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spacetimewithstuartgary · 6 months

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New SpaceTime out Monday

SpaceTime 20231023 Series 26 Episode 127

Astronomers discover newborn galaxies

Astronomers have now been able to look so far back in space-time that they are witnessing the very birth of galaxies.

Psyche blasts off bound for a metal asteroid

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is finally on its way undertaking a six year 3.6 billion kilometre voyage to a mysterious metal-rich asteroid that could hold secrets about the formation of planets like the Earth.

Annular eclipse mesmerizes the Americas

On October 14, 2023, the Moon aligned with the Sun and Earth to produce an annular solar eclipse.

The Science Report

New Studies show 20 percent of Australian teenagers are now vaping.

Ozempic associated with an increased risk of gastrointestinal issues.

A new study shows that the likelihood of hail storms has dropped dramatically in most of Australia.

Skeptics guide to peer review problems

SpaceTime covers the latest news in astronomy & space sciences.

The show is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts (itunes), Stitcher, Google Podcast, Pocketcasts, SoundCloud, Bitez.com, YouTube, your favourite podcast download provider, and from www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com

SpaceTime is also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

SpaceTime daily news blog: http://spacetimewithstuartgary.tumblr.com/

SpaceTime facebook: www.facebook.com/spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime Instagram @spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime twitter feed @stuartgary

SpaceTime YouTube: @SpaceTimewithStuartGary

SpaceTime -- A brief history

SpaceTime is Australia’s most popular and respected astronomy and space science news program – averaging over two million downloads every year. We’re also number five in the United States. The show reports on the latest stories and discoveries making news in astronomy, space flight, and science. SpaceTime features weekly interviews with leading Australian scientists about their research. The show began life in 1995 as ‘StarStuff’ on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) NewsRadio network. Award winning investigative reporter Stuart Gary created the program during more than fifteen years as NewsRadio’s evening anchor and Science Editor. Gary’s always loved science. He studied astronomy at university and was invited to undertake a PHD in astrophysics, but instead focused on his career in journalism and radio broadcasting. He worked as an announcer and music DJ in commercial radio, before becoming a journalist and eventually joining ABC News and Current Affairs. Later, Gary became part of the team that set up ABC NewsRadio and was one of its first presenters. When asked to put his science background to use, Gary developed StarStuff which he wrote, produced and hosted, consistently achieving 9 per cent of the national Australian radio audience based on the ABC’s Nielsen ratings survey figures for the five major Australian metro markets: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. The StarStuff podcast was published on line by ABC Science -- achieving over 1.3 million downloads annually. However, after some 20 years, the show finally wrapped up in December 2015 following ABC funding cuts, and a redirection of available finances to increase sports and horse racing coverage. Rather than continue with the ABC, Gary resigned so that he could keep the show going independently. StarStuff was rebranded as “SpaceTime”, with the first episode being broadcast in February 2016. Over the years, SpaceTime has grown, more than doubling its former ABC audience numbers and expanding to include new segments such as the Science Report -- which provides a wrap of general science news, weekly skeptical science features, special reports looking at the latest computer and technology news, and Skywatch – which provides a monthly guide to the night skies. The show is published three times weekly (every Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and available from the United States National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio, and through both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

#science #space #astronomy #physics #news #nasa #esa #astrophysics #spacetimewithstuartgary #starstuff #spacetime

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saylessastrology · 1 year

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PLUTO IN AQUARIUS TANSIT FOR RISING SIGNS!

March 23 through June 11;

January 20, 2024, through September 1, 2024; and November 19, 2024 through March 8, 2043.

Aries Rising- 11th house- When transformative Pluto goes into the 11th house, your attitude towards your friends and society gets transformed. Rather you’re a busy body with tons of friends and social contacts; or a loner recluse, this transit may have you taking your connections very seriously. This is also a time to purge anyone who is not beneficial to you.

Taurus Rising- 10th house- During this long transit Pluto with be transforming your career life and the way you view the world. Your ambition is high during this time and you are more likely to achieve your goals. There is a deep need to find your place in the world. Work life may be intense or the way your job operates may change.

Gemini Rising - 9th house- Pluto here will transform and strengthen your belief system. Long distance travels or higher education can bring important revelations over the coming years. This is meant to continually broadening your horizons and pushing past your comfort zone.

Cancer Rising - 8th house- Pluto is at home here. For the next two decades you will experience an incredible transformation with you psyche, emotional health and let go of those skeletons in your closet. You’re transforming your ability to sit with uncomfortable truths and be vulnerable about your desires, which will give you deeper intimate relationships. If you are both fascinated and fearful of deep intimacy, and you might crave unusually deep, passionate, and intense experiences with others at this time.

Leo Rising- 7th house - Pluto here will transform the way you view love relationships and the way you connect with others. Relationships will taking on a more serious tone now. Power struggles in close personal relationships can be a theme in your life now, and this can play out in many ways. You might both fear and desire complete immersion of a close one-to-one relationship.

Virgo Rising- 6th house- Pluto here is transforming your health, work and daily routine. Your work and habits are evolving in important ways. This is a good period for ridding yourself of bad habits. Random health issues can occur that force you to be smarter about your health choices You may be inspired to start a new health routine. Power struggles at work are also possible.

Libra Rising-5th house- You are being called to dive deep into the passionate creative part of life. This transit of Pluto inspires changes in attitudes towards love affairs, creativity, hobbies, recreation, children, self-expression, leisure time, and entertainment. You may have an intense desire to interact with others romantically. Dating will be very impactful at this time no matter who you meet.

Scorpio Rising-4th house- Pluto transit the house of home, privacy and domestic life. Over the next 20 years, your home life will experience a major transformation, and your concept of “home” may look totally different than it does now. You may begin taking on a new role in your family or otherwise shift the dynamic in some way, and it’s a great time to address any underlying tensions or resentments you have with your family especially your parents/guardians.

Sagittarius Rising - 3rd house- Pluto here may bring deep transformative experiences with your siblings. Your bond may strengthen at this time. Expect to also transform the way your mindset and the way you express yourself. You want to have deep conversations with others. You may begin an intensive line of study during this transit as well.

Capricorn Rising- 2nd house- Here we have changes to your income and value system. This is an excellent period for rebuilding your self confidence and finances because you are now more focused than ever. You might find it hard to let go of things, attaching sentimental value to your possessions or holding on to them because you fear poverty — or because you have a fear of feeling of helplessness and wanting. This is a great time to save.

Aquarius Rising- 1st house- Pluto transit the first house will inspire an inner and outer transformation of your privacy, your looks, and self image. Over the next 20 years you are being called to reclaim your personal power. You are ultimately learning that you cannot control the events of your life nor control others and how they feel about you, but you can learn self-control.

Pisces Rising- 12th house- With Pluto here you can expect deep changes in your psyche and to how you deal with endings and matters of the past. This is a great time to get serious about your mental health and subconscious healing. There can be some intense focus on spiritual and psychological growth during this period. You are confronting deeply buried aspects of your psyche.

Need a reading?! I’d be honored 😇

#Aries #Taurus #Gemini #camcer #Leo #Virgo #Libra #Scorpio #Sagittarius #Capricorn #Aquarius #Pisces #astrology notes #astrology #astro observations #astrology readings #cute #pink #astrology transits

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Tracers in the Dark

In Tracers in the Dark, Andy Greenberg traces the fascinating, horrifying, and complicated story of the battle over Bitcoin secrecy, as law enforcement agencies, tax authorities and private-sector sleuths seek to trace and attribute the cryptocurrency used in a variety of crimes, some relatively benign (selling weed online), some absolutely ghastly (selling videos of child sex abuse).

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690603/tracers-in-the-dark-by-andy-greenberg/

Bitcoin’s early boosters touted its privacy protections as a game-changer, a way for people to exchange money with one another without anyone else being able to know about it. But the reality is a lot more complex. In a very important way, Bitcoin is the opposite of private: every transaction is indelibly inscribed upon the blockchain, linked to pseudonymous identifier.

In theory, if you are careful about not linking a wallet address to your real identity, then your transactions are not traceable to you.

In practice, this is really, really, really hard.

There are so many ways to slip up and expose your identity, and even if you maintain perfect operational security, other people might slip up and do it for you. This is a lesson that many cryptocurrency users learned the hard way, as Greenberg documents.

The de-anonymizers who sought to expose Bitcoin transactions had a major advantage: users of Bitcoin believed the hype and really thought that the blockchain provided them with a powerful — even invulnerable — degree of anonymity. They used cryptos to buy and sell a lot of illegal things, from fentanyl to murder for hire, over long timescales. That meant that they attracted the attention of law-enforcement agencies, who were able to use the eternal, indelible blockchain to backtrack their subjects’ every transaction to the very first days of cryptocurrency.

Like Greenberg’s previous book, Sandworm (a history of Russian state-backed malware operations in Ukraine), Tracers uses current events to conduct a master-class in the art and science of digital forensics, laying out the tactics and countertactics of a specific kind of cyberwarfare:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2019-11-01/sandworm-andy-greenberg-cybersecurity

Starting with the infamous Silk Road takedown, and moving through other “dark market” seizures like AlphaBay, Greenberg draws on incredible first-person accounts, digital forensics, court documents and well-placed sources to spin out a tense, exciting technothriller. We meet dirty cops, snake-eyed drug-lords, and brilliant technologists and researchers who find devilishly creative strategies to hide or uncover.

Greenberg also provides a rare and non-sensationalistic deep dive into the unthinkable world of child sexual abuse material marketplaces. These are the darkest corners of the human psyche and the digital world, and Greenberg’s tick-tock depiction of the seizure of “Welcome to Video,” the largest such market ever, is chilling.

