hed-romancer

[hed-romancer]

I’ve found that this is a lot less overwhelming once you realize you can take notes!

You find out this person has three kids or they’re from Delaware but you can’t remember and have to ask them a second time? As soon as the convo is over and they no one is watching you, write that shit down!

I keep a notes page of minor details because my memory is not good. It’s not less sincere to not remember every detail! But if you want to know more you’ve gotta remember the stuff they told you last time so!

Networking/Knowing A Guy: A Guide

This is the autism website. Now, as an extension of the power of love and friendship, there are few things more useful than Knowing A Guy. Knowing A Guy means you have a support network. Knowing a plumber, or a tax accountant, or just that one dude that's really fucking good at finding the information you need when you're really overwhelmed, can be the difference between being able to pay rent and having a fun party with friends to fix your shit.

How does one end up Knowing A Guy? It's a skill you can develop called Networking and it is one of the foundations of society. Unfortunately making those connections with people is fucking hard and nobody makes a tutorial for it. So, here you go:

The golden rule is you scratch my back and I scratch yours

It is necessary for survival to seek out useful people

Great news! Everyone is useful in some form or fashion - including you! When given the opportunity to learn about someone, do it! Extroversion does not come naturally to some people and that's okay. Just take whatever falls in your lap.

Types of usefulness: trade skills, connections of their own, personality you jive with, pleasant to talk to, niche interest in shared hobby, security - the list is pretty much endless. I know a guy that lives in the metro area - no job, no major hobbies, inoffensively annoying to me personally, kinda ignorant, not attractive to me, but you know what? He knows how the fuck to get around the city by foot. My rural-raised ass APPRECIATES the guide.

Remember important information: general personality, background, skillset, likes and dislikes. You can find this information by making smalltalk about their life. There is no such thing as pointless conversation. (Yes, even the annoying smalltalk)

The more people you know, the higher the likelihood that one of them will be useful in a given situation - or will know someone who is.

It is overwhelming. In a given clique/community/workspace/whatever, there is A Guy Who Knows The Other Guys. This Guy is a shortcut. Find them. They're often elderly, extroverted, a little bit annoying, a secretary or in some otherwise forward-facing position. Look for people that are gossipy/talk about other people a lot but not in negative ways. If they constantly talk shit, they'll talk shit about you too. They're still useful but be careful with the information you share

You do not have to like someone for them to be useful.

You do not have to like someone for them to be useful.*

If you have low self esteem, you're going to feel like you're using people. You're not. That's the devil talking. People like feeling valued and the connections you are making are the threads holding community together. Recognize people for their talents. It's only a problem when you're taking advantage of people

So: don't feel scummy about it. You're an animal. You have to claw out your right to survive and people will respect you more for it.

Luckily mutualism is the name of the game in the animal kingdom. Offer something back. The foundation of a Know A Guy relationship is Mutual Benefit

Sometimes that Mutual Benefit is just spreading news of the The Guy far and wide. My plumber friend is my actual friend and I love her to death, but I'm maintaining our backscratch relationship by pimping out her plumbing business to anyone that'll listen

Food is a good Mutual Benefit. People across cultures for all of human history have bonded over food. I have good success asking people for a favor and then offering to buy them lunch in return **

General compensation is also good. Offer a service in return and always do your best to offer financial compensation as appropriate. Having your plumber friend take a look at your drain: doable with a case of beer. Having your plumber friend redo the pipes in your entire house? You need to pay for that.

Being transactional is not necessarily a bad thing. I would advise against keeping an itemized list of things owed, but fish don't seek out cleaner shrimp just because they enjoy their company. Everyone gets something

Unfortunately being extroverted and generally personable is a huge benefit here, but that's the value of the Guy That Knows A Guy. There's someone out there that has consolidated All The Guys so you don't have to be the local expert. Always remember nobody can do everything and you don't need to master every skill

* This is the foundation of a functioning community. I have many acquaintances that I find incredibly annoying. They include doctors, welders, artists, social workers, lawyers, construction crew and random fuckers at the grocery store. I do not hang out with them. I do not have to in order to maintain a civil Know A Guy relationship. I can drop them useful tidbits and fuck right off so I don't have to spend any more time than necessary with them

** People may assume romantic intent. Be prepared for that. I generally denote that it's a friendly/work lunch by calling them bro at some point if they're my age. Otherwise my general demeanor is sufficient to show that I do this with everyone

Source: personal experience, mother's teachings of crime, booth vending and poverty

[hed-romancer]

HTTYD and respecting animation and respecting live action

I have always been a die hard advocate for respecting animation. There are things animation can do that live action just can’t.

