#Strangers of Necessity

[estrellami-1]

Lavender Letters

Part 1

There’s a few interesting-looking squiggles there that Eddie puzzles at before finally moving on to the next paragraph.

More squiggles.

Eddie reads through it once, twice more. This was not what he was expecting when he opened his locker today.

He, insanely, hopes the author is watching as he pulls his hair over his face.

He almost gets out his notebook to write a response when he realizes he doesn’t know who his admirer is. He doesn’t know how to send a note in return.

Well, he figures, he could at least write one, just in case.

There. Jumbled and all over the place, but at least it’s down on paper and not floating around in his brain anymore. He tucks the note in beside his in his notebook and carefully closes it, ensuring its safety.

He really hopes S, whoever they are, writes again.

[teaitis]

That Gojo booklet...

[loomsims]

GAZA GFM LONG POST 🚨 ‼️

I've gotten an influx of asks from gazans seeking support for their go fund me campaigns, and instead of flooding the tl with endless responses I am compiling everything into one comprehensive post!🍉

I am so sorry for the late reply to all of these asks, and I hope this gets some exposure and support. 🙏🏽❤️

@aya2mohammed https://www.gofundme.com/f/Help-Mohammed-alhabil-Family [vetted!]

@saveomarfamily  https://gofund.me/7ff6d5a5 [currently unvetted]

@hassanmadi2 https://gofund.me/6f65d728 [vetted!]

@supportgaza https://gofund.me/483c5474 [vetted!]

@save-amal-family https://gofund.me/11774d84 [vetted!]

@alihelles2  https://gofund.me/36240bc1 [currently unvetted]

@ahmedhellis22 https://gofund.me/b2f8348b [currently unvetted]

@aboodalqedra-2 https://gofund.me/95360334 [currently unvetted]

@majedgaza1 https://gofund.me/abbc2759 [currently unvetted] 

@hanan-gaza23 https://gofund.me/664c3139 [currently unvetted]

@yasminsalahmahmoud https://gofund.me/69f3b079 [currently unvetted]

@zainsami https://gofund.me/39524b7a [currently unvetted]

@khaledgazacity https://gofund.me/65d3c667 [currently unvetted] 

@shadowyavenuetaco https://gofund.me/69f45862 [vetted!]

I did my best to verify if these campaigns are vetted by trusted sources, but unfortunately, some of them are not. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re fake or a scam, and in my opinion, most of the asks I receive are indeed legit. I still want to spread their message as much as I can! However, the vetted status of a campaign can change at any time, so please use your own discretion when donating, and help share this so others can possibly contribute as well! And If you can't donate please help by reblogging and spreading this! <3

[champagneshoey]

every time i have to read the word “washed” i think wow i should have been way fucking meaner to you people

[mayhasopinions]

SHE IS LITERALLY S O GORGEOUS IM CLAWING AT THE WALLS

[extremely-judgemental]

My sister asked me what tumbr was. I suck at explaining this, so I ended with, it's where all kinds of nerds hang out. She looked me dead in the eye and said, 'But you are not a nerd.'

🙂

The things on my dash will scare her. The things on this blog will forever scar her. And this woman has known me since I was born.

[thestobingirlie]

would steve survive a zombie apocalypse

uh, depends what we mean by survive. would steve die immediately? probably not, though i do think he’d be reluctant to hurt anyone at first, because when it comes to human beings, steve’s a lover, not a fighter. which would, naturally, be dangerous. but steve has good reflexes, and he can go be fairly brutal when he wants to. but would he live to the end? no.

if steve is alone, for whatever reason, i do think his drive to survive would be almost non-existent. but if steve has the kids, and robin, and nancy with him? he would do everything he could to protect them. he’d stand in front of them. he’d throw himself at monsters. he’d hold that door shut to give everyone a chance to escape. he’d ensure he was the last to leave a dangerous situation. because that’s what he does. and in a continuously dangerous scenario like a zombie apocalypse, he’s very likely to die first and young.

so. steve probably could survive, but not for years, i don’t think. he wouldn’t enjoy anything about it, but he’d keep going if he had someone he had to live for and take care of. until taking care of them literally kills him. without that, he’d probably just kill himself lol

[mantisgodsdomain]

The real trials of having foster cats is convincing them that your existing cat, who is very good at taking care of kittens and has no sense of personal space and no social graces whatsoever with adult cats, is NOT an evil murderer here to kill them or whatever, and IS in fact a big fucking idiot who will crumple and give them free reign of his entire baby territory in an instant if they walk past him in a confident way and mostly wants to cuddle and groom them, and is simply being interpreted as a threat because he fundamentally does not understand that other cats may not want an overly enthusiastic orange old man perpetually glued to their sides every hour and minute of their lives.

