#you DO need to write people in the other universe at least with agency <- there is so much stuff that fails this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lemonhemlock · 7 months

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Yeah the absolute inability for a lot of the people in this fandom to not do an insane amount of projecting is crazy and makes discussions borderline impossible. There are a lot of people whose only analysis of ASOIAF is Westeros is a Patriarchal Shithole therefore any action by any female character, no matter how evil/deranged/sociopathic, is fair and cannot be criticized because Patriarchy! Patriarchy Bad! No other analysis needed! The amount of times someone will try to critique Rhaenyra for her adultery or pushing out multiple bastards she intends to put on the iron throne it's always met with 'Okayy but Westeros is a Patriarchal Hellscape so who cares! Rhaenyra is Bad Ass for taking Back her SeXuAl AgEnCy.' Once again, these people have a great disdain for the world GRRM has built, and I don't blame them at all, but I just don't get the need to be hyper fixated on a series where you fundamentally hate the setting. Makes no damn sense to me.

I also think a significant portion of this fandom doesn't want to make a good faith attempt to engage with GRRM's work because a lot of it is considered deeply problematic in 2023, but was shit he could get away with writing in 1996. Basically, I don't think he's necessarily doing a lot of 'critique' so much as being transgressive and using the medieval fantasy setting as parameters for his edgelordiness lol. I mean, in western first world countries, it's not as if Feudal Monarchies that are Highly Oppressive to Women, are....a pressing issue? Even in 1996 lol. What exactly is he critiquing? lol. Like, some of it is the basic 'critique' sure, but a lot of it is him being a edgy nerd that likes to write about nipples and nubile teens, but the fandom isn't ready for that conversation lol.

Hi there, you raise some interesting points, so thanks for stopping by. I agree with the first part of this post and less so with the second part. Under the cut for ease of scrolling.

I think there is definitely a part of GRRM that is a boomer edgelord just writing for shits and giggles and anyone who has read any sex scene written by him can certainly attest to that. But as to the lack of good faith engagement with his work by many of his own fans, I'm not really certain they demonstrate enough interest in researching the topics to even try? A lot of the times I feel like I'm talking to brick walls, like there is a definite lack of intellectual curiosity and a dogmatic obstinacy in promoting their conceptualization of social justice as universal in any time frame, but more in the sense of positioning themselves as thought leaders and Havers of Right Opinions.™ IMO it's more a preoccupation with virtue-signaling than it is a tacit apprehension of the problematic quality of the work.

To return to the bastard conundrum, a lot of them can't seem to understand that "just pass a law lol" isn't a magical solution and that it would actually require the overhaul of the entire political system, including economic and cultural advancements that are simply absent. How are people supposed to earn a comfortable living if agriculture is the main occupation? Of course that landowners are not going to give that up, they can't simply just "get a job at the business factory" to support themselves and make up for what they might lose. In this context, the acquisition of more land becomes vital or, at the very least, avoiding its fragmentation. That's why the first born gets everything. Yes, it's also patriarchal because it's the first born son, but it's also dishonest to not admit that it's just easier this way. It's less of a headache if the gaggle of relatives are left as hangers-on dependent on the good will of the head of their family. It's less of a headache because people will go to war less often if there are clear rules for inheritance in place.

In no way is this a perfect system or a fair one, but how are you even supposed to spread more democratic ideas if the population is illiterate? If books have to be copied by hand? How are you supposed to learn a trade to earn a living if you can't access information? Then you are dependent on guilds, but the level of urbanization in Westeros is very low. Guilds also gatekeep membership and information and I'm no medieval historian but I imagine that you can get into trouble for practicing the trade of a guild without authorisation etc like these are simply not topics on their mind when they think that Viserys can just change inheritance laws for everyone within a blink of an eye. Just it is not, but it's a logical explanation as to why people might act in a certain way or be less receptive to certain ideas.

Moving on to the topic of GRRM's actual critique and contribution to the disk horse. In previous posts I expressed being perplexed by some fans' conceptualization of this setting. Of course that it's difficult to issue 100% factual assessments when the series is lacking two whole books. However, there have been many essays written already on the topic of his deconstruction of tropes only to reconstruct them later on and how the series is not supposed to read in this dudebro, grimdark, cynical key where the evil and powerful always triumph over the true and good, so I'm not going to get into that. But I think that applies to the political setting as well. I'm pretty certain he is not planing to dismantle the concept of feudal monarchy at the end of ADOS, like, we're still getting a ruler, but it's going to be a Good One, as opposed to all of the other unworthy ones that came before. We're not time-skipping 1000 years of human development to bring Westeros into the enlightened era of late stage capitalism where you can be a CEO girlboss, nor is there going to be a socialist revolution. If anything, he's being pretty apprehensive regarding the last one by giving Dany a violent revolution plotline that doesn't work out pretty optimistically.

So, yeah, in that regard, I feel like applying a lot of modern left-wing doctrine on this series might lead some to believe certain aspects are hidden criticisms when they absolutely are not and start demonising stuff that was never intended to be "bad" in the first place. I already mentioned death of the author in my previous post and, certainly, you can analyse any work of fiction through any methodology you want, but, at the same time, I feel like there are certain elements old man GRRM included in his story that are just typical of medieval fantasies and are just accouterments expected in this setting that people are taking way too seriously. Like the Iron Throne being the source of all evil and trouble in Westeros. No, it's just a mighty, imposing throne, because that's a leitmotif in medieval fantasy. Or the Conquest being a Bad Thing,™ because they view it through the lens of American colonialism. Certainly, he presents the Targaryens as problematic as a whole and the Conquest being a bloody endeavour, but I'm not convinced that Aegon I's idea of uniting the realms will end up being critiqued in and of itself.

