#and a lot of other stuff i cannot categorize right now

[cloudy-with-a-chance-of-chaos]

"This is real, this is me" - Demi Lovato, at some point back in the 2000s

TL;DR: Hi, my name is Laura and this is my personal blog. I'm Christian and vocal about it, we can talk about it if you want. I'm Brazilian and bilingual and so is this blog. I talk a lot so my posts will be often lengthy; I'm a librarian and a writer so I'll be posting about things around these themes - info science, organization, book-related, writing, short stories, OCs… I have a lot of interests ranging from Ts4, BG3 to kpop and poetry so expect those too. I'm an insecure artist, looking for a place to call mine, basically. More info bellow the cut.

It's probably the millionth time I try to kick start this blog, but anyway

Hi everyone! My name is Laura and this is my personal blog. Before anything, lemme present myself.

First of all, I'm Christian. I think it's important to clarify this right off the top so we're clear on how this blog goes and how I go. I'm Christian and really value my faith, I'm rather vocal about it, so that's within basically everything I do. I'm also always avaiable to talk about it to curious people or fellow Christians wanting to talk. Hit me up if you feel like it ✨

I do not enjoy this bit but, if things get rather hostile or aggressive, I'm unfollowing/blocking and ask you do the same bc there's no need to keep annoying ourselves. Jesus said to turn the other cheek, not to become a doormat so we'll keep things respectful and friendly as to not get into heated arguments ok? Ok.

With that on the clear, here's other things for you to know me: I'm Brazilian! And living in Brazil (for now). I speak Portuguese as a first language, and English as a second - and do risk myself at Spanish sometimes, and I'm learning Korean, so: this is a bilingual and at times multilingual blog. THOUGH I will be speaking English most of the time. That's what most people speak around here, right, so let's go, bora pra cima Brasil 🥳

⚠️This is a warning⚠️ please be noted that I talk a lot. I know I do. I talk way too much in person and type even more, so please be WARNED that my texts (this bio included!) will more often than not be lengthy. I apologize but also don't. That's it.

Hmmm, what else? Oh Yeah Well

I'm a Librarian! And a writer! I have an insane amount of projects going on now (you can call me a workaholic lol). I'm an enthusiast for Library Sciences and topics related to information, organization, books! Everything Info Science is on my radar, so I'll be probably talking about that or linking my other blog with texts about that. Feel free (and please do) to ask me about those things!

As for the Writer part, I'm a fantasy writer, with about 3 to 4 different sagas going on inside my head and very little written about them 🤡 I'm trying to get better at that as to be able to actually have something to show people rather than loose drafts. I'm also an enthusiast for short stories so I'll be eventually posting drabbles about random themes!

That's actually the whole point of this blog, writing.

Other interests and possible themes to be happening here are related to:

The Sims 4 (hi Simblr ^^); I do play this too often and will be rambling about my Sims OCs;

Baldur's Gate 3 [screams]; I am OBSESSED with this game but only get to play it when I go to my bestie's place, so not that many posts about it BUT I WILL DEFINITELY BE TALKING ABOUT ASTARION. No, I'm not a weirdo Astarion Girlfriend, I'm a normal person;

Cats. I love cats, I have cats, I'm obsessed with cats;

Poetry; I take my chance at those very rarely but I do;

Super Junior and other kpop subjects; 🤩 I'm ELF, yeah, I did write a handful of fanfics about SJ so I'll link them at my catalog, though I don't write those anymore. I do talk about them tho;

Hm, idk, the color blue, art, sea and storms (huge fan of those), random reblogs about aesthetic stuff, photography, museums, wtv. If you can't tell I have major hyperfixes in random things.

I do think of myself as an artist and I've been considering and not doing things like this blog for way too long. This is my try at making it work. I do write and post on other platforms (you can navigate through them on the buttons on the top of my blog - on desktop view - or on the links on my soon to be pinned post) but they don't usually take lengthy (I really like this word) posts like Tumblr can so HERE AM I.

I hope to find my people around here.

This is a very quick shortened bio of mine (believe me), ask me questions if you want to, my askbox 📫 is always open. And please remember: internet is just a slice of someone's life so don't go around making assumptions.

ー L

[willowrites]

REQUEST. can you do one for either sam or colby with a reader who’s a medium?

COLLABORATION

PAIRINGS. sam x medium fem!reader

SUMMARY. sam and colby have watched a few of your videos and have been following you on instagram for quite some time. sam in particular has grown an interest in you and wanted to shoot his shot but didn’t know how. given your ability to have one foot in the afterlife and another on earth they’ve invited you to tag along for an investigation …

WARNINGS. nothing! friends to lovers, cute fluffy stuff, a little bit of kissing…

AUTHORS NOTE. i loved doing this because i’ve always dreamt of having the capabilities that mediums do !! hope u enjoyyy

WORD COUNT. 2.7k

you hadn’t always known you had the ability to see and talk to people who have passed on.

you thought it was normal.

you had many imaginary friends who weren’t always imaginary. you had conversations with people who your parents couldn’t see.

there were many occurrences in which you’d see apparitions for one second and then in another, they’re gone.

it was at the age of 11 when you realized that what and who you’d see and talk to were people and things that others couldn’t see or talk to.

you started researching and asking the internet.

are ghosts real?

can i see and talk to ghosts?

what are people who can see and talk to ghosts called?

confirmation of you possibly being a medium struck your brain. you continued doing research since then and now at the age of 24, you’re categorized as a medium who can talk to people who have passed and communicate with them as well as see them.

you set up an instagram and made sure that information was somewhere on there.

@/visuallyy/n

bio: spirits are my best friends

after you create an instagram and put that information in there. you tried to do some investigations of your own.

your first at your own house. you caught some good activity but none people would believe. so after that, you started collaborating with other people whether it was other mediums, psychics, ghost hunters, paranormal investigators, etc.

you enjoyed working with other people and getting to know more about the afterlife and spiritual world so when you got a message from sam golbach you were more than ecstatic.

@/samgolbach

hey y/n, it’s sam from the sam and colby youtube channel. i just wanted to reach out to ask if you were ever up for a collaboration of some sort. we could go check out a haunted location and i think we’d have a lot of fun. i’ve seen some of your videos with other channels and you’re really special we’d love to have you on the channel

let me know!

holy shit.

the sam golbach. from sam and colby.

sam was someone you had admired for a long time. you first noticed him on vine and he was super funny. you’d watch both his and colby’s vines daily. when they started doing paranormal and exploration videos, you became a loyal watcher.

to @/samgolbach

hi sam! omg, i cannot believe i am reading this message right now! i would love to tag along with you guys on one of your investigations. i’ve watched all of your videos and you guys are truly something.

like i said it would be an honor just let me know where and when! 💗 much love

as you sent the message you were jumping up and down and kicking your feet back and forth.

a few days had passed and you were beginning to think they changed their minds. you started losing hope but didn’t let that bring your mood down.

as you were making yourself an afternoon snack you heard your phone ding.

Notification: Instagram

@/samgolbach

sorry for the late response we have been brainstorming a few ideas for our next videos…

you were so quick to click on the notification.

@/samgolbach:

sorry for the late response we have been brainstorming a few ideas for our next videos but that is great news. is it possible for us to video chat later on so we can discuss some ideas? we just want to make sure everything is okay with you.

video chat? you thought that was insane.

you’d be video chatting with sam and colby.

oh, my fucking go-

@/samgolbach:

it would also be great to see your face as we discuss plans 😆

as soon as you saw that second message you felt like collapsing.

he wanted to see your face? okay, maybe you were overreacting…

you were trying to think of what to respond with. when would you look your best? you thought.

your thinking sparked you to get ready just for the video call and you sent a message back.

to @/samgolbach:

i’ll be free by 4! definitely looking forward to it :)

he liked your message and then agreed that 4:30 would be a perfect time.

you didn’t do much to your hair or face. all you did was tame your hair like how you usually would and put on your usual makeup.

you were waiting for the time to hit 4:30. you were nervous but so very excited.

as the clock was 4:25 you got an email

from @/samgolbachonandup@gmail.com

www.zoomlink

no harm in seeing you early! he sent along with the link.

your heart felt like it was going to beat out of its chest.

you opened the link which directed you straight to the meeting.

you then turned your camera on and the mic off. sam and colby were already there on camera just talking to each other without the mic.

then once it made a sound that you had entered they paused and you earned an exciting smile from sam.

“y/n!” sam’s voice played through your computer speaker. “so glad to see you made it!”

“hi y/n! i’m colby!” colby sent a smile your way and waved to the camera.

“hi, nice to meet you guys!” you blushed extremely hard.

“how is your day going so far?” sam asked running a hand through his hair.

“it’s uh…well honestly it’s going great. i was a little bit nervous to meet with you guys if i’m being honest,” you replied moving your hair to the back of your neck so that it wasn't in your face.

"what? that's insane, colby and i were nervous you wouldn't be up for a collaboration!" he continued to make conversation.

"what no! im thrilled, i always watched you guys since vine and then i watched even more when you guys started doing urbanex and haunted places! you guys started doing that as i was starting to become more familiar with my capabilities." you explained. "and then when you reached out to me, my heart was beating out of my chest. it was kind of like a dream turned into reality.

"wow, that's actually super cool that you've been watching us since that long ago." colby mentioned. "we've had an eye on you since you collaborated with seth and josh!"

"yeah ever since then we've always wanted to reach out to you." sam then added giving you a soft smile. gosh, his smile was so cute.

"thats so good to hear!" you giggled.

you giggled.

"well, why don't we start chatting about where we could explore..." colby proposed. you and sam nodded, both having the rosiest cheeks.

you and sam have exchanged several messages since your zoom call. some professional and about the collaboration, and some about your personal lives.

from @/samgolbach

can i get your number? you know for professional ghosthunting biz...

to @/samgolbach

yeah sure! for professional ghosthunting biz... :)

(xxx) xxx-xxxx sent you a message

hi its sam

to (xxx) xxx-xxxx

hi sam its y/n

from sam

hmm, glad you didn't give me a fake number

to sam

why would i give you a fake number

from sam

because maybe ur too scared to collab with us? hmm, are you?

to sam

no no, i find this kind of stuff exciting. i love learning more about the afterlife and spirits and all that other stuff.

from sam

same! honestly, its super exciting. although if I get too excited I do dumb shit...

to sam

like what? get demons stuck in your ass?

from sam

ha. ha. ha. not funny...

to sam

sorry! although i think sallie found it funny.

from sam

yeah i think she definitely enjoyed it

you couldn't help the grin that made its way onto your face.

these harmless conversations kept going on ever since you had exchanged numbers. you guys talked every day even after your collaboration was done.

he made you so much happier than you were before. you became very close friends with colby as well. them two stepping into your life brought you many other close friends that you could call family.

yours and sams conversation would go from your personal life, to favorite shows, to where you've traveled, and now to past relationships.

sam told you about his and surprisingly went into depth with it which you honestly felt happy about because that meant he trusted you.

after he was done you felt it was only right for you to share that you had only one serious relationship before and it ended pretty rough, even though you had closure, the relationship taught you a lot and not in a good way.

he responded like a gentleman saying he was surprised that no one swept a beautiful girl like you off their feet.

that comment made you blush. you blushed so much you might as well have been kicking your feet back and forth.

your response was a simple thank you because you didn't know how to flirt or move forward and frankly, you were scared.

after that, you started to form a different kind of liking toward sam. you were always looking forward to his text messages and when he didn't text back you were constantly checking your phone to see if by any chance he had.

then one day he invited you over to watch a movie; specifically the exorcist. you were super excited but a little bit nervous. you were in charge of bringing drinks while the others had another responsibility.

as you were done getting dressed you got a text from sam. you looked at it and did a double-take.

from sam 💕

hurry and get your pretty self over here!

your heart took a leap. he was constantly taking every opportunity to compliment you which is something you’re not used to.

to sam 💕

i’m going im going! i’m so excited :)

from sam 💕

i’m excited to see you

again, your body had a reaction to the text.

you hurried and packed up all the drinks in your car before starting it and heading over towards his house; well his and colby’s house.

as you were parking you noticed more cars than you thought would be parked. you started to become nervous.

how big was this watch party? who will be there? will you be the outsider?

from sam 💕

i’ll open the gate for you so you can park in the driveway

you felt relief as you turned around to pass the house once more so that you could drive inside. you saw the gate starting to open and made your way inside parking in the driveway next to another car that was there.

you shut the car off climbing out to see sam on the porch.