[shadowglens]

the progression of alma and john’s relationship over their lives is something that is so personal to me actually

[inga-don-studio]

I'm planning on taking an official social media break starting tomorrow (14th) & lasting at least until the 21st (possibly the 23rd if this 8 day workweek is as rough as I fear it's gonna be).

The queue will still be rolling and I'll have notifs on in case anyone needs to reach me, but I'm going to try to be as offline as I can be.

[rollforjackass]

:')

[ripgray-moved]

𖤐  ⸻ ❛ Oh— ❜ Peter loves art, is somewhat of an artist himself in the vein of music ( even if he doesn't acknowledge his own talent ), but it inevitably makes him a little bit sad. It makes him think of Charlie. It makes him think of his mom, too, complicated as their relationship always was. ❛ What're you painting? Is now a bad time? ❜

@cripplemagics encountered the king!

[popculturealchemy]

tilfred . old man . corner pocket / . old man 84 . tall unit . tank . no speak . . yell . . random times . .. . looney toons blaring . . grandma clanking . . perspective . hallways echoing sound . . listening for tilfred . left side . . corner pocket . wild card joker demon . zombie walk hobble . whack whack angry old man eyes . . should have been on hospice. . . didn't know what that was then . . probs not them either . . family values . . value . . memecoin . back to the breath . . Insane tv shows . . showing me . . family values .. . middle of vortex . comofort in tv and angle consistency . text . respecting others . remembering pace . composure . really important

[unproduciblesmackdown]

payoff of being embedded in a unit of authoritarianism since birth is sure then being able to go like "wow this is just like dynamics & phenomena i experienced up close & personal, repeatedly, in many contexts & configurations in my first two decades of life" plus also beyond that in abuse culture world & the noncoincidence that even interactions beyond the confines of the home(tm) reinforced / did not contradict the hierarchy & concomitant abuse within....but then like hey yeah also the Larger Units of hierarchy & abuse / authoritarianism (ft. their logics & practices necessary for continuously & continually shoring up that hierarchy) can also make it like hey yeah the Two Parent abusive nuclear family more like the Two Party [the US is also a one party state but in typical american extravagance they have two] where right wingness is defined by the degree of directly embracing white supremacy & "left wing" is "anything else" hence like wow The Left is always infighting (everyone with any ideas besides "umm christofascist white ethnostate?" so like yeah there are many other ideas) vs The Right's admirable cohesion (simply re: the white supremacy idea which also necessarily embraces all other Out Group / Nonperson paradigms & practices b/c that's what all already has been necessary for shoring up the [when has the US been a nongenocidal non white supremacist non oligarchy])

