#and now i am contributing with ancillary | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

disabled-dragoon · 9 months

Text

The Disability Library

I love books, I love literature, and I love this blog, but it's only been recently that I've really been given the option to explore disabled literature, and I hate that. When I was a kid, all I wanted was to be able to read about characters like me, and now as an adult, all I want is to be able to read a book that takes us seriously.

And so, friends, Romans, countrymen, I present, a special disability and chronic illness booklist, compiled by myself and through the contributions of wonderful members from this site!

As always, if there are any at all that you want me to add, please just say. I'm always looking for more!

Edit 20/10/2023: You can now suggest books using the google form at the bottom!

Updated: 31/08/2023

Articles and Chapters

The Drifting Language of Architectural Accessibility in Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris, Essaka Joshua, 2012

Early Modern Literature and Disability Studies, Allison P. Hobgood, David Houston Wood, 2017

How Do You Develop Whole Object Relations as an Adult?, Elinor Greenburg, 2019

Making Do with What You Don't Have: Disabled Black Motherhood in Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, Anna Hinton, 2018

Necropolitics, Achille Mbeme, 2003 OR Necropolitics, Achille Mbeme, 2019

Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts, Zygmunt Bauman, 2004

Witchcraft and deformity in early modern English Literature, Scott Eaton, 2020

Books

Fiction:

Misc:

10 Things I Can See From Here, Carrie Mac

A-F:

A Curse So Dark and Lonely, (Series), Brigid Kemmerer

Akata Witch, (Series), Nnedi Okorafor

A Mango-Shaped Space, Wendy Mass

Ancillary Justice, (Series), Ann Leckie

An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon

An Unseen Attraction, (Series), K. J. Charles

A Shot in the Dark, Victoria Lee

A Snicker of Magic, Natalie Lloyd

A Song of Ice and Fire, (series), George R. R. Martin

A Spindle Splintered, (Series), Alix E. Harrow

A Time to Dance, Padma Venkatraman

Bath Haus, P. J. Vernon

Beasts of Prey, (Series), Ayana Gray

The Bedlam Stacks, (Series), Natasha Pulley

Black Bird, Blue Road, Sofiya Pasternack

Black Sun, (Series), Rebecca Roanhorse

Blood Price, (Series), Tanya Huff

Borderline, (Series), Mishell Baker

Breath, Donna Jo Napoli

The Broken Kingdoms, (Series), N.K. Jemisin

Brute, Kim Fielding

Cafe con Lychee, Emery Lee

Carry the Ocean, (Series), Heidi Cullinan

Challenger Deep, Neal Shusterman

Cinder, (Series), Marissa Meyer

Clean, Amy Reed

Connection Error, (Series), Annabeth Albert

Cosima Unfortunate Steals A Star, Laura Noakes

Crazy, Benjamin Lebert

Crooked Kingdom, (Series), Leigh Bardugo

Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots, (Series), Cat Sebastian

Daniel, Deconstructed, James Ramos

Dead in the Garden, (Series), Dahlia Donovan

Dear Fang, With Love, Rufi Thorpe

Deathless Divide, (Series), Justina Ireland

The Degenerates, J. Albert Mann

The Doctor's Discretion, E.E. Ottoman

Earth Girl, (Series), Janet Edwards

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, Emily R. Austin

The Extraordinaries, (Series), T. J. Klune

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, (Series), Trenton Lee Stewart

Fight + Flight, Jules Machias

The Final Girl Support Group, Grady Hendrix

Finding My Voice, (Series), Aoife Dooley

The First Thing About You, Chaz Hayden

Follow My Leader, James B. Garfield

Forever Is Now, Mariama J. Lockington

Fortune Favours the Dead, (Series), Stephen Spotswood

Fresh, Margot Wood

H-0:

Harmony, London Price

Harrow the Ninth, (series), Tamsyn Muir

Hench, (Series), Natalia Zina Walschots

Highly Illogical Behaviour, John Corey Whaley

Honey Girl, Morgan Rogers

How to Become a Planet, Nicole Melleby

How to Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager, (Series), D. N. Bryn

How to Sell Your Blood & Fall in Love, (Series), D. N. Bryn

Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites, Joy Demorra

I Am Not Alone, Francisco X. Stork

The Immeasurable Depth of You, Maria Ingrande Mora

In the Ring, Sierra Isley

Into The Drowning Deep, (Series), Mira Grant

Iron Widow, (Series), Xiran Jay Zhao

Izzy at the End of the World, K. A. Reynolds

Jodie's Journey, Colin Thiele

Just by Looking at Him, Ryan O'Connell

Kissing Doorknobs, Terry Spencer Hesser

Lakelore, Anna-Marie McLemore

Learning Curves, (Series), Ceillie Simkiss

Let's Call It a Doomsday, Katie Henry

The Library of the Dead, (Series), TL Huchu

The Lion Hunter, (Series), Elizabeth Wein

Lirael, (Series), Garth Nix

Long Macchiatos and Monsters, Alison Evans

Love from A to Z, (Series), S.K. Ali

Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses, Kristen O'Neal

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

The Never Tilting World, (Series), Rin Chupeco

The No-Girlfriend Rule, Christen Randall

Nona the Ninth, (series), Tamsyn Muir

Noor, Nnedi Okorafor

Odder Still, (Series), D. N. Bryn

Once Stolen, (Series), D. N. Bryn

One For All, Lillie Lainoff

On the Edge of Gone, Corinne Duyvis

Origami Striptease, Peggy Munson

Our Bloody Pearl, (Series), D. N. Bryn

Out of My Mind, Sharon M. Draper

P-T:

Parable of the Sower, (Series), Octavia E. Butler

Parable of the Talents, (Series), Octavia E. Butler

Percy Jackson & the Olympians, (series), Rick Riordan

Pomegranate, Helen Elaine Lee

The Prey of Gods, Nicky Drayden

The Pursuit Of..., (Series), Courtney Milan

The Queen's Thief, (Series), Megan Whalen Turner

The Quiet and the Loud, Helena Fox

The Raging Quiet, Sheryl Jordan

The Reanimator's Heart, (Series), Kara Jorgensen

The Remaking of Corbin Wale, Joan Parrish

Roll with It, (Series), Jamie Sumner

Russian Doll, (Series), Cristelle Comby

The Second Mango, (Series), Shira Glassman

Scar of the Bamboo Leaf, Sieni A.M

Shaman, (Series), Noah Gordon

Sick Kids in Love, Hannah Moskowitz

The Silent Boy, Lois Lowry

Six of Crows, (Series) Leigh Bardugo

Sizzle Reel, Carlyn Greenwald

The Spare Man, Mary Robinette Kowal

The Stagsblood Prince, (Series), Gideon E. Wood

Stake Sauce, Arc 1: The Secret Ingredient is Love. No, Really, (Series), RoAnna Sylver

Stars in Your Eyes, Kacen Callender [Expected release: Oct 2023]

The Storm Runner, (Series), J. C. Cervantes

Stronger Still, (Series), D. N. Bryn

Sweetblood, Pete Hautman

Tarnished Are the Stars, Rosiee Thor

The Theft of Sunlight, (Series), Intisar Khanani

Throwaway Girls, Andrea Contos

Top Ten, Katie Cotugno

Torch, Lyn Miller-Lachmann

Treasure, Rebekah Weatherspoon

Turtles All the Way Down, John Green

U-Z:

Unlicensed Delivery, Will Soulsby-McCreath Expected release October 2023

Verona Comics, Jennifer Dugan

Vorkosigan Saga, (Series), Lois McMaster Bujold

We Are the Ants, (Series), Shaun David Hutchinson

The Weight of Our Sky, Hanna Alkaf

Whip, Stir and Serve, Caitlyn Frost and Henry Drake

The Whispering Dark, Kelly Andrew

Wicked Sweet, Chelsea M. Cameron

Wonder, (Series), R. J. Palacio

Wrong to Need You, (Series), Alisha Rai

Ziggy, Stardust and Me, James Brandon

Graphic Novels:

A Quick & Easy Guide to Sex & Disability, (Non-Fiction), A. Andrews

Constellations, Kate Glasheen

Dancing After TEN: a graphic memoir, (memoir) (Non-Fiction), Vivian Chong, Georgia Webber

Everything Is an Emergency: An OCD Story in Words Pictures, (memoir) (Non-Fiction), Jason Adam Katzenstein

Frankie's World: A Graphic Novel, (Series), Aoife Dooley

The Golden Hour, Niki Smith

Nimona, N. D. Stevenson

The Third Person, (memoir) (Non-Fiction), Emma Grove

Magazines and Anthologies:

Artificial Divide, (Anthology), Robert Kingett, Randy Lacey

Beneath Ceaseless Skies #175: Grandmother-nai-Leylit's Cloth of Winds, (Article), R. B. Lemburg

Defying Doomsday, (Anthology), edited by Tsana Dolichva and Holly Kench

Josee, the Tiger and the Fish, (short story) (anthology), Seiko Tanabe

Nothing Without Us, edited by Cait Gordon and Talia C. Johnson

Nothing Without Us Too, edited by Cait Gordon and Talia C. Johnson

Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens, (Anthology), edited by Marieke Nijkamp

Uncanny #24: Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, (Anthology), edited by: Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, Dominik Parisien et al.

Uncanny #30: Disabled People Destroy Fantasy, (Anthology), edited by: Nicolette Barischoff, Lisa M. Bradley, Katharine Duckett

We Shall Be Monsters, edited by Derek Newman-Stille

Manga:

Perfect World, (Series), Rie Aruga

The Sky is Blue with a Single Cloud, (Short Stories), Kuniko Tsurita

Non-Fiction:

Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education, Jay Timothy Dolmage

A Disability History of the United States, Kim E, Nielsen

The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access, David Gissen

Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman's Fight to End Ableism, Elsa Sjunneson

Black Disability Politics, Sami Schalk

Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations: The Pursuit of Love, Admiration, and Safety, Dr. Elinor Greenburg

Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure, Eli Clare

The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Disability, Barker, Clare and Stuart Murray, editors.

The Capacity Contract: Intellectual Disability and the Question of Citizenship, Stacy Clifford Simplican

Capitalism and Disability, Martha Russel

Care work: Dreaming Disability Justice, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Catatonia, Shutdown and Breakdown in Autism: A Psycho-Ecological Approach, Dr Amitta Shah

The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays, Esme Weijun Wang

Crip Kinship, Shayda Kafai

Crip Up the Kitchen: Tools, Tips and Recipes for the Disabled Cook, Jules Sherred

Culture – Theory – Disability: Encounters between Disability Studies and Cultural Studies, Anne Waldschmidt, Hanjo Berressem, Moritz Ingwersen

Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition, Liat Ben-Moshe

Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally, Emily Ladau

Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Disability Pride: Dispatches from a Post-ADA World, Ben Mattlin

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories From the Twenty-First Century, Alice Wong

Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability and Making Space, Amanda Leduc

Every Cripple a Superhero, Christoph Keller

Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation, Eli Clare

Feminist Queer Crip, Alison Kafer

The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Growing Up Disabled in Australia, Carly Findlay

It's Just Nerves: Notes on a Disability, Kelly Davio

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot

Language Deprivation & Deaf Mental Health, Neil S. Glickman, Wyatte C. Hall

The Minority Body: A Theory of Disability, Elizabeth Barnes

My Body and Other Crumbling Empires: Lessons for Healing in a World That Is Sick, Lyndsey Medford

No Right to Be Idle: The Invention of Disability, 1840s-1930s, Sarah F. Rose

Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment, James I. Charlton

The Pedagogy of Pathologization Dis/abled Girls of Color in the School-prison Nexus, Subini Ancy Annamma

Physical Disability in British Romantic Literature, Essaka Joshua

QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology, Raymond Luczak, Editor.

