the things we cherish are small indeed

also specifically because hand to god I do not think David recognized Ilya when he caught them making out at the cottage. David’s mortified bc he interrupted his son kissing a boy he did NOT know about the nuclear bomb that is his son kissing ILYA ROZANOV! David could not pick anyone in the current nhl out of a rigged lineup. Yuna wanting to shake him by the shoulders when Ilya walks through the door bc what do you mean why didn’t you prepare me for this! But if Shane didn’t introduce him David would’ve thought this guy has a fun sense of humor wearing a Boston shirt whereas the Mach 5 kill bill sirens are going off in Yuna’s mind as she stares at thee Rozanov ™

god the ENDLESS relief of ilya's fashion choices making it easy to pick him out of north american crowds

I've been poking away at this one for a few weeks now but I finally put in the effort to finish it off.

If this looks like a skin you'd like to try, you can find it on my github.

Sometimes we're just slow...and it can be really disheartening to see that tbh ;-;

MORE PEOPLE NEED TO HEAR THIS.

your public bookmarks are public, meaning anybody—including the author—can see what you put in a bookmark. and unless the author has specifically said the fic is abandoned, you (general you) don’t know if it’s abandoned or not. one of my favorite fic writers posted a new chapter of one of their fics after 13 years of no updates.

my point, you don’t know if a fic is abandoned just because it hasn’t been updated in years. you don’t know if the author will one day continue it. and saying “this is abandoned” just because it’s not updated regularly can be super discouraging to authors who write as their hobby and their gateway.

we got an hour long infodunp about dungeon crawler carl, the author, the story, all of the adaptations and which are the best, the voice actor who reads the audiobooks, how much the kickstarters raised, I mean EVERYTHING

gentle attempts to widen the scope of the conversation into things like "the phenomenon of lit rpg in general" were very strongly resisted so after a while we just stopped trying and just nodded and Reacted to what he told/showed us. and then after he left we absolutely lost our shit about the Unskippable Dungeon Crawler Carl Nurse Cut Scene

i feel like when I talk about social skills I have learned I often focus on, like, things that are perceived as autistic deficits and how I compensate for them. that's true, I have worked a lot on those things. but also VERY IMPORTANTLY, along with the skill "remember to take turns in a conversation and ask the other person questions back," there is a parallel skill of "understand that incidents of failing to do this in a conversation are not malicious"

I try to think of being patient and friendly during an hour long infodump about something I'm not particularly interested in as a gift that I can give someone. it's annoying but it isn't hurting me. sometimes people have weird communication days just like they have weird hair days.

I understand that it is important to try to have reciprocal conversations where I show interest in other people and actively listen and ask questions about them. I also have a few friends who don't have that skill. they'll just talk about themselves. so a skill that *I* have learned is to pretend they have asked me about myself and respond as though they have. they'll say some things about them and their lives, and then I will take the initiative to share stuff about my life. this was difficult for me for a while because I felt like if I wasn't explicitly invited to say something or asked about myself that indicated a lack of interest. it usually doesn't. my friends who don't have that particular conversational skill respond to my spontaneously listing all the stuff that's going on in my life/stuff about my interests/etc very positively. they like that I do this so they don't have to feel self conscious about having trouble remembering to ask me about myself.

i think that understanding different communication methods that may not be the extremely basic rote "take turns in a conversation and invite people to talk about themselves!" type stuff is a VERY important social skill. and tbh? goes along with trying to give people grace and the benefit of the doubt/good faith/whatever.

i think that outlining what "usual" conversational expectations are is helpful bc people may not understand why they get the reactions that they often get from others during or after social interactions.

i also think it's not great to frame it like "if you don't do this you're Rude and Bad and it is correct that people do not like you"

something can be broadly understood and experienced as inconsiderate and ALSO be something someone can't help. we can learn to compensate for some things to the degree that we are able and I think it is important to try and learn as much as we can about social interactions and expectations. and also, like... sometimes that doesn't look like "I simply know now that interrupting people is rude and elect not to do it"

Interrupting people is the conversational issue I still struggle with the most. i know ! its bad! to interrupt! and also sometimes i just do. so part of "compensating" for me is knowing when I do it (something it sometimes takes effort to spot in the moment) and making dure to say "I'm so sorry, I interrupted you, what were you saying?" when I do

if "knowing most people find it more Socially Correct to ask questions -> get asked questions in return" is information that someone can possess about socialization, then "some people's brains don't really work in a way that makes doing that intuitive. they may not do this in conversations and it is not malicious" IS ALSO information you can know and SHOULD APPLY to your interactions

i have been seeing an increasing number of like "y'all don't know how to act/manners are important actually" posts and like... i agree... they are. and also it's important to not end up just sounding like we are ABA practitioners because I will be so real, some of these posts are pretty much an ABA hand out 😬

"I'm autistic and I learned to compensate/mask my perceived social deficits in this specific way, and some of y'all don't do this, and it makes me annoyed and kinda pissed because *I* worked hard to learn it which now means it's hyper-noticable to me in others" is another

Next up someone is going to claim that the Narnia series isn't kids books.

The European Union already forced Apple to abandon its proprietary charging port and adopt USB-C across its entire iPhone lineup. It just did something bigger. A new EU mandate requires every smartphone sold in Europe including Apple devices to feature a battery that can be replaced by the user without specialist tools, without voiding a warranty, and without sending the device to a manufacturer approved service center. Batteries must maintain a minimum capacity threshold after a set number of charge cycles and replacement parts must remain available for up to ten years after a model goes on sale.

The consumer electronics industry built its current business model around batteries that degrade, cannot be replaced at home, and create a natural upgrade cycle every two to three years. The EU just legislated that model out of existence in the world's largest regulatory market.

Apple, Samsung, and every other manufacturer now faces a choice between redesigning their devices for the European market or accepting that their current hardware architecture is no longer legally sellable there.

Round Three, Bracket 1

Propaganda below the cut:

[Image ID: The Destiel confession meme edited so that Dean answers 'JK Rowling posted upskirt photos of a woman on Twitter' to Cas 'I love you'. /End ID]

No one doing this should be allowed to call themselves a feminist.