I've Learned to Kill My Dreams

However, the manga has an interesting convention to denote that foreign language is being spoken, by giving every foreign language speech bubbles that are horizontal instead of vertical. This is lost slightly even when the manga gets translated because in Japanese, the vertical speech bubbles also have vertically typeset dialogue which help better distinguish the languages. Nonetheless, the speech bubble shapes are very distinct. When Ling talks to Ed, his speech bubbles are all vertical

As are Lan Fan’s

But look at Fu’s thought bubbles here and compare them to Paninya and Al’s vertical bubbles. They’re horizontal! Fu is shown to be thinking in his native tongue!

Conversations that we heard all in one language in the anime, were supposed to be in Xingese.

Like Ling, Lan Fan, and Fu on the roof.

And Ling speaking with Mei at the end of the final battle.

One thing that gets me though, are his political opinions. They are esoteric, somewhat incomprehensible, and frankly, bizarre. He is an ardent monarchist (we are in the UK) but not in the typical use of the word (ie likine the Queen being an impartial head of state), he literally believes in the divine right of kings and that it is the only natural form of government. He claims to recognise no monarch since James II, and apparently the real legitimate successor is some guy called Francis who I've never heard of, who is also supposedly the rightful king of France and Greece. He never votes, saying he has no desired to assist his monarch in their choice of servants (which is technically how the UK government works, the Queen "chooses" whoever wins the election). He expressed disgust at Prince Harry's recent engagement, I pressed him as to why (I was slightly worried it was racist in nature) and he said both Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton are commoners who have no business marrying royalty, then made some remark about the Royal Family being a "ghastly bunch of arriviste Germans anyway, so I suppose it doesn't matter". It's just strange. It's like his worldview is so odd and so far removed from anything I can even begin to understand. I can name the current major Royals and a few of the more important historical ones, whereas he is an absolute expert.

I’ve written about this before, but a large part of my aromantic experience involves being disconnected from the idea of love. Society keeps telling me that “love is all about sex and romance” and my reaction usually ends up being one of two things: either I say “no, you’re wrong, I feel love for my friends and family and hobbies and so on”, or I say “yep, you’re right. I don’t feel love. And that’s okay”. The latter definitely ends up being voidpunk or voidpunk adjacent, but it’s not a lack of happiness or interests or hobbies, just a reclamation of the experiences (my experiences) that society tells me is such a horrible way to be. 

It’s always really interesting to me when people first come across this idea of not loving at all or being totally disconnected from love. There’s always this instinct to include stuff like friends, family, pets, hobbies, and so on under the umbrella of “love”, so that everyone can say that they “love” something. But it’s worth asking yourself, why do you have that instinct? Why do you feel like you needed to broaden the boundaries of love, especially when 99% of the time society is super strict and precise of what counts as love and what doesn’t? 

Ultimately, I think it comes down to the fact that we’ve all been told that love is inherently universal and inherently good, but also that if you don’t feel love then you’re a bad person (which contradicts the universality of love, but don’t notice or question that or else society won’t be happy with you). Of course there’s a difference between feeling love and being happy. Of course there’s a difference between feeling love and having hobbies. Of course there’s no connection between feeling or not feeling love and being human. When you put it in terms as plain as that, you can expose it for the ridiculous, dehumanizing rhetoric that it is, but before that, it just seems like that’s the way the world works. 

The Mandalorian | Chapter 5 - The Gunslinger | TATOOINE + THE TUSKEN RAIDERS

Troy Kotsur is a Deaf American actor who uses American Sign Language:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Kotsur

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1319274/

(Image reads:

"UPDATE on my cousin Signorina Dorothea Mezza Porzione. Peeps, are you sitting down? After 3 weeks of calling and no one picking up the phone, assisted living finally told us she died on April 15th, though we discovered she died on April 13th & they didn't tell us. She had a burial plot (Jewish) next to her mother, sister & dad, which I myself reaffirmed was still in her record when I visited her August 2018. I also reaffirmed my contact info.

Unbeknownst to us, the home had assigned a "guardian" to her, who filled out an IRREVOCABLE "pre-need" funeral plan for her dated 2017, illegibly signed by a "David something" (no line saying "print name" after illegible signature). Can you say "scam"? Not only was it for $16,000 of her money, she didn't sign it (& probably never saw it). I stood there as they looked in her file & double checked the funeral plot info I brought, probably looking right at this document, & they didn't say a word. She was only there for physical help, she was mentally 100%.

Upshot: She dies. The funeral home takes her. Buries her a day later, yet here are the CHARGES they took out of her bank account. Remember, this is Covid-19; no funerals, services or gatherings. City mandates double bagging of body AND casket then burial. Plus we didn't know she died, so nobody was there!! NOBODY!!!:

Body pickup $795. Embalming $795. Custodial care $580. Dressing $295. Clothing $400. Makeup $95. Use of facilities for visitation $300. Visitation Supervision $300. Funeral Service Supervision $420. Use of facilities for funeral service $645. Funeral director $1295. Flowers $600. Memorial Cards $200. Acknowledgement Cards $200. Prayer Cards $250. Hearse $535. Limousine $595 (are you hysterical yet? Wait!) Casket $5000. Cemetary $900. Bridge & Road Tolls $34. Transit Permit $46.75.

AND THE GREATEST PUNCHLINE OF ALL TIME:

I just got a job as a transcriber. if you have a strong command of grammar in english (or other languages), you can transcribe audio for websites like transcribeme or rev, and they send money directly to your paypal weekly.

In his 2009 essay on the history of the definition of asexual, Andrew Hinderliter notes that the definition “a person who does not experience sexual attraction” was not created to tell people who was allowed in the asexual community. People identified as asexual for many different reasons besides just not experiencing sexual attraction! Rather, the definition was created as a means for helping to promote visibility of asexuality.

I assumed everyone knew this, but

candy desk . yeah I know you’re like “it would be stupid in a tv show if a senator famous for being a libertarian idiot whose ribs got broken in a fistfight over yard waste was infected with a virus from a one-in-a-century pandemic and continued to rifle around in the senate republican’s candy pile”. well sorry Sorkin but this is the real world and that’s just how it is