#in a lot of relevant ways

[victory-cookies]

add another tally to ‘genetic potential for having adhd’ boys. first tick being the fact that my grandfather has it. Second one being that. well I don’t know what my dad has going on but it’s something. Third one being that my sister’s therapist just told her she may have adhd

[makingshortstorieslong]

A little zine about how I (still) have trouble saying the word aromantic.

I've never made a zine before! I was inspired to try it because @queerliblib mentioned a zine making night in an email. That hasn't happened yet - its on June 26th - but once I had the idea, I couldn't wait, lol. It was nice to put something down on paper and have the finished product to hold onto.

Image descriptions under the cut:

Page 1: Three tiny speech bubbles say: "Do you have a bf? Do you like anyone? What's your type?" A big speech bubble says, "Oh, I don't date." The big speech bubble comes from a heart colored like the aromantic flag. 

Page 2 says: I could say: "Actually, I'm... ...aromantic." ...aro." ...aromantic asexual." ...aroace."

Page 3 says: But there are a few problems:

aromantic: Has been misheard as "A Romantic".

aro: Opaque if you don't already know the term.

aromantic asexual: A mouthful! And sounds...scientific?

aroace: shares The Big Problem: it may require a vocabulary lesson!

Page 4 says: It doesn't actually come up too often! Which is fine. My coworkers, my neighbors, and strangers don't need to know I'm aroace. I just wish I could say it sincerely when I do want someone to know. 

Page 5 says: I always have to smile - laugh - hedge. "Oh, well, actually, I'm kind of like, aromantic? Basically just not interested."

It's been more than 8 years since the first time I said it out loud!  I'm certain of it, but I still can't say it like I mean it!

Page 6 says: The most memorable time I said "I don't date" the guy I was talking to asked "Oh are you asexual?" and I said "Yeah, actually. And aromantic." And we moved on.

That was nice. 

Page 7 says:

The times I've lead with "I'm aromantic" -- well, there's only one I really remember:

"I didn't use to think that was a real thing." 

Other than that time -- even if I use the word, I always explain what it means first! 

Page 8 says: I just hope that one day I'll feel like I can say, simply, confidently: "I'm aromantic" and "I'm aroace."

The words "I'm aromantic" are big and dark green, the color of the top stripe of the aromantic flag. The words "I'm aroace" are big and bright orange, the color of the top stripe of the aroace flag. Three hearts below the words are colored to look like the aromantic, aroace, and asexual flags. 

[lucabyte]

even dogs pass the mirror test

[stealingpotatoes]

What are your thoughts on Andor S2 and THAT ending?

I LOVED IT!! STOP TAKING IT IN BAD FAITH AND THINKING OF IT AS A TROPE, IT’S A CONTINUATION OF THE SHOW’S THEMES/DISCUSSIONS!!!! THAT BABY REPRESENTS THE FUTURE!! IT REPRESENTS THE FACT THAT WHILE CASSIAN’S FIGHTING FOR A SUNRISE HE’LL NEVER SEE, FUTURE GENERATIONS WILL GET TO SEE THAT SUNRISE!!!!!! SAME AS KLEYA GETS TO SEE THE SUNRISE!!! ITS ABT THE THEMES!!!!!!!!! ITS NOT A DUMB TRAGIC TROPE!!!!!!!!!!!

[teratomatica]

you always land on all fours

[devotedlystrangewizard]

"ok but not all aroallos are WHORES not all aroallos are SLUTS some of us are NORMAL" ok? maybe i am a whore. maybe i am a slut. who gives a shit. shoutout to horny aroallos shoutout to aroallos who have a lot of sex shoutout to hypersexual aroallos

[tanadrin]

just spitballing here. but. English and many European languages are kinda interesting in that in lots of languages, names are etymologically transparent. older Germanic names were usually just a common noun or two: wolfstone. elf-read. bright-helm. but names are kind of weird as lexical items, and are apt to be borrowed and retained even when they're not lexically transparent (which they don't need to be, since they index people and not things or concepts), and lots of languages even if they once preferred lexically transparent names have acquired a large stock of names whose "meaning" is just an etymological curiosity. european languages really kicked this into high gear by borrowing a ton of latin, greek, and biblical names, and then borrowing and re-borrowing names from each other. i'm sure similar processes have operated in other parts of the world for centuries.

in english specifically, we've also had this phenomenon for centuries now of surnames gradually turning into given names. a lot of times this is because married women passed their names to their children as middle names, and middle names could then be re-used as first names, and of course a lot of times it's just that surnames became etymologically opaque, and if "chandler" doesn't mean "one who makes candles" to you, why not use it as a first name?

on top of that, surnames are also apt to cross language boundaries; English doesn't have a consistent system of phonetic spelling; and even within English surnames can exist in many slight variations which reflect minute linguistic differences or just variable spelling habits in the medieval and early modern period. in regions with high immigration you also have the melange of other languages' names entering your language, and often (though not always) retaining their spelling according to a different scheme. Sean, for instance, which is orthographically opaque in English, but perfectly phonetic in Irish

oddly names are one of the only lexical items in English which do not have a fixed spelling now--English did eventually settle on a preferred spelling for its whole vocabulary (though not a consistent spelling), except for personal names. if you spell your name shaun or shawn or sean, people accept these as normal variants of a common name. if you spell "brought" as "brawt," "brot," or "brotte," people think you're an idiot.

all of which is to say that even before you get into the social and psychological dynamics of why parents might choose to do so, the phenomenon of bestowing on your child (or even yourself) a name with a deliberately unusual or creative spelling seems quite historically contingent. that's pretty interesting.

