#What is normal

[midnightmoonbeams]

Him saying this made me think of Halloweentown where Marnie's grandma says, "Being normal is vastly overrated."

From November 5th, 2023

[victoriadesmond]

I wonder what it’s like to be normal If anyone normal really exists And if they do, what does it feel like? If it hurts less Or if they’re hollow on the inside Fitting in flawlessly with the world around them I’m dying to know If it’s worth it or if it means losing what’s inside me When I see a normal girl living a normal life I wonder if her insides are twisting like mine Or if she really is as glossy as she looks I’m dying to taste normal just for a second To see if it exists To see if it’s worth it Or if I’m better off Unclean

[chronicallyuniconic]

I want to be normal whatever that means.

[gothicseverance]

Here, the victim is using normative language in an attempt to CREATE a normative reality.

—Poe and the Gothic of the Normal

[aeternisprime]

TOH Intros Part 9: Veles Noceda-Foster

Basic Info

Name: Veles Noceda-Foster (Veh-less) (Goes by Vel) Age: 18 years old (late Summer birth/hatchday) Pronouns: Any/All (Primarily They/Them) School: University of Wild Magic (Freshman Equivalent) Study Program: General Studies Palisman: None

Biography

Veles ‘Vel’ Noceda-Foster is the 18-year-old ‘child’ of Vee Noceda and Masha Foster. They live in Bonesborough with their aunts, Luz and Amity Noceda-Blight, and attend the University of Wild Magic under a General Studies program while they try and figure out what they want to do with their life.

Vel is very indecisive as a person, stemming from a confused, inconsistent self-image as a shapeshifter. They’re not sure who they’re supposed to be, they’re not sure who they even want to be, and they feel like everyone around them has some expectation about who they're supposed to be and how they're supposed to act. This has led them to have a very inconsistent personality. They try to change to match every situation they're in, making them seem like vastly different people from social circle to social circle. They're highly adaptable and very good at reading the room, so they're able to shift from facade to facade as easily as changing clothes.

Vel's view on gender is very lax. Some days she’s a girl, some days he’s a boy, and other days they’re whatever they want to be. Unlike their constantly-rotating personas, their genderfluidity is something they've chosen for themself. It's the only thing about themself that they're truly confident on.

Vel also has difficulty forming and maintaining relationships. Their nature as a basilisk is always at the back of their mind, constantly reminding them that their species used to hunt and drain other witches and demons. Even though they’ve never had the urge to drain the magic out of their friends, family, strangers, or even enemies, they’re still worried that they’ll ‘get hangry and freak out’. It doesn’t help that there are still some older witches that are afraid of basilisks after what happened with the Inspector, further cementing Vel's fears with sidelong glares and whispered remarks.

Vel's first semester at the University of Wild Magic has been a bit overwhelming for them. The General Studies program is very open-ended and gives them tons of options to choose from for classes, but all that's really done is confuse and stress them out. It took them almost a full month and significant help/counseling from their aunts (particularly Luz) to get their schedule figured out. They've started to settle into the pattern, but they're dreading registration for the next semester already.

Much to their own surprise, Vel tried out for the University's Captown Relay team, making it on by a very thin margin. They only tried out because Kate suggested it, but, now that they're on the team, they've realized how much they enjoy flying. They're still not sure if the Relay is exactly their thing, but it's close enough for them right now. They're a fast and adaptable flier, but hey have difficulty making tighter turns and have accidentally thrown themself off the practice staff on multiple occasions. They play alongside Cenys Burnnenburg and Abrin L'Achyntha, both of which have been helping them get better as a flyer.

Vel is a Protean Basilisk, as opposed to a Greater (The Inspector) or Lesser (Vee, IV, III) Basilisk. They’re part of a reintroduction program started a few years after the end of Belos’ reign that aims to carefully reintroduce Basilisks (as well as other species rendered endangered or extinct during Belos’ reign) to modern society so that the species doesn’t die off with the four surviving Basilisks. The egg that Vel hatched from was created in a similar, though less resource-intensive, method to pre-reform Grimwalkers like Hunter Park as a proof-of-concept.