“so glad you’re here!” he smiles. “it’s gonna be so fun. here let me help you.” he walked towards the door to the backseat opened it and took the cooler that you had brought and set it on the ground.

“thank you for the invite.” you smiled shyly.

you two made your way up to the front of the house and as you were about to open the door he was quick to leap in front of you taking the handle in his hand and opening it for you.

“what a gentleman!” you replied walking through.

“always for you,” he said causing your face to grow hot.

“yo y/n! glad you could make it!” colby shouted walking over to you and bringing you in for a hug.

“glad i could as well.” you nodded.

“come on over this way, sam can take the drinks in the kitchen.” he waved over for you to follow him.

you followed taking in your surroundings. this isn’t your first time at their house but you’re still starting to become familiar with the environment.

colby leads you into the den area where there are a few more people. you saw familiar faces mostly from youtube. like the sturniolo triplets, jake webber, tara yummy, johnnie guilbert, larry, and a girl you’ve seen on sam and colby’s videos once before.

“guys this is y/n! she was in one of our videos a while ago and we’ve become super close friends!” he introduced you earning a wave. “y/n, this is jake, tara, johnny, larry, chris, matt, nick, and amanda. amanda is also a fellow medium!”

your heart leaped. you’d been looking for more medium or psychic friends so you could get advice or any information.

“oh my gosh! you’re a medium! so nice to meet you i’m amanda the medium haha! it’s so good to meet you.” amanda brought you in for a hug.

“it’s a pleasure! i admire you, you’ve helped me come to terms with a lot of stuff and helped me explore more about my capabilities, so thank you so much!” you gushed.

“wow that’s so good to hear i’m flattered, thank you. we have so much to talk about.” you both sat down and started chatting.

when the movie started you were sitting next to amanda and sam. sam came to sit next to you as the movie was starting which had you extremely excited.

throughout the whole movie, you felt gentle brushes against your knee as sam would move closer which had you moving a little closer inch by inch.

when the movie came to an end the group went outside to have a quick little bonfire where you guys chatted once more.

then afterwards everyone left agreeing it was well past their bedtime fortunately leaving you and sam alone outside.

“y/n?” sam spoke up cutting the comfortable silence you two had while looking at the fire.

“yeah?” you answered.

“im really glad we’ve gotten close this past year.” he confessed.

you smiled, “i feel the same way…i definitely needed a friendship like this in my life. i don't have many close close friends like how you and i have become so close recently.”

his face held a sad smile. “im sorry about how your past relationship ended.”

“no reason to be sorry. id be sorry if i had still stayed but i know what i deserve and that's not it.” you smiled and tried to lift up the mood. “all this sad talk is gonna kill the mood!”

you jumped up and held out ur arm. “come on!”

he took your hand and smiled. you were about to let go when he held onto your hand and pulled you close to him connecting your lips in a passionate kiss.

the kiss took you by surprise so it took you a few seconds before you reciprocated the kiss.

he pushed forward getting impossibly closer to you holding on to your hips to steady you so you didn't fall from the force he out on you.

you had no choice but to hold onto the back of his neck to steady yourself as well.

a few more seconds of smooches before you both pulled away to get some air.

breathless, you had no idea what to say. you were speechless.

“ive been wanting to do that for the longest time.” sam said hands still on your hips.

“glad you finally did.” you said without thinking.

sam laughed and sighed in relief.

“sorry, i just meant..i just..i like …” you stuttered. your cheeks turning red. “fuck you know what never mind.” you hid your face in his shoulder.

“i like you y/n. i really like you.” he told you. his words bringing butterflies to your stomach.

you lifted your head up to meet his eyes. “that's what i was trying to say…” you said quietly.

“well i found your stuttering very cute.” he moved some of your hair from your shoulder.

“im glad you don't find it dumb and embarrassing.” you sheepishly say.

“i could never find you dumb or embarrassing.” he scrunches his nose up cutely. “maybe a little silly sometimes.”

“gee thanks.” you roll your eyes playfully.

“mmm and sassy. but it's okay i can handle your attitude.” he pulls you by your waist closer. “can i kiss you one more time?”

“now that you find me sassy no no.” you playfully decline.

“mhmm…okay.” he pulls you in for a kiss and you let him.

[mdhwrites]

So, what made the villains in Amphibia, DuckTales 2017, maybe Star vs seasons 1-3, and Gravity Falls like Andrias, the Core, Grime, Sasha, Magica, Bradford, Lunaris, Glomgold, Ludo, Toffee, Meteora, Gideon, and Bill Cipher work better than TOH's villains like Belos and the Collector?

Okay so on the one hand, it's reasonable to ask me about what makes something work if The Owl House is failing at it. I'm assuming the same person though has sent me this sort of ask three times now where it's like "Hey, if TOH fucked this up, what makes it work for these others" and its kind of uncomfortable for me. First there's just the fact that I have not seen any of these series to their endings. I've watched one season of Star, literally a handful of Gravity Falls episodes and a season and a half of Amphibia. I cannot do the deep dives on any of these shows that I can do with TOH that help highlight them. But perhaps more importantly: I don't like the DIRECT opposition of these shows against each other. I have done blogs like that and even on a subject like this I've mentioned Amphibia's monsters. That's to prove an overall point though and to teach about the writing. When the thesis is "Why are these shows better than TOH" it gets... It gives the impression that if I can't prove ALL of these correct, then you won't believe the original analysis which goes into why these elements don't work and thus also does go into partially why they do work. And that's not a good place to be in a debate. It's just kind of uncomfortable and sets a bad precedent. Like if you just want to know what good villain writing looks like... Ask that. Until very recently I was calling myself a professional writer for a reason. I know what I'm talking about. I can just go into what makes a good one off villain versus a big bad, a good organized villain and not, etc. like that and I'll figure out examples that work well for the concept of the lesson. And that's the thing: I talk about this stuff as lessons, not to prove TOH is categorically worse than anything else out there. That's not my goal and explicitly attacking it while uplifting other modern cartoons is explicitly trying to prove why TOH is worse than them and I'm not comfortable with that. Just as a quick example though for what a villains lesson from me would look like, one part of it is absolutely tone. If we aren't SUPPOSED to take the threat seriously, than a goofball villain is great. Look at Jack Cypher from Xaolin showdown. He's the main bad guy for a WHILE and he works really well for while the series isn't that serious and then they swap in for a tonally consistent big bad when they get more dramatic. Jessie and James aren't great villains because they're successful but because they facilitate a LOT of great silliness keeping in tone with childishness of Pokemon. But these are also consistent villains who when they bare their teeth, that shock hits both the story and the viewer but also only if it's earned, just like Zuko turning good only works as a villain redemption because he earns that right to change his inherent tone. The Collector and Belos don't do this. They're tonally inconsistent. We never really know how seriously we're supposed to take Belos because the show has a hard time keeping him intimidating while glorifying Luz. It's part of what makes Elsewhere Elsewhen suck so much. We can't take Belos as seriously anymore and we're not sure what his tone is supposed to be when we're obviously meant to think Philip is kind of an idiot, one note asshole, etc. like that and then all the mystique and threat Belos is simultaneously terminated. The Collector similarly is meant to be tonally a big threat and problem which lasts until the end of King's Tide. After that, his tone is literally anything but threatening so you're just waiting for his redemption that won't be earned and bored the rest of the time. And those are just big bads. One off villains have their own issues with tone and presentation and keeping up some sort of novelty to them. I can ABSOLUTELY do a blog about villains in general. I just don't want it to be explicitly about "Yeah, TOH fucking blows versus the modern cartoon market". That's just not my goal and it never has been.

[amphiptere-art]

Amphs demons.

I will note. This can go for most things in a locked door also. It is more of a general understanding, than a specific mythos for my DCA stuff.

So let's get this started. One of these days I really got to make a locked door post. Or at least a locked door God's post. Because there's a lot I'm going to be referencing in accordance with that. So if you get a little lost about me talking about a specific god, That's my fault.

First let's talk about demons appearances.

Demons and fay are actually categorized under the same umbrella for me. So technically demons can look like Faye. As much as faye and look like demons. The biggest difference between the two is that faye usually embody a meaning. Demons actually do actions for humans.

Now of course this doesn't mean there isn't a general look. I'm just saying they realistically could look like anything. Demons usually take on the shape of either an animal, or a uniquely morphed human. Scales, feathers, runic symbols, and even unique items can shape a demon. Many demon epithets based on their looks. Actually have nothing to do with their powers.

Demon diets and lifestyles.

Many demons lifestyles I will go through more detail in the categories. As it does change somewhat. Although for most demons it is a general look similar to human lifestyle. They usually have a home, with appliances, a place to sleep, and a place for hygiene. They can go walk out into a town and buy food and other things. It is not that different. Although there is of course natural wildlife demons can hunt.

Demon diet is usually just your standard form of meat or veggies. Most are omnivorous. Although there are some that are confined to a carnivorous or herbivorous diet. They usually hunt the more animal like demons about hell. Although there are those that are forced to have unique diets. This can include something as simple as only being able to eat fruits, do something like a cannibalistic forced diet.

Usually these cannibalistic diets pause the demon to take on a unique style of life. Contract like demons Will usually make a contract that will ease and even benefit that style. While others will take to seeking out specific shop owners with demons of their specific diet. Many do not judge those with a cannibalistic style. As it is legitimately a genetic trait. They are not the minority, and some demons think it is a natural way to cleanse their numbers as infinite creatures.

Now let's get into different types of demons, and their powers respectively.

Contract type demons.

There are two types of ways a demon could make themselves useful to a human. Which is either through actions, or through magic. While most demons lean one way or the other depending on what the human wishes. Technically anything could be done through an action or magic. Although depending on what it is could cause terrible actions if you do not consider it.

Consider if you asked to be taller. While a magic type demon could do that easily. An action type demon would probably rip your legs off and do something terrible to make you taller. Make sure you summon the right type of demon for the job.

While most demons won't accept a contract that they cannot fulfill. There are still chances some malicious demons will go through it anyways. But most demons split upon this line. One based on more magical type wishes. The other based on wishes that are easier done physically.

Now this doesn't mean that action demons don't have magic. Usually they just struggle with it. And in some rare cases it can cause them pain. Doesn't mean that magic is not available to them. It's usually just not worth trouble. Much like how a magic demon can also do physical stuff. But it's just not worth the trouble when you have magic

Now I'm just going to go through a list of deals you can make. Remember either one could do the same. It's usually just better to do it with one demon over the other. I will try and emphasize this with 🐈 for action demons, and 🐈‍⬛ for magic demons.

What type of deals you can make with demons.

We've already split demons into the category of action and magic. But we can split a little bit further.

Physical augmentation. 🐈‍⬛

Actions of blood. 🐈

Seeking knowledge. 🐈‍⬛

Giving of items. 🐈

Scapegoat actions. 🐈

Control-based. 🐈‍⬛

Splitting of power. 🐈‍⬛

Affairs of the heart. 🐈‍⬛🐈

Many of these categories can be split into smaller pieces.

Physical augmentation

It is basically as the title describes. Some sort of physical augmentation. This could be-

Getting taller

Having more strength

Better voice

Better sight

Better agility

Claws

Wings

Etc. this is better used by magic type demons. Although if you wish to improve your body through more legitimate means. You can seek out an action demon. Although you better make sure they will teach you, instead of rip you apart.

Actions of blood.

Actions of blood have a lot more variety. Although almost all of them involve the spilling of blood in one way or another.

Aggressive actions of revenge.

Massacre of a certain party.

Death to a certain being.

Killing of their own demonic kin.

Receiving a certain body part.

Harvesting of blood and bodies.

Tattoos.

Ect. Many action type demons take these jobs. As while a magic type demon could make somebody disappear. Many more wish to see the actual violence. Which is the main part of this entire category. Violence. Any sort of violence.

Seeking of knowledge.

Speaking of knowledge is of course self-explanatory. As it is gaining knowledge or wisdom through any means.

