Just one second, buddy. *buries face in pillow and screams* SOMEONE DID THE THING NO ONE DOES THE THING. *emerges from pillow, straightens clothes* I’m good, I’m fine, let’s do this.
LES MIS (actually I have next to nothing on my Tumblr for this musical and I should have things because I have approximately all of the feelings)
lowkey otp I think Joly, Bousset, and Musichetta are pretty. Fucking. Cute. Okay? Okay. Also I kinda like Jean Valjean/Javert but…like…I have some concerns about those two. Valjean/Fantine is kinda cute, too.
highkey notp Okay, it’s not that I don’t love Marius in all his uselessness, but Eponine/Marius is a NO because my poor angry vicious street girl Deserves Better Than This Oblivious Fuck. (Also because I think he’s good for/with Cosette, but look, Eponine is my favorite hardcore-as-fuck character and I feel like she just…wanted so much for Marius to be the love of her life that she forgot to wonder if she actually wanted Marius and if she had considered that I think she would have come to a ‘no,’ yes? Also because she deserves someone whose response to their girlfriend going out to kick ass is “HEART EYES MOTHERFUCKER” and not slamming their head into a tree for two hours.)
[softly] don’t notp I just…any configuration of Combeferre/Enjolras or Courfeyrac/Enjolras or…ai, I think I found Combeferre/Grantaire once and I was just like. Listen honey. Look at your life. Also: do not ship Gavroche with people, he is a child, seek Jesus.
highkey otp but i’m scared of saying it because it’s not a very popular choice I am THE MOST boring. I mean…like…I found Valjean/Fantine that one time like I said and that has the potential to be super cute but I don’t know if it’s strictly speaking ‘unpopular,’ yanno? Otherwise I got nothing.
highkey otp and anyone on my tumblr knows it Okay, see previous re: not putting a lot of Les Mis on Ye Olde Blogge, but…ENJOLRAS/GRANTAIRE. THE IDEALIST REVOLUTIONARY GOD AND HIS CYNICAL DRUNKEN WORSHIPER. THAT’S MY DUMPSTER OF CHOICE AND I SHALL NOT BE MOVED. I just…let me put it this way, my roommate inflicted this movie on me and less than fifteen minutes after it was done I turned to her and went “Do you want to feel feelings?” She said no, obviously, and I ignored her, obviously, and I went “King and Lionheart, for Enjolras and Grantaire.” And there…there was some keening. And some violence. I am just a complete sucker for the ‘I would rather die at your side than live in a world without you’ dynamic, a COMPLETE sucker, like if you quiz me on ships, I will have a lot of those ships.
MCU (Marvel is never the bonus round, Marvel is the assumed-to-exist round)
lowkey otp Started out not a huge fan of Steve/Bucky, and I’ve kind of reconsidered, have now gotten to the point of ‘I’ll take literally any configuration of these two fucks.’ Darcy Lewis/Literally Almost Anyone, but especially Natasha Romanoff (it is my JAM and it is so RARE and it is FRUSTRATING). AND ALL OF THE CANON SHIPS. Like, okay, Tony/Pepper? CUTE. AS. SHIT. SIGN ME THE FUCK UP. Jane/Thor? LOOK AT THOSE FUCKING HEART-EYES. SHE’S SO TINY AND CUTE AND HE’S SO BIG AND ENRAPTURED. Sam Wilson/A Large Whiskey, because God know’s he’s earned it. Peggy/Steve (do not touch me I am not okay I will never be okay again) and also Peggy/Being Better Than Everyone. Matt Murdock/Making Better Choices (way to get a less flimsy suit, babe, proud of you). And (this isn’t a canon ship but it SHOULD BE) Bucky/Warm Blankets/Affection From Friends. I really want them to do Wanda/Vision. Bruce/Betty Ross (I would fight you for Betty Ross’ dignity and honor, but she would probably just hand me her lab coat and do it herself while I swooned, okay). OH BUT LEST I FORGET. I DO NOT SHIP ALL THE CANON SHIPS. WHICH LEADS US TO…