In the final section of the book, Greenberg considers the geopolitics of secret money. We hear a little (too little, honestly) from people presenting the human rights case for financial privacy. This is a complex issue and I’m deeply ambivalent about it myself, but it’s a subject worthy of its own book. This cursory treatment of human rights and finance is an inevitable artifact of the book’s structure: if you chronicle the adventures of cops hunting criminals, you won’t encounter the stories of oppressed people hiding from authoritarians.

But when it comes to other geopolitical questions — like the role of crypto in fueling state-backed ransomware from North Korea — Greenberg has a front-row seat, and his account of this aspect is top-notch.

Greenberg also gives some space to the claims of developers of more privacy-focused cryptocurrencies like Monero and Zcash, airing credible accounts of how these might correct the defects in Bitcoin’s privacy model — and credible critiques arguing that they, too, will fall before forensic investigators’ creative tactics.

Above all, this is a book about the attacker’s advantage, the idea that defenders win by making no mistakes, while attackers need only find one single exploitable lapse to attain victory. Greenberg’s account of the move/countermove dynamic of criminals and investigators are perfect illustrations of this phenomenon. The attackers — feds of various description — have many advantages, but above all, they are blessed not having to be perfect. They make all kinds of errors, and it doesn’t matter, because no one is hunting them. Meanwhile, their quarry — largely unsympathetic criminals destroying their victims’ lives without a shred of empathy — are haunted by minuscule errors in the distant past.

The attacker’s advantage, combined with the blockchain’s eternal and indelible memory, constitute a powerful argument against the possibility of using blockchains to attain financial privacy. We all slip up. The reason the feds catch their prey isn’t that they’re smarter — it’s that they don’t have to be. The feds don’t permanently inscribe their every error on an indelible public ledger. The defenders have chosen a defense that involves this tactic. They have, in other words, chosen a system of privacy for the infallible — a category that effectively doesn’t exist.

This makes for a pretty devastating critique of public ledgers as a tool of privacy. And also, you know, a cracking technothriller.

#pluralistic

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whatifyoulivelikethat · 2 years

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Okay I need a space to rant and I think you are comfortable to talk to so here it goes. I took a gap year before college right. But that was only bc idk what I want to do. I want to go to college but Idk what degree to choose, idk what I want to do as a profession either. I want to go into economics or finance. Something around there but I have no clue what degree or what profession and I feel pressured to decide soon since I need to apply for college in a few months

Can you organize my finances? Yeah, I know the section labelled BTS is bigger than all the others but I have a good reason, well, maybe it's not a good reason but it is a reason, I just like okay, love, don't make me say it again them a lot ok >ㅅ<

ask cont:

In addition to econ and finance, there's other things that I like doing too. I speak multiple languages and I'm not sure how to use that to my advantage. Maybe something with international relations idek. I am also very good at playing instruments and ik for a fact that my parents would not want me to have a career based on music. Ugh I'm sorry for venting to you. I should talk to a college advisor but I'm here throwing this on you.

These sound like great options. I believe both economics and/or finance are offered as majors; look for schools that specialize in these fields. You could work for a private company (HYBE???) and manage budgets / financial advising / marketing. Or you could work for the public / government (and then you'll know where all the tax money or stocks are going??? maybe idk). Speaking multiple languages is always helpful, especially for overseas work, just remember to learn the vocabulary specific to that field.

Honestly, focus on get a degree in something you're interested in. You don't need to know your career right now, unless you're doing something very specific that requires specific testing, such as lawyer or doctor, or want to be in a particular Masters / PhD program. You can always change your major. I started as a psychology major, ended as a biology major / psych minor

(could have double majored but I didn't want to write a massive paper to get my psych major, "it's too much writing", now you are staring at the 70k words of yoonkook fucking in the a-dick-ted au, well, uh, subject matter is important)

so you could minor in music (if you do so desire). Secondary education is daunting because you don't want to feel like your classes are a waste of money. That's why it's very important to enjoy what you're learning, but knowing your exact profession or goal is not necessary. You're there to learn and, through learning, you'll find what you like to do. Very likely you'll have to do internships when you're closer to graduation and those will give you more insight on what you want to do as a job.

Also remember jobs aren't set in stone. Sometimes people change professions moderately or completely, some get even higher education in their 30's/40's, or others end up in unique and developing fields as our world gets bigger and bigger. Your job might not even exist until you finish college / university! As you get older, your interests might change or something else in your field might open up. It's all part of the journey.

For now, look at the various majors offered and go for what appeals to you. Make sure those classes that you'll potentially be taking are ones that pique your interest. As you learn, connect with your peers and professors to see what's out there. Go to career fairs, collect business cards, talk to people in the industry. You get a better idea of what's out there once you're exposed to those that work in it.

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sublimeobservationarcade · 1 month

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The Fake World Of Commercial Free To Air TV

Let me share with you a little about my recent viewing experiences. I decided to trim my expenses in response to the cost of living crisis eating up my modest savings. I axed the streaming services previously subscribed to one by one. Then, after nearly 20 years of pay TV - I gave that the flick also. Suddenly, I was reduced to watching the footy on free to air. Channel 7 trumpets this FREE experience to the viewer but stuffs so many ads into a game my head started spinning. I entered the fake world of commercial free to air TV.

Profoundly Insincere Advertising Content On TV

Exposure to all these many, many commercials makes one privy to the profound insincerity of TV advertising. Combine this with the smarmy very fake TV show presenters and one is reaching for the vomit bag. I wonder about children growing up watching this stuff and how it must mess with their heads. This warped conception of a kind of presumed reality in TV land. Ads for rapacious short term loan providers presented in smiling situations with ex-footballers playing inane roles. Shame on you Luke Hodge! The legion of sports gambling ads by corporate bookmakers. The worst, however, are for the network’s own reality TV offerings. Wow, the BS served up on free to air could not be further from free if you at all value your intelligence.

Channel 7 & The AFL The AFL brags about the billion dollar deal they did with the TV network host and how it finances the game. Of course, we the viewing public are paying for this via all these bloody ads. Football is such a great game; I am sure that many players would play for much less recompense. Channel 7 whacks on ads every time a goal is scored – no wonder there has been such a push to stop low scoring hard fought games from being the norm. Indeed, I bet that the network probably has had its say on this matter and has used its highly paid game day announcers to use their influence wherever possible. Money talks loudly in professional sport and those with their snouts in the trough want their pound of flesh. “In one of Gillon McLachlan's final major moves as chief executive of the AFL, the League has bolstered its future with a $4.5 billion deal across the Seven, Foxtel and Telstra agreement after meeting with key bidders on Monday to hear final pitches. “ (https://www.afl.com.au/news/837244/afl-reveals-new-broadcast-rights-deal-from-2025)

Giving Commercial Free To Air TV The Boot The fake world of commercial free to air TV is chock-a-block with deep voiceovers. It is filled to the brim with insincerity and faux gravitas. Anyway, I tried to stomach this crap for the good of my personal finances but some things are a bridge too far. There is no way I could bear a full season of this merde. It stinks to high heaven and spoils the game I love. So many ads that you can forget that you are watching a match. It is like having your orgasm snatched away at the most thrilling moment – in that ads immediately follow your team scoring a goal. Not quite coitus interruptus but definitely fan acclaim sudden cessation (FASC). It could cause some serious psychological ruction in the supporter's psyche. My ban on streaming services had to be lifted because I couldn’t take another few hours being subjected to the fake world of free to air TV – which aint free in my book. RSH ©WordsForWeb

Read the full article

#AFL #Australia #commercialTV #footy #footyonTV #freetoairTV #streamingservices

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rogersip · 1 year

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The Average Income in the UK

The average income in the UK has not changed as much as people might think. There are still plenty of people earning less than £10,000 per year, and a lot more in the lower middle class. However, more and more people are starting to get more into the UK economy and start earning more.

Finance and insurance

If you're looking for the average income of a UK household, look no further than the Office for National Statistics' (ONS) annual Household Finances Survey. The latest edition of the annual survey shows that average monthly pay in the financial services sector has risen by more than 31% over the past two years. Compared to the general population, the average income of a financial service employee was also higher. As a result, the financial industry boasts one of the most generously paid workforces in the country. In fact, it hasn't been all good since the downturn in 2008 and the government is struggling to keep energy prices under control. Although there are some concerns over the quality of the new pension schemes, the benefits to employees should be reaped over time.

Although there are a myriad of reasons to be thankful for the booming finance and insurance industries, some would say that it's the high cost of living that is costing the country dearly. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has a lot on his plate these days. With rising costs for goods and energy threatening to take a toll on our economy, it's a bleak outlook for UK business. Fortunately, there are steps that can be taken to mitigate this risk.

IT and telecom

The telecommunications industry is a very important market sector, and it's been a very fast growing one. This is especially true in the UK, where the telecoms sector has seen considerable investment. As a result, there are more telecoms jobs than ever before.

The industry is extremely capital intensive. That means that it is constantly innovating and expanding its capabilities. To some extent, this is a good thing, but it does come with its share of challenges.

In addition to the usual suspects, there are some new players vying for a piece of the pie. These include the emerging market economies of India and China, which have helped foster a 21st-century boom in telecommunications equipment and services.

There are many different telecommunications job titles, and these can vary greatly in responsibilities and pay. For example, a telecommunications engineer might work in the office or at a construction site, install landline and mobile networks, or test systems. However, they might also be on call, or involved in field operations or network planning.