Gaining knowledge in a certain subject.

All the answers to a certain test.

Knowing the true events of an event

Knowledge of magical practices.

Etc. this category actually has some overlap with the item giving category. As magic demons can instantly give the knowledge. While action demons have to go out and get it. Although some, if they have it, Will verbally tell.

Giving of items.

Giving of items also usually includes access to areas. As it is the manification of a physical want.

Gaining a book or tome.

Access to a certain place.

Summoning of items.

Giving of items.

Manifestation of a certain structure.

Giving of money.

Ect. Action demons usually use the giving of items as a way to plunder their claws into other categories. Although this category still has some use for magic type demons. As it is usually easier to magic a house than to build it.

Scapegoat actions

Scapegoat actions just means to do something into humans place. Which could be a myriad of things.

Robbing a store for them.

Allowing them to cheat.

Taking there spot in jail.

Staying back in a situation so they can go and explore.

Taking their sins.

Ect. These are usually some of the most non-villainous acts a demon can perform other than physical augmentation. They are not blood demons, so they do not go out to kill for humans. But anything else is fair game. This category can sometimes bleed into the item giving category. As robberies are the easiest way for action demons to get items.

Control based.

These usually include control of some sort. Whether that is brainwashing, or putting somebody in a higher position.

Brainwashing somebody.

Brainwashing an entire city.

Trapping their demonic companions for multiple free contracts.

Helping somebody get to a higher military rank.

Helping somebody get to a higher political rank.

Changing somebody from mid-class to high class.

Ect. Control based demon can usually lead to cult like activity. As it is often that somebody wishes to be higher than their peers. Action demons can sometimes help with this category. Although it can be as long and as strenuous as any real life scenario. This is usually dealt with by magic demons. As it is quick and easy for them.

Splitting of power.

This usually pertains to gaining similar abilities to the demon in question. Which leads to some variety.

Getting a demons at supernatural strength

Getting a demons supernatural sight

Getting a demon's scales and claws

Getting a demons physical appearance.

Getting a demon's magical capabilities

Ect. As we can see, these demons can almost make humans demons themselves. This can also lead to cult like activity. As a simple act of having demon like abilities usually puts you in a higher position. Although many people who do it this way, mean to do something more forceful with those powers.

Affairs of the heart.

This usually has anything to do with love and the pleasure of sex.

Making somebody fall in love with you

Becoming a partner.

Making somebody fertile.

Improving there's lovers "action in bed".

Enhancing ones children.

Enhancing one's partner.

Ect. They're also is a good amount of physical augmentation heart demons can do. Although they are simply merely the same as the physical augmentation demons. This has a wide variety of uses. Action demons and magic demons will help people in these categories. Action demons in particular will sometimes take their lover's place without the contractors know.

Spirits and Dead.

Almost all demons can access the dead and their spirits. Although any demon that tells you they can resurrect them is a liar. Demons cannot resurrect the dead. If you have been sleeping with a resurrected past lover, It is likely the demon itself, or a puppeted corpse concealed by a spell.

While some demons might consider themselves exclusively Resurrection or soul-speaking demons. That is not a proper category. As all demons can grant you with due to their connection to the realm of death. Although these "Resurrection demons" are noticeably better at it.

Contracts and how they function for demons.

All of the aforementioned deals above. Of course have positive reinforcements as to why demons would do them. This small section will conclude what those contracts do for demons. And how a demon doesn't die if they are not contracted enough.

First of all contracts seem to work as a form of a paycheck. While this paycheck could be in food, luxuries, or homes. It is usually transferred into a type of demonic currency. Which can be used to gain those other items through paying. Demon society is relatively close to ours. As I've only talked about contract demons. That might seem not so. But there are other types of demons that do other things.

Now it is undeterminable how much money is the baseline. I can say with confidence though, but the more a specific contract demon category is utilized by humans. Increases in how much money. For example, scapegoat type demons are rather popular. And so they have some of the highest paychecks.

No of course there is the question of how a demon supplies themselves if they do not get contracts. Luckily they seem to have a buffer system. As a demon is given some sort of paycheck by the end of each month. It is some sort of general average of what other demons in their category made. Which can be good or bad depending on how popular the category is.

Humans themselves can give tips. Although it is not in the form of the demonic currency. Instead it is usually physical. Demons will often take appliances. Some demons take blood. As it is a form of energy to demons. Blood sacrifices are usually used to just get a light bulb to work. A similar thing happens with bodies.

Now let's get onto those other demons I spoke of.

Mischief type demons.

This is another category that interact with humans commonly. Although usually not for their benefit. Mischief type is what most humans call them. The demons themselves like to be called Unseelie. Which yes, these are the demons mostly associated with Faye.

You can split these demon sometimes by Cryptid, Unseelie, and Haunting.

Mischief type demons can take many forms. Although many of these are considered supernatural. Ghosts, trolls, poltergeist, kelpies, vampires, werewolves, demon fairies, etc. in all honesty, there is too many to list. Just know that with confidence, any supernatural creature that usually has it bad story behind it. Is likely a mischief demon.

This also includes most aggressive ghosts. A quiet haunting is usually not a mischief demon. It is things like poltergeist to like ghosts that are these demons. Also many ruckus making ghosts are these demons. Actual ghosts usually mean no harm towards family's living in their area. Although it is not unknown for ghosts to want a room to themselves. Mischief demons parading as ghosts though. Will cause the most ruckus and aggressive acts throughout a household. Usually concluding with the whole house being condemned for being "hunted".

The physical look of these demons of course heavily verifies. Usually you can split it unsteadily down the middle between The physical ones and the invisible ones. Physical ones will take on any shape available. Vampires disguise themselves as humans, a kelpie looks like a horse with seaweed, They can be impeccably tiny little evil things. The invisible ones are of course, invisible. They share about the same variety as many demons in their home realm. The only difference is that usually they can fit in a human house.

Powers again have a wide range. Things like vampires and werewolves are like a disease. Sharing their power in a forceful way. Many of the more faye like demons are good at magic. Using it in any way possible. There are those that are more animalistic. Such like the kelpie. Where it's hunting method is just unsettling. They're of course are those that just want to cause trouble. Whether that be a troll using their physical bulk. For the many invisible demons who levitate around and cause a ruckus. Many of these demons also usually have control over the Earth and illusions. Making crooked looking trees.

Keeper demons.

Keeper demons are the ones that actually stay in hell. While there was one more category that does sometimes interact with human realm. That usually is not of their choice. Keeper demons stay at home. And have many duties.

Now unlike many stories. Demons actually don't enjoy their jobs of beating the damned. Although it is not all bad. There are of course many people who deserve any punishments. Many of these Killers. Many others do not tho. The religion that usually sends people to hell usually has spiculous rules. Causing many people who are dealers or smokers who are good people to be sent hells way. Hell luckily has the keeper demons that make their new life much more fun.

While the name keeper demon feels people with the sense of being stuck. Which they are. Most keeper demons act like normal humans. Many of these demons have more luxury to smoke and draw bets due to not holding a strict religion of their own. Many are just people. There are carpenters, dressers, cooks, and any other human job you can usually imagine. There isn't much in a justice system. As usually their demonic rules are seemingly enforced through other means. But otherwise it is relatively the same.

They only difference is that there are two specific keeper demons that are separate from the rest. These are usually known as guardians and tormentors.

Guardians of course are usually guards. They are the closest things to angels demons will probably have. An example of one of these demons is Cerberus. Although he only ruled for an age and retired. Others have taken up their place. There's usually a guardian for every human region. Sometimes it gets specific down to the state. While they are few, They are very strong. At any demon that wishes to challenge them will surely regret it.

Guardians also usually keep souls in. And this includes demons themselves. As while you might state that demons go to the human world through contracts all the time. That is untrue. They are usually tethered by the human. If the human dies or if the deal is done. Demons will teleport straight back. I mischief demons aren't really there. They're in this weird in between gate that allows them to interact but not get in trouble. Any demon that actually makes it out of the confines of hell is hunted by the guardians.

Then there of course the tormentors. Tormentors are explanatory. If you were imagining some deep red being with horns tugging on a fiery whip as what you expected most demons look like. That is what these are. Tormentor demons handle the people that demons themselves decide as evil. These sections are usually hidden and deep. Tormentor demons is the most legal job a demon can get. Many do not like it though. So the gnashing teeth of a tormentor demon is usually not a disguise.

Wild guardian and tormentor demons have higher powers. Usually respectively in strength, magic, and the ability to see things many other demons won't. Running keep your demons just have an average amount of magic and an average amount of strength. Imagine a world made of apprentice wizards. What is the extent of most keeper demons. Enough to live a naturally supernatural life, what's similar enough you wouldn't feel out of place in their home.

Many souls actually turn into keeper demons. Wild souls can choose to restrain themselves to their ghostly human looks. They can become a demon whatever they please. And yes they can become a specific demon. Most choose keepers because they have no external rules or weird circumstances. There's a reason most keeper demons are standard.

Animalistic demons.

Animalistic demons are our last category. These demons usually do not have any magic. Can be summoned but not contracted. And of course unintelligent. Although one type of animalistic demon is smarter.

Animalistic demons are usually animals. Supernatural and strange looking yes, but just animals. There is one demon in this category that isn't quite just animalistic. Although they aren't as smart as many on the list.

These demons are imps. The only reason they are considered in the animalistic category is because of their natural urges. Imps can write and talk. Although it is basic. They unfortunately do not think about hygiene or cleanliness. They can often act like animals running a muck. They have a pack like nature. And hunt much more than other demons. The best correlation is like a chimp. They can be extremely smart if taught. But it is simply not their nature.

Every other demon in this section though is not intelligent enough. There are usually allegories to the human world. Birds, dogs, cats, horses, you name it. There's usually a demon equivalent. Hellhounds are of course the ones many know. Although that is simply just a fancy term for a demon dog. Although do not confine yourself to a quadruped stance. An animalistic demon can look just as human like as any other. The only difference is their mind.

This concludes everything I can think of.

Remember demons easily fit in among faye. And I myself as a creator see them as one of the same. The only difference is that demons are usually the more malicious type. There's a reason the mischief type category was so bare bones in its explanation. There are simply too many things I consider demons underneath. As I just correlate demons with the bad mythological creatures.

Hope you guys like this rundown.

[xplrvibes]

So new things are coming up from miss singer and other people, la girl is a pretty b to be honest..if some friend do that to me i would be so pissed..she ruined singers and colbys friendship or something they had just to bring her bestie m girl into it all. What a friend she is omg. If i was in love with some guy and my friend did this..i would be so goddamn ANGRY. And the fact that she dont want to talk about this says it all, shes hurt..

Ok, I have seen a lot of random shit being flung around about this entire situation and the players involved over the last few days. Like, I haven't seen such a wild day around these parts since malishkagate '22 lol.

Here's the thing - I actually caught Ms Singer live on tiktok by random chance the other day. I was just scrolling through watching Little House on the Prairie tiktoks (leave me alone) and there she was.

When I came upon her, she was being bombarded with questions about M, Sam and LA Girl, and, for some weird reason, Stas. The Stas question was actually what got to her and she proceeded to give out the following "purely hypothetical" synopsis of events:

She had a group of people she considered friends (M was not one of them from my understanding). A guy came into the mix of this friendgroup, and her friends did something "messed up" to her in relation to this guy. Whatever went down with her friends hurt her, but she doesn't want to give out details and she is sick of people coming in to her chats every day and mentioning the names of the people she doesn't consider friends anymore and asking her to expand on this.

Now, from what I understand, she did mention in a previous live that she had a crush on a guy and her friends knew it and worked behind her back to get her pushed out of the friendgroup this guy was in. I did not see that particular live, so I cannot 100% corroborate that statement, but that is the previous story going around. This story is similar enough to that one that I will give it some form of credence, with the understanding that what we are getting here is one side of the story told in a very vague manner, so there are still many gaps to be filled in.

Anyway, a little while later, she was asked how she met Sam and Colby and she gave this statement (and I transcribed this verbatim): "I knew of them because I knew Katrina. Katrina and I were signed to the same label, so I knew of them, but we never talked. And then, um...in Septemberish, uh...we all went to a like...I'm trying to think of how to like...I don't know. Colby and I became friends and we went to Universal Studios and that was that."