highkey notp BRUCE. AND. NATASHA. And like the thing is I can’t even sit here and be like “Oh, well, I ship this other thing and I just can’t give it up” because, while I DO ship another thing (Clintasha), I’ve been a-okay with ships being broken up from time to time. No no, all my problems are about execution and inherent issues with characters and the sudden disappearance of Betty Ross. I have a fucking THESIS, okay, and like ten single-spaced pages of it are “So you want to sell a relationship between a man who doesn’t trust professional liars and a woman who is a professional liar and furthermore who demonstrably struggled with the fact that she was actively afraid of the Hulk, and you’re not going to offer us ANY backstory, you’re just going to fucking drop this in our lap and expect us to take it and run with it.” Another, like, five pages are “HOW YOU DONE FUCKED UP WITH NATASHA CONSIDERING HERSELF A MONSTER” and there’s like THIRTY FIVE pages about “WHY is this ham-fisted relationship necessary for women to ‘connect with the movie’, and why did you have to structure it as Natasha existing solely to soothe all of Bruce’s issues and then there’s that scene at the end where she’s pining and that’s not at all consistent with her personality.” And there’s about ten more pages about how I feel like Bruce has had a disservice done to him (given that most of this is about how I feel like Nat had a disservice done to her) and an entire chapter titled “Why Did You Feel The Farm Thing Was Necessary If Clint Was Not Involved.” And the whole thing is titled “WHERE THE FUCK WAS BETTY ROSS” because if you’re so determined to put Bruce in a romantic relationship why not add another BAMF scientist to your crew. And honestly I’m not interested in getting anon hate for this, so if you ship it, hey, live your life, and please feel free to depart quietly, I’m not going to stop you or call you names, but I’d damn well appreciate the same courtesy.
[softly] don’t notp Steve/Tony…I just can’t. Like. Live your lives guys. I’m not gonna stop you. But I just can’t. Also Tony/Bruce. Same thing. Also Loki/Tony or Loki/Natasha (noooooooope). Wanda/Pietro. Peggy Carter/Jack Thompson.
highkey otp but i’m scared of saying it because it’s not a very popular choice Is it redundant at this point to say Bruce/Betty? But in addition to that, I quite like Bruce/Darcy. Pepper/Tony seems weirdly unpopular for being so adorable. I mean…I’m pretty open about my ships.
highkey otp and anyone on my tumblr knows it Clint and Natasha. Because their backstory is so interesting and they’re so in sync and they’re so desperate to save each other at the cost of all else. I tend to think that when she’s talking to Loki and he says “Your world hangs in the balance and you bargain for one man” there’s a part of her that’s like “…yeah, you’re damn right I do, what do I need to do to get him back” and she only backs down when she knows that Clint is coming to HER and she can get him back by force. Honestly fuck ‘enemies to lovers,’ give me ‘I literally almost killed you once to I’d literally burn the world to the ground for you.’ I also really like the dynamic of “Person A can play 12 different instruments, got into Harvard, and is organized, and Person B once ate 15 cold hot pockets at once, trips over the laces of their shoes, and claims they can fight 2000 bees” and I hardcore feel that for Clint/Nat. I have a gifset to that exact effect on the blog somewhere.
Consider this: Gwendoline Christie playing the romantic lead in a Jane Austen adaptation, or indeed any period piece. Nothing else changes. Nobody draws attention to the fact she’s a woman. It’s just two solid hours of Gwendoline Christie on a horse and wearing a suit and sweeping maidens off their feet
Back during a time when my mental illness was at its worst, I was extremely emotionally, verbally, and physically abusive to my now husband, then boyfriend. Behaviors I would exhibit (and am not proud of):
Slapping him
Name calling
Throwing furniture
Guilt tripping him
Shaming him
Becoming extremely possessive over him, checking his messages, emails, and becoming irrationally upset when he would communicate with any female
Become extremely resentful when he would spend more time with his family than me
Text or call him at inappropriate times and would become suspicious angry when he wouldn’t respond ASAP
Blame him for all of my shortcomings (if he wasn’t so _____, I wouldn’t behave this way!)
