HOW THE TURNTABLES

I will admit I hate the trend towards measuring how Healthy fictional relationships are. they're not breakfast cereals! we don't need to measure the amount of fiber! even if it did matter how much fiber a fictional relationship has "healthy" is also a very general, vibes-based word for concepts that I think we probably should get more specific about

welp i guess that poll shows that a lot of people don't think aros are queer just by virtue of being aro, instead we need to have some other "more valid" queer identity in order to consider ourselves queer

Screwllum watching the Aetherium Wars Tournament because of Silver Wolf's persistence, and calling her "an old Stellaron Hunter friend of mine", was really cute

Hey not to be a bitch or anything but maybe don't tag my posts where I talk about my very real trauma disorder that affects me in real life with some fandom nonsense

boy howdy the smiths tag on a03 this past week has been something hasn't it

unfinished cleo i am drawing because i love how they're coming out and with how my attempts at colouring fire are going so far this might not be finished for a good while

beau is sooo messy i'm obsessed with him. him being happy to see felix seemingly flourishing and being more confident etc but also feeling weird and almost jealous at the fact that it used to be just him that got to see felix that way. that he used to be the only reason for it. and like he KNOWS that's a messy and kind of fucked up way to think about it but he also knows he's in a really weird spot emotionally and can't help it

man. i wasn't expecting to relate to super as much anymore because of it being a coming of age story and i'm older now compared to when i first played it at age 15 (as opposed to gates' story, which only gets more relatable the older i get), but as someone who felt like i was never really allowed to make my own decisions and learn on my own and instead had to have everything be decided for me because the people around me didn't have faith that i could make my own choices (because of autistic reasons), and was only recently given that freedom at the age of 23 after having to really fight for it, this stuff with the adults in serene village thinking hero and partner are just being foolish children for wanting to leave the village but later supporting their dreams and the opportunity to grow is hitting especially hard on this playthrough

weird how have got seems like it should be a past form of "get" but in american english is actually equivalent to "have" in the present tense:

what have you got there? -> what do you have there? i've got rhythm -> i have rhythm you don't know what you've got till it's gone -> you don't know what you have till it's gone

while got by itself can be either a past form of "get" or a shortened form of have got with the "have" dropped:

i got you, babe -> i've got you -> i have you i got you! -> what you say once you've caught a toddler you were chasing around saying "i'm gonna get you!" to

so got is a form of the verb "get", but when used as a past participle, it's a form of the verb "have". the past participle of "get" is not got but rather gotten (in american english). and got can only be used as a particle in have got; had got is generally not used (again, in american english; i know it works differently in, e.g., some uk dialects). so:

got: simple past of get, or a shortening of have got (present of have)

have got: present of have

have gotten: present perfect of get

*had got

had gotten: past perfect of get

i'm not sure entirely how this came to be, but i wonder if it's because of the get=acquire and have=possess senses; that is, once you acquire something, you now possess it, so to get something in the past is to have it in the present. but it's complicated by the fact that the have in have got is functioning as an auxiliary used to form a compound verb tense, rather than as the "have" that means "possess", even though the full phrase have got is equivalent to the "have" that means "possess".

this was too long for twitter but honestly i was pleasantly surprised about the publicity for heartstopper because i expected everyone on twitter to be like "wELL if every single actor doesn't immediately come out to everyone then how do we KNOW all the queer characters are actually being played by queer actors hmMM??" bc yknow. the internet is just Like That 🙃

and heartstopper's response (bc they almost certainly anticipated this) was literally just like "we have a queer cast, trust us, and not a single person in the cast owes you any more information than that. not to MENTION we go above and beyond to show you that this tv series was CREATED not only by an openly queer author who was given FULL control to write the entire screen adaptation of their own graphic novels, but also by a openly queer director who specifically made sure to hire as many queer workers as possible for every. other. department of the show. because yes, it's super important that queer actors play queer characters; but it's even MORE important that the representation extends FAR beyond the people you see on screen."

