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lenaellsi · 8 months

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I'm wondering how much of the fandom reaction of "Aziraphale doesn't ACTUALLY want Crowley to be an angel, he just wants to keep him safe/happy!" is because we spent four years between seasons assuming that Aziraphale had already accepted that Heaven and Hell aren't all that different, and that demons and angels aren't inherently good or bad. And it's difficult to let go of that idea in the same way that it's difficult to let go of the idea that they talked their shit out That Night At Crowley's Flat and have been happy ever since. But to actually understand Aziraphale's choice without hiding it behind coffee or lies or secret plans or body swaps or magic tricks or purely romantic intentions, we have to to understand that Aziraphale is still working under an incorrect framework of the world as divided into Cosmic Good and Cosmic Evil.

Because the thing is. Aziraphale does not like that Crowley is a demon. He just doesn't. We can talk about his reasons, but I really don't think that it's a disputable fact at this point. Aziraphale CONSTANTLY talks down to Crowley about the differences between them, and disparages demons in general and Crowley in particular over and over again. I mean, he's obviously just spewing the party line at this point, but he even describes the ultimate triumph of Heaven over Hell as "rather lovely." To Crowley. Where does he think Crowley fits, in that scenario? Is he thinking about it? (He is, surely, given how distressed he is over the danger Crowley is in due to the Arrangement?)

Crowley, to be fair, often says similar things about himself, and hates when Aziraphale calls him things like 'nice.' But as I've mentioned in another post, I think 2.03 makes it all but canon that a lot of that is self-preservation. Hell can't know that he's running around saving children and rescuing people from suicide and poverty, or he'll get dragged down there for decades. Crowley doesn't really think of himself as evil--he's visibly upset during their argument when Aziraphale hits him with "you're the bad guys!" because he thinks Aziraphale knows him better than that.

But instead, Aziraphale makes knee-jerk assumptions about Crowley and his intentions over and over again, including that he's behind the Reign of Terror in Paris and, about two minutes before realizing he's in love with him, that he's working with Nazis. Crowley seems annoyed and hurt both times, and denies it. There's no demonic posturing from him then.

Which makes the Job ep really interesting, right? Because Crowley actively lies and says that he is doing the properly demonic thing, but Aziraphale doesn't buy it. And why doesn't he buy it?

"I know the angel you were."

To Aziraphale, Crowley's kindness stems from the traces of that angel he knew. He thinks Crowley does good in spite of his nature, and not because of who he is as a person, life experiences as a demon very much included. This is because to Aziraphale, Heaven is Good, and all goodness must stem from it.

I've seen people get accused, when making this point, of attacking Aziraphale, or saying that he doesn't love Crowley, which is a ridiculous takeaway from S2. I've never seen a person more obviously in love, or a person more obviously trying to do good in the world. But so much of Aziraphale is tied up in his ability to believe multiple contradictory things at once. (See: the 80 years between "maybe there is something to be said for shades of gray" and "Heaven is the side of truth, of light, of good.") That doesn't make him stupid or ill-intentioned (in fact, he wouldn't need to do the kind of mental gymnastics we see from him if he wasn't clever enough to see through at least some of the bullshit) but it does mean that he's fully capable of loving Crowley while at the same time believing that demons are 'the bad guys.' Solution? Make Crowley an angel. Fix him, fix the bad apples in Heaven, be happy together, eliminate human suffering. Vavoom. Sorted.

Idk man. I'm constantly seeing takes that just...completely discount that Aziraphale really, genuinely, has misunderstood Crowley and the way the world works in his choice to return to Heaven. We can't blame it all on miscommunication. The most honest conversation in the world wouldn't fix this. Aziraphale has to go up there, without Crowley, and learn for the last time that Heaven is not Good, and will never be Good, because there is no Good. Good doesn't come from Heaven, or God, or even Crowley (and I see y'all, putting Crowley on a pedestal, saying Aziraphale wants to remake Heaven in his image--stop it.) Good comes from making the choice, in a very complicated world, to help as best you can, and it comes from love. And that's what Aziraphale will learn in season 3.

#good omens #good omens meta #good omens season 2 #aziraphale #gos2 spoilers #long post #sorry about the paragraphs of meta every couple of days. I'm still unwell about it all.#this will be the last one. maybe. who can say

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akutasoda · 7 months

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FLUFF HCS FOR BSD CHARACTERS BUT READER IS RESCUED FROM AN ABUSIVE ORGANIZATION? Reader used to be in abusive organization that mostly used their (and other members) abilities and now is working in the ADA for a short time (idk mbh a 2/3 weeks or a month its up to u actually)🔥⁉️ not very talktive and sometimes acts weird because of how they used to be treated in the abusive organization but seems to actually get along with someone🔥🔥⁉️

🌚…

would like to request Ranpo, Yosano, Dazai and Atsushi / Kenji (platonic ofc) + characters u want to add⁉️🔥⁉️

ILY UR WRITING❤️❤️❤️

new beginnings

synopsis - after moving away from a dark past, you quite quickly became connected with a new coworker

includes - atsushi, dazai, yosano, ranpo, kenji

warnings - gn!reader, fluff, slight angst, comfort, implied past unhealthy relations, wc- 1.3k

a/n: hellooo! thank you so much!

you had been found by fukuzawa. found and swiftly taken in, the fate of your previous coworkers was unknown but you had made it out. fukuzawa had held your entrance exam himself, he understood your circumstances and therefore made the exception.

he had also made the decision to hide the reason for your sudden appearance in the agency and you always were very happy that people didn't ask you where you had come from. you tried to act like nothing had ever happened, but that was truly impossible. but, much to fukuzawa's happiness, you had started to bond with a particular new coworker...

atsushi nakajima ★↷

your relationship with the weretiger had manly stemmed from having temporarily sharing a desk during his first days at the agency. and in someway he had learned that you too had not been here long. and so he kind of started looking to you for help naturally, apart from when dazai was around.

