you may be familiar with disney twisted wonderland, the gacha game in which various disney villains are used as direct inspiration for handsome anime boys. well that game was so successful that disney is trying to do it again but this time they're just animeboyifying whatever
here's mickey, goofy, donald, and chip & dale. yeah they turned mickey & friends into anime boys. they're an idol unit or something. they're technically not anime boy versions of the source characters, they have different names. mickey's guy is "Neo Michel". not michael, michel, like he's french. chip & dale are "Ruska Moncrief" and "Ranka Monk", they have different last names, they're not brothers anymore so that they can be yaoibait instead, anyways this post isn't actually about these guys I'm just setting the stage for the actual humanizations I wanted to show you
They also did monsters inc. And. Well it's obvious from the designs who mike and sully are. but you will also notice. the blonde one on the left. with glasses. monsters inc is kind of famously about just the two guys so they didn't really have a lot of other non-villain characters to take anime boys inspiration from, I guess, so, well,
Yeah it's her. they made an anime boy version of the mean receptionist slug. her name is roz btw, as all of boygachagame twitter has become extremely aware of in the past 3 days as we speculated prior to the release of the full image who tf the third guy was. the anime boy's name is "noah slugger". at this point no parody of the types of things gacha games will make gijinkas of will ever be able to live up to what disney is officially spending their own real money on designing
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Saying you’re going to visit a man with death rumors and then promptly dying is some real loony tunes shit. I can’t believe Lindsay graham is funnier than me
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as a lover of Women Fighting & Killing media it's so important to me when they actually let the women look like shit. you know what i mean. like im so bored when a woman is in what's supposed to be a brutal fight and her hair is just aesthetically tousled or something and her makeup is still pristine. fuck offfff. if she's beating the shit out of someone and fighting for her life she should be covered in blood n bile she should look like she got hit by a truck and the truck exploded
I expected my cpap machine to make a dramatic difference right away but after waking up from my first night on the machine I think the experience can be described as I woke up and thought “well I don’t think I feel dramatically different but it also definitely feels like something in there has been unclogged”
According to my app which no is not called cpapp unfortunately I only stopped breathing 1.7 times per hour. Which might sound weird but during my sleep apnea test I stopped breathing 23.5 times per hour so as you can imagine breathing is generally better than not breathing
I’m not talking about my health just to overshare btw. I think there’s probably other young people out there with sleep apnea who might need to hear someone in their 20s discussing this.
Don’t feel ashamed to get tested if you’re tired all the time or someone has told you that you gasp for air in your sleep. Get your shower drain unclogged.
I'm 35 and I got tested for sleep apnea in the fall and I was having OVER 50 EVENTS PER HOUR.
Got my cpap and holy shit the difference. I am actually rested when I go to bed at a reasonable time. I no longer need daily 2-4 hour naps just to function.
And I also suspect that it might be helping me not get as many colds, because that nightly airflow clears things out.
I'm really glad I have my cpap now and everything is better, but also wish I had got tested earlier, because maybe if I'd caught this sooner I wouldn't have developed some of the other health issues I deal with. But I thought I was so tired all the time because I'm a parent and autistic.
So yeah, even if you think you know why you're always tired, get tested just in case.
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you need to get it out of your mind that psychosomatic illness is just “making up symptoms” when it’s actually much more like your body is being actively poisoned by chemicals released from your brain
if you’re so stressed that you’re puking your guts up every morning, are unable to eat or keep anything down, you can’t look at light without feeling infinitely worse and feel exhausted and in pain all the time (or whatever your particular stress induced symptom set is) you’re not just feeling like that because you’ve willed it into being. your body is begging for relief from the constant barrage of stress hormones and it requires the fundamental source of stress to go away, not just distracting yourself from the symptoms
just because the root is psychological doesn’t mean the result isn’t an entirely physical process.
Doctor, looking at my neck x-ray: “The muscles of your neck are in such spasm right now that your spine has lost its curve. No wonder you’re in such pain. What the heck did you do to yourself?”
Me: “I work on a computer all day.”
Doctor: “Ah. That will do it. Right, so here’s a script for anti-inflammatories and a muscle relaxer. Also try hot and cold on it, 15 minutes each, and then gentle movements between each round. You’ll feel better in about a week.”
Me: “In a week I’m still going to need to work on the computer.”
Doctor: “And here’s also a script for 6 months of Physical Therapy.”
Me: “In 6 months I’m still going to need to work at a computer.”