I read a guide a few years ago that i can’t find anymore about how basically you need to make things appear less real sometimes in order to make them feel more real.

An unaltered picture of the view from a mountain is never going to feel like what you’ll see standing on top of the mountain, so you might add affects on the image to make it feel more magical. You’re making the visuals less realistic in order to make the feeling more realistic.

That’s what animation does so much better than live action. It captures the magic and makes it feel real (a cgi human matches a cgi dragon, but a live action human next to a cgi dragon makes the whole thing feel less real even tho it is technically more real).

But I’ve added to my passion in the past year. I’ve watched a lot of really good live action movies and realized that live action needs respect too, as it can do a lot of things animation can’t. It can make things feel more real. It can make things feel more real and then all of the sudden pull the rug out from under us as things get decidedly less real.

The Barbie movie wouldn’t have been as good had it been animated. The movie is supposed to be about a real life doll, and they made the sets look like real life Barbie playsets, in a way the animated Barbie movies never did. Movies like I Saw the TV Glow and The Substance *are reliant* on us seeing these characters as real people living in our real world, so that when things get more bizarre it feels unexpected and dangerous.

Stop motion animation and puppetry are a strange blend of both. Things somehow feel both more strange than live action and more real than other forms of animation. They are very clearly our world, but very noticeably to the left from the very beginning. Movies like Coraline, Paranorman, and Wendell and Wild feel odd from the beginning, even before the plot becomes magical.

Of course some animated things are super grounded and real and some live action is bizarrely magical. But what medium you use does usually signal to the audience how grounded in reality this story is about to be.

Personally, i think if they were gonna do a live action how to train your dragon, they should’ve made it a one-season tv series following the books, and made it more grounded and realistic- at least at first- to take advantage of live action. They should’ve used mostly if not completely practical effects.

If they needed to make another httyd movie that followed the same general plot as the 2010 one, for some godforsaken reason, i think they should’ve really invested in making a good stop motion animated movie. Would it be as engaging as the first? Maybe not. Would it have been necessary to exist? Maybe not. But it would’ve been more visually stimulating than whatever the hell this is.

As far as i can tell, this movie just exists to disrespect both mediums and hope its audience is attached enough to make money from it.

[hed-romancer]

Apparently this mini moon is 300,000 times smaller than earth’s primary moon, and as a younger sibling whose older sibling is 7 inches taller than me, saying the mini moon is my favorite is neither difficult nor emotionally taxing. Younger sibling solidarity!

i’m so glad earth only has one moon, if there were more i’d have to pick a favorite and that sounds too emotionally taxing to even fathom

[hed-romancer]

Yeah Romanticizing historical movements is cool, but have you ever tried treating the mundane and ordinary as something beautiful?

[hed-romancer]

they should’ve made toothless a completely-practical-effects puppet

laughing at the entire conceit of live action httyd being "animation is for babies so we HAVE to remake this shot-for-shot in live action" but also they need to sell a new wave of plushies at universal studios orlando so toothless still looks like a fucking cartoon character

[hed-romancer]

homeschooling in the US needs to be regulated but this is one of those conversations that immediately gets crushed by extremist conservatives and even well-meaning liberals will pipe up to be like "well some homeschooling is good!" when that's absolutely not relevant. regulation will not change anything for the homeschooling families who are serious about their children's education. the people who need to be regulated are the fringe extremists

[hed-romancer]

Okay but Nandor doesn’t like basketball in general. Nandor likes the 1992 United States men’s Olympic basketball team. He wanted to pledge allegiance to their unholy nation in 1992. He has a room full of merchandise just for this one team (Citizenship). He wears a jersey for them in Nouveau Théatre des Vampires. He wishes to play one on one with Michael Jordan wearing the team’s jerseys in The Wedding.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but there is no evidence that Nandor likes basketball outside of this one specific team. There’s no evidence Nandor knows what college basketball even is.

[hed-romancer]

There were some aspects of this WWDITS episode that were so painfully relatable to me.

Nadja making people laugh with a silly joke, only to love the validation so much that she continues on and on with it, making jokes that are increasingly further across the line, completely not realizing she’s making people uncomfy? That’s me. That’s my neurodivergence.

