#(said in an a-spec way)

[icewindandboringhorror]

I know this is just a silly bad quality random screencap of a screencap that I found on facebook lol, BUT it's a succinct enough image to easily describe the concept in a quick/accessible way hopefully :

-

(and of course, feel free to elaborate in tags, etc.! (especially elaborating about other senses as well.. can you "hear" in your mind just as well as you can "see"? taste? etc.) It's an interesting topic to me, as someone who's like a 4.5 at MOST lol. I'm curious what option will be the most common :0c )

[whollyjoly]

so aisha just tweeted this....

and im looking at those last two emojis 😐😳....

and i remember that lou said this....

...and this....

...

...what does it MEAN??

[2pen2wildfire]

Y'know I identified as asexual for like, a WHILE before eventually realizing I wasn't, and honestly I regret nothing. I mean I was like 15/16 and Mormon (repressed exmo gang eyy✌️) so it's not like I'd be having sex anyway, I wasn't missing out on anything (and aces aren't "missing out" in general, they're doin their own thing and I love that). But in my case identifying the way I did allowed me to step back and just. Get in tune with my emotions and attractions and everything. I'd realized I liked girls at 13 and instantly I thought that meant I had to sexualize them, objectify them even. And that led to a lot of awkward interractions and feeling like shit about myself for being creepy (didn't help that I'm autistic and had trouble figuring out what was too much). So I really think I needed to be ace for a while. I needed that time to let myself desexualize love and attraction in my brain until I was in a place where I could express sexuality in a healthier way. In a similar way I think it was good that I went through so many gender and sexual/romantic orientation labels before settling on what I am now, because it allowed me to analyze why I identify this way and what it means to me. My identity is stronger and more solid because of the way I grappled with it throughout highschool, and I learned a whole lot about other communities along the way!

[eddiegettingshot]

“you just want to see buck heartbroken and miserable” well, i did enjoy watching him get struck by lightning and die. and i liked that he was passively suicidal after his best friend got shot in front of him. i found it compelling when he begged for his emotionally neglectful parents’ love. also when he felt like nothing but defective parts. those were all fun for me. i don’t mind seeing him cry himself to sleep over some guy really it seems like not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things

[fiona-fififi]

Okay, but I propose: Chris finds out that Eddie is literally trying to replace Shannon with a cheap replica, and he gets ANGRY. With no idea about the will, Chris demands he be allowed to go stay with his grandparents permanently. Eddie, feeling like he has no other choice after how badly he's hurt Christopher, agrees. Buck finds out that he's essentially being cut out of Christopher’s life without any say at all, and suddenly all of Eddie's words about Buck not being expendable and about trusting him most with Christopher feel like blatant lies.

[linkbofficial]

it's pride month

here's my favorite queer characters, Canon or otherwise (I was gonna put pictures but guess who didn't know you could only put 10

* Velma Dinkley [Scooby-Doo franchise]- lesbian (shown in recent canon and confirmed on Instagram by a showrunner for Mystery Inc)

* Fred Jones [Scooby-Doo franchise]- bisexual (headcanon)

* Daphne Blake [Scooby-Doo franchise]- demi-biromantic (headcanon)

* Shaggy Rogers [Scooby-Doo franchise]- genderfluid bisexual (headcanon)

* Luz Noceda [The Owl House]- bisexual (canon) genderqueer (heavily implied/popular headcanon)

* Amity Blight [The Owl House]- lesbian (shown in canon)

* Eda Clawthorne [The Owl House]- bisexual (symbolized in canon with her chest having a bi sticker)

* Raine Whispers [The Owl House]- nonbinary sapphic (shown in canon, addressed as they, dating Eda)

* Hunter [The Owl House]- bisexual (confirmed on Twitter?)