Nursing

Nurses earn an average salary in the UK. Currently, the average salary is PS25,578. There are several reasons why nurses' pay is so low.

The Royal College of Nursing has called for a 12.5% pay increase. This would raise the average nurse salary to PS37,470. However, the government has not budged and is proposing a measly 1.5 percent rise.

The nurses' pay has fallen below that of the rest of the public sector. This is a problem because the NHS is overstretched. Many hospitals are facing acute demand, as an increasing number of people become old. And Covid-19 is adding to the pressure.

Nurses who work as managers earn more, but spend less time with patients. They also have more administrative duties that lower their efficiency.

The nursing profession is known for its commitment to caring for fellow citizens. That is why it is not surprising that the RCN wants to raise the salaries of its members.

Lower middle class

In the UK, social class and hierarchy have long been a major part of the socio-economic structure of society. The idea of a social hierarchy has undergone considerable revision in recent years, but it is still a defining factor in the British psyche.

Before the Industrial Revolution, British society was organised into groups based on the family's birth history. This system of hierarchy was hereditary, and involved the transmission of political and occupational influence through the family.

By the 19th century, the basic categories were still in force. These included the working classes, the middle class, the upper middle class, and the aristocracy. However, there was an increasing tendency to move from one category to another.

During the early twentieth century, the British middle classes enjoyed unusual prosperity and political power in Europe. Their relationships with the labouring and aristocratic classes were very close.

By the late nineteenth century, pronunciation became a reliable indicator of class. The Surrey dialect, once used in the media, was considered a working class accent.

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maher44tilley · 2 years

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"The Creature Of The Wildcard" By Jon Fischer: Book Review

John B. Maxwell is one of my favorite authors. essentialpim pro business crack has authored nearly 50 books over the years. He is currently a lecturer and writer mainly on the topic of Management. This is a review of his book: FAILING FORWARD (Turning Mistakes into stepping stones for success). How much did the publication process cost? I don't know for sure and I do not think major publishers are going to tell me what creator is charged. But I do know the amount I charge for preparing a book for printed. Also impressive is that Kabat-Zinn's approach was developed on the leading lines of clinical practice, working with folks who were experiencing the extremes in the life offers in the way of tragedy and personal loss. He does not comes to us through "ivory tower". The attractive young woman speaks no English, behaves very strangely and has some unique abilities. Paul brings her back towards the hospital supper . want with a name they call her Urchin. Because he becomes trying to find obsessed the actual use of girl his life changes and he questions the sanity. But is Urchin a foreigner, an alien or some thing of Paul's psyche? The Shack, I believe, is the author's work to clarify romantic relationship between humans and the triune Lord. It describes the relationship between mankind and the Trinity, cohabitating inside for this believer. I really believe in my first review with the Shack, I've been unduly depending the criticism of additional. I believe it is my responsibility to correct and concede that our view using this book a great earlier review left out some critical issues. Basically, I am saying i could canrrrt you create been more incorrect about the idea. But athentech perfectly clear crack had an important number of others who I had company with. This concession is credited to Roger Olson component book Finding God all of the Shack. My first mistake was giving to much weight and credence of other's who are critical with the Shack. The fact see just how obvious to me now, how the author was describing the intimate involvement of God, in each of the crackback three separate personages of God. The characters ultimately Shack have particular characteristics that are representative from the Father, The Son along with the Holy Character. The controversy still rages: who wrote the book of revelations on universe? And is knowledge of who wrote the book of revelation relevant for the understanding within the deep symbolism and prophesies inherent therein? The tendency to cling to the logo of writer of a piece always takes away from objective evaluation of a work. Hence r tools r drive image crack of who the author was really should not detract originating from a actual values accruable therein. Although money isn't everything, it definitely has many of remedy for the world we live in. John Cummata understands this and puts everything into prospective. Reading the book, Debt-FREE Prosperous Living, will certainly no longer have any worries or concerns regarding what to do with your current finances. Ought to you are to obtain out of debt, have to have to know how to spend difficult earned money. Having a correct system comply with helps an excellent when will not know what you really are doing. Knowing the system happen to be following is among the that is useful gives you the confidence require to incorporate your plans.

#CRACKDOMAIN.ORG

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celticcrossanon · 3 years

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BRF Spread - 11th of March 2021

This is speculation only.

11th of March 2021

Question: What is behind the media stories of an olive branch?

Interpretation: Prince Harry is behind these stories. It is a strategy to force the Queen to make the choice to let PH and MM return as members of the Family (carriage rides, photo ops, balcony appearances etc), implemented by the media.

MM has done this before. This is the same as the media pieces saying that Doria was spending Christmas at Sandringham, that PH would return for Remembrance Day last year, and other stories of like ilk.

Detailed analysis following later.

Added: Prince Harry may not be the one behind this, but he is the most prominent figure and energy in this spread (The Hermit card = Virgo = Prince Harry, major arcana, only major arcana card in the spread). I am trying to be fair as I haven’t finished a detailed reading of all the cards yet.

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UPDATE

Interpretion: The articles about the Queen extending an olive branch are a PR strategy by Harry and Meghan to force the BRF to take them back and give them money, security, balcony appearances, carriage rides etc. Harry is the dominant energy in this spread.

The first card is the Six of Pentacles.

Here we see the craftsman Daedalus being rewarded for his work by King Minos.

For me, in this spread, this card is all about money and power. It tells me that Harry and Meghan used to be the recipient of the Queen's favours. Now they want to be the ones giving out the favours - the ones wearing the crown instead of the one asking for favours, and they also want to be rewarded for their work with lots of money (the pile of gold coins). They want to be both of the people in the image - the one in the crown with the power to grant money/favours, and the one receiving the money favours. They want to be both.

In the card, the craftsman (Daedalus) is paid for his work by the King. Harry and Meghan want to be paid for their work with lots of money, but the work will only generate money if they are part of the BRF (the King is the one holding the coins).

This card also raises questions. Who is paying the newspapers to say that the Queen is extending an olive branch to Harry? What favours have been bestowed/called in to get this story printed (or not printed)? The side of the throne is decorated with a tree. Someone in a position of power wanted this story out in the papers. The tree is a carving, artificial, not natural/real. This tells me that this story is an artificial construct.

The second card is the Hermit card.

This is the card of Virgo, and Virgo is the sun sign of Prince Harry. This article is all about Prince Harry. Notice that the article puts Harry in a position of power (the King on the throne) and HM the Queen as the supplicant (the one extending the olive branch/asking for a favour). Harry has the power to say yes or no, not the Queen.

The Hermit lives retired from the world. Here we see him wandering through the night. That tells me that this is something that was done in secrecy, not out in the light of day. The tree on the side of the throne confirms this, as it is hidden on the side, not on the back of the throne, facing the crowd, for all to see. Look at the bareness of the palace floor and the dry, cracked ground under the Hermit. This was an act designed to cause desolation, not growth. There is not fertility (green grass, flowers, trees etc) coming from this act. It is designed to hurt and not to heal. Hence the Hermit carries a scythe, the instrument of death.

As the Hermit is a major arcana card, and it is the only major arcana card in the spread, it is the dominant energy. This is all about Harry.

The third card is the Seven of Cups.

This card is about making decisions and choosing between different options. It shows Psyche, the soul, beseeching the goddess Aphrodite for the return of her husband. This is the same power imbalance and the same energy that we find in the first card, the Six of Cups. Someone is asking for a favour from a more powerful person. In the first card, the supplicant was given money, the reward for his labours. Here the supplicant is given nothing, while the goddess points to seven gold cups. The supplicant, Psyche, the soul, needs to make some choices. They want everything, but all the cups are not on offer. The goddess points to one only.

The supplicant kneels on a rocky outcrop, barren except for a few small patches of moss. The goddess, the person in power, stands in the rich and fertile sea. The supplicant is poor, barren, lacking in green growth, while the goddess is immersed in the fertile bounty of the sea. Here Harry is the supplicant. He is in a position of limited growth (only a few green mossy patches on his rock) and he wants access to the abundance of the Queen and the BRF.

Harry (and Meghan, as the two power/supplicant cards show a pair of men and a pair of women) want to regain their 'in' to the wealth of the BRF. They still want it all - all the cups - to be free to do what they want in America and have the BRF finance them, suppress the press for them, order the British police to pay for their security, etc. These are the seven gold cups. The Queen (the goddess) is saying 'No. You made a choice. You choose the cup of life in America, so that is what you get.' Harry is begging her to change her mind, but she points sternly to one cup. One cup, one choice. Harry and Meghan can not have it all.

The card is the suit of cups, which is the suit of emotions. This tells me that emotions are bound up in this decision. Harry could be playing on the emotions of the BRF to get what he wants - I am your grandson, family, I have mental health issues, you killed my mother etc.

The fourth card is the Ten of Pentacles.

This is the card of maximum wealth, security, and a happy family life. This is what Harry wants. This is the image that he has been pushing to the media in his PR stories. Look at the land behind the couple on the card - green, rolling hills, lots of water - to me that says fertility, abundance.

Harry wants to return to England and be part of that wealthy family. He wants the money, the paid security, the balcony appearances, the photo ops with senior royals, the carriage rides - all the trappings of royalty. However, Harry also wants to remain in America with his family. He wants the wealth and security oif the BRF and the freedom to do what he wants and make money in America. As per the card before, he wants all the golden cups.

In the picture on the card, the child is playing with a horse. The image of the Trojan Horse has been appearing in my mind since I first heard of this story. Someone, a child of the BRF - not a literal child, but someone below the Queen in the order of succession - is playing with the idea of turning the olive branch story into a trojan horse for Meghan and Harry.

