Qwerty Keyboard

[userse31]

When the Chinese felt 2nd hand national embarrassment

So a few years ago I found a Blu-ray copy of the 2020 live action remake of Mulan in Dollar General's bargain movie..... "Bin"? (It was a shelf.)

I have quite low regard for Disney, most of the stuff they make is utter crap really. Regardless they do occasionally strike it out of the park (I love the original Haunted Mansion movie!)

Moana being one such example of 👌genuinely👌good👌 (The original one, not the garbage remake they just released.)

Well my autistic cishet white ass brilliantly misremembered the two so I initially thought I bought a Blu-ray copy of Moana. Needless to say I was quite disappointed when I checked reality.

It's a terrible film, avoid at all costs.

But one interesting thing: The film was shot in China, which is funny because Disney somehow made China look like a hastily slapped together field somewhere near Hollywood.

Significantly less funny is the fascist propaganda the US regime peddles. Specifically the fictitious Uyghur Xinjiang genocide crap. That's full on racist anti-communist propaganda that not only one of the rounds fired in the global class war the capitalists are waging against the international proletariat, but it also causes stuff like asian peoples to be hate crimed here in the west. (For which the western establishments where like "Why is all this racism happening? Jee, just, so strange and beyond explanation! Anyway, don't be racist guys!")

The comment sections of Youtube videos about this movie are chock full of these dumbass arrogant liberals going "eUeUeH! bUt MuH yOu-GeRs!!!!" and I desperately want to take a comically oversized hardback copy of Lenin's "State and Revolution", whack these clowns in the head with it, all while shouting "READ LENIN YOU CUNT BISCUITS!!!"

What was I going on about? Oh yes!

I can't help but question the PRC government officials who green-lit the visa's for Disney's whole operation. I also can't help but ask what insane drugs those same government officials were smoking to cause them to be so stupid as allow us Americans to give the Chinese a "2nd hand national embarrassment".

We all know what "2nd hand embarrassment" is: Getting embarrassed seeing someone else doing something embarrassing. Scale that concept up to the size of nation states, and you have the "2nd hand national embarrassment"!

[userse31]

"Where's my non-romance slop books?" (And a few other really dumb thoughts.)

I'm not talking about AI generated stuff here, oh no, I'm talking about the old school method of producing slop! Underpaid authors who write books primarily to get food on the table!

I'm aromantic. Where's the non-romance slop books in dollar stores pandering to my autistic "diet cishet" ass? Why can't I "enjoy" a poorly and hastily written book about someone trying to build a new sidewalk or something?

I want a "Fourth Wing" esque book, but it's about a coworker who annoys everyone by constantly stealing pens!

I am actually a little jealous at the cishets who "paid for the full expansion pack DLC" who can pick up one of these cheap romance books and enjoy it. It looks like it's fun! It looks like it's a good bit of harmless joy!

I guess that's kinda the issue when you prefer "angst" over "fluff"/"smut" lol.

Anyway, onto the even stupider section of this post:

I wonder how much of the women who read these cheap romance books do so because they don't watch porn? (Be it out of shame or not knowing how to.) Women are about as sexually charged as us men, it's just that AFAB sex hormones cause all that to manifest in a different way.

The book capitalists have been real big on pushing books with "NSFW" content in them nowadays. (As opposed to a couple decades ago where it was just "regular big".)

It's probably related to the "male loneliness crisis" where alienation under capitalism causes extreme isolation. Just like how you have a bunch of lonely men desperate for sexual pleasure, you also have a bunch of lonely women desperate for sexual pleasure!

I also suspect a lot of these books fall into the same general purpose as porn films: It's solely for pleasure.

For a few of these books, they're literally just porn films but in book form lmfao. All the full on sex scenes and all that.

But I think for most slop romance books, both present and past, it's doing the same thing but only via the romantic attraction channel. They give romantic pleasure instead of lustful pleasure.

There's also capitalism being ass. Romance is seen as far less taboo then porn, and we all know how patriarchy likes to give questionable solutions to the needs of women! (I'm looking at YOU western healthcare. Just take the women seriously! STOP GASLIGHTING THE WOMEN!!!! STOP IT!)

Capitalism be like: "Men get cheap porn, and women get cheap romance."

Of course, there's nothing wrong in a bit of indulgence. I do it, you do it, the Chinese sure as hell do it much to the chagrin of the CPC.

Although I do think an argument can be made that romance can be just as fetishistic as porn. It prob- No, it DOES push unhealthy romantic ideals! It absolutely pushes unhealthy and dangerous ideals for what romantic relationships should look like.