The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability, Jasbir K. Puar

Sitting Pretty, (memoir), Rebecca Taussig

Sounds Like Home: Growing Up Black & Deaf in the South, Mary Herring Wright

Surviving and Thriving with an Invisible Chronic Illness: How to Stay Sane and Live One Step Ahead of Your Symptoms, Ilana Jacqueline

The Things We Don't Say: An Anthology of Chronic Illness Truths, Julie Morgenlender

Uncanny Bodies: Superhero Comics and Disability, Scott T. Smith, José Alaniz

Uncomfortable Labels: My Life as a Gay Autistic Trans Woman, (memoir), Laura Kate Dale

Unmasking Autism, Devon Price

The War on Disabled People: Capitalism, Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe, Ellen Clifford

We've Got This: Essays by Disabled Parents, Eliza Hull

Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life, (memoir) (essays) Alice Wong

Picture Books:

A Day With No Words, Tiffany Hammond, Kate Cosgrove-

A Friend for Henry, Jenn Bailey, Mika Song

Ali and the Sea Stars, Ali Stroker, Gillian Reid

All Are Welcome, Alexandra Penfold, Suzanne Kaufman

All the Way to the Top, Annette Bay Pimentel, Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, Nabi Ali

Can Bears Ski?, Raymond Antrobus, Polly Dunbar

Different -- A Great Thing to Be!, Heather Alvis, Sarah Mensinga

Everyone Belongs, Heather Alvis, Sarah Mensinga

I Talk Like a River, Jordan Scott, Sydney Smith

Jubilee: The First Therapy Horse and an Olympic Dream, K. T. Johnson, Anabella Ortiz

Just Ask!, Sonia Sotomayor, Rafael López

Kami and the Yaks, Andrea Stenn Stryer, Bert Dodson

My Three Best Friends and Me, Zulay, Cari Best, Vanessa Brantley-Newton

Rescue & Jessica: A Life-Changing Friendship, Jessica Kensky, Patrick Downes, Scott Magoon

Sam's Super Seats, Keah Brown, Sharee Miller

Small Knight and the Anxiety Monster, Manka Kasha

We Move Together, Kelly Fritsch, Anne McGuire, Eduardo Trejos

We're Different, We're the Same, and We're All Wonderful!, Bobbi Jane Kates, Joe Mathieu

What Happened to You?, James Catchpole, Karen George

The World Needs More Purple People, Kristen Bell, Benjamin Hart, Daniel Wiseman

You Are Enough: A Book About Inclusion, Margaret O'Hair, Sofia Sanchez, Sofia Cardoso

You Are Loved: A Book About Families, Margaret O'Hair, Sofia Sanchez, Sofia Cardoso

The You Kind of Kind, Nina West, Hayden Evans

Zoom!, Robert Munsch, Michael Martchenko

Plays:

Peeling, Kate O'Reilly

---

With an extra special thank you to @parafoxicalk @craftybookworms @lunod @galaxyaroace @shub-s @trans-axolotl @suspicious-whumping-egg @ya-world-challenge @fictionalgirlsworld @rubyjewelqueen @some-weird-queer-writer @jacensolodjo @cherry-sys @dralthon @thebibliosphere @brynwrites @aj-grimoire @shade-and-sun @ceanothusspinosus @edhelwen1 @waltzofthewifi @spiderleggedhorse @sleepneverheardofher @highladyluck @oftheides @thecouragetobekind @nopoodles @lupadracolis @elusivemellifluence @creativiteaa @moonflowero1 @the-bi-library @chronically-chaotic-cryptid for your absolutely fantastic contributions!

---

Submit a Book:

#disability resources #disability #chronic illness #disability books #books #resources #book list #disability literature #literature #disability representation #disabled characters #information #informative #disability education #disability history #disability rights #please add to this #to be updated #long post

2K notes · View notes

thankskenpenders · 5 months

Note

Help me out here: Why is there so much Ian Flynn hate going around lately? I thought everyone loved that he was contributing to the games. Now suddenly they aren't. I guess that's par for the course for this series but I don't get it. He isn't perfect but I like what he's done. Am I a weirdo?

Ian Flynn has always had a lot of fans, but any creator putting their work out there is going to have detractors as well. That's just the nature of being an artist. To some extent, it's no big deal. He's not a perfect writer. Nobody is! I consider myself a fan of his work, but I've criticized plenty of individual writing decisions from him on here.

But Ian doesn't just have critics. He has his own obsessive hatedom. And the specific nature of Ian's hatedom is... interesting.

A decade ago, Ian was only the guy writing for Archie Sonic, meaning any debates over his work were quarantined within that tiny niche of the larger Sonic fandom. Only people who kept up with the comics month to month had any real reason to have an opinion on the guy, which means we're talking about merely thousands of fans as opposed to millions.

Within that group, he had some haters. You had the people who were mad about story changes made during his run, particularly things like ancillary characters getting killed off (although over the years we've learned that most of those were editorial mandates from Mike Pellerito). You had the people mad that Ian didn't push their favorite ship, with feuding SonAmy and Sonally fans claiming that he was CLEARLY biased towards one or the other. You had the people who just really, really liked one of the previous writers way more - usually Penders, as hard as that may be to believe today. That sort of thing. Pretty normal comic fandom type stuff. Again, it comes with the territory.

Unfortunately, many of those haters only got worse over time, morphing into reactionaries who constantly try to incite Comicsgate type culture war bullshit.

There are people still mad at Ian for making Sally bi and pairing her with Nicole instead of Sonic in the later Archie comics. There have been elaborate MS Paint red string conspiracy boards explaining how people like Ian and Jon Gray have apparently been destroying the franchise from the inside for years by Making Sonic Woke. (Jon gets dragged into this because people are still mad about him drawing The Slap 20 years later. Yes, really!!) There was an unhinged change.org petition trying to get Ian fired, specifically from people who were mad that the Freedom Fighters aren't in the IDW comics. There was even a very sad little fan campaign from these people trying to get Sega to move the Sonic comic license away from IDW and over to Udon, because they thought Udon would bring Sally and Bunnie back and also make them sexy again. There's a lot of this.

(Unfortunately, Penders has also exacerbated this by gossiping about Ian on Twitter and giving these fans ammo, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)

The thing is, for years, people who only played the games or watched the cartoons had no reason to pay attention to any of this. Now, though, Ian isn't just writing for some weird spinoff comics that only the super nerds read. Now he's writing comics that are canon to the games, and ALSO some of the games themselves, and ALSO consulting on other tie-in media like Sonic Prime, and ALSO writing the official Sonic encyclopedia, and ALSO serving as part of the new Sonic Lore Team at Sega. And on top of all this, he's got an increasingly popular podcast where he fields questions about his work on all of these things, which serves as one of the fandom's main windows into creative decisions being made behind the scenes.

As a fan of Ian's work, it's been really cool to see him rise in prominence. But the dark side of this is that his obsessive haters from the Archie days now have WAY more of a potential audience of their own. Now, every Sonic fan has to have an opinion on Ian. What this frequently means is that you'll have the Comicsgate types taking things Ian writes or says out of context, attempting to get more of the general fandom to yell at the guy.

Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of Sonic fans who take the bait:

You've got hardcore fans who disliked basically any recent piece of Sonic media and are looking for someone to blame.

You've got the people who are concerned about the sanctity of Sonic's canon, who shoot the messenger any time Ian mentions a new retcon from Sonic Team on the podcast - or any time he even mentions the THOUGHT of changing anything about the canon, as we saw recently with the Sol Dimension nonsense.

You've got people who romanticize some sort of mythical artistic vision that Sega of Japan supposedly has (or had) for the franchise. To many of these fans, American contributors like Ian just don't "get" the heart of the series and are trying to turn Sonic into something different. (This "heart of the series" tends to be some mix of Japanese instruction manual lore, the cinematics from Sonic CD, the OVA, and/or the games written by Shiro Maekawa, depending on what Sonic media the fan in question grew up with.)

You've got fans of specific characters or ships who pin the blame for how their faves are depicted entirely on Ian - most vocally fans of Shadow, even though the root problem is that Sonic Team hasn't known what to do with Shadow since 2006. At best this stops at regular old criticism, but at its worst this devolves into claims that Ian has an agenda against certain characters.

You've got fans annoyed by a perceived over-emphasis on comic-original characters in the IDW comics, ignoring the obvious facts that these characters exist because the game cast is so tightly controlled by Sega, and also, you know, that people just like the IDW characters and want more stories about them.

You've got a LOT of discourse over IDW's Sonic being a hero who tries to give his enemies second chances, as if half of Sonic's closest friends aren't already former villains and rivals. Honestly this is very transparently just reheated Steven Universe discourse lmao

You'll also see people who just think they could do Ian's job better. They can't believe that THIS GUY is the American fan working on all these Sonic projects, when clearly THEY understand the characters and lore and themes SO much better than this charlatan.

All it takes is for someone in one of these categories to be unhappy about some recent piece of Sonic media, and for them to come across an out of context quote or comic panel that rubs them the wrong way, and suddenly the leftist Zoomer Sonic fans will join the latest dogpile on Ian alongside the reactionary Comicsgate types who are mad at him for Making Sonic Woke.

In general, when fandoms get upset, they tend to want a scapegoat. A person or two to point a finger at and go "THAT's who ruined the thing I love!" This tends to be based less on reality and more on which contributors are the most visible online. You'll sometimes see teenage and adult fans of children's cartoons single out a storyboarder who's particularly vocal on Twitter, blame them for every story decision they don't like, and harass them off the platform out of a sense of retribution for their favorite ship or whatever. Failing that, fans might choose to blame every nitpick, down to individual lines of dialogue and frames of animation, on a showrunner, just because that's the name they associate with the show. And unfortunately, when it comes to Sonic, Ian is now arguably the most prolific and outspoken contributor on the English speaking internet, and therefore a common scapegoat.

Some of the things I've seen Ian blamed for are truly wild. A lot of people have claimed for YEARS that he's just lying about the existence of creative guidelines and restrictions from Sega - or, as fans call them, The Mandates - even though they're just an inherent aspect of working on a licensed property. Others claim that The Mandates are real, but somehow Ian's fault. A vocal minority of fans have convinced themselves that Ian is the sole reason the Freedom Fighters don't exist in the IDW comics, even though Ian says he's been pushing to bring them back since day one.

Sometimes you'll see people say he ruined shit he didn't even work on. A few weeks ago on Twitter I saw someone claim that Ian had written a rejected script for Sonic Forces in which Tails died. I could not find a source for this for the life of me. As far as I can tell, the rumor seems to have been born from an alleged leaked script for Forces with margin notes from Aaron Webber that criticized the way Tails was written, and also an old tweet where Aaron joked that Tails would die in an upcoming episode of Sonic Mania Adventures. These merged into "Aaron Webber criticized a draft of the Forces script in which Tails died." How'd Ian get dragged into this? Who fucking knows!

It's all just a big game of telephone. All it takes is some asshole to make something up about Ian on Twitter or YouTube or a DeviantArt journal or some forum, and at least a couple people will believe it, and then it gets repeated as fact. Again, this used to be contained by the niche nature of the Archie Sonic fandom, but now there are WAY more people who are receptive to this shit.

It's just sad to me that Ian tries to be so open and honest about his work, to try to explain the rationale for certain things, to keep fans looped in on the direction the franchise is headed, and this just gives the Flynnspiracy types more quotes to take out of context and try to paint him as the devil. If it sounds like I'm being overly defensive and dismissing his critics, man... some of the things I've seen people say directly to him are just unbelievable. People will send paragraphs-long angry screeds in to his podcast that completely tear him apart, and he has to sit there and be like "Well, that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it." People literally pay for special guest interview episodes where they just rapid fire complaints about his writing at him directly to his face. I don't know how he does it. I would snap.

All of this over Sonic the fucking Hedgehog of all things.

I don't know how to wrap this up. Engaging with fandoms online is very tiring, which is why I tend not to do it. Things like this are too common. I guess, just... remember that making art collaboratively is a complicated thing. The people involved are generally trying their best given the circumstances, but they're only human. They make mistakes. But please treat them like humans. Criticism and dogpiling are not the same thing.

#anon #ask #tkp asks #tkp post

773 notes · View notes

zeldurz · 10 months

Note

Being a house cat means a lot of time to ponder. I am familiar with your fic as it relates to Pellaeon/Thrawn, henceforth, referred to as Prawn. Lately, I have noticed that you have shifted away from this pairing into unfamiliar territory for me, mainly Firmus Piett/Maximilian Veers & Tiaan Jerjerrod/Conan Antonio Motti. Since I am firmly ensconced in my tiny corner of the fandom, I had to ask around, who are these guys?