Similarly, GRRM as an author falls into the trap of a lot of cliches about the medieval period - the prevalence of child brides in his work being such an egregious stereotype. This is indeed unfortunate, but he's also 75 and probably did his history reading a couple of decades ago; meanwhile, the field has thankfully progressed since then, as has the quality of the research. But I seriously doubt the man scours Google Scholar to stay up to date with the historiography of the period.

As to what he actually DOES critique. I think that there are two kinds of avenues for discussion here, the first being how ASOIAF is in direct conversation with the high fantasy genre - so it's actually attempting to criticize other books - which is where the trope deconstruction and the complex characterisation play in, as opposed to reliance on formulaic plots. Here I will leave it to people who are more versed in this genre than I am in order to draw the proper comparisons.

The second represents the in-world critiques the story engages in. The nature of kinghood is one of them, the age-old question of what does it mean to be a "good ruler", the nature of power and how to wield it are the central themes of the series. We have a varied cast of nominees for the role of monarch; each style and cause is weighed against each other and, as they become inoperable or obsolete, will be disregarded and eliminated.

Here I think there is a very interesting conversation to be had about Robb Stark and his role in the story, because IMO it brings together a lot of GRRM's actual criticisms (both in-world and genre-adjacent) and it's a deeply misunderstood plotline. In most other fantasy stories, characters like Ned and Robb are the ones who prevail in the end; or, if the noble father figure is unjustly slain on the battlefield or cowardly killed in some way, then certainly the valiant son will succeed in avenging him and achieving justice. I personally think it's fascinating why GRRM chose to sacrifice both of these characters specifically. You can say Ned would be a more natural choice, as it is also in line with the fictional trope of mentors dying, but why, in his plot construction, did he decide against making Robb the hero? Why did he focus on Jon instead? OFC, the secret R/L plotline, whatever, but then why did he specifically create Robb only to kill him later on?*

Anyway, the point of this digression is that I think the actual criticisms of these characters' ruling styles fly over the head of the audience. Which is why you end up with dudebros convinced that Stannis was going to prevail or people who don't understand what's wrong with Renly. If they're a player of the game, rarely is a character killed off randomly or fridged; their demise can be traced back to their own decisions & actions.**

Additionally, there are some obvious critiques on the topic of war and how the relentless ambition of nobles to acquire even more power only ends up hurting the lower classes, but that ties in very closely with the central theme anyway, in that, at some point, the candidates have to ponder the question of whether to pursue their political advancement or yield for the greater good. There is also critique of the patriarchy that's not perfect, sure, but there are a wide variety of female characters given actual personalities and depicted in their attempts to navigate societal restrictions. I think there is also critique on the rapid, overnight overhaul of socio-political systems without a plan in place, reuniting and confronting many thorny topics of human rights vs political advancement towards democracy in a way that's actually achievable and long-lasting via Dany's Essos storyline. And, of course, who can forget of the critiques of knighthood and how he specifically took the character of Jaime Lannister, changed his original moustache-twirling villain arc and decided it was better to have an actual debate on how honour and identity intertwine.

To conclude, I would also say that he probably never intended for this series to become his magnum opus and the work for which he became world-wide famous; otherwise, he maybe would have done some things very differently. So it's very possible that he never intended to write this great critique of medieval-inspired fantasy in the first place; he probably just thought it would be cool to write something in this setting a la Tolkien. Not everything an author writes has to be this huge social commentary relevant to the pressing problems of today, but I think there are enough elements in ASOIAF that are unique enough and offer enough of a different perspective to at least pose some questions or start a conversation.

*that's a post for another day because this already got too long

**ofc this doesn't apply to the commonfolk or children or other innocents

#ask #anon #grrm #asoiaf #worldbuilding

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soleminisanction · 9 months

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I just went through most of your character rants and analysis and I love them so much!❤️ It’s so nice to find someone with a lot of the same opinions as me, especially after seeing a good bit of Tim hate in TikTok comments lately. I love the animatics and cosplays on there but it sucks that it seems like it’s seen as cool to be nasty to Tim’s character over there, or maybe it's just the comments of the videos I get? It’s usually people thinking he’s a misogynist or that his character steals from and or makes other robins look bad to hype him up. I don’t get these comments because I feel like all of the bats have been written with misogynistic dialogue at some point, even the girls! I don’t understand why people latch this on to Tim as some big character trait. Maybe it’s some joke I’m just not understanding. Also with the bringing other characters down to prop his character up, isn’t that what pretty much every character that is currently in the spotlight does at some point (like Steph’s Batgirl run infamously does to Babs and Tim)? Why do they attribute this only to Tim? Also, all the robins steal traits from each in adaptations and other comic runs, again why do they act like it’s a Tim only thing? Basically, all the other Bats do what they claim they hate Tim for?! It’s genuinely mind-boggling to me!

TikTok's algorithm is the worst thing about that app, because it's got a terrible tendency to send peoples' feeds into negativity spirals, and that in turn fosters a community of people who are either looking for rage-bait, are mad because they can't get away from the rage-bait, or try to bait other people to rage because that gets them engagement. There's no way off the merry-go-round once you get on it either, it's just miserable; it's why I eventually had to drop the app and now only watch the videos ported over to YouTube or Tumblr.

For my money, the reason Tim specifically gets blamed for this thing that is very obviously a problem with comics as an industry, not with his character specifically, comes at least in part from the drama involving Steph.

Because see, defenses of Steph tend to start from a seed of truth -- she was the subject of sexist writing in War Games, both in the fact that they chose to fridge her for Bruce's manpain and that artists during cuts away to the infamous torture sequence (which did not need to be as long as it was) drew her in a highly sexualized manner. But some people took that truth and ran with it, leaping onto this frustrating, stupid second-wave feminist idea that women are inherently innocent and can only ever be victims of The Patriarchy and therefor if anything goes wrong in the life of a woman, it MUST be the fault of A Man. And since it can be hard to pin-point which comic creators are responsible for these things, the brunt started to fall on the in-universe men.