I mean, fucking Colleen Vacuum Cleaner. The solution to a man beating you up is not to apologize, the solution is a Colt M1911A1.

The obsessive labeling tags like "enemies-to-lovers" could also very well be argued to be a form of objectification. Similar to stuff like foot kinks.

With that said: Don't harass women who read romance! ....Okay you can give them shit if they're reading Colleen Vacuum Cleaner (but honestly that goes for anyone who reads her misogynistic propaganda).

Just.... Let the women enjoy things alright? This is just me being stupid here.

Don't fall into the narratives of capitalism's 50 cent army!

[userse31]

What killed the Blockheads? (Mobile Game)

David Frampton's "Blockheads" is a somewhat old mobile phone game initially published to iOS but later also came to Android. It is published under "Majic Jungle Software"/"NoodleCake Studios".

The game is a 2D style sandbox game modeled vaguely off the likes of Minecraft and Terraria.

Now the Blockheads wasn't ultra majorly popular, but it had a respectfully sized userbase! I played it back in the mid to late 2010s. Still occasionally come back to it. It's a *good game.

....Oh hello asterisk, how you doing?

There's one.... Well, pretty big problem with the gameplay! The waiting. Oh my god the waiting.

Crafting items requires not just resources but also time. Time that uh.... You kinda spend sitting there watching progress bars. Do you like watching progress bars? Because that's what you'll be doing 90% of the time.

Forcing the player to sit and wait isn't automatically a bad thing, timing can be very important in gameplay loops. The issue here is that this core gameplay is tied directly into the game's monetary system.

That's the thing that ultimately killed this game: The free-to-play model.

Alright so there's this thing called "time crystals" and what they do is skip these crafting waiting times (among a few other mechanics). To get more time crystals you either watch ads or buy them via in-app purchases.

As such to incentivize in-app purchases these crafting waiting times are comically long.

I don't want to tear David a new asshole, we all need basic necessities like food, and game development isn't easy nor cheap. But it was in his class interests to do this sort of stuff.

If it was just this crafting thing I'd only be complaining, but this is a retrospective. The game is essentially dead! Why?

Servers. Independent private servers were not a thing.

Oh sure, you had peer-to-peer "lan parties" if you had an iOS device. The iOS build leveraged one of the operating systems networking libraries (I think it's called "Bonjour"), but that was it!

There might of been a MacOS version of the program that ran the game server, allowing for private servers, but that's only something I read YEARS ago from a comment.

Assuming this was true, MacOS is just absolute 👌garbage👌 for internet facing server purposes. Even still only having a MacOS build introduces a very steep price/labor barrier. Macs are horribly overpriced. Hackintoshs are full on torment nexii. You will be spending most of your time fixing the hackintosh then having your self hosted Blockheads server up.

The only option for running public servers was paying David money so that he'll host your server. Eg: The Mojang Realms model.

And here inlines one of the central contradictions that destroyed the game: Server operators and the game developer.

The correct solution David should of taken was allowing the player base to host their own servers. Hosting servers is expensive, I understand that, but at the same time those of us that understand this should be allowed to bare that responsibility ourselves!

Releasing Windows and Linux builds of the server program would've allowed us to bare that responsibility ourselves.

And public multiplayer servers help build up a game's userbase.

Instead David took the "realms" approach, causing a bunch of drama and stuff.

There are smaller issues, like trade portals breaking the core gameplay loop, more magical items like portals constantly eating up time crystals, gem pickaxes being removed from the trade portal, etc, but it's mostly the server thing.

[userse31]

Autism: Internet Only Relationships

I don't form very strong emotional bonds with people I only know through the internet. They can't rise very much above standard acquaintanceship.

Now physical relationships? I can get pretty close in that instance!

I think the strongest internet only relationship was with "@phone_gal" on Youtube. Was very much "Ah yes, it is uh.... I know that person exists!" Difference is she eventually got purged from the platform. Learning that was a tad sad. 

Now let's talk about parasocial relationships!

These can exist outside the internet and media, but they do mostly exist there.

Now there are content creators I enjoy, but that's it. I don't go further then that.

When one dies I do largely avoid their content. Death is deeply unpleasant in general, and I hate being mortal.

There is no afterlife, only annihilation. Freaks me the hell out.

[userse31]

Autism: Object Empathy

Object empathy is when you put empathy..... On objects. Extremely complicated subject I know!

A lot of us autists have increased empathy drives. As such we end up casting empathy onto inanimate objects.

And uh.... Yeah I do this lol. Although maybe not to such an extreme extent.