like obviously individual experiences & contexts vary but like narrowing in on [the Family as immediate relations ideally cordoned off into nuclear households] ft. [Parental Authority the top priority of which is preserving that authority, ideally patriarchal, an abusive mother e.g.? hey, that ought to be the father] times it's like, think people tend to struggle re: having the "nicer" / "safer" parent who was also shitted on as well but also at the end of the day would always side with the "meaner" "more dangerous" parent, even in whatever terms most sympathetic to the abused parties, with the underlying logic that we're always just going to have to deal with them so some secret strategic mitigation is the best that can be done, perhaps the equivalent of being sent a ":(" after an Onslaught Of Expressed / Enforced Authority(tm) event....the tendency to see the best in any lack of actual intervention / protection on the assumption That Could Never Happen Anyway & forever At Least that the one parent isn't as bad as the other [the Not That Bad / Could've Been Worse infocation, like free bingo square in manifestations of minimization if not outright abuse denial] & all the sympathy for, you know, being human & doing their best(tm) &c which sure might all be true but the abused parties (oft children, more vulnerable than adults, by virtue of being children i.e. considered legal property of some specific adults & theoretical property of any adults in general (the paternal logic in any "protect [xyz]" like maintain one group's supposed ownership / control over [xyz] "for their sake" then? great) & also generally smaller & newer at being alive in this world) but who are liable to not extend that sympathy to themselves (or certainly not be extended that sympathy....when is "they're doing their best / they're only human / they mean well or whatever / they love you, they're family" successfully deployed the Thwart an abusive parent like it is to tell an abused child to not be too resentful of this situation, when is it actually deployed toward the abusive parent at all really. & again in the lack of boundary between the authoritarianism within many individual family households & that of the state they exist in (here re: the US) like that naturally one encounters the logic of abuse expressed just as "common knowledge" & the Assumptions of other people, e.g. the rejection of a parent having zero access to a child, the reinforcement of automatic apologia deployed for whatever a parent could possibly do, argued for "family", yet not deployed the same way to automatically defend anything thee child(tm) could do, thinking emoji lol....see: like the non boundary between [the Patriarchal home/family(tm)] & capitalism when uh oh capitalism the system of continuously maximizing exploitation Needs various forms of labor to be unpaid, uh oh another lack of boundary when white supremacy is used to also shore up the patriarchy that shores up the white supremacy, e.g. that even if in some "inferior" class it's treated as More Important that at least you're not that And black, the theoretical ideal/normal white man is a person while a white woman is a woman while a black woman is black, white women could have any legal property via chattel slavery which needed white women's participation to help enforce, the specter of sexual violence all coming from nonwhite & especially black men & it's up to the genteel white man to Protect Women (see prev, implicitly white or you'd have to specify otherwise)

anyway that is to get around to pointing to the Two Parent System wherein so shockingly the results are the same as the One Parent System re: abuse maintaining The Family (properly, i.e. unquestionable & certainly undeniable parental access to children, & "ideally" ofc again the patriarchal Father as ultimate authority w/ownership over the Mother, who in turn is theoretically honored for that motherhood (at least you own your children, insofar as it doesn't contradict w/what the father wants to do with his superior claim to ownership) & then finally all the obviously shittiness from being in that position in a patriarchy is in turn dumped on The Children who are ungrateful & owe the mother everything Because of what the broader society & immediate personal expressions of that abuse have done to her. see also ofc that two adults likely don't have the resources to raise a child in time or money or energy, maybe there's only one but also even an extended family's worth of adults aren't enough, is it enough when a child is sent to school for some other adults to be in charge most of the day, or even if someone is hired to look after them beyond that, all this ofc with the assumed premise that a child is always limited to the various Domains of The Adults In Charge, & from there i segue into how naturally being in gay baby jail unless & until adults are no longer recognized as Legally In Charge Of You (the grand like 5 minutes it's relatively been since the ideal timeline of a woman's life wasn't being legal property of her father until asap passed along to legal property of her husband. still considered ideal ofc but like with "maybe you can have a bank account" now & "maybe you can become 29 before you're in Old Maid danger" Maybe, i said, Maybe....anyway that obviously adults(tm) being divided up (atomised. spritz) into Households isn't even supposed to be enough to live on their own, re: necessitating Marriage, much less uh oh having kids who are stuck with their parents who are stuck with them, but then all the obvious actual problems & abuses inflicted on Adults to have to have their family households & exploited jobs are dumped on the children who Must appreciate & be loyal to the parents (i.e. never Deny Access) while yknow kids have Fake Problems they're whining about, the one Real Problem of having to pay a bill gets the payoff of leverage to tell your children to shut the fuck up or perhaps the more vulnerable spouse

