As someone who cannot draw hands without reference , without them ending up like either banana clusters, skinny spiders, or a bunch of strapped sausages… I must sadly agree.
Clif
Hands are hard.
Emperor Norton II
This is true in even the evolutionary sense, as only a few species have proper hands with oppositional digit for maximum gripping power.
Leorale
Real artists use references!
Luckily, you probably have two hand references on you at all times. you can move them around and everything.
Technically, all of my books (so far, including the ones I haven’t finished) are about people with eidetic memory who nevertheless act kinda stupid ??♀️
(sorry they’re not LITERALLY just about memorisation vs. being smart)
laura
Awesome!! Thank you so much! They look amazing.
Kazuma Taichi
I thought you were using a turn of phrase or hyperbolizing
I am pleased to be mistaken, but also humiliated despite no one being around to observe my blunder
Woah. That last “robot” comment hit Joyce exactly where it needed to! ?
Robot comment epiphany aside, Joyce should really appreciate her autistic superpower. It can go away to be replaced by gloomy tiredness, and you don’t know when or if it will ever come back ??????
Not to mention (or maybe this is what you were referring to), Joyce called Dina a “robot” and it really hurt here feelings. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Wow, that is a strange saying – why is that idiom part of our language. No wonder English is difficult for foreigners to learn to a conversational level when compared to other less idiom reliant languages.
English works perfectly fine without idioms. It’s us that insists on expressing everything through them. It’s not as if the speakers of other languages don’t use idioms incomprehensible to people who only have plain vocabularies.
Cholma
In 200 years American English will have evolved into what will be called the Tamarian language. (“Darmok and Gilad, at Tanagra.” “Shaka, when the Mike fell.”)
anonymsly
Kayshon, when he became a puppet.
Needfuldoer
Amazi-Girl and Sal, on the steps.
Carla, her name illuminated.
Cholma
Cholma, his spirits lifted after a Lower Decks reference.
Nova
So, not assuming anything, but just in case you think that is originally from Lower Decks please check out my absolute favourite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation for the actual source of that language. The episode is called Darmok and it’s phenomenal.
Again, not assuming you haven’t watched it, but just in case you haven’t.
Gigafreak
Captain America, piping up to say he understood that reference.
Keulen
I find it funny that Star Trek TNG basically predicted modern meme culture.
Guerisso
I think the closest we’ve come is people writing “surprised_pikachu.jpg”. I wonder when I hear such a meme spoken for the first time.
eh, whatever
I have several times said “this is my surprised face” in meatspace.
Jon
That one predates memes, however – in fact, that saying is what inspired the meme.
Leorale
Swedish ones are super great. There’s no cow on the ice. Taking a crap in the blue cupboard. Sliding in on a shrimp sandwich.
StClair
Fantastic Polish one I learned a few years back: “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
Casi
you know, that idiom is actually pretty easy to parse, unless it means something completely different than “that’s not my problem”
StClair
Nope, that about covers it.
Great way of putting it, though (IMO).
ischemgeek
My region of Canada has “I don’t have a horse in that race,” to mean basically the same thing.
Needfuldoer
“Not my circus, I just follow it with a shovel.”
Miri
I didn’t know that was Polish? But there are loads of Polish immigrants in the UK so I guess it makes sense I’ve come across it…
thejeff
Yeah, I’ve been using that one for years with no reason to think it was Polish.
Oz
There’s a whole meme in Brazil that consists in translating idioms to english, literally, word for word. I assume most cultures have this kind of thing. Btw just this morning I was thinking abt how one usual way to end a conversation in a kthxbye-ish way is “falou, valeu” (or, if you’re online, “flwvlw”), which literally translates to “spoke, it was worth it” which sounds like something a stereotypical ritualistic tribespeople would use in some sci-fi setting
Lena
Yep, same in Dutch. “Make that the cat wise.” etc… two of my colleagues spent like several months talking like that all the time cause it was so amusing.
