#i think about that post. often :)

[nutmargaret]

favorite uncle

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The Wizard Cowboy War (Wizboys VS Cowards) continues on.

[fuddlyduddly]

[gomzdrawfr]

🍰 Cafe AU ☕️

[screambirdscreaming]

Something that peeves me whenever I see another post going around with some variation on "autistic people take things literally which means we are the only people who communicate Clearly and Directly" is that - for any given statement, there is not one singular, agreed on, universal Literal Interpretation. If there was, none of this would be a problem!

The nature of language is that there's always some degree of interpretability. Words have several different meanings, often overlapping, and there's nuance of context, cultural references, and so on.

Faced with a statement, most people will quickly come up with an interpretation that to them makes the most sense. But if you asked a roomful of people to explain in detail their interpretations, everyone's would probably be a little different, even for a pretty simple statement. Regardless of whether those people are autistic! Everyone conceptualizes the world a little differently, and everyone has a unique personal history of all the language they've encountered, and these things effect our interpretations.

In order for communication to be workable, given this slosh in interpretability, there's another couple of processes that go on. As conversation goes on, people reassess if their initial interpretation matches up with additional context. If it doesn't, they revise it, or ask clarifying questions. And on the flipside of this process, the other person in conversation is tracking if your reactions make sense with *their* understanding of what they're trying to convey to you, and offering context or rephrasing things if it seems you're out of alignment.

These processes are social skillsets that are, like most social skillsets, not ever directly articulated or explained. Many people are bad at one or both. Sometimes you encounter someone who is really, notably good at it - the vaunted "good listener", who puts in the effort to really understand what you're trying to say, or that really excellent teacher who engages with you back and forth until you really get it. But a lot of the time, it's a sort of passive social friction - people just not getting each other.

Sometimes, you encounter someone whose brain works so much like yours that talking to them feels almost effortless - you just get each other. But that's a pretty rare occurrence for anyone. More often, as you get to know someone, you start to understand the shape of the way they interpret things and learn to account for it, so over time it's easier to make sense to each other.

It's honestly not uncommon in society for people to aggregate in groups of people who interpret things similarly, and who are thus easier to talk to, rather than actually building the skills of communicating across interpretation gaps. Particularly egregious are those groups of men who talk about Women as an incomprehensible monolith, but it turns up to a greater or lesser degree on a lot of levels.

I suspect this is the root of a lot of parenting problems - people who have never built this communication skillset, and relied on choosing friends who make sense to them without a lot of effort, and who are then totally unprepared to interact with a child who interprets things in ways they don't expect.

Obviously I can't speak to The Universal Typical Experience, not least because it doesn't exist. But in general I would posit that:

Most people, give or take a few assholes, are not trying to say things that are confusing. Most people think they are communicating clearly, because the first interpretation *they* would come up with on hearing one of their own sentences is the correct interpretation.

Many people are not very good at accounting for different ways people could interpret things they're saying. However, it is normal and polite social behavior to be somewhat flexible about this and forgiving of misunderstandings. If people are being shitty to you about not understanding them, they are assholes. And I wouldn't assume that the rest of the communication they have with everyone else they know goes totally smoothly for them.

I suspect there is a bit of an unfortunate feedback loop, where people have bad experiences when someone gets mad at them for not getting something, and learn to hide when they're confused. Which then leads to larger, more complicated misunderstandings, which other different people get upset at them about, because those people think they should have asked for clarification in the first place.

Truly you can't win with everyone. No one can win with everyone. There is no monolith of "neurotypical communication" which resolves all these contradictions - all those people you're lumping in together under "neurotypical" have just as much trouble with each other.

[cybertron-after-dark]

Average transformers g1 episode:

Megatron is attempting to black out the entire sky across a hundred mile radius and funnel all the sunlight into one, concentrated solar death ray to target a heavy duty solar panel he's having soundwave and the cassetticons build in order to convert it to energon. Then he plans to hit the autobot base with the death ray just for funsies. Starscream plans to push Megatron directly into the death ray, also just for funsies.