he didn't think much of your strange nature, instead he just saw it as you. he even suggested early on that you both stick together - you both were rather new and could do with helping the other out! and to your own surprise you had accepted his simple offer, when fukuzawa heard of this he was simply estatic. and even when atsushi finally gained his own desk you still spoke to him the most.

it eventually got to the point where you two were practically joined at the hip, helping each other navigate through working at the agency. he never minded how little you talked he did admit that around you he seemed to talk a bit more - as if he had some new confidence. but you two had grown very close, his overly kind nature made you feel at ease in a way, and eventually you felt he could be trusted.

you never imagined telling anyone about your past, but here you were. a moment of weakness that wasn't exploited by atsushi and instead offered nothing but comfort. he could in a small way relate, after all his orphanage wasn't the best. but that meant you two could only support each other more, help each other even more.

osamu dazai ★↷

he was always eccentric, wether it was genuine or not you found it intriguing. you had felt naturally drawn to him but never imagined him holding the same interest to you ever. but in your first few days of working at the agency he had found intrest in you. firstly from your sudden appearance and weird lack of a collective entrance exam but then mainly from your personality and overall demeanour.

and thus started your relation with the man. it was quite unlikely, he was outgoing while you rather stayed to yourself but they do say opposites attract. and in that sense it worked. he never mided how you acted nor your weird personality, if anything it added to your charm. he always held the intrigue of why you were so suddenly part of the agency but was very glad he had met you.

he had felt that maybe this could be a genuine relationship with someone. he felt he could connect in a way that baffled him and the whole thing just felt right. and so your relation with dazai never wavered, it stayed very strong all the time and naturally you two just became closer and closer. admittedly he did bring out some more confidence in you.

and hence whatever way, it accidentally slipping out in conversation or you deciding he could be trusted, he found out about your past, why you so suddenly came to be at the agency. and in a way he sympathised with you, he too had come from a not so nice previous workplace - maybe he could tell you later. but that seemed to only strengthen your relationship, and now he wanted to help you.

akiko yosano ★↷

you had fist met the doctor through her striking up conversation with you. on your first day she had noticed how shy you had been but she kind of thought it was just initial nerves so wanted to make it less nerve wracking for you. and she reconned she may be one the best for a first impression, and thus striked up conversation. and in your opinion she did work in calming some nerves.

and overtime you would naturally seek out her company as currently the only person you didn't mind talking to, fukuzawa was very happy you both got along. she never minded how you acted. she had met her fair share of different people under different circumstances and thus she never minded she only saw it as you.

naturally after spending most your time with the doctor, you became very close. she was genuine and very kind towards you and that made you feel like she was trustworthy of the truth. and thus you had told her. and she was probably the best person you could've told. she had a similar experience with after the great war and maybe she would tell you about that and that meant she understood it on a more personal level. and therefore she would offer nothing but support.

ranpo edogawa ★↷

ranpo had interested you from day one. he was very confident and self-assured, something you no longer were. but no matter what you found him interesting but never imagined him actually taking an interest in you thus keeping to yourself. but in honesty, ranpo probably helped save you in the first place or atleast contributed in some way. so maybe he did already know.

and therefore, if he did, it would only be natural for you two to naturally gravitate towards the other. and therefore you felt as if ranpo was a somewhat safety net when first navigating the agency. and he was more than happy to do so. but it became more than that and therefore you two would be genuine friends.

and as mentioned before, he either helped and therefore knew or he did deduct why you acted the way he did - not that he minded. and thus it kind of spared you from telling him, and he had always helped you from day one of the agency and he would continue to do so forever.

kenji miyazawa ★↷

kenji had approached you on your first day at the agency. he was one of if not the first to actually talk to you and it was because he wanted to greet you and he found you interesting in your own right. you had felt compelled to indulge the boy and talk to him, but the more you did so the more it became genuine to talk with him. he provided a happiness that was very rare to you.

therefore you two had grown quite close, not that he'd admit but he did start seeing you as a older sibling or if not his best friend. he enjoyed spending time with you and didn't see a difference with your weird habits and behaviour, to him that was just who you were and he admired it. he saw you as a sort of role model to him and would always try and make time to hang around you.

you never wanted to burden the light hearted boy with your spotty past. instead whenever he asked you about the topic you would simply put it as a 'not so great time', to which he would offer you support and remind you taht it was all better now. but if you did tell him the truth for whatever reason, his support would only double tenfold, he can't stand seeing you upset.

#x reader #x gender neutral reader #bsd x reader #bsd x gender neutral reader #bungo stray dogs x reader #bungo stray dogs x you #bsd x you #bsd atsushi #atsushi x reader #bsd dazai #dazai x reader #bsd yosano #yosano x reader #bsd ranpo #ranpo x reader #bsd kenji

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soracities · 1 year

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Hey! It has been on my mind lately and i just wanna ask..idk if it would make sense but i just noticed that nowadays ppl cant separate the authors and their books (ex. when author wrote a story about cheating and ppl starts bashing the author for romanticizing cheating and even to a point of cancelling the author for not setting a good/healthy example of a relationship) any thoughts about it?

I have many, many thoughts on this, so this may get a little unwieldy but I'll try to corall it together as best I can.

But honestly, I think sometimes being unable to separate the author from the work (which is interesting to me to see because some people are definitely not "separating" anything even though they think they are; they just erase the author entirely as an active agent, isolate the work, and call it "objectivity") has a lot to do with some people being unable to separate the things they read from themselves.

I'm absolutely not saying it's right, but it's an impulse I do understand. If you read a book and love it, if it transforms your life, or defines a particular period of your life, and then you find out that the author has said or done something awful--where does that leave you? Someone awful made something beautiful, something you loved: and now that this point of communion exists between you and someone whose views you'd never agree with, what does that mean for who you are? That this came from the mind of a person capable of something awful and spoke to your mind--does that mean you're like them? Could be like them?