So all the men around Steph became scapegoats, and Tim is the man she's both around the most and whom she has wronged the most. And then that attitude got amplified by her Batgirl run, which does this really manipulative bullshit where it only brings up Steph's past in terms that make her look like a helpless victim with no agency, without acknowledging or even mentioning any of the things she chose to do of her own free will. It especially went out of its way to demonize Tim and paint him as unreasonable, judgey and sexist, because the alternative would mean acknowledging that Steph had done some really fucked-up shit to him in the last days of Robin, and it was in fact perfectly reasonable for him to want her out of his life.

But see, that would mean that a good guy (gasp) didn't like her. And had a good reason not to like her. And trying to write a character who rises to become a true hero because they're fighting to make up for the shitty things they did in the past is so much harder than writing a innocent widdle victim who only has the best intentions and whose only problem is that the world is unfair to her specficially. White women with no self-awareness can project themselves on the latter, but not the former.

Amplify that by the faction of Damian stans who treat fictional rivalries as Deadly Serious Business and the fraction of Jason stans who hate him for existing as the result of Jason's death, both of whom will jump on and amplify any criticism no matter how baseless and uninformed just to score points against their perceived "enemy," and there you go. That's what I've observed unfolding since about 2007 anyway.

#fandom ramblings #dc comics asks

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legoshi-plz · 2 years

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Notice Me Part I

Pairing: Izuku Midoriya x Reader (eventually), Best Friend! Shinsou Hitoshi x Reader

Summary: College AU. Reader feels like she’s constantly overlooked/ ignored and she’s made her peace with that.

Warnings: Reader is coded as plus-size and non-Japanese (as a Black writer, I write with a Black reader in mind but the story can be read by anyone as skin and hair type are not mentioned at all.) Midoriya is Mixed (1/2, his father is Black) which isn’t a major plot point of the story but it’s mentioned like once. Also his hair is described as extremely curly + textured.

A/N: This is completely self indulgent. Please ignore if you don’t like or it offends you, this is literally just a lil treat for myself and the other black bnha girlies. Againf, it can be read by anyone though since technically anyone non-Japanese would be considered a foreigner.

//////////

“You know, maybe you’d get to class on time if you didn’t tear your closet apart every morning,” Shinsou hummed from your doorway.

“How did you get here?” You were currently hoping on one foot trying to put your shoes on while not tripping over the piles of clothes you’d scattered on the floor.

“Your suitemate left the front door open. Now come on, I’m not letting you make me late.... again,” Shinsou turned as if he would leave without you but you knew he wouldn’t. If he was that anxious to get there on time, he would have never made the trek to get you in the first place.

“Right behind ya,” you mumbled grabbing your backpack and heading out the door.

Walking to class every morning with Shinsou was both a blessing and a curse. You were grateful he came by because it held you accountable for actually getting to your 8a.m. lecture however going anywhere with a guy as popular as Shinsou on campus could be... tiring, to say the least.

You had known Shinsou since you were in middle school where the two of you formed a quick and firm bond over the fact that you were both effectively ostracized from the rest of your schoolmates; Shinsou for his abnormal quick and you for being a foreigner. In all the time throughout middle school, people basically ignored you two, leaving you both in your own little world. However things changed drastically at U.A., at least for Shinsou they did.

When he finally joined your side in the Hero course, him being in class B while you remained in class A, Shinsou’s popularity skyrocketed. You saw him less than ever before as he was always training to perfect that muscular physique or with one of his many many admirers. He was one of the biggest players on campus and that title followed him well into his university years.

“Good Morning, Toshiii,” a voice called across campus. Shinsou waved in the poor girl’s general direction but never stopped walking forward.

“You do the homework last night?” Shinsou asked, nudging your side.

“Yeah, didn’t you? We got that assignment weeks ago.”

“You could say I’ve been a little... distracted lately,” Shinsou’s smirk told you everything you needed to know. That distraction was none other than his bustling social life with the opposite sex.

“I’ll send you the assignment. Pdf or Doc?” You sighed. Shinsou might be a little underprepared but he was still your best friend and you weren’t going to punish him for having a successful dating life.

“Doc please,” Shinsou hit you with that ridiculous ear to ear grin of his for when he got his way, which was pretty much all the time.

Class went by normal as ever but you couldn’t take your eyes off of one certain oblivious block of ice that sat exactly two rows down, three seats away from you. You were embarrassed that you had even counted.

During your third year at U.A., you interned at Endeavor’s hero agency with none other than the Half and Half prodigy himself. With his usual counterparts electing to seek out different agencies, it was just you and him working alongside each other for weeks and weeks. It was then you got to know him and realized how genuine he actually was. And funny and even considerate, in his own awkward way. It was there you fell for him and you’d been infatuated ever since.

Only he never saw you in that way. He never seemed to see anyone in that way. You had tried ingratiating your way into his friend group and though they were nice enough, you could never actually feel comfortable with any of them except for Midoriya. Midoriya knew to an extent what it was like to feel ‘different’ and he always made a huge effort to make you feel included in the group. If he noticed you weren’t talking much, he’d engage you in conversation, ask you questions, really listen to your answer and overall try to ease any awkward silences. He was a godsend and you were eternally grateful for his efforts but eventually you got the message that Todoroki would never notice you in that way and just stopped trying so hard.

“Something interesting about the back of Todoroki’s head?” Shinsou sneered beside you. He was the number one advocate for you to stop wasting your time on a lost cause like Shouto Todoroki. As your best friend, he always told you the cold, honest truth, no matter how much it hurt sometimes.