Honestly if you have an increased empathy drive (like to an insane amount) and do stuff like this, but are not currently diagnosed as autistic..... Might want to get that checked out!

Example #1: "Do not ask what your typewriter can do for you, but what you can do for your typewriter."

I have one of IBM's old "computerized typewriters". Not a word processor! This thing could only "save" by printing to paper.

It originally came from my school where it got shoved inside the closet of an office. I mentioned wanting it!

About two years pass. Eventually someone went in, cleaned things out, and when the typewriter was going to be tossed one of the office workers was like "Yo! I know someone who kinda wants that!" So it got sent my way. Thanks ma'am!

I played with it a little bit, kinda failed to figure it out, and took it apart. At which point I noticed it's a bit of a gold mine when it comes to old school embedded 8 bit computing! Which makes sense, because it's a retro embedded computer thing.

An 8088 managed the whole operation. There's some parallel DIP mask ROMs and static RAM chips, alongside expansion areas for adding more RAM and ROM. (The ROM makes sense: Bigger autocorrect dictionaries and stuff. The RAM? The fuck does a typewriter need a RAM expansion for? What, are you going to type up a whole ass novel right inside this thing's scratch buffer?

Seeing the nice stuff I uh.... Pilfered the thing for its SRAM. The rest of the typewriter sits in storage.

I feel kinda guilty about it. Merely used it for parts. Kinda like pilfering a corpse I guess.

Example #2: "Fuck it. $8 USD isn't too egregious."

The random Emerson branded digital clock radio from Goodwill.

I uh.... I just felt bad for it! I didn't need it (I have a nice Sony Dream Machine), it wasn't even very cheap. If anything it was.... Kinda pricy. Goodwill do be like that.

The only reason I got it was because I felt bad for it lol.

Example #3: "Calculators know of Shakespeare's \"Green Eyed Monster\"."

Feeling guilty for not using something/"overusing" one of the many things in one's collection.

Yeah this is a classic autism moment. "The plushie will be mad I don't sleep with it tonight, so I'll grab it too." Although personally I don't do plushies. Or dolls. (Dolls can be really creepy to be honest.)

Do this with the various junk in my collection. "Hmmm.... Feel a bit guilty not using the TI-7 in a while. I think I'll grab it." As if it's jealous or something.

Example #4: "Stop throwing perfectly good shit away!"

Seeing perfectly good stuff get thrown away can.... Yeah that can hurt.

The nearby Family Dollar threw out a bunch of discounted DVDs and Games. Couldn't buy them! They got marked as "destroy and discard" or something similar. That hurt.

[userse31]

Autism: Irritating noises

Sensory overload under autism is often characterized by us finding noises too loud.

Now this does happen! I have an IRL friend who viciously hates stuff like vacuum cleaners and fans. He'll cover his ears, move to a different room, etc.

I don't do this when it comes to hearing. Tactile stuff? Yes! 👌Fucking👌hate👌 being touched by people. Earbuds that go inside the ear canal or wearing a watch when sweaty are less bad, but still deeply unpleasant.

But I do, however, really struggle with "tuning out" noises.

Televisions are the bane of my existence. The sound of crappy soap operas, American propaganda outlets (the so-called mainstream """"news"""") manufacturing consent towards bombing more children, and stupid ads, it all forces itself into my mind. I'm always noticing it!

Heh. Que all my power fantasies of bringing a universal remote when entering a waiting room. Just put some jazz on god damn it! WZUM has an internet "radio station" on TuneIn's platform. It's ad free, and it's solid music. Perfect for insuring HIPPA compliance!

Can't stand going to my grandparents house because my grandpap almost always has Fox """"news"""". Would end up punching a wall or something if I had to listen to that crap. (Although I'd consider that the correct response towards fascist propaganda, even for allistics. Yes, CNN is alsofascist propaganda.)

My mom cranking the volume of her TV up at night? Why oh WHY do I always get my room placed adjacent towards her's? And why does she always place her TV against a wall shared with my room?

Even when the volume isn't cranked the damn base easily travels through the wall. It might not be very loud, but I can't prevent myself from paying attention to the constant "THUMP-THUMP-THUMP" crap.

And then people who do stuff like talk on speakerphone or blast out music out in public. To be quite honest these types of people deserve to be shot. It's the principle really. The arrogance to do this sort of stuff pisses me off.

The only exception is when someone has a hearing impairment as the earpieces on smartphones suck ass and don't go very loud. But even still: Keep it short and/or leave to somewhere more private. Nobody want to hear your private conversations with half of it crushed through VoLTE's lossy audio compression algorithms.