hm didn't segue right into "so shoutout to like The Ratchet Effect diagrams lol, the "Two" Party System where its supposed left wing Blocks Movement To The Left, right wing Moves Everything To The Right" but even that is like, mm, conferring a passivity to what democrats do in the continual movement to the right (won an election? lost an election? the lesson either way is The Right Is Right; exact same logic as in "winning or losing" "the war on crime" like the collection & analysis of whatever statistics show the trend of some "crime" is increasing in frequency or magnitude? show that it's decreasing? the lesson either way is Cops Need More Power) like the institutional effort of democrats to push a candidate nobody wants through primaries (did we even do that this time around. oh great that the assumed candidate even graciously agreed to not force themself as The Candidate, & now like 5 min left with the Next In Line candidate dumped on everyone now with the lesson for the left(tm) to shut up already lol) & then it's up to Grassroots Voters. it's up to Unity & well we all Need to listen to the white supremacists, points were made, in the "elections" with voting as limited as possible & with the electoral college & supreme court as Safeguards against democracy & here's the senate, eternally thus, & again the conclusions will always manage to be moving To The Right, paraphrasing from twitter like democrats are about to be or already at the point of "in the name of unity we will no longer be running against republicans; it's too divisive :(" which yknow is already The Statements of all of yesterday from various like "i'm the republican official white supremacy agree-er now" after also the entire campaign of "no, I'm the fascist" where like wow shocking that the appeal to the fascists didn't win a) the fascists who will ofc want the even more overt fascism, why wouldn't they or b) the people who want antifascism actually, and do not want fascism; who could have foreseen? & it's always the fault of being Too Antifascist for the actions of the fascists or the Diplomatic Comprimises the other party makes with the fascists &/or their Failure to thwart them....the Nicer, Safer party in power is surely doing their best & at least they're not the Meaner, More Dangerous one but at the end of the day they'll always side with that party over america(tm) & those bearing the brunt of the actions of State Power can be told to keep their chin up or else to stop acting out b/c how do you expect that state power to respond, cmon, you bring it upon yourself, & you Have to work with them & understand all their feelings & your role in resolving those feelings by being lesser inferior property, you do Have to understand, b/c in the end this is All About Family, surely Good & Necessary, whoops i mean in the end this is All About America

anyway yeah i'm like damn my "nicer" (also shitty) father who was also the even more sexist & racist (& certainly no Less ableist, queerphobic) parent was basically the democratic party of the Two Parent System of Family Government lol. b/c we Need to perpetuate this Family, no other logics much less actions are acceptable....& people struggling with the Parent / Adults in their life like that who were the "safe" & "protective" ones who markedly failed to protect & minimized the harm afterwards but also in general, never to confront the reality of the situation, or do damage control like "aw some points were made at all :( ah i see you have Feelings about this :( hmm yes the Parental Power is gonna have to make some changes" & then as soon as possible (assuming reeling in the party who was deviating too much) these changes(tm) are already compromised or diminished if done at all, & then oops things incrementally might be right back to how they always were, no guarantees it won't be Worse b/c the Power is even more insecure / aware of weaknesses, & the only way this is thwarted is if the Wayward Parties can actually leverage new boundaries / less vulnerability, not b/c the supposedly sympathetic parties, who never came through where it counts & likely would also become overt antagonizers / wielders of whatever power within the Family hierarchy / turn on the more vulnerable parties to Get Them In Line, actually came through. movement Away (more disruptive to the maintenance of The Family, The State) is blocked, incrementally only ever moving everything back, & then Further....& despite this being what the power structures are, & do, the Disruptive parties liable to be scapegoated lol, can't believe the scapegoat child is ruining everything for everyone, this Family would totally improve & start being everything it could be otherwise & we ignore who actually has the power & is actually enforcing the hierarchy harming everyone to point to that scapegoat; can't believe thee left is destroying america (republican voice) can't believe the left is destroying america (democrat voice) So You See? The Undeniable Consensus. just like how i believe it was my fault my family unit was Like That & i had those experiences, according to the vast majority of Input from that family & even others who, knowing nothing, would say how Lucky i was to be relatively close to home, or just of course that oh well parents love their children & mean well & try their best. just like how i believe that being treated like i've been generally as a neurononconforming person, i.e. hated & the interpersonal abuse & bullying & ostracization & [attention possibilities: ignored, responded to but negatively, interacted with to get something from] & actually rewarding interactions or just actions being liable to get Deluxe authority responses as disruptive(tm) & ofc disobedient(tm) like hell fuckin yeah lol. just as i don't think that other people who have similar experiences or ones i don't have, i.e. assessed race being automatically seen as wrong / inferior, being isolated & undermined from all around? well gotta be their fault then, cmon lol....Abuse is actually normative, not extraordinary, in every Arena of interactions, & so are the logics / apologia / assumptions