In the card before, the Seven of Cups,the goddess, who represents the Queen, has her back to the Ten of Pentacles card. She stands in the way, blocking access to the wealth and security of the BRF. Harry is begging her to let him pass and enjoy those benefits.

The fifth card is the Knight of Wands.

This is an adult fire sign adult, possibly a Sagittarius person, but for me this card says Meghan Markle (a fire sign woman). This is a volatile, exuberant, headstrong person, prone to rushing in without thinking things through. They move very quickly, without giving thought to the consequences of their actions. They are good at generating ideas and 'spin' (as the suit of wands can represent PR), but bad at following through with the ideas and putting the work into them to make them manifest in the world. They often take up an idea and make noise about it to get attention, and they are easily bored.

The card shows the Knight rushing towards the Ten of Pentacles card, waving the fiery torch of PR. They are approaching from the opposite direction to the person in the Seven of Cups, behind the back of the goddess/the Queen. Below them lays the slian body of a Chimera, a mythical beast.

This tells me that Meghan Markle has created a slain monster (I escaped the evil BRF!) as part of her PR. She has created the monster (the evil BRf) and slain it (I escaped!) as part of her PR, and now she is using her mythical scars from this mythical battle (I was oppressed! Silenced! Kept a prisoner!) as part of her PR (the Chimera is a mythical beast, so the 'monster' is not real). She is doing this to force her way back into the BRF, and she is using PR (the torch) to do the forcing. This is going on behind the Queen's back, i.e. the accusations have come out of nowhere. It is an impulsive and foolish decision, and Meghan has not thought through the consequences.

The underlying energy card is the Queen of Swords.

This can be an air sign adult, and/or an adult who is employing thought/strategy to get what they want. For me, here, it is about the use of strategy to get your way. The suit of swords is the air suit, and air is all about thoughts, nit emotions. These thoughts/strategy are fixed on a certain aim, and emotions have no part in the process. The people involved in this strategy do not care about who they hurt as long as they get their way/achieve their aim. Emotions may be used and manipulated as part of the strategy, but there is no softness or caring in the strategy makes - only the cool, hard focus on the end result.

In the card, The Queen is sitting on barren ground. She is pouring water from a jug onto the ground. The water is not from a river or stream, there is no attempt to cultivate the ground. Instead the water is carried from another source and poured onto the barren ground of the Queen's existence. This tells me that Harry and Meghan do not want to work for their money (cultivate the ground and make it fertile). Instead, they want to gain wealth from other sources (the water in the jug) and pour it onto the barren ground of their lives.

In conclusion:

The articles about the Queen extending an olive branch are part of a PR strategy by the Harkles to gain access to the perks of being a working member of the BRF without doing the work. It is a two pronged attack, with Meghan creating a mythical monster out of the BRF and then slaying the created monster with her interview, thus putting her in the position of a hero with respect to the BRF, and Harry using emotional manipulation and playing on his family ties. The Queen has blocked Harry but is now being attacked from behind by Meghan.

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

Text

HASO, “Thoughts on Humans.”

QUESTION: Alright guys, I am asking for more ideas. I want you guys to send me questions and ideas about anything and everything you can think of. I am having a hard time coming up with things to write about, and I thought maybe it would be time to address your questions or interests about the universe that I have built so hopefully I can hash out some more interesting lore and what not, plus I would also hope that this will give me some ideas for good story arcs in the future as I seem to have hit a slump.

Would appreciate the help, thanks :)

The Texraki hurried down the hallway, their tails brushing against the ground as they moved towards the shuttle hanger. Stepping in the room, they paused, hardly expecting to see the Finnari huddled together in the center of the room.

They paused and then slowly inched forward.

“What are you doing here/”

The Finnari lifted their blue/green scaled heads hands pressing together nervously, “We…. we were just waiting for the humans to return. We heard that something had happened down there and we were just waiting to make sure everyone was all right. Dr. Adric wants us to keep him updated.”

The Tesraki looked on to the FInnari with some measure of superiority. OT them the Finnari on the ship were nothing more than glorified pets for humans. THey didn’t seem to do anything useful other than offer hugs, which the Tesraki themselves didn’t see as particularly useful. Other humans claimed that they performed a very important function for the psych department aboard the ship, and that a few of them were particularly tech savvy, but the Tesraki had never seen them perform outside of a protective huddle, and so weren’t entirely sure that they had any use at all.

The Finnari for their part didn’t really understand the Tesraki use aboard the ship. Of course they knew what money was, theoretically, but had never bothered to use it considering their economic system was more about the trading of goods and services. In this way they sort of saw the Tesraki as greedy and overly involved in imaginative pursuits, especially once they were told that the Credit wasn’t actually supported by any ‘actual’ valuable metal.

They certainly did not expect to be joined a moment later as a small troop of rolling fluff entered the room from the left, and a black carapaced, bright winged burg entered on the right. They all stopped to stare at each other, the group of them never having been in a room together all at once.

The Celzex leader eyed them with some measure of suspicion and contempt, and the terasaki did the same back.

To everyone’s surprise, the burg stepped back as if trying to avoid getting into confrontation with the group of them.

Out of all the burg any of them had ever known, this particular male of the species did not much like conflict.

The Tesraki would have said something rather snide to the small rolling balls of fluff, if they weren’t quite sure that the little creatures could blast their entire solar system to dust. That was the thing, the Celzex acted all noble and powerful, but when it came right down to it they were no better than dust bunnies, easily punted across the room with a single blow. The only reason no one liked to piss them off was because of their powerful planet-destroying weapons.

In all truth they were generally just assholes. Small fluffy assholes, but assholes none the less.

The three groups of aliens stood together staring at each other with some measure of trepidation and annoyance.

Until, surprisingly, it was the burg who broke the silence, “A pleasure to see you all in the same place.” He turned to look at the Tesraki, his buggish eyes glittering in the light overhead, “You take care of the ship’s finances don’t you?”

Upon hearing the word finances, the Tesraki relaxed just a little. They were always willing to answer those sort of questions.

The Celzex remained rather sullen, but the burg pressed on, “how has that been going for you?”

The Tesraki snorted, there was certainly a lot to tell. Humans at their core were, generally, quite horrible with money.

Yes of course there were some humans who had proven themselves to be rather savvy, when it came to business, humans were just as accomplished in the world of economics as the Tesraki were on some measures, but that was only when talking about a very small majority of humans, a small majority of humans that certainly did not live on THIS ship. The Admiral himself was close to hopeless when it came to the management of money. Sure he knew how to save it, and to some extent, put it in the right places, but he hardly cared about it enough to get really creative like what was needed on a ship like this.

Humans liked to ignore extraneous and useless spending on parts and things that were not used or needed. Looking through their books, it was a total mess, and searching through their inventory proved stacks and stacks of things that they did not need, had never used, and weren’t likely to ever use ever, which could be cut to save money for more important things, like better, and longer lasting parts for the ship.

It wasn’t all that hard, at least the Tesraki thought.

The Celzex listened with very little interest, only really paying attention because they were in the same vicinity. They did not really care about money one way or the other. If the Celzex wanted something, they would build it themselves. Of course they had to dabble in economics occasionally just because materials cost money, but it was generally something they only did grudgingly and with great and everlasting annoyance. To see and entier species that was dedicated to it was…. Surprising to say the least.

The Finnari on the other hand listened in fascination. They certainly through the Tesraki had their priorities backwards, Money was cold and hard and didn’t really exist if one stopped and took the time to think about. It was sort of just an imaginary thing that everyone had gotten together and agreed on once upon a time. If everyone stopped agreeing on it and suddenly pretended it had no value, than the entire economy would collapse. The Finnari preferred to think about real things, and that being the people and the other aliens around them. But they were willing to listen since the Tesraki thought it was important, and the Finnari believed that it was always important to listen to someone when they were talking about things that were important to them.

The Burg, quietly sitting to the side and listening to the conversation found it all to be very interesting. What they did not know, what none of them knew was that they were connecting on the fundamental differences of their belief systems, belief systems that were almost religious in nature

Out of sheer politeness, and a fear towards what the Celzex might do if they were offended, the Tesraki asked the Celzex how they were getting on with their work on the ship. In all reality, no one was really sure what the Celzex spent their days doing anyway.

They were about to find out as they received a very pompous lecture about how they had been maintaining and working on the weapons systems. Turns out that they spent most of their days crawling through the inner bowels of the ship and working on it from the inside out. The Tesraki shivered upon thinking of such a thing, but they supposed that to something as small as a Celzex none of that would really have been a problem.

“Humans are a dangerous creature to work beside, they are neither very good at making or maintaining their things.” The Celzex began, “sure they can make things that reach the desired end result, and do the things they are supposed to do, but most of the time you have to maintain them for years after because one wrong move could cause the thing to catch fire or blow up….. don’ t you find it strange and disconcerting that that is the end result of a lot of human technology. Take care of it, and maintain it because if even the littlest thing goes wrong it will probably catch fire or explode.” The Tesraki shook their heads sadly ears flopping about wildly, “The humans don’t know how to make things properly. They make things that have the desired effect, but in the hardest and most difficult to maintain way possible, and then when things start to fall apart, instead of replacing them with something better, they often just use a lot of sticky adhesive to put it back together until it inevitably breaks again.”