Things that insistently beep/chime/sound. Often noises designed to signal for someone's attention. Microwaves, chirping fire alarms, some on person medical devices who constantly beep "just for the hell of it" (I'm looking at YOU "Tens". Why does your line of electrical shock pain relievers rhythmically beep while in normal operation? WHY?)

But worst noises ever devised by man: The sound effects for Apple FaceTime and that chiming noise found in GM vehicles.

"Op! My engine just started! Better chime pointlessly five times!" "Oh no! The key is in the ignition but the driver side door is still open. Better play the chime on repeat to remind the driver to grab their keys for atleast.... Mmm.... Indefinitely!"

For the love of god and all that is holy: ONLY CHIME FOR IMPORTANT STUFF! Chime when the engine looses oil pressure or the driver's seatbelt isn't buckled. Those are actually important. And reduce the number of startup chimes to one maybe two. Dragging out the chime test out five times is completely overkill.

And then the FaceTime dialing sound effect. Why does it sound like that? WHY!? It's HORRIBLE! Get rid of it!

....What was I talking about? Ah!

Some of us autists might find noises irritating not so much because they're loud, but because we can't tune them out. We can't ignore it!

[userse31]

Autism Moms: Child Life Sagas

My mom infodumps my life story like some sort of fucking greek legend or something. I 👌fucking👌hate it.

Meeting new people: Tell them Qwerty Keyboard's life story!

Talking to someone working with the Ableist Wing of the State? Tell them Qwerty Keyboard's life story!

And she goes on about EVERYTHING!

It's everything from my hobbies to "private information about someone you don't go around willy nilly telling people about". Eg: Me being adopted and ranting about my biological parents. YOU DO NOT GO AROUND TELLING PEOPLE STUFF LIKE THAT WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT!

And now that I think about it, she goes about it in a very "white savior complex" manner.

"Oh boo hoo! Qwerty is autistic and is so difficult to live with!" <- Stuff like that.

Or she exaggerates about the petty stuff I do.

Just.... Fuuuuck you!

[userse31]

"Oh no I like cock."

This is very slightly NSFW.

The reason I've been trying to deny this is not because of heteronormativity, being considered "gay", etc.

Nope. It's uh..... Well a little embarrassing.... And very self inflicted:

-I have a lot of transfem characters inside my writings.

-QUITE invested in pushing forward trans rights. I come across a video of a trans person "saying politics"? I'll share it on my Youtube channel's "posts" tab and maybe other social media platforms.

And I'm a cishet white male who very much enjoys the sexual fantasy of a woman inserting herself deep inside someone.

Not uh..... Not a good look. In fact a uh.... Very BAD look if you ask me!

Although all of this is very much my type of irony based humor. A person who's invested in trans rights? He's also a cishet white male who enjoys dick. And he figures out his genital preference during pride month.

Not going to lie, I am enjoying laughing at myself.

[userse31]

Autism: T-Shirts, Shoes, and Fashion

Accidentally putting t-shirts on backwards!

Making sure a shirt isn't inverted is easy: Make sure the more visible side of the stitch seams face in, and that the fabric flows correctly. Also: Tags/labels around the collar. Those face towards the neck.

Determining which direction a t-shirt faces is usually pretty easy: Most of them are a solid uniform color with a design silkscreened on them. That design faces forwards and the tag/info bit inside the collar faced aft. (Using..... Fricken.... Nautical ship terms lol. God I love being autistic!)

But for some shirts it's not immediately obvious which way they go. They'll have designs on both sides, it's just a symmetric color/pattern, etc. So I put it on in what I think is forward facing and go about my day.

And then, somehow, the neurotypicals notice my shirt is on backwards.

Is.... Is this some sort of "6th sense" allists have? You're not the one who inspected my shirt and then put it on me, I DID! How are you people able to figure this out?

Do you neurotypicals intensely observe the way my cloths are arranged, down to the minute details? I sure as hell hope not, that's kinda creepy!

----

Shoes are nice, they protect one's feet from sharp objects on the ground and overall rough terrain. Less so when stuff like small pebbles and other debris somehow teleport inside them and your just like "Ugh, there's something in my shoe(s)!"

And then you have to pull one off and try either bangi- Why am I going on this tangent?

Anyway I like shoes. They are very nice. I kinda just..... Grab them and put them on. That bit me in the ass once.

It was dark and in something of a hurry. I simply grabbed two shoes and put them on without looking. Everything felt right, so everything was correct right? RIGHT?

Fast forward to later in the morning at band camp and during the drills the band instructor tells us to notice how our feet are positioned.