anyway lol re: like yeah people struggling with the like betrayal of the "nooo i'm on your side, i sympathize, i'm the one who's nicer & you Need so that things aren't even worse" party, not even One Big Novel betrayal, but rather that that's what's Been done the whole time & doesn't stop. that supposedly if you have Any sympathy for that party you have to be like aw :( keep doing your thing (necessarily reining everyone in) or if you have Any sympathy for the people who also want things to improve but blame & take it out on the more disruptive parties (more disruptive to an abusive family e.g., btw. & not like i see Cohesion as necessarily some Good rather than neutral? when i'm autistic / my existence is supposedly antithetical to this? or when i'm able to look at a zillion hypothetical or actual situations & recognize how "cohesion" isn't the best goal / a destructive one / a vague concept anyways like cohesion Between Whom? on what basis? recognized & pursued how? why? up next: same as vague shit like "family" or "community" &c) then it's like yep gotta be Responsible for their feelings too if you're at all sympathetic & capitulate, The Only Possible Action, vs the idea of those in power actually making things shit stopping, much less being stopped / having to stop in the various ways that can happen....one way being "oh no, adult children who choose to be no-contact with parents" which is seen as A Tragedy, & sign of a Deteriorating Society, take me back. ah jeez oh no, look at the divorce raaates....Oh No, twentysomething women aren't pursuing marriage enoughhhh....again the undetectably identical echo when people peak vaguely talk about "conflicts" that thwart "community" or whatever, ugh nobody will date anymore, commit anymore, be friends anymore, hang out as coworkers anymore, talk to me if i want to talk to them anymore, &ccccc....

the real tl;dr is like wait ""two party"" (one party) US electoral system, just like ""two parent"" maintenance of thee family lol. ratchet effect raise your hand if you've only ever experienced Movement Away from the abusive family blocked, forever incrementally ratcheted back in to the desires & pursuits of those most in power / top of the hierarchy / thus of course most invested in the abuse, that's what the power & hierarchy is made of, sustained by, perpetuates....sorry doing our best :( sorry that's just all that's realistic, no other choice Really. cmon. kind of Your Fault if you don't agree to that & whoops now Everything is the fault of whoever doesn't agree & cooperate enough :( now look what you've done & brought upon yourself :( & we'll just forget the eruption of violence suppression happened & will happen again & be the overhanging threat all in the meantime

[buckaroony]

This is inspired by the fact that an irl friend of mine is getting canceled in their own server for accidentally reblogging from a proship blog and then failing to condemn said proshipper thoroughly enough even after deleting the original reblog

[homunculus-argument]

Another worldbuilding application of the "two layer rule": To create a culture while avoiding The Planet Of Hats (the thing where a people only have one thing going for them, like "everyone wears a silly hat"): You only need two hats.

Try picking two random flat culture ideas and combine them, see how they interact. Let's say taking the Proud Warrior Race - people who are all about glory in battle and feats of strength, whose songs and ballads are about heroes in battle and whose education consists of combat and military tactics. Throw in another element: Living in diaspora. Suddenly you've got a whole more interesting dynamic going on - how did a people like this end up cast out of their old native land? How do they feel about it? How do they make a living now - as guards, mercenaries? How do their non-combatants live? Were they always warrior people, or did they become fighters out of necessity to fend for themselves in the lands of strangers? How do the peoples of these lands regard them?

Like I'm not shitting, it's literally that easy. You can avoid writing an one-dimensional culture just by adding another equally flat element, and the third dimension appears on its own just like that. And while one of the features can be location/climate, you can also combine two of those with each other.

Let's take a pretty standard Fantasy Race Biome: The forest people. Their job is the forest. They live there, hunt there, forage there, they have an obnoxious amount of sayings that somehow refer to trees, woods, or forests. Very high chance of being elves. And then a second common stock Fantasy Biome People: The Grim Cold North. Everything is bleak and grim up there. People are hardy and harsh, "frostbite because the climate hates you" and "stabbed because your neighbour hates you" are the most common causes of death. People are either completely humourless or have a horrifyingly dark, morbid sense of humour. They might find it funny that you genuinely can't tell which one.

Now combine them: Grim Cold Bleak Forest People. The summer lasts about 15 minutes and these people know every single type of berry, mushroom and herb that's edible in any fathomable way. You're not sure if they're joking about occasionally resorting to eating tree bark to survive the long dark winter. Not a warrior people, but very skilled in disappearing into the forest and picking off would-be invaders one by one. Once they fuck off into the woods you won't find them unless they want to be found.

You know, Finland.