#weird social stuff

[ghoultyrant]

An interesting thought I had just now; I've noticed female authors of Naruto fanfic are more prone to significantly engaging with the bloodlines and family techniques aspects of Naruto canon in a substantive way than male authors...

... and it occurred to me this might be due to it resonating with their reality once you pull focus away from the fantastical combat framework.

Thing is, the 'working dad, stay-at-home mom' style of family construction actually has heavy matrilineal legacies of skills being passed down. Mom has daughters, those daughters apprentice under her for years learning techniques their mother was taught by her mother, who was taught by her mother, and so on into the misty past. It's just these techniques are...

"Pie-baking-no-jutsu, type 36: blueberry."

"Secret technique: how to wash all the grease off this one pan type that my mother's friends swear is impossible to get the grease out of entirely."

Including very direct parallels as far as stuff like 'somebody dies before they pass on their knowledge, and so useful techniques are lost until someone recreates them'.

Even the 'everybody knows people do this, but not everybody gets taught how to replicate it' aspects are surprisingly similar; in America at least, if you're not a daughter having family techniques passed down, you probably don't know how to cook and don't know how to get started learning. Cookbooks are a publicly-available resource, but are largely written for people who know how to cook already; if you weren't inculcated with this stuff by family, a cookbook is full of code phrases you can only guess at, and doesn't bother to explicitly tell you that you'll need to adjust stuff like 'time in oven' based on your region and equipment. (A recipe that works perfectly for you can require adjustment if you move elsewhere, due to differences in humidity, atmospheric pressure, etc; a daughter apprenticed by her female relatives probably learns these principles as part of that, so a cookbook expects to not need to explicate them)

It's a funny thought, but I am genuinely wondering if this is actually a component to this trend.

[linddzz]

can you fucking imagine Heimerdinger walking in to see how his lads are doing (not at all because he's still VERY nervous about these fine boys he is fond of getting into shit that he has seen bring calamity and doom before) and they're doing that hair petting bullshit like it's s totally normal and regular coworker behavior???? he thinks it's charming sure but he's also never seen Viktor casually touch anyone else EVER. and you know they would act like YOU'RE the weird one for even looking at them askance about it they're just like

"Good evening professor. Hm? Oh, no nothing is wrong, why would it be? Yes this is quite regular, nothing to be concerned about."

"It helps me think."

"It helps Jayce think, professor."

[shopwitchvamp]

An interesting observation I need to report to you all from when I was out touching grass last month (hiking/camping): People in the real world seem to consistently react to me saying that tumblr is my primary social media by going "Isn't that a dating app????"

[rottenraccoons]

cirrus' and oleander's answers to asks are the ones that have me hysterically cackling most of the time

There is a reason we order the answers the way we do: Cirrus' responses usually make for really good "punchlines" (not always comedic, just the high-impact finisher in whatever we're doing), and putting Francesco up top usually gives a nice gradient from sweet to freaky answers. An all-boys answer often looks like:

Francesco Cute and earnest

Keir Gruff but reluctantly sweet

Oleander Fun and flirty with a chance of 🍷

Cirrus 🚩

[so-very-small]

thinking about how borrowers are incredibly isolated. and while there might be tiny communities in places without humans, those who are born into borrowing do not see other people frequently and therefore act a little different because of their upbringing. a tiny living in a wild commune can clock a borrower instantly, by their rough social skills and other little tells the borrower isn’t even aware of. tinies will jokingly call others “borrowers” when they make social blunders. it’s expected that borrowers are just a little Different because of their upbringing.

this post brought to you by me, 26, who still gets clocked as a former homeschooler to this fucking day

[lorebird]

In which Ford struggles so badly to relate to other people that he wonders if he’s really human at all. The more isolated he becomes, the harder it is to reconcile with his own humanity.

[fox-guardian]

read a fic recently that had an interaction like

sasha: tim get like one social media PLEASE I am BEGGING

tim: I have linkedin?

and I cannot describe the Joy I felt reading that. they get it.

