#do read the article linked

[autisticthings]

Autism: The Grieving Experience

TW//talks about death

I've been very lucky with the limited amount of people that have died in my life so far. Extremely lucky. During my life time, three of my great-grandparents have died and one grandparent. Plus a relative that stayed with us for a bit.

Plus 3 dogs and a guinea pig.

All of these deaths had one thing in common. I didn't really.. feel anything.

In the show "The Good Doctor" one of the last episodes briefly mentioned that autistic people experience grief a different way. and that it hits us a bit later than it hits allistics. I started thinking about it, and eventually forgot about it.

In late May this year, my great-grandma died. I had done very low quality research about autistic people and grief. Finding this article by Karla Fisher.

Fisher talks about how she was mostly uncomfortable during a very emotional time for her family. After things had settled down, she took a couple weeks to process the death of her dad and decided she was good to go back to work. Only to find out that her feelings felt manageable but she couldn't function.

In the article, she explains that her sensory input was failing, because her brain was too absorbed in processing her feelings. She has a video on a meltdown model, explaining it even further.

I recommend actually reading the article, but that's the gist of what I got on how we process grief.

---

My Personal Experience In Grief

I have never cried about the death of a loved one, including pets. Ever. Honestly, the thing that hurts me most is the fact that I can't really feel anything about death. I always have family members crying, asking if I'm okay, always someone who is a mess. It makes me very uncomfortable.

I don't really feel anything, or at least I don't notice, but I have noticed that after a month, I start to slow down. It doesn't last long, ever, probably because it's never been someone actually close to me (other than pets). But. I still don't know if it's cause I'm sad about the death itself or the fact that I feel like a monster for not feeling anything.

I really do feel like I'm broken for not really caring about the deaths of those around me. It's just a part of life, if anything it has me just thinking what it will feel like. curious for when it eventually happens to me. will it be painful? will it be peaceful? is there an afterlife, or is that just man's fear of death talking? I figure, I can't really do anything about the death, it happened, why dwell on the past? why dwell on my last breaths when I have so many in between my current one and my last one.

---

Just some food for thought ig. This was more like a rant, hope it helps you feel less like a monster if you don't experience grief like allistics, too.

[stevenrogered]

im still reeling from that episode but i wanted to talk about this part in oliver stark's tvline interview in particular

if you've been in the fandom for long enough, you would know that oliver used to be on twitter. and he was VERY active on it. he was really engaging with fans, he live tweeted the show sometimes, and it was great. but there was a small but very loud part of the internet (i wont call them buck/buddie fans bc as an actual buck/buddie fan, i do not claim them) who would harass him RELENTLESSLY because buddie wasn't canon/buck was never confirmed to be bi or gay.

and i mean relentlessly. to the point where he left/deleted twitter multiple times before leaving for good a couple of years ago. i remember him being SO EXCITED about buck begins only to get people mad- at HIM- for buck not coming out by the end of the episode.

of course he couldnt say anything, even if thats where the character was intended to go all along. the term queer baited gets thrown around so much and i've always been very vocal about the fact that i never thought 911 was doing that. sometimes you just have to wait and let something play out organically on its own.

but as happy as i am for buck, im equally happy for oliver that he now gets to exhale and let this out into the world and that hes getting so much love from this episode

[sickfreaksirkay]

balin and balan for @caer-gai’s arthuriana august: "blood or no"

The Quest of Balin and the Mark of Cain, David C. Fowler / illustration by H. J. Ford / Tennyson's Balin and Balan / The Tragedy of Balin: Malory's Use of the Balin Story in the "Morte Darthur", Ralph Norris / Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur / illustration by W. H. Margetson / illustration by Walter F. Enright

[whenyoulosesmallmind]

Nicklas Bäckström & the Washington Capitals (+ nickeovi) ― Immortality, Clare Harner | insp.

credits: x. x. x. x. x. x. x. x. x. x.

[totopopopo]

They pointed a gun at Aaron. When there was a self immolation in December, the authorities spoke about it as if it was a form of antisemitism.

I have said it before. I will say it again.

It is an act of despair and feeling like nothing else you can do will be heard. Nobody burns themselves alive out of hatred.

Nobody.