Now it’s time to ask you. Welcome to my little corner at the Asker’s Studio™️ (don’t mind the ferocious Mini-Panther🐈‍⬛)

Where I go in the fandoms is determined by where ‘my’ authors go, thus, I often find myself in unfamiliar territory. I got my start with Harry Potter, moved on to Gargoyles, enjoyed a long visit with Thrawn, and currently I happily reside in TNG. As person who merely comments, it’s easy to jump around, but as an author, I would think that it would be more complicated.

What made you decide to branch out to these new pairings/fandom? While they are still Star Wars, I view them far enough away from Thrawn to consider them a different fandom (as it is an enormous departure from the Thrawn universe to the Original Trilogy)

I admit that my only knowledge of your new pairings (newer to your fic) is what Wookeepedia tells me, and what more experienced fandom inhabitants add to that. It makes me want to go back to the OT and watch it through a different lens.

What is it that you would want new readers to know about these ancillary characters?

What characteristics do you admire or dislike about them?

Do you see any parallels to characters that you have written about in the past?

I am behind on my Fic reading, but know that I have been enormously entertained by your Whatever it Takes, and I hope to see additional updates sometime in the near future.

Ahhh thank you for having me back on Asker’s Studio, it’s always a pleasure to be here. I will put this under a cut to make everyone's life a little bit easier

I have indeed shifted my preferences into the adjacent world of OT Imperials, at least for the moment. While I can firmly say that this is all the wonderful @alexx-dax’s fault – since I started following him on tumblr and was left with many similar questions to those you have posed to me: who are these men? How can I tell them apart? Why should I even care? – the question of “why” still remains, and for that, my answer is two-fold.

I would say that the jump from Thrawn to the OT Imps is not as far as it looks on the surface – much of the internal politics and settings aboard a Star Destroyer in Thrawn’s time (be it in Canon before the Battle at Lothal or in Legends aboard the Chimaera) remain the same. This makes it both easier to write (as I already have an idea of The Empire and how it operates) and easier to integrate characters that are still very near and dear to my heart – in fact, while I have yet to make full use of it in a fic, the fact that Grand Admiral Thrawn was the one that recommended a then Corporal Veers to Darth Vader for his Death Squadron has a lot of room for potential. I also think it helps that the Imps have a much less wide-reaching fandom – there’s a very small, very enthusiastic community that has made me feel very welcome as I undertake my studies into Background Men, and I really appreciate that.

Without going into too much detail, I would also be remiss if I did not touch on the issue of Writer Burnout and how that has contributed to my step away from writing Thrawn. I have the curse of non-functioning executives (aka ADHD/autism), and writing something that isn’t the topic du jour is a painful and tedious process for me (astute readers will also recognize this is why I rarely do outlines/planning and why I almost never edit/proofread my fics before posting them). For every fic that reaches AO3, there are 8-10 more that are half finished on my google drive, and I tend to lose creative steam on things very, very quickly. Between a bunch of stuff IRL and the rise of people discussing Thrawn and his characterization in fandom spaces(1), I’m having a very hard time getting my ‘voice’ for Thrawn back (it doesn’t help that my largest and most popular fic has spiraled into something much, much larger than I had originally planned, and I’m very much struggling to figure out how to tie it off in a satisfying way lol).

But back to these new guys. Who are they and why should you care?

First of all, if you wish to join me in my corner with my dolls, I would actually recommend watching the OT again but considering the perspectives of the Imps – in particular, Ken Colley’s portrayal of Piett in Empire Strikes back and Michael Pennington’s Jerjerrod in Return of the Jedi(2) give a lot of depth to the characters that we often just see as “bad guy henchmen”. People have written many things about these characters over the years (some of which I agree with and some of which I do not), but I always come back to Piett’s expression as he watches Admiral Ozzel choke to death beside him; these characters are Imperials, yes, but they are not all Tarkin or Palpatine – that is, they are not simply evil for the sake of being evil. Veteran Thrawn fans will know that writing from the perspective of the antagonists can be a lot of fun – and for my brand of fic (ie the hurt/comfort), there are a lot of Rebel Victories that bring pain that’s worth exploring (not unlike Bilbringi in the HTTE Trilogy).

I have spoken a lot about the Imperials as a collective, so now it’s time to get into the individuals. While I will touch a little bit on my favourite ships (Piett/Veers and Motti/Jerjerrod), I think that another fun part about writing these particular characters is that they work well in many different pairings, depending on the vibe you’re going for (I will spare you the chart, but I do have one). Anyway, without further ado and in no particular order, the incomplete summary of Imps:

Firmus Piett (ESB, ROTJ):

Piett is the character that got me hooked on the imperials in the first place – his “goddammit I’m just trying to do my job and not get murdered” energy combined with his otherness (in that unlike most other high-ranking officers, he is neither from a core world nor upper class). His days fighting in the Axxilian anti-pirate fleet only add to this vibe, and much of his characterization (that I go off of, anyway) centers around him being scrappy and resourceful – useful where other, snobbier officers might not be.

As with all things Fanfiction and particularly with the Imperials (as there is comparatively little material to work with), there will always be flavours of characters depending on who is writing them, but I enjoy Piett’s potential for a found family, along with his biting snark and ability to survive only on caf and spite.

Maximilian Veers (ESB):

Veers has the distinction of being in the Imperial Army, rather than the Navy, which automatically gives him a different flavour than the others. It’s my understanding that there’s a rivalry between the Army and the Navy, which lends itself well to a back and forth banter that is easily one of my favourite things in an Imp fic. Veers is also the strong and stoic character – he’s not intimidated by Vader, and he’s going to do his damn job, no matter what.

I’m a big sap for the “hard on the outside soft on the inside” trope, and Veers is perfect for this. He protects his Herd with a fierce loyalty, and is a proven competent leader, but he’s also the sort of guy who teases his partner and loves physical affection. Veers is a giant, blond puppy, and I love that about him. His vibe works especially well with Piett, since they have the whole "tol and smol"/Army-Navy/slowly opening up to one another vibe that I love.

Tiaan Jerjerrod (ROTJ):

Listed as a “cold technocrat” on every official description, Tiaan is another one of those characters that has many layers to him. He is the rich snob from the core, but he’s also an extremely competent engineer who was hand picked to handle some of the Empire’s biggest projects. He’s also comparatively young (a full fifteen years younger than Pellaeon, and ten years younger than Veers, if Wookieepedia is to be believed), and yet has made his way to the top of the top. Tiaan also has the distinction that (at least in the deleted scenes) we see him hesitate – even when given an order, he is conflicted about firing the Death Star II at Endor, given the number of Imperials still on the moon.

Tiaan is usually characterized as being neurotic and anxious – a sort of wet-cat energy that contrasts well with the competence he is known for. His background – a rich aristocrat coming from a long line of decorated Naval Officers from a conservative planet – only adds to this effect, and I’m a big fan of stories that explore how he navigates (or doesn’t) the enormous pressures he faces.

Conan Antonio Motti (ANH):

Loud, Obnoxious, and American, Motti stands out among the Joint Chiefs in the one scene he is in. He has the balls to challenge Vader, and the gusto to back it up – he’s also quite young, having risen to be commander of the DS-I in his early 30s (based on his actor’s age, Wookieepedia does not have a birthday for him). While there are scant few other canon appearances for him, it’s also worth noting that one of them is him writing a letter to HR regarding Vader’s Force Choke, and another is a passage from the Death Star Novel about how he works out in only a speed-strap juggling balls in heavy gravity.

Motti can be summed up as the “Go Big or Go Home” guy who is crass, loud, and gets in everyone’s face. He can be a lot of fun to read and write because he’s so obnoxious, and that makes him fun to include even if the story is primarily about someone else. He pairs well with Jerjerrod because they have similar backstories (young, wealthy) but wildly different personalities, although I have been enjoying the Motti-Thrawn friendship lately (that would give Pellaeon a migraine)

Overall, each of these characters (and Captain Lorth Needa, of course, everyone’s favourite Dad Friend and holder of the single brain cell) has a unique vibe that they bring to the table, and it’s fun to see how they interact with both each other and the Situations they find themselves in. I also find them to be very relatable – every author pours a little bit of their heart and soul into the characters they write, but for me personally, there is a lot I can draw from my own experiences (not unlike how I have written a very few very personal Thrawn fics).

With that being said, I do struggle sometimes to hit the right notes and strike a balance between “canon”, “fanon” and the story I want to tell. While Thrawn has (for the most part) been consistently written and it is easy enough to see a through-line for his story, that is absolutely not the case here. There are many examples I could speak to (Needa as “ruthless”, Veers refusing prosthetics due to stigma or Jerjerrod “loving war”), but for the sake of brevity I will only touch on one: Piett as a schemer who sought to deliberately have Ozzel killed.

While this is… an interpretation of the source material (IE Empire Strikes Back) and has since been made canon by From Another Point of View, it disregards the intentions of Ken Colley in playing the character. He wanted Piett to come off as more relatable to the audience, to give depth to the Empire as more than just a faceless monolith, and I would argue that he is quite successful in doing so(3). Undermining this (and his backstory notes about being an underdog within the Empire) take away some of the aspects of his character that I really enjoy – but does it make my Piett OOC if he wouldn’t do something like that? Does it matter?

Anyway almost two thousand words and three footnotes, it’s very much time for me to wrap this up (as bad as I am at writing endings). Suffice it to say that I find the Imps to be an excellent sandbox with which to play in, and I appreciate both the time you’ve taken to ask me about them and the time it’s taken to read through this essay of sorts.

I’m hoping I’ll get back to Whatever it Takes sooner or later, but I would rather wait for inspiration to strike me than to keep beating my head against a metaphorical wall until an ending falls out. Until next time, thank you again for the ask and all the wonderful comments you have left for me 😊

(1)I should note that this isn’t targeted at any group in particular and isn’t meant to be a negative statement – just that the Thrawn fandom continues to grow, and with the upcoming Ashoka Show, there are a lot of people with a lot of different opinions about the character, and for someone who isn’t particularly adept at navigating the sea of fandom, it can be extremely overwhelming.

(2)If you are able to watch the deleted scenes from ROTJ, that’s even better – there are some excellent Jerjerrod scenes that did not make the final cut

(3)I do own two Piett action figures and haven’t read Another Point of View yet, so I could be a little bit biased

#my inbox

25 notes · View notes

thessalian · 1 year

Text

Thess vs "Help Desks”

Sweet blessed gods, if people are going to try to phase out and or cheap out on phone helpdesk staff for the sake of their bottom line, they could at least do it competently. I’ve been using automated phone trees of one type or another for a long time, since the days when “hold the line while we transfer you to an operator” meant “some people are still using a rotary dial phone”, and it’s amazing to me how they get smarter and yet somehow more ridiculous every time I turn around.

There’s a thing I’ve been dealing with at the behest of my parentals regarding my state pension. Basically, over here, your state pension is based on your National Insurance contributions, and you have to have 35 years of full National Insurance contributions before you can get your full state pension. Thing is, because I worked as a temp a lot, there are a lot of years when I didn’t make a full contribution, and there weren’t National Insurance credits available for a lot of reasons. (It doesn’t help that I was allowed and in fact encouraged to use a temporary National Insurance number for years and it doesn’t look like those years count towards my state pension now, even though I paid above the odds those years. Ugh.) Now, theoretically, if everything goes to plan, I should be able to claim my full state pension because I’ve got fifteen years of full contributions as of this tax year and I’m not due to claim my state pension until 2044. Or later, because they might change the laws on that again; wouldn’t put it past the government as is. Anyway, point is, I should be fine. But it’s possible I won’t be fine, because I am, after all, disabled. Also, let’s face it - my luck with jobs has been made of dogshit for ... well, most of my life, if you think about it. My luck’s holding so far but shit does happen, often, and often to me. So anyway, the point of all this is that you’re allowed to make voluntary contributions towards your state pension for the last five years that a full contribution wasn’t made. My parentals intend to make that voluntary contribution to take five years’ worth of pressure off my quest for a full state pension. Which is nice of them.

Now, if they just didn’t make it so damn complicated to give them money in that way, that’d be great.

They tell you to go to the website and follow the instructions to pay online or by direct debit. They don’t tell you that you need an 18-digit reference number until the box requesting one is staring you in the face. You actually have to go to ancillary information sources (non-HMRC help sites) just to find out how to get that 18-digit reference number they’re apparently so hot for. There are apparently two options for getting one: write to them and wait two weeks while they send one back by post, or call.