“Can’t a girl dream?” You sigh gazing back at the subject of your affection. As if sensing your eyes in their direction, Midoriya looked back from his seat besides Todoroki and locked eyes with you, giving an awkward wave that made you want to sink into the floor. You waved back slightly before turning to wallow in your own cringe.

After class ended, you stayed behind a bit to send Shinsou a few missing homework assignments and notes. As the two of you were exiting the class, you passed by Ochako, Iida, and Midoriya who seemed to be having quite the heated conversation. You were content to follow Shinsou’s lead and just walk past them when suddenly you heard a chipper voice call out to you.

“Y/N! You have great timing, you’re just who we need!” Ochako practically bounced over to you, her cheeks as pink as ever.

“Are you busy this Saturday? You wanna hang out with us?” She asked, her eyes wide. You were never really that close to Ochako in high school as she was always wrapped in other things (mainly her boyfriend Iida) but you didn’t dislike her by any means, which made you feel bad for wanting to decline her invitation.

“Um, why uh, why me?”

“We need an even number! So can you make it? Pretty please?” She was doing that thing where she had all of her fingertips pressed to one another and you knew you couldn’t say no to those big brown eyes.

“S-sure,” You looked over to your best friend who was observing the whole scene before him with a look of utter boredom. “Shinsou, you should come with us.”

“They need an even number, remember?” Shinsou rolled his eyes, while walking off. The two of you usually get breakfast after class so you hurried off after him.

“Okay, I’ll see you guys Saturday. Just text me the details,” you waved, rushing off.

///////

AN: Introductory chapter honestly, but hopefully the next one won’t be so dry!

#izuku midoria x reader #izuku midoriya x you #izuku Midoriya x black reader #Izuku Midoriya x poc! reader #bnha x black!reader #bnha x poc!reader #bnha x plus size reader

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trekkele · 2 months

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"# i think If you want a genuine critique of Batman then Leslie and her pacifism is far more interesting"

So true. Unfortunately nobody's been writing her well since the 90s or '00s. At least, I didn't come across anything featuring her in a well thought out way.

I'm split on counting War Games because 'she would not fucking do that' as people say. However, it is her position on morality taken to the twisted extreme. Still, intentionally killing or faking it, is very emotionally hurtful, like trauma inducing hurtful. Both for Steph and the Batfam and her mother.

Looked up the exact definition of pacifism and, well:

"Pacifism is a policy or doctrine of rejecting war and violence in solving disputes"

She kinda did use violence (emotional and body violating and zero consent from removing Steph from her life) to solve a dispute. Or to "free" Steph of her bat-duties, but it still counts.

Would love for Leslie to go after other batfam members and not just Bruce and argue with them about their methods.

Actually i think Stephanies death, either by medical negligence or a failure of her support system, is a natural consequence of Leslies brand of pacifism and while “She, personally, might not fucking do that” her philosophy might so its not as ooc as id like it to be.

So to discuss Leslie i think i have to establish two things 1. She suffers from being a (mostly) anti Batman character in a Batman comic* and

2. She and Jason are actually on two ends of a spectrum, with Leslie being “it is better to be the victim of violence then the perpetrator of it” and Jason being “it is better to enact unspeakable violence then be the victim of it”. With Bruce in the middle like “can we please get some nuance in here can we please get some fucking nuance” which is. Very funny actually.

(Its funny because Bruce, by being Batman, has basically decided to become the nuance - he will be violent for you, and by being so good at violence he can minimize the amount of actual violence needed)

So by letting Steph die, Leslie is essentially saying “no amount of violence can save us, isnt it better to die then without having inflicted it upon others?” Which is so very Ghandi of her, but also fucking insane and yeah Bruce was 100% right to never trust her again after that.

She is also - ok so the thing is, in-universe, being a teenage vigilante is. It’s basically like being a dance kid. Its going to have a profound and everlasting effect on the kids mental and physical health, there are side effects we still don’t entirely understand, but for the most part its just. Something some kids do!! Some of them insist on doing it (dick, damian (<-i have thoughts about why Bruce didnt want to give Damian robin ok) some of them realize it isnt good for them but cant really give it up (jason, maybe tim?) some of them are in it just for their stage moms (cissie king-jones) and some of them suffer long term consequences due to insufficient parental supervision (kon, pre-nu52) etc etc. Leslie is the mom in the corner who thinks allowing her kid to perform or even learn ballet in a studio is a slippery slide to abuse. She thinks no kid should ever be in that environment, and by Bruce allowing Dick to do so, despite Bruces reluctance in the matter and almost oppressive supervision, he has doomed an entire generation of kids.

She is never going to criticize anyone else in the batfam, because to do so would be admitting that kids have agency beyond what adults believe is best for them, and admitting that means being unable to push her “correct” views upon them.

Leslie is actually a pretty good stand in for fandom in that way; refuses to allow anyone but Bruce agency and independent thought, refuses to place blame anywhere but Bruce, insists a difference of opinion is grounds for dismissal of personhood and respect, and believes Gotham would be better off if Batman never existed.

(Once again i have no idea if i answered your question/addressed your ask. Sorry)

#asks #leslie as the real world stand in actually works really well #i do have to clarify that i like her!! irl i would probably agree with her #but this is a power fantasy not irl

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callipraxia · 10 months

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oh!!! this is a few hours later, but i also wanted to ask what the lost-but-recently-revived project actually is, because i've never thought to ask in an ask box until now. when my tablet is dead. eugh. it must've been mentioned before, but if you'd like to say more, i'd love to learn about it!!! i feel like i've been talking too much about my own things lately, and i wanna read about others', specifically yours >:] (i remember something about gideon and the axolotl, but that might have been a different project---regardless that sounds whimsy af) if you dont feel like it or anything, you can ignore this :^

The lost project actually hadn’t been discussed much, if at all; it’s a post-canon one-shot where Stan and Ford go back to Glass Shard Beach, reasoning that Stan probably needs to see the place again for the good of his memory and that Ford should probably pay some form of respects to their deceased parents. Stan has a video camera. He ends up documenting just how much everything has changed. He and Ford have Feelings about this, and then they run into someone unexpected. It’s...hardly high drama, so it probably doesn’t make sense that it’s taken this long to start rewriting it, but so it goes with my short pieces.