Nandor getting obsessed with someone he didn’t even kind of see romantically before, only to give up at the FIRST roadblock? Like, the guide doesn’t even reject him, someone else answers the door and he’s immediately like welp wasn’t her right there so i guess i give up? That’s me. That’s me getting romantic feelings very strongly only to lose them at the first sign things won’t go how i want them, to my own complete apathy.

[hed-romancer]

I actually really liked this episode of wwdits!

Nandor loving basketball but not knowing college students play it bc he thinks they’d be busy studying is actually kinda charming (even tho he should’ve shown more interest once he realized it was basketball)

Collin trying to help Guillermo out with his office job is a team up i didn’t know i needed.

Nadja gets increasingly less palatable in the background was a fun runner.

The lore that you summon a bigger demon to scare a smaller demon away is funny, and the demon joining Sean in watching march madness was great.

Nandor saying no human is special while laszlo disagrees

Laszlo training Sean at massive fitness!

Nandor “cleaning” and “fixing” things!!

WIPEOUT!!! I loved wipeout as a kid, watched it all the time with my dad, and Nandor would definitely be a fan!

Sean saying he knows he won’t live for a long time but he’s gonna have a good time, followed by laszlo giving him the sandwich he wanted! Hell yes bodily autonomy!!

Collin beating up Guillermo and enjoying it!

Guillermo being consistent with his lack of ethics!!

Nandor showing up with flowers for the guide only to immediately hand them over to Jerry after he asks if they’re for him, just to say “fuck it” and leave

Beautiful. Hilarious. 9/10. WWDITS is at its funniest when all of its characters are terrible people (someday i will make a post compare and contrasting WWDITS and it’s always sunny in Philadelphia!) and this episode proved it!

[hed-romancer]

i'm adopted and my dad is also adopted because infertility runs in my family

Pregnancy runs in my family. Over half of my ancestors had it at some point.

[hed-romancer]

[hed-romancer]

Me: it’s okay if people don’t like me. It doesn’t make me a bad person or them a bad person. it just makes us incompatible and that’s fine.

also me: I’m not a fundamentally unlikable person if people dislike me, because i dislike other people and that doesn’t make them fundamentally unlikable people.

also me: people can dislike me even if I’ve done nothing wrong. If people dislike me because I’ve unknowingly done something wrong, but they don’t bring that to my attention, that’s their problem then, not mine.

also me: i can tell they don’t like me. Why don’t they like me? I’m a likable person right? I’ve done nothing wrong right? Except i did say that one really awkward thing last week and it’s not like im that cool in general. i probably really suck and that’s why they or no one else likes me

also me: okay woah. breathe. it’s okay if people don’t like me…

[hed-romancer]

“It’s funny how Luz thinks her friends won’t accept her for helping Belos meet the Collector when she sees them being chill with Hunter and his war crimes”

Y’all… Understand why Luz feels that her helping Philip meet the Collector is significant, right?

Don’t you think it’s crazy how in Hollow Mind, Luz sees Belos use the magic of the covens to dazzle people into following him, helping establish his regime. We see how his coven bindings literally killed people. And then she finds out she helped Belos meet the Collector, who gave him this type of magic? Who reiterates in the season finale that they have Belos “magic stronger than anybody’s” as well as the draining spell???

Luz gave Magic Hitler what he needed to rise to power, she saw people directly die because of what she gave him. Those ruins on the Knee she explored? They were ruins because of Luz, people displaced from their homes because Luz ran from hers, and now here she is enjoying what they lost. She knows about all of the systemic devastation, the environmental damage, all of the living things and artifacts and culture endangered; So many lives ruined or hurt or even cut short because of what Luz helped Belos find. Think of the damage the sigils have done, before their role in the draining spell is even accounted!

And the draining spell meant the Collector had to be freed; Luz thinks the Collector committed genocide on the Titans, and even misremembers them as more violent than they actually were. She doesn’t know what this successfully-genocidal being, who enthusiastically helped Belos attempt genocide on the isles, will do to its people! The Collector being freed led to Luz and her friends being stranded in the human realm, away from their families; The families Luz sees them missing, while Luz gets to have hers despite abandoning it.

Her nightmare sequence in the finale is about Luz seeing the dead bodies of everyone she’s met filling up a pit because of her, while Luz’s surviving friends blame her for this, with Gus reiterating that he lost his dad because of Luz, and losing a father is something Luz can deeply relate to.