However, their automated voice-recognition phone tree piece of bullshit does not understand the difference between National Insurance reference number and National Insurance number. There is a difference. One you get given on a card so you can write it down on tax documents (like a social security number); the other is a very specific number used only by HMRC internally to deal with voluntary National Insurance contributions. However, the automated phone tree does not recognise this difference, so giving it the key phrase “National Insurance reference number” is useless. So is “voluntary National Insurance contributions”, and similar phrases. It’s not that the automated phone tree doesn’t understand it to a point; it just doesn’t recognise it as something I literally need to speak to a human being to sort out. Thus it just says, “Our lines are busy, look up the information online, good-bye”, and hangs up. No option to ask to speak to an advisor, nothing. Just “Check our website; bye. *clik*”

It took awhile, but I finally figured out how to actually speak with a human being in this instance. Every time it repeated the Google-perfect phrase I gave it and asked, “Is that correct?” ... I said “no”. Even if it technically was. See, at that point, deliberately playing obtuse is the only way to go, and even then it was a nightmare. First they just let me try again - “Is this correct?” “No.” Then it suggested some key phrases I could give it as search terms. I picked one that sounded close-ish but no cigar - “Is this correct?” “No.” Then it gave me even simpler verbal options that really did sound like basic Google search terms - “Is this correct?” “No.” Finally, they gave me a number menu, and at the end of that list was “To speak to an advisor, press 4″. They went all the way around the houses to make it as hard as possible to speak to a human being, because every one of the options I was given in the first three tries were designed to point you at the website and hang up on you. I know because I tried them on and off for a fair bit of last week.

Then I spent over an hour on hold. I can’t blame them that much because we are coming on to tax season but especially when you consider how hard that phone tree works to shunt all callers to the website ... fucking hell. All of that for an eventual conversation with a pleasant lady who asked a couple of questions, seemed grateful I had all the information she wanted to hand, and dealt with the whole thing in three minutes.

Don’t even get me started on the power company. On one hand, it’s a little easier to get to the “please hold for an advisor” stage. Not much, but a little. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure they outsource most if not all of their call center and web help staff overseas. Leaving aside the whole “You’re just outsourcing this work overseas so you can get a service while drastically underpaying your staff ... more than you can get away with here, anyway” problem, the other issue there is that if you’re providing call centre services to a company that does business in an English-speaking country ... it might be good if you at the very least made sure the staff providing the services can actually speak English to a reasonable degree. It’s hard to say that without worrying that I’m judging these people for not speaking English, but I swear I’m not judging. I don’t expect them to speak English because I’m fairly sure they’re not in England, or in any other country that speaks English as its first language, come to that. This is bad enough when it’s the web chat help system, where it’s pretty obvious that the person at the other end just copy-pasted your question into a FAQ search and then copy-pasted the result back to you without necessarily knowing what it said; it’s worse when it’s a human being and you need three tries for what effectively boils down to “I want to check my balance” but is a bit more complicated than that.

I’m sure that companies were wetting themselves in sheer joy when technology allowed for the automation of something vaguely resembling a help desk. Thing is, as my brother-from-another-mother says, computers are just very fast idiots. They will do exactly what you tell them, and only exactly what you tell them, and if your request deviates even a little from their parameters of what a request looks like, they will throw a fit. As for outsourcing overseas ... like I said, I don’t blame the people on the other end of the phone or web chat who don’t speak English very well. I blame the people who hire them on at ludicrously low pay and horrific hours and then setting them up for hours of abuse from customers who are a lot less polite than I am about their understandable inability to speak fluent English when they live in a country that doesn’t.

I think this pisses me off to a greater degree than usual these days because of a certain piece of rhetoric regarding jobs and people in this country doing them since the fucking Brexit referendum. They yell about “foreigners taking our jobs” while throwing ones that would actually be perfect for people in this country on a work-from-home basis - for the disabled, carers for small children or vulnerable adults, even for second jobs that wouldn’t require even more time spent on commuting - at places with fewer employment rights and minimum wage laws, which only results in a worse service and more stressed staff. If the xenophobes in this country don’t want “foreigners taking our jobs”, maybe they should demand that we stop throwing 'our jobs’ at ‘foreigners’ in a massively exploitative model that does nothing but fatten the profit margins of the CEOs. And also maybe don’t throw it at computers that require a certain specificity to function in a helpful way, when help desks are generally called by people who don’t have specifics - THAT IS WHY THEY ARE CALLING FOR HELP.

I mean, I think a lot of this boils down to “stop using technology to exploit people in the name of The Great God ECONOMY, you shitheads”, but with specific examples and a lot of frustration.

#Thess is a motherfucking adult #Thess gets aerated

13 notes · View notes

hongkongartman-mlee · 9 months

Text

Shopping Is Always A Pleasurable Culture. What Are The 5 Kinds Of Shopping Malls In Hong Kong?

We like shopping. We are not the wave, but part of the ocean so far as shopping is concerned. Life is terrible wrestling. When we shop, our bodies release dopamine, the ‘feel-good hormone’. The more we shop, the better we feel. Right?

Leslie Fok(霍俊熹) was born in Canada. He graduated from University of Toronto and returned to work in Hong Kong. He now manages a very special shopping mall called ‘D2 Place’ which is an attempt to build up a community centre among the creative and cultural groups. He is an expert in the branding and marketing of malls.

My natural curiosity led me to ask, “What are the different malls in Hong Kong?” Leslie replied without doubt, “There are 5 kinds: luxury malls, mainstream malls, neighbourhood malls, themed malls and community hubs.”

He explained, “Famed luxury brands like Chanel, Prada, Burberry and Hermes have secured their place in these grand malls to cater for affluent locals and travellers. These luxury malls are such as Harbour City, Pacific Place, Elements and Landmark. Customers like these malls because they are usually high class and chic, and this will contribute to their sense of social pride. Every detail in a ‘luxury mall’ is meant to be on par with what a rich man wants”

Leslie paused, “Mainstream malls cater for ordinary tourists and local people who have a higher-than-average spend. Times Square in Causeway Bay and APM in Kwun Tong are very good examples. Rental income is usually the main objective of a mainstream mall. They try to accommodate the widest possible range of customers on each floor. One floor may sell sports shoes but another floor may sell household appliances.” I laughed, “Mainstream malls are like high-class hypermarkets.”

I said, “I don’t go to luxury malls as I don’t need most of the things there. I love neighbourhood malls because I can wear flip-flops.” Leslie smiled, “Neighbourhood malls sell daily convenience goods such as foodstuff, personal care products and casual wear. They satisfy the day-to-day needs of people who live or work in the local area and may include ancillary services such as a bank. These malls are very basic & there is nothing fancy. The malls in our public housing estates are mostly neighbourhood malls.”

Leslie continued, “The intent of the 4th kind i.e. a themed mall is simple and straightforward—to attract a specific group of customers to buy things there. The clear examples are outlet malls, furniture malls and electronics malls etc. Themed centres are bound to alienate some shoppers who will turn their noses up at the singular nature of these places. Customers here are just eager to buy what they desire in only one location because time is money. It is easier for them to compare prices too.”

Leslie said, “The final kind is more than a mall. It is a place where birds of the same feather can flock together. I am working out a mall called ‘D2 Place’ where I want the creative and cultural youngsters to gather for enlightening social events, recreational activities and perhaps educational classes. I label it as a ‘community hub’ and it provides a great place for young people to hang out, make new friends and display their full potential. The sense of community belonging boosts the spiritual well-being of a young person as well.”

I added, “There may be the 6th type of mall called an ‘art mall’. It is a new trend. Such a mall combines the features of a museum and shopping centre. It carries a mission which is to enrich the daily life of a customer through the power of art and culture. In Hong Kong, some malls claim they are devoted to this great cause.” Leslie replied, “This type of mall is not yet a mature model. Dream is valiant. Let’s wait to see if there will be any handicap to this missionary development.”

Leslie concluded our conversation, “With the rise of e-commerce, people are less likely to visit malls for shopping needs. This has resulted in a decrease in foot traffic and consequently, a decrease in sales. Mall shops are struggling to keep up with the competition from online retailers. Mall rental is generally high in Hong Kong. What has made it more difficult for mall operators here is that people don’t like malls which are more than 4 storeys. Customers dislike long walk. They prefer quick entry and exit in relation to a mall. This is why the ground floor rental of a mall is much higher.” Shopping is always a good culture. There are however too many malls in Hong Kong. For a shopping centre without a focus or edge, the place is doomed for failure. Apart from the wacky consumerism pertinent to a shopping mall, I do hope it can also be another ideal place to incubate the alternative cultural civilization of a special city like Hong Kong.

Maurice Lee

Chinese Version 中文版: https://www.patreon.com/posts/huo-jun-xi-xiang-87829720?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Songkran 2023 @ D2 Place Acknowledgement – D2 Place ONE

youtube

Leslie Fok Interview@D2 Place Top 10 Artisans Award Presentation Ceremony 2022 Acknowledgement-D2 Place ONE

youtube

Hong Kong Tung Chung Citygate Outlets short walk (Themed Mall) Acknowledgement- Hong Kong Wandering TV

youtube

Hong Kong Shopping Malls (Luxury Malls) Acknowledgement-allthegoodles Travel

youtube

#Luxury Malls #Mainstream Malls #Neighbourhood Malls #Themed Malls #Community Malls #Community Hub #D2 Place #Chanel #Prada #Youtube

0 notes

thenoirsworld · 2 years

Text

The Digital Workspace in the eye of a Communication Intern

(Navigating the Digital World for your Professional Advantage and Growth through ICT)

by Ruth D.

Without a doubt, the digital era revolutionized the biggest and smallest aspect of human lives. The speed and breadth of knowledge creation, sharing and application within the economy and society are in the highest and fastest peak since the advent of technology.

As I would always say when I am asked with the question, "What is the greatest invention of all time?" – technology. In a split of second, I'll choose technology over unlimited chicken wings (although the latter is also something that I can't live without and something that comes secondary in my life after the internet).

As a Communication student, a Gen Z, a citizen of this digital world, a thinking individual, and a human – I will be forever in awe about the crucial contribution of technology in our lives. And by technology, I am pertaining to of digital world and the internet.

Enumerating the product of internet and digital technology to the world ain't possible through this blog alone, for we all know the extensive and immense amount of development that it has graced us since it was introduced.

However, speaking from personal experience, allow me to share my insights and experience on how Information, Communication and Technology (ICT), and the Tools behind it allow and apex development in the society.

ICT4D (short for ICT for development) may appear and sound pretentious or intimidating. When theoretically defined, is an initiative that bridges the digital divide (or the disparity between technological know how among people); it aids economic development by ensuring equitable access to up-to-date communication and information through technology.

To simplify and see it in a real life application, it comes in different ways, and one way that ICT proves it's role in development is the existence of digital workspaces. Today, job postings and applications come in very handy through digital workspaces. LinkedIn and Jobstreet are just few of the most prominent platforms that facilitate professional growth and professional space. Personally speaking, I am just one from the millions of people who are able to navigate the digital workspace, and end up landing on a job. I was able to closed an internship program through LinkedIn job application (it is a social media platform, just like Facebook, the only difference is that it has a professional environment and function). Until now, I'm still out of the proper words to describe how I am amazed on how we could simply apply for a job online, from curriculum vitae, portfolio, application letters and interviews.

Digital workspace, as mentioned earlier comes in so many applications and format. Digital platforms or sites like LinkedIn and Jobstreet are just a few good examples of how ICT facilitates development throughout employment and self growth.

Moving on with the practical tools that ICT offers inside these digital workspaces, allow me to share my insight and personal experience in the digital workspace. In a short period of time that I have been working as an intern in a remote work set up, the tools for knowledge creation, sharing, and application which are all product of ICT, such as Google workspace, allows me to fill my roles and productively complete tasks. Gmail, Gmeet, Gdrive, Google Docs, Worksheets, and Clouds to name a few, are primary helpful tools that allow me and my colleagues from different timezone and location fulfill our individual tasks and work together as a team.

Digital spaces and technology are always evolving, and for sure, a year or so from now, the services and functions that they offer will eventually upgrade, ancillary to these improvement are the growth and progress of the society and economy.