The Gideon thing is a spinoff/sequel to FWJB I’m considering – specifically, what happened to him after the final battle. It begins ten years later, with Gideon waking up to discover that someone appears to have recently jammed the majority of a tube of drugged lipstick down his throat. Since said lipstick would knock someone unconscious and induce mild amnesia in a much smaller quantity, it’s done a real job on him, which leaves him trying to figure out where he is, how long he’s been there, who drugged him, why that person drugged him, and, in fact, most of who he is – he knows his name is Gideon, he knows he should really not tell anyone that, and very little else. Not even why it’s so important to hide his identity.

Naturally, once he figures even a tiny bit of that information out, he promptly finds himself with even worse problems than he started with.

Other ideas...what the heck, I might as well talk about them a bit, not least to, er, document them in some fashion. Been thinking that writing them down might be a good idea anyway, so here we go:

1) You once suggested I kill Ford and make Stan have feelings about it. I’ve started that one, too; it’s the one I wrote down a lot of and then typed up and then lost...last week? Week before last? Week before last, I think. In this sad little universe, Ford manages to break his neck and die like six months after Weirdmageddon. Stan takes this poorly.

2) In other possible returns to old stomping grounds, I’m intrigued by the idea of going further into how Agent Trigger, of all people, somehow managed to slip under the radar, climb the ranks of the DFSI, and end up recruiting Dipper. Similarly, I’d like to do at least a short return to the IG Epilogue situation, if I can think of a good plot for it beyond Dipper’s initial reaction to “...did that guy really just take his face off like a pair off sunglasses and call me by name??” Plus, of course, if I’m ever in a fluff mood, I gotta write what happened when Soos made good on his promise to loan Ford the deeveedees.

3) Road trip time with Fiddleford and the Stan Twins! What could possibly go wrong?

4) So, Powers. Tell us more about how your agency spotted signals from Gravity Falls thirty years ago. What did you guys do then?

5) Writing more of McGucket’s memoirs, and/or the horror novel about the building of the Portal that I’ve had in mind, and/or a between-the-episodes incident where Fiddleford, struggling to remember who the Author was and why he’s so darn difficult to remember, convinces Tate to talk to him about the past, resulting in them going over a bunch of letters Emma-May had kept and Fiddleford struggling to figure out what was real vs what he was lying about, all while he and Tate are having feels (and sometimes explosive arguments) in the present.

6) Some college years stuff. I have vague ideas for something about the construction of the mind-control tie, and for something else about That One Time Fiddleford Convinced Ford To Come With Him To Tennessee Over The Holidays.

7) More angsty one-shots...stuff like Stan pretending to be Ford at Filbrick’s funeral, and the first day Ford went back to high school by himself, and some stuff with small Tate, and...you get the picture.

8) I will admit this only because of your current tagline – I, too, have entertained the idea that Stan has actually read Moby Dick. Specifically, that in his last months in school, he and Ford ended up in separate classes for part of the day because Ford was taking calculus or something, resulting in Stan having to take the standard-issue American Lit class by himself, and the teacher essentially annoying him into making a good-(ish; it is Stan we’re talking about) faith effort to do his book report properly...only for it to all end on the most depressing note possible, of course. I’ve told myself I cannot actually write this, but… *shrugs*

9) Early in his years in Gravity Falls, Stan visits the library. The librarian is someone he finds attractive. Somehow, one thing leads to another and he finds himself being strong-armed into helping with the town science fair, despite a) him not really being a scientist, only playing one in front of tourists and b) his very specific hatred of science fairs.

10) It is September. Everyone is going back to school. Wendy discovers that Tracey and Quattro exist. This is the one that had me complaining about how I missed the apocalypse not long ago – it’s harder to 99% ignore their infatuation with her in a lower-stakes scenario, and I have no idea how to handle that.

11) It is the academic year. Pacifica struggles to deal with her new social milieu.

12) Some other AU ideas...mostly “what if someone didn’t think of [clever thing] in time” disaster scenarios. There’s also the Better World AU, where...let’s just say it’s not a very nice place at all, at least for some people.

So, there you are! It’s...the majority of the ideas floating around my head at the moment. Some could merge together into one project. Some might not ever see the light of day. But I’ve got plenty of material to work with, just have to get my head back in order for writing, and I’m pleased to say that my head is getting closer to order by the day.

#gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanfic #gravity falls au #too many gravity falls aus

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wesavegotham · 2 years

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On one hand I'm kinda glad that Waid talks about giving both Bruce AND Damian agency in this, on the other hand I'm genuinly not sure how he plans to achieve this. I mean, Damian will be possessed by Nezha for at least three issues because without the possession they wouldn't even fight (they already settled that over the last few Batman vs Robin stories we didn't ask for). How can you have agency AND be under the complete control of a devil? And if Damian is not under Nezha's complete control that would mean he would be partially responsible for all the damage Nezha will do.

On top of that Waid also wants to focus on Alfred and all the magic characters of the DC universe. In my ears that sounds like Waid actually wanted to write an event about the magic side of DC and was told by editorial that he had to put Batman in the title somehow to make it sell, so now we are stuck with yet another Bruce vs Damian story. After Shadow War already settled things between them. Like...I can't say I really loved how Williamson dealt with it, but it was done. We could have finally moved on. But no. If Batman is in this we need emotional stakes for him. So we pull Damian into this too. As Nezha's main puppet. That's the opposite of agency.