Oz
*nods* the cat’s jump is that those who don’t have dogs hunt with cats, but a scalded cat doesn’t go into cool water, so when the cats leave, the rats party.
At the frying of eggs, all languages are bags of cats, so you can take your little horse out of the rain if you think yours is the last cookie in the packaging.
Greek: “He wrote me on his balls” (=he completely ignored me) XD
zee
I know a Turkish one from hasanabi
Every warrior has a different way of eating yogurt
Leorale
so good
Yumi
English actually is a pretty idiomatic language; most of that’s not on the “shoe is on the other foot” level, but in much more common phrases. I used to tutor an English language learner (he moved from South Korea aa an adult), and we used a book about idiomatic phrases in English. Most of them weren’t the type of thing I learned about as idioms as a child, but when thinking about them in this context, I realized they really weren’t totally direct and often needed more explanation to someone learning the language than you might think.
Of course, I’m not sure how English ranks against most other languages in that regard.
Yeah, but I’m sure by now Joyce would really appreciate having a special interest other than the Bible.
BTW is it possible to grow new ones if you’re just autistic? As a kid who grew up with ADHD too, it seems I had a new special interest that I made my personality every 3 months or so, with few sticking around long term.
Ari
Yes, but they’re usually at least sort of long-term. Mine have all lasted for years at a time (and several are lifelong). Also, they tend to be in the same vein (I’ve gone from hyperfixating on vet medicine to psychology to neuroscience to cell biology over the years, for example. But I’ve always had some sort of medical hyperfixation)
Jon S.
Yes, new ones do pop up. The old ones never really go away, though, which is why I can provide impromptu lectures on both the history of the Fallout universe and the four-letter physiological classification system used at Sector General.
Series of stories about a human doctor on a spacestation hospital for aliens. Old SF that’s held up well for the most part.
Jon
Some of the later stories didn’t even focus on humans – Cha Thrat, for instance, was a doctor from a species new to the Confederation, resembling a four-armed centaur. There was a bit of controversy surrounding her first surgery at Sector General, as cultural xenologist had failed to parse their medical ethics, under which a doctor will not to anything to a patient that they wouldn’t do for themselves. She executed Conway’s surgical procedure for geriatric Hudlar (amputation of the now-useless central tentacles, and replacement with prosthetics), then, to the shock of observing personnel, removed her own arm. (It was, of course, reattached, and Maj. O’Mara had a nice long counseling session with her…)
Mark
A number of novels and short stories by James White, about the sort of adventures you can expect at a multispecies hospital built by an interstellar culture. Thoughtful and good reading. Wikipedia has an article on them.
Pebble
I love that they later found out they didn’t start far enough back with the classification system and had to shoehorn things into A___ that didn’t really fit!
The only code I remember off the top of my head is DBDG, sadly.
Keulen
Autistic person without ADHD here, and I get new special interests that last for years from time to time. Some of the old special interests get put on the back burner for several years, but they’re never completely gone and I can come back to them later on like I never left them.
From my experience, what she needs to do is start watching early-era youtube atheists doing creationism “debunking.” That’ll slide that special interest the one step left to make it really obnoxious!
And, with any luck, she won’t keep watching as they become increasingly regressive and slowly morph into shills for fascists and oh no I suddenly don’t know if this one’s a good idea
thejeff
Yeah, that was a fun time to be an atheist online.
There’s still some good atheist debunking of creationism on Youtube, as well as some interesting scholarship on the early development of Christianity that I could easily see Joyce getting caught up in. There’s also still a tendency for it to spin off into conspiracy theory/pseudo-history nonsense, though not so much of a direct link to fascism as then.
egg egg
From the ADHD side of things, I’ve definitely gained new special interests as I’ve gotten older. As a kid, my special interest was Pokemon, and boy howdy do I still have so much Pokemon knowledge stored up from gens 1-4. To the point my husband asks me about typing when battling and such. :laughs: I’m not as up to date on the newer ones since I don’t have much time to play Pokemon due to Adult Responsibilities, but uh… I read a lot of Pokemon fanfics and my husband and I watch a lot of Pokemon gen 1 challenge videos.