* Willow Park [The Owl House]- pansexual (confirmed in the same tweet as Hunter? it was either a live or on Twitter idr)

* Lilith Clawthorne [The Owl House]- aroace (confirmed on twitter)

* Dipper Pines [Gravity Falls]- trans demi bisexual (headcanon)

* Mabel Pines [Gravity Falls]- demigirl bisexual (headcanon)

* Wendy Corduroy [Gravity Falls]- bisexual (implied confirmation by Alex on Twitter, otherwise very popular headcanon)

* Ford Pines [Gravity Falls]- trans aroace (headcanon)

* Link [The Legend of Zelda]- nonbinary demiromantic (headcanon)

* Princess Zelda [The Legend of Zelda]- genderfluid demi-biromantic asexual (headcanon and a mouthful of one at that)

* Queen Elena [Elena of Avalor]- genderqueer aroace lesbian (headcanon)

* Naomi Turner [Elena of Avalor]- genderqueer bisexual (headcanon)

* Mateo de Alva [Elena of Avalor]- queer, both in gender and orientation (headcanon)

* Gabe Nuñez [Elena of Avalor]- genderqueer aroace (headcanon)

* King Roland & Queen Miranda [Sofia the First]- bi4bi (headcanon)

* Cedric the Sorcerer [Sofia the First]- trans gay man (headcanon)

* Charlie Morningstar [Hazbin Hotel]- bisexual (canon)

* Vaggie [Hazbin Hotel]- lesbian (canon)

* Alfred & Co [The Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog]- biromantic (headcanons)

* Jesse [Minecraft: Story Mode]- genderfluid bisexual (headcanon)

* Lukas [Minecraft: Story Mode]- transmasc bisexual (headcanon)

* Petra [Minecraft: Story Mode]- lesbian (headcanon)

* Axel [Minecraft: Story Mode]- agender gay (headcanon)

* Olivia [Minecraft: Story Mode]- transfem aroace (headcanon)

* All Romanceable Palians [Palia]- bi or pansexual (canon through game play, character can be either or and they will all accept your romantic advances)

* Mulan [Once Upon a Time]- lesbian (canon)

* Regina [Once Upon a Time]- lesbian (headcanon)

* Emma Swan [Once Upon a Time]- bisexual (headcanon)

* Hiro Hamada [Big Hero 6]- enby aroace (headcanon but it mightve been confirmed don't quote me)

* GoGo [Big Hero 6]- bisexual (headcanon)

* Honey Lemon [Big Hero 6]- pansexual (headcanon)

* Wasabi [Big Hero 6]- enby bisexual (headcanon)

* Fred [Big Hero 6]- genderfluid gay (headcanon)

[soullessduck13]

i think Wayne is aromantic but does not realise it because he just loves romance!!! if he could read he’d only be reading romance novels and the movies he watch when he’s not watching (or playing) hockey are romcoms

he’d love to be taken on dates and take people on dates but that man has never had a crush on anyone ever. he’s not bothered by it at all he’s just like man. thats really unlucky! i’ll find my forever person someday! 😊

[deadnatura11]

Actually, here's how Bobby and Athena's house being blown up can lead to Buck moving in with the Diazes:

- Buck lets Athena and Bobby stay at his loft while he recovers

- Buck moves in with the Diazes

That's it.

[thesherrinfordfacility]

LWA: Some more idle thoughts about narrative construction and both seasons, prompted by your reflections about AWCW's inability to see consequences and Aziraphale's already-vivid awareness of them.

Crowley's and Aziraphale's pre-Fall selves are already set into their post-Fall approaches to consequences. Aziraphale, given adequate data, is very good at predicting the most plausible consequences of any given action; unfortunately, he's also very good at predicting consequences when he only thinks he has adequate data, which leads to repeated disasters (both the 1862 fight and the end of s2ep6 being the most obvious examples). It's not an accident that he's good at interpreting prophecy. It may also explain the weird Jane Austen misreading, which has nothing to do with how Aziraphale fell in love (past) but everything to do with constructing an iron-clad narrative in which there's a definite, logical romantic outcome (future). AWCW is politically naive, but fallen Crowley /still/ can't predict what ought to be the completely logical consequences of his actions. (Hence perhaps his own misreading of Richard Curtis, which mistakes the climax of a romcom for its inception.) S1ep1 keeps coming back to the fallout of Crowley pitching his stories too well to his demonic audience. He takes down the cell tower and does himself in, turns the M25 into a sigil and both gets trapped on it and temporarily murders an awful lot of people, and...then there's my favorite bugbear. Fans tend to overlook the likely outcome of Aziraphale giving in to Crowley's manipulation and killing the Antichrist, thanks to Madame Tracy stepping in, but beyond the cruelty /this is not something that Aziraphale could have survived/ (figuratively or literally). I was thrown straight out of the S2 episode in which Crowley gives away the entire bodyswap to Gabriel/Jim during his "protective" outburst, because as script-writing goes that there was a decision, but I have to grouchily concede that if Gaiman were to show up and remind me about the child murder business, he would have a point about narrative plausibility.