Those are very uncomfortable questions and I think if you have a tendency to look at art or literature this way, you will inevitable fall into the mindset where only "Good" stories can be accepted because there's no distinction between where the story ends and you begin. As I said, I can see where it comes from but I also find it profoundly troubling because i think one of the worst things you can do to literature is approach it with the expectation of moral validation--this idea that everything you consume, everything you like and engage with is some fundamental insight into your very character as opposed to just a means of looking at or questioning something for its own sake is not just narrow-minded but dangerous.

Art isn't obliged to be anything--not moral, not even beautiful. And while I expend very little (and I mean very little) energy engaging with or even looking at internet / twitter discourse for obvious reasons, I do find it interesting that people (online anyway) will make the entire axis of their critique on something hinge on the fact that its bad representation or justifying / romanticizing something less than ideal, proceeding to treat art as some sort of conduit for moral guidance when it absolutely isn't. And they will also hold that this critique comes from a necessarily good and just place (positive representation, and I don't know, maybe in their minds it does) while at the same time setting themselves apart from radical conservatives who do the exact same thing, only they're doing it from the other side.

To make it abundantly clear, I'm absolutely not saying you should tolerate bigots decrying that books about the Holocaust, race, homophobia, or lgbt experiences should be banned--what I am saying, is that people who protest that a book like Maus or Persepolis is going to "corrupt children", and people who think a book exploring the emotional landscape of a deeply flawed character, who just happens to be from a traditionally marginalised group or is written by someone who is, is bad representation and therefore damaging to that community as a whole are arguments that stem from the exact same place: it's a fundamental inability, or outright refusal, to accept the interiority and alterity of other people, and the inherent validity of the experiences that follow. It's the same maniacal, consumptive, belief that there can be one view and one view only: the correct view, which is your view--your thoughts, your feelings.

There is also dangerous element of control in this. Someone with racist views does not want their child to hear anti-racist views because as far as they are concerned, this child is not a being with agency, but a direct extension of them and their legacy. That this child may disagree is a profound rupture and a threat to the cohesion of this person's entire worldview. Nothing exists in and of and for itself here: rather the multiplicity of the world and people's experiences within it are reduced to shadowy agents that are either for us or against us. It's not about protecting children's "innocence" ("think of the children", in these contexts, often just means "think of the status quo"), as much as it is about protecting yourself and the threat to your perceived place in the world.

And in all honestt I think the same holds true for the other side--if you cannot trust yourself to engage with works of art that come from a different standpoint to yours, or whose subject matter you dislike, without believing the mere fact of these works' existence will threaten something within you or society in general (which is hysterical because believe me, society is NOT that flimsy), then that is not an issue with the work itself--it's a personal issue and you need to ask yourself if it would actually be so unthinkable if your belief about something isn't as solid as you think it is, and, crucially, why you have such little faith in your own critical capacity that the only response these works ilicit from you is that no one should be able to engage with them. That's not awareness to me--it's veering very close to sticking your head in the sand, while insisting you actually aren't.

Arbitrarily adding a moral element to something that does not exist as an agent of moral rectitude but rather as an exploration of deeply human impulses, and doing so simply to justify your stance or your discomfort is not only a profoundly inadequate, but also a deeply insidious, way of papering over your insecurities and your own ignorance (i mean this in the literal sense of the word), of creating a false and dishonest certainty where certainty does not exist and then presenting this as a fact that cannot and should not be challenged and those who do are somehow perverse or should have their characters called into question for it. It's reductive and infantilising in so many ways and it also actively absolves you of any responsibility as a reader--it absolves you of taking responsibility for your own interpretation of the work in question, it absolves you of responsibility for your own feelings (and, potentially, your own biases or preconceptions), it absolves you of actual, proper, thought and engagement by laying the blame entirely on a rogue piece of literature (as if prose is something sentient) instead of acknowledging that any instance of reading is a two-way street: instead of asking why do I feel this way? what has this text rubbed up against? the assumption is that the book has imposed these feelings on you, rather than potentially illuminated what was already there.

Which brings me to something else which is that it is also, and I think this is equally dangerous, lending books and stories a mythical, almost supernatural, power that they absolutely do not have. Is story-telling one of the most human, most enduring, most important and life-altering traditions we have? Yes. But a story is also just a story. And to convince yourself that books have a dangerous transformative power above and beyond what they are actually capable of is, again, to completely erase people's agency as readers, writers' agency as writers and makers (the same as any other craft), and subsequently your own. And erasing agency is the very point of censors banning books en masse. It's not an act of stupidity or blind ignorance, but a conscious awareness of the fact that people will disagree with you, and for whatever reason you've decided that you are not going to let them.

Writers and poets are not separate entities to the rest of us: they aren't shamans or prophets, gifted and chosen beings who have some inner, profound, knowledge the rest of us aren't privy to (and should therefore know better or be better in some regard) because moral absolutism just does not exist. Every writer, no matter how affecting their work may be, is still Just Some Guy Who Made a Thing. Writing can be an incredibly intimate act, but it can also just be writing, in the same way that plumbing is plumbing and weeding is just weeding and not necessarily some transcendant cosmic endeavour in and of itself. Authors are no different, when you get down to it, from bakers or electricians; Nobel laureates are just as capable of coming out with distasteful comments about women as your annoying cousin is and the fact that they wrote a genre-defying work does not change that, or vice-versa. We imbue books with so much power and as conduits of the very best and most human traits we can imagine and hope for, but they aren't representations of the best of humanity--they're simply expressions of humanity, which includes the things we don't like.

There are some authors I love who have said and done things I completely disagree with or whose views I find abhorrent--but I'm not expecting that, just because they created something that changed my world, they are above and beyond the ordinarly, the petty, the spiteful, or cruel. That's not condoning what they have said and done in the least: but I trust myself to be able to read these works with awareness and attention, to pick out and examine and attempt to understand the things that I find questionable, to hold on to what has moved me, and to disregard what I just don't vibe with or disagree with. There are writers I've chosen not to engage with, for my own personal reasons: but I'm not going to enforce this onto someone else because I can see what others would love in them, even if what I love is not strong enough to make up for what I can't. Terrance Hayes put perfectly in my view, when he talks about this and being capable of "love without forgiveness". Writing is a profoundly human heritage and those who engage with it aren't separate from that heritage as human because they live in, and are made by, the exact same world as anyone else.

