple that I looked up to a lot as being proper partners. They were still together when Jason's mother died of diabetes complications.

What’s the grossest food that you just can’t get enough of? Uh, I dunno; I'm assuming by this you mean unhealthy because I'm obviously not eating food that I find gross-tasting, so let's see... burgers, I guess; I don't have them excessively or anything, BUT I'm almost always up for one, and I also don't like lettuce or tomatoes on my burgers, so... they're not exactly an icon of a healthy meal, lol.

What brand are you most loyal to? I can't think of any brand I feel extreme loyalty to. Like I support Cloak a lot with just who owns it and how tied they are to charities, but even if I HAD my own income I'm not rushing to buy something from any drop they have, I only have two shirts.

Where are you not welcome anymore? Well, the first one I can think of is Sara's house, not that you'd see me trying to go there. It's just the most obvious one to me.

What’s a common experience for many people that you’ve never experienced? By this point in my life, bills. Taxes.

What fashion trend makes you cringe or laugh every time you see it? Crocs. They're just hideous to me.

What are the initials of the last person you made out with? DM.

If you found out you were pregnant, who would be the first person to know? hi my uterus is bleeding

How old were you when you had your first kiss? Very early into 16.

Is it awkward when you run into your ex? That doesn't happen, but running into Jason would be uncomfortable, but only because I'd feel bad being in the same proximity as him, like I know he doesn't want to have anything to do with me, so I'd avoid him if I could.

Were you intoxicated the last time you threw up? No.

Who is your most recent ex? Sara.

Has the person you last kissed taken their shirt off in front of you? Yeah.

Have you ever broken anything because you were mad? No, people who get physical when angry absolutely terrify me.

Do you “blow kisses” often? Not really, but sometimes with my sister's kids.

Do you need to “break up” with a friend? No friend I currently have, no.

[corisanna]

Over 100 Years of Generational Pandemic Trauma with a Side of WW1/Depression/WW2 Trauma and Frugality: 1917-2020

This will be more personal than I usually get on Tumblr, but for some reason, I wanna share it. I wanted to put it in words with a bit of research as a way to process it and maybe get some other stories from other people.

...

So the other day, Mom and I were talking about illness and reactions to the threat of widespread, dangerous illness while watching pandemic coverage on TV. (Yes, we talk about weird social stuff a lot. A lot.) Mom casually said she and her sister were distressed every time they got even a little bit sick and tried to hide it from my grandfather because he seemed to react to illness with anger. Huh, we said, How odd.

“Maybe he was angry at the illness, not at you?” I guessed.

“Hmmmmmmm,” Mom said doubtfully.

So we were taking a break from talking and someone on TV brought up the 1917-1918 flu pandemic.

“Oh, hey, didn’t Great-Grandpa live through that?” I idly asked.

Mom blinked and went utterly still. After a minute of staring blankly, she said, “Oh. Oh.”

“What?”

“He wasn’t angry. He was afraid,” Mom said.

“Who? Oh, Grampa?”

Mom nodded, face in an expression of epiphany.

I started thinking. It turned into diving into family history and history in general.

Okay, so. Let’s back up for some context.

...

2000s back to 1950s back to 1940s back to 1930s back to 1914: Habits from World Wars and the Great Depression

First of all: I know for a fact that my mother, born in the 1950s, was raised on Depression/WW2 Era food frugality. My grandparents lived through both and were old enough to remember them; Grandpa was around twelve on Black Tuesday and Gramma was around two years older. Grandpa and his brother were in the military during WW2.

The things Mom was raised on:

Very simple recipes, all based on salty canned/jarred food that had been cooked to Hell and back. SO MUCH SALT. SO MANY PEAS. Grampa was especially focused on canned food; he likely ate mostly canned food when deployed and on kitchen duty. Treating sugar and salt like gold. Stretching meals that had meat with potatoes and gravy. A backyard pseudo-Victory Garden Gramma and Great-Grandma canned veg from and orange trees that Grampa obsessed over keeping healthy and productive; the garden was dominated by tomatoes to be stewed even into the 1980s and the obsessive care for the orange trees had them massive and healthy when I was a kid in the early 1990s. Butter was for holidays; the rest of the year was margarine (”oleo”). Leftover grease was strained and saved. SO MUCH JELL-O and relish IN SO MANY RECIPES, possibly because it hadn’t been rationed. (You know all those weird old 1960s-1970s recipes with gelatin and odd stuff? Look at when the recipe-makers were kids.) Did you burn your food nearly to charcoal? Eat it. Food was absolutely not to be wasted.

