shannon-foraker

[shannon-foraker]

[shannon-foraker]

So, I've been working on a Honorverse fan comic lately.

It's essentially Shannon's POV on Silesia, in comic form.

#honor harrington #honorverse #honor harrington novels #stars of the silesian confederacy #shannon foraker #made with gimp

[shannon-foraker]

If a fair weather friend is someone who only hangs out with you when it's all sunshine and roses and no hardships

Then is a foul weather friend the person who drops everything to be there for you in an emergency, but on a day to day level just keeps fucking forgetting you exist?

[shannon-foraker]

I see a lot of people who tell young people–especially young people who are heading into college–that they should “do what they love.” And they’re right. You should do what you love.

But there’s a world of difference between doing what you love for you, and doing what you love for a paycheck. 

I went to undergrad for graphic design and 3-D design–art and more art, I usually say–and I loved it. You know what I didn’t love? Trying to collect my fees from clients. Trying to meet unrealistic, over-simplified or over-specific briefs from people who didn’t know what they were talking about. Coming home, having worked creatively all day, with no creative juice left for the things I wanted to do.

You know what I would tell you instead? Do something that you can be interested in, with people you like.

You don’t have to love it. Loving your work can be a lot, and it often means you have to live in your job 24/7. Some people can do that. Not everyone can, or should.  But if you can find work that’s interesting enough that it doesn’t feel tedious, and people you can enjoy spending your 9-5 with, and you can make money, that’s great! It means you can do the things you love for you.

I’m in law school now. It’s interesting work, and difficult, and I like doing it. I like how complicated it gets, and I like the stories it tells. But I don’t come home and read law journals for fun. I come home, and I sculpt, and I draw, and I paint, and I read. I do these things for me.

And I love it. 

[shannon-foraker]

[shannon-foraker]

[shannon-foraker]

So, I've been working on a Honorverse fan comic lately.

It's essentially Shannon's POV on Silesia, in comic form.

#honor harrington #honorverse #honor harrington novels #stars of the silesian confederacy #shannon foraker #made with gimp #cross posted on ao3 #cross posted in my Honorverse Discord

[shannon-foraker]

So, I've been working on a Honorverse fan comic lately.

It's essentially Shannon's POV on Silesia, in comic form.

#honor harrington #honorverse #honor harrington novels #stars of the silesian confederacy #shannon foraker

[shannon-foraker]

So, I've been working on a Honorverse fan comic lately.

It's essentially Shannon's POV on Silesia, in comic form.

#honor harrington #honorverse #honor harrington novels #stars of the silesian confederacy #shannon foraker

[shannon-foraker]

So, I've been working on a Honorverse fan comic lately.

It's essentially Shannon's POV on Silesia, in comic form.

#honor harrington #honorverse #honor harrington novels #stars of the silesian confederacy #shannon foraker

[shannon-foraker]

So, I've been working on a Honorverse fan comic lately.

It's essentially Shannon's POV on Silesia, in comic form.

#honor harrington #honorverse #honor harrington novels #stars of the silesian confederacy #shannon foraker

[shannon-foraker]

I know a lot of people got attached to a lot of ideas about how the Vader scene would go and are wondering what the point of it was if he didn’t even speak, and so my answer to that is: because it’s not about him.

That moment is not about Anakin Skywalker, his feelings about Barriss Offee, or Barriss Offee’s feelings about him. Anakin-as-Vader does not give a shit about her, which is to say he hates her the same way he hates everyone he meets. He puts the blame for Ahsoka leaving him squarely at Ahsoka’s feet, and hates her for it, wants her dead for it. Barriss doesn’t matter to him any more than any other Jedi he knew before the purge does. (If there’s any tinge of personal feeling, it’s more adjacent to satisfaction at seeing her stuck in the same despair trap as him than anything else.) And Barriss doesn’t have a clue who he is.

So: The point of that moment is that Barriss sees that she’s kneeling to a Sith Lord. She sees that things are so much worse than she had ever feared. She sees that she’s completely lost control of her life.

And in that moment, she cannot see the way out. She feels small and afraid and everyone she loves is dead and the entire oppressive structure of the Empire is bearing down on her and saying: If you want to live, this is what you have to be. This is all you can ever be. If you step a foot out of line you’ll be dead and it won’t even do anything to help anyone.