As a sidenote, I highlighted two important phrases out of that - Ms Singer herself claiming that she did not really know snc until September. That means anything pertaining to Ms Singer knowing or dating Colby in March is just categorically untrue, so that's at least one rumor cleared up right there.

But back to LA Girl: I know a lot of things have been said and alleged about her the last couple of days. I cannot 100% prove most of that stuff one way or another, so I'm not even going to speculate. The fans have gone into desperation mode and are now coming up with all kinds of off the wall stuff, some of which I do know is 100% false (Colby having been with Ms Singer since March being one of them), so I've gone into a "do not trust until you can verify" mode right now and that's that.

That being said, I did hear this information come directly from Ms Singer's mouth myself, and in the interest of making sure more misinformation doesn't spread, wanted to share.

It sounds messy, and it sounds very much like these aren't the kind of friends you'd want in your lives - but some of what is going around is just...whew. Pump the brakes.

Pallette cleanser: I'd cast Topher Grace to play Sam in the soap opera adaptation of all this.

[the-down-upside-finch]

Wait wait wait I want to ramble about magic stuff in my stories because I use the same magic system for most of my stories (since they take place in the same world).

Okay. So. I'm realizing that this goes way deeper in terms of context, so I'm gonna briefly go over some of the basics:

In this world, there is currently a categorization known as the "Main Categories of Species," which is the one most commonly used by scholars when writing about species. There are other ways of categorizing, but this one is the most accepted one (but it is common knowledge that this system is not perfect).

There are eleven categories in the MCoS: Aves, Beasts, Daemon Creatures, Drakonines, Elementals, Faerie Creatures, Intangibles, Magicks, Merrow, Therianthropes, and Therianthrosomatikos (that last one is the main issue with this current system).

I'm not going to go into depth with these right now but. There is a lot of worldbuilding that has gone into this haha.

I'm just gonna discuss a bunch of smaller things that I think would be fun to mention.

Magic has a unique color for everyone that can use it. Some colors may be similar to each other, but no two magicians have the exact same color of magic. (And family members tend to have similar colors of magic as each other!)

Beings that use magic/are in possession of magic are known as magicians, as that's just the umbrella term for it. Beings without magic are usually referred to as Magicklesses.

Witches/warlocks and wizards are two completely separate types of magicians. Witches/warlocks use physical space to store magic (like in big hats or pockets), while wizards need channelers (like wands or staves) to use magic.

Mages also exist. They need crystals to help channel their magic, and their magic is by far the most easily affected by emotions.

Emotions are tied to magic to the point that some magic is literally dependent on a magician's emotional state. It can make it easier or more difficult, which is why there is a lot of training for magicians on how to understand your own emotions.

Alchemy is not a very popular practice because in order to get a license, you have to go through very intense training with a mentor. This involves ingesting every single thing you learn to make before you are allowed to learn how to make it. Yes, you have to ingest poison in order to learn the recipe to make it. That's the law.

Sorcerers exist, and they're the ones with animal bondeds/"familiars"! This animal companion is what allows them to properly channel their magic.

Pixies, sprites, and fairies are all different species. Pixies and fairies are the small ones (around 5-6 inches tall), but fairies can decompress their magic and become human-sized (but fairies cannot fly while they are human-sized). Sprites are always "human-sized."

Pixies and fairies have wing structures like butterflies, while sprites have wings like dragonflies. But sprites keep their wings invisible unless they either don't have enough magic to do this (which means they are probably close to dying) or they are around someone they trust.

One of the traits of Faerie Creatures is that their magic is their life-source. If their magic is depleted and/or separated from them, they will die. This is why unicorns fall into this category.

Elves are descended from plants. Instead of hair, they have foliage. They have root systems instead of veins, and they really only need water and sunlight to survive (with a few exceptions). Consuming salt is almost certainly fatal.

The main trait of Therianthropes is that they have two main forms. They possess a particular energy level that they must maintain to achieve their alternate form, and their energy levels directly correlate with the lunar cycles, corresponding to how full the moon is.

Dragons, or anyone with dragon blood, cannot knowingly tell lies.

Merfolk have both gills and lungs, but their lungs are not necessarily strong enough for extended use above water. In terms of biology, merfolk born with female traits have stronger lungs, which is why sirens tend to only be female.

Merfolk and other species of Merrow use signed languages to communicate, since spoken modes of language don't work very well underwater.

Speaking of merfolk, it's considered scandalous for males to show too much skin. Seriously, you can get dress-coded in school for having your shoulders exposed.

Silvertongues are beings that can speak to all animals that use a language-like system of communication. However, dragons purposefully made their languages too complex for silvertongues to understand.

Nixies are shapeshifters, but if you can get one to tell you their name, you'll have full command over them until you give the name back. Usually this requires a trade of some sort, either in the form of a favor or some sort of item. (e.g., someone could steal a nixie's name and make a deal that the nixie has to slay a dragon or something in order to get their name back.)

Nixies are heavily discriminated against in most parts of the world. They are used as servants (because of the whole command thing) or straight-up imprisoned and executed. Because of this, nixies do not typically reveal themselves.

I realize this turned more into "random facts about the species in my magical world" but still. That was fun to ramble.

Invoking the taglist in case you guys are interested in this stuff: @my-cursed-prince, @athenswrites

[ofluminance-a]

SHIPPING INFO // ANSWER THE FOLLOWING FOR YOUR MUSE(S) SO PEOPLE KNOW HOW SHIPPING WORKS ON YOUR BLOG.

tagged by: @celestiialnotes tagging: YOU READING THIS. :D go for it!

WHAT IS YOUR OTP FOR YOUR CHARACTER(S)? gosh. there are so many muses on here!! uhhh. i guess i can just list the more active muses that i have? however, in doing so, that doesn't mean i am not ever down to try new ones or even rare ships! rare ships are some of my favs, tbh!!

ochako: kacchako, izuocha, kirichako, shinchako, todochako, monochako, iidachako. joke: eraserjoke, micjoke, mightjoke. lucy: graylu, lolu, gajlu, nalu, laxlu, stinglu, freelu. erza: jerza, grayza, mirza. emma: drakemma. takemichi: akkutake, maitake, fuyutake, mistutake. ( i am honestly still developing him / reading the manga more so that's all i've got right now!! ) lumine: chilumi, xiaolumi - just two faves but she obvs works with so many hahah

HOW LARGE DOES THE AGE GAP HAVE TO BE TO MAKE IT UNCOMFORTABLE? for a lot of the b.nha student muses that i have and even tr characters, i mean.. a couple years? like one to two years apart, max? i mean they are younger characters and in some cases teens, there's no way i am comfy having them date someone way older. as for the more adult muses: fairy tail, etc. --- i mean, not too much older also? the same concept applies. the most i'd say is about a 5 year difference but no more than 7ish or so.

HOW FAR DO STEAMY MOMENTS HAVE TO GO BEFORE THEY ARE CONSIDERED NSFW? when you know, you know. it's pretty obvious. a lot of the characters i write tend to be younger and for that i mean, nsfw is pretty non existent. but in the rare chance that it is written here it's with a mun i trust and am comfortable with wholeheartedly. the same can be said for the muses: the ship would have to be pretty well developed: chemistry, built on trust, etc.

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WHEN SHIPPING? yes and no? i mean, if you'd like to ship our muses and our interested in doing so, please let me know! however, i also have to keep the muse in mind / and categorize things in my brain to not make things complicated. i tend to work off a mains system so as to not have 10 ships with the same character. so, as an example: ochako has a very established ship with @ofdetonation's bakugou, so i'd be very selective in shipping her with another. i hope that makes sense? but in all honestly, i am very open to lots of things!

WHO ARE OTHER CHARACTERS YOU SHIP YOUR CHARACTER WITH? ahhh! gosh it'd bee too much to name them all. but, as mentioned: - ochako is with cam's bakugou, and his izuku over at @starvirescent. also for izuocha: @starshinc & @roguesenses. monochako is shipped with @galaxythixf & @beastincidents. - lucy is shipped with @ofsavior's gray and loke. as well as @celestiialnotes's gajeel and soon to be @diablescharmants's freed! - joke is shipped with @spllledwlne's shota and @spydcddy's loid! (yor is also shipped with juice's loid). jean is shipped with @resolutepath's diluc! ** there are so many more things i am sure i cannot think of at this moment! & a lot more developing that i am very excited for!

DOES ONE HAVE TO ASK TO SHIP WITH YOU? it would be much appreciated! i am ALWAYS open to it!! it just helps me to know that you're interested in doing so! everything with my muses is based off of chemistry! but if we've talked forever and you just wanna ship our muses or try something out? let's chat, plot, and see what can happen!

ARE YOU SHIP OBSESSED OR SHIP MORE-OR-LESS? hmmm--- i'd say, ship-more-or-less! i am here for my characters, and in some instances, that's the last thing that's on their minds! however: ME, DANDI-- HEAR ME RAWR-- i mean, ahem--- me? i, myself, am a shipaholic, and i'll be the first to admit that! a lot of my characters tend to have like.. main character energy? so! they're very ship-able! & even if they're not a main character, i also love all the random like side stuff or rare ships! i am always up for making an interaction happen!

my only ask is that we've written a few times and that the mun and i have spoken! but trust me, once we ship? it's over for you, and your muse. muahahaha!! .. in a good way!!! :) it will consume me and just: happy sighs.

ARE YOU MULTISHIP? oh! yes! very much so! the only two characters i am sort of sensitive when it comes to multi-shipping in certain ships are ochako and lucy! and that's simply because, as stated, they're the two that have been around the longest and in some ships, they are very well along and established! but that's not to say, depending on what happens, that it won't work out! it just means, i am slightly more selective with both of their muses & may only have a few of each individual ship.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SHIP IN YOUR CURRENT FANDOM? if i answered that for every character on this blog we'd be here even longer!! i will just say, at points, kacchako, izuocha, monochako, eraserjoke, matchablossom, graylu, grayza, nalu, jerza, grayza, chilumi, drakemma, & zutara have consumed my soul. honestly? a lot of ships do! i am also really hung up on the tr brainrot and holy hell, i am just :eyes: at so many ships!

FINALLY, HOW DOES ONE SHIP WITH YOU? talk me me. slap me with the ship, art, send an ask, or a meme! i am really open to just so many things and i would love, love, love to start writing & shipping! with so many more of you! <3

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

hey i know you do hexaco analysis and i was wondering if you like any other typology systems? if so, what's your opinion on #dazaiso4sweep on pdb? my apologies for bringing up that accursed site.

Hey hey anon!

Ok so I do want to clarify: HEXACO is actually not typology at all! It's a psychological personality inventory that has been pretty extensively statistically tested and the scales tend to correlate nicely with certain measures of behaviour and future outcomes (it's kind of like an expanded Big 5 - though there's always contention over the usefulness of measures that describe personality traits, especially since manifestations of a trait in one culture can lead to a formal definition that may not apply in another culture. There's been some concern about the way Openness is defined for this reason.).

The difference lies in that typology categorizes people - it's an "either or" result. HEXACO is an inventory, which means everyone has all these traits - instead, it places people on a scale, or six scales in this case - it's a "score" result.

Psychology no longer likes categorizing, as hardly anyone fits neatly into a single category, and a lot of that kind of work was based on psychoanalytic theory, which relied a lot on introspection and dream analysis, which is now... largely bunk. Still cool, though, and I think there's nothing wrong with the MBTI or Enneagram for analyzing fictional characters - I used to do it all the time in high school (actually I spent an embarrassingly long time - several years - trying to make firm definitions and a revamped MBTI test specifically for this purpose). I still think they can be useful tools for initial crafting of characters tbh - it helps differentiate ways of thinking and core values and stuff like that. I just hate that it's still sometimes used in the hiring process, when it should never have been used for that in the first place. It tells the hiring manager nothing meaningful and it does not dictate what job you should have or how well you will blend with a group. It should NEVER be used for any decisions with real-world stakes. (Sorry, this kind of thing really irritates me. Personality tests have no place in the hiring process if you've set up your interview properly.)