“I feel like that is an excellent metaphor to their personal lives.” A Finnari added, and the group turned to look at them as they shrugged, “I don’t think I have eer met a human who didn’t have something fundamentally wrong with the way they think or feel. Sure there are some humans who have something structurally or hormonally wrong with their brain which makes them perpetually nervous or upset, but even just regular humans have some serious issues they need to work through. There are humans who think that they cannot go to anyone for help, there are humans who think that no one cares about what they have to say, there are humans who think that there are certain topic they cannot talk about because no one would care if they did. Humans are all broken inside holding themselves together with thread and twine and poor coping skills. I think I have met maybe one human who seemed fully functional….. I think their inner lives and their interests and their diversity from each other is so complex that no one human can really go to any other human for perfect advise because they are so different.”

It was an interesting concept, and one that seemed true enough, they had all met humans and knew how strange they could be at times, and about different things.

In truth the burg who sat with them was beginning to notice a pattern.

His voice was quiet when he spoke, and the other aliens turned to look at him with some measure of curiosity. Not many of them had ever heard him speak, and he spent much of his days in the chapel, where none of them had any real reason to go, “I believe, perhaps that, humanity at its core seems to be second best at everything…. Have you noticed that?” The group frowned gathering around in confusion, “I meant think about it. Humanity is very accomplished with their money, but at the same time they are hardly equal to the Tesraki. Humans are good at fighting, but not in the way that Drev are. Humans are functional in both their machines and their minds,but in both cases they have to hold their function together with

Lots of effort. Humans do not have the monopoly on a single thing, but on everything.”

They looked at him with a measure of interest.

“I think you will find that, spiritually, humans are the same. They aren’t as dedicated to their values and beliefs as the Burg, but no human can escape some sort of belief, even if it is an economic system, or a government or the lack of belief. Humans can’t even NOT believe without making it a system of belief.”

“Second best at everything…. That seems like a better deal than you make it out to be.”

“I never said it was a bad deal. I may not be a Rundi, but I know enough to see why humans have become one of the most powerful species in the GA. They are versatile and adaptable, and have the ability to connect with any other race in the galaxy just based on interests alone.”

That left the group of them in strict contemplation for a long moment.

“You…. how do you spend so much time with humans knowing they could kill you at any moment, perhaps on accident.”

“What do you mean?”

“What if a human accidentally sneezed on you. You would die wouldn’t you.”

“A sneeze might require hospitalization, but I doubt it would Kill me, as for what you really mean…. Don’t you worry the same thing?” He turned to look at all of them, “Don’t you ALL worry the same thing.” He glanced over at the Celzex, “You may be able to beat them with superior weapons power, but what if a human accidentally stepped on you, and crushed you to death. They are big enough that that could be a possibility.” Then he turned to look at the Finnari, “And you spend a lot of time with humans, who is to say tha"t one of these days a human will not just crush you to death or break your neck. If they can do it to each other, they can certainly do it to you. Humans are dangerous to all of us, so why are none of us more scared.”

“Well, that is because the humans like us.” one of the FInnari piped up.

The Tesraki nodded, and even the Celzex agreed to some extent.

“You never have to worry about a human once you are friends with them, assuming of course you are friends with stable humans, because once you are part of their pack, they will protect you from anything, even their own kind. Humans don’t just feel loyalty towards their own, they feel loyalty towards anything that has been with them a long time, or anything that shows them kindness. Humans can be loyal to inanimate objects if that object has some sort of value to the human. What we have done is make ourselves valuable to them, a part of their pack, and that is why we aren’t scared…. At least not most of the time.”

This got them into a topic of discussion about the nature of humans and their other strange quirks.

The Celzex painting out first and foremost how the humans seemed to have the need to name everything that they owned even if it did include inanimate objects, the biggest example being the omen.

The Tessraki extolled the virtues of betting and how they wished they had thought of it before it was brought into existence by the humans themselves.

Even the Burg stepped in to discuss some of the more interesting beliefs of the humans, most of which seemed widely unlikely but interesting all the same, and the Finnari were just interested to talk about some of the strange psychological behavior of humans.

Their nesting habits.

How humans tended to like to collect objects and so on and so forth.

It was only later that they even bothered to discuss why they were all here.

Something strange had happened, something strange had happened on the planet below, and they had all, separately come to make sure everything was ok.

It was very strange all told, very strange indeed.

That all of them would care so much for the humans that they would come to check. That was another interesting thing. Humans had the habit of getting under one’s skin and worming their way into ones mind. They could not be ignored, and they would not be forgotten, and no matter how hard you tried, they always seemed to have the ability to get themselves in your head.

Red lights began blinking at the edge of the room, and they all perked up, inching forward to see as human deck hands rushed from the shadows and towards the bay talking on their radios to each other rather frantically as the doors began to slide open with a slow beeping noise. There was as sharp hiss somewhere as the exterior airlock was compressed and then the doors opened up.

The floor rotated to pull the shuttle inward and as soon as it stopped, the doors were flung open and a gurney was pushed onto the deck.

The group of aliens huddled forward together in concern.

Dr Krill was barking orders, and to their surprise, Sunny, the big blue Drev was doing the same.

They hadn’t seen her in a while.

A few humans awkwardly stumbled out of the back looking dazed and confused, led by other humans that looked on the wrong side of shell shocked.

Krill turned and pointed to the Finnari, “You all, come here.”

They scampered over as told, and were immediately paired with one of the confused look humans, ordered to take them back to the medical bay as fast as they could without causing them any sort of agitation.

The Finnari gently took the humans by the hand and began leading them away.

The gurney was covered in a clear plastic bag, acting as a bubble. The last Finnari walked over and perched himself on one of the bed’s crossbars so he could see down to the human inside.

Admiral Vir lay there behind layers of protective plastic, eyes open and glassy. For a horrible moment the Finnari thought he wasn’t breathing, but the slow fogging of his breath against the clear surface was enough to relax the little creature.

He was alive, but he wasn’t doing to well.

The finnari reached forward resting a hand on the human’s arm through the plastic as the doctors began to wheel them down the hallway.

This is what they had been worried about.

Something happening to their humans

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bettsfic · 3 years

Text

how i got an agent, or: my writing timeline

when i started writing, i had no idea how publishing worked and i had a lot of misconceptions about it. but i just signed my first literary agent so i thought i’d share what my experience has been getting to this point, in case it helps anyone else with their own publication goals. i’m also including financial details, like submission fees and income, because “i could never afford to pursue writing as a career” is something that kept me from taking the idea seriously.

for context, i write mostly literary fiction and i’m on the academic/scholarly writing path. this process looks a lot different for other genres.

i didn’t write this in my pretty nonfiction narrative voice; it’s really just the bare-bones facts of how it went down, how long it took, how many words i wrote (both fanfiction and original fiction), and how much it all cost.

background

2002 - 2005: read a fuckton of books, wrote some fiction, wanted to be a writer but knew it would never happen, journaled every moment of my life in intimate detail

2006: started working full-time (at a chinese restaurant) while still in high school, also started taking courses for college credit; no time to write, and forgot i had ever wanted to be a writer

2007: graduated high school, started college (psych major), still worked at the restaurant, moved out of my parents’ house into an apartment with my boyfriend; my dad got diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer

2008: continued college full-time, quit the restaurant and started part-time as a bank teller, broke up with bf and moved in with a friend at an apartment where the rent was obscenely high; had to pick up a second job altering bridal gowns

2009: continued college full-time, started dating someone else, moved in with him, had to support him, took a third job as an admin assistant

2010: continued college full-time, still had 3 jobs; my dad’s cancer became terminal

2011: my dad passed away; i graduated college with a 3.9 and $31k of debt; quit 2 of 3 jobs; got promoted at the bank; my bf cheated on me and we broke up; moved back in with my mom

2012: a very dark time; also, bought a house (because where i’m from, it’s cheaper to buy than rent)

2013: discovered fandom

2014, age 24

this is the year i started writing and posting fanfic. prior to that i was a compulsive journaler but had no drive or desire to become a writer, despite how much i had written when i was a teenager. it seemed like a very childish dream. at this point i assumed writing was just a phase like all my other hobbies i’d picked up and set down.

but fandom proved to be really healthy for me, and i made some good friends who encouraged my writing and made me want to be better at it. i was really not very good at writing. i don’t think i had any natural creative talent whatsoever, or even a particularly vivid imagination. the only thing i had going for me was the ability to put thoughts into words after a decade of obsessive journaling.

i started writing in spring, and by the end of the year my total word count was 311k. i was making a decent income at the bank, insofar as my bills were covered and i had health insurance. i still had a significant amount of credit card debt from college that i was trying to pay down, and which was eating up all my extra income.

2015, age 25

i continued writing through 2015 and went to visit @aeriallon, whom i’d met in fandom and who told me i should consider applying to MFAs. i was miserable at the bank and knew i wanted to go back to school, but i didn’t think there was a chance in hell a grad program would accept me, since my writing wasn’t very good and i hadn’t so much as taken a single english class in undergrad. she told me to just look around and do a few google searches to see what i found.

when i started searching, i assumed i would probably be more compelled toward an MEd or MSW programs and go the therapy route, which is what the plan had been in undergrad before my dad died and my life got derailed. i never wanted to be a banker, but i’d got a promotion into commercial finance that paid decently, so i took it and told myself i’d work for a year before going back to school. but then i kept getting promoted and one year became many.

i ended up being more drawn to creative writing MFA programs because they seemed to want people with weird backgrounds like mine. also the classes sounded fun and the programs were funded. i didn’t know how i would be able to afford my mortgage payment or sell my house on a fraction of the income i was making at the bank, but i figured i’d apply and see what happened.

it took 6 months to get a writing sample ready to apply to MFAs. it was the only ofic story i’d written as an adult, and in retrospect i had no idea what i was doing because at that point i didn’t read literary short fiction. but i got the sample as good as i could get it and completed my applications. i applied to 6 schools and got accepted into 1.

in 2015 i wrote 250k. i can’t find my application spreadsheet from that year, but i probably spent between $300 and $400 on application fees. early in the year, i had finally managed to pay off my credit card debt and save a little bit of money.