Optimus sends Wheeljack and Spike to deal with it, along with two bots you're pretty sure have not been in this show before this point, but you're kind of past asking how many of these fuckers were on the ark offscreen when it crashed. One of them has the worst fake Canadian accent you have ever heard, and the other's name sounds inexplicably dirty.

Starscream tries to get Megatron to stand in the spot he told Skywarp and Ramjet to direct the death ray, but is interrupted when Rumble asks why Starscream stuck him with extra work (a task Megatron assigned specifically to Starscream). This vexes Megatron. The autobots show up and try to figure out what the point of the blacked out sky is while Starscream attempts to talk his way out of it. Then the death ray goes off two feet away from Megatron, which only pisses him off further.

The Canadian bot yells "AH BINARY-BEAVERS!!" because the death ray caught him off guard and completely gives away the bots' position. Soundwave immediately fires on them. Gratuitous robot violence ensues. Spike is generally useless and tries chucking rocks at Rumble. Megatron is too busy trying to almost-murder Starscream to bother with the autobots and just lets Soundwave handle it.

Probably-an-innuendo-name-bot is luckily a flier and takes the chance to see what's blocking the sun now that their cover's blown anyway. He gets up there and the seekers are sticking tinfoil on the clouds to make the tops reflective. The writers are really just hoping you don't think too hard about it.

Skywarp starts firing on dirty-name and calls him a nerd. Dirty-name takes evasive action. Skywarp runs out of ammo and starts just chucking tin foil at him. Dirty-name calls him dumb and says his processor is made of spare toaster parts. Then he crash lands and canada-bot asks if dirty-name's wings are spare toaster parts as well. Wheeljack yells that they'll all be spare toaster parts if they don't focus on the decepticons. The death ray goes off again and barely misses the autobots. Wheeljack corrects himself to Melted spare toaster parts.

Dirty-name gives Wheeljack the rundown on the tinfoil clouds so he can figure out a way to get rid of them while Canada-bot fights Soundwave and the cassettes in the background. Spike is kind of helping too sort of almost. Those rocks hes chucking sure are damaging. Ravage gets straight up drop kicked. It cuts back to Wheeljack whipping up a good old fashioned Device™️.

Starscream flies up past the tinfoil barrier while Megatron shoots at him. All the holes he's shooting in the blackout barrier are just making more, slightly shittier death rays and the main one is losing concentration. One of them hits Megatron right in the optic and he keels over with an over the top screech. Starscream descends, breaking another hole in the tinfoil to see a golden opportunity.

"MEGATRON HAS BEEN BLINDED!!! I, STARSCREAM AM NOW YOUR LEADER!!!"

Wheeljack finishes his Device™️: A grenade that makes tinfoil entirely invisible, thus rendering the whole weapon unusable. The writers are hungover, please do not think about it too hard. Pretty please. Dirty-name doesn't know if he can throw it into one of the holes in the barrier on his own since he can't fly in robot mode and he cant throw in altmode. Spike offers to get on his back and throw it in for him if he can get close enough. And he's just SO good at throwing things. The other two agree he's their best shot, they're so happy spike is around, couldn't do it without him.

Starscream is hovering in the air as he gives his Decepticon Leader Acceptance Speech he's prepared for this very occasion, golden light streaming in from the him-shaped hole in the barrier. Dirty-name and spike zip past him and spike makes the best goddamn throw of his life. Before starscream can properly question the Fucking Audacity of these autobots interrupting him while he's trying to have a moment, the invisible explosion goes off that the animators are just happy they don't have to put that much effort into drawing. Starscream gets knocked out of the air and crashes directly onto Megatron. This vexes Megatron.

Sky's normal again. Don't worry that there's still tinfoil there, don't even fuckin worry about it dude. Spike and Dirty-name touch back down. Round of applause for spike for throwing super good. Wheeljack comments that he's just happy it blew up the way it was supposed to. Cue uncomfortably long laughing. Megatron manages to roll starscream off him and calls for a retreat.

Back at the decepticon base, Megatron has an eyepatch and is skulking. Starscream yaps about how it makes him look like a proper tyrant, brooding and battle scarred, and, dare he say, darkly handsome? This vexes Megatron.