And yet people just boiled Luz’s guilt down to just teenage self-loathing and angst, and made jokes about how Luz thinks her friends won’t forgive her for this but they’ll forgive Hunter’s war crimes! You know, the war crimes that fans just made up. That would still be Luz’s responsibility (in her eyes) since she aided in the rise of the coven regime Hunter did them for, if they were real. The war crimes of Hunter that, even if they did happen, he didn’t matter in the long run, he wasn’t needed for the genocide, and part of Hunter’s existential crisis in Hollow Mind is realizing that! But Luz was vital!

It’s absolutely insane, Luz was as explicitly suicidal as a Disney TV show could make a character, she went on a whole rant about it, and the fandom just barely skimmed over it. Idgaf if Hunter lost Flapjack, if their positions were reversed people would be drooling over suicidal Hunter! If Luz was also a white boy people would still remember this, don’t blame this on fans being distracted by what happened to Flapjack. I remember people making fun of Luz’s suicidal rant while cradling poor Hunter’s trauma in their hands!!!

For people who claim to love angst and dark topics and using it as an excuse to focus on Hunter and maybe those white guys over everyone else, it’s just wild to me. And now the fandom has gotten to a point where it’s making up angst for Hunter about him feeling guilty for killing witches (because his colonial violence is about HIS feelings amirite), instead of talking about other characters’ canonical issues. People would rather talk about Hunter’s hands.

The point is that Luz sees herself as just like Belos; A human who saw a world to play out their fantasy in, and ended up causing a genocide because of it… Dare Luz say, she’s a colonizer like Philip. Luz sees it as a butterfly effect where she’s also responsible for the coven system that her friends and the entire Boiling Isles suffered from, because without the Collector it likely wouldn’t have happened. This is why in the finale, Luz’s nightmare has herself as Belos.

And it doesn’t matter if Luz meant well, she’s seen how people, including her own mother, mean well but still hurt others who as Eda says, “have a right to be upset.” This is why in the finale, the Titan insinuates, when condemning Belos, that intent does still matter to some degree; Luz came from a place of compassion and good faith. Likewise, we have her friends pointing out that it’s disingenuous to take this blame because anyone else could’ve been tricked by Belos, he was going through different victims like Blue Fang until he succeeded in getting the Collector.

I’m sorry, but… Hunter killing people and being a war criminal is fanon. It’s not out of the question that maybe he killed others, but nothing’s confirmed, especially in regards to the others knowing. In his debut he’s averse to violence, doing minimal manhandling and resorting to threats, but avoiding killing the Selkidomus and not even checking its corpse. And this tracks with Hunter’s eventual development and belief he’s doing something good.

And even if he had killed, Hunter’s destruction is nothing compared to the coven system, the Day of Unity, the Collector’s reign, etc. Hunter’s a literally replaceable cog in the system and Belos even brings this up to the Collector. But Luz sees herself, partially because of her prior guilt, as a key part of Belos’ genocide from the start.

I get that you’re not trying to invalidate Luz’s trauma by comparing it to someone else’s and yes Luz suffers from a horrendous double standard of self-loathing. But c’mon, the show was NOT subtle about why Luz would think she’s done worse than Hunter, who has no confirmed kills, nobody dead via butterfly effect. And I’m sick of people always downplaying Luz’s trauma and feelings to hype up Hunter. Or even giving it to Hunter because they just gloss over what the nightmare in the finale meant to Luz specifically.

[hed-romancer]

Today in aus ill never write

Gravity falls au where kids!ford and Stan meet onStanOWarII!stan and ford, and old stan and ford gotta decide if they’re giving these kids the real story of how they ended up here or a fake one

[hed-romancer]

PSA: if you get paid biweekly, there are 2 months per year when you get 3 paychecks

Had to have this explained to me by a coworker a few months ago, and explained it to a different coworker today so, in case you didn’t know:

If you get paid biweekly, that’s 26 paychecks per year (52 weeks in a year divided by 2). There’s 12 months in a year. That means for 10 months you get 2 paychecks and for 2 months you get 3. Which months they are will depend on what day you get paid and will change every year.

So if you get paid biweekly but plan your budget monthly, don’t forget there’s 2 months of the year where you’ll have an “extra” paycheck to do something with.

If you get paid weekly, there will be 4 months where you get 5 paychecks per month.

[hed-romancer]

A boy can dream, can't he?

[hed-romancer]

what people back home is this for