I truly believe it was an act of grief. it was an act of fury. but i want to stress that it was not an act of hopelessness. like i said before, it was not just suicide, it was a calculated political act made by a determined man of sound mind and body who decided to use his death to send a message. he burned himself in front of the embassy in uniform because he knew that in the eyes of the US government, his life was worth more than the lives of Palestinians. His death was a deliberate attempt to call attention to the deaths of the thousands upon thousands of innocent people in Gaza. the point is that every death an inhumane brutal unconscionable horrific end to a real human life. the point is to disturb. the point is to be seen and heard and felt. he died screaming for Palestine.

like i said in another post, I took a class violent and nonviolent protests as an undergrad, and we talked a LOT about self immolation, and the work / thought / motives / grief / anger that goes into something like that. I’m gonna link a few articles if anyone is interested, I know it’s a really heavy subject but I also think its important to understand the role the act of self immolation has played in the history of protest:

this is about religious activists (both quakers and buddhists) who self immolated in protest of the Vietnam War

this is about the terminology we use to talk about self-immolation (specifically about the self immolation of tibetans in Protest of Chinese occupation) and about the objectives of political self immolators

and lastly, i am telling EVERYONE to read Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics by Ted A. Smith. it’s not about self immolation, but it is about the use of violence in systemic oppression and resistance and deals with the question of Who Defines What Violence Is (spoiler alert: the state defines what violence is, and the definition will always stretch to include the actions of the resistance and exclude the actions of the state). it is a really in depth and succinct examinations of the mechanisms of state sanctioned violence, and its HUGELY relevant to everything that’s been happening. PLEASE read it. everybody should read it. i don’t have a link to a pdf but im sure you can find one, or get it from a library or bookstore. it’s worth having, honestly. go read it.

[pendraegon]

thesis updates: sent the draft to my advisor -> she said it was "incoherent" and that she was "shocked" at my work and instead of telling me anything in detail as to what's wrong directs me to the writing center then proceeds to cc my committee members saying that she's at a loss with what to do with me -> was confused because... did i send her the wrong draft?? it seemed pretty solid to me?? like i was genuinely proud of it??? -> next day she sends me another email saying that actually my draft isn't bad at all and it just needs some reworking ???????

[kitnita]

well, let's leave this all behind us on the road

ty dellandrea, gm jim nill agreed ‘it was time’ to part ways ahead of trade to san jose by lia assimakopoulos for the dallas morning news, june 24, 2024; jake oettinger & ty dellandrea on locker cleanout day via the dallas stars, june 4, 2024; "october" by HAPPY LANDING; dallas stars vs. san jose sharks in dallas, texas on october 15, 2024; ty dellandrea & jake oettinger pose for jake's 100th win on february 29, 2024 via the dallas stars; stars’ jake oettinger and ty dellandrea share a special bond: ‘we’ve done it all’ by saad yousuf for the athletic, may 29, 2023; jake oettinger is at home with the stars by matthew defranks for the dallas morning news, october 10, 2022; jake oettinger & ty dellandrea pose with their first nhl goal & first nhl win pucks via jeff toates, january 28, 2021; jake oettinger on ty dellandrea after game 4 vs. vegas, april 29, 2024; "blue" by laura elliot; saad yousuf for the athletic, may 29, 2023; jake oettinger & ty dellandrea on the bench after practice via the dallas stars, march 8, 2024; "rearview" by brenn!; jake oettinger with his arm around ty dellandrea after game 5 vs. vegas via trey hill, may 27, 2023; saad yousuf for the athletic, may 29, 2023; lia assimakopoulos for the dallas morning news, june 24, 2024; sharks sign ty dellandrea for nhl.com, july 4, 2024; ty dellandrea cradling jake oettinger's face via jake oettinger's instagram, june 19, 2024; "rearview" by brenn!; jake oettinger & ty dellandrea before morning skate via saad yousuf, january 10, 2024; jake oettinger on ty dellandrea after game 4 vs. vegas, april 29, 2024; jake oettinger & ty dellandrea pose with their first nhl goal & first nhl win pucks via jake oettinger's instagram, january 28, 2021; saad yousuf for the athletic, may 29, 2023; "october" by HAPPY LANDING.