[milesofstars]

HELLLOOOOO CHAT !! this is my formal apology for not posting art for like.. 3 ish months... school is actual ass and my art and motivation has suffered because of it,,,, however my artstyle continues to change every other week which is always fun

here is a funky shuichi painting i literally just finished!! (THAT WAS MEANT TO BE A RENDERING STUDY. I SPENT 7 HRS ON IT INSTEAD.) i hope you lot enjoy :3

[agentravensong]

thinking about how the extra area added on to a pacifist run of undertale, the true lab, is about alphys's past mistakes. how it ends with the story reaffirming that, despite the pain she's caused, the thing that matters is that she has now made the choice to do the right thing. she's still worthy of her friends' love.

thinking about how undertale doesn't expect the player to get a pacifist ending for the first time. how it's more likely than not that the player will kill toriel the first time they battle her, how lots of players don't initially figure out how to end undyne's fight without killing her, etc. what it expects — not even expects, really, but hopes — is that the player, if they care enough, will use their canonically acknowledged power over time to make up for those mistakes.

no matter how many neutral runs a player has done before committing to the pacifist run, the thing that matters to the characters, to the story, is that you've chosen, now, to do the right thing.

compared to alphys, the player honestly gets off lightly, in that you're the only one (other than flowey) who really remembers any harm you might have caused. and any direct guilting the game could have done about it is long past at this point. instead, as undertale often does, it makes its point via parallels: alphys caused harm, and she knows it. she has committed to being better. in doing so, she has unlocked for herself a better ending to her story. and she deserves it. she's forgiven.

those structural narrative parallels are all over undertale, if you know where to look. and that's one of the things that makes it so fuckin' good.

[bunnymadeofstardust]

they're having dreams about long forgotten memories!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The Yiling Band Tour!

[bunnieswithknives]

In which Dev finally talks about what happened to Peri :3

part (1/2): next

[otaku553]

I really wanna here more about the time travel au. What would c!vanilla and r!vanilla think of each other?

Tbh! I can’t really tell by the abbreviations which one is c and r so I’m sorry about that 😔

But here’s a summary of what I think they think of each other:

On a conscious level both of them realize that the other is themself but they are so removed from each other in age and demeanor that they treat each other as different people, if that makes sense.

In young Pure Vanilla’s mind, he of course is scared of what in the future makes him turn so apathetic to the world, and so reluctant to give and receive kindness. But more importantly, his adult self needs comforting and healing and that’s what he can control and can do for him.

In Truthless Recluse’s (I’ve been calling him Dark Vanilla for the most part as an alias he would use in the AU) mind, he is prepared to protect his child self from Shadow Milk by any means possible and is initially on a hair trigger looking for any signs of Shadow Milk Cookie’s early influence. However, he is slowly but gradually realizing that Shadow Milk Cookie influenced his memories when they interacted, and re-experiencing them from this outside perspective is giving him a tiny bit more peace of mind for the safety of his child self. But this also means that he’s done a lot to himself in the future based on the words of Shadow Milk and is blaming himself for having changed so drastically. He doesn’t believe that he himself will ever be fit to hold the title of hero again, but he does believe that his child self’s potential is separate from his and that child Pure Vanilla, with his boundless kindness, is fully deserving of all the status and power to come his way in the future.

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

Aroace Sonic pt 12

Y'know what's funny is they actually were fighting

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

I cannot wait for this Stan to reconnect with his Ford.

I still haven't figured out HOW exactly they'll meet yet, but I do think that Ford would ATTACH himself to Stanley and talk his ears off forever when they eventually get comfortable :] and Stanley would listen because HOLY SHIT, THAT'S HIS BRO HE HASN'T SEEN FOR 40-ISH YEARS, HE MISSED HIS VOICE. Nonstop certified Yapper & Listener relationship <3

Stanley looks dead faced because of his ingrained poker face, but he's thouroughly enjoying it, even if sometimes he has no idea what the fuck Ford is saying. He never interrupts him though, since he knows people usually ignore or interrupt him mid-talk already. So sometimes Stan gets stuck in awkward situations where he has to leave or do stuff, but also doesn't have it in his heart to stop Ford and extract himself out of a (one-sided) conversation.