#also it’s low stakes bc it’s just community college

[tap1rs]

not sure if anyone is gonna read this but yknow what. this is my blog and i will blog about my life. i got wordy (which is uh. really not a surprise tbh) so i’m putting a read more.

so today was good? classes were really cool, i'm interested in all the subjects i'm taking, as usual. tbh, i find everything interesting, especially when the person relaying info is really passionate about it. i'm not sure if this is related to my adhd, but it feels like it might be?

i am super exicted about my first class of the day: hieroglyphics! we’re gonna be learning about egyptian and maya writing systems and i am just super hyped up about it. i’m an english major right now, but i’ve applied to various cal state universities as a linguistics major because languages are so awesome and i love them and how they develop and how they interact and how we shape them and how they shape us

i’m not sure if this is true for everyone, but my community college experience has been that each semester there’s like. one person who is in two of your classes. this semester, there is a guy in my hieroglyphics course who was in my astronomy course last semester and we’ve talked a bit before; and a guy in both my hieroglyphics and Black history course. my britlit class has a lot of familar faces too, because it’s like. britlit part two. i’m sitting between the same people i did last semester

actually i have had classes in each of the rooms i’m in this semester before? like the actual physical room. neat

switched out the tote i used for my knitting for the star trek tote my momma gave me for my birthday. it’s nice and roomy, which is good, except it is also black and i lost my keys immediately after i put them in there this morning. gonna go look for a new keychain online tomorrow; i do have one but it’s of luna from sailor moon which. really doesn’t help.

i have like three hours between my first two classes and my last one; i thought it was only an hour and a half between them. i’m not mad about it? having extra time anchored to the library is a good thing for me. whenever i try and study at the library after class, i’m always like “i can do this at home AND be wearing comfier pants while doing so” even though the quality of the studying is always worse at home.

i wrote down the stripe pattern for the pillow case i’m working on in the margins of the notebook page i used for my last class and realized i am a heck of a lot closer to being done than i thought! like, i definitely will be completely finished by next tuesday.

anyways i went to the yarn store after classes bc i felt up to it and had the pattern with me so i was able to do the yardage calcs quickly for each color of yarn. the next project i’m gonna work on is a blanket (my first! i am both excited and scared) and well. i knew it was gonna be the most i ever spent in one go on yarn going in, and i really like the yarn i got (it’s so pretty ahh) but it was still like. oof. there goes my yarn budget for the first half of the semester.

that’s? most of what’s important for today. i forgot my sunglasses at home which suck but i put them into my tote as soon as i got home. i got an intro post to do and i need to finish up my csu applications (i uh. am at the literal last minute here. oof.)

current background noise is the 90s run of the outerlimits, season 1. low stakes and i am not super invested. it’s baby bear for me

#rambles #knitting tag #think i'm gonna try and do this more often? bring the blogging back to the blogging platform

[troglobite]

not me lowkey following a bunch of VAs on twitter //eyes emoji

listen every time i see a CASTING CALL i’m just like !!!!!!!!!!

i can’t do it rn. i don’t have the time or the equipment set up. 

but i WANT to. and once i’m done with my degree you bet your ASS i’ll be throwing myself into some VA stuff. courses, communities, casting calls, etc. 

also will definitely be buying mics and set ups and researching that shit of course.

it won’t be my only income bc it’s not even remotely guaranteed income, i’ll have a job to work around, but it’s a really good freeing job

ANYWAY

i just. i see these things and i’m like “oh. oh my god. they’re looking specifically for nonbinary people. I’M a nonbinary people!!!” lol

so i’m just like. i wanna do small time stuff. fun stuff. weird stuff. i gotta, anyway, to cut my teeth. but i don’t wanna make a HUGE career out of it.

but if i get my name out there in the smaller circles then it’ll also overlap with TTRPG circles

and then i can get hired to play paid/arranged games/campaigns and my GOD do i really wanna do that

get paid for playing dnd and other systems? fuck yes. yes please.

that’s the dream, to do that extra stuff for fun, to be able to turn down and accept jobs when i need/want them and have the time.

the goal of course is to work at writing centers and/or as a professor at community colleges. additionally, i want to work in theater. and i JUST THINK that working as a VA and TTRPG professional player as well would be really good experience for that.