[yonetee]

I redrew my old illustration of Manfred and Asa. Manfred in my old art looks like he is 45. So I tried to correct it and now he looks 14. But still change for better. :D

[marlynnofmany]

Stranger in Need

Inspired by this post from @banrionceallach, which wonders about healthcare and the human vs alien approaches to certain things in the spacefuture. Here's one answer to one facet of that question.

~~~

The space station was a noisy one, or maybe it was just the food court. Hard to have eating areas for a dozen species without a certain level of background sound. I was ready to move on, though. I waved to a few crewmates who were still hanging around the tables, then picked a route toward the entertainment stores. While the large concourses might have been faster, and the floating walkways cooler (they went through holes in the wall!), the small hallway with nature murals looked peaceful.

I admired the paintings of otherworldly hills, all orange and purple, with a glittery starscape on the ceiling. The hubbub faded behind me while the hallway curved ahead. Unfortunately, that sound was replaced by a new one: someone coughing violently.

I edged to the side so I could peek around the corner while keeping my distance in case there was contagion about. That was a lot of throat clearing between the coughs.

When the sitting area came into view, with its potted alien plants and multiple benches, I stopped worrying about my own safety. A fellow human was leaning against one of the benches, coughing with everything he had. His clothes were nice, like he was on his way to a job interview, and they were covered in sweat, like he’d been running to get there on time. A bag of belongings had spilled at his feet. The broken shards of plastic with a metal bit at the center had once been an inhaler.

There were also two tall aliens standing nearby, the long-necked type that I hardly ever saw, with short beaky faces and skin textured like a turkey neck. They were facing each other and ignoring the human who was struggling to breathe.

I ignored them right back and hurried over to the guy. “Hey, do you need help?”

He grimaced, but nodded. An attempt at explaining turned into more coughs. He pointed at the inhaler and pantomimed a heavy footstep.

I thought back to the size of certain people at the food court. They could easily have stepped hard enough to crack the casing and not noticed. “I don’t suppose you have a spare in here?” I asked, gesturing toward the bag.

When he shook his head, it was my turn to grimace. I wondered if he was fresh from Earth, where human-specific medicine was available at every corner medcenter. The inhaler could be hard to replace out here. At least we weren’t out on the edge of nowhere; the medcenters here should be familiar with human biology.

I told him, “We need to get you to a medcenter.” Then I paused. “Do you know where it is?”

He did not. Dang. I looked over at the two turkey-neck aliens who were having a staring contest or something. “Hey, do you guys know the way to the medical center?”

The closest one turned his head to face me without moving the rest of his body. “Do you mind? We’re in the middle of something here.”

“This person could die!” I snapped.

With a shrug in his voice, he said, “It’s your child, not ours.”

“He’s not my child!” I exclaimed. “He might even be older than me.”

“Then why do you care?”

I stared at the pair of them for a long second: their vaguely irritated expressions and the way they hadn’t moved an inch to help. I made an exasperated noise and gave them up as a lost cause. The guy was still coughing, trying to force air in and out of airways that were swelling shut.

“Lemme see if I can find a map on the public feed,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Oh hey, don’t bother; I’ll get it.” He’d bent to scoop up the fallen belongings, and almost passed out headfirst. With the phone in one hand, I ushered him onto a bench then nudged the pile together with a foot while I searched madly on my phone. “Argh, why don’t they have it up front? This is terribly designed. Are you gonna be able to walk?”

He nodded, but he was starting to list to the side with a glazed expression. I considered trying to carry him, and didn’t like my odds. Had there been other humans nearby in the food court? Somebody likely to help?

I shoved my phone back into my pocket and turned to sprint down the hall. I’d only made it a few steps before a welcome sight rounded the corner: not humans, but two of my biggest crewmates.

“What’s happening?” Blip asked, a vision of muscles and flowing silks that blended with her natural frills.

Beside her, Blop turned a fish-faced frown on the ailing human. “That doesn’t sound good.” His silks were even frillier than his sister’s, and the pair of them filled the hallway. Just what I needed.

“He can’t breathe,” I told them. “The tool for his medicine broke. Do you know where the medcenter is?”

“I’ll carry him,” they both said, Blip slightly faster.

“I’ve got the bag,” Blop added, diving to gather it up with a dismissive flap of his frills at the two turkey-necks. “Of course they’re no help.”

“Why would we?” asked the farther one, sounding honestly curious.

Blip announced, “Lift and be lifted,” then did exactly that. The adult human looked small in her arms.

Blop bounced to his feet with the bag zipped shut. “I’ll clear the way!”

The pair dashed off down the hallway with me running after. The turkey-necks didn’t move, though one of them muttered something about herd creatures.

As I ran, I thought, I’ve never seen more than one of those long-necked guys at a time before. Guess they’re a solitary species. They’re missing out.

We burst out of the hallway into a crowd that parted like a spaceship fleet in the path of a wild asteroid. Blop yelled for directions, and people of many species pointed the way.

I followed along, glad not to be the weird one for once.