So I look down and finally notice I had two different shoes on. Yikes!

"Oh shit that's INCREDIBLY embarrassing!" I thought. Absolutely nothing I could do about it, and I just KNEW people around me noticed it.

Sure enough when I brought this up myself one person chimed in and said they noticed.

----

Fashion! I don't do it.

At some point around the age of 6 I was told how to get out my own cloths. The concept of "matching clothing" was brought up and I was all like "That doesn't make any sense."

Even before then when being in the cloths isle I'd sometimes select female clothing, get told it's female clothing, and be like "What's the difference?"

Which to answer young me: Shape. Most women have breasts and most men have dicks. The clothing can't put too much pressure on these or else the clothing will be very uncomfortable. (Much to the chagrin of gender queer and intersex peoples.)

Most people have their own tastes in fashion. They choose things they like, they find what they think looks good on them, and I do none of that.

I put "whatever" on. The other week I had red nail polish on for the purpose of figuring myself out. My sibling eventually noticed and commented "Oh, red isn't really your color." Just WHAT!?

I suspect a key reason I don't have any real fashion sense is down to the fact that I don't have an "internal self portrait". Yes, I know what I look like, but there's not much there when it comes to more abstract thinking.

It's why I find looking at myself in photos and videos uncomfortable sometimes. I go "Why do I look like that?" at myself. Something in my brain is expecting "static noise" but instead gets myself. It's not a pleasant feeling. 

But hey! At least I'm happy wearing nearly anything and in arbitrary combinations!

No seriously if you placed a bet on me wearing an "ugly combination" of cloths and it didn't conflict with me being male, I'll wear it!

Again, partially down to the lack of an internal self portrait, I'm apathetic towards how I look. Not having to worry about all that is fucking nice to be honest.

[userse31]

Closeted Lesbian on the Plane

So this was about a year or two ago by now.

I was pressured into going down to Florida with my grandpap. I didn't want to because transphobia. I'm cishet male and didn't face any transphobia, but still. Solidarity and all that. Anyway....

The airport was TERRIBLE! But the plane was fine. It was a French built Airbus A320, and I wish I snapped a picture of the tail. Those have plane ID numbers on them.

Hate heights, but enjoyed the ride. Was a bit cramped but I wasn't a surprising revelation.

On my right was my grandpap. On my left was a 50 something year old white woman.

Being rude and nosey I took a few glances at her phone screen.

The first glance was this one of those Christian.... Publication things. No idea what that field of "writing" is called, but we all know what it is: Someone running their mouth (or I suppose pen/keyboard in this case) saying the 👌EXACT👌 same crap everyone has already said a trillion times already. Winging about God/Jesus and "living a good Christian lifestyle". Eg: Evangelicalist fascist slop.

Seeing that I was like "Oh of course! Of fucking course the Florida native is a diehard Christian!" (Of course I kept that all in my head lol.)

And then.... Then she opened the iOS "Photos" app and started flicking through picture of women. Nothing NSFW, not even soft core porn. It was just..... Mundane pictures of women.

At this point I was slightly amused. Straight women don't look at multiple pictures of women saved on their phone! That just.... No. That's not something straight women do.

So in my mind I was like: "Ah. Ol' closeted lesbian so thick in the fascist propaganda she doesn't even know she's in the closet eh? I bet ya she's married to a man and is deeply unhappy with the relationship especially on a subconscious level."

*Slaps the table surface.* She had a selfie of both her and a 50 something year old man (presumably her husband) set as her lock screen wallpaper.

Because of course! Of fucking course gen x closeted lesbian is a diehard Christian and married to a man! Who needs comedians when you have reality?

As slightly amusing as all that was, it is depressing. Hopefully she finds herself, dumps the guy, and finds a woman who actually pleases her.

Maybe she'll also disavow Evangelicalism and picks up the words of Stalin! But I digress.

The last thing I saw her do was turn airplane mode off and try (and failed) connecting to various social media/e-commerce platforms.

Having been plenty rude enough, I stopped being nosy and brought out my pocket AM/FM/SW radio.

VHF radio signals are very directional. Unlike AM and shortwave signals, they don't bounce off the ionosphere and go past the horizon. (Or at-least not by very much.)

They do, however, reach pretty far into the atmosphere, including the altitude range most commercial airliners fly at! And this range is longer then the distance to the horizon. The result is that multiple FM radio stations clash with each other.

I did experience a little bit of clashing, but mostly one station fading away and another taking its place. Quite a lot of that "distant AM station fading in/out" thing too.