The measure of good writing for me has hardly anything to do with whatever "virtue" it's perceived to have and everything to do with sincerity. As far as I'm concerned, "positive representation" is not about 100% likeable characters who never do anything problematic or who are easily understood. Positive representation is about being afforded the full scope of human feelings, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and not having your humanity, your dignity, your right to exist in the world questioned because all of these can only be seen through the filter of race, or gender, religion, or ethicity and interpreted according to our (profoundly warped) perceptions of those categories and what they should or shouldn't represent. True recognition of someone's humanity does not lie in finding only what is held in common between you (and is therefore "acceptable", with whatever you put into that category), but in accepting everything that is radically different about them and not letting this colour the consideration you give.

Also, and it may sound harsh, but I think people forget that fictional characters are fictional. If I find a particularly fucked up relationship dynamic compelling (as I often do), or if I decide to write and explore that dynamic, that's not me saying two people who threaten to kill each other and constantly hurt each other is my ideal of romance and that this is exactly how I want to be treated: it's me trying to find out what is really happening below the surface when two people behave like this. It's me exploring something that would be traumatizing and deeply damaging in real life, in a safe and fictional setting so I can gain some kind of understanding about our darker and more destructive impulses without being literally destroyed by them, as would happen if all of this were real. But it isn't real. And this isn't a radical or complex thing to comprehend, but it becomes incomprehensible if your sole understanding of literature is that it exists to validate you or entertain you or cater to you, and if all of your interpretations of other people's intentions are laced with a persistent sense of bad faith. Just because you have not forged any identity outside of this fictional narrative doesn't mean it's the same for others.

Ursula K. le Guin made an extremely salient point about children and stories in that children know the stories you tell them--dragons, witches, ghouls, whatever--are not real, but they are true. And that sums it all up. There's a reason children learning to lie is an incredibly important developmental milestone, because it shows that they have achieved an incredibly complex, but vitally important, ability to hold two contradictory statements in their minds and still know which is true and which isn't. If you cannot delve into a work, on the terms it sets, as a fictional piece of literature, recognize its good points and note its bad points, assess what can have a real world impact or reflects a real world impact and what is just creative license, how do you possible expect to recognize when authority and propaganda lies to you? Because one thing propaganda has always utilised is a simplistic, black and white depiction of The Good (Us) and The Bad (Them). This moralistic stance regarding fiction does not make you more progressive or considerate; it simply makes it easier to manipulate your ideas and your feelings about those ideas because your assessments are entirely emotional and surface level and are fuelled by a refusal to engage with something beyond the knee-jerk reaction it causes you to have.

Books are profoundly, and I do mean profoundly, important to me-- and so much of who I am and the way I see things is probably down to the fact that stories have preoccupied me wherever I go. But I also don't see them as vital building blocks for some core facet or a pronouncement of Who I Am. They're not badges of honour or a cover letter I put out into the world for other people to judge and assess me by, and approve of me (and by extension, the things I say or feel). They're vehicles through which I explore and experience whatever it is that I'm most caught by: not a prophylactic, not a mode of virtue signalling, and certainly not a means of signalling a moral stance.

I think at the end of the day so much of this tendency to view books as an extension of yourself (and therefore of an author) is down to the whole notion of "art as a mirror", and I always come back to Fran Lebowitz saying that it "isn't a mirror, it's a door". And while I do think it's important to have that mirror (especially if you're part of a community that never sees itself represented, or represented poorly and offensively) I think some people have moved into the mindset of thinking that, in order for art to be good, it needs to be a mirror, it needs to cater to them and their experiences precisely--either that or that it can only exist as a mirror full stop, a reflection of and for the reader and the writer (which is just incredibly reductive and dismissive of both)--and if art can only exist as a mirror then anything negative that is reflected back at you must be a condemnation, not a call for exploration or an attempt at understanding.

As I said, a mirror is important but to insist on it above all else isn't always a positive thing: there are books I related to deeply because they allowed me to feel so seen (some by authors who looked nothing like me), but I have no interest in surrounding myself with those books all the time either--I know what goes on in my head which is precisely why I don't always want to live there. Being validated by a character who's "just like me" is amazing but I also want--I also need-- to know that lives and minds and events exist outside of the echo-chamber of my own mind. The mirror is comforting, yes, but if you spend too long with it, it also becomes isolating: you need doors because they lead you to ideas and views and characters you could never come up with on your own. A world made up of various Mes reflected back to me is not a world I want to be immersed in because it's a world with very little texture or discovery or room for growth and change. Your sense of self and your sense of other people cannot grow here; it just becomes mangled.

Art has always been about dialogue, always about a me and a you, a speaker and a listener, even when it is happening in the most internal of spaces: to insist that art only ever tells you what you want to hear, that it should only reflect what you know and accept is to undermine the very core of what it seeks to do in the first place, which is establish connection. Art is a lifeline, I'm not saying it isn't. But it's also not an instruction manual for how to behave in the world--it's an exploration of what being in the world looks like at all, and this is different for everyone. And you are treading into some very, very dangerous waters the moment you insist it must be otherwise.

Whatever it means to be in the world, it is anything but straightforward. In this world people cheat, people kill, they manipulate, they lie, they torture and steal--why? Sometimes we know why, but more often we don't--but we take all these questions and write (or read) our way through them hoping that, if we don't find an answer, we can at least find our way to a place where not knowing isn't as unbearable anymore (and sometimes it's not even about that; it's just about telling a story and wanting to make people laugh). It's an endless heritage of seeking with countless variations on the same statements which say over and over again I don't know what to make of this story, even as I tell it to you. So why am I telling it? Do I want to change it? Can I change it? Yes. No. Maybe. I have no certainty in any of this except that I can say it. All I can do is say it.