~~~

These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.

The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).

[cha1cedony]

Being both aroace and a huge nerd, it irks me a little that 99% of the asexual and/or aroace headcanons I see (and not aroallo headcanons interestingly, which could be its own post but I digress) are about characters who spend all their time working/studying/etc…. scientists, academics, introverts, shut-ins, even. I assume the common reasoning is that these characters only care about their work and don’t have time for things like relationships and sex. But like. You know that’s not what asexuality is… right 😀

Obviously it’s fine to headcanon these types of characters as ace, but I just always wonder about allo fans’ reasoning for it and what it implies about their opinions of asexual people. When the ONLY characters you can think of as ace are just nerdy, quiet/socially awkward characters with no other canon implications that they’d be ace, to me it just sounds like you think people are asexual because they can’t attract sexual partners? Or because they don’t have time for relationships??

Anyway it just annoys me a little that this is the VAST majority of the ace representation I see, both in canon and fandom. I’m an aroace academic, but I’m not aroace because I don’t have time for people or because I’m shy or awkward or lonely or whatever. I’m aroace because I’m aroace lol

Tl;dr, asexual/aroace people aren’t all innocent nerdy introverts (and aroallos aren’t all extroverts with a long history of one night stands, btw). Let ace characters be loud and stupid. Or try headcanoning a loud and stupid character as ace (you can do it, I promise)

[serialport0]

The concept of antisocial behavior is strange. Are you telling me that you're spending the energy you have now in ways that destroy your opportunities to give or receive energy in the future? This seems like a losing strategy.

If you're so smart, why aren't you prosocial? Why haven't you realized that connection is the best part of life? And missing out on it is like missing the whole vibe.

[sincerely-sofie]

Drafting answers to the asks I've been receiving for this... I have a feeling people are gonna like this one I've been making mini sketches for. It's about how the Lamb felt while usurping Narinder.

[graythefae]

Kaebedo fic idea:

Albedo decides he wants to stop hiding the truth from Kaeya and tells him he’s a homunculus. Kaeya’s like “k cool anyways I’m in love with you” and Albedo’s like “no you don’t understand” and lists off a bunch of “inhuman” traits that he thinks distance him from other people and Kaeya just stares at him and very seriously says “I think you’re just autistic and homeschooled”

And then they kiss

[pansyfemme]

just a heads up that enmeshment with your therapist is a sign that you need a different therapist. you go to these people to offload and heal, but if you're emotionally enmeshed and that's keeping you from bringing topics forward, that is no longer a healthy relationship nor a therapist that should be treating you.

just so you're aware. your therapist should not be an uncle figure you're afraid to talk about embarrassing stuff with, he's an impartial audience to help you heal. that emotional connection is now HINDERING you from healing.

honestly! me making one personal post! does not tell you the full story! while i defintly have an emotional connection with him- i have had other therapists in my life in and out the entire time. i seek help from other sources frequently! i said it was like talking to an uncle simply because of the fact he’s known me since i was a child, which makes talking about adult topics at times a little embarrasing because he knew me when i was 11!! he is not like an uncle to me in an other respect, i have a seperation. and i have openly discussed this with him and why im uncomfortable at times!! but we talk it out!! because its my therapist and me making one post doesnt mean you know everything!! geez!! also ive been embarrassed to talk about sex with every other therapist ive had!! not your call to make!!

[why-is-every-other-name-taken]

Being an extreme radfem/terf blog sounds miserable

[sirtotallynotatimetraveler]

Plush Pep's travel in Europe (more photos below the cut)

I wish I could have took more pictures with him but I was a little too socially anxious to haha. Maybe next time!

(I posted some of these photos like a month or two ago on reddit, so don't mind if you've seen the pisa tower pics before)