Shoes were to be worn until mending or tape couldn’t hold them together anymore. Weird little broken things were saved in a junk drawer as possibly useful for scrap-- broken rubber bands, screws from something that had broken, old keys, bent nails-- and metal cooking pans were to be used until they started ruining food. Boxes, scrap paper, newspapers, and magazines were to be bundled up and saved.

(source)

And so on.

For other rationing information, see the “Make It Do” tag on Sarah Sundin’s blog.

But my grandparents’ frugality goes back another generation. There was no formal rationing in WW1 in the US, but there were massive propaganda campaigns to reduce consumption of certain things. People were encouraged to have “meatless” and “wheatless” days. Weird recipes for “Camouflage Cookery” appeared.

(source)

WW1 “War Gardens” were the predecessors of Victory Gardens. Canning the produce from the gardens was patriotic. And so on.

My grandparents improved bit by bit as Mom grew and Grampa made more money at better jobs and the economy recovered. One of the first things they caved on was having coffee all day every day as some kind of personal victory, but still never with cream or sugar. Mom and I keep suddenly realizing some of their habits were tied to rationing.

Generational drift has kept a lot of those odd little habits. Mom hates vegetables that aren’t salty and cooked to floppiness. Eat freezerburned food because it’s your own damned fault it got freezerburned. Wear shoes until they fall apart and unless they are flip-flops that become 100% unusable, keep the worn out pair until our next pair of shoes wear out “just in case” the new shoes get damaged. Shoelaces are saved when the shoes get trashed. Clothes get ripped beyond repair? Fight the urge to save the cloth for “something.” Recycle things to near-obsession. “Waste not want not,” but for very specific things.

I explain all this to establish that we have already identified patterns in hardship coping mechanisms within our family.

Now we have identified another.

1917-1918 Influenza Pandemic

My great grandparents-- the parents of my maternal grandfather-- were European immigrants who lived in Chicago during WW1 and the pandemic. My other grandparents likely did, too, but I have very little information about them. My GGF’s occupation would be considered non-essential in modern times, but I’m not sure about 1917-1918. I don’t know what he did during that time; though I know there is a Draft Registration Card for him, I have no proof or anecdotal evidence that he served in the military. So he was likely home with his wife and baby. During a time of fear of bringing illness home enhanced by propaganda,

real(?) news,

(source)

and gradually escalating sanitary measures imposed by the local government.

(source)

So. Terror.

Mom and I talked about him. Obsessive about handkerchief use and washing. Strict standards for cleaning. He didn’t live with Mom’s family, so she doesn’t remember much else relevant. And Great Grandmother? She focused on the food and frugality.

But their son, my grandfather? Also obsessive about handkerchief use and washing. So unreasonably obsessed with cleaning that Gramma threw up her hands and said, “Then you do it!” and Grampa, a man in the early 1950s, did it without complaint. Silverware and dishes were never to be shared or used twice and must be washed immediately after use.

He was born during a pandemic and raised by a father who had to keep his family safe during a pandemic. And a world war. And the Great Depression.

How could my great grandfather’s parenting not be affected by all that trauma?

How could my grandfather not be affected by that parenting from trauma?

How could my grandfather’s parenting not be affected by all that trauma, plus trauma from serving in WW2?

How could my mother not be affected by that parenting from trauma?

Mom said she and her sister were distressed every time they got even a little bit sick and tried to hide it from my grandfather because he seemed to react to illness with anger. Huh, we said, How odd.

“Maybe he was angry at the illness, not at you?” I guessed.

“Hmmmmmmm,” Mom said doubtfully.

“Oh, hey, didn’t Great-Grandpa live through that?” I idly asked.

Mom blinked and went utterly still. After a minute of staring blankly, she said, “Oh. Oh.”

“What?”