0 notes

amoralto · 5 years

Text

A brief check-in just to let everybody here know I’m still ostensibly around and that I haven’t abandoned this blog; anybody who’s followed for an amount will probably be used to my periodic excursions/sabbaticals/sojourns away by now, and my desperately-meant apologies. I’ve been very vacant, and tired, my heart’s not been in it, and if I feel I can’t contribute to this blog then I can’t and don’t, and that’s about the sum of it, without going into dreary and uncomfortable details about things. I won’t say it’s “gotten to the point” necessarily, but there have been flickers of anxiety where I’ve wondered if I could possibly send/transfer my cache of Beatles things to one or more of the friends I’ve made in this community who would be able to post and generally utilise them with more diligence and expediency than I can sustain, especially on a consistent basis. I just feel I can’t do enough for not good enough reasons, particularly for something like this which in the grand scheme of things amounts to a rather insignificant lark, and the feeling festers like a useless guilt.

In what amounts for updates, I am: still looking for The Best of the Beatles Book for a half decent price, squirrelling about for other things, slowly and excruciatingly collecting ancillary Beatles things for an overambitious #abstract wednesday post, and spending too much money on delightful shipping costs to account for all it.

In the meantime, i.e. in the very real probability that even if I do post new things again soon it will be sparse and not at all frequent, I would happily direct followers of this blog to the blogs of a few of my friends and other like-minded people whom I’ve had at least a few lovely discussions with in the past: @aceonthebass, @beyondthemainstreambeatles, @harrisonstories, @ladyjaneasher, @ljblueteak, @monkberries, @northernsongspeels, @ou-est-le-soleil, @thecoleopterawithana, @vairemelde, et al. Also, inactive but eternal: @thegilly, @pizzaandfairytales.

I can’t say I altogether deserve your patience and understanding, if any, but I appreciate it more than I adequately describe.

#admin

43 notes · View notes

muddyorbsblr · 6 years

Text

Let’s Support MatPat However We Can

The last 24 hours have been a rollercoaster for MatPat’s community. Regardless of where you hang your online cape, I’m pretty sure you heard about it: YouTube approached The Game Theorists for the opportunity to turn on Channel Membership on their channel, and Matthew did something very considerate and thoughtful for his community before making the big decision:

He asked us first.

A lot of YouTubers don’t do that. But Matthew did. Because he wanted to make his final decision based on what would benefit the community the most. So he linked a Google Survey containing a simple three-option question: Should Channel Membership be turned on? The options? Yes, No, and I don’t care.

This is when shit started hitting the fan, because a lot of people were on the side of No. And their reasoning wasn’t as sound as I hoped it would have been. Had their reasoning been “No, because you guys already make cool content, there’s no need to try and experiment with new forms of media just stay as you are”, it probably wouldn’t be that bad. Even though improvement and evolution is always a key factor in the lifespan of anything. Regardless of whether it’s regarding someone’s personality or someone’s YouTube content.

But that wasn’t the reasoning behind the collective No of the community. The reasoning was this: On a personal level, on the individual level, it would hurt them. Because they believed that the enabling of this feature will create a rift in the community between members and non-members. All this because of the perks that they were focusing on that Matthew highlighted in his video. The most prominent feature they were all problematic over being: Members-Only Live Streams. They didn’t want that. But let me break down the logic that they were clearly not thinking through:

In a month, GTLive will stream every single weekday at 4pm PST. That’s a mostly guaranteed schedule, barring any emergencies or last minute meetings. This is available for everyone, members and non-members alike. This could be anything from a gameplay to a challenge video, but one thing’s for sure: this will never be member-exclusive. GTLive stays exactly as it is. So that’s approximately 22 streams a month, at most.

In that same month, assuming the feature is enabled, Matthew & Stephanie and possibly the rest of the GTLive crew will make at least one extra live stream, accessible only to members. This could be anything from an AMA, to a behind the scenes, to maybe some goofy ideas they wanna test out before making it accessible to the rest of the audience. Honestly it could be whatever they wanted. Same goes for the once a month members-only video that goes up.

So when you look at it this way…you’re comparing TWENTY-TWO streams and FOUR videos a month to one of each, and this is what you’re focusing on as your reason to say NO to giving other people the opportunity to support Matthew.

What is the purpose of these videos and streams and other perks in the first place? Before I get into that, let me make something perfectly clear: Matthew did not need to put those perks into his channel membership system. That was not a requirement in order for him to enable this feature. Put that in your brain. Now…the purpose of these perks are simply this: Members put in a small fee ($5) into supporting Matthew’s channel, which in turn gives him the opportunity to start making more intricate and elaborate content for us (us the community, not us the members) to enjoy. The perks are a thank you from creator to “financial supporter” for the contributions they put in, nothing more and nothing less.

But I don’t have the money to buy membership. But I want those perks as well. That’s just being greedy. The philosophy is this: You put in more contributions, you receive more rewards. But the case is not you put in nothing, you receive nothing. You receive a stream on the weekdays and a weekly theory. You receive regular and consistent content. Like I said, the perks are an extra thank you to to the members. For putting in the money to help support the channel. And I can hear your next question coming a mile away.

But Matthew said they’re doing just fine with AdSense. So they don’t have to turn on this feature, right? Did you…did you not pay attention to the video? Yes, they’re doing FINE. By fine, we mean that he’s not going to starve for the next few years if YouTube decides to change up the algorithm in favor of someone who makes the exact opposite of Matthew’s content and he suddenly loses views. However, just because he is doing fine and the channel is doing fine, it doesn’t mean that there’s NO ROOM for the channel to do better. What do I mean by this? By even just 2000 members of his community signing up for Channel Membership, that will result to $7000 going into funding for future projects, for more ARGs, for more merch, a month. The channel will do exponentially so much better and the community as a whole will benefit from just these 2000 people. And I say 7000 because 30% of the channel membership fee goes to YouTube.

So why can’t they just give us all the content they had planned as the thank you for the channel members instead of creating the divide? What divide? The divide that was created by the fans by fulfilling their own prophecy of a divide being created? Don’t pretend that Matthew is the one behind this. This was all you. And if you weren’t paying attention to literally anything I just said, pay attention to this: Those videos and streams were planned to thank the people who chose to donate their money in the name of supporting the channel.

So because I didn’t fork up the cash to support the channel, I don’t deserve a thank you? Let’s say you have a friend who saved up money to give his mother a gift for her birthday, and she thanked her son (naturally)…do you think it’s unfair that all you were able to do is witness the giving and the receiving and the thanking from afar without your friend’s mother thanking you for doing nothing? Do you think it’s unfair that your friend’s mother got a gift on her birthday when so many mothers around the world don’t? Do you see how messed up this logic is? This isn’t even the case with non-members. It’s not that exaggerated and it’s not that idiotic. Because you get your thank you every single day that they stream, for every single video they put out. Thanks for watching. Thank you for joining us. If you really think that that’s not a satisfactory amount of gratitude for the amount of support you put in, then maybe that’s not Matthew’s problem anymore. It’s yours.

Does this mean that if I don’t become a channel member, I am less of a fan? No. Absolutely not. This doesn’t make you any less of a fan. You know why? Because the support they’ve been getting via AdSense is only happening because of all of us non-members. Because of the watch hours we put in. Because of the ads that we’re forced to watch for five seconds before skipping. They’ve been doing just fine from the non-members alone. So no. Being a non-member doesn’t give you any less value as a fan just like being a member and giving the money monthly doesn’t give you any addiitonal value as a fan.

The driving force behind channel membership is essentially this: The support of a few will be beneficial to the whole. So by enabling this feature, the opportunity for bigger & better ARGs, for even better quality merch, for more merch, and for bigger projects to be tackled by Matthew and the rest of the Game Theorists crew is enabled as well. The purpose of the membership is not to create a rift from the fans between the members and the non-members. And of course it’s going to look like that in the beginning, because you’re focusing on the finer details when you should be focusing on the big picture. So allow me to describe to you the bigger picture.

What will non-members get from Matthew turning on Channel Membership? • a bigger, more elaborate, more intricate ARG in the form of a bigger merch mystery • production of more merchandize in terms of quantity of products manufactured. This means that products are probably not gonna get sold out in less than 3 days when the goods go live on the Creator Ink website • production of more merchandize in terms of variety of products. Basically, more kinds of merch. Maybe more designs for the shirts, maybe some Film Theory merch again. Maybe a phone case. Maybe a onesie for babbys. Maybe Theorist pajamas. But the point is we won’t know until it happens. • higher grade quality production of merchandize items. Self-explanatory. • potentially bigger & more elaborate projects by Matthew. Maybe he’ll get to actually conduct experiments a la Mythbusters for the sake of a theory. We’ll never know until it happens. And because y’all are voting NO, we may never know.

So now…what will channel members get from Matthew turning on Channel Membership? • Everything mentioned for the non-members • At least one members-only video per month that does not contain content regarding the main focus of the channel. This could be anything from vlogs to science experiments, to blooper reels • At least one members-only stream per month. Again, this will probably not contain content related to the main focus of the channel. So this will not be a let’s play or a challenge video. Probably. • Possibly a live stream that everyone can view, but not everyone can chat in. So a public stream with a members-only chat. I can hear your pitchforks being sharpened from here. • Merch discount codes • a badge next to your display name in the comments section as well as the live chat • a selection of emotes to be used in live chat and comments

When you look at those perks, you’ll see that they function solely as tokens of appreciation for the people who gave their money in order to support the channel and its endeavors to improve on its content for the benefit of the community as a whole. Perks are an ancillary thank you, like a gold star from a teacher when they really appreciated your work. Not every student will get it, because not every student put in the same amount of work.

Personally I had every intention of signing up for channel membership, because my philosophy has always been this: If i spend more money a day on my coffee and my food than I would in a month to support someone I absolutely and unconditionally respect, someone who makes my list of My Favorite People…then why the fuck would I not take that opportunity? And here’s the thing, it took me three days to justify sponsoring Markiplier. And one of the things I said back then was “Had this been Matthew, however, I would have signed up in a heartbeat.” And now herein lies that precise opportunity for me to sign up in a heartbeat. And that survey is taking that opportunity away from me, and from a lot of other people, one NO at a time.

Another thing that immensely pissed me off is this: People are now blaming Matthew for their mental health issues. Just recently, like just a few hours before writing this long and winded post, I saw a comment from someone who was essentially blaming Matthew for her suicidal tendencies and her chronic insomnia because she wasn’t able to get merch, or even get to participate in the final stretch of the merch mystery. And because she didn’t win, she now blames Matthew for the resulting mental health issues that attacked her during those following nights. And now she’s blaming Matthew and the channel membership discussion for her occurring anxiety attack. And this isn’t an isolated case. A lot of people are blaming Matthew and his intention to better the content of the channel and better everything he’s about to put out into the world for their mental health issues.

They’re directly mentioning Matthew and Stephanie and the rest of the GTLive crew in their tweets to tell them that this treatment of members vs non-members is unfair. And I can’t imagine the amount of negative feedback currently appearing on their notifications because people are so against the idea of thanking the people who went above and beyond what’s expected of a fan in order to support the channel.

It feels like the creator isn’t allowed to thank people anymore unless they’re thanking everyone. Even though only a small portion of that ‘everyone’ was really deserving of the extra gratitude. The mentality that ‘they put in the extra work, but we should have all the benefits’ is so toxic and so mind-numbingly idiotic that it makes me want to leave the GTLive community altogether. I mean, sure I’d still be participating by commenting on videos and tweeting along during the streams, but actually interacting with fellow members of the community? Potential hard pass right there.

I’ve seen some great members. I talk to them on a near daily basis. But I’ve also seen a much more overwhelming amount of toxic members. People who use their following to create rifts in the community because they have thousands of followers and Matthew follows them, people who go so far as to DM members of the crew why they think the feature shouldn’t push through because it’s unfair to them on a personal level, people who brag that they’re willing to spend $5 on a coffee a day, but not the same amount of money for a month to support their ‘faves’. People who twisted my words of “this is just him thanking people who gave him the extra support” and turning it into “so that means members are more special just because they pay”.

So let me make this crystal clear: I do not think that signing up for membership will make you more special in the eyes of the creator just because you paid for it. I believe that despite the membership, people are on equal footing in the eyes of the creator, regardless of the extra gratitude that members receive in the form of the channel member perks. Becoming a member does not make someone more valuable than the rest of the community, just the same as not becoming a member does not make someone less valuable than the rest of the community. Channel members should never be referred to as ‘true fans’ or ‘loyal fans’ just because we’re putting forward the cash to support our favorite creators, because as non-members, support can still be given simply by watching the video and spreading the word.