Doctor: “And take breaks and do stretches between meetings?”
Me: “They book me in back to back meetings where I work. I eat lunch at my computer. I have to excuse myself to go pee.”
Doctor: “…”
Me: “…”
Doctor: “Um… it sounds like this job is actually, literally, killing you? Can you possibly work someplace else?” *
———
*note: It wasn’t said as flippant advice, and the doctor was 100%. right. After I got a different job — which took a WHILE — it was in a different corporate culture, one that didn’t believe in filling the day with meetings. I was able to do the stretches I was supposed to do, and also walk at lunch, and my neck is much better now. Not everyone has this choice. But maybe, if your job is killing you too, start thinking about an escape plan. Your body will eventually turn you into a pretzel otherwise. Nothing psychosomatic about that.
i have access to powers and locations that he cannot access independently; he needs my help to navigate the world i've brought him to
i simply found him outside and abducted him one day
there are many cats in the world, but this one is the best and my most favorite. why? because he was available to abduct that morning and for very little other reason.
i have a much greater understanding of this world than him, but he has unshakable confidence in his ability to figure it out and i find that really cute
the power dynamic is fundamentally unbalanced, but i let him have a little audacity. a little combativeness and sass. as a treat.
some humans are needlessly cruel to cats or take them in for a short time before neglecting or abandoning them. but i have chosen to love and guard this one with my life. because i think he's neat.
he is very well-treated and has pretty much everything he could possibly want or need, but he is my prisoner.
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this isn't really the same thing as intentionally/unintentionally a-spec characters but it is interesting thinking about how intentionality does dramatically change how characters read regarding a-spec identities and themes.
So: repurposed vaguely Kinseyesque scale describing your aromantic and/or asexual protagonist's awareness of and relationship to their own aromanticism/asexuality:
Unaware That This Is A Thing People Can Be. Type specimen: Carl from Dungeon Crawler Carl. Has never once considered that "not wanting romance or sex" is a thing people could feel, let alone identify as. He is normal, which means straight. It's just a coincidence that his relationship with his girlfriend was a disaster and now he's just way too busy in this new nightmare dystopia world for any of that! Anyway!
Aware They Have These Feelings, Assumes Everyone Else Also Does. Type specimen: Doug Eiffel from Wolf 359. Firmly believes that his aro-allo experiences are universal and everybody else is just better at acting like a functional human being than he is. Being a huge movie nerd also leads him to believe that "romance" as we understand it is massively exaggerated for drama in movies and people in real life don't actually do and feel that stuff any more than they mind-meld or can use the Force. He's just a fuckup at everything; why wouldn't relationships be included in that? For most of the show if you told him about aromanticism he would NOT be comforted about it, he'd probably take it as a diagnosis that his fuckup-ness regarding relationships was innate and incurable. (This doesn't have to be negative; this is also where Andy Wheyface from Arden falls and he is having a GRAND old time.)
Aware They Have These Feelings, Realizes That It Sets Them Apart From Others, Doesn't Conceptualize It As Part Of An Identity. Type specimen: Ryland Grace from Project Hail Mary. His reaction to other people having sex is mostly "why would you do that." His single attempt at a serious romantic relationship didn't work out and he has a nagging sense that there is something in him that can't maintain serious relationships; attributes it to cowardice and fear of commitment. Ironically he does know what asexuality is. He's a middle school teacher in 2020s California, he has absolutely gotten LGBTQ+ Sensitivity Education at least in "pamphlet listing queer identities" form, he for sure has students with pride flag pins on their backpacks and pride stickers on their notebooks, and he is also not immune from the Culture War Bullshit around gender in schools. Knowing that asexuality exists did not even slightly lead him to apply this to himself.
Aware They Have These Feelings, Considers Them Significant, Attributes Them To Some Existential Feature Of Their Existence Rather Than A Personal Identity. Type specimen: Murderbot from The Murderbot Diaries. Murderbot is very confident it does not want anything to do with romance or sex, and it attributes this to Being A SecUnit, and romance and sex are Human Things SecUnits Don't Do. Has not yet realized that this is an itself thing and not a SecUnit thing. Probably willfully at this point.
Considers These Feelings A Significant Aspect Of Their Selfhood, But Doesn't Name It. Type specimen: Sister Carpenter from The Silt Verses. Clearly confident in who she is and what she wants in her personal relationships, recognizes that as something that makes her different from others and out of step with what others expect from her, and is basically like, that's their problem. She knows who she is. Sometimes other people try to make it her problem but she has so many other problems that societal amatonormativity keeps getting pushed lower and lower on her list of Problems.