“He wasn’t angry. He was afraid,” Mom said.

“Who? Oh, Grampa?”

The chain was greatly loosened by my mother, who was a sheltered white girl who literally didn’t know who Martin Luther King Jr. was until everyone started talking about his assassination because my racist grandparents and their social circle controlled her access to media about the Civil Rights Movement so tightly. (The deprogramming of all their underlying racism is a completely different YIKES discussion for another day.) Grampa didn’t serve in Korea, she didn’t have any brothers to get roped into Vietnam, they were very middle class when she was old enough to notice such things, she never really wanted for anything. Just lived a very privileged white girl life.

A charmed life until her mid-30s.

And she still inherited a lot of frugal and cleanliness/sanitation compulsions from my grandparents, which she then passed down to me. Diluted twice over, but very much there. And very useful, now that we are low-income and disabled but still live in a run-down but big house capable of storing extra stuff. If one or both of us has a flare and can’t shop? We just turn to the freezer and pantry and the garage cabinet. Because always having a month’s worth of food is... just how it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?

Buy extra nonperishable food when it’s cheap whenever you can afford it. It’s better to have too much than to have not enough. Mind your hygiene. Wash, wash, wash anything that gets saliva or nasal discharge on it. Wash your hands before, during, and after food prep. Wash your hands in general. Grow your own vegetables and make sure they’re nutritious ones that’ll keep. Some things Are Not To Be Shared. Anything like double-dipping is a crime against humanity. Don’t lick the stirring spoon, or wash it immediately after if you do. Correct people who don’t cover coughs and sneezes and either make them wash their hands if they used them or do not let them touch you. If you get sick or poor or disaster/war breaks supply lines, you’ll be glad to have enough food to live on for a month. Buy extra nonperishable food when it’s cheap whenever you can afford it. It’s better to--

2020 Coronavirus Pandemic: Distilled Generational Habits and Coping Mechanisms

I still have the recipes Gramma carefully saved from the Eagle Brand canned, shelf-stable sweetened condensed milk that was given to her family by local welfare workers in the 1930s.

This is why when panic buying started in early March 2020-- before people started taking the possibility of long-term shutdowns seriously-- one of the first staples I went for was shelf-stable milk. I remember being surprised that there was so much of it on the shelf. Huh.

Fresh potatoes were gone, but the canned and dry/instant potatoes were untouched. Huh. Tons of Gramma’s recipes used “potato flakes.” Don’t they know that fresh potatoes have a much shorter shelf life? Huh.

Fresh tomatoes were picked over, but the canned diced/stewed/paste/sauce were still well-stocked. Huh.

Bread and bread products like tortillas were gone. The flour was untouched. Huh. I didn’t buy any because we already make sure we have a good amount of flour on hand. Same for salt, sugar, yeast, baking soda, and baking powder. Like, we have an in-other-times-(by-which-I-mean-January)-excessive amount of salt, sugar, and baking soda. Prepackaged bread crumbs were untouched; we still had a good amount of panko at home but I got two more boxes because they were BOGO and surely people would soon realize this was good to have for a bit of shelf-stable variety.

Buy extra nonperishable food when it’s cheap whenever you can afford it, Gramma may as well have whispered to me.

I should’ve bought dried split peas to make soup with the leftover ham hock we have in the freezer. They sold out the next week with all the pasta. Which I hadn’t even considered because Mom is diabetic and controls it through diet alone. Pasta is a no-no here.

I was so busy with sorting out *vague gestures* life in general during a pandemic that I delayed going through my seed stock; I didn’t realize some of my staple veggie seeds were so old because I started my garden so late last year that I just bought seedlings. I’m guessing seedlings are gonna sell out. So I was late to go hunting for seeds online, but now they’re in the mail. My usual tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cucumbers, and winter squashes, along with things I hadn’t seriously considered before: Green/soup peas. Black-eyed peas. Carrots. Onions. I usually try to grow fun things mixed in with staples but not this year.

Remember to use sunflowers as wind and sun breaks, Grampa may as well have whispered to me. In hot and sunny places, they can make or break a garden. I learned that the hard way when I moved out west. They bring the bees, too.

Okay. I can do this. Thanks.