[luna-loveboop]

Had the dumbest conversation with my sister and it reminded me of these two. Sending a resume including SCUBA ocean diving certifications without context while applying for a job seems like something Wind would do.

:)

[crabsnpersimmons]

"Hair dyes or perms or just a quick snip, you can always count on your ol' pal Clip!"

it's about time i officially shared my design for Clip from my hairdresser au! here's the silly boi himself!

a.k.a. the most complicated character i've ever designed...

close ups and additional comments under the cut!

that's my boi, despite his crazy design, i love him. his silly top knot hat, the horn-like points around his faceplate, his speckled colours, his four arms, and his funky pants. he's just soooooo fun.

Clip likes to play games and knit! he even made the patchwork pants he wears (he made Sun and Moon a pair too, but they're too precious for them to wear... also a little gaudy to wear in public—doesn't stop Clip tho!). He actually makes everything the boys wear, since there's not a lot of things in their size/shape.

instead of resting at night, he can be found in their living room, playing Kirby 64 for the nth time and/or knitting something. he's just too restless to stay still, he's always gotta be doing something and if it isn't gaming, knitting, or hairdressing, then he's up to No GoodTM.

Clip... likes popping balloons. he says "Goodnight!" with each popped balloon and once he's done, he tosses up the scraps like confetti all while giggling joyfully.

needless to say, he is not fun at parties. Sun and Moon don't let him near balloons for this reason.

and yes, he has sewing needles on hand at all times. for fashion emergencies... and for unsuspecting balloons.

Clip's not allowed to have a phone (just imagine all the in-app purchases Sun and Moon would have to deal with), but he likes to keep up with his customers and their games, even if he doesn't get their fixation over bluenets he'll never openly admit it but he prefers curly-haired blond hunks that look sweet in soft pastels but could also squash him like the spider he is

also, he's great at microbraiding! though i imagine if Sun and Moon are free, they'd come help to shorten the wait but also to compete and see who braids the most (Clip always wins of course—make anything into a game, and he's winning)

aaaaand there's this! i wanted to make sure Clip would be able to freely rotate his waist so his arms could have their full range of motion, and this was the solution i came up with: a crop top on top and a wrap around his waist. and Clip here is being a sneaky little scamp about it.

[da-janela-lateral]

Terumob is an excellent ship to me for a variety of reasons, but one of my highlights is the fact that on one hand you have a blond boy with the most absurd coping mechanisms ever seen by man, who spent years being suffocated by apathy and loneliness and spite only to be absolutely obliterated by a random kid who introduced him to the concept of "You're A Human Person With Flaws", and as a consequence developed an unhealthy homoromantic obsession with him (as rivals of course) until he is obliterated again, but this time with the revelation that his dear rival also is a Human Person With Flaws and that doesn't stop blond boy from loving him even if it gets him killed.

On the other you have another boy with bad coping mechanisms, but that in the tiniest outcome he starts liking blond boy back, it is pretty normal and unrelated to all the dramatic obsessive previously mentioned things. There is no tragic flair its just that his good friend is handsome and kind with him.

[wardensantoineandevka]

This rendering of readerly empathy outlined here seems to describe how fiction is received today. If something horrible acts upon a character, the reader can sometimes feel as though the author is punishing some innocent little doll baby with whom the reader has overidentified. The character has become a de facto stand-in for the reader, so the character carries this burden of readerly expectation. Thus, for a character to feel real, we shave down the contours of their lives and their interiority until they match what readers know of their own flow of thoughts and life events. I believe that this accounts for what feels to me like a decline in character in contemporary fiction.

— Brandon Taylor, "False Light: Moral Worldbuilding and the Virtues of Evil"

[windcarvedlyre]

I've been following @druidposting's DR2 playthrough on discord and we just had a really good discussion about DR's Closing Arguments. Specifically the way the murderer is depicted as grey and featureless, which until now I found a bit annoying.

In Danganronpa it's repeatedly the case that we don't have the full picture until the talking actually stops- which always goes beyond the end of the trial. We generally vote first and come to understand what the murderer's actual motive was, sometimes filling in important pieces of the timeline in the process, afterwards.

But none of that matters for the killing game because characters' emotions aren't directly relevant to who was the 'blackened'- the only thing that matters to Monokuma- so it comes out afterwards and does nothing to change their execution. It doesn't matter how sympathetic they are (basically everyone) or whether other people share responsibility for the situation (eg. Hanamura, Pekoyama, Momota) or whether they intended to murder at all (Nanami). They objectively pulled the trigger and nothing else matters. Nothing about them as a person matters.