Writing, and art in general, are one of the very, very, few ways we can try and make sense of the apparently arbitrary chaos and absurdity of our lives--it's one of the only ways left to us by which we can impose some sense of structure or meaning, even if those things exists in the midst of forces that will constantly overwhelm those structures, and us. I write a poem to try and make sense of something (grief, love, a question about octopuses) or to just set down that I've experienced something (grief, love, an answer about octpuses). You write a poem to make sense of, resolve, register, or celebrate something else. They don't have to align. They don't have to agree. We don't even need to like each other much. But in both of these instances something is being said, some fragment of the world as its been perceived or experienced is being shared. They're separate truths that can exist at the same time. Acknowledging this is the only means we have of momentarily bridging the gaps that will always exist between ourselves and others, and it requires a profound amount of grace, consideration and forbearance. Otherwise, why are we bothering at all?

#this is so much longer than i intended but yeah. those are my very long 2 cents #tbh i also think social media makes it worse in a way especially bc “transparency” has become a form of public vetting which is insane to m #me* transparency and honesty are not the same thing ans its ludicrous that this is where we're at and while we all have to live with this #demand for transparency i do think it affects writers differently bc the whole art as mirror thing comes to the fore in this argument #why would you sit with your feelings about a book when its easier and more accessible for you to @ the authors twitter handle #but anyway #ask #anonymous #book talks

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strangebiology · 4 months

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How Funding Affected my Journalism Jobs

The different places I’ve worked as a journalist, and in related fields, have all had different funding. Here are my experiences at different places–and it seems to me that grant-funded stuff is the best.

Internship at Nat Geo

Grants sponsored both of the other interns, but not me. Nat Geo makes a lot of its money through things like books at TV.

Mine was low-paid, but probably normal for an internship in 2016? LOVED the experience. Freelance at Nat Geo afterward was MUCH better paid. $14/hour part-time. IDK how much the grant-funded interns made. 2016.

Fellowship at PBS Newshour

A grant from the National Science Foundation funded me, but PBS is state-sponsored media. Interestingly, that’s a huge red flag in China and Russia, but I found the US-funded Public Broadcasting Service very fair to its subjects. Good experience, but even worse pay, at $13/hour full-time. 2016-2017

Job at Newsweek

Their funding is from clicks. This place was crazy bad and paid garbage. Everyone hated it and almost everyone quit, unless they were being fired for making a living wage. Some people even got fired for accurately reporting on the company itself on assignment from their editors–there was no obscuring it, that was cited as their reason for termitation. Newsweek is Hellfire and damnation. I suspect the nonsense demand for 5 stories/day/person and silly demand that we make them go viral stemmed from the following: the fact that the company primarily made its money from clicks and higher-ups didn’t appear to care about the long-term reputation of the company or its reporters, and perhaps an ego-fueled refusal to try to understand what actually got clicks. $39k/year. 2017-2018

Freelance at VOX

Funded by clicks/ads and grants at the time, but halfway through they started a contribution campaign. The difference I noticed between VOX and Newsweek was that VOX practices were smarter and they actually paid attention to analytics and sane business practices. Also, it's much easier to qualify for and get grants if you're actually doing good journalism, so I don't believe that Newsweek's policy of "lots of garbage" was actually business-savvy in any way.

Vox was a good experience, even though I wasn’t working as a journalist, but doing SEO/social media for journalists. $35/hour, then $50/hour part-time. Then I was laid off due to the pandemic. 2019-2020

Freelance at Alzheimer's Association

Remote, not really journalism, but I liked it anyway. Nonprofit, so, funded by donations and grants. $65/hour part-time. 2021

Job at Bay Nature

My job was entirely funded by a grant. Odd situation–I got the grant and I could bring it to any legit journalism employer. Bay Nature was supposed to contribute 40% of my salary but flexibility happened and they just paid health insurance and such. They got basically no money at all from clicks, like, pennies a year. Not much from subscriptions. They have fundraisers, and at the time, there were 3 writers/editors and 2 fundraisers on staff. Later they hired another writer whose entire salary was paid by a philanthropist, and then I’m told they got another salary funded by a UC Berkeley journalism grant program. So, like half of their editorial staff was grant-funded.

Great experience, but low pay for the Bay Area. $50k/year, all from Poynter-Koch, 2021-2022.

Freelance at Politifact

A nonprofit and they probably get lots of grants. My particular position was also funded by a grant entirely. Loved it. $250/article fact check. 2022.

Book

REALLY love it. $50k is from MIT Press, which is a not-for-profit, and it gets some grants and endowments. Then I got $56k from a grant from the Sloan Foundation on top.

Future?

I also got $500 (plus gas and hotels) to attend a day of learning with a program called Investing in Wyoming’s Creative Economy, and that means I’m one of 100 people eligible to apply for 10 $25k grants for future projects. The idea is to support creatives to stay in Wyoming and have sustainable businesses here. Maybe do some art that will bring in tourists.

_____________________

Note that a grant sort of does, and sort of doesn’t, mean free money. It means money to support a project that usually has to have a mission and a public good, like educating the public. You don’t pay these back, and the org giving the grants doesn’t require a percentage of the profits or anything. But, for instance, the $50k grant from Poynter-Koch was more like a gift to Bay Nature, so they could pay me, and I worked for a year to actually have the funds.

However, I’m not yet convinced that there is any objectively good funding model to ensure the most fair and accurate journalism. In theory, the capitalistic ones would be the best, but the public desire to read inflammatory stories about how their political enemies are evil, or a different generation is full of idiots, adversely affected the accuracy of headlines at Newsweek IMO.

You might think that the worst funding source would be Poynter-Koch, which is a program run by Poynter and funded by the Charles Koch Institute. But neither Poynter nor Koch even asked me to tell them what I was writing, let alone try to stop me from writing it. (Poynter hosted mentor-led auxiliary groups to talk about our careers/lives and such, so the topics of our articles came up sometimes if we chose to share that.)

Anyway, I’m thinking of writing an article on how funding models affect journalism, for better and worse. There are some high-profile examples of grant funding causing harm. But for now, the above is my experience–pretty much all good, except not enough funding sometimes.

