i am creation both haunted and holy

changing my name to viola (short for 'violates the hayes code') free palestine 🇵🇸 mostly a one piece blog at this point any pronouns | ao3 is spicypotatoes89

[beacon-lamp]

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[weaver-z]

I think the only person I've met in real life with 100% career satisfaction was this gal I knew who was a presenter at a children's science museum and delivered every line like she was running a WWE match. Every time you passed the room where she was giving a presentation, you'd hear something like "WHO'S READY FOR CEPHALOPODS?!?" and the kids would go absolutely nuts cheering.

[shock-micro]

don't cry because it's over. attack. attack everything around you. do spin attacks

[astriiformes]

Been thinking today about where some of the wires get crossed when aro and/or ace people talk about wanting more low-to-no romance stories and other, allo queer folks get mad at us for it--because while some of it is just plain hatred of aspec folks, I'm absolutely willing to consider that some of it is more unintentional lateral striking out--and I think I'm stumbling into something I want to articulate. Not that it's an entirely new thought, or even something I've never considered before, but something I haven't quite framed this way in the past.

Because, like, okay. It's 2026. There's rising queerphobia of all stripes--which is undeniably one reason I'm thinking about the lateral violence of it all, and we'll circle back to that--but the media environment of today does still makes it more possible than ever before to find and enjoy queer fiction. And this is critical to what I'm about to say next, so I hope those of us that grew up in times where that was not true can sort of table our thoughts on what things were like when we were kids.

My point it, if I'm an adult who isn't in the closet (and even if I am in the closet, plausible deniability is higher than it was pre-2010 or so!), I can go see a gay movie. I can go buy a gay book. There are members of the community, like kids/teens or people in unsafe situations that might not have that freedom, but at the very least, finding the gay media isn't the hard part for anyone. Heated Rivalry is one of the biggest TV shows of the year (and the books that it's based off have since seen a huge jump in popularity, too), queer romantasy is flourishing, and even classic queer media is getting revamped (pun intended) in series like the Interview With the Vampire TV series. And if, for whatever reason, none of the current professional stuff is doing it for you, Ao3 has approximately 8.4 million M/M stories and 1.7 F/F stories--which isn't the greatest ratio for the femslash fans, but is still nothing to sneeze at. And that's not even getting into the many gay podcasts and audio dramas, self-published books, comics (indie and otherwise), and other, nicher options. Long story short, if you only want to watch, read, or listen to media with prominent gay characters in it, you can establish a very healthy media diet, with everything from fun, trashy romance to acclaimed TV miniseries to weird podcasts to RPG actual plays, and everything in-between. This has very much not always been the case, so it's really cool we're here!

As an aro/ace person I... can't do that with stories about people like me. Like I really, seriously can't do that. I guess if I was content to enjoy less media, maybe, but I love stories, which I'm sure a lot of people on this website can relate to. And I love participating in fandom, too, so sometimes I do want to be into something that's big enough for me to chat about it with other people, or get more than a handful of kudos on my fanfic. So at the end of the day I don't limit myself, and that's honestly a good thing! It's great to be into things about characters who don't exactly share your identities, too.

But like. This year I've bought* exactly one book with an actual, canonically aro and/or ace character in it--the short story collection Tales From the Folly, which is a part of the Rivers of London series and features the aro/ace character Thomas Nightingale. (*I say bought, because I'm yet to actually read it--I'm sorry, Thomas!). That's it. I've enjoyed various other stories, but as far as ones with people like me go, I've gotten my hands on exactly one. And it's not for a lack of trying! There just... hasn't been much on my radar. This is a huge reason I've gotten so excited about Project Hail Mary recently--it doesn't have any canonically queer characters, and the original author definitely didn't intend to write the main character in a way that resonated with so many aro/aces. But it's a story without any canonical romance of any kind, where as a result, I can watch a fun movie and pretend for a little bit that Ryland Grace is like me. There are so few aro/ace characters that most of what we get. Playing pretend.

This is where I think some of the wires are getting crossed. When people hear someone like me say "I'm really exhausted by all the emphasis on romance and shipping in fandom," I think what some of you are hearing--because it's historically been true, and we're at a scary time in the world where it feels more and more like it's threatening to become true again--is "I want there to be fewer gay stories." When what I'm really saying is "I want there to be more aro/ace stories--or at least stories where I can pretend the main character is like me." And to even further hamper understanding, when aro and/or ace folks say we want stories about people like us and we hear other, allo queers object, what we aspecs often hear is "I think people like you aren't worth telling stories about"--even though many of you have valid reasons for liking the stories that you do, too.

I think that those of us who belong to older generations (especially millennials and above) can all probably relate to what aspecs are experiencing here on some level. There was a point in time where gay books were extremely limited, and gay characters in TV and movies were unheard of. Even as things crept in a more progressive direction, the Bury Your Gays tropes meant not everyone could enjoy the stories those characters showed up in. That was really hard for a lot of people, and I never, ever want us to go back to that. But I do think it's important to acknowledge that gay media just isn't at that point right now. Media with actual aro/ace characters in it.... kind of still is. It's different, because society is in a very different place, and also cishet people have historically demonized aromantic and asexual people with very different tropes--the heartless villain incapable of love, the cold lover that the protagonist abandons to be happy with someone else, the boring stuck-up prude, etc. And there are people, especially in the indie sphere, who are making some good stuff. But at the end of the day, I have a lot fewer choices than you do. Which is why it really hurts to get told that my headcanons and readings of canon--which are most of what I have--are actually problematic.

Anyway. None of this is groundbreaking. It's been said before, by people more eloquent and more persuasive than me, and it'll probably be said again. It just feels worth reiterating, considering some of the blowback I've been getting to expressing this sentiment. Because I really do think a lot of us want the same thing--for everyone to be able to enjoy whatever kind of stories they like most about people like them. (Without losing sight of the fact that media can be a great way to understand the experiences of people of other experiences, of course). When the scales are so unequally weighted, however, it gets really messy to talk about.

So instead of projecting our own fears and insecurities onto each other and letting them dominate the conversation--let's actually talk about it.

[astriiformes]

Pulling these tags out because I think they further articulate some of the points I was trying to make here really well:

#There definitely is a suspicion and resentment towards the idea that stories with No Romance are valuable#because many many people hear ‘there shouldn’t be all this gay shit’#And then they treat you like that’s what you said#Treating stories without romance—or with main ace and aro characters—as a cowardly in-between step#between Straight Media and Gay Media#as if they just weren’t brave enough to make it Actually Gay#rather than welcoming it as something with real value in itself#And yeah it comes from real fear because there ARE a lot of conservatives in the world saying there shouldn’t be all this gay shit#but then there are people who treat this as the ONLY thing anybody is saying so anything that reminds them even a little bit of that#is suspicious. And a lot of those people haven’t fully shaken off the 2014 attitude that aces and aros are Just Straight People Really#It’s rooted in real fear but then it turns into uncalled-for viciousness about their fellow queer people who are Being Queer Wrong#I also think… there’s a lot of fear that someone who is very similar to you but reached a different conclusion is Judging You#by a lot of people self conscious about their place in society#That causes a Lot of the lateral cruelty between ace people and gay people (via @specialagentartemis)

[rosstmcd]

As someone who is alloromantic and allosexual, I suspect that another factor in play here is that allo people may not know what aro/ace/aroace stories look like.

Like, you mentioned PHM as an example of a story that doesn't have romance or sex in it, not because the characters are canonically aroace but because those just weren't parts of the story, and said that it was better than nothing because you could at least pretend that the characters were aspec.

And I think a lot of allo people tend to think that an aro story is just a story that doesn't have romance in it, and an ace story is a story that doesn't have sex in it, and from that viewpoint it seems like you're advocating for taking things away from stories.

But--I'm assuming--a story with actual aro or ace representation is a story that adds something, namely a character who is canonically aro or ace. And--again, I'm assuming--it would not have to be a story about Aroace Alice and Her Aroace Struggle, although it could be that; but it could equally well be just be about Alice and reflect the ways in which being aroace affects her life an an international spy or dinosaur hunter or college professor having a midlife crisis or whatever Alice's story is about. But either way, it's not a story-without, it's a story-with.

And I think that may be an important distinction in this conversation.

[astriiformes]

This is a reasonable insight and so I hope you don't take my "yes, but" here as an outright refutation! But I'm thinking that in emphasizing representation specifically, I may also have unintentionally downplayed another hugely important aspect of all this, particularly when it comes to interactions in fandom, which is that even stories without explicit aromantic representation can have hugely important implications and resonances for aromantic people.

I guess the simplest way to put it is like. A story like Ursula K le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness doesn't exactly have trans "representation" (in that transness is a social and cultural phenomenon separate from the speculative gender system she explores in the novel), but it does nonetheless have a lot to say about gender, in a way that definitely resonates with some trans/gnc people. Specifically, it shines a light on gender in a way that is of interest to people who want to have important conversations about the topic, and that makes it important and/or interesting to many queer folks. And in the same way, stories without explicit aromantic representation can absolutely say some very important things about relationships, particularly platonic relationships, especially when they show characters choosing to prioritize and value explicitly or even implied-to-be platonic connections.

So to return to my example above, I liked Project Hail Mary in part because I felt like I could pretend the protagonist was like me. But while the movie doesn't actually have anything explicit to say about aromanticism or the experience of being aro, it does ask another really interesting question -- namely "What if you were someone who was always sort of isolated and didn't have a lot of connections, and then you made a friend (who, it should be noted, already had a bond with a romantic/reproductive partner) who cared about you so deeply that they made it clear they valued you just as much as their partner?"

That's aromantic catnip! And not just because it's sort of a fun wish fulfillment fantasy, but because it raises super important questions about who gets to be significant to you and what it looks like to have friends who also have romantic partners that still value you. And so even though it's not a story with explicit aromantic representation, it's chock full of aromantic resonances.

And this is exactly where things get snarly with fandom. Because aro and/or ace people are in a weird position where there are very, very few characters that represent us, but there are still some stories that feel important to us all the same. So we don't really get to "claim" them as ours, but it still hurts when all the fandom wants to do is to seemingly erase the themes that feel so significant to us by making those stories romantic or sexual after all. To other queer people, it looks like we're getting upset over nothing -- that's not that character's canon identity, so why do we feel like we get to lay claim to them? But what we're really struggling with is watching stories that genuinely have interesting things to say about relationships get interpreted in a way that erases that -- and especially in the absence of actual canon aromantic and asexual characters, that really hurts.

I don't know what the answer to all this is. Obviously it's not particularly kind (or feasible) to tell other queer people they're never allowed to insert queer romance into stories that don't have any. But when the ratios are so skewed in favor of the people who do want to do that, and so skewed against those of us who would rather we talk about the stories as-is, it really starts to feel like nobody cares about us, and that our narratives aren't seen as important, or valid, or even queer -- not just in fiction, but in real life, too.

So yes, what I'd really love to see is more canonically aromantic and/or asexual characters, doing things aromantically and asexually and written by authors who want to explore experiences like mine. But I'd also really like to be able to point out that there are already stories about experiences like mine out there, and that's something that other queer people are actively erasing.