Crowley genuinely doesn't appear to believe that his relationship with Aziraphale has a developmental narrative. There's no story to be told about it. As I've said here before, his accounts of their relationship do not square either with what's on the screen or with what the actors have said they're playing. For Crowley, they've always been friends, they've always been a couple, they've always had the same kinds of conversations, whereas what's dramatized onscreen is a more heavily-romanticized take on the /book/ narrative, in which they gradually become friends over the course of centuries. There's no sign that /Aziraphale/ believes they've always been friends or a couple, which may be one of the reasons that Crowley's confession doesn't land.* In fact, one of the things that is now starting to bug me is the problem of Aziraphale's relation to Crowley-as-angel, because Aziraphale's problematic assumptions about fallen Crowley's continuity with AWCW (he's not trying to reverse-engineer Crowley, he really believes demon!Crowley effectively still /is/ angel!Crowley, just grumpier) mirror Crowley's refusal to acknowledge that his relationship with Aziraphale has an actual plot.

My take is that Aziraphale could obviously have done a much better job, Crowley-wise, of accepting the Metatron's proposal, but there's nothing to indicate that he could have done anything /else/. It's not just a mirror of Beelzebub's ep1 proposal to Crowley, but a warped mirror, in which the whole point of the "coffee or death" dialogue is that the Metatron is not really offering Aziraphale a choice in the matter.

afternoon LWA, hope you're well!!!✨

i didn't think to look laterally (not to this extent, anyway) at aziraphale and crowley when comparing their pre-fall selves with them later on in the narrative, but that's really fun to consider!!!

i absolutely love this interpretation of aziraphale's inner thought process, because whilst i had never really thought to see aziraphale as having an analytical personality type, he absolutely does; his approach to pretty much anything appears to be very systematic. in fact, im struggling somewhat to think of an instance where im confident that aziraphale reacts completely intuitively... maybe when he squares off against satan (crowley comes up with the time-stop, but where aziraphale chooses to face the devil down feels like he does so without any idea of how it could end)? any other action aziraphale takes, or words he says, feels like they've been very carefully deliberated over before delivery, even if he knows the outcome is going to be... well, shit.

you mention 1862 and ep6 as two examples, but, to me, aziraphale's way of thinking vs crowley's (which i'll come back to) is just encapsulated neatly in the entirety of s1; there are so many examples of where aziraphale consistently reacts to incoming data (when he discovers it or - when he deigns to - when crowley tells him stuff), and acts accordingly, and then immediately cycles back to analysing the result when it doesn't work.

my day-job (GO is practically The Other Job at this point) is largely based around analysis and research, and i regularly use a few thought models (maybe not consciously, but it's second nature at this point) in approach to a problem/question. so looking at the overall context of s1, aziraphale appears to follow a similar process:

scanning (identify the problem: the apocalypse)

analysis (gathering information/data, and identifying mitigating factors or outlying data: e.g. the hellhound conundrum, agnes' prophecy, adam is in tadfield, heaven actively wants the apocalypse)

response (how can the problem/question be addressed, and take into account any extraneous data that may affect the result: e.g. stop the dog, return to tadfield, engage shadwell and the WA, consult a higher authority through the portal, finds a human to 'possess' and get to tadfield)

assessment (the impact of the response, and any splinter effects or conclusions that the response initiated: e.g. realising that they had the wrong boy, identifying the right boy, where the apocalypse would happen, and that he and crowley were alone in stopping it themselves).

the last bit is especially indicative to me of aziraphale being analytical; he hears crowley say that god would not speak to him, but he still tries because it's a viable solution to scrutinise, and when it fails he immediately re-evaluates and then contacts crowley to try out an alternative, and share the information he has, because ultimately crowley ended up - on this count - being correct in his own initial, instinctive assessment.