Conclusion

That meme of the person going “wow I wonder what it would be like to live through a major historical event-- WAIT NOT LIKE THIS NOT LIKE THIS NOOO” has me thinking even more than it usually does. This pandemic has made me acutely aware of how “macro” history’s threads are woven into the “micro” history of my family. It has made me more curious; if we’re shut in for longer, then I may actually get to poke into Mom’s side of the family more. Gaining extra context for things fascinates me-- and could be a great distraction when I’m not able to garden. I’ve already learned a lot.

I really wish I could talk to my grandparents and great grandparents about this. I can already see that I am going to have some habits permanently ingrained in me as compulsions, the same as pandemic and economic disaster did for them.

And I really understand my grandfather’s difficulty controlling anger at an invisible, microscopic enemy and what it could do to your family.

The only difference? I have twenty years of therapy behind me as a tool. I hope that’s enough.

Because yeah, there is anger in my anxiety.

[bisluthq]

Hey Nat, it's the roommate anon. I've been trying to stay off of all social media platforms (I get distracted easily) so that I can really work on my anxiety about all of this and just on my mental health in general, but I was really missing this blog today, so I just wanted to check in and say hi!

I hope that you're all doing well. Life can be difficult sometimes, and I feel like the way that our society works is not exactly conducive to having good mental health, but I hope that you're all feeling okay at least <3

If anyone's curious about how things are going with N (roomie), I still haven't told her that I'm not straight. I think that I need to get my anxiety under control first. Like I need to be okay, you know? I need to feel like I'm managing well first, and then I'm gonna tell her.

She has been amazing recently though. I appreciate her a lot. Like she's very supportive. She's been making sure that I take care of myself. Like when I get like this, I tend to just like... not eat at all. It just goes right to the back of my mind because I'm so focused on other things. And she realized that I've barely been eating and that I've lost weight, and she got all concerned, and so now she's been making sure that I eat.

And at first, I felt like it was embarrassing. I mean, I'm an adult, right? She's not my mom. I shouldn't need help with something so basic.

But now I've figured, you know what, everybody needs help sometimes. And people need help with different things. I mean, that's what we're all here for, right? To look after ourselves and to have a good time, but also to help other people in whichever ways that we can. I just think that we all need to be there for each other.

I actually did check Tumblr a few days though. One of them was the "Konversations with the Kushners" day lmao. I loved it, it was priceless. Very entertaining. I remember, I was like eating cereal, and N asked me what I was smiling at, and I told her it was just this funny thing online.

She got all curious about it, but I couldn't even tell her or show her because how do you even begin to explain that? 💀 The amount of like... foundation information that I would have had to have given just for her to understand 😭

Honestly, she is the cutest with memes though. She's like an internet grandma. I have to explain them to her sometimes. She loves Grumpy Cat memes, and she also loves that shifty monkey puppet meme, but that's about it. She sends those on our group chat on like a regular basis.

But yeah... Anyway, I really hope you're all doing okay! And if anybody else is struggling with something at the moment, I'm wishing you well, and I really really hope you feel better soon. I think that we can all do it, you know? Like stuff just gets so overwhelming sometimes, and everything can feel so fucking hard, but I think that we can do it and that we can get through it, and so I'm gonna keep trying, and I hope that you guys can keep trying too.

Also, Nat, I saw that people were attacking you on one of the other days that I checked this blog, and it's like... We're all entitled to our own (non harmful) different opinions, but I think that sometimes people let different opinions like... divide them unnecessarily, you know?

I think that sometimes people (including me) forget about the bigger picture which is that, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what anyone's (non harmful) opinions are because it's about what kind of person someone is overall, you know?

And you seem like a good person. Like you've helped me a lot, and you've helped other people. And I think that fair criticism towards anyone is okay because we're all flawed human beings who can improve, but hate is not okay.

And you really don't deserve a lot of the hate you get. I've forgotten what point I was even trying to get across, but I just wanted to say that I'm grateful that this blog exists and that I think that you're a good person overall and that I hope people go easier on you.

I mean, being called a sexual predator just for thirsting over a celebrity? Some of the antisemitic asks that you've got? People intentionally trying to upset you? People comparing you to spade-riddles? Messed up tbh. That stuff's really not okay.

