Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
azurelunatic: Jago guarding Bren, captioned "man'chi". (Cover art from C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series.)  (man'chi)
Tape: Anyone who has read C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen and understands the term as defined there is excused from this part of the lecture.

Anyone who is planning to read it fairly soon is likewise excused on account of spoilers, though spoilers for infodump sections of a fifteen-year-old book is a bit of a silly proposition.

Read more... )

I read this book young. I'm glad that I read it when I did, because I wouldn't be the same person I am today had I not.

There are, in my life, certain formative books that resonate strongly with my deepest values, in part because they helped build those values. (A person who was raised Christian might have this reaction to the Bible and other common Christian sourcebooks. Our parents did not press religion on us, and there don't seem to be many sources of organized religion that don't also make me feel like fleeing. So that's out.) The first two books on my list are Cyteen and Spock's World. This is how your mind works. This is what is important. Never lose sight of these things.

If I'm lost, or floundering, back I go to my tape, seeking understanding and reinforcement of my core values. This is me. This is mine.


bad tape: Personality-programming, inflicted from an external source, that is actually very not good. Roughly similar to "toxic memes". (Same source as the above.)


eetee, eetee logic, eetees in [the] mental basement: Insane. Also same source as the above. As opposed to bad tape, this is home-grown madness, built from inputs that may have been perfectly rational when they came in, but allowed to simmer unchecked by any earth logic. Compare "insane troll logic".


man'chi: Again from C.J. Cherryh's books, but from the Foreigner series, on the other side of old Earth. (This is pretty vague as far as plotwise-spoilers go; this stuff is mostly from the scenario-setting and worldbuilding.)

Colonists went out from Earth and got lost. A good portion of them ended up on a planet already populated by its rightful residents, the very alien but somewhat too-close-for-comfort atevi. Human concepts like "love", "trust", "friendship", "filial piety" -- all unknown to atevi -- and in turn, the biologically-driven atevi familial, emotional and ethical bond of man'chi is similarly foreign to humans.

It's like love. It's like loyalty. It's like the bonds of trust and command that one sees in the better Stargate fics. Man'chi flows up through the social hierarchy to the aiji, the leader, who feels no compulsion of higher loyalty, but collects followers and treats their man'chi with respect and protection.

It's a handy word to describe, quickly, to my fellow fen, certain relationships and scenarios that otherwise defy proper description.


Senior: From Diane Duane's Young Wizards series. Wizards in this series are somewhat informally ranked. Someone who is a Senior, or acting as a Senior, is in at least a vague supervisory/advisory capacity over their more junior wizards.

Adopting things wholesale from fantasy doesn't always work well in pagan circles, particularly when applied large-scale, but this one works all right as a shorthand to describe the relationship between two people, one of whom is somewhat more experienced than the other, who is sometimes giving out advice based on that experience, but is not actually a full-time supervisor-in-faith the way that might be implied with titles such as High Priestess or what-have-you.


c'thia: From Spock's World, a Vulcan word, meaning "reality-truth": that which is, without any spin or pussyfooting or lies.
azurelunatic: Abstract.  (bondmates)
Figment's car is acting up again -- this time, there's a Check Engine light on for his brand-new engine! One hopes it does not have anything to do with the way he and his carpool buddy were tearing the car doors apart to try and fix the windows. (It shouldn't, but you never know if you're clueless about cars, which I am.) So when I wound up getting upset during a conversation, he wound up over here on the bus (because he's not about to drive on the Check Engine light after what happened last time he had a light turn on), and that turned into a serious neckrub (yay tension-relief!) some more talking about things, and a lot of hugging.

Crucial notes in handling one's Lunatic: do not withhold snuggles. Just. Do. Not.

It is also a mark of $FUNKY_GENDER-INEQUAL_CONDITIONING to hold the double standard where if a man presses his attentions on a woman, she is perfectly within her rights to tell him off and/or have Several Burly Friends enforce the rejection, but if a woman presses her attentions on a man, he would be rude to tell her no if he has the slightest interest. (The other, very nasty, side of the standard is the one where the man can press his attentions on an unwilling woman and get away with it, but if a woman tries to assert her interest in an uninterested man without pressing the issue, she becomes the one in trouble. But that wasn't the one that was the issue in this case.)

In this case, the Figment seemed to be holding back on general snuggles because he did not want to be rude to the Lunatic in rejecting some of the Lunatic's advances if the Lunatic should get fresh with him, which did Not Go Over Well once we figured out that this was what was going on, pretty much. I explained in no uncertain terms that I had no problem with him rejecting any advances he found inappropriate, but I did have a very definite problem with not getting an appropriate amount of snuggle time. And since snuggle time is the most crucial ingredient in my general stress management suite, a sudden lack of snuggle time meant a lack of effective stress management.

When the Figment pointed out that the Darkside could snuggle the Lunatic, the Lunatic burst into tears. The Darkside does not snuggle, in general. The Lunatic has not seen the Darkside in person since mid-February, and has now gone for two weeks without talking to the Darkside, neither of which is a good thing.

That was when the Figment elected to show up on the Lunatic's doorstep via the bus, and lo, there was Much Snuggling, and debate of Birthday Party Fun, as the Lunatic's birthday is coming up. And the Lunatic got some Sleep.

Profile

azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)
Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺

June 2025

S M T W T F S
12 3 456 7
8910 11121314
151617 18192021
22232425262728
2930     

Most Popular Tags

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Style Credit

Page generated Jul. 1st, 2025 04:54 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios