my hyperfixation sideblog

I'm #actuallyautistic and want to have a place to specifically discuss autism and my hyperfixations. she/her

[vengesim]

So very close.

Yet a universe away.

[lefthandwrath]

A 100% accurate depiction of the duel scene from NtN.

[alastair-made-me-undo-it]

I love how the radch fandom is just doing our best with the pronouns. 

wanna talk about breq? she’s an it sometimes if you’re gonna get into her themes

wanna talk about sphene? it’s a she sometimes if you wanna piss it off

wanna talk about zeiat? she’s a they depending on which books you’ve read

wanna talk about reet? that one’s easy, he’s a man WHOA SWERVE THEY’RE A THEY NOW

wanna talk about annander mianaai? that bitch loves her a she except whoops she’s they in the most literal definition

and the one constant, the one shining star compass point of stability, is that seivarden is babygirl

[nona-gay-simus]

"'Ask me how I am, and I'll scream.'

'How are you?' said Camilla, who was a pill.

'I see you calling my bluff, and I resent it.'"

- Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

[valentinedagger]

camilla and palamedes are everything to me… they’re best friends, they’re queerplatonic, they’re dating, they’re asexual, they’re having fucknasty kinky sex every night, they’re friends-to-lovers, they’re found family, they’re unrequited childhood crushes, they’re each other’s wingmen, they’re soulmates

[nadirising]

Everything is fine and going according to plan :)

[peachdoxie]

one of the most frustrating things about executive dysfunction is feeling like I'm trying extremely hard and also not trying at all at the same time

[murdernot]

We Suffer's POV: This necromancer died and is clinging grotesquely to life by inhabiting the body of his underling.

After talking to Palamedes: oh nevermind, this is a Nice Young Man(tm)

[amlli]

okie so griddlehark prompt: them adopting a little black cat?🥺 i love your art btw !!

sillies 🥺

[grand-eclipse]

Honestly after finishing Nona the Ninth, perhaps one of the things that struck me the most is Palamedes and Camilla. I genuinely believe that Camilla and Palamedes are soulmates. Now, do I think they are romantic soulmates? I don’t particularly read them that way, but I could see them being coded romantically. But at their core, they are soulmates. They make each other whole. They belong, first and foremost, to each other. Palamadese could have married Dulcinea and I think that his relationship with Camilla would have been the same levels of co-dependency. The way that Dulcinea says that she hoped that Camilla would figure out that Cytherea had infiltrated Canaan House suggests that Dulcinea’s relationship with Palamedes also extended to the creation of a relationship with Camilla. When Camilla and Palamedes prepare to become Paul in Nona, they mention wondering if they will be recognized at the river, hoping that they can see Dulcinea, one of the people that they love, to witness their death and rebirth.

I just love how even though the nature of their relationship remains ambigous, it is always made abundantly clear to us the depths of their devotion to each other. I just love them so, so much.

[notedchampagne]

pals reading erotica out loud

[murdernot]

List of Locked Tomb animatics I would make if I could draw:

Frankenstein Wannabe by Frances Forever: Harrow in HtN

Necromancin' Dancin' by Bear Ghost: Pre-apocalyspe John from an outside perspective

What You Do To My Soul by Air Traffic Controller: Camilla and Palamedes, cute happy pre-series scenes interspersed with Camilla grieving/them struggling with the whole same body thing, ending with them becoming Paul

Stronger than You from Steven Universe: Paul, because they are made of love 💕

Under You Skin by Jukebox the Ghost: something about lyctors

[inkskinned]

"the curtains weren't blue on purpose. why should we care?"

my love! let me ask you this - did you eat breakfast today? this tiny moment in your life. just think about it. did you?

for some of you, the answer is yes and for some of you it is technically and for some of you it is does coffee count. some of you reached for cereal or gmo-free overnight oats or frozen waffles or 3-day-old pizza. sometimes we eat the same thing, every day, for weeks. i get tired of eggs randomly, only to go back to craving them desperately. i'm cuban; i take my coffee like my father showed me, very milky and sweet.

some of us ate in a hurry. some of us hate eating breakfast but if we don't we will get nauseous later. some of us took our meds first or took our meds after. some of us have a kitchen 5 feet wide and sometimes it's the biggest room in the house. some of us are confident there will be food in the pantry and some of us flinch and say well, the paycheck is coming. some of us turn on a podcast while we eat or we scroll our phones or write in our diaries.

some of us are choosing, specifically, not to eat breakfast. some of us are too busy. some of us are pretending we "just forgot," but we are ignoring the warning signs that everything feels too-heavy. some of us are so consumed with anxiety or grief that we can't eat. some of us can't stand up long enough to make our coffee. some of us have no table to sit down and eat.

i cannot tell you what an artist "meant" by their choices. but they did have to make a choice, conscious or otherwise, to give you information. to give you a little bit more light. each of these choices are little stars of data; connecting speckles for you to weave through, drawing a line.

you cannot use a mirror in a dark room. for some of us; we will not care that the curtains are blue, because that will just be a data point and not enough light to see by. for some of us, the blue curtains will be the same as our childhood bedroom. it will make us seasick. for some of us, blue will be the color of frostbite. it might look like a pixel up close; but from a distance, oh! the picture blooms.

i cannot tell you what will stick out for you. what will carry meaning. some of you will read the sentence "i didn't have breakfast today" and say "this means nothing." some of you will read that and say "oh, me neither." some of you will say "this means the character is probably a little grouchy." some of you will say "oh, i wonder if they're okay. why didn't they eat anything?" ... art is a mirror. i am holding hands with you, over space and time, and asking you to feel something with me.

i want you to read my work and find a blue pair of curtains. i want you to read my work and find things in it that i never imagined placing. i have no way of knowing what will resonate with you, that's true. and maybe i just was hungry while i wrote this, and thinking about the eggs in my fridge. but if you found meaning, that meaning is yours. it cannot be erased just because i didn't "intend" it. you created a different world by interpreting my work. it's collaborative! that's beautiful! that's stunning!

just! imagine looking at the night sky and saying - it's stupid to have a favorite constellation or a favorite star. they're just there.

because here's the thing - across centuries and cultures, we look up. we still find meaning in the stars. these beautiful, lovely scattered accidents. are you looking? they call. and we look back and say oh! of course we are!

[edenaziraphale]

Once, when I was still a very young writer, a friend of mine was doing me a favor and editing a piece for me. It was a short piece focused around the concepts of loss and re-connection, growth and separation and the pieces of yourself that are held inside of others. When my friend had finished her first read-through and was gathering her thoughts she called me and, completely breathless with excitement, said, "I love the way you structured this! The seasons changing with each new movement, the fact that each passage initiates a new physical aspect of the reunion- I just love that." It was all she could talk about for fifteen minutes. What beautiful motion I had created, how circular it made the whole piece feel. She was so excited that I couldn't bring myself to tell her that none of her favorite parts of the story were intentional. I didn't realize I'd done any of those things when I was writing it. But upon rereading for myself, I could see what she meant. The opening of a door, the crushed leaves of fall, the first step toward a new life. It was all lying in wait for me. I only needed another pair of eyes to show me the way. All of that to say that nothing is created in a vacuum, and the choices that we make are, in fact, choices- whether we realize we're making them or not. Life is collaborative, which means that art is, too. By default. The things that my friend saw in my art and in me changed my perception of my own piece and in this way, we made something together. That's how this is meant to go. All of us learning from one another collectively, changing each other on and on. Forever. Reading, as OP said, is a form of creation.

[jeeyonshim]

bad twin

[motherfucker-somewhat-limited]

I just love the Locked Tomb because the characters are like: they’re royalty set to inherit entire planets. They’re sorcerers who can summon ghosts and bend organic matter to their will. They’re the greatest warriors their society has seen in centuries. They’re immortal saints who can fully explode a person with a single touch. They’re literally god.

And all of them. Every. Single. One. Is a fucking loser.

[faithfulpuppy]

Something I've seen a lot of in the Locked Tomb fandom is John's irreverence/sense of humour held as evidence that he is and always was a piece of shit - his response to Wake's questions about the bombs, his general attitude in the Nona flashbacks. (This is not a defence of John's actions, so bear with me.)

This is a cultural barrier I've encountered before with New Zealand humour - Americans in particular have taken offence to my 'attitude' when I was making what would be considered a very chill joke here, and I think it's no coincidence that a large portion of the tlt fandom seems to be American. New Zealand humour is very, very dry and irreverent and relies mainly on sarcasm, understatement and self-deprecation. We're not overly sophisticated or witty. Delivering a very serious statement deadpan is considered very funny. We're (especially men) discouraged from showing honest emotions and often cope with tragedy by making casual remarks that are almost callous at times. This all frequently comes off as rude or disrespectful to non-New Zealanders, especially via text with no vocal/body language indicators. I've gotten in trouble online more than once before over it.

I think part of the reason I interpreted John as less sinister than a lot of other people on my initial read is because his humour and manner seem very normal and non-threatening to me. When he says flippant shit that other people jump on as "See? He has no heart he's evil he doesn't care about others!" I'm like what? He was just- that's what I'd have said too? That's just how kiwis talk? This is not always true of course - sometimes he goes too far because he's dead inside - the line about Sydney's tram service is, while in line with New Zealand humour, deeply disturbing. But I think it's really important that he's not just Some Guy, he's Some Kiwi Guy and to someone who's grown up in New Zealand his manner of speech is very familiar and not the evidence of coldness/evilness it's often perceived as by others.

[desolationlesbian]

Applying for jobs is a hell designed specifically to torment autistic people. Here is a well-paying task which you know in your heart and soul if they just gave you a desk and left you alone and allowed you to do it you would sit there and be more focused and enthusiastic and excellent at it than anyone else in the building. However, before they allow you to perform the task, you must pass through 3-4 opaque social crucibles where you must wear uncomfortable clothes and make eye contact while everyone expects you to lie, but not too much (no one is ever clear exactly how much lying is expected, “over” honesty is however penalized). You are being judged almost entirely on how well you understand these very specific and unclear rules that no one has explained. None of this has anything to do with your ability to perform the desired task.

[softgaycontent]

It is hell! I want to acknowledge that the original point of the post is NOT fixed by my providing solutions (the way jobs are filled makes no sense), but also I want to leave some notes for folks struggling with these unspoken rules. 

Some brief notes on the correct kinds of “LYING”:

Always use “I” expressions, instead of “we”:

eg “I created a solution to a recurring problem by doing [x].”, even if it was really you and two others in a group

If you LED the group (or did project-management), you can say, “I led a team to create a solution to a recurring problem by doing [x].”

This is because employers like to know that YOU can do, and they also value team-leadership. If you say “we”, they may stop you and ask what You did specifically. You can avoid this by just saying “I”.

Someone asks if you have experience in a program (like excel):

If you feel confident using it:  “Yes, I am very proficient.”

If you have used it a few times, and could at least google what to do next: “Yes, I have good experience.”

If you don’t have any experience: “I have used it before. I generally pick up programs very fast, and I’m a quick learner.”

Mistakes (some interviewers may ask about a time you made a mistake, or a weakness of yours):

Good answers are those with solutions.

Bad answer examples:  “Sometimes I don’t catch mistakes before sending things.”  OR  “I don’t like working with other people”

Good answer examples:  “I had a problem catching typos, so I implemented steps that force me to check my work.”  OR  “I prefer to do things on my own so I know it’s done right, but I’m working on trusting my teammates to take on pieces as well.”

Someone asks if you’ve ever led a team / managed a project:

Try to say YES to this question (even if it is a lie)

If you have, say yes, and say how many people were on the team. 

If you haven’t, but you played a large role in a group of people, say yes, and talk about your primary role on the team. 

If you haven’t, but you worked solo on something that needed input from other people, say yes, and say what the project was about. 

Additional:

Misc Rules

You can ask people to repeat interview questions

You can write down interview questions while they’re asking (write the basics of the question down for yourself, like the top things you have to answer). People will wait for you to finish writing, you don’t have to answer Immediately.

Try to keep your answer to questions somewhere between 30 seconds to 1 minute and 30 seconds. You don’t have to time it, but if you find that your answers are taking 3 minutes, you might lose interest.

Have a list of projects / bragging points to talk about in advance

Try to make sure they at least answer the core question asked, don’t just bring up a completely unrelated topic

Example: if you are really excited to talk about a program you wrote, and someone asks about balancing projects, you can say you are good at AUTOMATION, and an example is this program you wrote

“Do you have any questions for us?” (A question asked at the end of most interviews.)

“What has been your favorite part of working at [company]?”

“What’s been your favorite project to work on?”

People like talking about themselves

Thank you emails

Some employers care if you send them a thank you “letter” (email). Sometime by the end of the day (you can do it right after the interview if you think you’ll forget), send a thank you email like this (you can look up other templates, or ask a friend for help):

Subject Line:  Thank You

“Hi [interviewer name], It was great speaking with you. Hearing more about the role, as well as what you said about [their answer to a question you asked them] has made me even more excited for this opportunity. Thank you for your time today, [Your Name]

Good luck!!

[halo-magicmoon]

Im gonna need this in 2 years!

[turbozarky]

Honestly the “applying and interviewing for a job” is harder and more stressful than actually doing the job 999% of the time for me. I hate it so much.

[softness-and-shattering]

Wait they ask about mistakes and weaknesses because they want to hear about solutions?! That makes so much more sense! Why dont they just verbalize the solution part!

[raevenlywrites]

Tacking on: You’re allowed to lie about whether or not you have a car. This lie is absolutely valid bc they’re not supposed to ask you about that anyways. So IF someone asks about a car, the answer is “I have reliable transportation to work.” Bus, roommate drops you off, walk, whatever - they broke the rules first, you break it right back.