obviously those phases of problem-solving throughout s1 are non-linear, and instead completely cyclical; aziraphale takes into account different factors and data at individual points in the story, and repeatedly comes up with various options in which to respond to problems as more data materialises - he continuously reassesses. initially, his approach to the problem of armageddon was to Not Act, and allow it to happen, because it was the great plan, and as an angel it was logical to him that whatever god had planned was for the best, was what was always intended, and would only ever be Good because... well, it came from god, right? had he perhaps thought a touch more intuitively, followed his instinct (which is arguably to thwart armageddon, the same conclusion crowley arrived at), he would have probably leapt on the chance to follow crowley's proposal... or possibly even proposed it himself.

but as it stands, he doesn't, and crowley gives him reason after reason to do so. all of this builds as significantly compelling data to aziraphale - to the point that when he's fully analysed (at this point) the potential outcome of Not Acting vs. Acting, he chooses to Act - a conviction that he sticks to. even at the bandstand, he doesnt sway on wanting to stop armageddon, but that the way that crowley proposes they do so not only directly conflicts with aziraphale's moral boundaries (killing a mf child), but also conflicts with aziraphale's sense of logic and reason (running away). and then as a last thought for aziraphale; he goes to instinctively shoot adam when crowley pushes for the last time, and is immediately thwarted by madame tracy - she does it as an emotional, knee-jerk, moral-based, human reaction, "you can't just shoot children!" - but given that that reaction is what aziraphale actually agrees with, it only reinforces that his way of thinking, logically and analytically, is the correct one, just because they happened to arrive at the same conclusion.

but this is where crowley comes in. crowley on the other hand acts very intuitively, instinctively, and i daresay emotionally - his immediate reaction to delivering the antichrist is panic, and to immediately call aziraphale (the narrative at the very least doesn't show any kind of analysis of the issue on crowley's part - would he have arrived at a different response if he had? and plus, as you say, him taking down the phone network was a class A monkey-paw job, well done crowley). but then he goes on to convince aziraphale into stopping armageddon with him (which, admittedly, does work, but only once crowley changes tack, stops invoking the emotional, and instead lays out the logical, does aziraphale agree).

when the issue arises of the hellhound (which, let's reiterate, crowley did not think to tell aziraphale before this point...), and the prospect of their upbringing plan not working because of this, crowley's reflex is to destroy the antichrist completely - but tempt aziraphale into doing it. when aziraphale pushes back on this more resolutely at the bandstand, crowley's immediate instinct is to just run. fair enough, given that crowley ends up being correct that aziraphale's resolution to beseech to heaven will just go ignored, but he similarly doesn't consider that aziraphale needs to test the hypothesis first, engage a more methodical and strategic approach, before resorting to more scorched-earth measures.

but as you say, this definitely harks back to the pre-fall scene. narratively, we still don't have any confirmation on what leads to aziraphale having any concept of punishment, or a sense of consequence; there is no iron-clad context (that I can see anyway!) as to why aziraphale would start to formulate this rationale - that asking questions might lead to a larger, damning (ha) consequence - when we can only surmise up until this point that angels would consider their creator as benevolent and omniscient.

AWCW presumably doesn't mean anything nefarious behind his questions (i think that can be reliably interpreted from his behaviour and delivery), so why would god ever punish him? this is beside the point, however; in any case, crowley tends to rush to a response, to act, without stopping to consider other factors, other data, and the potential consequences. in the pre-fall scene, if he had acknowledged the warning, the 'data', as it were, that aziraphale was giving to him (that something could go wrong if he continue the path he's walking), he might have arrived at the same action but with considerably more caution, and potentially prevented what happened to him (which, in contextual hindsight, is not necessarily a good thing). we don't have the full narrative yet to tell us what exactly happened during AWCW's fall, but it does seem like crowley is a chronic case of "fuck around - find out."