That’s just a SHORT list of the things I put him through, not even taking into consideration the eating disorder part of my mental health.
And to make it perfectly clear, there was nothing my husband ever did to warrant or justify any of my behavior. That man has never hit me, yelled at me, manipulated me, shamed me, called me names, become jealous, kept me from spending time with other people, etc. He’s treated me like a queen for the last 11 years, and it wasn’t until I did some deep recovery work that I realized 100% of my behaviors had all to do with me and nothing to do with him. I’m surprised he stuck with me, and although I am eternally grateful that he did, it took a long time for me to not only make amends to him, but to change my behaviors in order to finally come to a place of sanity within my relationship.
Here’s the thing:
Even though a large part of my behavior had to do with mental illness, my husband deserved 0% of it. Regardless if you are sick or not, your behaviors affect other people. If your illness “makes” you abusive, you are still abusive. If my husband decided to press charges for me slapping him in the face, telling authorities, “BUT I HAVE A MENTAL ILLNESS!” would not absolve me of the fact that I physically assaulted another human being.
People are hurt all the time due to the shitty things people do because of their illnesses, and they can’t just tell themselves, “Well, they are sick, so I have to deal with it.” or “I can’t let it affect me because I have to understand they are sick.” Like, no. People do not have to do that. They are not obligated to support and/or stay with you if they cannot deal or cope with how you act within your illness.
People are not obligated to be punching bags just because you are sick, especially if you do nothing to change or manage your behaviors.
I don’t think people realize how much strength it takes to pull your own self out of an anxiety attack or a panic attack. So if you’ve done that today or any day, I’m proud of you.
Fun fact: According to Greek legend there was a famous prostitute who managed to avoid a death sentence by showing the judges her boobs and arguing that it would be a crime against the Gods to destroy something so beautiful.
Before you ask, yes there are paintings of this. And yes, they’re amazing.
No, but this is one of my absolute favorite bits of history!
The courtesan named was named Phryne and she was indeed a renowned beauty, and was indeed was put on trial for a capital crime. And yes, the sum of her defense consisted of her stripping in court (helped by her lover/defendant) and asking the jury (all males) if they were prepared to destroy this.
But this is actually a very interesting case of Values Dissonance - the capital crime she was accused of was blasphemy. In Ancient Greek society, exceptional beauty was a sign of favor from the gods, and they took the idea that beauty indicated goodness with great seriousness. They even called their nobles Kaloi k'Agathoi, “the Beautiful and the Good.”
So by showing off her great physical beauty, Phryne was being very clever indeed, her argument essentially being “How could I possibly commit blasphemy if the gods have given me this body?“
I’m imagining the epilouge but with Neville’s kid instead of Harry’s.
Sensibly Named Child:
Dad, what if the hat puts me in Slytherin?
Neville:
Then it means you really are a Slytherin. Do you have any idea how hard I begged to be a Hufflepuff? How hard I argued with the hat against Gryffindor? And you know what, it turns out the hat was right and I pulled the sword out of the hat and killed the snake. It's a magical hat and you're an eleven year old who thinks Axe works to attract girls. You know nothing, listen to the hat.
I’m imagining the epilouge but with Neville’s kid instead of Harry’s.
Sensibly Named Child:
Dad, what if the hat puts me in Slytherin?
Neville:
Then it means you really are a Slytherin. Do you have any idea how hard I begged to be a Hufflepuff? How hard I argued with the hat against Gryffindor? And you know what, it turns out the hat was right and I pulled the sword out of the hat and killed the snake. It's a magical hat and you're an eleven year old who thinks Axe works to attract girls. You know nothing, listen to the hat.
One thing I’ve learned: when people end whatever they’re saying with “idk, I’m probably not making any sense,” it usually means they are telling you something very close and personal to them, something that’s such an integral part of their being that they have trouble putting it into words that do it justice.
