Certified Dino Nerd

it took me asking three more times before she finally told me she wanted me to leave the fans where they are instead of moving them to my room or something. and I said oh! I had no intention of doing so but thank you for letting me know what the expectation is.

"You left your dish in the sink." > the hidden request is "please clean your dish, preferably right now." since it's phrased as an observation, I don't immediately intuit the request and instead think my housemate thinks I forgot about it. so I reply "oh, I know." housemate thinks i'm sassing her and gets annoyed with me. only then do I realize she was asking me to do something about the dish in the sink.

"There's hot soup on the stove." > said to me while I was preparing a sandwich. the hidden request is "please eat the soup." since it's phrased as a statement of fact, I don't immediately intuit the request and instead think my mom thinks I didn't see the soup. I did see it, but I wanted a sandwich instead. so I reply, "I saw it, thank you." mother thinks I'm being rude and gets annoyed with me. only then do I realize she was asking me to do something about the soup (and furthermore is offended I am eating a sandwich instead).

"Your bread is on the counter." > the hidden request is "please remove your sliced bread from the counter and store it elsewhere." since it's phrased as an observation, I don't immediately intuit the request and think my roommate thinks I meant to store the bread elsewhere and forgot. when I reassure her I know it's there, she gets annoyed. only then do I realize she wants me to do something about the bread on the counter.

"You can turn up the heat, you know." > said to me while I was scrambling eggs slowly over low heat. this one really confused me because of course I knew I could turn up the heat, but I had no reason to as I was only cooking for myself. when I ignored the statement because I was focused on my task and had nothing to say, my mother added, "the eggs will cook faster if you do." sure, I'm aware of this too, but I don't want to cook them faster. I won't get the texture I want. when I reply, "I don't want to, though," mom thinks I'm being rude and gets irritated, then asks me how long I'm going to take. only then do I realize she was telling me to cook faster (because she wanted the stove), instead of simply informing me I could.

"There are donuts in the break room." > a more benign example, but similar outcome. once again I hear this as a piece of information being given to me, and thank my coworker for telling me. when I don't immediately leave my desk to get donuts because I'm finishing a task, my coworker hovers and says, "well? aren't you getting some?" only then do I realize there was actually a hidden invitation, and I was supposed to respond to the hidden part and say, "I'll come get them in a minute," or "no thank you I don't want any."

as I said, I've learned over time this is something many allistic (non-autistic) people do (as well as high masking autistic folks who have learned the social rules and wear themselves out following them rigidly). despite what I've learned, my default autistic response is pretty much always to take the words at face value (especially when I'm distracted or multitasking), before remembering I have to translate them. and while I can make a decent educated guess in most cases, sometimes I just cannot and simply ask, "what are you asking me?"

unfortunately, many allistic people suffer from an inability to take words literally just as much as they struggle to speak literally, which can further obfuscate communication. this is why I emphasize gentle reassurance that you are not criticizing them, but asking them to help you, a person in need, by clarifying their intent. people generally like to be helpful and I have had moderate success with this approach.

Alternatives below the cut :)

deathly curious how good the average tumblr user is at distinguishing dinosaur skulls from non dinosaur skulls

It's also how we know that most dinosaurs had round pupils. It's pretty common for people to depict dinosaurs with slit pupils, probably because of Jurassic Park, mostly because it looks really cool, but nope, they were round. There are very few, if any, birds with slit pupils, which is further evidence for round pupils. And most extant animals with slit pupils are on the small side. Many people think of cats having slit pupils, and they do, but it's the little ones. Lions and tigers have round pupils, because slit pupils are most useful closest to the ground and they actually sacrifice some of their visually acuity for the sake of being better at judging distances in low-light conditions, and most animals with them are ambush predators that jump out at their prey. You ever seen a video where someone throws or bounces a ball towards a cat and it bops them on the head and they seem surprised? That's why; they struggle to track where the ball is going, especially horizontally. So for anything over a certain size, slit pupils are a detriment, especially if they chase down prey.

A beautiful story of a client meeting their partner in-game.

And i was like "not all fanfic is sexual."

"Yeah, suuuuuure."

And its like.... fanific is not my preferred way to interact with media but even I know that:

1. not all fanfic is about sex.

2. Underage persons write fanfiction and they should be allowed to interact in Fandom this way.

3. Even if it was all sexual, they are not real people. They are fictional.

They know. The developers know that the Destroy ending is the obvious correct answer. The kneejerk reflex after all this fighting is to want them destroyed.

That's why they arbitrarily hold a gun to EDI and the Geth's heads over and go, "You better not. You BETTER FUCKING NOT. I'll shoot. I SWEAR I'LL DO IT."

Which completely ruins any philosophical nuance that deciding the Reapers' fate might have. "Should we seek symbiosis with them, take control of them, or kill them and also murder a bunch of other unrelated people in cold blood too why not?"

They knew the choices they were offering weren't very compelling. So they put a hand on the scale.

Because the thing is? Destroy is the kneejerk, of course. But after much consideration? Objectively, Destroy is the right answer for the Reapers. Or would be if they didn't have that gun. The very existence of the Control ending proves that.

The problem with Control as an option is that it eliminates the Reapers' capacity for agency. The ME3 ending states in no uncertain terms that the Reapers are slaves to program. They obey the Catalyst unthinkingly. They destroy societies in an endless cycle because that is what the Catalyst believes is best, based on his own ideas.

He, the Catalyst, is a self-aware AI.

But the Reapers are not. They just obey the Catalyst. For all their bluster in ME1 and 2, for all Sovereign and Harbinger like to talk big, they're all just word-processing. The Catalyst is the only thinking machine among them.

And the proof of that is that if Shepard replaces the Catalyst and sends them contradictory orders, the Reapers all universally obey the new protocol without question. They're in the midst of destroying worlds when the program "Do not destroy these races," comes through. And so they all drop what they're doing and leave without an ounce of hesitation or consideration.

Because they're just obedient machines.

And if that is true? If they're not intelligent, free-thinking artificial life like the Geth or EDI?

Then what value is their existence? They're just complicated warships built for genocide. That is the totality of their being.

And if that is true? Then why would we "seek coexistence" with brainless killing machines? Why would we want to control them, to arm a god-emperor with an armada of planet-killing super-weapons to keep the galaxy in line?

If Reapers obey the Catalyst unquestioningly, if they will obey Shepard unquestioningly, if they are just unthinking and unquestioning machines....

Then obviously we should just destroy them. That is the conclusion that the Catalyst and his choices inevitably brings us back to. If they're just the Catalyst's weapons of slaughter and nothing more, then those weapons of slaughter should not exist. They should all be destroyed and their destruction celebrated in the same way we would celebrate all the world nations disarming their nuclear arsenals.

But the game says no. If you destroy the Reapers, you destroy EDI and the Geth. Because it thinks they're the same, even as it introduces this plot point that completely upends any claim the Reapers have to being intelligent.

In the end, the final choice of ME3 is flawed at a point of basic principles. I reject the notion that it's founded on, that what you choose to do with the Reapers is a reflection of your beliefs towards EDI and the Geth, and their right to coexist with organic lifeforms.

Because they're alive.

And the Reapers are not.

They might tell their children and grandchildren of this, how the old hunters would tell them of a spectacular beast that one might see only three times in a lifetime, and perhaps kill just once. It must be true, since the clan still has the tusk of one, but no-one alive has seen one.