in this respect i personally find it entirely in character - and rather in-keeping with crowley's overall narrative in both s1 and s2 - that crowley reveals the ruse of the bodyswap in s2; he's not thinking about the consequences that it could have, but thinking entirely based on instinct. he's not thinking about whether gabriel/jim might remember the information, whether gabriel (regardless of his presumed reformation of character in ep6) might exploit that information, but entirely acting on the emotional wave that gabriel is posing a direct risk to aziraphale's safety and wellbeing. plus, we don't know how long he was sat in justine's restaurant for; it's entirely possible that he was three sheets to the wind by the point aziraphale happens upon him.

once again! not sure i arrived at a point! but i think in hindsight this is a really interesting way to read the final fifteen; it's fairly obvious that crowley is acting and reacting emotionally during the feral domestic, and aziraphale is - as metatron-aziraphale theories are indicating at the moment - acting and reacting based on a conclusion he's arrived at from data we've potentially only partially seen/data hidden in plain sight. but then we switch to aziraphale saying "i need you!", which is a hitherto uncommon emotional outburst from him, and crowley... saying nothing. is that crowley's way of thinking logically, analytically? because anything he says is not going to change the outcome - aziraphale will ascend, he will not, and they will still be apart?

on the note of their relationship, it's a really interesting dynamic - how crowley and aziraphale both see it from their perspectives. on one hand, you have aziraphale that goes from crush, to acquaintance, to confidant, to friend, to best friend and person he's in love with. crowley's perspective is... well, it is the same, right? so why does he retrospectively suggest that it's something that it, by all accounts, wasn't? look, maybe crowley was in love from the wall, immediately fell for aziraphale when he told him about the sword - but that's not what's actually shown in the narrative, to the audience. so... if he did, did he even realise it? is that why he looks back on their history as being something that, as far as shown to the audience, it isn't?

the s1 flashbacks are all shown from aziraphale's perspective (why am i only realising this now) - mesopotamia, golgotha, rome, arthurian england, 1601, 1793, 1827, and 1941 all show aziraphale first. the scenes are all set up with aziraphale opening them. it's only eden, uz, 1862, and 1967 that show crowley first... and all of them are pivotal moments for crowley's character development, as well as the development of their relationship specifically. that they learn to confide in each other, then they learn to trust in each other, then they learn the extent of what they mean to each other, and then they learn (or acknowledge) the danger of them being together.

so actually - does crowley think that there's no plot to their relationship? or is it that by 2023, he counts on the fact that the plot has already happened? that the biggest problem they confronted in his view - the holy water and the breaking away from heaven and hell - has been resolved (see: it hasn't), and that they've now reached the happily ever after? rather than the fact that we are actually only just getting to the climax of their personal story? which is also likely the stage that aziraphale was at by ep5, and is considering that crowley, by the time of the confession, is still a chapter ahead? "you go too fast for me, crowley."

(christ i don't even want to know the word count of this answer)

and this is similar potentially to how aziraphale sees crowley own angel-to-demon-to-just-crowley development; that he thinks that crowley as a person would want to be an angel again, "just like the old times, only even nicer", because why wouldn't he? he's a good and kind person, why wouldn't he want to be restored to the station and to the place that - in aziraphale's view - inherently embodies that? heaven has been corrupted, and he could make a difference, but heaven was always meant to be the place of good... right?

well, once again, aziraphale is without data - he doesn't, presumably, fully understand why crowley couldn't ever become an angel again, couldn't set foot in heaven again (not in that capacity, at least). so the conclusion he draws absolutely misses the mark; thinks this is the long-awaited happily-ever-after for crowley, when actually crowley is perhaps a chapter or two behind. s2 has shown more that crowley is able to somewhat accept that he is a good person, but he still has a way to go before he fully acknowledges it, and reconciles that with the, we can only guess, full circumstances of his fall.

last point - so glad that someone else spotted the mirror of the beelzebub proposal in ep1 to the metatron proposal in ep6; i think i gasped when i realised the implication of that conversation between beelzebub and crowley!!!✨

[pixlmonkeys]

not vibing rn tbh

[airenyah]

calling it now:

this

is pat making fun of pa and

there's just something about the way pat says น้องภัทรอยากกินกุ้งอะ [nóng pat yàak gin gûng à]...

tell me this isn't peak sibling behaviour

[astrumocs]

If you're wondering why Jules is so different now, that would be the untreated mental illness,

[pikachuinhightops]

I love standards organizations.