[userse31]

Autism: Imagining Humans and Character Customizers.

Having another person who you can discuss "something autistic" and they natively understand it is very nice!

So I brought up the bit where I found the process of imagining the human form uncomfortable. And oh my god, he expressed doing the same thing! Maybe that's the reason the both of us gravitated towards anthropomorphic animals. (For me it's the Rats of NIMH, for him it's Warrior Cats).

Although unlike him, I don't really do character customization.

-My Call of Duty Ghosts character is the default supplied female character template but switched to male. Found the female grunts/panting sound effects uncomfortable (that's technically dysphoria isn't it?) so I uh.... "Gave him HRT" lol. I guess that technically makes him transmasc!

Meanwhile I did mess around quite heavily with the Create-a-Class system.

-Reddit's custom alien profile picture thing: Bearded male with a red and yellow color scheme. The mascot's "species" has an actual name, but I don't remember what it's called, and I mean? FUCKReddit! I don't give enough of a shit to look that trivia up.

-The Nintendo Wii's "Mii" creator: Took the red clothed male template and messed with the mouth.

-Baldur's Gate 3: My sibling enjoys the game and I agreed to play a bit of splitscreen couch campaign co-op.

Now Baldur's Gate 3 has a phenomenally great character creator. You can get really in depth, even going so far as creating explicitly trans bodied characters. Very cool! Learned all this from a video essay or something.

So I went into the character creator, went "generate random", and just..... Went with it lol. Got a female character, which I think I head cannoned as transfem. It was a throwaway character, so who cares?

-Minecraft: Default skin. Granted I used cracked clients as I have a copy of both the PS3 and modern Bedrock versions of the game. I'm not forking more money over! And then the whole thing where you HAVE to have an account to boot the Java version of the game up in it's builtin demo mode. Why do I have to have to have an account just to play the demo? Why? I just want to test how well the game runs on a bit of hardware, but I can't be assed enough to remember what my existing account is- WOW this is getting ranty! Anyway....

If I did have a proper account I'd probably just have the default skin applied lol.

-Not a game, but my many online accounts: It's usually the (possibly CGI) photo of a cat grasping a roll of newspaper which came preloaded with Windows Vista.

That came because my oldest sibling's computer got defacto handed down to me, and she chose those picture. So that one wasn't even really my choice lmfao!

My Youtube alt @StanleytheCat-v8z, which is based off my author self insert character, has a picture of my grandparents' cat. I don't have any photos of THE Stanley the Cat (except for a small clip of video I made back as a kid, but he was far off and not facing the camera, and DVD camcorders have low resolution by modern standards). They're both, however, white tabby cats, so good enough eh?

[userse31]

Autism: Paint Brushes

Currently in a peer group thing. There's a cup of small paint brushes and I uh.... I'm brushing them against my skin.

Some of them are decently soft and..... Pleasurable to touch! (Not in a sexual way of course.)

And then some of them are hard. Picking at them is kinda fun.

The best brushes are those makeup ones for applying powders. Those are DELIGHTFULLY soft!

[userse31]

Track and Field, Tetris, and Rain

Back in middle school I did Track and Field for a little bit (a single season).

Now one of the race tournament things we went to, it started as a bog standard day. All of us where doing our thing, you know, getting ready for the race?

And then the weather switched and it immediately started pissing with rain. There was so much FUCKING rain, and it did NOT let up.

Now common sense says "Cancel the race and reschedule it" or "Shove everyone underneath something/get the whole thing done and over with". The event organizers did, mmm, neither.

Everything proceeded as normal. This was no heavy thunderstorm levels of rain (we don't get topical ocean based storms where I live) but it was no light drizzle either. It was heavy rain!

Thinking back to it, I have no idea why we all didn't riot. We were all fucking MISERABLE! We were all cold and wet, the training section fucking dragged, we weren't even sent over next to some trees to shield at least some of the rain. Nope. Out in the open ass fields!

Our school's turn eventually comes, we run, and then (and only then) did we get to go under one of those park pavilion things, and partake in The Snacks™. Needless so say I grabbed a decent few of The Snacks™.

I also started playing on the Tetris keychain thing I brought. Not a 9999-in-1 LCD Brick Game, but the officially licensed "Tetris Nano Carabiner" thing instead. I'll be honest: The LCD Brick Games are better.

And then we went home. Fucking miserable day.

[userse31]

"Older women please."

With the previous post being a bit of "depression maxing" we violently shift gears and endure tonal whiplash.

Am I the only cishet white male around here who thinks the ideal hookup age are the mid 20s?

Fricken.... High school role play crap.