The benefit of using scale measures of traits is that they align better with what we know now to be true - people cannot often be neatly categorized, but instead, we tend to have varying levels of traits or behaviours between us. That's also the way the mental health field is moving as well, as we discover more and more that many symptoms of mental illness (not all, but a substantial amount) are simply unmanageable extremes of "normal" -> typical traits and behaviours. I know. Shocker, right? (That was sarcasm.)

Now, the way I'm using HEXACO is very much a bastardization of it. HEXACO does give an output like the one I do, with traits being ordered from highest score to lowest relative to each other. However, I cannot administer a test to fictional characters, so I was forced to assign a value from 1 to 5, which is already an issue in that I am only using whole integers, while the actual test uses decimals in between values which are determined by an average of each item on the scale.

Ok, going much further beyond is probably way too technical (I'll just tell you that HEXACO also uses percentiles, which, if you know what percentiles are, it'll become quite apparent why I can't do that - if you don't know what that is, don't worry about it).

Oh my god I'm so sorry what was your question again?

Ohh ok. Well, I'll just say I have an entire revised MBTI-adjacent set of definitions I made in high school which I still enjoy using to get a handle on my characters but since I never shared it with anyone I don't think that really counts, haha!

Also I'm glad you called pdb "accursed" because it really is. I've never gone on there and agreed with the choice, or even if I did, I never liked the reasoning. Dazai as a type 4 huh? I don't know... I get why, but I'd want to also look at the type 5 tbh. 4 has a lot to do with feelings of alienation and sadness for that reason, which works well, but a 4 also can't help but emotionally express that alienation as a core part of their identity. While Dazai flaunts his "inhumanity" on occasion, more often than not, he appears more ashamed than anything. The 5 deals with detachment, and of collecting information to feel prepared to deal with and make sense of the world - they may in fact withdraw until they feel they are equipped to deal with life, which of course means that they may never feel it's time to emerge at all (that would tie with Dazai's notorious lack of initiative taking). The stress line makes more sense for 5 to me too tbh: Dazai is going to be an unhealthy version of whatever type he is, and the stress line leads to 7 - essentially craving external stimulation and excitement to avoid thinking about or dealing with problems. Idk. I could be wrong but really enneagram is always going to be swayed by personal interpretation. Mind sharing your thoughts on this anon? I'm curious as to whether you agree or if you have doubts.

One more thing: if you do like this sort of thing, I wonder if you've ever heard of DISC? It's a type-personality test meant to indicate how you work with others in an organization. Kind of neat! (Again, I caution against real-world applications... but everyone loves a fun test, right? :D)

Here's HEXACO if you want to try, and DISC for fun!

Sorry for the long-winded reply!

[weabooweedwitch]

to that prior anon: what makes something a disability is how it impacts the life of the person who has it. for example, you use arthritis as an example of smth being "just a medical condition" but without medication that would cost more than $12k/month if I didn't have insurance, I am in constant pain and literally cannot walk or use my hands. my arthritis is disabling, while for others it's just constant low level pain and they may not consider it a disability.

please remember it's up to the person with the medical condition to determine if it disables them, and it varies person to person even with the same condition.

In their defense i think they were just asking a question because it is definitely like, a weird gray area? It honestly brings up a good discussion about, when do you you start calling something a disability, and how, I think, the broken health care system really, uh, falsely categorizes a lot of people based on what insurance is up to. Also different countries apparently have different guidelines, like for example my Canadian friend gets disability benefits literally just for being autistic despite being very "high functioning", putting that in quotes just because I know that can be kind of a controversial term.

But also, I'm so sorry you deal with that, I dont quite have arthritis but I can totally empathize wirh chronic physical pain 🥺 its actually horrifying reading the prices of some of these treatments sometimes and im really glad you have your medicine taken csre of. I often think about what would've happened to me if I hadn't been on state insurance when I was diagnosed with my equinus, I think it was literally like at least 5k per leg (i actually barely remember tbh, it couldve been higher or lower), which, I guess ultimately isn't a lot, but on my income and my moms income would have been so significant I would've felt actual guilt seeking treatment. Like, there was a legitimate possibility that the mere price could have kept me from... walking normally? And like my mom is 58 and she's been told she qualifies for knee replacements but she's literally scared of even getting them because of how long the recovery period can be and the financial loss and also just the price? So my mom could end up in legitimately worse health, although I guess that also has to do with like, America not having good workers rights where she could've taken off laid leave for surgery or something

It's that whole expression about "disability is defined by the environment" or something like that. Sort of like that whole controversy with Mr Beast where he paid for a bunch of people to get their sight or hearing back. Those people had treatable conditions and were stuck living in a way that negatively impacted their lives simply because they couldn't afford it? Like I can't even imagine not being able to use one of my five senses just because I couldn't afford it, but I know that's um already a reality for like, people who can't afford hearing aids and stuff like that

I think I'm starting to ramble here but like, I wish people had more sympathy for the disabled (and im talking about like society, not the last ask just to be clear, I feel like they were legitimately just curious). Like sometimes when you see people like violently hating the homeless, sometimes those people are literally people who got into horrible accidents or had some sort of injury and they wound up addicted to painkillers and had to turn to drugs when they can't afford prescription pain meds or those prescriptions get them addicted. I had a manager who was in a car accident and the painkillers made her eventually switch to straight up heroin. Even our disabled vets don't get good healthcare half the time

But yeah, as for me, I guess consider myself kind of straddling the line between disabled and able bodied, leaning more towards able bodied, but I can still have issues, like my knees are still kinda jacked up and even though i can stand and walk great now, stairs can be really tough sometimes, especially when I'm coming home from work and my body aches. and I still get pains in my back sometimes when I'm bending and leaning to the point I use a menthol roll-on gel for pain relief. Part of me kind of likes that I, I dunno, overcame the challenge and all that, but like, I think I would've preferred a body that didn't hurt lol 😅

[luckysoft]

Two things that recently caused me to reexamine some of my thoughts on sexuality, morals, shipping, cancel culture, that whole kind of sphere of topics... is 1.) The recent events on this site regarding trans woman (I saw someone try to do a callout on her as being a "rape-apologist" or something for liking cnc. Be so for real right now dude) 2.) A youtuber getting "outed as a pedophile and zoophile" for accidentally opening his porn folder on stream which contained DRAWN horse x human stuff and, as far as I can tell, one single instance of a niche character who is canonically 15. People were calling that "lolicon" which is.... categorically not what that word means. 3.) I liked the game the Coffin of Andy and Leyley. Oops. 4.) Recent legal efforts to sanitize the internet more and more and more AND the people backing these laws being revealed 100% of the time to be involved with hardcore religious organizations. 5.) This one's more vague but... the fact that this phenomenon seems to be snowballing? The umbrella of things that this kind of online purity culture deems bad seems to expand by the day to the point where I have now seen people on the internet attack others for... liking sex? Like, in general? Not just like a "Bonk go to horny jail haha" thing but like genuinely acting as if they have uncovered and highlighted a deep personal moral failing of the other party all because they publicly implied to an enjoyment of sex. I've seen this multiple times. What.

For the past few years I skirted around admitting I liked, or even participating in, certain anime or visual novels if the characters were in high school and there was a lot of fanservice or even explicit content, as well as some personal kinks. But like??? Idk man. Liking Mahoako as much as I do, even if some parts of it (Neroalice) are huge squicks for me, made me realize I really can't keep pretending. I have 0 desire to be in any sort of contact with irl minors, ESP in an nsfw context. I didn't create the cultural standard of high schools being like, the most popular setting for anime and anime-adjacent media, be it sfw or nsfw. That being said, the idea of denying myself something I might like that has associations to the aforementioned stuff, just bc someone (anonymous) might try to harass me (anonymous) sounds kind of nonsensical to me at this point.

Also idk mannnn I think it's pretty bad faith at a baseline to say that people who like, reblog porn or whatever of teenaged characters who look and act indistinguishable from adult characters are pedos. Liiiike, I can understand that with lolicon, the characters age is probably THE MAIN reason that the ppl who are attracted to it are attracted to it, and honestly I think that sucks and is icky. But with, like, pulling a character out at random here, uhhh, Yumeko from Kakegurui. You cannot convince me that her age is the reason people think she's hot instead of it being an inconsequential aside to every other aspect of her character in that context.

I know I'm not a bad person. I know I'm not going to engage in certain actions irl. I know these things about myself and that is all that really matters.

[limeade-l3sbian]

Okay so I just wanna say both issues are extreme serious. And their impact harms greatly. I’m not trying to diminish that, ever.

My question however is in regards to how racism, for example hate crimes based on race, at least is taken seriously it seems for most part. If someone is blatantly murdered in most countries solely for their race, it would make national headlines. People would make an outcry.

But when women are being hate crimed on the basis of their sex, it’s either often not at all categorized or spoken of as such, unless the man explicitly had a hateful post history online towards women(and even then a lot of people tend to hesitate to call it a hate crime when speaking of it), or people just don’t see it as as much of a systemic issue.

I really admire you and other black women like you. I cannot imagine the absolute pain and desensitization you all go through, when you both experience racism and misogyny.

But do you ever feel like you are only taken seriously when you speak out against racism?

Because I’ve seen other black women be. A close friend of mine is very pro black. Her twitter is largely dedicated to that. And black men, white men, asian men, they can all usually support that, unless they are out right racist. But as soon as she speaks of a women specific issue, even the men who would usually support her get uncomfortable, want her to stop “exaggerating”, “lying”, “blowing things out of proportion”, “act like she’s the only one suffering”. It’s really heartbreaking to see.

[I want to preface my response by saying that I can only speak as a black woman in the U.S. and that I don’t want anyone attacking this anon. The best way to learn is to ask and that’s what she’s doing.]

I had to rewrite my response because it was kind of all over the place, lmao. But I’m ready so here we go..!

I see what you mean when you say that people are more receptive to the topic of racial killings than they are to misogynistic killings. I’ve heard this statement before and I agree with it for the most part. IRL, I certainly have more people’s attention when I mention race, but in America, racial killings is still considered a political thing. BLM v. ALM and all that bullshit. People have politicized the death of black Americans in a roundabout way to say that they just don’t give a shit if black people are killed by police. Sidelining the headlines you may have heard about, there’s a great deal of hate crimes that go unchecked or are rationalized to be an impersonal killing when all the facts state otherwise. Specifically with black and Hispanic people. So do I think hate crimes are taken with more seriousness than misogynistic killings? I can’t really say that’s all true. Just because there is so much stuff that gets swept under the rug, and that’s just in the U.S..

But your question was if I think I am only ever taken seriously when I speak out of racism? To be honest, anon, I don’t feel myself being taken seriously about either. One of the problems is that people consider racism and misogyny to be social crimes of the past. That things are not as bad as they used to be, so we should be grateful and satisfied with the way they are now. A black man was president and there are women in the government so that’s the pinnacle of social progress, we’ve decided to stop oppressing you as much, so be thankful and quit complaining.

But you’re not wrong, misogynistic killings are often overlooked as almost inevitable casualties of living in the world. I used to watch crime shows with my grandmother as a kid but steadily stopped when I realized all I was watching was different formats detailing heinous murders against women with their ending thoughts being, “There’s a lot of terrible people out there in the world.” Like, no. Not people. But if they  really said who the problem was, they’d have to condemn themselves.

In regards to your friend, I would say this. Men can experience racism so they are able to be victims. They can avoid conversations of cultural misogyny by yelling louder than you about how racism is a bigger issue. But misogynistic killings? How could they? There has never been an enduring history of men who, to this day, are unable to get an education, marry who they want, own what they want, and be who they want just based on the sole reason of their sex. There are no men who are, to this day, mutilated and made into sex slaves solely because their sex is considered a product rather than a person. I truly believe men can only empathize and are incapable of basic sympathy, ESPECIALLY for women, who they have historically considered to be less than and over-emotional about things. And that is why they are, somewhat, more receptive to discussions of race rather than the ones they cannot personally experience.

I still ended up kind of talking all over the place but I hope somewhere in there I answered your question lmao. <3

[ashesandhackles]

Harry And Personal Conflict: A Meta On Evolving Dynamic With Ron and Hermione

One of my last metas on Harry was how his abuse at the Dursleys informed who he is as a person and a lot of his main personality traits. This time, I want to explore Harry's relationship with conflict, mostly in regard to his best friends - Ron and Hermione.