i’m getting my MA in shakespeare and looking at LGBTQ shit and theater stuff and race etc. so like. practical and academic knowledge and experience.

idk this is what i want.

what i want sometimes/often changes. 

but this one has been. pretty steady for a good long while at this point. and i think the thing that scares me off of stuff that i say i want to do is the COMMITMENT.

i’m not often a commitment-phobe sagittarius, but i think wrt my career choice, i am.

i wanted to be a photographer for a while, a marine biologist when i was a kid, a fully tenured professor, a writer, an actor, a director.

and like the thing is

all of those things require a lot of years of experience and education

and i’m honestly? not down for that. i don’t wanna pursue something for YEARS and then be LOCKED IN, struggling to find joy in something i once loved.

jack of all trades isn’t a bad thing imho

i’ll do enough to get smalltime VA gigs

i’ll do theater at community colleges, and maybe i move onto bigger stuff, maybe not. 

i’ll teach at community colleges. more variety, a steady routine for each quarter, no high stakes of higher academia. 

i could also be a writing consultant or tutor. flexible hours, variety, low commitment. 

i could also maybe try and offer freelance editing services. i’m good at that, requires some commitment and paperwork, but could be workable. depends on how i file everything. 

TTRPGs would also be great, bc it’s intermittent work, as well, that’s really fulfilling and fun. and now thanks to the pandemic, ppl are going to realize that working remotely is fine and possible for these things. 

AND i also live near a large city where there might be offices of some certain companies and there might be opportunities there, as well

same with VA stuff and theater stuff and teaching stuff

anyway idk i’m just rambling now

like i saw a casting call for a short student animation production that specifically wanted at least one nonbinary VA and it was paid. just $75 but that ain’t too bad. 

if only i had the time, experience, technology, and the set up. alas.

but maybe some other time!!! idk i’m rambling

[brockachu]

Dude, people freaked out/are freaking out hardcore about the Dunn thing. From my understanding, it wasn’t just ficcers who deleted. And yeah, it seems to be every few years. People bulk-deleted when EK had his Tumblr. People bulk-deleted when the Avs got a Tumblr. College hockey peeps mass deleted when a bunch of the players found out about the stuff on Tumblr. As an Old in hockeyblr, this is nothing.

i don’t wanna be flippant about things bc i get that this is a type of conspicuous visilibility that it’s understandable to be concerned about. i think maybe i don’t feel much on it bc i’ve never felt particularly visible. like, i’m just another weirdo who cracks jokes on my tags and makes some memes and has decided half the league are my children. i also have detached tumblr far enough from my offline life that the sense of consequences doesn’t align for me, even if i thought anything i do on here was deserving of ‘consequences’ — which to be clear, i don’t bc idk i’m almost 30 and having mindless fun on here with the corner of the community i’ve befriended is how i balance myself and i’m in control of how i act and i own up to my behavior. this is all probably incomprehensible rambling; my attention span and ability to connect thoughts that don’t have direct sequence has been failing me recently.

but like, yeah, i’ve been on hockeyblr for like nearly a decade now. i got into this whole thing around november 2011. i’ve told the story a few times, but like if anyone wants to know why i got into hockey/on hockeyblr, yknow my inbox is open & anon is on, yadda yadda. this whole ‘we’ve been found’ pixar’s ratatouille scramble seems to happen every few years — sometimes it happens and i only hear echoes of it bc it’s on a separate layer of fandom from where i’ve settled. i remember EK being on tumblr and honestly i was in the corner of hockeyblr that tried to befriend him, would send him pics of our pets or encourage his stories when he’d type up things. he’s part of the reason why i sometimes still sign off with ‘be kind to yourselves’.

this is the first time i’ve noticed mass deletions of blogs, but maybe also i’ve gotten just a little bit more out of my corner recently, bc my memes and askbox have been getting more attention over the past season or so.

anyway, this was all scrambled. i hope everyone’s doing ok. i’m sorry that people feel scared or conspicuous about this whole thing. i’ve pulled away recently bc there’s no new hockey for me to watch and i got pulled into another fandom (i got into pro wrestling; it’s fucking weird; please feel free to ask me about it bc it’s fun), but also bc tbh, dynamics in the fandom are changing and i need some low stakes social interaction.

tldr: y’all be kind to yourselves. there are people around here with much more insightful things to say than me but here’s where i’m sitting. feel free to message/ask me with whatever and i’ll answer at my capacity. oh also, sorry i still have a handful of other asks i’ve been putting off but i do intend to get there eventually when i have capacity.