Later, when she gets back out in the galaxy and sees again the effect she can have on people, she’ll rekindle hope within her and see the way out. There was simply NO universe where Barriss “friend to all children” Offee could ever have been an Inquisitor past the moment where she actually had to fulfill the duties of one, and the whole point of this failed attempt to force her into the Inquisitorius was to show that was true; whether she ended that first mission dead or as another rogue Jedi on the run, she never would have been what the Grand Inquisitor wanted her to be.

But right then? Now? Kneeling to Vader, knowing that she’d be dead before she could even draw the new red lightsaber on her back—the one that she hates and that hates her back because was forced to profane it herself?* When the Grand Inquisitor has kept her isolated and provoked her over and over again so that when she finally lashes out to defend herself he can tell her that’s who she really is? There’s nothing she can do. There’s nothing she can do.

That’s her lowest point. That’s the only moment she ever really was the First Sister.

(*Kyber crystal bleeding is the kind of thing that only really hits if you're a huge turbonerd about the star war lore and know how it works, so I get why they skipped over it onscreen when it's really just a more abstract metaphor for what she was forced to do in the pit fight, but given that we know Iskat and Reva both made theirs themselves there's no way they didn't make Barriss do it too.)

[shannon-foraker]

An autistic child in their natural state will most likely be bullied on a regular basis.

They often have to actively suppress anything that makes them stand out.

Some are able to succeed at this, and people stop bullying them.

But they're then invisible. They still have no friends. They still miss out on any experiences that require friends.

When they ask how to make friends, everyone assumes that they're not even trying. Everyone assumes that they're doing nothing even though they're burning themself out just to be invisible. They're told "talk to people" or "just be yourself".

But that's what they were bullied for. They never had a chance to learn how to "talk to people" or what "just be yourself" even means.

So then, every once in a while, they take a wild guess at how to interact with others. And they get bullied again.

Then they stop doing the wild guess that caused them to be bullied. And they're back to being invisible.

[shannon-foraker]

[shannon-foraker]

[shannon-foraker]

I am officially a published author!

7 Days for Fae is a low-stakes middle grade book following 10-year-old Fae as she makes a new friend, learns to accommodate her own needs, and helps her family get along. Featuring an autistic protagonist with supportive parents, a big imagination, and a b-plot about showing her aunt that there’s nothing wrong with one of her parents being trans. It also contains 4 lovely illustrations by Marta Maszkiewicz like this one:

Find it as a paperback on Amazon or Lulu, or as an ebook on Lulu!

Full blurb under the cut:

Fae struggles to do a lot of things that are easy for other kids. She has a hard time talking, running, and reading facial expressions. She finds other things easy: reading, making up stories about fairies, flapping her hands to tell the world she’s happy. But in 5th grade it’s not good to be different, no matter how much she can’t help being disabled.

Now Fae’s aunt is moving in with her family and suddenly nothing feels right—all of the adults are quietly upset for reasons Fae doesn’t understand. Aunt Lana gets mad at her for things she can’t help and makes her feel like a baby. She just wants things to go back to the way they were.

Meanwhile at school, the new kid doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo that Fae is supposed to be invisible. He sits right down next to her and starts talking about spaceships. She isn’t sure what to do with this loud boy, but when he still wants to be her friend after a meltdown gets her suspended, it seems worth giving him a shot.

And now, as her life is falling apart, it looks like it might be up to Fae to discover if people really can change, and if change can sometimes make everyone’s life better.

[shannon-foraker]

I’ve seen these posts saying, in the words of one of them, “If your job requires you to go against your religious beliefs then perhaps it is time to change careers?” in reference to healthcare workers and government employees who want to deny services to lgbt ppl or others whom they condemn, and i just feel like those posts don’t attempt to understand internal logics at all

like, fundamentalist christian doctors don’t deny trans people medical care because they believe that somebody should provide the care but they just don’t want to be the one to do it. they deny the care because they don’t believe the person should receive care. Their refusal to provide care isn’t just “oops you’re in the wrong field,” as if they were a person with a peanut allergy working in a peanut factory. It is an intentional and calculated part of why they are in the field in the first place — to extend religious control and condemnation to the medical realm.

the pediatrician who spent an entire consultation telling one of my friends at 16 or 17 that he would go to hell if he kept choosing to be gay wasn’t just “not cut out for the job,” he was specifically in that job in order to do that particular thing. Kim Davis didn’t deny the gay couple a marriage license because she couldn’t personally do it, she denied them a marriage license because she thought that people like them should not get marriage licenses and that a clerk should deny them and by god she was going to be that clerk

Saying “if you can’t provide services then why are you in that job!!!” to fundamentalist christians almost always misses the point — that they are in that job specifically so they can selectively deny service