bc THAT IS HOW YOU HAVE GOOD REPRESENTATION. NOT forcing all of your actors to spend every single interview fielding questions about their own personal gender & sexual identities. good representation is making sure that―unlike the majority of films and tv shows, sadly―if you look beyond the main cast, the roles of director/producer/writer/photographer/makeup artist/crew member/etc are ACTUALLY fulfilled by a diverse group of talented people. true representation doesn't stop at the actors, or the portrayal of characters. it goes all the way up the ladder to everyone making the movie/tv show/etc happen in the first place. change can't happen long-term unless "older," well-established people in the industry (like euros lyn) use their position to create opportunities for fresh, new, young, diverse talent.

tldr heartstopper is a brilliant example of how to properly create a series both by and for the lgbtq+ community, and i was SO relieved to see all the publicity revolve around the story and the actors and the importance of representation WITHOUT requiring anybody who wasn't already out to clarify anything about themselves.

(ramble mostly inspired by this and sourced from this, if you haven't watched the video you 100% should !!! also ofc special shoutout to kit for taking absolutely no shit from twitter)

1bitJanuary Day 6- favorite ship

It's Izuchi/Sagara btw Kirai doesn't have anything to do with this.

even aside from being willfully gross and/or outstandingly obtuse, the sentiment of ‘i don’t care what staff says, i’m going to do this thing anyway/i wish they hadn’t clarified this, it’s more boring compared to leaving it to interpretation‘ is so fucking disrespectful to Undel.

in case anyone forgot, these are her characters. obviously i’m sure she gets opinions from her coworkers, especially those that help with working on writing the lore onsite, but since the beginning they have been hers and she’s clearly had a particular vision for everything. she made them. it is no different from you or i making up a funny little guy in our head and giving them a name, and a backstory, and a personality.

imagine if you showed your OC to people and said ‘this is my character. this is what they are like.‘ and the people acted like you’d just kidnapped their grandmother for laying out basic info about your own creation. ‘why would you say this about them,’ ‘why would you do that with them.’

obviously, those questions can have a great deal of nuance with them. but we all know what the hell i’m talking about right now.

‘well i don’t care what this person says about their characters being siblings, i’m going to act like they’re in a romantic relationship!‘

do you have any fucking idea how entitled that is? what does it matter to you if they’re family instead of lovers? why do you think the relationship between siblings is lesser, more ‘boring,’ than a relationship between romantic partners? why do you think characters’ stories are only interesting, or have meaning, or worth if romance is involved?

sure, maybe they would’ve been better off drawing this line in the sand years ago, to avoid all of this bullshit happening now. but it’s also not completely their fault that the lore very clearly states ‘brothers,‘ ‘sisters,’ ‘siblings,‘ and still the people that read it hemmed and hawed over ‘but did they really mean it in that way? what if they meant it this way?‘ how much clearer did you need them to be? what else more did they need to say to get the point across?

i guess that’s mostly a discussion of how warped the terms themselves have become throughout (english) history, and how necessary said contextual distinctions really were in the grand scheme of things compared to just making up some new words or using other words that didn’t have such specific definitions to them, but that’s bigger than here or there, and also not entirely something that can be or needs to be picked apart. language evolves and adapts, yadayada, etcetera etcetera, this is a post about pixel dragons we don’t have time for big scale world society things, moving on.

a member of staff said ‘these characters have these relations to each other, end of.‘ one member would not say something to this level of importance without the approval of other staff members, and especially not without the creator’s.

respect Undel, and respect her characters. if you can’t even do the bare bones basics of that, then i don’t know what you’re doing here anymore. try to learn some manners while you’re at it, whatever ‘it’ is, i guess.