[teaboot]

Not to be rhe ten millionth person to say “USAmerican President Donald Trump Is An Incoherent Public Speaker Whose Train Of Thought Can Be Best Described As Scat Jazz” but I just remembered that when he talks at international events it is several dozen people’s job to translate what he’s saying and what he intends to say to world leaders in real time

And I desperately wish to hear how they do it

[teaboot]

If anyone reading this isn’t fluent enough in English to understand the sentences that man says, please know that he has essentially mixed a number of adjectives and topics together in a hat and is pulling them out at random like a horrible children’s game

[teaboot]

Like that waxy jaundiced bitch will straight up be like “J'étais sur internet l'autre jour – internet, la plus grande invention américaine. Et la Chine a “internet aussi. Pas un bon internet, pas comme le mien, j'ai un internet formidable. Les gens me disent : « Donald, ton internet est génial ! » On adore l'internet de Donald. Mais la Chine… Chine, Chine, Chine… Vous savez qu'ils mangent des oiseaux ? C'est terrible. J'adore les oiseaux. La Chine mange des oiseaux. Pas comme nous. Pas comme mes oiseaux. Mais vous savez, c'est comme ça, et c'est terrible. Mais voilà ce que je vais faire : je vais sauver les oiseaux. Je vais sauver internet et sauver les oiseaux. Tous ces magnifiques oiseaux. Pour l'Amérique. Et la Chine va nous détester pour ça. Ils vont nous détester parce qu'on est les meilleurs sur oiseaux”. And people will lose their minds

[angryraptor13]

International translators have had this problem for A While - if they *don't* clean up what he says to sound coherent, they look like they're doing a bad job.

Why is difficult to translate Donald Trump? Trumpslation explained.

Explore Trump translation challenges, tips for interpreters, and 2025 strategies for accurate political translation and Trumpslation success

[teaboot]

oh my god

[freckles-a-constellation]

There was a scandal in Poland because one translator decided to translate him accurately, tone, vocabulary level and word salad tangents and all. Polish conservatives who don't speak English and previously only heard smoothed out translations that sounded coherent and used big words were up in arms about how the translator was "inserting her political agenda", "mocking him", "exaggerating", "purposefully trying to make him look bad" and "incredibly unprofessional". I listened to the translation in question. It was literally just accurate.

[kimbureh]

5. Sensitive and Controversial Language Trump’s speeches occasionally contain misogynistic, sexist, or inflammatory language. Japanese interpreter Tsuruta, for example, faced challenges when translating sexualized remarks, ultimately opting for standard terminology to maintain professionalism. Similarly, Chinese translator Kumiko Torikai found certain lewd expressions ethically challenging, ultimately leading to her retirement. Navigating these situations requires skillful balancing of accuracy, professionalism, and cultural sensitivity, ensuring that the translation is appropriate without distorting the original intent.

I don't know why the authors of PoliLingua act as if Trump's verbal misogyny and racism wasn't very much part of his "original intent".

it only now dawns on me that millions of people on this planet think Trump is way smarter than he is because translators have neglected to relate his violent speech accurately out of misunderstood politeness. Make the ape sound like a ape

[cosmogyros]

We had a mini-scandal in the German translation/interpretation community last year about exactly this – the interpreter for the inauguration got sick of Trump's incoherence and made a remark into his mic that was not intended to be heard (here's my post on it).

[serverseraphim]

Hidden PCB silkscreen art

Slide 2 of 2

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

What you're looking at is a subtle artistic inside joke within the world of electrical and hardware engineering.

During the design process of PCB's, engineers have to map out the board's silkscreen (aka the nonconductive layer of apoxy ink, typically in white, black or yellow, that is used to indicate components, design, and test points). This is an essential part of circuit board building that is an integral part of the design process, serving as essentially a communicative manual to anyone servicing it, or something fun to find for teardowns. Think of it as a medical diagram to the board's meat and bones. It is layered on top of the solder mask which in turn protects the copper of the board from corrosion.

Many designers opt to put hidden messages, symbols or popculture references within the leftover/non-essential spaces as a fun way to connect them to their work. It's a piece of the artist within the art, and acts as a fun little real life easter egg to anyone brave enough to open up the tech housing it.

They don't serve any functional purpose to the board, but they sure are cool :)

Images and info sourced from flickr, r/hiddenpcbeggs, and pcbgogo

[gumy-shark]

oh, no, you misunderstand me. those were my monkeys. yeah the circus and i have since parted ways. yeah it was the elephant thing, i dont really want to address that right now though

[unidentifiedspoon]

my turn at this one. ART is the feed? no. ART is the frame

[go-learn-esperanto]

Hey. If people aren't aware, Microsoft admitted they know who you and where you are at all times and will give your info to the police.