And then about 7 years ago I spontaneously developed a special interest in the One Piece character Arlong.
Then in 2019 I got into Magia Record, which is a Madoka Magicka phone game. The NA servers shut down due to covid, presumably, and it felt awful. So I switched over to the JP server and have been playing daily.
And speaking of other games, there’s the mmo Mabinogi, which I have been playing since 2009.
It’s totally possible to grow new special interests, but, you don’t always get to pick them lol.
239 thoughts on “Come up”
Ana Chronistic
I have written an entire book about the difference between memorising literally everything and being smart
like how A.I. could rip off literally ALL THE ART and still not render hands that don’t look like eldritch horrors
Rose by Any Other Name
To be fair to AI, a lot of human artists have no better luck with hands.
Eldritch horrors all the way down.
Hilen
As someone who cannot draw hands without reference , without them ending up like either banana clusters, skinny spiders, or a bunch of strapped sausages… I must sadly agree.
Clif
Hands are hard.
Emperor Norton II
This is true in even the evolutionary sense, as only a few species have proper hands with oppositional digit for maximum gripping power.
Leorale
Real artists use references!
Luckily, you probably have two hand references on you at all times. you can move them around and everything.
thejeff
But the difference is, the AI not being smart, it can’t understand that it’s not good at hands and work on improving them.
Laura
That’s amazing, Ana! How can we read your book?
Ana Chronistic
http://sgppresents.com/info/books.html (sadly WAY outdated coding I can’t be bothered to learn how to update)
Ana Chronistic
Technically, all of my books (so far, including the ones I haven’t finished) are about people with eidetic memory who nevertheless act kinda stupid ??♀️
(sorry they’re not LITERALLY just about memorisation vs. being smart)
laura
Awesome!! Thank you so much! They look amazing.
Kazuma Taichi
I thought you were using a turn of phrase or hyperbolizing
I am pleased to be mistaken, but also humiliated despite no one being around to observe my blunder
Doctor_Who
When God closes one door, he opens another.
When Joyce deals with one terrible insecurity, she discovers another.
The Wellerman
Woah. That last “robot” comment hit Joyce exactly where it needed to! ?
Robot comment epiphany aside, Joyce should really appreciate her autistic superpower. It can go away to be replaced by gloomy tiredness, and you don’t know when or if it will ever come back ??????
Bryy
YUP. That’s the look of realizing you’ve been a dick.
JepMZ
A robot dick
Proxiehunter
No I’m pretty sure Other Jacob is still in Sarah’s drawer.
Jess
A…a dildo?
True Survivor
Not to mention (or maybe this is what you were referring to), Joyce called Dina a “robot” and it really hurt here feelings. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Wow, that is a strange saying – why is that idiom part of our language. No wonder English is difficult for foreigners to learn to a conversational level when compared to other less idiom reliant languages.
The Wellerman
Yes, that’s exactly what I was referring to! 🙂
Too bad Dina’s not gonna make an appearance this storyline at all 🙁
Jamie
English works perfectly fine without idioms. It’s us that insists on expressing everything through them. It’s not as if the speakers of other languages don’t use idioms incomprehensible to people who only have plain vocabularies.
Cholma
In 200 years American English will have evolved into what will be called the Tamarian language. (“Darmok and Gilad, at Tanagra.” “Shaka, when the Mike fell.”)
anonymsly
Kayshon, when he became a puppet.
Needfuldoer
Amazi-Girl and Sal, on the steps.
Carla, her name illuminated.
Cholma
Cholma, his spirits lifted after a Lower Decks reference.
Nova
So, not assuming anything, but just in case you think that is originally from Lower Decks please check out my absolute favourite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation for the actual source of that language. The episode is called Darmok and it’s phenomenal.