Now, if anyone wants to twist those words, and if anyone wants to accuse me of some idiotic bullshit like that girl in the group chat did a few hours ago, to Hell with you.

The purpose of the channel membership was to support Matthew in an alternative manner. We should have been trying our damnedest to support MatPat however we can; whether it be from watching the videos or signing up for the membership. But instead you all fulfilled your own prophecy of ‘this will put a rift in the community’ by acting as childish and behaving as selfishly as you all did today.

So let’s support MatPat however we can. Which at the rate we’re going, is just by watching his videos because Channel Membership doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Because of you. Because of everyone who said no for the most selfish reasons I’ve ever seen on the Internet: Because it’s unfair to me. The NO you guys gave out for a personal level issue? That affects GTLive on a community level issue. Now that’s selfish; it’s not signing up for the membership so perks can be doled out, it’s not the desire to stand out with a shiny channel badge. True selfishness lies in the people who want to silence and incapacitate everyone else, who want to clip everyone else’s wings, just because circumstance did not favor them.

That being said, I have one last thing to say. This is my favorite type of response from people: “I can’t afford the membership right now but I voted yes so that people who want to and people who can, have that opportunity. This isn’t just for me. It’s for everyone.” You guys are the real MVPs of this community, you deserve thousands of followers, and I hope that more people follow in your example.

~ Ally P.S. On the off chance that reading this has changed your mind on your vote in the survey, kindly go back and give a Yes; you can vote more than once. You don’t have to sign up if the feature gets enabled, but you would be doing a great kindness for the people who want to support him in this manner if you do…Thanks.

#gtlive #youtube #channel memberships #sponsorships #matpat #matthew patrick #stephanie patrick #chris widin #jason parker #community not competition #rant #the game theorists #game theory #cordypat #community #toxic community

85 notes · View notes

dorevenge · 3 years

Text

where ignorance is bliss - chapter 8: try to remember

SUMMARY: Anton Vanko has lunch with Howard, Maria, and Obadiah to discuss the Unity Project. [AO3 LINK]

CHAPTERS: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 [8] 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ☆

STARK INDUSTRIES CONTINUES TO GROW

Yesterday, news broke that Mr. Obadiah Stane, fresh off the heels of cutting ties with Roxxon and bankrupting his own company Stane International, has shaken hands with Mr. Howard Stark. Mr. Stane will be joining Stark Industries as a technology consultant and inventor, pairing two of the greatest minds of our generation and making what will most likely be the best business deal of the new year. We expect great things from the two of them, and we can only imagine what kind of earth-changing products will come from their offices.

Obadiah had returned the signed business deal the next day. “The irony isn’t lost on me,” he had said. “After that first day of the Stark Expo last year, when I swore up and down that the only time I’d do business with a Stark is when I was buying his company, not the other way ‘round. Look where I am now.”

“You have a choice; you still have a choice. The memo is generous,” I said, taking the papers from him, and he shook his head at me.

“I know, I know. This is the best choice. I’ll be able to do what I love. Who knows, maybe I’ll be the CEO of Stark Industries one day,” he chuckled to himself, handing off the papers. “Happy holidays, Mrs. Stark.”

March 2, 1963 – Manhattan, New York City, Stark Manor

“How was work, dear?”

Howard kisses me before he takes his coat off. “Amazing. Obadiah has the best ideas. We’re way farther than we’d be without him.”

“And you remembered to invite him to lunch, correct? Anton Vanko is coming, and Edwin is prepared for four people.”

He pauses as he recalls his memory. “Yes. I did. Yes. He’s coming,” he says distractedly before running off to his office. He runs back in, kisses the top of my head, then leaves again.

“Remember, Mrs. Stark, we need to put the pork loin in the oven an hour before they’re due to arrive, at 350 degrees Fahrenheit so it’ll be perfectly cooked and ready to serve.”

“Yes, Edwin. I remember: 11am. And ten minutes to twelve, we’ll get the drinks ready,” I say, used to his excitement and anxiety before an important meeting by now. His affection for Howard always shines through in the form of perfectionism. “And, Edwin, please call me Maria. I insist on it.”

“I cannot do that, Mrs. Stark. My butler DNA forbids it.” I roll my eyes at his response; he’s said the same thing a dozen times now, or at least a variation of it. Edwin fiddles with his suit jacket, then the tablecloth on the lunch dishes spread before us, adjusting every other salad fork, then refolding the napkins.

Ana, his wife, arrives from the hallway. “Husband, dear, stop fretting.” She takes his hands into hers and places them on her face. “You’ve hosted a hundred parties, why should this one be any different?”

“Mr. Stark has an important guest, and this could be a monumental meeting for Stark Industries. I must do my best so Mr. Stark can do his best,” Edwin says, a wrinkle growing between his eyebrows, responding to his wife in a very matter-of-fact manner. His serious disposition clashes with her casual one

“All these guests are important, and they all go off without a hitch,” Ana replies.

“Not all of them. There was that dinner with Ms. Underwood-”

“Okay, not literally all of them, but all of them in your control. I think Mrs. Stark can handle it from here.” Ana smiles at him, and Edwin seems to relax. Only slightly; I’ve never seen Edwin completely relaxed. Ana has a unique effect on them, and she is always a ray of light in our household.

“Jarvis,” Howard peeks his head into the room, “Let’s have the meeting outside.”

Used to Howard changing his mind at the last second, Edwin moves to set the table outside without a complaint.

“Your English is getting better, Anton.”

“Perhaps,” Anton replies, “Whether or not this Unity Project of yours will bear fruit or not is another matter entirely, considering the posturing of our nations’ governments.”

Howard rolls his eyes, “Forget about them. My military contracts are merely the shortest distance between two points. Think about the children we’ll have someday, the legacies we’ll leave them with, the world they’ll be born into – that’s our priority.” Edwin brings the next round of drinks, and Howard thanks him. “The point is, if I want you on my team, you’re on my team. No questions asked. I’ve earned that.”

“Very well, Howard. As always, I’m humbled by your trust.” Anton pauses to think. “And yet, I must express my concerns. This arc reactor technology… The implications of such a device even existing. Have you not thought about these things?”

“I’ve thought about everything. That’s all I do is think. They said the same thing about the Manhattan Project, didn’t they Maria?” He turns to me. “Where ignorance is bliss…”

“… ‘Tis folly to be wise,” I finish the phrase, raising my drink to meet his.

Anton shakes his head softly. “So says the great Howard Stark. Your cavalier attitude may work for the press, but science is a different beast. You cannot approach it in the same manner.”

Obadiah chimes in, “Respectfully, Anton, that’s how science works in this country. Think about it. The ancillary applications alone justify the experiment. It’ll pay for itself tenfold.”

“But perhaps the expenses…” Anton starts.

“Since when you are an accountant? Listen, we’re about to embark on developing the technology that’s going to change the world, and you’re counting dollars and cents. You don’t need to worry about that with me over here on Team Stark.”

“We’re inventors. We dream big, and then we do whatever it takes to make those dreams a reality,” Obadiah says. “Now, you’ve seen the schematics. You know it can work.”

Howard continues, “The question is if you want to be a part of making it work. Don’t worry about the politics involved. This is much bigger than that. We’re serving a global community that doesn’t even recognize its own existence. I’ve played this game for years, Anton. So have you. It’s time to change the game. We don’t have to walk the path that leads toward mutually assured destruction. There’s another future waiting for us.”

“My main hesitation is making sure we are paving the way safely,” Anton says. “Recklessness is not something I’m fond of.”

“Me neither, Anton. Since joining Stark industries, I’ve discovered a new hobby: covering Howard’s ass. He might be excitable, but he’s not reckless. I have to run interference every once in a while, but his intentions are in the right place with the Unity Project,” Obadiah replies, vouching for the project. I stare down at the empty plate in front of me, unable to contribute anything.

“I know the SSR and S.H.I.E.L.D. have been taking care of you, but what does a soldier do once the war is over? You can’t keep fighting forever; it’s time to start building. And there’s no better place to do it than in the U. S. of A. A man’s gut is the best weapon he has, and I don’t want you to go against your gut if it’s feeling skittish, but I do want you in my corner. As far as I’m concerned, if anyone comes after you, they’re coming after me, and they’re not going to make it very far.”

Anton admires the glass in his hand, rotating it so the sunlight above reflects onto the tablecloth. The patio is silent for a moment, a rare thing our household. “You believe this deeply in the Unity Project, Mr. Stark?”

“I do,” says Howard.

“So do I,” Obadiah says, “That’s why I joined him three years ago, and that’s why we contacted you. We need you to make this work.”

“And you, Mrs. Stark,” Anton turns to me, jolting me awake out of my half-asleep trance. “You believe in your husband, these men, and their inventions?”

I put on my very best smile, the one I reserve for wooing businessmen and investors, the strongest weapon in both of our arsenals. “With my whole heart.”

Anton drains his glass and sets it down, holding his hand out to Howard, then Obadiah. “Have the papers sent to my office. I’ll sign them Monday morning. But for now, let’s eat and drink, no more talk of business. Let’s enjoy the good weather and good company.” Howard and Obadiah enthusiastically return Anton’s handshake.

Later that night, as we get ready for bed, Howard is still buzzing from this afternoon’s success. He helps me take off my necklace and unzips my dress.

“This is huge, doll, I can’t believe we got him. He’s gonna help us change the world. The arc reactor is closer than ever than becoming real. We’re gonna change everything.”

He takes me into his arms, strong and rope-like for years of hauling heavy machinery around his garage, and kisses me, first with an impeccably soft touch, then desperately. He holds onto my waist like a lifeline, still as fervent for me than when we married. I hook my fingers into the belt loops of his pants to get closer to him, taking the wheel and taking control. He chuckles into the kiss at my touch, and I buck my hips into him, just enough to throw him off balance and make him fall onto the bed behind him.

I climb onto his lap, hiking up my skirts, and place my knees on either side of him.

“How about we end the day on an even better note, then?”

NOTE: Some of the dialogue of Howard and Anton’s meeting taken from Iron Man 2: Public Identity, a comic book set before the events of Iron Man 2. Summaries can be read here - https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Iron_Man_2:_Public_Identity . I added Obadiah to the meeting.

#where ignorance is bliss #wiib reading #iron man #marvel #what if #fanfiction #canary writes a fanfiction

1 note · View note

laventadorn · 6 years

Note

Hullo! I have loved TNER for ages and have reread it countless times, and I wanted to say that you have inspired me to begin writing. One of the reasons why TNER tops my list of non-fiction works (published and unpublished) is because of the depth with which it portrays relations. I am particularly in awe of the powerful friendships between Harriet and Asteria and Harriet and Hermione, and since I suck at writing platonic relationships, I wanted to ask if you had any tips for me. Thank you

that’s marvelous, dear nonny!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧♥♥♥

also, what a lovely comment ´･ᴗ･` it’s something i’ve never been asked before c: i’ll give it my best!

the quality of platonic relationships in media, particularly between women, is something i find very lacking. a lot of media – and HP canon is, i’m sad to say, not exempt from this – doesn’t place a great deal of importance on women’s relationships to each other. they’re hardly ever included in the story, and almost never central to it.

(this bugs me, both for its own sake and because of the inherently ancillary nature of women in most media that contributes to it.)

one of the things i love about jane austen is how vital women are to each other’s comfort and well-being. i learned a lot from studying her portrayal of female relationships, in fact. if you haven’t read her (i always recommend her, even though she’s not for everyone), i can still tell you what she does with women that was so formative for me c:

how to write ladies being friends (what i learned from jane austen):

✑ female relationships form a huge basis of women’s lives. they might not always be to the good (most, if not all, relationships aren’t, because people aren’t perfect). they can be sources of jealousy, loneliness, shared pain, and rivalry; they might even be superficial, dishonest, unbalanced, or even damaging. but that’s just the negative: they are also loving and tender, an unquestionable source of daily solace and happiness and even wisdom and growth. no matter what, they hugely affect the characters who are a part of them. one relationship can be a lot of these things in the course of time.