Observation: I have never broken a bone Hypothesis: I am boneless Data: I appear to have broken at least two bones in my foot slipping on the ice Conclusion: I have at least two bones. Strong evidence suggests the possibility of a third one.
After a lot of consideration over AO3′s rating system, I’ve decided how I’m going to categorize my fics from now on:
G - no dicks. Just none. Well, maybe a small baby with a penis pisses on the person changing that baby’s diaper (oh the family friendly laughs!), but that’s it. We’re the better for it.
T - dicks are alluded to, perhaps even mentioned, especially in respect to angst over teenage masturbation (heavy heavy angst), however, we know no details. In most cases, we don’t want to because it’d be a little creepy.
M - dicks factor heavily, and we know in pretty specific detail how those dicks are being used, and the direct results. But selections from the full spectrum of dick-related details are, tastefully or tauntingly, left out.
E - we know this dick. We know its veins and contours and twitches better than we know the back of our own hands, the smiles on our mothers’ faces, or the smell of our childhood homes.
Challenge to writers: describe your characters (esp female ones) without ever describing their general attractiveness…none of: cute, sexy, beautiful/gorgeous/ugly, appealing, etc. Instead, describe their features, and let the audience/other characters (through their interactions) make their own judgments about those features. Aside from being meatier (show, don’t tell), this may help you avoid stereotyping features as “pretty/ugly”–different people are attracted to different things, so why should your characters be different, right? Explore attractiveness of a wide variety of features, explore attractiveness as an opinion that some characters have and some don’t, explore attractiveness as something that isn’t just a convention everyone agrees on
i just received a text from my best friend that said “so i think i’m gay” out of literally nowhere
so i’m like “dude sweet for real just like suddenly you realized or?”
and she says “well i pretty much just had sex with a girl so”
AND THEN DOESN’T ANSWER ME FOR AN HOUR
HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT AND THEN NOT EXPLAIN IT AT ALL
update: she couldn’t answer me because was still banging the girl
I wish this wasn’t so glaringly fake cause it would be kinda funny if it were real but its not real so its not funny and I’m being redundant for the purpose of conveying shut the fuck up and don’t make up bullshit for notes
i just scrolled back three months into a conversation to prove you wrong lmao bye bitch get off my fucking post
march 15th primary states: florida, illinois, missouri, north carolina, ohio
ohioan 17 year olds: bernie fought for your right to vote in presidential primaries, so make sure you use it!
also people who want to help out but are not old enough, not in a primary state, etc: you can can phonebank for bernie! this is a tried and true method to rock the vote, it worked in chicago and it will work for march 15th states as well! more info here!
Unfortunately the numbers don’t lie, youth voter turn out is down since 2008. Young voters support Bernie Sanders in overwhelming numbers, 86-14 in New Hampshire. That is massive, even better than Obama. Still, we NEED TO VOTE. We NEED to stay ACTIVE and involved! This political revolution is to make OUR country a better place, we need to quit letting 65 year old voters decide the future of our country. PLEASE REGISTER TO VOTE IF YOU HAVE NOT DONE SO ALREADY! BERNIE SANDERS 2016!
I just registered, it took 5 minutes. All you need is a driver’s license or ID. I don’t like politics on my dash, but I’m reblogging this because no matter who you support, you should register to vote, and this post has a link that makes it very easy to get started.
I don’t appreciate these posts that make it out to be like the only barrier to youths voting is laziness and apathy.
1) as far as I know, there are no systems in place to teach kids how to vote. My mom said she went to catholic school where they actually had field trips to go to voting booths and see how it worked. I don’t know anyone my age that has had that.
2) there is virtually no support for the actual act of voting (which is separate from the act of registering to vote). In Iowa I heard that Bernie sanders was bussing students to the polls so they could vote—why in the hell is he the only one I’ve heard of doing this? By the way, where the hell do you actually go to vote?
3) there is no support for people who face obstacles to getting an ID. No buses, no nothing. You can’t set an appointment to get an ID (at least here because I’ve tried) and actually getting the ID is more complex than voting.