#asks #long posts #aily talks

[actualbird]

yo you totally made me think about low empathy michael and it like totally makes sense and i think about it a lot when i listen to two player game bc ye like he OBVIOUSLY cares a lot about jeremy and he loves him and like jeremy's stating his problem and michael keeps saying the same solution cause like "that's the answer bro, don't be down" bc he cant wrap his head around the emotions and connect w them that well so in his mind he's just saying this completely fool proof solution i love this hc

yo i got this ask while balls deep in three books of discourse analysis i could only understand by like 10% but because of that was in the mood to just. keep thinking my brain in circles.

so heres a stupidly long answer cataloging canon instances of michael being low empathy af/exhibiting other traits related to this. along with like, characterization to extrapolate from that (at least by my own personal interpretation. obligatory disclaimer that how i see characters is not law, this is just My Take). 

but before that, im gonna define some terms outright so we’re all on the same page. empathy is a person’s capability to understand and feel what others are feeling. basically how well you can put yourself in somebody else’s shoes. this shouldnt be confused with sympathy, which is feeling compassion, pity, sorrow etc. for another. empathy is recognition/replication while sympathy is more on the caring about it. here i focus on empathy and the lack of it. 

im not an expert on Anything but speaking from experience as somebody who has very low empathy, this causes some complications. when you dont feel what others are feeling, sometimes you dont notice other people’s feelings at all. this results in stuff like bluntness, trouble reading social cues, insensitivity, etc. all things that 1) may happen unintentionally, 2) can be worked through via healthy communication, 3) are not inherently bad, just a result of how one reacts to external emotions and 4) things i totally think michael exhibits because hes a low empathy goblin i love with my whole heart. 

let’s get right into it. in more than survive, right after jeremy and michael discover their boyf riend backpacks, this exchange occurs

this seems pretty normal at first glance but it is the first instance of what seems to be michael’s go-to pattern for when he notices his best friend is feeling down, which, at least, kudos to michael, he very obviously noticed jeremy’s feelings. hurrah! so his process for how to fix this goes a little like “step 1: notice jeremy is upset. step 2: cheer jeremy up! step 3: unknowingly kinda mess up step 2“

jeremy is upset about the backpacks but then jeremy provides an out with something supposedly positive. michael latches on to it. it turns out to be negative. michael tries to salvage the situation by cheering jeremy up! by giving him a cool science fact! hell yeah! except it’s a shaky save at best because he does call the both of them losers but in an “it’s okay :D” way. 

all in all this is nothing really, just some friendly fast paced banter between best friends. whats important here is the 3 step pattern aforementioned because it 1) shows that michael Cares about his best friend and tries to make things better and 2) is BASICALLY the entirety of two player game

TWO PLAYER GAME is such a BOP and, at its core, is a song about how michael has got jeremy’s back and vice versa. but tpg is also textbook the 3 step pattern with added sprinkle of unintended invalidation. ive briefly spoken about tpg before so this might look a lil familiar but at its gist:

like you said anon, in tpg jeremy tells michael a problem he has, and throughout the course of the song, he continually makes it known that hes upset and has a lot of issues. step 1 has been achieved: michael knows jeremy is not doing too hot. time to do step 2: cheer him up!! and what better way to do that than to think positive with his trademark line “guys like us are cool in college” like, over and over again. because….it makes sense for michael. things might suck now, but just keep swimming yeah? it’ll be better later.

but it’s not better now and thats what jeremy actually needed validation on. michael thinks the solution is to look to the future but jeremy has his problems bothering him in the present. for all that michael says this is a two player game, he’s unintentionally dismissive because he doesnt understand that this isnt something that can be fixed with a simple “look forward to two years from now” mentality. neither of them are in the wrong, really. theyre just not on the same page.