First things first, because of his abusive upbringing where he is constantly in conflict with his caregivers, conflict is seen as Bad Thing when we first meet him as a 11 year old. And it informs how he reacts to both Ron and Hermione at first. He instantly relates to Ron because Ron is an underdog - a boy who feels neglected and passed over in his large and boisterous family. Harry shares his own experience of neglect with Ron and they both bond instantly.

His initial impression of Hermione is that she has a "bossy sort of voice" . The bossiness is an important characterstic to his impression of her - she reminds him of an authority figure and he does not particularly take to her as easily as he does Ron. Before the troll incident, he is frequently annoyed by her interventions because "he can't believe anyone would be so interfering". It's her vulnerability and the fact that she may be in danger that makes Harry, and by extension Ron, go after her. And she pays it back in full with a demonstration of loyalty to them in front of people she wants to impress: teachers. This sets the tone of his friendship with Ron and Hermione.

There is sense of easiness to his friendship with Ron, especially in earlier books that he doesn't quite share with Hermione. This is a bit gendered as well, of course. His relationship with Hermione evolves as Ron's own equation with two of them changes, more specifically Ron's cognisance of his romantic feelings for Hermione. So how does this inform his relationship with personal conflict?

Let's look at it Book wise.

Book 1-4: Since Harry tends to see All Conflict As Bad, when Hermione becomes his friend, he tends to ignore traits of her that he particularly doesn't take to. Specifically her argumentativeness - which he usually leaves Ron to deal with. For example, look at when Hermione drags him off to the kitchens in GOF. When he realises what this is about, he nudges Ron, and Ron does the protesting: "Hermione, you are trying to rope us into that spew stuff again!".

Often, you can say he is amused by Ron's more ..let's say colourful.. reactions to Hermione being overbearing. So when Ron and him are not speaking and Hermione gets a Quidditch term wrong, it causes him "a pang to imagine Ron's expression of he could have heard Hermione talking about Wonky Faints". It's that deeply ingrained into the dynamic.

While Ron acts buffer and protects Harry from stepping into a potential conflict ("skip the lecture", "don't nag" he tells her), Harry's world view remains quite the same. Part of Harry's growing up is integrating conflicting points of view and gaining nuance. For example, he can't understand why someone like Snape, who seems to hate him so much, can also save his life at the end of Philosopher's Stone. This is his first venture into trying to integrate two conflicting things about a person into nuance. Dumbledore gives him a very easily digestible story, one that appeals to his ideal of his father and Harry is sated.

Again, Harry's world view is tested when he finds out that he relates with Tom Riddle - for their "strange likenesses". He doth protest too much at Dumbledore's office: "I don't think I am like him! I am Gryffindor!". And Dumbledore offers him a wisdom nugget: "It's our choices which define who we are" (paraphrasing). Harry is uncomfortable that he empathises with Tom Riddle, his parents' murderer, at this point in the story.

In the first four books, his only proper personal conflict has been with Ron.

It is depressing to think about in these terms - but Ron is Harry's first experience of unconditional love (we can even put Hagrid here, but he is not the one who spends most time with Harry). And when Ron and him fight, Harry is so hurt by the prospect that he proceeds to abandon Ron before Ron abandons him. (the whole chucking a "Potter stinks" badge at him and making a jab about having a scar is what he wants, or the fight in DH where he yells "then leave! Pretend you have gotten over your spattergoit and have your mummy feed you up"). It's an interesting defense mechanism and he feels "corrosive hatred" towards Ron during these times because Ron and him aren't supposed to be like this. Ron is a certainty in his life. It's also why when Ron comes back, Harry either doesn't need him to apologise (as in GOF) or quickly forgives him in DH - although I do think Harry thinks the locket bit was punishment enough. But even without the whole locket, I think Harry has trouble holding Ron accountable in general beyond few slaps on the wrist - especially if Ron and he are on good terms.

5th Book: This is the transition point for Golden Trio friendship. Harry has come back from an immensely traumatising night at the graveyard and his PTSD isolates him from his best friends. This is also the point where Ron, especially after GOF, is aware of his romantic feelings for Hermione ("the perfume is unusual Ron", Hermione tells him in this book). So in this book, we often see Ron and Hermione on one side, with Harry on the other.

Ron is unwilling (quite like Harry in that respect) to engage him in a direct conflict, but he is also unwilling to shield him from Hermione's nagging in this book. This is why, OOTP is the book where you see Harry ignore or avoid Hermione and lie to her more than usual to avoid conflict. For example, he tells her that Snape thinks he can carry on Occlumency once he got the basics - that is categorically not what happened. Or the entire day he spends ignoring Hermione's warnings about breaking into Umbridge's office. (The description here is comical - about Hermione vehemently hissing so much that Seamus Finnigan is checking his cauldron for leaks. ) If he cannot lie to her or avoid her, at the end of the rope, he will treat her to display of his frightening temper.

Interestingly, OOTP is also the book that his world view goes through a tremendous upheaval: mainly, his ideal of his father and having empathy for Snape. It is unnerving for Harry to see Snape being the "boy who cried in the corner" when his father shouts at a cowering woman. Similarly unnerving is that his intense empathy for him - "he knew exactly what Snape felt when his father taunted him and judging by what he had seen, his father was every bit as arrogant as Snape always told him".

While he is placated that his father grew out of it, this memory of his father being a bully is something he cannot bear to watch again in DH. Few chapters later, he grins at Ron "sweeping his hair" back to make it look more windswept, just like his father - suggesting that Harry is beginning to integrate two conflicting things he knew about his father: from the people who loved him vs the people he was cruel to.

6th Book onwards: It's interesting to me that his better appreciation for Hermione comes after OOTP (one, because she is the one who challenged the whole Ministry plan and she followed him into a trap knowing it was one anyway) but also the timing of it is in line with Harry having a more nuanced understanding of his father. He struggled to hold conflicting information about him into one cohesive person - the boy who was a bully vs the man who joins Order of Phoenix to fight a war he could very well have sat out. The pedestal crashing helped Harry gain nuance (he thinks of his father and mother with pride in HBP - of them walking into an arena with head held high). HBP also sets up his deeper understanding with Snape in DH. There is lovely meta by about this by thedreamersmusing. Read it here. HBP is also the book he feels "sorry" for Voldemort and also feels "reluctant admiration" for him - both of things he is less defensive about.

And this nuance informs his relationship with conflicts - especially the kind he has with Hermione. He is more confrontational with her and does not lie or sneak around her as much as he did in OOTP in the Half Blood Prince. ("Finished? Or do you want to see if it does back flips?" He asks her when she takes the book from him to check if it's jinxed. Or the "I hope you enjoy yourself" he calls out irritably when she declares intention to find out who HBP is. And "do you want to rub it in Hermione? How do you think I feel now?" He tells her when she says she was right about HBP).

The fact that he is willing to be confrontational with her is a big step in his character - a step up from his unregulated outbursts in OOTP, which is a function of him not knowing how to put his anger across in normal ways. He is also more willing to stand up for her in front of Ron too - "You could say sorry" he tells Ron bluntly. This is in contrast to his more quiet standing up for her in POA: "Can't you give her a break?" Harry asked him quietly. In POA, he lets the subject drop after Ron flatly refuses. Here, he presses on more : "What did you have to imitate her for?" "She laughed at moustache!" "So did I, it's the stupidest thing I have ever seen".

His relationship with Ron is an interesting contrast to his relationship with Hermione, which functionally teaches a very important lesson for an abused child who thought all conflicts are bad: That his friendship with her is challenging, and frustrating, filled with conflicts but their love for each other isn't disputed. It's a very important thing for brain development in general - to hold conflicting information in one space. The defense mechanism abused children do to avoid this is called splitting.

So, Ron allows Harry to be the age he is: a teenager and it's foundation for his further development, and Hermione teaches him how to be an adult, and therefore, spurs his growth. (In esoteric terms, if you look at Ron and Hermione as proxy parents - Ron is the Mother archetype, the one who offers unconditional love. Hermione is the Father archetype - one who demands best of him, and guides him).

Additional reading: Harry, Prongs and Prince - Harry's Inner Struggles For Forging An Identity. By u/metametatron4

Harry Identifies, and Reluctantly Admires Snape Even Before The Prince's Tale by thedreamersmusing

[fuu-miku]

An autistic reading of Draco Malfoy

Ok so I’m fresh back from a shower and I had a galaxy brain moment and, it sounds kind of far fetched at first but I wouldn’t be making this post if it didn’t have a surprisingly fitting amount of groundwork so hear me out: autistic Draco Malfoy

Now this is going to be a long analysis, and kinda angsty, brace yourselves. Yes this is me, former bully undiagnosed autistic troublemaker gifted kid, projecting stuff onto him bc I see similarities. I’ll write this kind of like a narrative because I find it easier to show what I mean that way, but keep in mind not everything I say MUST mean he’s autistic. Yes, I’m aware neurotypicals and autistic people do share some ways of reasoning, thank you. I touch on a lot of topics from his friends to his bullying to his academic life so you can look at the first sentence of a paragraph if you’re looking for something in particular. I’m concentrating more on seeing canon through autistic lenses rather than making my own headcanons, so you won’t really see much original content, just speculations. It’s not all that well organized though, my apologies, I should be writing a college essay right now lol. I might edit this to make it cleaner and explain better in the future, this is kind of just me rambling right now. Also this is just a headcanon I like and constructed from thinking, so I’m not trying to convince you he absolutely is autistic and cannot be seen otherwise, but if you straight up try to tell me I’m wrong and he couldn’t be, please don’t waste your breath. 

So first of all, I’ve always imagined Draco being rather sheltered before Hogwarts, yeah? Private tutors at home, probably having more fancy parties than playtime with kids his age, etc etc. So he was taught high society etiquette and rules, told the world was a certain way, but never got much on hand experience, either with the world or with genuine or casual social interactions.

So when he got to Hogwarts, a place where everything is wacky and different? Well, being of a rather curious nature and having been taught to be proud of his wizard heritage, all of the flaunted and unknown magic was pretty cool. Seeing all the students was a bit intimidating, but he was taught he was the center of the world and everyone at mother’s parties fell at his knees, so he was confident he’d be right at home and be liked. So when the chosen one rejected him so categorically? That was new and humiliating, and threatening, and scary. If we look at some autistic traits, routine is important and you must mentally prepare for new things, and for later on, black and white thinking as well as ideological and moral rigidity are very common, which can make self-introspection and such much harder and categorical. 

Crabbe and Goyle became his lackeys, and while he maybe didn’t consider himself super close to them or anything, Draco did think of them as friends. It’s not like he had much other friendships to compare it to, they befriended him because of his name and confidence and that’s what Draco knew of social interactions so he didn’t question it. They weren’t much for intellectually challenging him, so he prob felt kinda superior to them as well. They weren’t willing to challenge him on anything else, either, which I cannot stress how important that is. As an autistic kid, first of all being undiagnosed sucks because you don’t just sus out vibes and learn things that way, so to not get much social contact and have your only friends be doormats without personnalities? He’s in an echo chamber, no one is telling him why or what he’s doing is wrong, he’s brooding and making his own twisted view of how the world is from his limited experience of the general human experience. Draco not noticing his friends were polyjuiced in chamber of secrets is very telling imo, he does most of the talking and Crabbe and Goyle just kinda listen and nod along or laugh in agreement, Draco is used to seeing everyone else as less complex or important.