I am so sick of these posts trying to guilt people into voting and then not offering a single piece of support beyond “here is the link to register that I just googled.”
as a young person of color i especially don’t appreciate the condescension as it’s coming mainly from white people.
Melbourne gave their trees ID numbers and email addresses so residents could report downed branches or other problems. Instead, people starting writing their trees love letters.
Sometimes, the trees even write back:
To: Green Leaf Elm, Tree ID 102216529 May 2015Dear Green Leaf Elm, I hope you like living at St. Mary’s. Most of the time I like it too. I have exams coming up and I should be busy studying. You do not have exams because you are a tree. I don’t think that there is much more to talk about as we don’t have a lot in common, you being a tree and such. But I’m glad we’re in this together. Cheers, F”
29 May 2015 Hello F, I do like living here. I hope you do well in your exams. Research has shown that nature can influence the way people learn in a positive way, so I hope I inspire your learning. Best wishes, Green Leaf Elm, Tree ID 1022165
To: Willow Leaf Peppermint, Tree ID 1357982 29 January 2015 Willow Leaf Peppermint, Tree ID 1357982 Hello Mr Willow Leaf Peppermint, or should I say Mrs Willow Leaf Peppermint? Do trees have genders? I hope you’ve had some nice sun today. Regards, L
30 January 2015 Hello, I am not a Mr or a Mrs, as I have what’s called perfect flowers that include both genders in my flower structure, the term for this is Monoicous. Some trees species have only male or female flowers on individual plants and therefore do have genders, the term for this is Dioecious. Some other trees have male flowers and female flowers on the same tree. It is all very confusing and quite amazing how diverse and complex trees can be. Kind regards, Mr and Mrs Willow Leaf Peppermint (same Tree)
some two girls always screaming “OH MY GOD I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN FOREVER” in the hallway
stress breakdowns before finals
gum under your desk, even in schools that have never allowed gum
Jeopardy review
the Cupid Shuffle
shitty cafeteria food
FREEZE
EVERYBODY CLAP YOUR HANDS
What is the pacer
The pacer test. Where you sprint back and forth across the gym and whoever lasts the longest without experiencing heart failure or respiratory distress wins.
The pacer test is a multi-stage
aerobic capacity test that progressively gets faster as it continues.
Line up at the start. The running speed starts slowly, but gets faster
each time you hear this signal: *r2d2 screams
in hell* A single lap should be
completed each time you hear this sound: *digitalized bicycle bell from a five year old about to run your ass over* The second time you fail to complete a lap
before the sound, your test is over. The test will begin on the word
“start.”
Old People Restaurant Scam. You know the scam. Whine about perfectly good food to get some sort of comp.
In their old age, my parents befriended another older couple who would pull this stunt everywhere they went. After my mother told me a few stories about how their new friends had shown them how to get discounted or free meals, I felt like I was suddenly the responsible adult, concerned about the bad influence these people were on my parents.
While visiting my parents with my girlfriend, this other couple attended dinner with us. As I expected, the food was brought to the table and they immediately began dramatically complaining to one another about the quality/taste/temperature/etc. They were making a scene in order to attract the attention of the waitress. When our waitress returned to ask how we were doing, the miserable old bastard who played the lead role in their act took a deep breathe, struck a dramatic pose (with his hand raised to begin gesticulating for emphasis) and bega–I leaned forward and cut him off before he could finish the first word: “Everything is absolutely fantastic. It’s all great! Thank you very much!” She smiled, and began her obligatory “Great, well if you need any–” when he made a second attempt. “We come here all the time an–”. I didn’t acknowledge that he was speaking at all, repeated that all was just as we ordered and thank her again.
He was stunned and thrown off from his routine by my interruption. During this pause the waitress walked away (It seemed clear that she knew what they were trying to accomplish). He turned bright red. I turned to my girlfriend and, smiling and without lowering my voice, stated how pitiful it is that some people could be dishonest, deceitful and put at risk the livelihood of a cook, server or hostess for a pathetic discount or a free early-bird special. My passive-aggressive reverse-parenting broke my parents of the habit in short time.
