The Anecdata Thread

Discussion in 'General Advice' started by oph, Apr 16, 2016.

  1. anon person

    anon person actually a cat

    i haven't had cinnamon toast in probably a decade, and now i am craving it and i don't have any bread or any get-up-and-go-to-the-store. thanks a lot, all you other anons.

    ...anyway, my family was poor, but i don't think it's a poor-people thing, i think it's a people-with-functioning-tastebuds thing.
     
    • Like x 2
  2. unknownanonymous

    unknownanonymous i am inimitable, i am an original|18+

    re:shipping as representation conversation - shipping is basically how i found out about lgbt+, got motivated to become an ally, and then realized i was queer, so yeah, for me, it was representation.
     
    • Like x 3
  3. KingStarscream

    KingStarscream watch_dogs walking advertisement

    Yeah I'd say there's tiers of representation like-- Orange Is The New Black has a lot of prominent female characters and at least one trans woman, lesbians, a large black cast, and it's a Netflix exclusive. A now wildly popular Netflix exclusive, but it's still not something airing on FOX or the CW. Which has it's own benefits but compare that to, for instance, a very small webcomic like Agents of The Realm with a smaller audience with an equally diverse cast-- which one is 'better' for representation?

    Now compare that with Steven Universe, which has a large cast of prominent female characters, lesbians, a fair amount of black VAs (and characters coded as a spectrum of PoC), and it's on a major network. One of the big three, and for cartoons I'd say that CN is probably one of the biggest hitters. How does SU rack and stack again OITNB and AOTR?

    I'd say that all of them are representation. Someone is going to stumble across any of those three and go 'that's me, that's a person like me, my existences has merit' with any of those. But the level of distribution is sort of the significant factor here, I think? (I am not touching the levels of accurate/respectful portrayal, because I haven't watched OITNB, but that would be another tier to categorize by.)

    I mean, consider the yaoi/slash problem: large groups of predominantly girls/women exploring sex and sexuality with nubile young men. Sometimes in wildly offensive ways, sometimes in poignant and accurate ways, almost always on their own time, without payment, and with a large group of people around them doing the same thing. How many of them changed their positions on LGBT rights? How many of them turned out to be nb or male all along? How many of them weren't the 'straight girls' that everyone assumed they were?

    And then you get into the 'if shipping becomes an original novel, does it count' degree of representation, where you've got authors doing things like publishing stories based on sprawling AU mythos where they peel apart the characters they once shipped and remake them into something original. If a Spy/Sniper AU fic becomes a published war-time love story, does it only count in the published format? Does it retroactively count as a fanfic? What if the fanfic has more hits than the original novel?

    If a fanfic author who firmly believed in gay robot marriage later got a job writing for the series and canonized that gay robot marriage, does only their canon material count? Even if that fanfic material had a real effect on the world, including getting him the job in the first place?

    So I guess in terms of Gay Sulu (or Johnlock, or Destiel, or any other explicitly noncanon shipping-- or, alternatively, Korrasami where the ship does become canon) it does matter whether or not something is canon for it to count as canon representation. And that's an important distinction. But that's not the only merit by which we can (or should) determine whether or not something is representation.

    (I may not like trans Fenris, but an abundance of trans Fenris fanfic can count as representation. But in terms of canon representation and impact, Krem will probably be the more significant representation in the series.)
     
    • Like x 7
  4. LadyNighteyes

    LadyNighteyes Wicked Witch of the Radiant Historia Fandom

    @seebs : ???-istic shoelace anecdata: when I was about 6 I had a bit of a fascination with tying knots in things and untangling knots, though I never learned any complicated ones. Then I went to kindergarten, where they had little achievement boards for being able to do things like recite the alphabet or list all the numbers up to 100, and could not for the life of me tie a shoelace knot when they asked me to demonstrate it. Despite the fact that I tied my shoes myself, because I liked knots. The problem, it turned out, was that my thought process was "make two loops and tie a knot the same way I always tie a knot," but they kept constantly repeating this mnemonic that was something like "the rabbit runs around the tree and into the hole" and I was convinced they wanted me to do something weird and different because this description made no sense to me.
     