✑ both characters in the platonic relationship are “real.” they each have interior lives, motivations, feelings, etc. even when there are platonic relationships in media, often those relationships are based on the function of the friend – they’re there to be a mouthpiece for the action, a support system, the voice of reason or morality, etc. now, they can be these things at the same time they’re an Actual Character (like hermione in HP canon), but they can’t be just that. there has to be a give and take. if jane helps lizzy, then lizzy later has to help jane.

✑ the characters admire and respect each other. sometimes when presented with a romance, i’m wondering why these people love each other. i follow the same rule with a friendship. if i’m wondering why they’re friends in what’s supposed to be an important friendship, something’s up. now, i don’t sit down and think, “harriet likes asteria because of so-and-so, and asteria likes harriet because of this-and-that.” people don’t really work like that; there’s always something both ephemeral and concrete to relationships with people we care about. it’s an affinity of the spirit, because people are greater than the sum of all their parts; but you still notice things about them, things they do that you treasure.

anyway, that’s what i’ve got for now. this post is probably long enough to be going on with! i also suggest studying media both for what you do like and what you don’t. if i see a Good Friendship, i study it for things to model. if i see a Bad Friendship, i study it for things to avoid.

all in all, i think that good writing starts with character, and that writing i want to experience starts with characters appreciating each other. it’s a pretty simple formula. and i learn about my characters by writing them.

i hope i said something that can be useful to you ♥ make some magic!

#laventadorn replies #laventadorn's adventures in writing stuff #Anonymous

28 notes · View notes

brostateexam · 6 years

Text

A five point guide on how to be a male feminist that no one asked for

When it comes to treating women as second-class citizens, afterthoughts, or ancillary beings that in some way exist to serve us, #yesallmen. Not necessarily always, and not necessarily in extreme ways, but sometimes, and in little ways, #yesallmen. Not excluding myself from this critique, by the way: I have done some pretty shitty things to women over the course of my life and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. I don’t think it makes me an irredeemable person or a monster, but it does mean that I don’t get a pass for my past really shitty and present sometimes shitty behavior just because I do my best to respect women now.

There’s a happy medium between obsessively castigating yourself for your own behavior toward women (and thereby centering the discussion again on male experiences and emotions, which it should be obvious is inappropriate) and completely absolving yourself of it with some shitty justification (and thereby not learning anything from the past). It’s okay to accept that you’ve done Not Great things in the past and try to be better. No amount of woke points can be redeemed to absolve bad behavior, but people can grow and change for the better. Try to have compassion for your former self as you grow into a better you in the present.

The best thing men can do for feminism is amplify women’s point of view. This is one of many reasons that at this point I don’t post much about feminism -- it is fundamentally not my movement to lead, critique, or comment on, and speaking out frequently becomes speaking over. Adding my white male voice to the dialog is more times than not unnecessary and unhelpful.

How to amplify and support women is relatively simple. Pay attention to when women are being ignored, overlooked, or unfairly maligned, and stick up for them. It doesn’t have to be a big dramatic moment -- most times, it really shouldn’t be. This isn’t about being a hero. This is fundamentally about being a very helpful sidekick.

The hardest thing for me to get through my head was “This is Not About You, and That’s Okay!” It doesn’t mean that I can’t help out, it doesn’t mean that I can’t perform auxiliary functions to assist, it doesn’t mean I can’t do my part to ensure my female coworkers receive credit for their contributions or my female friends get to finish their story in a mixed group at a party, but it does mean that I am not going to lead the women’s movement to victory in any significant way. It‘s my job to show up, support others, meet them where they’re at, and help them achieve their goals.

40 notes · View notes

internwithme · 4 years

Text

A Look at my Second Week

A brief (lol) introduction...

So, I'm starting this blog as a way to track my progress through my internship with the LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida. They're an amazing grassroots effort set on collecting, researching, and exhibiting LGBTQ memorabilia from the greater Orlando area. They're truly one of a kind, and I hope that I'm able to contribute something meaningful to their institution. I guess I should introduce myself, too. My name is Alycia (uh-Lee-see-uh) Lampley, and I am a third semester grad student at Johns Hopkins University for museum studies. My interest is museum education and, more broadly, the informal education of youth. A couple of things; I don't think that museum learning has to be secondary to the United States' public school system's standards, nor do I look at informal education as a supplementary or ancillary service to standardized learning. I'm hoping that as time goes on, informal education as a stand alone, just as much as a supplement or collaboration, will begin to become more of a conversation and priority in GLAM institutions in the near future. But, that's enough of that.

I would - should - have begun this blog with week one, but I'm not all the way together, I suppose, so we're here now.

This week was much like the first, but it ended with a much more solid grasp of my next steps in working with the museum. My project for the semester is to create educational modules about LGBTQ history for middle-school aged youth, all based on collection objects from the museum's Pride, Prejudice, and Protest exhibition. In the previous week, I spent time gaining access to the collection and exploring for the most part, looking to see if I could access collection content from the exhibition. Initially, after only being able to locate photographs from an in-person exhibition of the content, I reached out to my supervisors. I had a few email conversations between Martha, Sara, and myself, where they provided me with information that would help me complete my "Big Picture" assignment, due for my internship course with the university. The assignment was intimidating to me at first, partly because I wasn't sure exactly how I would access the information, short of asking them for it straight up (which I ended up doing anyway), and I wasn't sure how my responses and analysis of the information provided would hold up in any class discussion. I always tend to get those kinds of jitters in the first few weeks of a course, but there's never anything to worry about anyway.

I also had a lengthy conversation with the museum's Treasurer, Rose, who also initially contacted me about my interest in the internship. She was also incredibly helpful and far exceeded my asking in terms of what I needed to know and the details. I learned quite a lot about the museum's community partner, RICHES, through the University of Central Florida. RICHES is an interface that archives and houses public history projects, and that's keeping it really general. They link, through the Public History program at UCF, both profit and non-profit organizations to promote the collection and preservation of history in Central Florida. I found out through speaking with Rose, a UCF professor (my site supervisors, Martha and Sarah, are also UCF professors. I should've said that earlier), that the LGBTQ History Museum was one of the first community partners that RICHES worked with, collaborating on NEH grants, for example. I was able to learn a lot and not only apply it to my assignment, but learn more about the museum themselves and see how they navigate community partnerships and initiatives.

Another meeting I had this week was with David, Vice President on the Board of Directors for the museum and PhD student. Yet another amazing help. He set me on course for how I'm going to essentially begin designing the modules. My problem is always starting. I need different goal posts or benchmarks so that I can feel my way through a project, so, essentially, when I entered this zoom meeting, I was coming to him with nothing. He helped me sort of steer this museum education ship, providing me with LGBTQ educational resources and examples, including a PDF outlining the Dru Project, an LGBTQ advocacy organization that promotes Gay-Straight Alliances and LGBTQ student clubs. Through that meeting this morning, I was able to locate the official exhibition checklist through RICHES, from which I will draw content for the modules, narrow my scope to post-visit educational modules (as opposed to both pre and post because that's just too much) and locate the standards for Florida Public Schools, CPALMS.

All in all, I spent a about five hours this week working, between locating different exhibition information, being in contact with my board members/supervisors, and now, thanks to David, reading up on teaching LGBTQ history to youth - he sent me the title of a great book that I'm looking into now for Kindle.

I'll be sure to update weekly, for real this time. I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say, and I'm excited to continue. The next step for me is drawing from exhibition material and formulating a draft - I guess I should figure out which topic to start with.

I'm not sure how I'll close these out in the future but until I figure that out, I'll just talk to y'all later. Bye!

-Alycia

#lgbtq history #internship #lgbtqhistoryCFL #museum #museumarchive #museum education

0 notes

kelinswriter · 7 years

Text

The Problem with Supergirl

Author note: S3 spoilers ahead (not that you haven’t already seen them). Also, these thoughts are my own, and others may see differently. Respectful comments are appreciated.

For reading clarity: If in italics, I am referring to Supergirl the show, not the character.

So…we’ve all heard the news, had time to process, gotten pissed as hell and maybe a little drunk over it. (Okay, maybe that last part was just me.) Sanvers is on the rocks, possibly irrevocably. And it blows.

But if I’m being honest, I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. I began having concerns around episode 2x14, when it became clear they no longer had any interest in having Alex and Maggie work cases together and that Maggie seemed to be getting shunted into the “girlfriend” role. By not integrating Maggie into the larger narrative (by, say, having her become the NCPD’s official liaison to the DEO), it kept her sidelined and limited her character development. I had hoped maybe that would be in the plan for this season, but…this is me, getting ready to write it myself because clearly no one on their payroll has any interest in it.

So where does this leave us? With Sanvers apparently headed for Splitsville and Alex (presumably) hooking up with Sara Lance in the crossover (because you can’t tell me the people in those writers’ rooms haven’t been salivating over that prospect for ages). And after that, if some of the hints I’m hearing are true, we’re probably getting a good dose of Party Girl Alex – presumably so that at some point, Kara can “save” her. Which is logical from a story standpoint, and Chyler will knock out of the park. But it’s also story that firmly puts Alex back in the number two position within the narrative – the object of the story rather than the subject. And that’s the problem.

Because Alex…as it turns out…is Supergirl’s biggest problem.

Now bear with me here, because I realize saying that what many critics and fans believe is the show’s greatest asset – Alex Freaking Danvers (and Chyler Freaking Leigh) – is also its Achilles heel is kind of strange. And as problems go, it’s a good one to have. Having the show’s most versatile and talented actress – and in many ways, its most compelling character – in a secondary role is a tremendous advantage. Need someone who can pull off a coming out story? Chy’s your girl. Need her to convincingly bash a prisoner or go renegade or carry an episode while the lead is off doing a crossover? On it. But these are things that also pull the narrative out of true, because Alex’s strength as a character – and the instinct to give her story of her own - inevitably pulls focus off Supergirl as the lead and the Danvers sisters as the central “love” story. When Alex has her own story, she doesn’t serve the show’s central narrative – she becomes the lead in a show within a show. And while that’s a very happy thing for those of us who think she’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, it also makes for a really sloppy, poorly structured narrative framework.

“Exodus” is the best example of this. It was largely Alex’s episode, and a thrilling subversion of the usual action hero tropes. Alex bashes a suspect, loses her job, goes rogue, and kisses her girl before going off to have a big solo renegade showdown with the bad guys. And that last point is where it goes off track – because no matter how thrilling the last act was, there is no way in hell “Ride or Die” Maggie Sawyer would let Alex basically go off to war without backup. And yet she does, for one simple reason: If Maggie is there, it pulls focus off the sisters moment at the end. Narrative logic is undermined for the sake of bringing the show back around to the notion that the show’s central love story is that of the Danvers sisters, with Alex in a secondary role to Supergirl.

Now…I know I haven’t mentioned the elephant in the room yet…yes, him. 2B’s central hero, both narratively and structurally. The reason we’re in this fucking mess in the first place. And I have a fix for him too…and it’s one you might not like. Quite simply: Let him be the co-lead that they so clearly want him to be.

How? Give Alex her own show.

Now I know this is a pipe dream (and due credit to those who have come up with it before), though I’d bet it’s been discussed in the writer’s room more than once. Even AK has admitted that in any other universe, Alex would be the lead of her own show (see the commentary for “Supergirl Lives.”) Will she be? If it ever happened, I would probably start believing in Santa Claus again. But from a structural standpoint, it solves all the problems. For example:

1. It creates space for Supergirl and Mon-El to become the traditional action/rom-com co-leads of the show (a la “Castle” or “Bones”) that TPTB appear to want them to be.

2. The secondary characters (except for Lena and maybe James) all revolve around Supergirl and no longer have individual stories that distract from the main narrative. They, for lack of a better term, all function in “service” to Supergirl.

3. It refocuses the story on Supergirl and her journey.

Meanwhile, in Alex Danvers land, you have:

1. Alex as badass super soldier/scientist, tracking aliens, solving cases, and having her fair share of angsty personal crises -- in other words, a female-driven version of the traditional male-led action series.

2. Maggie Sawyer as the second lead, with her own character development and arcs that contribute to, not distract from, the main story. In other words, Maggie moves into the role that Alex has traditionally played on Supergirl – but without the need for “show within a show” stories to create character development. A good example would be a story that was never fully developed on Supergirl – the idea that some cops (including Maggie) aren’t really down with vigilantes, superheroes, and extralegal government agencies operating outside the law. That’s a clear conflict between the two main characters that could easily fuel an entire season.