They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.

Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.

You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.

This article specifically notes:

For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.

Microsoft admits Windows 11 has a GDID tracker with no off switch, first documented publicly in an FBI hacker complaint

GDID is the persistent Windows ID that helped FBI trace a Scattered Spider hacker despite VPNs. Here's how it works and how to limit it.

Other important quotes:

What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.

Two things back that up:

There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.

Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.

[gaynaegis]

Looking forward//thinking backward

[writers-solace]

I don't think Tolkien is a good fantasy writer because he scored the highest at some objective Best Fantasy Book Test that every fantasy writer has to take, I think he's a good fantasy writer because he created a world based on things that he was interested in. I feel like a lot of fantasy writers think that they need to create a whole language for their world because Tolkien did and obviously his books are the best so they have to emulate him, but Tolkien did that because he was a linguistics nerd. I think the lesson to be learned from him is not that you have to include elves and deep history and new languages, but that you have to write endlessly about the things you are a huge nerd about and use those things to create your fantasy world

[aletheyass]

tes THDPSSSSPS 💜

[apas-95]

wgat did u say

[demilypyro]

having free control over our endrocrine systems and the ability to change our genitals is currently inextricably tied to trans rights, and for good reason, but frankly i don't think it even needs to be. it should just be a matter of bodily autonomy, and that should be universal. if a cis dude wants tits and a pussy i think that would be fine. if cis women want a dick or nothing at all that should be allowed i think. people shouldn't need to be transgender to be allowed to change their bodies. free the nipple, enlarge the nipple, remove the nipple. whatever the fuck you want. i dont know if there's a term for this belief but i hold it very strongly. everybody biohack yourselves NOW

[l0stvegas]

Some time ago (I think in 2021) I had to go see a neurologist over really scary symptoms that resembled seizures. I was a nervous wreck about what I was feeling and had barely slept all week, which seemed to be apparent to the doc’s assistant when I sat down in the exam room for questioning or whatever. Dude was pretty young and soft spoken, around my age. He was laser focused doing something on one of those tablet-laptop Surface things as I spoke, presumably writing down my symptoms.

Midway through talking about my symptoms my voice audibly started shaking as I was describing them, clearly upset.

In the middle of my monologue he turns the tablet to face me, closes whatever program he has open and the wallpaper is this fucking collage of pictures of lord farquaad from shrek, lovingly decorated. Dude just sat there placidly smiling at me until I noticed and stopped dead in the middle of a sentence. We sat there in silence like this for like a solid minute before I started wheezing laughing. Before I could even say anything else or process it he picked up the tablet and wordlessly left the room, and I just sat there dumbfounded until the doctor showed up. 10/10 doctor experience tbh

I didn’t own a cell phone at the time to get a photo so this rendition from memory is all I can provide you

[snow-nose]

ID: a digital drawing of a man in scrubs sitting on a wheeled stool, serenely smiling with his elbow on a rolling cart, where a tablet is flipped open to show an approximation of the Lord Farquaad screensaver. end ID

[enigma-absolute]

[l0stvegas]

Reblogging this bc it’s making rounds again

[molabuddy]

i accidentally clicked onto and off of the "explore" page very quickly, and in the second or so that the explore page was onscreen i saw a beautiful photoshopped image that may infact be nothing like how i saw it due to the speed at which it appeared and disappeared.... but still. what i saw was beautiful

it looked like this

[saltedsour]

dw i got u i am obsessed.with this image

[molabuddy]

OGH MY GOD. YES THANK YOU THATS HIM

[wanderinsect]

🫩 no i don't think those characters are siblings i think they're friends. I don't think that's their mom I actually think she's their friend. I don't think they're related actually I think they're friends with each other.

[caljordan]

and now Lamine Yamal must participate in an UNICEF's photoshoot with a baby that will defeat him in 19 years