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  5. esotericPrognosticator

    esotericPrognosticator still really excited about kobolds tbqh

    @seebs, shoelace data from someone who you (and my psychiatrist) have said sounds autistic: I did not learn to tie shoelaces until I was eight or nine, I think; I either would not wear shoes with laces or, if I had to wear non-Velcro sneakers or whatever, would get someone to tie them for me once and then slip them on and off. I could not for the life of me figure out how that "make a loop with one lace, then wrap the other around and pull through" method (aka the "the rabbit runs around the tree and into the hole" one @LadyNighteyes was referring to) was supposed to work. I still haven't, actually. I just figured out that I could in fact just make two loops and tie a regular knot, which is still the method I use even though it is slow and easy to mess up. incidentally, a "regular knot" is the only kind of knot I can tie; I have tried to learn others, but like you I am apparently not able to copy hand motions. similarly, I am not able to do something like copy dance steps; I see and understand what someone is doing, and I tell my body to do it in the same way that I would tell it to, like, pick up a pencil or whatever, and it just does not work. I inevitably do it wrong. mentally chanting each step of the movements I'm supposed to make helps, but I am still a terrible dancer. needless to say I am not much good at any kind of sports either.
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2016
  6. LadyNighteyes

    LadyNighteyes Wicked Witch of the Radiant Historia Fandom

    The thing they were trying to get me to do actually is just a regular knot, for the record. Like, the result is the same. But it took me years to figure that out because of how they framed it.
     
  7. kmoss

    kmoss whoops

    i can do the bunny ears method! and that's it. there's one where they all go around a bunch or something? I don't know, their hands always seemed like magic slipslides

    ...i also cannot follow other people's movements if they're remotely complicated, which we all found out when we had to do group exercises and yoga and stuff in americorps, because i'd stare confusedly, attempt, and then fall over.

    (i can follow pictograph directions!)
     
  8. esotericPrognosticator

    esotericPrognosticator still really excited about kobolds tbqh

    but??? how??? does that happen??? and why do they insist on using that weird method when you can literally just make two loops, cross them, pull one under, pull tight, repeat as necessary??? I am very confused. and @kmoss yes, I have heard the method I use referred to as the bunny ears one, and very much same with the yoga. man am I bad at yoga.
     
    • Like x 2
  9. LadyNighteyes

    LadyNighteyes Wicked Witch of the Radiant Historia Fandom

    It's actually the same motion, they're just holding one loop still instead of moving both of them and describing it in a different way. Like I said, took me years to figure that out.
     
  10. esotericPrognosticator

    esotericPrognosticator still really excited about kobolds tbqh

    that's—oh man, I think I get it! instead of holding the two loops horizontally, wrapping one under, and pulling, are they holding the stationary loop horizontally, wrapping one around and under, and pulling? that makes sense! (I am not too bad at spatial conceptualization if my information is from words as opposed to actions, I guess.) but why would you explain it like that??? it is so unnecessary! and confusing! here I was trying to, like, pull one loop through the other or something! just tell kids to make two loops and tie a goddamn knot! good on you for figuring out it was the same thing, though! you have brought a previously inscrutable mystery to light.
     
    • Like x 2
  11. LadyNighteyes

    LadyNighteyes Wicked Witch of the Radiant Historia Fandom

    THAT I can't answer. :::PPP
     
    • Like x 2
  12. Aniseed

    Aniseed Well-Known Member

    i couldn't reliably tie my shoes okay enough on my own until i was like 9 or so. i still can't really tie my shoes that well. i really really can't even begin to understand the one loop thing.. the bunny around the tree or.. something? i just do two loops in my fingers and tie that way but even that i can't really do that well. so i just kind of try to avoid it by tying my shoes once and then slipping them on and off until the knots eventually come undone.
     
  13. Lib

    Lib Well-Known Member

    oh look, my mother was like that too. :| she never explicitly said that - her reaction to finding out I was suicidal was to be Performatively Sad, so that I had to feel bad about making her sad. (Whether that was intended, I don't know, but the whole shifting-focus thing certainly worked.) But her approach to anything that might be critical of her was always 'OH NO, you're painting it like I'm the WORST PARENT, how horrible of you, I guess I AM a failure and the WORST, I'm so AWFUL, etc'. Eugh.
     