onwards we go to something else entirely. the chili fries

this is a RIDICULOUSLY SMALL MOMENT but it stuck out to me because imo it is pretty obvious that jeremy says “leave me alone” because hes bummed and is being dramatic, but michael takes it literally and uses the opportunity to skedaddle and get his sweet sweet discontinued soda. im aware michael had to be gone for plot reasons and also the discontinued soda is foreshadowing for the mtn dew red, but taken at face value, this is something that happens a lot w/ low empathy: things are taken literally. 

jeremy is upset. jeremy said to give him some space. thats cool, i’ll go for a bit and come back with something neat that might cheer him up—hey, where’d he go?

and now let’s jump to something everybody and their dog knows about. michael in the bathroom. except not really. because mitb isnt what interests me so much as what happens before.

pre mitb is very, very interesting. before i say anything i’ll be clear in saying that literally nobody had even remotely a nice halloween night, it’s a disaster for everybody involved, but keep in mind that jeremy goes into the pre mitb scene immediately after the clusterfuck that is do you wanna hang and also getting chased down by a sloshed but aggressive jake. many people have said this before me but i’ll say it again: jeremy was not doing well. at all. 

and this is where michael fails step 1 of his pattern. he doesnt pick up on this at all. michael is kinda stuck in his own head right now. hes pissed. hes confused. hes betrayed. he cant understand other people’s feelings and now he has to deal with his own too. his head is a melting pot of AGH and he takes it out on jeremy. yeah, he tries to help jeremy, but he doesnt do it very well. it’s all very accusatory, and jeremy just had a terrible night, so jeremy lashes out.

teenagers are bad at emotions but theyre not bad people for it.  //cue mitb notes, we know the drill

to the play!!! 

recap for maximum contextualization: jeremy realizes the squip is bad fucking news and wants it gone. michael makes an entrance with the one thing that can kill it. and then this happens

AIGHT okay so the whole “i need an apology” scene is obviously played for comedy, and it does a good job at suddenly diffusing the end of the world stakes with some more down to earth teen friend drama but that aside, this scene is a good candidate to be listed under the definition of the phrase “bad timing” because michael, holy shit. BAD TIMING. like great timing for humor but bad timing as a human being. 

here we have jeremy clearly in possessed distress and michael has the antidote but he only wants to give it on a condition. it is absolutely a dick move. yeah, michael is is valid for wanting an apology, but not at this moment with the current stakes. this is michael thinking pretty selfishly. hes stuck in his own head and his own thoughts. he cares about jeremy and wants to help but…this apology important to him. it’s easy to get stuck on things like this when you cant empathize with others. the low empathy means that the only feelings you really get to really interact with are your own, so theres a tendency to focus on them. sometimes even at inopportune moments.

unintentional asshole-ery behold. in fact, this can be pushed even harder by this snippet in the score of be more chill that had some lines from an earlier draft. 

the fetus version of michael makes an entrance is hilariously low empathy, oh my god. this happens while jeremy is rolling around on the floor fighting an invisible-to-everybody-else squip and this is the first thing michael says. it’s positively dickish. 

SO with that done, a little bit can be extrapolated in terms of characterization. i think michael is low empathy so the dominos fall. michael is terrible at feelings. hes got a tendency to get stuck in his own head and not see what others are going through. his emotional periphery is abysmal, hes like a horse with those things that stop horses from looking to the side. in spite of all this, he still has a lot of love and good in his heart and he tries his best to show that in the ways that make sense to him. post-canon, the rift between his brain and jeremy’s brain can only be bridged by a big healthy heap of communication where michael learns that what makes sense to him isnt always what makes sense to other people. hes a good kid. he can do it. 

of course this is, again, all my take. the fun thing about transformative work and fandom is that all interpretations are valid and there will always be somebody out there who agrees. or disagrees. but on this blog, this is my michael. or at least one aspect of my michael. //shrug

ANYWAY im glad you like the hc anon!! ive obviously got a lot of feelings about it since i used your ask as an excuse to aimlessly ramble for, holy shit, 1.6 k words lmao. i hope you have a good day!!!

#be more chill #bmc #i spent too much time typing this so it's getting tagged #if i had to type all this you have to scroll past all of it. ive never used a readmore in my life #i havent written most of this into fic yet but i want to. desperately #hc