From what we see of the movies and books, he has very high grades without making much efforts. That leads me to believe that, like me, he tends to get understimulated more than overstimulated. He doodles in class and can do other things that make it seems like he doesn’t care or isn’t paying attention, but actually it helps him concentrate and remember the lesson more. That effortless and careless look from the outside means that people generally assume he just has that devil-may-care attitude, that he flaunts his smarts and is kind of an overall asshole. The teachers generally let him do his thing since he gets the grades, but it doesn’t mean that prejudice isn’t there. If he does miss something, doesn’t understand a part of the matter or anything, the blame gets pinned on him, he gets dismissed, told he should just try harder, things like that. And let me tell you that builds up resentment. You’re going to tell me I meet the criterias for success in your class easily and even though it’s literally your job to be there to help us, me not stroking your ego constantly and succeeding my own way gives you ground to be petty and judge me? K thanks Mcgonagall. And because Harry & the golden trio have a soft spot in most of the teachers’ hearts, get turned into a ferret type of soft spot, get constant academic recognition while you don’t because she can’t stop spewing textbook extraits and basically be outwardly a good student rather than inwardly, get a lot of passes on laziness & breaking rules because you’re the chosen one’s best friend while you get told off if you bring slightly unsatisfactory grades to your father, that. Builds up. Resentment. Additionally, from his attitude in many classes I can really see him complaining about classes and teachers all the time because he thinks a lesson was pointless, or the teacher taught this in an inefficient way, or that exercise was stupid, etc. He frequently wishes teachers would be clearer in their lessons and directives, and he feels like he could have explained it more comprehensively than them, essentially. Getting to the why things work the way they do so students can understand and remember by logic rather than memorizing book passages. But in the end, it’s just because he learns differently, not that the teachers are incompetent.

Because he was raised to think he was inherently better than everyone else because of his pure blood and family, it was kind of just logical to see his difference as a result of that, an effect/trait of his superiority. He’s more logically inclined, often says things that unvoluntarily piss of others so that makes him feel more cool headed in comparison, he learns more instinctually and faster than others generally, he’s somewhat of a social outcast, aka he feels like a black sheep and that just widens the gap his pureblood prejudices had already made, so telling himself his difference is just that makes it easier to swallow, it just seems logical. They were the ones who were different from him, not the reverse. He was smarter, better educated and he was the one who could truly call the moral shots in his mind, in a true “I am the anime protagonist and cannot be wrong and you all are peasants” kind of way.

And that’s where we come to his bullying/obsession of the golden trio. I genuinely think that he saw Harry’s rejection as him being wronged. So he’s angry, resentful and Harry made himself his rival, picking on him whenever he can and fighting back just feels... Natural? And it’s not like anyone is stopping him either, truly where tf were the teachers. He doesn’t think he can be wrong, so that means it’s them that are wrong, and if someone dislikes him it’s probably their fault and not his. He doesn’t think he can be wrong, and since the only people who tell him he is are people he already sees as not worthy of respect, people that are out to get him, etc, and everyone he does respect like his slytherin friends, his family, Snape, etc, share his opinions, enable him or let him do whatever he wants, he just doesn’t actually consider what they tell him, even though to us questioning Draco’s morality for his bullying seems obvious. Because he was raised to assume everyone’s shortcomings/fault before his own, and because of a defense mechanism because the alternative is realizing your whole world view is based on lies and misconceptions as I hinted at, it influences absolutely all of his interactions with the world. 

And that brings me to my final statement that getting diagnosed would do him tremendeous good, having everything be put into perspective and finally getting shown experiences he relates to would speed up his maturing process significantly and save him pain, confusion and loneliness in the long run for sure, but in the moment? He would flip his *shit*. He would have a breakdown, be in extreme denial. He’d have to get used to the idea, getting exposure to stuff about autism until he can begrundgingly admit to himself that he sees himself in some of it, and eventually he’ll have made his peace with it. And then he’d have a burnout and reevaluate his philosophy and existentialism and he’d come out of it not giving any shit at all and never masking another minute of his life again /hj Getting diagnosed with autism would be similar to getting a big wake up call slap in the face about everything his pureblood raising being wrong times 100, because it’s not just your social bringing up but also literally how your brain is wired and it’s innate. It takes all his insecurities and experiences as a black sheep and told him he was the wrong one in the situation, actually he was the weird one that should have complied rather than the other way around, so like it’ll take him some time to come to terms with that and replaying his lense with the newfound perspective and realizing all the hints were there and no one bothered to point him in the right direction. 

Back to the golden trio real quick, I do think at some point though, his hatred for them was just fueled by more hatred rather than any real reason. Bullying them just became part of his routine, natural, and that’s that. Also, he liked joining the inquisitorial squad not only bc he likes power but also he’s just a sucker for rules and he doesn’t think anyone should be able to break them without consequence so he just liked being able to tell on people and “put them in their place”. “Rules are meant for everyone, and you’re not special.” kinda way of seeing things, even if the rules are negatively affecting everyone.

I won’t talk about sixth year or the war much because,, his being sad and scared and alone was pretty straightforward and average lmao war just sucks but, I think in an autistic reading it’s interesting to note how easily he can isolate himself and erase himself from people’s attention. I have no doubt Draco thrives and enjoys being in the spotlight and treated as a slytherin prince, but considering that and how little friends he actually has i think it’s interesting how he doesn’t have that much social presence or following. Since he’s undiagnosed, I do think eventually not understanding how others’ minds work and getting challenged on ethics and how the world is makes him very confused and that would play into his absolute misery & agony in sixth year, like making his confusion and dilemma not only moral and personal stakes but also existential like “wtf is going on, I understand nothing about the world I can’t begin to think about making such huge choices”.

Ultimately, his confidence and sense of superiority where nothing is ever his fault is what makes him look extroverted imo. He’s outgoing and takes up space because he doesn’t think he could do something to be self-conscious over, but that doesn’t mean he can read people well. I actually think he’s rather piss at reading people, or being liked, he doesn’t seem to be generally liked, what with his only two friends just following him around bc it’s just how things are. His interactions with others are often shallow, or he doesn’t realize when he has said something wrong so he doesn’t notice when people start disliking him. Or if they start being rude to him he gets all righteous and meets their dislike tenfolds. He really doesn’t get that saying “my father will hear about this” is seen as uncool. His pureblood etiquette lessons and practice at social parties and his time at Hogwarts getting slaps in the face and realizing he can be disliked definitely make me think he masks a lot, but I think it’s a very instinctive and unconscious thing he does and he doesn’t realize it. I was that way as a young kid unaware that people found me annoying lol so autistic introverted people definitely can be super outgoing and loud and take up space, especially if they just don’t have the mind to be self-conscious because they’re not aware they can come across wrong and be misunderstood or seen as whatever. Actually you know what? That really reminds me of book 1 Hermione as well, if you want to read about autistic Hermione Granger and look at the parallels I’m talking about read this article https://medium.com/@AlexGabriel/hermione-is-autistic-2682485aa4bf

And?? He’s a creative artistic little shit?? He draws, he made badges and even a song for his bullying efforts. I don’t know why but autistic people really tend to be artistically inclined so it’s worth noting

And yes because autism is hereditary, I think Narcissa would be autistic. She fits really well with the general portrait of autism in women. She’s definitely undiagnosed, and like with Draco strict pureblood society standards taught from a young age made it so she passed under the radar pretty easily. She’s reserved in a way that often make people overlook her, but she’s there, calculating, and without you noticing next thing you know she has you figured out. I think, while etiquette can be stifling, Narcissa would rather enjoy all the high society rules; knowing what to expect, being all proper and steering away from uncomfortable situations, and if she wants to make an exception or she doesn’t have the patience for something, because of her Malfoy & Black standing she has the power to put her foot down and be like “Yeah, I just did this thing, what about it?” with only a look and a fake smile. I imagine she’d be the kind to have a profound distaste for pointless/fake acts with people, you know, if the person isn’t the dark lord and her survival isn’t dependent on it.  And if it’s in the Black family, I enjoy the thought of Sirius being autistic as well and... Okay guys I don’t enjoy likening my stigmatized difference to an unhinged evil murderer but it would make sense for Bellatrix. It would be Draco’s resentment at feeling different and stuck and unjustly treated times one hundred, and in comes Voldemort with a tantalizing social revolt manifesto. Also she gives 0 shit about making her facial expressions “normal” or passing and that would be pog if she wasn’t the literal worst. We don’t know much about Andromeda but from the fanon I’ve seen I would love the autstic cottagecore witch vibes, she can be the quiet gentleness to Narcissa’s cold calculating and Bellatrix’s wild carelessness. Lucius is outnumbered in the family and he’s very tired all of the time lmao

In conclusion, Draco Malfoy is an autistic kid that takes everything at face value and is socially dumb but book smart and has a superiority complex and has a severe lack of guidance & of positive figures in his life. He is lonely and confused and different and he’ll never learn why because everyone assumes the worst of him instead of trying to understand. Anyways I spent 2 hours writing this help. Btw not trying to justify his shitty behavior, it’s still shitty, but yeah Draco Malfoy is one angsty dude through and through and he deserved better than Lucius fcking Malfoy lowkey

Additionally, this post has a nice alternative perspective of it and included things like how quidditch/flying on a broome can be a very sensorially pleasing experience or his interest in some subjects or slicking back his hair and- hell yes https://theawkwardqueerturtle.tumblr.com/post/172861957048/kay-but-like

[gothamsworst]

OMG requests opened at the perfect time i just had a MAJOR Brain Thought the other day: dork squad + s/o on chore day. they haven’t done any chores in weeks and now there’s piles of dirty clothes everywhere and practically all of their dishes sitting unwashed in the sink, basically the house is a mess. which rogues pick what chores? anything they absolutely hate doing? how do they personally make this sort of unpleasant day tolerable? thank u boo :)

Jonathan Crane:

For the most part, Jon is able to keep up with his chores. He just tends to let stuff pile up until one day a week or so he does everything at once, and then the cycle restarts. And it just so (regrettably) happened to be on that day when you stopped by to visit him.

He didn’t really expect you to actually want to help, but he was a little grateful that you insisted on it. He wouldn’t expect you to do any of the deep cleaning, though. He can handle that on his own.

Putting on music isn’t usually part of his routine, but after you do, he finds that it helps the atmosphere a little. Besides, it makes the whole situation feel very...”domestic.” Like it’s a little look into the future, and how things would be if you lived together. And it’s...nice.

Edward Nygma:

He can be such a damn child about having to do chores. Sure, he can do them, he just doesn’t want to. And after you started dating, he started expecting you to do them for him (because of course he did). He will continue to expect this until you put your foot down.

Eventually, he does kind of see that he’s been putting a lot of responsibility on you, and he reluctantly agrees to help out. He pouts the entire time, though. And you cannot make him clean the bathroom, he does not clean bathrooms.

If he had to pick, he’d do the dishes and vacuum. Maybe dust. Compared to doing the laundry and cleaning the bathrooms, they’re the lesser of two evils. He’d much rather just pay someone to clean for the both of you, if he could afford it.

Jervis Tetch:

He’s usually very good about keeping up with his chores. He hates an untidy house. But during his depressive slumps, he can let things pile up. And once they start to pile up, they continue to pile up, until they get too overwhelming to deal with alone.

Which is where you come in! He feels bad about having you clean up his messes, but you did offer, and there’s no way he can do this alone. So...there’s no harm in having an extra pair of hands around, right? He’ll just pay you back afterwards!

Together, you categorize the chores into a list of most important to least important, and go from there. It takes some time, but with your help (and some music to lesson the tension), he’s steadily able to make some progress. (Doesn’t stop him from taking a break to dance with you in-between doing the dishes, though.)

[c-is-for-circinate]

So uh, would the end of runs count as an escalation of the abuse? Like Ik it's a last resort to stop Zagreus from leaving, but it also shows that he has no qualms with hurting Zag to get what he wants.

I definitely had not yet gotten to the end of a run when you sent this ask, nonny, and I was all set to scold you gently for spoilery stuff, but you were actually trying very hard to be nonspecific and this only pinged as a spoiler because I was already pretty sure how things were going to end anyway.  So good job trying to be vague!  I have now fought through to what is fairly clearly the final boss, and my answer is, categorically, ABSOLUTELY FUCKING YES.

(We are going to just keep putting Hades posts under cuts until they stop being about a parent abusing their kid! I realize this helps nobody on mobile and I am tagging for that purpose but hey, at least I might save someone's dash! I swear I will talk about other things in this game eventually! Until then, once again, CW abuse.)

It’s not even about the violence, entirely.  Like, yes, it’s about the violence--but Hades has shown all along that he has no qualms with hurting Zag (with killing him, over and over again) to get what he wants.  Even if we take most of the enemies we’re facing as general nuisances of the zones we travel through, and not Hades’ doing (and oh, if Hades wanted he could give Zagreus a safe escort through those zones in an instant), there are obstacles put in our way that are obviously and deliberately commanded by Hades to stop us at all costs.  The level bosses, for one.  (Also, remember the Hades voiceovers we get at every ‘survive for 45 seconds’ level?)  He wants us to stop.  He wants us to die, and yes we’ll come back, but he’s still setting his employees to hurt us, so like, that’s very much a thing to begin with.