#funding #journalism #not biology

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mikalara-dracula · 6 months

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omg !! loved ur ruki turn on n offs ! 😫 idk if ur taking requests rn but may we get one w reiji instead ? if not its k but those hcs were so good thx for the food 😭🫶

💙 Reiji's turn-ons & turn-offs—

Warning: 18+ content below; don't read if you're a minor and aren't comfortable with slight NSFW. This is a fictional work and should not be taken seriously.

Caution: Unfortunately, Tumblr has a history of admins quarreling over completing carbon copy asks due to users sending the same request(s) to multiple admins, thus, resulting in unintentional plagiarism. With this, please DO NOT send the same request to multiple blogs as it can cause unintended plagiarism discord to other blogs across Tumblr. The word “plagiarism” stems from the early 17th-century Latin word, “plagiarius,” meaning “kidnapper.” So please, do not send in the same request to multiple blogs and make admins appear to be “kidnapping” other people’s work when it isn’t their intention. If this is to occur with any of my posts, please contact me so we can work something out.

Hi there, Anons!

Thank you so much for requesting! It looks like you all requested the same thing. I'm very sorry about the wait! I hope you all enjoy reading it. Feel free to request again anytime. :)

Turn-ons:

Intelligence—If there’s one thing we know about our tea-loving vampire, is that he loves intelligence. He’s quite intrigued by this and finds it to a lethal trait on a woman.

Curly hair/Fluffed hair—Reiji has a thing for curly hair, or old-fashioned hair-styles on women. He finds that they exhibit a lot of class and look particularly lovely on women as well. Particular hair styles @liannelara-dracula and I think Reiji would love on a woman are the ones Shalom flaunted in the 90s in some of her most famous catwalks. For example: (1), (2), (3), (4).

Height—There’s something about a tall stature on a woman that Reiji finds attractive. It might be because he’s tall-ass himself and may want a partner that’s around that height, but this isn’t something he’s super set on, please bear that in mind.

Red bottom heels—These absolutely seduce our bae Rei. Wear these, and he’s all yours. ;)

Tight, but also loose dresses—Reiji just loves this look on a woman, where some of her curves are highlighted, but not entirely either. It’s something he really finds attractive. These are some examples: (1), (2).

Defined waistlines—Let’s face it, all of us girls have waistlines. If a girl manages to define her shape a lot in this area, Reiji’s very turned on by it.

Backless dresses—I forgot to mention this earlier haha! But yes, Reiji absolutely loves backless dresses on women, preferably red or black. Like, that amount of nudity is enough to send him over the edge, especially since such a vulnerable part of the body is being shown.

Charming lingo—A girl who has a charming way of speaking, to the point where she can flatter but also spit diplomatically. He’s all for it because sophistication’s a big thing for this classy vampire.

Red lipstick��He finds this to be very attractive on a woman, something that really completes her look altogether. Plus, Reiji has secret desire of having a woman leave her lipstick imprint on his cheek.

Tidiness—This is one thing that Reiji loves and in which, his brothers lack—heavily at that anyways. He just loves the idea of everything being perfect and in place, hence, his lab being a perfect example of this habit.

Cleanliness—Another obvious thing his brothers lack. Reiji finds cleanliness to be a great but also necessary aspect since he likes everything to be spotless, so having an s/o with this trait is something he considers ideal. Poor Yui being victim to his rigorous cleaning methods.

A woman’s walk—It’s actually canon that Reiji is strict when it comes to sitting/standing/walking postures. So the way a woman walks, he considers it to be a way that she displays herself. So, if she has a k!ller walk, he is d-e-a-d. xDD

Turn-offs:

Ignorance—Reiji honestly hates this because he doesn’t find there to be any excuses for it. He’s very on top of things and finds it incredibly stupid if someone doesn’t know better when they can about a certain subject.

Laziness—Ah, it’s no wonder Shu and him don’t get along. Reiji absolutely loathes being lazy. There isn’t one day where Reiji just decides to sit back and do nothing for no apparent reason. He only rests when he feels that his mind and body need a break, other than that, he does not sit and laze around like a certain blonde vampire. Apart from this, he constantly points out how much he hates Shu’s laziness, so he wouldn’t dare engage in it himself.

Curiosity—If there’s one thing Reiji hates, it’s the curiosity of others regarding his life. As a vampire prince, he’s very used to people wanting to meddle in his life, and he absolutely hates it since it’s not genuine at all—it’s just for other’s gain and nothing else.

Uncleanliness—Reiji, in general, hates cleaning up after his brothers since they just trash the place and leave it that way. He absolutely hates when things are out of place, let alone dirty, so uncleanliness is definitely a turn-off to him when it comes to both people and romantic partners.

Loudness/Outbursts—He’s not a fan of yelling. He much prefers to talk things through with people. It may be snappy, but it’s classy and he deems it to be better than raising his voice at someone, unlike some of his brothers tend to do. It’s canon that Reiji has raised his voice before, but he was beyond enraged and it took A LOT to get him there, so it’s quite rare if he does this. In general, he doesn’t prefer to get that far and keeps things pretty calm when he’s debating or arguing. As mentioned before, it’s quite rare to see him behave that way.

Imperfections—They can be of any sort, and if ya’ll have seen the anime adaption, he literally explains to Yui that he hates imperfections and “[w]ill not tolerate them.” Reiji’s kind of a handful at this point, but he’s Reiji.

Accepting things as they are—It’s canon that Reiji cannot accept reality for what it is when things don’t go his way. He seriously has a hard time with this and in one of his game routes, he pointed out that Yui taught him how to look at the brighter side of things when something didn’t go right.

Bad manners—Oh geez, this is probably Reiji’s biggest pet peeve and something he can’t look past. He finds it discordant when people can’t behave politely. He’s not even asking for kindness, but as long as someone conducts themselves with respectful mannerisms, it’s enough for him. After all, we’ve seen him scold his brothers countless times for it. That dining scene tho.