3. Need to build out the world? Have Alex go to work for Lucy. Have Winn be her gadget/tech guy (who carries the exposition, because that’s why Winn exists – he’s this universe’s Data/Geordi LaForge). Have her get her ass fired from the DEO so she has to operate without their resources for a while (Batwoman, anyone?). Do crossovers. Have the Danvers sisters visit each other’s shows. Hell, go hang out with Sara Lance once in a while and have Maggie get jealous as hell.

Again I say, it’ll never happen, but there have been far worse cases made for a spinoff by TV execs. It would also give DC something they haven’t had in a while (to my knowledge - I am in no way a DCverse expert) – a truly new property, out of which they can build a fresh content, narrative, and most importantly – ancillary marketing.

So if you’ve gotten this far, thanks for bearing with this flight of fancy that you may perhaps see in fic form someday. Because since they won’t do it, maybe I should.

#supergirl #sanvers #maggie sawyer #alex danvers #critical literary analysis because I'm a freaking nerd and my team is losing

33 notes · View notes

andhumanslovedstories · 7 years

Text

There's such a weird fixation in media about "firsts". Beauty and the Beast boasting disney's "first gay scene" is the one I'm thinking about in particular, and Power Rangers with the "first gay superhero", and in both cases it's a blink and you'll miss it thing, something that maintains plausible deniability of queerness within the film itself, but establishing explicit queerness in everything outside the film. We know Lefou is gay because the interview told us he was in disney's first gay scene.

And most of these discussions of firsts devolve into which first is first. Bill gets announced as the first gay companion on doctor who, and then follows the argument of whether Jack counts as companion, whether he was the first pansexual companion while Bill is the first gay companion, whether Amy or Clara was ever canonically bisexual and should that be a factoring in calculating firsts as well. (I remember a similar argument going on when Martha was announced as the first black companion, and people were like "but Mickey?" And there's definitely commentary waiting about contentious Firsts and characters of color, who seem to be always counted as ancillary characters even when a white character in an equivalent role would be considering a lead, but I’m not sure how to parse that nuance nor the Doctor Who specific question of which companions “count”, except to hope we are kinder and better towards Bill than we were towards Martha.)

And meanwhile, here is Bill, a black gay female companion, and while that fact has definitely not gotten lost, it is still very very cool and good that she is the companion even if she is not the Absolute First.

The language of Firsts is everywhere when you start looking for it, the idea that this show/movie/video game is doing something New Never Before Done Whoa Look At The Unprecedented Gay. And when this trend worries me, it's because:

1) it gives off a strong whiff of performative representation, where the representation isn't as important as people knowing you're doing it

1a) the corollary being that the emphasis on First First First makes me worried that creators are not interested in Second Third Fourth. That having had the First *spins wheel, throws dart* Lesbian Asian Marvel character (a guest star in three episodes of the Defenders, maybe fifteen minutes, every gif set celebrating her has the same three quotes because that's all there is), they are now exempted from every having to write a Second Lesbian Asian Marvel character. Because they already did that. Didn't you see the article in Entertainment Weekly? It was a very big deal.

2) the trend of press on the First Gay Thing tends to vastly out-scale the actually gayness, which traps us in an endless loop of hype and disappointment (versus Dumbledoring where the gayness is revealed retroactively for a previously ambiguous character or relationship, and it's a weird combination of vindication because you thought they might be gay, surprise because you didn't expect them to be gay, and disappointment because why didn't the work just say they were gay)

And this, even more than the rest of this post, is a personal grievance but 3) queer fandom has spent decades finding representation in subtext, in coding, in wishful thinking and disciplined literary analysis of the text. This whole First thing seems come with a subtext that every other character who had significant ambiguous relationships, was flamboyant or butch, was in anyway queercoded? Not queer. This here is the first gay thing, and we're very brave for being the first to have done it. Gay characters must formally come out to count.

Putting aside explicitly queer characters (which exist! Which have a history that creators and fans are welcome to build upon instead of thinking they have to invent gay representation every time they launch a franchise), queer history and queer art has always entailed writing and reading in between the lines. Which requires there be lines. If the new trend is unwritten in text, out and proud in press, what does that offer? I'm happy that Explicitly Confirmed Queer is a thing that's happening, I very much am, but if a gay child who has never read a think-piece cannot recognize themself in your Brave Unprecedented Gay Character because they didn't read your interview with the av club, then what use is that character? What was the point? What have you actually contributed to us?

#long post #needlessly long post I just have a lot of Feelings

2K notes · View notes

mattsagervo · 7 years

Text

Interview: Tal M. Klein, Author of 'The Punch Escrow'

The Punch Escrow has been a huge critical and commercial success, author Tal M. Klein's debut novel has garnered praise from everyone from NPR to Felicia Day, and with good reason. Set in the year 2147, Escrow combines a compelling story and cast of characters with masterful world-building - transporting the reader to an all-too believable future, constructed from a mix of imaginative fiction, and speculative extensions of real-world science and sociological trends.

It has garnered many favorable comparisons to Ready Player One, which does it a bit of a disservice, since it's a work of breathtaking originality. The only similarities I note are that it successfully integrates, and updates, some beloved science fiction ideas, and that it has been fast tracked to the big screen; a film adaptation is already in development at Lionsgate.

I had the opportunity to interview Klein about the book's origins and influences, what to expect from him in the future, and how he masterfully constructed the world of 2147 - from science, to music and more.

Matt Sager: Like a lot of great science fiction, The Punch Escrow has several themes, and is clearly about a lot more than a future of human replication and teleportation. How would you describe the book's plot and overall themes - or more bluntly, "what is your book about?" Tal M. Klein: I like to say it’s a hard sci-fi technothriller with a love story at its core. Joel Byram, an everyday guy in 2147 New York is duplicated en route to Costa Rica as a result of a teleportation mishap, the company that runs teleportation wants to “fix the bug” by killing one of the duplicates, religious zealots want to use his circumstance as propaganda, and his wife is kidnapped by a rogue scientist. Now Joel is fighting to save his life and in his wife in a world that has two of him. The core elements of the story are rooted in identity: Are we who society says we are? Or who we think we are? Or who those who we love believe us to be?

MS: You’ve attained huge success with The Punch Escrow - you’ve attained massive critical and commercial success, the book has been optioned by Lions Gate, and as of this writing it’s number 1 on Amazon’s Hard Science Fiction charts. Did you envision this level of attention and success for your debut novel? TMK: I set out to tell the best version of my story. That was my criteria for a “job well done.” I’m thrilled people are digging it. The credit for its success is equally shared by my wife, my editorial team of Robert Kroese, Matt Harry, and Adam Gomolin, and Howie Sanders at United Talent Agency.

MS: I’ve been told that the concept for the book came about over an argument over the plausibility of Star Trek transporters - can you elaborate on how that led to a book about teleportation and cloning? TMK: What you’ve been told is true! Back in 2012, I was complaining to a co-worker about J.J. Abrams’ over the top use of lens flare in the Star Trek reboot, when suddenly, our CEO interrupted our conversation by shouting “It’s bullshit!” It turned out he wasn’t talking about the lens flare, but Star Trek’s transporters. He was an expert in quantum physics and went on to explain that nobody in the right mind would ever step into a transporter if they knew how it worked. It was then that I realized that there wasn’t a good origin story for the commercialization of teleportation. The fact is, I initially set out the write The Punch Escrow as a textbook from the future, with scribbles in the margins by a smartass named Joel Byram. That was the first draft. By the time the final draft was done, Joel’s story became the focus on the book, and the “textbook” was relegated to liner notes, explaining the world Joel lived in.

MS: I’m very aware that you're not a fan of J.J. Abrams' lens flare. Cinematography aside, are you a fan of the new Star Trek franchise? Other than the transporter argument, has it had any influence on your writing? TMK: Hah, well, discounting for his penchant for lens flare, I’m a huge J.J. Abrams fan, the first movie of the Trek reboot was great. I didn’t really care for the second or third. MS: J.J. Abrams aside, I know that you’re a huge fan of Star Trek - which is your favorite franchise, and how has it influenced you as a writer? TMK: I’d qualify that by saying I love Star Trek, but I’m not a Trekkie. I say that because I learned my lesson at San Diego Comic Con. If you tell a Trekkie that you’re a Trekkie, they expect you to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the entire Trek cannon, which I do not possess. So, yes, I am a Star Trek fan. My favorite franchise was DS9, but my favorite season of all time was TNG Season 6. MS: Which other science fiction television shows, films, books and writers would you cite as your biggest influences? TMK: Larry Niven, Scott Meyer, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and, because The Martian undeniably catalyzed me to write my book, Andy Weir. As for television shows, I think it’s fair to credit modern detective shows like Psych and Monk for helping me wrap my mind around Rube Goldberg plot devices. Most influential was my favorite show of all time, the X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen. I think they really nailed the technogeek persona. Influential movies run the gamut from The Princess Bride to Donnie Darko and everything in between, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention District 9, Looper, and Gattaca. MS: The Punch Escrow strikes me as a book that's in equal parts hopeful and fearful for the future. There are themes of utopian technology corrupted by corporate interference. How much of that - the good and the ill - do you see unfolding in the present? Is your fictional vision of 2147 similar to your actual view of the future? TMK: To borrow a phrase from The Jester, There's an unequal amount of good and bad in most things. The trick is to figure out the ratio and act accordingly. I don’t think future is dystopian or utopian, it’s just us progressing along our evolutionary path. MS: Music plays a major role in the book. I understand that we have a music industry background in common. What was your career in music like, and how did it contribute to the Joel's soundtrack, and the new genre of redistro? TMK: I never think of anything I do artistically as a “career” — music and writing are my hobbies. I’m very serious about my hobbies, but I pursue them for the sake of pure joy rather than income. MS: One of the most original ideas in The Punch Escrow is the brilliant, if gross, race of genetically engineered mosquitoes. What was your inspiration for these bugs that eat lighting and crap thunder, so to speak? TMK: Everyone loves the mosquitoes! The near-scandal is that I cut the mosquitoes in the third draft of the book because I learned about bacteria that eat methane and excreted oxygen, but my beta readers freaked out on me, so I put the skeeters back. The reason the mosquitoes are there is because I wanted to solve for air pollution but in a very messy, human way. Humans tend to to opt for quick fixes and shortcuts, I think it’s because we are a breed largely driven by the pursuit of instant gratification. MS: Hard science fiction like The Punch Escrow seems to grow more relevant by the day as AI and robots are, to varying degrees, infiltrating the workforce and performing tasks that were once the sole domain of humans. Do you see this as a growing issue, and if so, need it be a threat? Is AI really capable of supplanting people, and is that really what corporations as a whole want? TMK: Will apps and robots take the place of people? Absolutely. But if we look at what happened in the Industrial Age, people were prophesizing similar doom and gloom scenarios, and that’s not how the future turned out. There will be plenty of human jobs after AI, it’s just that those jobs will be different than many of the jobs we have today. MS: How did you come up with the idea of a machine language - that is, a language by machines, for machines, cars talking to one another, etc? How surprised were you when Facebook had to shut down it’s AI because it had created a secret language for itself? TMK: If you’ve ever played with AI, it makes sense that two pieces of semi-intelligent code might form a more optimal method of communicating than our cumbersome language. I was a bit taken aback by what happened at Facebook, yes. But it wasn’t shocking. I also understand why they pulled the chord, but I kind of wish they hadn’t. MS: What do you think machines are saying about us, and if AI continues to advance, do you think that they are going to develop an opinion of us? Do you think it will be favorable, and/or within our ability to influence? TMK: Code will likely always be subservient to its programmer. As such, I think we need to add ethics to the list of engineering core competencies. If engineers exclusively focus on successful code execution without regard for anthropological outcomes in the age of AI, we may very well end up with evil robots. MS: Are there sequels in the works? What’s next for the Punch Escrow universe, and for you as a writer? TMK: I’m contractually obligated to deliver two more books that take place in the world of The Punch Escrow. One of them will likely be a sequel of sorts in that we’ll get into matters unresolved in The Punch Escrow, but the other is shaping up to be a standalone novel with a narrative that is ancillary to that of The Punch Escrow. But who knows, both are at the very early formative stages.

#The Punch Escrow #Tal M. Klein

4 notes · View notes