Recognizes Themself As Aromantic/Asexual As A Personal Identity. Type specimen: Nova NoStar from InCo. Clearly considers this part of her identity, but is allergic to talking about her feelings even at her therapy android's insistence and besides that's not anybody else's business is it?
Publicly Identifies As Asexual And Describes It With Period-Correct Sexual Orientation Language. Type specimen: Sally Grissom from ars PARADOXICA. The only character I've ever heard come out as asexual and lay out the definition in terms of sexual orientation and attraction to another character on-air that made me go "yeah she would do this, this is in character for Sally." Strongly feel like she would be an active commenter on the 2010s ace blogosphere. Would get in an argument about the correct definition of asexuality on AVEN.
X. Their Culture Conceptualizes Intimate Relationships In A Fundamentally Different Framework Than We Use. Type specimen: Breq from the Imperial Radch Trilogy. Whatever model of gender and sexuality the Radch is on it is NOT ours. Breq is still not interested though.
#interesting these are all scifi it makes me think there's something in the water there that allows for broader aspec theme building #probably because social norms are often imagined differently in scifi (tags via @variousqueerthings)
This is a really interesting aspect that I was definitely thinking about when I put this list together, because it began as an expansion of this post and I was freely mixing characters that are canonically and intentionally written as aro and ace, and characters who were not at all intended to come off that way but really do to me and/or a lot of people. But it's true, and I think that speaks to something about how different genre narratives prioritize things that lead to these readings!
A lot more thoughts about this under the cut:
So first off, the whole list is SFF because that's the majority of what I read/watch/listen to, lol. I could have made other choices - talked about Jean Valjean or Sherlock Holmes or Kerewin Holmes or Georgia Warr or Miles Edgeworth - but I really love 1) sci-fi and 2) audio drama podcasts so I have many more in-depth thoughts about those. (I mean not to say I don't have in-depth thoughts about Les Mis or Ace Attorney but--anyway. Also I haven't read Loveless or The Bone People so I can't actually say much meaningful about those.)(Okay I haven't read Dungeon Crawler Carl either but I'm on the library hold list. But I believe my friends lol)
But when putting together the list it was interesting to see the patterns emerge. One of the big ones is that the lower tiers of the list are consistently not-intentionally-written-as-a-spec, male, and - and this is the big one that made me think about what it means for a work to "come off as" a-spec and especially unique to a sci-fi context - the first three characters have their primary committed, emotionally intimate, important relationship be with with a non-human entity. Princess Donut (an uplifted cat), Hera (an AI whose body is the space station), and Rocky (a spiderlike rock alien), respectively, are not only non-human but non-humanoid at all in a manner that makes a sexual relationship categorically impossible, and due to amatonormativity, that presupposes that a romantic relationship is therefore also off the table. And there is something real there about such people not wanting a romantic relationship with the protagonist, due to not being human and not having that framework be their primary mode of connection, but also due to their nonhumanness, being presented as non-viable options as romantic partners for the human protagonist. (Yes I know about shipping. I'm talking about narrative framing.)(This also isn't quite as true about Eiffel and Hera - due to the audio medium, Eiffel as a human man and Hera as a disembodied voice coming from the station itself have equal "stage presence" in a way that any other medium could not have managed, which is super cool. However their actors Zach Valenti and Michaela Swee have been friends for years and were deliberately not interested in playing the relationship as romantic for "it would feel weird to be making kissy noises at my friends" way.)
So I do think sci-fi gives a lot of opportunity to (re)construct social norms, I think that's a good observation! And sci-fi also gives plenty of Plot Stuff to write if you set out just, not wanting to write a romance subplot so you don't, which I think is also going on in all of these (I mean, I know that was a conscious choice in Wolf 359!). I also genuinely think that having a protagonist who consistently prioritizes his friendship with an entity very different from himself without expecting it to turn romantic, over the possibility of other relationships that could turn romantic, is doing part of the work when I look at these characters and go "hmm I'm getting a-spec vibes."
(Obviously that's not the whole of it. Among other things we point to in a-spec readings of these characters, all three of them also have failed romantic relationships in their pasts that are very easy to interpret as "failed due to putting heteronormative pressure on themselves they didn't actually want" which is a big part of what lands them in the lower numbers of this scale, and the contrast between the romantic relationship they didn't actually seem to like or want very much vs. the genuine fulfillment they feel with their nonhuman and also not male BFF is definitely fueling the aro / ace reading too! And like there is definitely some willful reading against the probably-intended implications of how straight men talk about their exes. That is also part of what's happening here. Eiffel and Grace manage not to be obnoxiously bro-y about it or blame their exes for it.)