Also, can we stop with the "Damian was brought up to believe that Batman was his birthright" crap? No, he wasn't. Depending on the story Ra's either wanted him as a replacement body or to take over the league of assassins as HIS heir. Not Batman's. Damian was sent to Gotham to train under Bruce, not to be Bruce's successor. Why would the league of assassin's limit themselves to Gotham? That doesn't make sense. Yes, for a long time Damian wanted to be Batman, but that's not what Ra's or Talia want for him. There is a difference.

It's also probably the most boring aspect of Bruce and Damian's estrangement to adress. Guess what! Nobody is going to replace Bruce as Batman permanently! Ever! They couldn't even let Dick be Batman for more than a year. I'm tired of this discussion. It's absolutely pointless. Focus on something else!

Lastly, yay, a worldwide disaster that will affect dozens of characters. In a story that Damian will be the catalyst for. Because people aren't blaming Damian for all kinds of stuff already. Seriously, we just got DC to stop blaming Damian for Alfred's death, I don't want this.

I really want Waid to prove me wrong, but so far it really doesn't sound like something Damian fans need or want.

#damian wayne #bruce wayne

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septembersghost · 2 years

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it’s crazy because i always liked haylor but as time passes by and more songs come out i’m starting to realize that they were or potentially could have been soulmates because the way they write about each other is insane, i know theyre both in a relationship though and are happy (at least taylor is) but idk theyre always on my mind.. that “what if” really kills you😭

you don’t have to answer this but what songs do you think are haylor?! in terms of harry and taylor (including unrelated hs1 songs)

i just wrote you a long response to this and tumblr ate it 😭😫 but i'll try to say it again lol

they both have said they're the happiest they've ever been now, so i am willing to trust and take their word on that, and i truly want and hope that for them!

a friend of mine and i were just talking about this, and how fate isn't a strictly determined thing, that because we have agency, we have the ability to make decisions that alter outcome. no one is "meant" to be something or have specific things happen, there are different paths along the way, and things we can control, and things we can't at all. it's more like fate is lightly playing strings in the background, and you follow a melody. so because of that, there's not only "one" soulmate, but potential for love that people find. it's like that quote from the good place, "if soulmates do exist, they're not found, they're made."

taylor found and made hers with joe, and has sustained it for six years, it's the beauty of why invisible string and mastermind can both exist in tandem. they were drawn together by breathless happenstance, and then she made a plan. it's clear from what she's written that that was right for her life. he quiets the noise for her, gives her a place to be safely held, compliments her mind, loves her for who she is as a real person. we know this from what she's written (and now what they've written together). she deserves that.

that doesn't mean that you never wonder about other situations - it's human nature to ask what-if. it doesn't undermine the devotion of what you have at all. it's why she said one of the things that has kept her up at night in the past is wondering what might have been, that was a theme for the album. obviously, if she's sharing that with us, then she shares far more with her partner, what we have is a tiny little cracked window, where they have an entire life and world (and that's how it should be). doubtless they've talked all these things through, and she knows what's okay to share, what's comfortable for both of them. i've seen people act like, "omg he must be upset that she's still thinking about ____," and it's missing the point. he respects and loves her enough to know she does that through her art as a form of processing and healing, he knows it all! he understands. she wouldn't be able to be this raw and vulnerable had she not worked really hard, singularly and with him and with those close to her in her life, to get here, and that's admirable.

so, phew!, to get me thus to question...? she's looking back on that situation and realizing she never got the answers she fully needed, and she still had some things to express and get off her chest, and it turns out, there was some upset and annoyance there (my friend wrote about this too). she just had to ask the questions, and send them out - like a message in a bottle - into the universe.

this is already long so i'm putting the song list under a cut for you <3

songs!!! anything i say is conjecture and fitting little puzzle pieces together in the way i hear them and the picture they paint, full disclosure i could always be wrong.

taylor: from red, we have message in a bottle and come back, be here. there's also the question of the very first night, and i know most people have decided it's about jg and from an earlier point in time, but hear me out - i have trouble believing she'd refer to that relationship as "children running," when the crux of the whole thing was that she was trying so hard to seem grown up and capable, and was feeling adrift and confused and belittled and hurt because of their age difference and the way that caused him to treat her. "i'd pick you up" seems ill-fitting for him too, there's an innocence to it. there's also, well, the mention of the night at the hotel and the polaroid picture, and i'm not saying that means anything, but if i hear a little bit of harry in it instead, well...i know i'm wrong on this one, okay, let me pretend. this song is so sweet that scarf stealer doesn't deserve it shhhh

as i mentioned on 1989: style, out of the woods, all you had to do was stay, i wish you would, how you get the girl, this love, i know places, wonderland. she gave us context and stories for some (i love that quote about style, "we should've just called it, 'i'm not even sorry'," the grammy museum performance of ootw talking about her anxiety, the story about how he drove past her house at night wanting to go in, the green eyes, the sinking ships, the cheshire cat smile...).

i'm going to link you to another post of zoe's too

i have a couple of stray thoughts about other songs but i feel like i should keep them to myself aksfdkljghkl

from midnights, question...?, of course. i know i mentioned this somewhere else, but there's also the fact that question...? borrows a little cadence from keep driving.

harry...there are so many 1D songs that i'll probably forget, but from my memory - perfect, if i could fly, olivia, stockholm syndrome, where do broken hearts go, happily, there's debate about something great because harry wrote it with jacknife lee and gary lightbody not long after taylor wrote the last time with them, and taylor and harry wrote songs (that have never seen the light of day, it's mentioned here) together at that point.

unreleased, there's half the world away, don't let me go, hunger, already home, without you, lay down...that whole spate of demo songs that leaked back in april.

he gave just a little bit of your heart, i love you, and someday to other artists (ariana, alex & sierra, michael buble)

from HS1: meet me in the hallway, two ghosts, only angel, woman, from the dining table

unreleased from HS1: him (which, question...? directly speaks to this situation), baby honey, complicated freak

(a reviewer of fine line said golden was about taylor because of, "i know you were way too bright for me," and i don't think that was his intent, but it permanently stuck in my mind, thank u rolling stone or whoever u were)

when taylor starts with, "good girl, sad boy," it's no joke. when you listen to all those songs, it was a lot of sad boy season.

like i said, this is only glimpses of the story and guessing in putting them together, but it does give us a lot.