Like can we have pretty women in ASMR Youtube videos but they like..... Don't role play as teenagers in school? Actually scratch the bit specifying women. Extend this to all genders!

You have a full grown ass adult roleplaying as a teenager, and the role plays infantilize the viewer by dragging them down into also being teenagers.

The whole thing comes off as mildly unpleasant towards me.

[userse31]

I want to scream.

Oh my god if I have to listen to some god damn case worker come over, tell me how empathy works, and then try gaslighting me into thinking I'm not empathetic (or other analogous scenarios) one more time I'm going to **fucking scream.**

I've dealt with this sort of crap all my life and I'm getting *real sick of it!* Life is too short. I want to be someone who's out in the broad world with a mundane job, doing mundane things, having a mundane life, and having mundane problems.

I hate being stuck at home because my mom won't let me do shit. Nope! *GOTTA DO ALL THE AUTISM STUFF!* "Letting Qwerty live a bog standard fulfilling life without the ableist wing of capitalism constantly bearing down on him? Never heard of him. Is he hot? Bonus points if he's from Facebook's dating feature because asshat men are my kink!"

Snark aside I am in this mental health group center thing where we all essentially have group chats, volunteer at local places, and generally just..... Exist largely in peace. It's really nice being around other people (especially fellow neurodivergents) and I very much enjoy it.

I do not, however, enjoy the condescending and overbearing aspects of capitalism's "ableist wing". And I especially fucking hate my mom's obsession with me going though it. I get value out of the "Group of fellow Neurodivergents™" but I'm getting little to no value out of the constant case workers and.... Whatever the fuck a "BCM" worker is. (I'm sorry Katie, you're a nice person, but if it was up to me you'd be seeing someone who actually needs your work. I'm unfortunately wasting your time.)

I almost got signed up for that fucking..... I don't know what it's called but my high school had this thing where after graduating all of us neurodivergents who went into """"special ed"""" (hint: The classrooms all of us get shoved away into and hidden from everyone else.) would come back for another three years and do..... I don't even know what. Likely the exact same thing we did before graduating, but with no school work and exactly 3.5 employment "program" options.

A few of the people around me got sent into that. Many of them looked absolutely **MISERABLE!** All I know is that, I'm not the type of person that becomes miserable in these scenarios, I would've lashed out in some manner.

Had "soft" nightmares of sorts where I graduated but still had to go back to school and repeat everything.

Perhaps talking to Oliver about all of this might help. He's a fellow autist and in something of a similar situation. It would probably help me, and perhaps even him, feel a bit better.

And maybe I should also into what my mom is *actually doing* at my former school as she's largely in the """"special ed"""" portion of the district. She's incredibly bigoted and gets off on the nasty power dynamics in those situations.

[userse31]

"Hey are you alright?"

WILL YOU BLASTED NEUROTYPICALS STOP ASKING ME THIS!?

I rest my forehead on the edge of the table because I like doing it! It's kinda comfy, and it's how I enjoy playing on my phone.

Head down, phone in hands on my lap, playing spider solitaire.....

Trust me if something is bothering me you'll know about it. Damn useless hacks....

[userse31]

Warrior Cats: Into the Wild; Thoughts and Snark

0.) "\"But that seems foolish! Why can't the Clans work together and share their hunting grounds, instead of fighting each other?\" Firepaw suggested boldly."

Because the plot requires it Firepaw. The plot requires it.

All we need next is Warrior Cats fanfiction where the "International Feline Soviet" is established. Call it the "SovietClan" or something lol.

Imagine the cats singing The Internationale. (Perhaps this one: https://youtu.be/TVbwtiAkvCc?si=1HvcKnSyEFvU8u4C) The theme of communism being inevitable, even among talking cats in the realm of fantasy, is an interesting one. It would make for an interesting story! Well, atleast by my standards it would.

This story as is isn't really my "cup of tea". I'm really only doing it for Oliver lol. (Page 60)

1.) "There was no trace of the house cat in him now." Bruh, it has only been two days. Stop stroking your own dick Firepaw. (Page 82)

2.) "Firepaw smarted at the she-cat's words. Could she smell the scent of Twolegs on him, even now, after all this time?" Yes, because it's only been two days.

3.) Nikolai: "🎵Firepaw and Yellowfang sitting in a tree🎵 🎵K-I-L-L-I-N-G🎵"

I really hope this isn't some weird sort of romantic setup between Firepaw and Yellowfang, that would be cringe. My aromantic ass wants plot, not token gesture romance. (Page ~86)

4.) "He could smell the fear-scent on her." I'm pretty sure cats don't smell different when they get scared.