Vel’s natural form is very similar to their mom’s, with slight variation in shape and coloration. Vel has a roughly 11-foot-long serpentine body that’s a bit slimmer and more streamlined than Vee’s is. The off-white fins on their tail are darker and more angular, and their fur tufts are a duller shade of blue. Their eyes are the same as Vee's, and their scales are a slightly duller swamp green. They also share their mom’s cream-colored spots, though Vel’s are smaller. They have a patch on their neck and chest, a couple spots on their shoulders, and then a few spots down their tail.

Vel’s human disguise looks more similar to Masha’s appearance rather than Vee’s disguise. They share Masha’s skin color, eye color, and tooth gap, though they keep their hair the same dull, dark blue that it is in their natural form. They also have the same cream-colored spots on their neck and chest that they do in their natural form, with additional spots on her cheeks and hands, appearing like vitiligo to the average observer. They like to keep their hair around mid length, making it a bit longer when she’s a girl, and shorter when he’s a boy. It has the same messy, wild quality that Vee’s human form hair has, with a few similar strands sticking up on the top of their head.

Clothes-wise, Vel prefers to actually wear clothes rather than fake them like Vee does, since she has more difficulty holding her form and can’t focus on making sure fake clothes stay there the whole time. Just like their hair, they tend to wear different things depending on how they feel that morning, leaning more masculine, androgynous, or feminine from day-to-day. Overall, they prefer muted colors, and generally like to dress in the same subtly-gothic style Masha sports.

Vel’s ‘vitiligo’ in their human disguise comes as a result of their difficulty keeping their shape. They need to consume more magic than Vee does, as their system burns through it at a rate that’s almost double that of Vee’s system. They keep a supply of Hexes Hold ’Em cards on them at all times for an emergency snack, and generally go through a 52-card deck in about a month.

Palisman: None

Vel hasn't made any movements towards getting a Palisman yet. They haven't spent much time at all in the Demon Realm, mostly by their own choice, so they've never really had a need for one. It's not so much that they're not interested in getting one, though. They've just never actively thought about carving or adopting one. Now that they're on the Captown Relay team, though, that might change.

Previous Part: Julia Porter-Tholomule

Next Part: Cenys Burnnenburg

[vintage-tigre]

Normal is only a setting on the washing machine

[midnightannalore]

I've been embarking on an ethnographic study of tumblr to figure out what one is actually supposed to do but I don't really think I'm figuring it out.

Capitalization and punctuation... probably a no, huh?

[rednexxsaysthing]

social norms are so fucking stupid

let men wear dresses, skirts, jewelry, etc.

let women wear suits, boxers, swim shorts, etc.

let men like the color pink

let women like the color blue

let men do ballet, cheer, theatre, whatever the fuck else they want

let women do baseball, football, mechanics, who fucking cares???

let people use they/them, it/its, xe/xir, anything else they want to e referred to as

let people be HAPPY dammit

Why do we need a men and women's clothing section?? It's literally all just fabric and they're right next to each other anyways.

Why the absolute fuck do colors even have to prove if someone is "masculine" or "feminine"

Sports??? Fucking SPORTS and HOBBIES?? We're going to call people slurs, names, even be PHYSICALLY AGGRESSIVE over literal SPORTS AND HOBBIES????

Pronouns are literally just fucking WORDS that people like being identified with, why does it matter so much?!?

Women being bosses, women being in the military/first responders, women being scientists, women doing things that make them happy and wearing/liking whatever the fuck they want

Men being dancers, nurses, artists, even being unemployed or a stay at home dad, and ONCE AGAIN doing things that make them happy and wearing/liking WHATEVER. THE. FUCK. THEY. WANT.

Queer folks existing, being happy, being open about their queerness, having stable and successful jobs, whatever. the. fuck. they. WANT.

If any of those are issues for you,, then YOU'RE the problem.

[cantiowashere]

What even is normal anyway

Is it like... The average experience or features of humans?

Because "normal" is different for every different culture

So each culture has a different form of normal

I think that would make "normal" as various standards for the world's different cultures, and the one you follow depends on where you live ig?

[lary-the-lizard]

We all like to pretend that most people have “normal” desires and don’t want or do anything freaky but no, we’re all freaks, just by different degrees. Because that’s what desire and sexuality do, it’s normal.

[the-monarch-effect-official]

Hello, everyone, I have a some thoughts and questions for those who have been through RAMCOA, more towards Monarch-type experiences, but anyone who has gone through similar experiences will help me understand more.

