"It could totally be a Walsh thing, my mom is pretty excellent? She brought me agglos and paralyzed amphisbaena when I was a baby who longed for nothing but violence." 

"Is it really violence if they're paralyzed."

"If they start out paralyzed but in one piece, and end up the consistency of chunky salsa, it's totally violence." 

Heeee does not feel like this is going to make Atalanta very happy. How about he engage with the object level to move away from the Implications™. "My dad wasn't like that at all. He and Magistra Rhys kept trying to make me not kill every mal I saw. It didn't work, but they tried."

('Chunky salsa' gets a mild snort of amusement out of her, at least.)

"Mine mostly wanted me to do... other things? Not 'not kill mals' more 'yes watch Disney movies with Chloe' or whatever."

"My dad was all 'please have a normal childhood' and my mom was like 'my priorities are my kid being safe and happy, and I do not care if she wants to finger-paint with their blood after they're dead if it accomplishes those goals.' --Dad was, like, an amount, appeased by 'laser tag with the other enclave kids,' which was sufficiently weapons-training-adjacent to interest me."

"Huh, we were gonna try that once but I think something went after Julia and then we all went home instead."

"Julia? I don't think I have a Julia."

"I definitely don't have a Julia." 

It's great how when these guys go around the circle sharing their life stories Atalanta can just stand here with her arms folded and not contribute.

...that said, "Doesn't ring a bell for me either."

He'd ask if Julia was a boy instead in theirs but he is abruptly blanking on her last name. It is definitely not "Julia, You Know, From New York", even though that is what he'd say if somebody asked him which Julia. He can't remember her parents' names either. Or their faces. He does remember her sister's name. He remembers the first half of her sister's name, actually. It's Anna-something. Annamaria or Annabella or Annalisa or something. No, Annalisa's some indie kid, right? The one who looks violently enraged whenever he spots her in the language lab studying French. ...none of this matters to the situation at hand. He finishes his float.

"So, while we're talking about our Magisters Rhys, mine is definitely an evil maleficer, Orion is under the impression his is not, where are you on that?"

Oh my god you can't just TELL people your PARENT is an EVIL MALEFICER no good would come of saying this out loud with her mouth parts.

"...if I were to guess which of my parents is an evil maleficer I'd have said Magistra Rhys but I don't think I'd have said either of them is one?"

What the fuck.

"Because the obvious answer for why we get mana from stuff and now why we're all shiny is that we're part mal, right, and I figure if I'm right then you guys, uh, deserve to know." 

"...I don't think that's obvious at all! That's not a thing! How would that be a thing!"

"It's just my affinity, affinities are weird!"

"Evil maleficing! Presumably! Admittedly it is almost certainly less obvious if you don't know your Rhys is an evil maleficer. Or, like, if they're not. It's possible they're not, especially if I'm wrong about what's up with us. Orion could be right, El's shiny and a little OP and she, like, the opposite of has a maleficer parent." 

"I have one of those!"

"Oh awesome! She's great! She--okay I should not spill her personal business all over someone who knows another one of her, she'd've been so pissed if I knew stuff about her before she told me, but she's so cool, she called me Santa Lucia to my face when everyone else just calls me that behind my back, and she did it sarcastically, and she's just, so unimpressed, with everyone's bullshit." 

"Santa? The presents and Coke guy?"

"It actually just means saint but we did make presents and coke--well, just presents--related jokes about it later." 

"I don't think anybody does that about me... but yeah I have one and she's neat."

"I don't think I have an El but 'sarcastic, shiny, definitely not a mal' describes my Yvette...?"