But yeah, I hope that you're doing well too, and I hope that people take it a bit easier because we are all human, and different fandom opinions (that aren't harmful like the babygating) aren't a reason to hate someone. Every single one of us have flaws, but it's who we are overall that matters.

This whole ask is very true to character because my intention was to just "quickly check in and say hi", and I ended up literally writing 17 paragraphs lol. But sending love to everyone ❤️ And I hope that I can come back soon.

ROOMMATE ANON! Love you so much, and so thrilled to hear you're around and healthy-ish and well-ish. Thanks for this message, and stay strong xx

[crwatters]

I posted 3,431 times in 2021

56 posts created (2%)

3375 posts reblogged (98%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 60.3 posts.

I added 462 tags in 2021

#good vibes - 100 posts

#lol - 58 posts

#find: ar - 56 posts

#omg - 51 posts

#cute - 40 posts

#find - 36 posts

#my ramblings - 35 posts

#lmao - 32 posts

#im dying - 32 posts

#kitty - 22 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#did training for my new job tonight (nothif fancy just a pizza delivery person) and i got more and more agitated at the corporate propaganda

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

lockdown browser and its ilk is literally the most orwellian bullshit I’ve ever seen

14 notes • Posted 2021-01-12 16:51:38 GMT

#4

Alright hp fandom, I've had a question that's been bugging me for a while and I want your help answering it: is it stated in canon somewhere that Blaise Zabini's mom has had 7 husband's die of mysterious circumstances? Or is that just really, really widespread fanon?

Because I cannot think of a single fic off the top of my head with Blaise in it (in a semi-significant way) that doesn't mention this. So either it's some canon thing I missed, it's some obscure factoid that everyone loves, OR it's a really, REALLY specific piece of fanon that everyone partakes in. Because it's almost always 7 (I think I saw some fic say 6), always Blaise's (who's a pretty insignificant side character in the OG series) mom, and it's almost always implied that that's where their wealth comes from.

So please, where does this come from? Because I love it but can't for the life of me come up with a definitive answer

14 notes • Posted 2021-02-21 04:49:15 GMT

#3

Fair warning:

While I'm going to try to keep things regulated to my depression sideblog, some of my sad thoughts will undoubtedly leak here, but it shouldn't be anything too bad.

This will probably last at least a few months, although it's hard to say. So if you have to unfollow me or something I 110% understand-- you gotta do what's best for you and your mental health.

27 notes • Posted 2021-06-30 22:56:45 GMT

#2

Rewatching Good Omens, and can we talk about how when Newton gets pulled over by aliens he immediately calls Shadwell and all Shadwell had to say is "you're a witch finder, not an alien finder"??? Like isn't that the best most ridiculous response??

35 notes • Posted 2021-03-05 04:40:26 GMT

#1

I wish we could have an extended version of the iceberg of tumblr lore (I'd do it, but I have no idea how to sort the following), including but not limited to:

The johnlock conspiracy

I said young man, take the bread sticks and run /I said young man, hand hook man car gun (or whatever order that went in...)

Bullet point fics

Broken notes

Vertical replies

The mobile vs desktop feud

Left beef

"potterheads draw your wands"

Finding out who an anon was by blocking them

Godspouses

The humans are spaces orcs subgenre tumblr invented

That girl who has at least two child skulls that were probably definitely illegally acquired

On a similar note the debates on the ethics of human leather

Knock off "do you love the color of the sky" posts

Countries fighting over what lemonade is (and that really long post where britain and america were more or less personified and there was something about dumping britain's tea in the water to make iced tea, I think)

That shooting star post

Superstitious posts in general (including money cat, that madam who might curse your family, etc)

"this could save a life"

Internet Explorer memes

That time we found out tumblr was staffed by only like 2000 people and felt collective shame

Obama cosplay

"I like your shoelaces"

The war against porn bots

Infinite chocolate

Ik there's more that aren't coming to mind rn, and I know some of these are definitely surface tier bc they're more popular/recent, but I think they should at least get an honorable mention

66 notes • Posted 2021-02-07 08:14:26 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

Who spoke this into existence. I just wanna talk