Again, not assuming you haven’t watched it, but just in case you haven’t.
Gigafreak
Captain America, piping up to say he understood that reference.
Keulen
I find it funny that Star Trek TNG basically predicted modern meme culture.
Guerisso
I think the closest we’ve come is people writing “surprised_pikachu.jpg”. I wonder when I hear such a meme spoken for the first time.
eh, whatever
I have several times said “this is my surprised face” in meatspace.
Jon
That one predates memes, however – in fact, that saying is what inspired the meme.
Leorale
Swedish ones are super great. There’s no cow on the ice. Taking a crap in the blue cupboard. Sliding in on a shrimp sandwich.
StClair
Fantastic Polish one I learned a few years back: “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
Casi
you know, that idiom is actually pretty easy to parse, unless it means something completely different than “that’s not my problem”
StClair
Nope, that about covers it.
Great way of putting it, though (IMO).
ischemgeek
My region of Canada has “I don’t have a horse in that race,” to mean basically the same thing.
Needfuldoer
“Not my circus, I just follow it with a shovel.”
Miri
I didn’t know that was Polish? But there are loads of Polish immigrants in the UK so I guess it makes sense I’ve come across it…
thejeff
Yeah, I’ve been using that one for years with no reason to think it was Polish.
Oz
There’s a whole meme in Brazil that consists in translating idioms to english, literally, word for word. I assume most cultures have this kind of thing. Btw just this morning I was thinking abt how one usual way to end a conversation in a kthxbye-ish way is “falou, valeu” (or, if you’re online, “flwvlw”), which literally translates to “spoke, it was worth it” which sounds like something a stereotypical ritualistic tribespeople would use in some sci-fi setting
Lena
Yep, same in Dutch. “Make that the cat wise.” etc… two of my colleagues spent like several months talking like that all the time cause it was so amusing.
Oz
*nods* the cat’s jump is that those who don’t have dogs hunt with cats, but a scalded cat doesn’t go into cool water, so when the cats leave, the rats party.
At the frying of eggs, all languages are bags of cats, so you can take your little horse out of the rain if you think yours is the last cookie in the packaging.
milu
Greek: “He wrote me on his balls” (=he completely ignored me) XD
zee
I know a Turkish one from hasanabi
Every warrior has a different way of eating yogurt
Leorale
so good
Yumi
English actually is a pretty idiomatic language; most of that’s not on the “shoe is on the other foot” level, but in much more common phrases. I used to tutor an English language learner (he moved from South Korea aa an adult), and we used a book about idiomatic phrases in English. Most of them weren’t the type of thing I learned about as idioms as a child, but when thinking about them in this context, I realized they really weren’t totally direct and often needed more explanation to someone learning the language than you might think.
Of course, I’m not sure how English ranks against most other languages in that regard.
RowenMorland
But suddenly realising you’ve put your shoe on the wrong foot s very uncomfortable.
Laura
Rest well, hon’.
The Wellerman
My plan exactly. Almost done with the Paxlovid regimine too!
I just wanna take a moment to say, thank goodness for the Power of Science! ?
StClair
SCIENCE!
Bathymetheus
She blinded me with SCIENCE!!
Laura
Congratulations!
FadingMemory
“It can go away to be replaced by gloomy tiredness, and you don’t know when or if it will ever come back”
Damn, this really hit me in the “looking back at who I felt I was & who I feel I am.”
a/snow/mous/e
I was gonna say Wellerman sounds a bit depressed and maybe should look into seeing a therapist and/or if possible, getting medication
The Wellerman
Yeah, i WAS taking Ritalin, but now theres a nationwide shortage ?
mommert
did joyce have a special interest in… the bibble
APW
Isn’t that obvious by now?
The Wellerman
Yeah, but I’m sure by now Joyce would really appreciate having a special interest other than the Bible.