The Closing Argument mechanic might illustrate that problem- literally. They're a dramatic, conclusive summary of the entire case... constructed before the vote even happens, before we know if we're actually right, and they're missing something really important:

The actual perpetrator.

We quite literally don't even begin to see the real person behind the crime, any real exploration of their mental state, anything besides the cold, hard facts of the murder that are necessary to convict them, until the comic finishes and the protagonist makes their final accusation- replacing the grey figure with their real appearance in a shot that's often intensely emotional.

And these comics lack crucial parts of the case's timeline and sometimes important parts of the very scenes they depict that we only find out about afterwards. And those are what we know; characters may die with some pieces of the truth and prevent us from ever learning them. These aren't objective depictions of the murder, they're the protagonist's subjective attempt to connect the facts they have. A join-the-dots portrait of someone with missing dots and no colour.

Even characters' expressions may not match how they truly feel, with the grey placeholder potentially looking way more confident and sinister than they were in reality. Pasting Falter's commentary here since they put it well.

For obvious reasons this could especially be a problem for characters that die before the trial- the ones we never get a post-vote testimony from. DR1 chapter 4 really highlighted that in the way Asahina's huge misinterpretation of Oogami's feelings took up a lot of the post-trial discussion, only for Monokuma to reveal Oogami's real suicide note and recontextualise everything.

It might really be a problem for how Komaeda's depicted in DR2 chapter 5. While he isn't greyed out, we get panel after panel where he's either level-headed or maniacally evil, and even the depictions of his self-torture and death don't humanise him:

But we know that his real feelings were more complicated than that. We have his actual corpse to compare the last page to.

He died afraid.

If we approach the comic as Hinata's mental image of him instead of reality, he died without anyone truly understanding him. He was alarming, very hard to relate to, actively fought against people doing so, ensured even the killer didn't watch him die, and the survivors couldn't begin to understand his motive until a chapter later. The Closing Argument reflects that.

Early in DR1 Togami calls out the rest of his class for judging others by their own standards. However, he, too, is doing this, maybe more so than many other characters; his inability to view other people through anything but the cold, brutal logic of the killing game bites him in the ass in chapter 4. In DR2 chapter 2 voting without a good understanding of Pekoyama's motive or Kuzuryuu's involvement nearly got everyone killed. Komaeda's a walking embodiment of the problems with flattening people into caricatures and not empathising with them, suffered from people doing that back to him, and his case- the Closing Argument for which turned everyone else into grey placeholders- was impossible to solve with objective facts. It was only survivable because the survivors cooperated and one person tried to analyse things the way he would.

The games have always been a critique of the justice system and Japanese society and push us to care about others as individuals, not reduce them to- and judge their right to exist by- something they've done or their net impact on society. There are always consequences when someone neglects to do that, and the above might be yet another way the games explore that theme.

[sandwichsapphic]

the letterboxd top fours of select jeeves and wooster characters

these are just my choices for laughs!!

bertie:

Clue (1985), Charade (1963), The Birdcage (1996), and My Man Godfrey (1936)

jeeves:

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), La Belle et La Bête (1946), Roman Holiday (1953), and The Lion in Winter (1968)

dahlia:

The Death of Stalin (2017), Knives Out (2019), Adam’s Rib (1949), and His Girl Friday (1940)

bingo little:

The Ex-Mrs Bradford (1938), Ocean’s Eleven (2001), Pretty Woman (1990), and National Velvet (1944)

stiffy byng:

Paper Moon (1973), Gone Girl (2014), Pearl (2022), and How To Steal a Million (1966)

madeline bassett:

La La Land (2016), Enchanted (2007), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), and Sabrina (1954)

[100line]

My one thing with Ena is I am PETRIFIED it will be killed by the same thing that has killed every indie internet thing that has gotten popular, which is a fandom’s desire for “lore” cannibalizing the media as people obsessively strip it of all meaning by trying to connect all the dots.

Ena presents this amazing insane world that doesn’t make sense at all but you get a sense of the internal logic that somehow governs it. It’s a very very tricky line Joel G walks and I’m amazed he’s able to do it. Dream BBQ, because it’s a game, lets you tug at the thread a little bit but doesn’t let you unravel the mystery, which is neat. Praying they continue to maintain that balance.

[bakwaaas]

there’s such an interesting overlap with sociology and healthcare. like the difference in the way people from different ethnicities and cultures interact with healthcare systems is so evident and the way things like cultural values, beliefs and language barriers affects health outcomes and population health. I feel like there’s so much work that could be done there. I would actually love to go into policy or public health

[yakkety-yak-art]

for some reason I woke up a couple weeks ago and, after not really thinking much about the mcu at all for years, the flame of righteous indignation on behalf of civil war team cap and at the implications of the accords on all enhanced people in the mcu which I had starved as a fourteen year old in 2016 who was terrified of getting into arguments and of disagreeing with people to the point that I was a literal cacw centrist when asked about it suddenly rose up within me as an inferno, and I suddenly remembered how much I do Not Like tony stark.