2016, age 26

the school i got into was within driving distance of my house, so i didn’t bother moving. i tried to quit the bank but my boss convinced me to stay on 2 days a week working from home. i agreed to it, because my grad stipend wasn’t enough to cover my bills, and i was counting on what little savings i had accrued to get me through the program. i still had no drive or interest to publish. i mostly just wanted to go back to school so i could learn how to be better at this thing i really enjoyed doing.

in the MFA, as you might imagine, i had to read a lot of stuff and write a lot of stuff, and was encouraged to begin submitting some of the short stories i wrote for workshop. i was not particularly into the idea, considering it seemed like a lot of work for little reward, and also i didn’t think my stories were very good.

i also started teaching english comp. i hated it and decided that after the MFA, i never wanted to do it again. haha. hahahahahaha

in 2016 i wrote 343k. i didn’t apply/submit in 2016 so i didn’t pay any fees, but my grad stipend was $14k for the academic year, plus the income i was making at the bank.

2017, age 27

i did a complete 180 and decided i loved teaching more than anything else in the entire world, and i was willing to do whatever it took to become a teacher. i realized that to become a teacher, i needed to publish. begrudgingly i started submitting to literary journals. i also applied to summer workshops and got into tin house, which i highly recommend if that’s something you’re interested in. at tin house i met my dream agent, who seemed really interested in my work and encouraged me to query her as soon as i had a book done.

a lot of personal drama happened that year. i was still working at the bank in addition to teaching a 2/2 and taking a full course load. in summer i had a long overdue mental breakdown.

2017 was a rough year. i wrote 149k. this is the year i started keeping a dedicated expenses spreadsheet. i spent $174 in submission fees. tin house tuition with room and board was a little over $1500 + travel. i thought it was worth it because i met the agent i thought i would later sign, but that didn’t pan out. (i made some great friends though!!) tin house was definitely an unwise financial decision; i paid for it out of what little i managed to save in 2015.

2018, age 28

early in 2018, i went from teaching comp/rhet to creative writing, which only cemented my desire to teach writing as a career. i realized i was far better at teaching writing than writing, but i knew i had to keep writing to keep teaching (shocked pikachu.jpg), so i kept submitting to journals. i got my first story accepted. i didn’t receive any payment for that publication. i quit the bank early in the year (finally! after 10 years!) and was terrified about money, in part because my student loan payments were coming out of deferment and i was still paying off my hospital bills from my breakdown.

in spring semester, i won a few departmental awards (totaling $500ish) and got a second story accepted (again, no payment). i also got accepted to another workshop which i will not name because i hated it. i graduated in may and defended my thesis in july. the thesis would later become my short story collection, zucchini.

in fall, i stayed on at my school as an adjunct, and started writing training wheels which would later become an original novel called baby.

i wrote 450k in 2018. i paid $373 in submission fees. i was also nominated for an award for one of my publications but didn’t win. the workshop i went to was like $4000 with room and board (it was a month-long workshop). i got 75% of it covered with scholarships and i paid for the rest of it out of my savings, and even though i’d intended to drive there, my mom ended up buying me a plane ticket. again, i met a lot of big-wig writers i thought for sure would help me get an agent. i told myself i was networking, and that publication was all about Who You Knew. but that turned out not to be true for me.

as an adjunct i made $3200 per course, and i taught 3 classes in fall. in winter, i got my shit together and started applying for creative writing PhDs, mostly to convince my family i was doing something with my life, with no expectation that i would get in. in winter i applied to 2 schools. with application fees and the GRE, i ended up paying well over $500.

2019, age 29

in spring semester, i taught 2 classes while i revised training wheels into baby. when i had a completed manuscript, i finally pulled the plug and used all my networking contacts to get my dream agent i’d met at tin house. i queried her, and a very popular and well-regarded author i’d met at the other workshop emailed her on my behalf to tell her good things about me. i thought for sure i had it in the bag. this author also touched base with a few other agents whom he thought would like my work.

i didn’t hear back from any of them. not even a “no thanks.” i set down querying for a while.

i got a third story picked up and published around this time, and i was paid $25 for it. they also nominated me for an award, and i don’t think i won? but i can’t find out who did win so idk.

my grandpa passed away and i decided to sell my house and move in with my grandma so she wouldn’t be alone. i got rejected from both PhD programs i applied to and decided to get a “real job” instead, and began applying for random positions that offered health insurance, because i knew i was drastically undermedicated and it was becoming a Problem.

near the end of spring semester, i moved out of my house, put it on the market, and was interviewing for a community development manager position for a nonprofit. at the same time, i found out about another university that was taking late-season applications, and i applied. five days later, i got accepted. one day after that, i got a job offer for the nonprofit. since i had no idea how long it would take for my house to sell, and being unable to afford both rent in a new city and my mortgage payment, i deferred my PhD acceptance for a year and decided to work at the nonprofit for a while. the risk was that i could only defer my admission, not my funding, so there was a chance that the following year i wouldn’t get the same funding package.

i lasted one month at the “real job” before i had another breakdown and ended up quitting.

my house sold for well under the asking price and i received only $4000 in equity once it was all said and done. that’s a lot of money to me, but considering that i’d been paying on the house for 7 years, i was expecting a lot more.

i had a year to kill until the PhD so i decided to take a break from teaching and apply to artist residencies instead. i applied to 8 residencies and got accepted into 4, but only ended up attending 3, because the 4th was outrageously priced and there was no indication of the cost when i had applied.

in winter i picked up querying agents again. i queried 10 agents every other week. i also got a ghostwriting gig writing children’s books that paid $800 a month.

in 2019 i wrote 417k. i spent $441 in submission fees (to residencies and contests, not agent queries. never pay money to query an agent!!). i ended up teaching 3 classes fall semester.

2020, age 30

i started out the year driving across the country going to residencies. the first cost $100 (no food), the second cost $250 (A LOT OF VERY GOOD FOOD), and the third paid me $500. i was at the third when the pandemic hit.

the query rejections started rolling in. i gave up in february after 60 queries. of those 60, i received 7 manuscript requests for baby, but the consensus was that it was too long and plotless (you got me there.jpg). at the second residency completed and revised zucchini and decided to begin querying with that instead. i could only find a few agents who accepted collections so i only queried 16. i got one request for the manuscript but then didn’t hear back. i gave up in april shortly after the pandemic hit.

when i figured the collection, like the novel, just wasn’t publishable, i started submitting to contests which is the more standard route for the genre. i submitted to 12 in total and was a finalist in 1. i was rejected or withdrew from the rest.

the PhD program reached out to ask if i was still interested in starting in fall, and i said i was, so they put me in the running for funding again and i was accepted. the stipend was $17k per academic year.

like most of us, i got totally derailed in spring and stopped doing basically everything. the ghostwriting gig started paying $1500 a month and i also started my creative coaching business, which slowly but surely began to supplement my income. i also received the $1200 stimulus.

when school started, i quit the ghostwriting gig. i had no intention to continue querying either book, but i saw a twitter pitch event called DVpit (diverse voices) and decided to participate. for those who don’t know, a twitter pitch event is where you tweet the pitch for your book and use the hashtag, and agents scroll through the tag and like tweets. if an agent likes your tweet, you query them.

i got one like, so i followed up with the query. the agent asked for the full MS and a couple weeks later followed up with the offer for representation. we talked on the phone, she sent me the contract, i asked for a couple changes, and then signed!

so far this year i’ve written 375k and paid $518 in submission fees. i’ll give more details when i do my end of year roundup next month. oh, and i finally paid off my student loans.

totals

word count: 2.3 million

agent queries: 77

agent MS requests: 9

agent rejections: 28

agent no responses: 44

short story submissions: 86

short story acceptances: 3

short story income: $25

total submission/application fees: $1472

my (final) query letter

honestly this query letter probably isn’t very good which is why i got such a minimal response, but it got the job done eventually.

Thank you for expressing interest in ZUCCHINI through this year's DVpit event.

ZUCCHINI is a collection that views sex through an asexual lens. It poses inquiries into constructs like gender, sexuality, and love to dissect the patriarchal/puritanical foundations from which our social perspectives often derive. Being a collection about asexuality, each story portrays a relationship that develops from forms of attraction other than physical.

In one story, a grieving widow purchases her first sex toy; in another, a woman uses sex to cope with the death of her abusive father, and later in the collection faces the long road to recovery; an administrative assistant seeks out a codependent relationship with her boss; a masochist hires a professional sadist to lead him toward self-actualization; a woman begins to recover from her sexual assault by staging a reenactment on her own terms; and lastly, two lifelong friends in a queerplatonic relationship decide to get married. Asexuality is an under-acknowledged identity within the LGBTQIA community and is often misunderstood. In seven stories, ZUCCHINI dissects the notion of attraction, explores the intersections of sexual identity and trauma recovery, and conveys the experience of intimacy without physical desire.

Three stories in the collection have been published in literary magazines. “Lien” appeared in volume 24 of Quarter After Eight and was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. “An Informed Purchase” appeared in the summer 2018 issue of Midwestern Gothic and won the Jordan-Goodman Prize in Fiction. “The Ashtray” appeared in issue 16 of Rivet Journal and has been nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize.