  14. Aniseed

    Aniseed Well-Known Member

    same.

    when my mom found out about her self injury her first "solution" was to guilt trip me, bring it up at all moments to shame me and upset me publicly, and basically drive me to doing it more. her second "solution" was to plant razors around my room and tell me directly to just kill myself next time i wanted to hurt myself. not sure exactly what the goal from her end was with that one. other than i guess the situation would have gone away if i did.
     
  15. LadyNighteyes

    LadyNighteyes Wicked Witch of the Radiant Historia Fandom

    I'm not sure if this qualifies as anecdata or not, but that goddamn Rainbow Fish book can go to hell. Hopefully The Giving Tree is already there. The former made me feel vaguely uncomfortable even at age seven when my school themed an open house around it, and the latter made me feel anxious and physically ill when they read it to us in kindergarten. Apparently the teachers never figured out that a book which consistently, every year, upset multiple children so much that they cried, to the extent that they had to warn the class about that before reading it, was maybe not the best book to choose for read-aloud.
     
    • Like x 5
  16. strictly quadrilateral

    strictly quadrilateral alive, alive, alive!

    Adding onto this, sort of:

    At my ABSOLUTE lowest, when I had nothing I thought was worth looking forward to, when I had lost everything I had worked so hard for - I was completely convinced that I was only around for the good of other people. That I was only alive to support other people. That the ONLY THING I was good for was making sure other people were happy.

    I've held some pretty toxic and awful beliefs before, but I think this was the single most dangerous one. Once you start thinking "I don't matter except for what I can do for other people" you never quite get out of that way of thinking.

    In conclusion: giving of yourself is all well and good but PLEASE for your own sake don't make it your defining characteristic. And that is why I hate that tree and that fish. They teach small children exactly that.
     
    • Like x 4
  17. LadyNighteyes

    LadyNighteyes Wicked Witch of the Radiant Historia Fandom

    Rainbow Fish also helpfully teaches you that being special or having traits other people want is bad, and appreciating the things you have that other people don't makes you a horrible selfish person and the only way to atone for your sin of being born different is through wrecking yourself for other people's benefit until you no longer have anything they don't have and perfect conformity is achieved.

    Fuck that book. In the ear. With a chainsaw.
     
    • Like x 5
  18. Hatchback

    Hatchback ... he is just fine again today

    Oh man, I relate. I never learned how to tie my shoes (one of those many things that was just kind of ignored... I was in velcros until like, eight or nine) and still can only do the basic bunny ears, which, of course, come out easily. I've never been good at rope work, either (and... it used to be a requirement of my job, which was awkward). I still strongly prefer slip-on shoes, and if I can't find slip-ons those better be some really good looking shoes because I'll just wear the pairs I have otherwise.

    :wordswords:: I'm not autistic (Well. I mean, it's not impossible, but it's fairly improbable), but I do have ADHD... and almost certainly had (have? I don't think it goes away) DCD/dyspraxia, which is an extraordinarily common comorbidity (iirc, ADHD has 50% comorbidity with DCD). My motor control was never good, from my unreadable handwriting to just being overly clumsy and dropping and walking into stuff constantly, and, of course, no one around me wanted to deal with it or look at it as an issue - Clearly just a case of a kid not being careful or trying. [​IMG] A lot of it has gotten better with practice or techniques like using block printing at all times, but I still have a case of the butterfingers, can't write in cursive at all despite being old enough to have learned to do so and aborted attempts being made at me learning, and walk into things (... like walls) pretty regularly. And I probably also have its friend dyscalculia, too. Pile on those developmental disorders!
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2016
    • Like x 1
  19. LadyNighteyes

    LadyNighteyes Wicked Witch of the Radiant Historia Fandom

    Re: this: I'm pretty sure the OP explained that it was the sort of trigger that can be set off by just mentioning it. There's someone in my family with a vaguely similar thing- they're violently allergic to shrimp, and have had such bad reactions to it that now just looking at it makes them feel ill.
     
    • Like x 1
  20. furrylatula

    furrylatula a pissed off homestuck girl

    Screen Shot 2016-09-05 at 3.12.58 PM.png
    i saw the opportunity and GRABBED it
     
    • Like x 10
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