The three characters representing higher tiers are the opposite on all three metrics: intentionally-written-as-a-spec, female, and their primary committed, emotionally intimate, important relationship are with another human (or rather, Star Trek-style humanoid alien, in Hatov's case). We don't need to read into the character's struggles with heteronormativity and freedom in platonic relationships that they feel no pressure to make romantic because that's categorically off the table - the authors are writing the characters as a-spec on purpose and are interested in how that affects their relationships with other people in a conscious way.
Murderbot right in the middle is a hinge point in a couple ways, both being agender and having a committed, emotionally intimate, important relationship with both a human and a non-human intelligence. It's also definitely leaning hard on "robot-as-metaphor-for-outsiderness" that sci-fi is really good at.
Laying out all these patterns makes it feel like this is an objective assessment of how different authors write these characters and how they fall into three particular categories, but it's not necessarily. Not really. It's in some ways an artifact of the characters I had on my mind and wanted to talk about, because the other character I was considering putting as the type specimen for Tier 2 was Katniss Everdeen.
Which of course breaks the pattern. Katniss was also not written to be intentionally a-spec, but she's female, her main relationships are with her regular human sister and best friend, and she's the center of the second most famous love triangle in YA literature. (She is still from sci-fi, though.) And she comes off as intensely aro due to her general attitude of assuming any expression of romantic interest is either a bizarre out-of-pocket non-sequitur or part of an elaborate mind game to perform Romance for the voyeuristic thrill of the crowd who she needs to keep appeasing to stay alive. So like, the "uninentional a-spec" character isn't just a "straight men writing straight men with an 'unmarked' sexuality who fail with their girlfriends because that's #relateable" thing.
But then this wraps back around to what you said: the heightened and unreal settings of sci-fi allow for scenarios that push characters - and readers - to consider the normal and the abnormal, the expected relationships and the unexpected ways to consider and choose them. And I do think sci-fi is a very productive setting for taking a closer look at what we mean when we think about romantic and sexual and relationship normativity!
I notice alot of my followers on here skipping these posts just to mess with my lgbt ones, suspiciously the white popular ones.
Heres a not so friendly reminder, as an lgbt metis person, i dont give a single fuck what your blog is themed or if this is too painful for you to look at. Reblog this post. Reblog this post with the sources of the 751 children who were found.
Your compliance and silence as well as the compliance and silence of your ancestors is what allowed these schools to open and kill first nations children. The children of MY people.
Dont follow me if you cant reblog this post or the one with sources to your political blog or your most popular blog. Add trigger warnings if you must but if your political blog is only focused on the harms you personally face like being lgbt then you need to see some bigger pictures and stop being afraid of angering your racist mutural or actually saying some shit about racism. If you can reblog some antifa graphics or add blm to your bio to be a surface level ally, you can reblog some sources on the genocide first nations people faced and still face today.
I’d like to add this photo I took last night in Victoria of the statue of Captain Cook. Though I myself am not indigenous, I 100% agree that these murderers, kidnappers and rapists shouldn’t have huge statues and plaques that decorate them and say how “great” they were.
Here’s another photo of the legislative assembly from yesterday. Later on there were more items, candles and signs at the memorial, as well as a big poster with 1505 painted on it but I didn’t get a picture
People need to see this. Not just quickly glance at the photos and keep on scrolling. They need to see this.
I had seen the first picture of the church, but not the second.
I went to a “Cancel Canada Day” event and burst into tears - not because I was surprised to learn of the unmarked graves (survivors told us they were there. Our government pushed it aside, and we let them), but because seeing all the people gathered in mourning drove it home: They. Were. Children.
This is my country’s legacy - and it’s not history. The last schools closed during my lifetime. My Father went to school with students who lived at the local residential school, after it was changed to a boarding house (read: holding centre) for indigenous youth who went to local schools.
They were all children, injured, abused, and killed in my country’s attempt to erase them. I want the world to see this and hold the state accountable to *active* reconciliation> I mean we could at least truly adopt UNDRIP in action instead of words for god’s sake.
here you can read an article about a survivor of the church and some of the things he experienced to help put into perspective how awful and just how recent it was