Standards increase interoperability. They do this primarily, and they treat price, complexity, and niche use cases as secondary concerns. Standards also require enforcement and/or adoption.

Government standards organizations tend to rely on enforcement. Metric or imperial units are maintained and enforced by these organizations, and these orgs tend to have more stringent requirements and focus harder on the primary concern of interoperability.

Non-profit and especially tech standards organizations are the opposite of the spectrum tending to rely on adoption and allowing more room for the secondary concerns. This is why they aren't great standards organizations.

HDMI is a great example of this. HDMI was designed by a collaboration between several companies that then created the HDMI Forum to maintain and develop upon the standard. These companies, and all of their adopters have a vested interest in advertising their cables, TVs, and components as HDMI. This is why there is an HDMI Licensing LLC that collects payment for the use of the standard's license.

To the average user, every HDMI cable is the same. Even the difference between HDMI 1.4 or HDMI 2.1 don't seem meaningful to most people. The connector has the same footprint. It fits in the same ports. It has the logo.

In actuality HDMI is one of the most fractured and poorly maintained standards in the industry. Each cable you say may have entirely different feature sets that all technically fall into spec with the standard. Some carry Ethernet over HDMI, some have limited display or audio features down to the bare minimum, and many other variations. If you need one of these feature sets, finding the correct cable can be a nightmare because they all present themselves as HDMI and no less. Many cables boast about their additional features. Many fail to mention they barely meet the spec. Port components are even worse.

All of this is for the sake of advertising. The standard allows for a lot of leeway because the original producers wanted that space to differentiate their products despite nominally using a standard.

This makes the standard less useful as a standard but great as a branding tool. Communicating that you'll be able to make a connection regardless of the fact that that connection might not be between fully compatible devices/cables is a useful tool to appealing to a broad audience. Saying your product is this standard plus all of these extra non standard features is a good way to catch eyes. All of this makes HDMI a highly effective logo on a box but a less effective standard.

"Now Ally, why did you just ramble about tech standards? It's June. Go touch some grass. Hold a boob."

Well you see I've done that and I've held those and this is actually related to pride month. Queer identities are very much like tech standards, only there is no standards organization enforcing what sexuality or gender you get to slap on your box (not a euphemism although I guess you could make it one if you'd like). That said, queer identities function a lot like HDMI. They make for good ways to signal to others that you can make a general connection but they don't guarantee full compatibility. They have other things past the spec tacked onto them for various reasons. They're not perfect as standards because they aren't really standards at all. They just appear to be to folks who are new.

And I want to emphasize that this is fine. This is a feature.

Earlier I mentioned Ethernet over HDMI as a feature set on some cables and ports (it wasn't a standard but I think the forum has created a standard for it since). Ethernet is its own related but different standard that has been tacked on here for a reason that makes sense for the manufacturer and possibly the user. It could not matter for the end user. It could introduce some confusion as a less experienced user tries to understand how that makes sense.

Now imagine you are a baby queer who's only really been exposed to the L G B and T as separate "standards" (thank you for bearing with this ridiculous metaphor). Now someone with a compound or complex identity like say bi lesbian would appear as to be "breaking" the spec. Really they are just Ethernet over HDMI. They're just an extension to the standard and in a similar way to those tech companies they're trying to convey that a connection can be made but they're capable of more.

And that's fine. It's good that we're not so rigid. To have perfectly defined and rigid standards like weights and measures would be suffocating. Let people be weird with it. To folks with complex identities, have a little patience for the folks just trying understand exactly how you work cause well you're not the standard. It's gonna take a sec to get to know you and understand your intricacies.

We're not just cables and ports (I mean some of us are shout out to my fellow robot girls). We're people who are just trying to understand things, connect, and get through it. Be patient with each other whether you've been around a while and have things figured out or if you're new. We're all just trying to find what fits and does what we need.

[victimized-martyr]

oh to be hired as mattrey’s brain trust for a run and help the story be completed on time and support trey where he needed it …

[link-sans-specs]

One centimeter between us!

GMM2445

International Cheetos Taste Test

[quietzap]

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