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

speaking of well-written articles, why is anime journalism absolute TRASH? every time I see a headline about anime news that interests me, I have to brace myself for the worst sample of pop culture journalism I've ever suffered

[rollercoasterwords]

like. i still wouldn't want someone to copy and paste my fics into a large language model like chatgpt but it's not so much bc i'm worried abt my work being stolen (seems unlikely that an LLM would spit back out my exact words considering how it works, and even if it did, i doubt any individual would be able to like. publish and profit from those words, based on the nebulous status of copyright law when it comes to LLMs like chatgpt. and having my words fed into the LLM really isn't going to make much of a difference when it comes to corporations profiting off the tool in the first place; plus in instances of corporate exploitation i think there are more effective ways to organize than like...arguing for strengthened ip laws or trying to like make ip laws for fanfiction spaces). it's more because i'm wary of what that says about how a person is like...approaching my fic specifically + fanfiction more broadly. in two main ways:

1. i think it is just. basic respect to check with a writer before u take their work off ao3(or whatever fanfic-specific place it's been shared) and put it somewhere else. and like, this applies to lots of things outside chatgpt--reposting fics to other sites, posting them on goodreads/storygraph, printing + binding fics, etc. if u are treating fanfic writers as people who u are in community with, who are generously sharing a gift with u, then it seems like basic kindness to check in and see if they're alright with u taking that fic outside the space it was posted to do something else with it.

with chatgpt and similar LLMs specifically, a lot of people are wary because there's still so much unsettled in regards to how copyright laws might shake out, and most people (myself included) are unsure of how/whether our writing/data might be stored and used by these corporations that own the LLMs. i don't think ai itself is something that should be mythologized as like ontologically evil technology, but anytime a corporation is introducing us to new tech like this we need to be wary of where it's coming from and how it could be used--people have already pointed out a lot of very serious issues with the way this technology is being developed and how it could/likely will be/already is being used exploitatively--which, again, is more a matter of organizing against corporations than railing against ai tech itself, but is still a valid reason for writers (again, myself included) to be wary of having their work fed to LLMs without permission.

and like. sure, u don't have to care abt writers' feelings + boundaries and can just take their stories and do whatever u want with them. but to me that says u aren't treating fanfic as a community space, but rather a content farm in which fics are products that u are entitled to do whatever u want with. and i just think that's shitty! and if that's how ur treating fanfic then i'd rather not have u reading my fic at all

2. i honestly think it's a strange way to engage w storytelling by treating endings this way. like. story endings are usually v important + intentional, and can completely change the entire tone, themes, messages, etc of a story. i understand going to the writer and asking them abt what they had in mind for the story ending if ur looking for closure, and i understand imagining ur own story ending or even writing ur own ending to an unfinished story. what i don't understand is plugging a story into chatgpt and having it spit an ending out for u.

and like. maybe this is bc we've all been calling these LLMs ai, which evokes an impression of like. a sentient robot creating something. but that's not what these programs do! the first article i linked explains how they actually work really well, but essentially--chatgpt and similar LLMs cannot create new ideas. they can't take a story and synthesize its themes or pick apart its tone to then come up with an original idea for an ending. at the same time, they aren't just plagiarism machines that are ripping text directly from other writers and spitting it back out.

instead (to my understanding), what they're doing is compressing vast amounts of information by running statisical analyses to just save the most common trends, patterns, recurring info, etc, and then plugging that in to fill the gaps. it looks like it's writing something new, but it's essentially just paraphrasing already-existing information pulled from the internet. so i'd imagine that if u fed an ai a fic and said "write an ending," the ai would basically compare the fic to whatever similar stories it has saved and then spit out an ending that is most commonly found on the internet for that type of story. [not an expert here tho--this is just my best guess based on the bit of research i've done].

my point is--you won't be getting a new ending inspired directly by the story u put in. you'll be getting a paraphrased version of the most commonly recurring type of ending for similar stories on the web. and i just....don't see how that would be satisfying in any way. it seems, again, like a way in which someone would be approaching fic like a product, something that needs to be finished + complete bc ur entitled to it, rather than viewing fic as a piece of art with its own unique themes, message, and story that can't just be plugged into a one-size-fits-most ending generator. and like, i'm trying to avoid mysticizing writing as some sort of ethereal art form that would be blasphemously degraded by having someone plug in a shitty ending paraphrased from a conglomeration of various similar stories--i don't think someone creating a shitty ending for a story is like. a horrible evil thing. but i can understand where the satisfaction is coming from if you're writing your own shitty ending, where you get to come up with where u think the story would go + where u get to synthesize the themes u picked up on etc. but ai isn't even doing that--so again, i don't understand where the satisfaction is coming from aside from just going "well every story i read needs to be finished," which. makes me wary bc it just feels like a completely different way to approach stories and storytelling than i would hope to find in fanfic spaces, one that treats fic less as a creative place to explore and more as a transactional space where u are entitled to products.