And baby boomers talk shit about Millennials being entitled
As a Jimmy Johns employee for three years, the largest demographic that scams us for sandwiches are older than 40.
my fav linguistic trend is how younger ppl use “like” to signify paraphrasing and how older ppl dont get it. i’ll say something along the lines of “he was like, ‘fuck off!’” and any older person in the vicinity will be like “did he really say that??” no i was paraphrasing, hence the use of “like” instead of “said.” try to keep up, sandra
sometimes i think a lot about what would have happened if sirius had actually been exonerated at the end of book 3 and harry had gone to live with him and also snape kept his mouth shut and remus kept his job
in the time between sirius being cleared and the end of the school year, sirius starts an intensive course of physical and mental therapy
sirius picking harry up from king’s cross
i know it’s not canon that sirius was an auror after graduating hogwarts but i really like to think he was
anyway once he passes a psych eval he’s reinstated as an auror
kingsley is his partner; they trained together back in the day
it takes kingsley a while but he gets over “sirius black escaped convict and former death eater” and they grow to have a really strong partnership
the rest of the aurors follow suit
the head of the auror office (is it scrimgeour at this point? probably) forming a task force to find pettigrew
sirius wanting to be assigned to that task force but being denied because it’s such a huge conflict of interest
sirius picking up harry from king’s cross when school gets out
both of them really nervous but smiling really big
sirius got a new flat in london in the same neighborhood as his bachelor pad but this one with enough room for both him and harry (and a room that is ostensibly a guest room but really remus uses it all the time that summer)
(he tries to get sirius to let him help with rent and sirius says no because it’s a guest room, remus, you’re a guest, and guests don’t pay rent)
harry spending a lot of time with remus that summer while sirius works
sirius and remus and harry going to the quidditch world cup
ron staying with them in their tent
they get to the top box and they’re in front of the malfoys and sirius just kind of smirks at lucius
sirius’s heart in his throat when he can’t find harry after they’ve gotten the muggles down
sirius almost physically attacking barty crouch for accusing harry of casting the dark mark in the forest
(sirius almost physically attacking barty crouch a lot, tbqh)
sirius trying to be gruff and cheerful when he drops harry off at king’s cross on september first, and thinking about meeting james on that same train 23 years ago
hugging harry tightly but quickly, and harry gripping the back of sirius’s jacket
sirius worried but knowing that remus will look after harry at school
because of how slowly the wheels of justice move, pettigrew’s trial isn’t held until after harry is back at school
remus is there too because they’re both testifying witnesses
it’s a rough day
sirius wondering for a moment if azkaban is a place he’d wish on anyone, even wormtail
then remembering what it felt like to open the door to the cottage at godric’s hollow and seeing james’s body
there on the floor
remus pulls a block of chocolate out of his pocket and hands it to sirius
and then i honestly think sirius would have found a way to get harry out of the triwizard tournament, even if it meant kidnapping the kid
I carefully avoided the car commercial aesthetics or the army recruitment video aesthetics. I avoided making a movie about an army with ranks. I avoided making any kind of message that says war is good. We have enough firepower in the world. I was very careful how I built the movie.
One of the other things I decided was that I wanted a female lead (Babel’s Rinko Kikuchi) who has the equal force as the male leads. She’s not going to be a sex kitten, she’s not going to come out in cutoff shorts and a tank top, and it’s going to be a real earnestly drawn character. One of the decisions we made as we went along in the process of the movie was, let’s not have a love story. Let’s have a story about two people…
I have been offered movies that have huge budgets that have war at its centre and I said, ‘I don’t do that.’ I have two daughters and I wanted to make this movie for kids. It’s my lightest movie and yet it’s one of the most precise, adult exercises in world design I’ve ever made. It has the craft of a 48-year-old (del Toro’s age) and the heart of a 12-year-old.