BTW is it possible to grow new ones if you’re just autistic? As a kid who grew up with ADHD too, it seems I had a new special interest that I made my personality every 3 months or so, with few sticking around long term.
Ari
Yes, but they’re usually at least sort of long-term. Mine have all lasted for years at a time (and several are lifelong). Also, they tend to be in the same vein (I’ve gone from hyperfixating on vet medicine to psychology to neuroscience to cell biology over the years, for example. But I’ve always had some sort of medical hyperfixation)
Jon S.
Yes, new ones do pop up. The old ones never really go away, though, which is why I can provide impromptu lectures on both the history of the Fallout universe and the four-letter physiological classification system used at Sector General.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
I understood that reference!
The Wellerman
I didn’t ?
Clif
Series of stories about a human doctor on a spacestation hospital for aliens. Old SF that’s held up well for the most part.
Jon
Some of the later stories didn’t even focus on humans – Cha Thrat, for instance, was a doctor from a species new to the Confederation, resembling a four-armed centaur. There was a bit of controversy surrounding her first surgery at Sector General, as cultural xenologist had failed to parse their medical ethics, under which a doctor will not to anything to a patient that they wouldn’t do for themselves. She executed Conway’s surgical procedure for geriatric Hudlar (amputation of the now-useless central tentacles, and replacement with prosthetics), then, to the shock of observing personnel, removed her own arm. (It was, of course, reattached, and Maj. O’Mara had a nice long counseling session with her…)
Mark
A number of novels and short stories by James White, about the sort of adventures you can expect at a multispecies hospital built by an interstellar culture. Thoughtful and good reading. Wikipedia has an article on them.
Pebble
I love that they later found out they didn’t start far enough back with the classification system and had to shoehorn things into A___ that didn’t really fit!
The only code I remember off the top of my head is DBDG, sadly.
Keulen
Autistic person without ADHD here, and I get new special interests that last for years from time to time. Some of the old special interests get put on the back burner for several years, but they’re never completely gone and I can come back to them later on like I never left them.
The Wellerman
? that’s so assuring. Thank you.
Tesset
From my experience, what she needs to do is start watching early-era youtube atheists doing creationism “debunking.” That’ll slide that special interest the one step left to make it really obnoxious!
And, with any luck, she won’t keep watching as they become increasingly regressive and slowly morph into shills for fascists and oh no I suddenly don’t know if this one’s a good idea
thejeff
Yeah, that was a fun time to be an atheist online.
There’s still some good atheist debunking of creationism on Youtube, as well as some interesting scholarship on the early development of Christianity that I could easily see Joyce getting caught up in. There’s also still a tendency for it to spin off into conspiracy theory/pseudo-history nonsense, though not so much of a direct link to fascism as then.
egg egg
From the ADHD side of things, I’ve definitely gained new special interests as I’ve gotten older. As a kid, my special interest was Pokemon, and boy howdy do I still have so much Pokemon knowledge stored up from gens 1-4. To the point my husband asks me about typing when battling and such. :laughs: I’m not as up to date on the newer ones since I don’t have much time to play Pokemon due to Adult Responsibilities, but uh… I read a lot of Pokemon fanfics and my husband and I watch a lot of Pokemon gen 1 challenge videos.
And then about 7 years ago I spontaneously developed a special interest in the One Piece character Arlong.
Then in 2019 I got into Magia Record, which is a Madoka Magicka phone game. The NA servers shut down due to covid, presumably, and it felt awful. So I switched over to the JP server and have been playing daily.
And speaking of other games, there’s the mmo Mabinogi, which I have been playing since 2009.
It’s totally possible to grow new special interests, but, you don’t always get to pick them lol.
shork
is this a Victorious/Sam and Cat reference?
Slartibeast Button, BIA
The Betty Boop Robot?
Cattleprod
I thought Joyce looked weird and then I realized she’s NOT wearing her glasses. I’ve adapted.