Complete at 53,000 words, ZUCCHINI is a collection in conversation with Carmen Maria Machado’s HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES, Lauren Groff’s FLORIDA, and Samantha Hunt’s THE DARK DARK.

If ZUCCHINI is of interest to you, I would be happy to send you the manuscript. Per your guidelines, I've appended the first twenty pages below, which is the entirety of the first story.

what comes next

i’m going to spend january revising the collection per my agent’s feedback. when i send it back to her, she’ll shoot it out to the first round of publishers. my understanding is that the goal is to get multiple offers on it so that it has to go to auction. if there are no offers, she’ll do another round of submissions, and so on, until we’ve exhausted our options. if that happens, we’ll reassess, but by then hopefully i’ll have another novel finished.

meanwhile, i’ll be continuing the PhD which entails teaching a 2/2, workshop, and 2 lit seminars per semester. i’m also still doing my creative coaching, writing fanfic, and working on my original projects. in summer, i’ll finally be moving to hopefully start going to school in person next fall.

the PhD is a 3 year program with an optional fourth year. i don’t see myself finishing in 3 years so i do plan to take the extra year unless something comes up. after the PhD, i’m not sure what i’ll do. a lot will probably change by then so i’m trying not to commit to one idea. i might apply to post-doc fellowships and tenure track positions, or i might leave the country and teach overseas, or i might move to LA and try to get in a writer’s room somewhere. i’ve got a lot of options.

overall thoughts/stuff i learned

first of all, you don’t have to go through all of this to publish a book. you could feasibly just write a book and query agents. the only reason it took me this long is because my PTSD brain was sabotaging me every step of the way and i didn’t start taking anything seriously until i found something i was willing to fight for (teaching). i went the MFA/literary route but other, faster routes are just as good. maybe better. probably better. actually if there’s any chance you can go a different route, you should take it.

reflecting on all of this, very little of it has anything to do with talent or being a good writer. nor does it have to do with being at the right place at the right time. i’ve only made it this far because i took very small steps over and over again, and during that walk met people who could help me -- the authors who have mentored me, the editors who accepted my stories, the agent who signed me. and as i got further along my path, i started being able to help other writers in the way i was helped.

i don’t believe i’ll ever be a great writer. the best thing i can say about my writing is that it’s competent and accessible. everything i write sets out to do something and most of the time it gets the job done. i don’t imagine i’ll ever be able to financially support myself with publishing, and i’ll certainly never be famous or well-known, but i’m good enough to keep making progress. i’ll probably continue to find opportunities that are adjacent to writing and that will keep me afloat, pending my health and provided the country doesn’t devolve into civil war.

probably the most important thing i learned in all this is that having a wide appeal isn’t the goal. you don’t write to be lauded or liked. you have to stay as true to yourself and your interests as you possibly can, so that the people who come across your path can see you and help you. you’ll need those people; no one gets anywhere alone. if you pander, if you’re too concerned with praise and success or being adored, you won’t make it very far. the rejection will eventually kill you.

with all that said, my advice to you is this: never stop writing. the ability to share our stories is the single most precious thing we have. you can’t let anything stop you from telling your stories the way you need them to be told.

#writing advice #the writing life #writing update

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gynandromorph · 3 years

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i’m not waiting until midnight to do this this year because i don’t care. i’m having breakfast right now and i will be working afterwards, so here’s my new year’s retrospective

this year sucked. it sucked for everybody, though, so who cares. big things that happened, all kind of related but also not related:

1) i got in touch and began integrating into a reform jewish community here. i have learned a lot and also not learned a lot. much information i already knew, but some things you only learn from practice and experience. in this regard, because i have no car and i am excessively anxious, the pandemic was beneficial, because it’s all been online. there are still lots of transgender individuals and people who don’t know much because they only come once a year and such, so there is good company. this is something that has kept me up at night for years and i worked hard to get to the point i am with my mental health to be able to address it. i told myself when i did this, though, that i would need to be willing to change some, maybe even a lot of my values and decisions. it also means that some ways i felt too embarrassed or uncomfortable speaking before i am less uncomfortable with now.

2) i got in touch with my mother and reconnected with her. i made an actual effort to build some kind of amicable relationship. i can’t say it’s perfect. it’s not the worst, though. she is extremely happy about me becoming more observant and has been very supportive. the main reason i did this is because family is a very entwined jewish value and the option was available to me. i don’t know what i’ll be doing about my dad, but it would be more complex and something i’m going to ask my rabbi about when she’s not being piledriven in the ground by the weight of the pandemic. i still don’t really talk to my sister, to whom i have no obligations anyway. it’s not like we aren’t on speaking terms, but it’s just a big indicator that nothing is the same as before.

3) i ended the relationship with my wife. this is a big one. i don’t want to get into the details of why. we are still friends and still live together, but the relationship has changed even faster than i thought just by ending the romantic element. not to say that i never did any household chores myself, but 2021 will be a difficult year for me as i have to pay for completely separate foods, have to do more things myself in separation from rokko’s personal life, and no longer have a confidante about my interpersonal business.

those are the 3 major personal changes. i also went back on hormones, and funded top surgery (which my mother would not and could not have paid for anyway) that had to be postponed until the middle of next year anyway, which, by the looks of vaccine rollout, may not even be safer from the virus than right now.

i also went without any medication for my adhd for the whole year, although i started strattera yesterday to see if it does anything for me with a new psychiatrist. i’ve never felt more depressed and lost. i’ve been waiting to “wake up” for almost the entire year. in january, i had just fixed my relationship with dupe and they were starting to front more. after getting really sick in february with combination of what looks like a really bad extended series of migraines and a medication that caused vomiting and a persistent cough, i’ve been too afraid to let go of control again and unable to not blame it on their time fronting. despite blaming them for a lot, i wait for them to take control, i feel like a lot of my identity has been the one just waiting, waiting for somebody better and more clear-headed to come and wake me up from the nightmare i’m having. i don’t want to say that adderall always switched dupe into the front, because it didn’t. it also made ME feel more clear-headed in my own way. but more often than not, it just made me feel like everything was going to be okay enough to let them take it and deal with it instead. i also don’t want to say that dupe disappeared, because they didn’t, really. they’ve been around, a lot, just not fronting because i make it too much of a struggle. that said if the strattera (and possibly clonidine as my psych suggested) doesn’t work i’m just going back on adderall after top surgery lol.

anyway, i don’t know. i’m such a whiner about all of this. i have been able to not contract covid by hunkering down at home with my little dog and little job where i get to be late on as many deadlines and cut as many corners as i want out of fatigue and nothing happens and i still find something to complain about. i’ve never been more aware of so many of my flaws, though. i don’t usually make new year’s resolutions but next year i think it would be cool if i could make tzedakah more. i don’t want to say once a week because i already do that, but once per day might be more than i could afford. maybe once every other day and after every time i make a purchase, as a goal, finances permitting. i think it might help to have the obligation so that i don’t spend money on stupid shit instead.

that’s all i have to say. 2020 was a horrible year and 2021 will probably be a horrible, life-altering year as well. gam zu l’tovah.

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letterboxd · 3 years

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Sick Beats.

Blade-reboot director Bassam Tariq talks to Alicia Haddick about partnering with Riz Ahmed on Mogul Mowgli, how to open a film, the clash of colonialism and art, and the escapist joys of comic-book movies.

“We’ll make films, we’ll die, who gives a shit? Right? But how we lived and all that stuff, I feel like that matters.” —Bassam Tariq

Standing alone on a dimly lit stage in a New York music venue, Zed appears to have it all. He’s on the brink of a musical breakthrough in his rap career, with a growing legion of fans and fellow artists inspired by his work. Yet at this moment, on this stage, with the audience barely visible in the shadows, there is so much more going on.

Riz Ahmed has had a couple of blistering opening performances in films this past year, but where Sound of Metal’s first moments track his character’s hearing loss, the opening scene of Mogul Mowgli—written by Ahmed and director Bassam Tariq—feels like a physical manifestation of the emotions that come with tackling what it means to be a London-bred, Pakistani-Muslim rapper.

Zed is unsure where he belongs in a complex web of cultural and social ideas defined by a family that raised him, a religion he treats with skepticism, and a country that colonized his parents and their ancestors. Transforming these questions into art won’t make them disappear, but music at least gives Zed a measure of indirect control over his problems. That is, until the diagnosis of a degenerative autoimmune disease puts the brakes on his career.

As Zed’s father struggles to reconcile his own past with caring for his son, Zed’s illness manifests itself in apparitions of a mysterious figure, whose face is veiled by a sehra (the decorative groom’s headdress worn at Pakistani weddings). The man refers to himself as Toba Tek Singh, which is both a reference to a city in Pakistan named after a Sikh religious figure, and the name of a satirical story about Partition.

Mogul Mowgli is Tariq’s debut narrative feature. It had its premiere at Berlin in 2020, winning the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize and gaining notice for its director, who has been confirmed to helm MCU’s Blade reboot, with Mahershala Ali in the leading role. Tariq previously co-directed the highly rated 2013 documentary These Birds Walk, and the 2019 documentary short, Ghosts of Sugar Land, each centered on Muslim life and experiences, one on the streets of Karachi, the other in Texas. Mogul Mowgli is a more introspective—and more surreal—exploration of these ideas, couched in the dingy halls of a UK hospital, and in the lyrics of a rapper searching for himself.

Tariq chatted with us over Zoom about his friendship with Ahmed, the production challenges of keeping a set alive, and his film inspirations, from Abbas Kiarostami to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Riz Ahmed and Bassam Tariq on the set of ‘Mogul Mowgli’.