#diabolik lovers #diabolik lovers headcanons #reiji sakamaki #sakamaki reiji #diabolik lovers reiji #anime #anime requests #anime headcanons #diaboys #dialovers #diahell #diabolik brothers

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vasyandii · 2 months

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Hi, I have a request if you feel comfortable answering, but would you care to elaborate on "get to know my ship NSFW edition"? I'm not trying to beat around the bush to convince you to write smut, but I was really intrigued by the experience part and the colored hearts. In particular because Sebastian for me doesn't seem like the type to have had past relationships, maybe more oriented on one-night-stands, and Nak surprised me a little with not being complete on the virgin sing, thanks :)

Elaboration on the KruegerNak NSFW chart

[16+ Warning under the Cut!!]

Howdy howdy! I'm perfectly comfortable with answering any questions that comes my way :D (I have no shame + it provides better character analysis, which I enjoy explaining) but keep in mind!! I'm super bad at explaining stuff!!

Krueger (Sebastian) is Green, Nak (Phayvanh) is Red

HEARTS

Horny Levels

65% 55%

Sebastian finds it hard to keep up with Phayvanh sometimes, since she chases pleasure. He's happy to oblige of course.

Phayvanh correlates sex more as a way to express her feelings physically. She really cares for Sebastian so she's really intense.

Kinkiness

55% 50%

Phayvanh probably has the same kinks as Sebastian only because he gave them to her.

Krueger isn't as kinky only because he had more time to realise these things while Nak is open to try literally anything once. She's really curious (freak)

Possessive/Jealousy

55% 25%

Lumping these two together since Possessiveness stems from jealousy. This is the most inaccurate one pertaining to the chart since I made it at midnight xD so I fixed it in the percentages!

Krueger isn't possessive, idk how to explain it other than he doesn't feel the need to be possessive. Phayvanh hasn't done anything in the past to have him be jealous of anyone. He knows she likes him very much.

Nak.... She's possessive in the way where she thinks "He's someone I want to take care of, I want to take care of him properly and love him properly". The jealousy part comes naturally since this is her first relationship + her temperament issues she's working to fix.

Clinginess

89% 100%

This is more right Before and After Sex Xd

Phayvanh is silently clingy, alot of her standing close by, lingering touches, very intense stares. Then after She wants to sleep, but still wants him to be near since Sebastian brings her comfort.

Sebastian is basically the same except he just follows her around or talks to her to get attention. He enjoys having her near idk

LINES

Experienced-Virgin

I kind of put Phayvanh in the middle since the only person she's slept with is Krueger. She's experienced with him, being a quick learner, not with other people.

Krueger's...Krueger (derogatory /j ). I believe he's gotten most of his experience from short relationships in highschool, university, or his time in the Bundewehr (+ the occasional one night stand). He's just been living longer xD

Shameless - Flustered

I think I put them where I did because in my mind Krueger is just so absolutely appalled by how this woman can say just the most dirty, filthy, out of pocket things to his face when they're fucking like it's Normal 😭

She's a freak!!! An unaware freak!!! And that surprises him alot!!

[Aaand I'm getting lazy at writing the rest so I'll stop for now xD hope this helps a bit!]

#call of duty #call of duty modern warfare #oc x canon #sebastian krueger #phayvanh nak sotsvahn #krueger cod #cod nak #art #digital art #artwork #kruegernak #original character

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babacontainsmultitudes · 11 months

Text

Gah, might delete (I’m a bit embarrassed that this bothers me to the degree that it does in the first place cause it’s so inconsequential), nevertheless I guess I feel the need to vent about this so

I wish people would stop being so unnecessarily rude and hateful about gothcleats? Like, in general I’ve found this fandom to be pretty decent about avoiding senseless ship hate but for some reason this ship just gets held up to a standard that none of the other ones seem to and I guess it irks me a bit. Obviously if a ship isn’t your cup of tea for one reason or another that’s cool, and I completely get like interpreting a character a certain way that conflicts with a ship… I guess what I don’t get is why with this ship in particular people feel the need to rain on other people’s parade so much??

I’ve noticed that there are a lot of anti-gothcleats posts that are like “Well this [canon interaction] doesn’t strike me as romantic” and use that as a basis for invalidating the ship, but like… When has that ever been a requirement for shipping characters??? Like, idk, I think swiftli is cute, pretty fair to say that I ship it, but I’d be fucking lying to you if I said that a single one of Linc and Taylor’s interactions in canon has ever struck me as romantic… And so what? But that’s what I mean by like people hold gothcleats to a weird standard that they don’t hold other ships to. Obviously people are gonna latch on to whatever interactions they can get between two characters that they ship and roll with it, of course in practice for almost any ship very few if any of those will actually have romantic undertones… That’s normal? And you can not like a ship without going out of your way to rip those moments away from the people who do like it?

I feel like to some extent, subconsciously or otherwise, the hate this ship gets probably stems from some fear of it becoming canon. Maybe that’s wrong but that’s the impression I get. And to that I say… It’s literally not going to. No but seriously of course at the risk of being dead wrong like, it’s really not. Will ships it, I’m convinced, but Matt has shown no interest in canonizing any kind of romantic relationship between PCs, and that ultimately matters much more at the end of the day. So… Relax I guess is what I’m saying???

Blugh, might delete like I said, I hope this doesn’t feel targeted cause it’s really not meant to be, but idk I guess I’ve just been feeling a bit bummed out about this. I don’t really like having this kind of ship discourse so I tend to just keep my mouth shut with this kinda thing but… Lost the battle today I suppose, gotta vent about it. Aaand send post.

#I get anxious being salty here over this sorta thing #but also… Whatever pass the salt #dndads #dungeons and daddies #gothcleats #scary marlowe #lincoln li wilson #this post really isn’t targeted at any specific person #So apologies if it feels like it is!#But if I don’t vent about this it’s gonna bother me all day #I need to stress also that I absolutely get not liking this ship #But I think if there was as much open hate for other ships that people do like more people would understand why the treatment of this ship #- can frankly be pretty uncomfortable!