What I wanted was for kids to see a movie where they don’t need to aspire to be in an army to aspire for an adventure. And I used very deliberate language that is a reference to westerns. I don’t have captains, majors, generals. I have a marshal, rangers…it has the language of an adventure movie. I want kids to come out of the movie and say, I want to be a Jaeger pilot! I really think that would be my dream come true.
tumblr friendships are hard to maintain like im sorry i know i havent talked to you in 5 months but you’re still super rad and i still consider us friends im just dumb
how come there isnt a single college professor out there that realizes the address bar on chrome doubles as a google search. every time i see a professor open chrome and then type in google.com i lose 2 days off my life span
this post is making college professors mad every time i get a notification on this post and its a professor upset that theyve been Called Out i just gain back 2 days of my lifespan so keep it up, i might eventually regain all the days i lost watching yall try to figure out how to use The Internet
I’ve looked at synesthesia a few times in the past in psychology classes and just for personal research and I’ve never thought I had it but I had never heard of lexical-gustatory (words/sounds having a taste) until today’s episode and like…that’s something I’ve always experienced. Like I always just assumed that I had a really weird and intense sense of imagery or something.
But the word “good” tastes like a cold, sweet, flowery, juicy pear; “San Diego” tastes like waffles; the voice of the pastor of the church I went to grade school at tasted like tomato sauce (I would get so hungry during chapel services that my stomach would start rumbling); “cherry” tastes cold and sharp and syrupy sweet, like a slushy; the voice of a girl that went to my church when I was little tasted like biting into a crisp, cold Granny Smith apple when she said certain words; I made a post awhile ago (I’ll try to link to it later when I’m not on mobile) about how RandL’s voices together taste like eating fries with a milkshake.
And it’s all a subconscious thing. Like it’s just always been the natural, automatic response to hearing/seeing certain words/voices. But how do I know if it’s something I have or if I’m just like…trying too hard? Like I don’t want to be one of those people who are like, “oh look at how special/different/unique I am I have this thing that you’ve never heard of,” because people pretending they’re a certain way for attention is one of the most irritating things in the world to me, but like I really feel like this could be a legitimate thing…? But I don’t want to be one of those people if it’s not…?
Okay, sweetie, I feel for you. I have synesthesia in a couple forms (I see words spin in my mind’s eye when I listen to someone talk, and voices or music have colors that look like those sound wave things, sometimes numbers or numerical patterns have musical notes, and people have colors–it’s weird but like my mother is dark green and my dad is dark blue and my roommate is bright green and my friend is dark orange, and the colors seem…pretty much baseless although I’ve never liked bright pink or bright orange people much) and I had EXACTLY THAT FREAK OUT. Like, when I’m on the spot I have trouble putting it into words, so I kind of went “right, I’m fooling myself into thinking I’m unique, bad Moran, no biscuit.” But…like…once you start paying attention to it, it’s hard to ignore. So finally I went to my psych teacher and described it and she was like “you have synesthesia” and I blinked at her and went “but it’s not strong enough to be synesthesia” and she gave me what I think is still some of the best advice I’ve ever heard on the subject.
It’s your brain. You’ve always had it. If one sense hooks into another sense in any way, it’s going to feel normal to you, and it might be totally unremarkable to you because you’ve always been this way. You feel me? It’s the same as when my therapist was like “Novel thought, possibly part of the reason exams and busy work are hard for you is because you’re ADHD” and my response was (I kid you not) “Everyone has trouble sitting still for more than ten minutes.” Until someone brought it up with me, I thought it was perfectly normal that I can’t sit still for more than ten minutes or concentrate on a single thing for more than ten minutes, because it just…never occurred to me.
Fortunately, synesthesia is 100% subjective and based on your own experiences, so here’s the only question you need to answer to put your concerns to bed (not permanently, these concerns will be back, but less often maybe). Do you recall this phenomenon of words–>tastes happening before you found the phrase ‘lexical-gustatory synesthesia?’ If so, then it’s not your brain manifesting things to make you feel ‘special,’ no matter how much you worry about such a thing. Please collect your party hat and club jacket on the table to your left.