Regardless this "fear scent" thing is a really weird creative decision. Cats have body language, and we see that in the book, so why the addition of this "emotion smells" thing? (Page 89)

5.) Also this "she-cat" phrase. Why? Just WHY? Every single female cat in here has been referred to with "she-cat". The male characters don't get this: They don't get referred to with "he-cat". They just get referred to with "cat"!

I thought maybe it was a strange title at first, but no it's clearly gendered language. "She-cat" also just sounds weird. What's next? "They-cat"? Do enby cats get referred to with "they-cat"?

What a weird form of misogyny. (Various pages)

6.) "\"It's just to dangerous to bring an enemy warrior into the heart of ThunderClan! Now that she knows the camp, even the youngest ShadowClan kit will hear of it. We will have to move."

Not exactly the most natural of dialog. Regardless, doesn't all the clans know where the other clans are? I mean they know the placement of the borders, just trespass and locate the massive crowd of cats. All of this didn't come off to me as clandestine.

Also: How would the rest of ShadowClan know about this? Yellowfang presumably got kicked out or something. Also these are cats. They don't uh... Don't have any mobile phones or ham radios, you know what I mean? Communication is slow.

But assuming ShadowClan knows where the capitol of ThunderClan is..... WHO GIVES A SHIT!? This information isn't what I'd call "national security" worthy. No need to move. (Page 94)

7.) "Never before had one Clan driven another from its hunting grounds." Oh bullshit! And then what the fuck was that battle at the very beginning of the book for then? Shits-and-giggles? That was very blatantly an attempt to slurp up territory!

8.) "\"Usually she trains only the kits of deputies!\"" Mistook "trains" for "trans" which lowkey got me excited lol.

9.) "\"Firepaw, although you showed bad judgement in talking to a house cat." Um.... WHAT? God this is more dictatorial then the United States! Wtf would talking to a "house cat" do? Cause the destruction of the universe?

10.) How do the cats know about lions and leopards and stuff? It's clear the famous African big cats are being referenced but uh.... Those are in Africa, not North America. (Page ~145)

11.) The clan leader getting eight Totems of Undying.... How is this kept secret from the humans? The clan cat religion thing is a real thing in this world, so do the humans already know about it? If so, do human religions revolve around it? Do the major religions like Islam and Christianity deify cats?

12.) "We'll follow the warrior code, even if ShadowClan doesn't."

"Don't worry ladies, Israel signed the ceasefire! They won't attack!"

5 minutes later Israel attacks. (Page 169)

13.) I enjoy how smells play a role in both the narrative and world building!

14.) "You should hunt if you are hungry and then get some rest." DID YOU NOT JUST GO ON ABOUT THE WARRIOR CODE!? Specifically the thing of hunting on the land of other Clans? (Page 174)

15.) "The sun would be rising soon." The passage of time is so weird in this book. It only felt like five minutes! (Page 183)

16.) Oh so Bluestar chewed Firepaw a new asshole for talking to Smudge (is that his name?) but here she's talking Barley. Fucking hypocrite. (Page 183)

17.) "\"Rats!\" spat Tigerclaw. \"Barley has sent us into a trap!\""

Lol, just be glad this isn't my Rats of NIMH fanfiction Tigerclaw. You'd be facing rats armed with submachine guns there. Would be riddled with bullets in about a minute!

(Rats are small. Can't carry much! They also don't have much strength to resist recoil. As such the Army of NIMH has SMGs with low fire rates!)

Barley supposedly sending them into a trap of rats is odd, isn't it? Did BrokenStar promise Barley a beer or something? (Page 185)

18.) "\"He's wanted to be deputy ever since he took care of Redtail-\"" Oh screw you. Dumb plot twist, I don't like it. (Page 199)

19.) "The warriors looked hungry and battle-scarred, but Firepaw could see the hard muscles pounding beneath their patchy fur."

Yeah that's not how mammals work. Muscles are expensive, and they're one of the first bits of tissue the body will break down during starvation.

You can't be both malnourished and jacked at the same time. (Page 259)

20.) So ShadowClan is filled with scrawny weak cats..... Then how the shit did they launch that attack against ThunderClan? You can't sustain a war if your people are starving and weak.

21.) "\"ThunderClan warriors do not kill unless they have to,\" he growled in Firepaw's ear. \"We just need to let them know not to show their faces here again!\"" Ah yes, just give the murder happy cat a warning bite. What could go wrong? (Page 260)

22.) BOO!!! Should've killed Brokenstar when you had the chance!