I know that you and Riz worked together on the film for a number of years while you were coming up with the story, and there was also a lot of mutual respect for each other’s work. How did the two of you first meet? Bassam Tariq: We met through my co-director of These Birds Walk, Omar Mullick, who introduced Riz and I to each other. At that time, I was running a butchery in the East Village in Manhattan. That’s where Riz and I met and we just became fast friends. Things kind of took a few years for us to figure out what the project would be that we would do together, it took me about three years, four years. But you know, he was shooting The Night Of, and then slowly his career was skyrocketing and it was like, “oh, great, we’ll probably never see him again”.

Yet he would always stay in touch because I think he had a desire to tell something that was very specific to him. All I knew was how to tell things that are specific to me, I didn’t know anything else. So I think that’s why it kind of worked really well for both of us, because he became quite great at playing other characters, but to do something that was very close to him, I think that was quite new.

And it gave you both the opportunity to tell your own stories through that. That’s the exciting thing. It’s so exciting when you’re able to pull from some unique things that only you can tell, and particularly working with actors that also share that part and then bringing it alive through them. It’s just gold, it’s such a gift. Why would you try to hide that from them or mask that from them?

Speaking of These Birds Walk, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between how you observed and captured the work going on in Karachi and the intimate filming style used in this movie. What were the challenges in jumping from documentaries to this film, and were there any lessons you learned from that field of work that then factored into the production of Mogul Mowgli? I would say that the big learning curve for me was timing, like, you’re burning money as you have a day of production. Every day that you’re in prep and every day that you’re in production, you’re burning money. So the financing is very different because there are stakeholders involved. We were blessed with amazing partners with BBC and Cinereach that weren’t the crazy ones that you would expect when you think of stakeholders, they were amazing partners. It was more of a family vibe than anything. But you’re still burning someone else’s money, right?

I think that was something that I didn’t take stock of and I wish I was a little bit better with, but I think I finally realized what it means to “make your days”, to “make your minutes”. How do you keep everybody engaged? How do you keep your crew engaged? Is this going to be a long production? How do you do this? How do you keep it all alive? And we’re doing it in the thick of winter in London, you know, we couldn’t afford heaters and stuff.

And we were just blessed with such an amazing crew. I didn’t have a crew with These Birds Walk. It was just me and my co-director, and then I had an editor, Sonejuhi Sinha, who came on board for free. It was just people out of the goodness of their hearts, whereas with Mogul Mowgli, it was both the goodness of their hearts and they were getting paid a little bit. No one was getting paid great money. But it was still this desire to make an excellent film.

I think what I had to learn was to communicate clearly what this film was with everybody involved. That was a really exciting and new thing for me, because it wasn’t just me and a co-director. We have a ship and everyone on the ship needs to know what this film is and how we’re going to make it look, how we’re going to make it feel. These are friends I care about, I care about Riz, he’s a dear friend of mine. And I wanted to make sure that he was being respected, that I was being respected and I was doing right by everybody on my team.

And I think that’s really the most important thing for me, because man, who cares? We’ll make films, we’ll die, who gives a shit? Right? But how we lived and all that stuff, I feel like that matters. You could give somebody a very empowering experience.

Riz Ahmed as Zed in ‘Mogul Mowgli’.

While your own experiences were a major inspiration on a number of areas of the film, what research did you do for the medical aspects of the movie, especially with how crucial it is to telling this story? Oh, it was massive, we did a lot of research. We pulled a lot from our own families’ histories, but we never named the illness. That was quite important to us. It was quite allegorical, but also based in a very real concern, a very real thing.

I think something that I will say that is true is that a lot of first-generation immigrants have autoimmune illnesses, and it’s because of the body coming into a new terrain and new climate. Sometimes there’s trauma in the body from past generations. The Body Keeps the Score is a book that I think everyone’s been reading these days, but it’s about epigenetics and this idea that the psyche doesn’t know time. It doesn’t understand time, so you can’t hide it.

We have this false idea that time will heal wounds, but it’s such bullshit, because if we don’t confront these traumas, we can then pass those traumas onto our family members, which is something that I think is very real.

There are a few moments while Zed’s coming to terms with his condition in which he encounters the image of Toba Tek Singh. What inspired their appearance in the film and their place as a confronting figure for Zed? I think there’s a few things. One is that he’s an allegory, he very much symbolizes the illness, he is the illness. But then there’s another part of it where, like, I feel that I never know how to connect with our culture. I’ve always had a hard time understanding how to connect with it. So that’s the reason why he’s almost veiled from us as well. It’s like I don’t want to be able to see him—I don’t know what he is.

We have this very social-realist film, and we filmed the movie chronologically. So what I remember is that in the prayer scene, the first time he looks over and he looks back and then we have the guy in flowers I was like, “I can’t believe I’m making this movie, am I really doing this?” And you know, good on Riz. This is why having good partners along with you to be like “yeah, this is what we’re doing and we’re committing to this”, because there’s a version where they didn’t exist.

I also have to ask about the opening scene with the concert. I know that you had originally taken footage from one of Riz’s own concerts, but then you re-recorded it. How difficult was that scene to put together? It was scary! It was our first day of shooting, it was the first day of Riz and I working together. I’d filmed him a little bit here and there, like in a hotel or this or that, I filmed him in Pakistan when we were having fun, but it was all fun. Now we’re putting on the concert, people are there to see Riz perform, it’s the first day of filming, you know what I mean? The crew doesn’t have the language yet, we’re still figuring out who we are, how we’re all going to speak to one another, and then we have to do this big concert scene.

I will say that it was so important to make it feel like he is a real performer. I think I wanted to see him unleash a bit, because I wanted that energy from Riz to be real. I want him to unleash in a way that we haven’t seen him perform in concerts before. We did a few takes on it and then it was like, no, we got to go further, now we got to go further. And that was great to see how both of us were egging each other on to go further with it.

It was a really powerful introduction. It’s something that makes you sit up and take notice, if that makes sense. Thank you. I love openings of films. I remember my co-director on These Birds Walk, they taught me that how you open is everything. So I always knew that I wanted to open with a concert and then end with the concert. But I wanted the last concert to be in the bathroom. And I’m happy they were able to bring it to life.

‘Mogul Mowgli�� director Bassam Tariq. / Photo by Ryan Lash

Were there any opening scenes that inspired you when thinking about that scene? One of my favorite movie openings is Under the Skin, because I think it tells you very clearly what the film’s about, it grabs your attention. You’re about to watch a story about humanity and about, you know, what does the construction of a human look like, which is phenomenal, like, what is under the skin? Literally, what is under our skin? There are others. Narc has an incredible opening.

What were the films that most inspired the overall production of Mogul Mowgli? You know, there’s this one film by Alonso Ruizpalacios called Güeros. It’s one of the best debut films I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s so radical. It’s so singular. It’s so special. It’s so specific. And there’s probably a thousand things I don’t understand about it, but I love that about it. I’m walking into a world that I haven’t seen.

I would also say that the TV show Atlanta is a deep inspiration for me. Another film that I’m just so in love with that I watched a few times with Omar Mullick was Ida. Then I would say Son of Saul, and how that dealt with trauma, was really powerful. And all three of these films were also shot in the Academy ratio, which is the 4:3 ratio that I think we unwittingly decided to do.

Were there any particular filmmakers that really inspired you growing up or that made you think “yeah, this is what I want to do”, and pushed you to make the films you are today? No, I don’t think it was in the filmmakers I looked at, but more just the wonder of film that I loved, the escape of film. So my earliest films that I always loved were, like, Back to the Future. I watched a lot of, it’s weird to say, but even the bad Marvel movies I’ve seen, like The Punisher, Captain America, those early ones, I would watch those because I loved the comics. So for me, the comics were an escape, and ’90s X-Men, the ’90s Spider-Man, that was my life. My first introduction to Blade was that bit when Blade [appeared] on Spider-Man in one of those episodes of the animated series. And then, of course, the movie Blade.

I will say that one filmmaker I’ve come to who’s given me permission to make films is Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian filmmaker who died a few years ago. He’s just a phenomenal voice, a singular voice in Iran. And Mohsen Makhmalbaf and then his daughter Marziyeh Meshkiny, who made the film The Day I Became a Woman. But these are films that are so unapologetically unique and of them. I want to be able to do that as well. They’re not in response to, or reacting as a discriminated member of some community, but instead they’re like, “no, I exist and I am”.

I feel like so much of the content that comes from communities that I’m a part of can sometimes feel like we’re sloganeering to white people or to the heteronormative or whatever. It’s just, like, come on. Andrew Haigh’s Weekend is one of the films that really moved me and made me be like: “Oh, wow, this is uniquely queer, it could only be two queer people having a one-night stand. It couldn’t be anybody else. And it had to be made only by that filmmaker.”

That’s it, that’s filmmaking, that’s cinema to me, that’s exciting. Just like the movie The Fits, where it could have only been written by women, directed by a woman, edited by a woman, it’s so specific. It’s one of the films that I also look to that I’m, like, what she did in that film, I’m still in awe. I can never have that experience, but I can relate. I can connect to something so vulnerable and so true. Because when it’s true, it’s undeniable.

Just one last question, the obvious question: top three films of all time, what would you say they are? I’m going to go with Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky, and I will say The Matrix because, you know, whatever, I’m lame like that. Then I’ll say another very expected answer, City of God. If I could add two more to the list, though, I would say Güeros and Dog Day Afternoon, for sure.

They’re all very different from one another. Yeah, but that’s what’s so great about cinema. You’re fluid. Genre, it could be anything.