#haylor #anonymous #letterbox

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tuiyla · 1 year

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i just stumbled upon your entire account and words cannot express how in awe i am of the way you write about glee. if you’re still doing headcanons, would you happen to have some about the unholy trinity outside the romance/sexual stuff?

Welcome Anon! I suppose there's a lot of Glee writings to look back on haha. Haven't written that much about the UHT so far but I do have a cheerleader stereotypes essay planned, ETA before 2026 probably? Curious to know what part of my writing inspires awe haha - I often feel it's just digging when it ain't that deep but happy to do the writers' work for them.

Always doing headcanons! I do find the non-sexual specification funny but in the best way. I have a ton of Unholy Trinity headcanons, here are some:

I like to think of Brittany as the negotiator. Not just because of "stop the violence" but more so her disappointment when she catches Quinntana slapping each other in Thanksgiving. In a story where she'd be allowed more agency I think she'd be upset by Quinntana really fighting. And I know, I know, the show gave us nothing in terms of a Quittany friendship but I headcanon that Britt, contrary to popular expectations, wasn't so quick to immediately take Santana's side. I think Britt knows exactly when Santana's in the wrong and is more willing to see Quinn's POV. Plus she's the most emotionally intelligent out of the three.

Similarly, I see headcanons about either Quinntana or Brittana being friends first but I'd like to think it was Britt and Quinn. Maybe they met slightly earlier and the Fabrays approved of Brittany being Quinn's friend even if she was odd. And then Santana joins them but feels like an outsider at first, being intimidated by Quinn but feeling drawn to both. The out-of-universe explanation for the UHT coming into existence is really just "trio of mean girls" but I think it's fascinating to think about how each got popular and how much of their friendship was genuine vs affected by the social hierarchy. Initially, anyway.

I touched on this a week or so ago but season 1 is just, ugh, in terms of how it handles Quinn's pregnancy and Brittana's lack of role in it. But they still stick together even after Quinn's fall from grace so I like headcanoning that the UHT stays somewhat intact in season 1B. Santana is (temporary) head Cheerio and Brittana are still within that top dog bubble that Quinn isn't anymore but they're all in Glee and sort of, just stay together. Out of not knowing what else there is, at first, but then because they realize they genuinely like eahc other's company. Even Quinntana.

All three kind of lose themselves around the time of 100/New Directions but after Brittana get back together they make more of an effort to keep in touch with Quinn. When Mercedes tours with Brittana as backup/dancers Quinn travels to meet them at one of the locations. Bonus Quinncedes points.

These aren't really specific headcanons, let me know if that's more of what you were looking for but yeah I just fill in a lof of the gaps in my head. Because Glee loved to capitalize on the idea of the UHT without putting in the work but I love this trio and I'll be damned if I let people tell me it "wasn't real" or whatever. It's real to me, okay? And the most gaps need filling in with Quinn and Brittany because that was the least developed duo dynamic, but I do think the trio dynamic is different (and more) than the sum of all three duo pairings.

#basically if you give me permission to go off about the uht i will #glee asks #anon #uht asks #glee headcanons #thanks for dropping by anon i'm very glad you enjoy my glee posts #asks that spark joy #see i love overthinking glee but so often i think to myself... is anyone vibing with this lmao #glee friendships #uht #unholy trinity

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variousqueerthings · 5 months

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Can I be a teeny tiny bit terrified

ghosts! mysterious creatures! misty forests! psychics! good ingredients, it's "Hide"

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 10/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 7/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 6/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 6/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 8/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 9/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 6/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 9/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 6/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 6/10

FULL RATING: 73/100 (if I can count….)

this one's a bit hard to rate, because I don't strictly think all of these needed to be very high, but there were definitely things -- more related to pacing than anything -- that could be improved upon

OBJECTIFICATION: there are three ladies in this episode, Clara of course, Emma Grayling, and the witch-ghost (who is actually a time traveller/spacefarer called Hila) all of whom are chill. Honestly feels like we're beating the curse of the Kissogram at this point!

PLOT-POINT: sooo Emma is kind of mainly there to be psychic/empathic -- she does feel feelings about it, and to be fair, the other guy isn't a super fleshed out character either

Clara has some feelings about being very scared but still quite brave, so she doesn't feel emotionally vacant from the episode + she gets this cryptic warning about the Doctor from Emma (he has a sliver of ice in his heart), which at least gives her a bit of POV

but there's still that annoying overhanging "Clara is a mystery" which is the whole reason it turns out they're there, even though it only comes up at the end + we do get a bit of how Clara might feel about the concept of ghosts, as she questions the Doctor about how they see people -- both living and dead at the same time, all the time: "to you I havent been born yet. And to you I’ve been dead 100 billion years. Is my body out there in the ground? To you I’m a ghost… we’re all ghosts to you. We must be nothing."

it gives the idea of her being introduced as "a mystery" a tad more depth, because in some ways all mortality is a mystery to the Doctor

Hila's interiority is on the whole less explored, which I think is a bit of a shame, because this episode has a bit of pacing drag here and there, which could have been used instead to give her a bit more depth

COMPLEXITY: this is another thing related to the pacing, although it doesn't annoy me much, I will bring it up! for pedanticism! there's a mystery about a ghost that's actually something bleeding through from a pocket universe, so they go there, bring her back, the Doctor is stuck there and it's oooh the creature there is spoooky, and then that kind of takes awhile, and then right at the end we squeeze in the actual plottwist, which is that there are two creatures trying to find their way back to each other

there's a lot of travelling forwards and backwards in time with the Tardis to first discover that Hila is the ghost, which in itself isn't bad + gives the quite neat interaction about people seeming like ghosts to the Doctor generally, but then once they're in the forest it's made out to be creepy in a way that doesn't quite pay off, and spends a looot of time on, comparatively

and there's never enough time given to looking at the creature, until the very last shot (which! I do love!)