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wingsoverlagos · 24 days

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I'm absolutely enjoying your's and mythserene's hard work! Mark Lewisohn is so embarrassing at this point. I'm thinking about the song Blackbird, with Beyonce's new cover, and I'm wondering if anyone has seen Lewisohn's commentary on that? Lewisohn said Paul changes the meaning of his songs after the fact, and used Blackbird as an example. So stupid since Paul has talked about the meanings of the song, even in studio audio. Mark sucks lmaooo. How can he just make up things??

Thank you so much for reading! I can't say how much I appreciate it; the reception here has truly been tremendous, and I'm grateful to everyone who's been following along in spite of my daunting word count.

I have also been thinking about Beyonce's Blackbiird (as has Serene :)) and the very silly response to it--it's a lovely, safe cover of a beautiful song by one of the greatest pop vocalists of the day, it's not like we're dealing with Bey's version of Jolene, lol

I haven't seen any reaction from Lewisohn and doubt he'll have any hot takes about the song itself, but maybe we'll be graced with an insinuation that Paul is fame-whoring for a young audience and/or re-writing history by letting Beyonce use the original stems. Who can say? Lewisohn has an immense capacity for taking things Paul does in bad faith, but every now and then he surprises me by being normal about Paul.

Side-ish note, but I'm so happy that the Paul/Donovan Blackbird discussion is on tape to shut down people incapable of taking Paul at his word.

And while I'm here, it makes a lot of sense that Paul wouldn't discuss the civil rights message of Blackbird after the Tate-LaBianca murders and the popularization of the Helter Skelter scenario. The White Album as a whole, and Helter Skelter in particular, were inextricably tied with a horrific crime, and Manson's interpretation (or at least the prosecution's version of it - idk how accepted the Helter Skelter theory is anymore) framed Blackbird as a call for a violent uprising. Maybe he avoided discussing the song's inspiration (based on the timing/the mention of seeing riots in the papers, possibly the Holy Week Uprising) becayse he wanted to distance a song which drew influence from the civil rights movement from a madman's vision of an apocalyptic race war.

#asks #hope that was somewhat coherent...it sounded better in my head

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aroaceleovaldez · 1 year

Note

idk how you can say it’s not also mark’s fault when a lot of the issues stem from the actual writing - it didn’t feel like rick’s writing and it’s more similar to mark’s work. rick has his issues but he doesn’t write like this. plotwise and consistency issues yes that’s def rick. and it doesn’t make sense that mark apparently did research about details but didn’t say anything about the details with biana or Hypnos. both of them including the editor failed on that. Also when the preview first came out, people said was bad. that was all mark, they told us. mark also confirmed that in the least, the first 10,000 words of tsats were all him too, with minimal editing. also a lot of the complaints/negativity are just on tumblr i highly doubt publishers will look at it or that their career will be ruined lol

I'm not saying that Oshiro is blameless - I'll admit, I'm not familiar with their other work, and yeah there's definitely too much within the book all over the place that feels messy and disjointed. I'm more used to being very clearly able to pick out Rick's writing so I was definitely able to see parts that were him, but there were also some details that very much told who was writing that portion very clearly (One actually kind of interesting one is every time you see use of s's versus s' in the case of like, something belonging to [noun/pronoun ending in S], the s's is Oshiro and s' is Rick, because throughout the entirety of the Riordanverse, Rick always uses s' and this book is the first time we see s's as well.). And there are absolutely plenty of scenes in the book that I know for a fact were written by Mark because they've explicitly said they wrote them and I do think those scenes are bad!

But I have said since the book was announced that I was very afraid people were gonna try to pin all the blame on the queer/nonbinary author just because they're new. I'm very used to Rick's writing at this point and how it's progressed, and a lot of the particular failings I noticed in TSATS are particularly consistent with recent series. I'm saying Oshiro is not the sole reason this book is bad, which is something I have had people attempt to argue to me already. I definitely don't think co-authoring this book improved it's condition much at all though. It probably did only make things worse, particularly in terms of how inconsistent everything is within it. Even if it was just Rick though I doubt we would have avoided how wildly out of character everything felt or the huge timeline changes/errors and incorrect details.

And you have entirely valid point I fully agree with as well - the editors should have totally stopped this mess WAY early on. It's honestly wild to me how little this book seems to have been run by an editorial team, because there's so many even just structurally wonky sentences or inconsistencies (again, switching s's and s' between writers) that you would normally expect to be caught and fixed very early on. It feels like the editing team didn't bother at all to catch awkward places where there is no bridging the gap between who's writing what, or do any kind of consistency checking even within details of the same sentence (Nemesis giving Nico the pomegranate seeds, and him apparently already having some?) or chapters (Will and Nico separately use the same exact simile at different times, seemingly unrelated to the other having used it), let alone multiple books. It makes me wonder if the Riordanverse has a series bible at all? That's writing a series 101.

And I agree that so many of the inconsistencies don't make sense if Oshiro did so thoroughly read through the series making notes, because then those inconsistencies should have been pointed out and corrected during the writing process. I really wish Oshiro had been able to smooth out detail inconsistencies, and given how Oshiro works as well as a sensitivity reader I would have really hoped we wouldn't have gotten stuff like the troglodytes again, or some of the general scenes that felt so viscerally bad like nobody considered any of the other implications within them.

Basically, yes, absolutely, it's everybody's fault and it's everybody's fault equally. But I have already seen people claim it was solely Mark Oshiro's fault, which it was not. It was just as equally the fault of Rick and the editing team.

#tsats #the sun and the star #pjo #riordanverse #mark oshiro #rick riordan #rr crit #tsats spoilers #the sun and the star spoilers #ask #Anonymous #actually one of the reaction images i had saved in my ''In preparations for TSATS'' meme folders #was specifically for Mark Oshiro stuff - it's the ''You were supposed to defeat the Sith not join them!''#which is very apt to how i feel about the situation #long post //

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