anyway. feel like my thoughts + feelings abt ai keep changing the more i learn abt it + i'm sure they could change again, but rn my impression of this whole situation is like. i find the fact that some people are plugging fics into LLMs less concerning re: ip + ownership rights, and i don't think it's useful to exaggerate or mythologize abt what ai actually does (i think even calling it ai has kind of misled a lot of people, myself included). what concerns me more is that plugging fics into LLMs to write endings feels symptomatic of a broader culture in which people treat fanfic as an informal profit economy in which fics are product or content that a consumer-audience is entitled to, and i think that sort of approach leads to a whole plethora of other issues + makes fandom a more hostile space.

[lastseance]

i really am gonna need all trans people to learn about gendered socialization as a sociology concept, then make actual effort into unlearning those social roles we were taught SINCE BIRTH because lots of us dont actually do that. we just transition to try and match those gender roles that especially subjugate women. its why we have such issues with transphobia and misogyny in our communities. unlearning gender socialization, realizing there's more ways to be a man or a woman and your gender doesnt mean you naturally prefer to be dominant or submissive or whatever, is what ever trans person should do when we come out. i get that it can cause dysphoria but the socialization we're put through actively harms afab people so we have to work on it instead of ignoring it.

[blackhholes]

Photography and Death in Teen Wolf

Using Photography as an Analogy in the Experience of Death and Mourning by Paula Mahoney / Photography, Memory and Survival by Martin Golding / Visual Codes of Secrecy : Photography of Death and Projective Identification by Julia St George

Written for @teenwolf-meta‘s Meta May Monday theme: power.

In the essay In Plato’s Cave Susan Sontag writes “To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge-and, therefore, like power.” When examining the power the kanima, and as a result Matt, holds in the second season of the show it’s important to note that initially this power wasn’t all-powerful. It had to be channeled through a conduit. Through photography.

In Fury Matt tells Scott “All I had to do was take their picture, and Jackson would take their life.” Matt’s photos become a sort of pre-mortem death photography, where traditional post-mortem photography serves as a way of immortalizing the recently deceased, the photography of season two acts moreso as an omen. The second their pictures are taken their fate is sealed and Jackson will take their life.

There are limitation to the power of the photograph though, despite Matt photographing Jessica the kanima is incapable of killing her as she is pregnant, this forces Matt to step outside the rules established and once he does he starts to transform into the kanima himself, this allows him to wield Jackson as a weapon without the use of photography and now all he has to do is think about killing someone and Jackson will do it. 

Matt doesn’t uphold the rules he himself created and his hubris in believing he no longer needs the camera to control the kanima and the power he feels he has gained as a result eventually lead to his own death. 

[humbleapplecrumble]

"In a world of replicants and regrets, would you pick up the call"

I don't mind if you little gremlins want to use the gifs just leave a like or reblog. Both if you're feeling extra bold.

Also! Feel free to explore the Medium account linked below! It features articles spanning topics from the mysteries of space to the complexities of politics and all the dark and fascinating corners of the world your brilliant mind might wander to. Your support would mean the world—so take a look if you're curious and have a moment to spare.

[pinkanonhopes]

hello. trying to make peace with the fact that my attention span is horrible and trying to find ways to make it better.

[bumblebeerror]

Genuinely recommend just googling how to do shit when it comes to your computer. someone somewhere has an answer for you and honestly they're usually helpful. I cannot tell you how much of my generalized knowledge about computers comes from me encountering a problem and refusing completely to call windows tech support

[punctuation-completionist]

. , : ; ' " — - /

9/22

bonus:

*

1/18

honey fitz jumpscare

[erotesianangel]

A friend of mine interviewed one of the founders of the nun-themed drag group the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence! It's a fun little read and glimpse into a slice of queer history