oh yeah addendum in also the other day seeing someone autistic talking in that context abt what they want from genuine relationships in that they said they don't want to be Admired Or Desired. that one time someone was like, you're one of the best people i know, like well neat compliment sure i'll take it lmao, but also, that's somewhat confusing and even disheartening when it's like, i have no way of knowing this; we don't really interact? or times i have to ""unilaterally"" assess that i don't feel Friends with someone b/c i don't feel like, for one thing, i can just up & message them even lol; the feeling that to whatever capacity there's a relationship, it's been continual "don't mess this up" masking / efforts to "do things Right" from me....whilest also times it's been like, oh someone's apparently choosing to be around me? enjoying interactions? while still kind of confused about it. and then it's like oh it was Romantic Interest apparently lol :( like even if i wasn't aromantic which i so am....where was the [there is anything to feel is genuine] like again we never even got to any part where i wasn't masking and [do things Right] and on edge and certainly not at whatever point i apparently had whatever appeal. much less "when cishet men are just sprinting straight at you" but that's all the more, like, [you as a Person are certainly irrelevant] but not like it doesn't still feel ultimately mostly irrelevant even if people have more discretion / a more considerate approach in general. also that again there would not be a Right way lmfao. it just sure could be a totally neutral expereince rather, please. how i've had too many situations having to try to fling myself out a window figuratively, even w/those theoretically more considerate approaches

or even when people will be talking about what makes someone Deserving outside of the most conservative(tm) approaches like. this person isn't someone who just waits for things to happen :) like well hell yeah for them lol, meanwhile, i sure kinda am. being aware that in any given way i may not impress anyone / may be negatively assessed; only turns into "there go my power levels increasing again. shrugmoji" when correspondingly it's like, and i don't have to care, or certainly then blame myself about it if like oh boy, society when you have to be "objectively" judged as Worthy by randos, whatever their perspectives lol....or when like, the concept of social support is like, get a romantic partner, primarily, an ounce of backup from friends, the Real backup being family, or friends "as good as" family....or the ongoing journey of realizing like; it was never Just gonna be managing to leave [abusive childhood/family house]. the ways that other experiences outside that were Consistent, really, when being around peers means an immediate sense of doing something wrong / not being as good as them; authority figure adults sometimes acting just like an abusive parent does; no ways to regularly exist flexibly and/or less supervised/monitored, e.g. couldn't walk from [home] to [anywhere]....catching on like, ah, outside of That Situation? i'm still not inherently more valued by randos, still not Not liable to be regarded/treated with disdain / expressions of authoritarianism....Aren't We All; for real. but truly like oh hey, i didn't even realize i was getting all this Political experience in that [when you have a one on one personal abuser and You're Responsible For How They Treat You and Their Own Power Is The Whole Thing and You'll Never "Earn" Better But It'll Always Be Your Fault You Haven't] and all those kinds of logics and realities it's like of course this resonates crystal clear with logics and realities re: [political enemies] lmao. ofc they can be as "hypocritical" as they want b/c [you can just say whatever while you do w/e you want and other people have to deal] is an expression of power. of course "for [xyz]'s own good; individually or as a group" is really about ensuring the power to control their existences as property by shrinking the space in which someone can enact autonomous choices: anything For Children is about (conservative) parents controlling children as things they own and can do whatever they want with; like making sure kids Can't be gay or sm shit, it Is about children, just keeping them from being able to exist outside the sphere of control of an isolated Family life. hell yeah when they do anyways / tragically it always turns out people are actually people despite your wanting to disbelieve this / always have the power to ignore it..........but then yknow, the truth is we out here, and ofc it's like [police protect Property; enforce these property/owner relations] but what's Normal yet obviously harmful is also so borne by regular ordinary """harmless""" interpersonal interactions / people who feel supposedly well-intended but that's more superficial than in essence....even merely the Exhaustion in knowing interactions as Just chitchat w/supposedly amicable parties is like, a scrutinizing test that can only go wrong and lead to antagonism / animosity that can easily accumulate &/or compound. much less existence In Public and shit going wrong out of nowhere, and potential stakes....being like Lol at, again, years back thinking like "a horror short should be like, the premise that you might just be at a grocery or some ordinary asf situation but at any given moment, doing Nothing extraordinary, some rando suddenly goes Deeply Hostile Mode for a second. where even then suddenly disengaging from that mode is not a relief in that the [this could happen at any time] is emphasized" like lmfao that's [being in an abusive situation], that's [being autistic], isn't it so Zany that there's so much overlap / resonance.

Not At All being Lol abt how much actual discrete examples of produced horror is just like "what if there was disabled people." this is its own line b/c of the characters per block limit. but also disdainful emphasis

anyways lol wuh oh in conclusion, antifascism....isn't it always

/breathes calmly. Tifa—