Last week, I went to the mall with my family, it was a neat time, but I went into a store (Miss A, an ultra-cheap cosmetics store) with a checkerboard floor as our last stop. Now, if I wasn't developing a book around the subject, I wouldn't have paid any mind to it. But, as we were leaving, innocent things, like the playground being decorated with a fox and a rabbit had a dark hue (context: for my project specially, rabbits and wolves are prevalent in Samuel's life, both in system and events).

Watching movies is tricky now. All the time, you hear about celebrities and politicians being part of "The Illuminati" and such, with many of the conspiracy theorists having flat-earther levels of "out there." They speak some truth, but they are stereotypically way off. But, once you see the sings for the first time (like checks), it's impossible to not see it. As an artist, I only wonder, "We creatives have all this talent and drive, but to use it for this?"

I know not everyone in the industry knows all the signs and symbols, but I've learned that you can make anything mean anything under the right context. For example, some of Samuel's alters stay away from a Wolfsangle, while others are drawn to it, as they mean different things to different alters. (Wolves, keep away; humans, come fourth.)

I also had a dream a while back about a group of sisters who seemed to be well-off, with a mansion and outdoor garden. However, they didn't know that they were victims of "Monarch," to simply the terms. "I thought I was just normal," one said.

This situation is similar to that of the testimony of a woman who had gone through what you may know as Satanic Abuse, which, for those who are unaware, is not necessarily ritual abuse, but can be if it's done ritually (on a holiday like Halloween or Christmas, for example). She had gone to a sleepover (like a "normal" teen) and someone had microwaved some leftover pizza, which reminded her of the smell of death, which is a very distinct smell that I have had the fortune of not knowing. However, she did not know why it smelled in such a way until she recovered those memories.

So, my question sort of boils down to this: before realizing that you were a system, or recovered any significant memories of abuse, would you have considered your life "normal?" Do or did you have an alter/part that had a very different "normal?" I have heard that, with DID proper (with amnesia), some alters have very different lives. Though I have parts myself, I don’t black out on a regular basis and I suppose it wasn't necessary.

Another topic of curiosity that's been on my mind, probably since the start of this journey, was how one relates to art and entertainment (movies, music, TV, video games, ect) when such things are used as anchors to programs. For example, the Wizard of Oz movie is considered a household movie for its introduction to technicolor, but is also one of the hallmarks of Monarch Programming. I have been told that Pokémon Emerald had been used or tied to this, which saddens me as a fan of the series, especially of the Hoenn region where Emerald is set (one of my other blogs is an oc fan thing, it's very dear to me). I think, to keep it succinct, my question is: if someone were to watch The Wizard of Oz or a similar movie, could they possibly get to a point where they could watch it all the way through and form an opinion on it despite the trauma?

I ask this because I am an artist who likes movies, games, TV shows, etc. However, I also want to be mindful of what I create. My current storyline with The Monarch Effect isn't as overt with the common symbolism, but the concepts are still there (my current question is whether Samuel's family are actually Nazis or is Aryanism a better descriptor of their beliefs, and how that follows). I've even found a Nazi-era red riding hood film that employs a similar black & white to color and back technique before The Wizard of Oz did, though not as impressive. The Little Red Ridinghood story, as well as plenty of other German tales are stand-ins for the more commonplace stories used in programming scripts.

I'll end it here before I veer off topic, so I hope that

[thrivingwhilemultiple]

"Have you ever gone for a walk inside a piece of art? What's it like inside your mind? Do you feel yourself think?"

When I was a kid, I asked a lot of questions that made people squirm. Questions I quickly learned to stop asking. Until now.

Have you ever been the voice stuck inside your own head? Are you always by yourself? Are you always you?

How do you know?

"Fascinating."

[siraheatingcake]

Treating folks like they’re contagious might be smart, you know, when they actually have a communicable disease. But it’s not a great way to make friends. And if they’re casually experiencing a symptom of chronic illness, maybe that’s actually normal and your grossed out face isn’t helping.

[toraleistripe]

I'm, uh, just gonna leave this here...

Now I'm gonna go sit in a corner and think about my life 😭😅

[gothicseverance]

Many characters do not see the defects in the normal — including its many abuses.

—Poe and the Gothic of the Normal

[rants-about-opm]

Do people genuinely enjoy soft boiled eggs? I'm just saying that if I wanted runny yolk I'd make a fried egg, I want a completely different experience with my boiled eggs, hence boiling them for 20 minutes.