The fact that he’s willing to take up arms against us and kill us himself probably feels like a big escalation to Hades personally.  What really gets me is the dialogue.  “I have always kept my temper, unlike you.”  Wildly revisionist history, placing all of the blame for what’s about to happen on Zagreus the victim for ‘making me do this’. The absolute disgust and disdain, when he finally gets us.  “I have slain titans, boy.”  He’s spent a lot of time throwing scathing remarks in our general direction, wanting us to bow under them, being blandly sarcastic and self-satisfied and smug, but he's never sounded like that.

Because, before now, he thought we couldn’t do what we set out to do.  He thought our suffering as we tried was its own punishment, and he enjoyed watching that punishment.  He did not watch us fail with the affectionate resignation of a parent watching a child learn a harsh lesson.  He watched us and gloated. 

The thing that infuriates him now is not that we’re trying to do the thing we literally said we were trying to do ninety-eight runs ago at the start of the game.  He could have stopped us from trying at any time.  Hypnos to put us to sleep.  Literal chains.  Had he bothered for five seconds to actually step into the courtyard beyond our room, we could be disarmed and helpless.  But it’s fun for him to watch us fail, and it proves that he’s right about us and how pathetic we are, and it reassures him that he’s right about the universe, that nobody can escape from Hades, that we are stupid and foolish and weak.  What drives him to such absolute fury now is not that we’re trying, but the fact that we’re about to succeed.  We’re going to prove him wrong, prove that he was wrong about how he handled this situation in the first place, and that’s flatly unacceptable. 

There is no interpretation of this fight that does not include Hades wanting us to feel inferior, subjugated, crushed.  It’s not about keeping us in his realm.  It’s about breaking us, for daring to try to escape in the first place.

No matter why he’s doing it.  And let’s get into that for a sec, the “it’s a last resort to stop Zagreus from leaving” bit.  At this point in the game, I don’t know why Hades is so desperate to stop Zag from leaving.  I haven’t found out yet!  Don’t tell me!  Don’t hint about it!  But from where I’m standing, I can see, hmm, five main possibilities?

He is trying to protect Zagreus from something on the surface.

He is trying to protect the world from Zagreus, whose arrival out of hell will destroy something/everything in some magic way that Hades knows about but keeps secret.

Zagreus is actually a prisoner, meant to be chained in the Underworld for crimes he doesn’t remember committing, Tisiphone is right, and we were meant to be as condemned as Sisyphus all along but Hades has been generous.

Hades made it law a long time ago that nobody and nothing escapes the Underworld, and Zagreus cannot be allowed to break that law because nobody breaks Hades’ laws, period.  He could have chosen to make an exception but he did not, so all of this is flagrantly illegal and needs to be punished.

Hades himself is trapped in the Underworld, or at least feels that way, and is projecting and taking it out on his kid.

My best guess is that it’s some combination of a few of those (like, I am fairly sure that #5 is absolutely true no matter what other reasons are in place as well).  Thing is?  While I’m curious about this mystery for the story’s sake, I also really fundamentally do not care.

Any one of these things could better have been accomplished by telling Zagreus literally anything.  Even if there’s magic and prophecy bullshit binding Hades away from explaining the whole truth, it is not hard to hint at vague disaster befalling innocent bystanders “because of cosmic reasons I am beholden to keep secret”.  Hell, Hades’ own life becomes easier if he restrains himself just the tiniest bit in an effort to make Zagreus not want to leave in the first place.  Hades clearly does not want this to be happening!  He doesn’t seem to regret any of his actions, but he sure is annoyed and infuriated that he has to go through the trouble of doing them.  Literally one explanation could solve so much.

If the reason is to protect Zagreus?  Then it is one thousand times bullshit, and I think the game knows that.  (The game has to know that.)  When your kid is so miserable that they’d rather flee straight into traffic to escape you, then your kid is not safe.  Nothing that could hurt him on the surface--finding out that Persephone doesn’t love him and never did and in fact wants him dead and tortured for eternity--is any worse than what he’s facing down here.  He already knows one parent feels that way.  At least out of the Underworld he has the option to find some relatives who don’t.

And yet this situation doesn’t ping the “stupid plot that could never happen because it entirely rests on unrealistically shitty communication” sensors.  Because it absolutely, categorically makes sense for the Hades we’ve come to know to refuse to explain himself.  Whether he’s got good reasons or bad ones, HIS WORD IS LAW, and how dare anybody ask him to justify or clarify it, ever.

I am very very sure that Hades has lots of reasons: reasons for being furious, and bitter, and for making rules about his son never leaving the Underworld, and for being so desperate to enforce those rules, and for all of it.  Some of them may even be good.  What makes him an abuser, what those reasons do not and cannot justify, is the verbal and physical violence he uses against the people in his care to cope with those problems.

[thatblackboianarchist]

Giftedness is a Spook

I personally think giftedness is a stupid concept. Basically, it’s the idea that certain children, so folks under the age of 18, are “smarter” in some general or abstract sense than others, or more competent, more talented, more skilled, “better thinkers”, whatever. This concept originated pretty much in the 19th and 20th centuries, where we began consolidating under the “intelligence” label and categorizing people based on “how smart” and “how dumb” they are. There is a lot of baggage associated with the term giftedness, a lot of it historical and bigoted, so let’s investigate and such.

The most used definition of giftedness is having an IQ score above 130, or two standard deviations above the mean of 100. Though this historical definition has faced lots of criticism, since it is clearly possible to have superior ability in some domain without having a conventionally high IQ score, such as in the arts, or debating and public speaking, or sports, or chess, or really anything really.

Due to the fact that the “IQ above 130” definition of giftedness falls short of actually capturing all high-achieving children, most modern gifted education programmes no longer use this as the sole indicator of giftedness, and rather adopt a more multidisciplinary approach. Now, most simply look for superior skill or talent in one or more key areas, which can be art, or sports, or leadership, and attempt to cultivate that, as well as looking for people with a generally higher IQ than the average in their age group.

The issue with this approach is that it views giftedness as some sort of intrinsic, fully general, conserved property that is only found in certain sects of the population, and thus categorizes people into “gifted” and “non-gifted”. This categorization falls short in part due to the existence of “twice-exceptional” students, who are gifted in one area, but require unique accommodations in other areas. So it appears that it is possible to be “gifted” and “non-gifted” at the same time, so just how useful is this concept?

What’s more, giftedness often focuses on general cognitive traits, such as gifted children have greater white matter density, or faster information processing speed, or hear sounds faster, or think more critically, but from my perspective, these just seem to be variations in human characteristics, in the same way that some children are taller than others or start puberty earlier than others. Everyone develops at their own pace and there are plenty of people who develop out of the norm, especially since concepts of child development almost always exclude neurodivergent children and their different cognitive and psychosocial milestones.

And they are not necessarily NATURAL or inevitable variations in human characteristics either. All the traits associated with intelligence - information processing speed, critical thinking, white and grey matter density, working memory capacity, creativity, executive functions, enhanced senses - are heavily influenced by societal factors.

For instance, a child that has been well-fed since birth is obviously going to have a more developed brain with a higher capacity for all those things than a child that has suffered chronic hunger. A child that receives nurturing and good parents is going to have a more developed brain a child that receives abusive and neglectful parents. A child that grows up in a war zone is going to be different cognitively and intellectually than a child that grows up in a relatively peaceful location.

And those developmental consequences aren’t always natural in the sense that they are innate, they are artificial, engineered by politicians, corporations, and a society that absolutely refuses to take the suffering of children seriously. Yet the children who have been disadvantaged by this abusive society are unlikely to be categorized as gifted. These children show lower scores on IQ tests and the school system thinks they’re dumb, or worse “average”. These children don’t show superior performance in any particular area, there must be something wrong with them, they’re not “special” like these gifted kids other here. They don’t need special help, they just have to follow the curriculum for the regular or the *gasp* dumb kids, geta 9-to-5 job, and wait 50 years to retire, they won’t be these gifted kids that change the world.

LAME. This is lame. This is the wrong way to think about the differences that exist between children. And what’s worse, it’s so definite and unchanging, as if the traits associated with intelligence cannot be changed. As if we can’t help children with their working memory capacity, or their creativity, or their critical thinking, or their executive functions. As if we can’t help children find something they enjoy and let them cultivate that activity. These are all skills that can be taught, but they aren’t taught at all. We just let the bell curve “form naturally” and then take the kids on the right-half of it and label them “gifted” and then discard the rest, even though we are capable of teaching them those skills.

Giftedness promotes two unhealthy narratives: (1) being average isn’t good enough and (2) being below average is bad. With regards to (1) and (2), it completely ignores all of the facets of a good life, or what can be a good life. In my view, a good life is one that you enjoy and are proud of. Where you have strong relationships with others, actual freedom and control over your life, where you have things that you’re good at or enjoy doing, where you are proud of what you’ve accomplished. It has nothing to do with “having a higher working memory capacity” what the fuck?

There is value in being “average” or “mediocre” or “below average” or “stupid”. You can still produce art that people enjoy. You can still be a good athlete. You can still get really good at a specific area of academia. You can still be a competent engineer. You can still connect with others and mean something to them. You can still travel the world, drink wine condescendingly, and have a good time meeting people and seeing things. You can still contribute to society, and you can even make innovations that change it, but you don’t have to make a “significant contribution” to a worthy member of society. You can still care about others. You already change society, just by being part of it, and that is enough.

Focus on the experiences you want to have, the relationships you want to build, and the skills you want to learn, not on “I want to be smarter” or “I want to have better memory” or “I want to be the best”. It’s okay to want to be smarter, or to have better memory, or even to be the best at something (since it’s not possible to be the best at EVERYTHING), but those things are relative.

When you become “smarter” at something, or the “best” or just better, at some specific domain, you will find that all the traits associated with intelligence tend to increase with regard to that specific domain. For example, when you get better at chess, you develop better problem-solving skills associated with chess, or more critical thinking in regards to games, or better memory for recalling chess piece arrangements or movement formation or techniques, or faster information processing speed in regards to processing your opponent’s and your own moves, or better “chess logic” or “chess reasoning skills”, or the ability to understand and reason about chess on it’s own.

Intelligence is relative and domain-specific, the superior memory you would develop in chess won’t cross over to, say, memorizing decks of cards, or generalize into just having a superior memory for all things. That’s not how human brains work, they are highly specific and skill-oriented. So when you focus on becoming “smarter in general”, you are essentially setting an impossible goal, because it’s not specific enough for you brain to be able to systemically learn and apply it. You have to be specific if you want to make any progress, after all, and this applies to our constructs of giftedness.

We have to be specific! We have to let children choose their interests and hobbies and help them develop natural talents, as well as explore their interests and help them reach a suitable level of competence, where suitability is determined by THEM, the child. When you let them develop interests and hobbies of their own choosing, they naturally will get “smarter” in that area, you know, better working memory and stuff in that regard.

And even if they don’t reach expert levels of performance, or perform averagely or even below average, it doesn’t really matter, since it’s not something they need to be an expert in. For knowledge that is universally relevant, like comprehensive sexual education, you should work on ensuring that your average is a high standard. But if the piece of knowledge or skill doesn’t meet “nigh-universally relevant” or “necessary to function in this society”, then who cares how will people learn it? Especially since they can always come back in the future and re-learn it, or improve on it.

We also have to address child suffering and ensure that all children have good and strong support networks, are well-fed, have medical care, are free from abuse, etc. This makes it easier for them to actually have the time, energy, and cognitive capacity to choose their own interests and hobbies, AND work at them. It also helps them make relationships, explore, learn, and make a good life for themselves.

Also, a quick note. Interests are just things that you like to do or have a feeling for; hobbies are recreational pursuits that you actively engage in. So, an interest can be looking at pictures of castles online, a hobby can be actively seeing castles in person. It’s more or less an arbitrary distinction, but I like to use them in tandem to cover all the bases.