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: soooo Clara is "just" an ordinary girl, confirmed. and Clara is getting some insight into how the Doctor might see mortality, and having some kind of feelings about that

COMPANIONS MATTER: yeah, she's very proactive! so proactive in fact that she calls the Tardis a cow, twice! it made me gasp, I tell you, but actually an antagonistic relationship with the Tardis is quite a fun change (also possibly slightly related to her being a Time Anomaly - the Tardis isn't a fan of those, canonically)

anyway she strongarms the Tardis into helping her help the Doctor, which is quite fun. also this little interaction, when the Doctor asks her to accompany him ghost hunting in the spooky house:

The Doctor, after she's willfully not engaging with him: Im giving you a face. Can you see me? Look at my face Clara, giving in: Fiiine. .. dare me! The Doctor, grinning: I dare you. No take-backsies

it's very siblings energy, I enjoy that she's not just running into everything without caring of the danger. sometimes you're scared!

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: the Doctor gets this one wrong so many times, it's a running gag. one more win for the "just some guy" Doctor fans!

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: there's a fair few Easter Eggs to both Classic!who and Nu!who in it, which is fun if you know what to look for

“SEXINESS”: SIMILARLY ARE WE FREE OF THE CURSE!???

INTERNAL WORLD: a tad rockier, big spooky house, interesting backstories to the characters, check, then pocket universe of spooky forest, cooolcoolcool, but there's something a little sparse about it for me. Nitpicky, but this is the rating to nitpick with!

POLITICS: mmmmm I guess don't judge a book by its cover, and sometimes the spooky alien is actually just not someone you're used to seeing. otherwise kind of a simplistic episode on the whole, although I like the link between the young woman who describes herself as an "assistant" and her many times great granddaughter who's a space pioneer

(although, I've gotta be honest, there was a moment where I wish we could have cut out the guy and made this a lesbian cross-time romance instead, it would have been great and focused the episode a little!)

FULL RATING: 73/100 (if I can count….)

the biggest best thing of this episode is the cool alien design, and also the space-faring woman who is thought to be a ghost, and these are unfortunately the bits we get the least of. but that's not to say this episode is terrible

it's a very fun little episode, with more bits between Clara and the Doctor exploring their dynamic, as well as Clara and the Tardis! (not enough companions have a lot of feelings about the Tardis in my opinion, if I were travelling in the Tardis I'd be cooing over her 24/7)

anyway, another strong contender in the second half of the season!

#im watching nu!who #im watching eleven who #episode hide #the measurement

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procrastinatorproject · 2 years

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I made the big mistake of reading Terry Matalas’s interview he gave for some Trek podcast, and now I’m utterly heartbroken again.

Matalas talks about his history with Trek and teases some season 3 things. Among other things, he talks about how Picard is essentially an anthology show, with the only central focus being Jean-Luc Picard.

Season 1 was Michael Chabon’s vision of Trek, season 2 was Akiva Goldsman’s, and season 3 will be Matalas’s. And he talks about how the TNG cast didn’t get a send-off in Nemesis, so they needed to have a Proper Ending. But since the money for actors is limited, when he told the executive producers he wanted to bring back all the legacy characters that clearly meant letting go of all the new ones.

And it just... blows my mind that so very, very few people realize how deeply disrespectful that is? I mean... by all means, have an anthology show centred around Picard, but then that should have been what they set out to do from the start. Instead of telling us we were going to get many adventures with this new cast and how it was an ensemble show.

Not to mention that if you want to take over this show with the deep, layered, interesting new characters and write all of them out so you can make the TNG reunion you always dreamed of, THE LEAST YOU CAN DO IS MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR THESE CHARACTERS TO COME BACK IN A SPIN-OFF!!!!

If you don’t know what to do with them and you don’t really understand them and you don’t care to give them their own arcs (since Rios doesn’t get any real development this season and Agnes is only there to facilitate the Borg Queen’s arc), fine. Other charcters have had seasons where they were ignored, side-lined, or written poorly. BUT DON’T ESSENTIALLY KILL THEM OFF SO NOBODY WILL EVER BE ABLE TO GIVE THEM NEW STORIES!!!

That just... blows my mind. And now I am very, very sad again. 😔

I’ve had some ideas about starting a re-write of season 2 to make it “You can have your Picard-centric pyschological drama with Q and the Borg Queen, but how about we are respectful to mentally ill people, actually take the characters we have and not some funhouse mirror version of them, and give the people who are ostensibly the heroes of this piece some development and arcs of their own and some base-level competent characterization.” And I was actually starting to get excited about it - but now I just feel very empty again.

I understand that a lot of TNG fans probably felt like this if they disliked season 1 of Picard and thought it wasn’t living up to the character they loved. But then again, season 1 was always extremely clear that it wasn’t going to be TNG season 8, that it would be extremely different from other Trek, that it would shine a critical light on the Federation and Picard as a character. They never made any pretens about that. And that’s what they delivered.

But they gave us zero indication in the run-up to season 2 that this concept had changed and we were suddenly doing a completely unconnected, context-less anthology where not only the story but also the characterization differ wildly between seasons. We had every reason to expect that they would continue the story of these characters they introduced us to in season 1. And then they didn’t.

And it probably wouldn’t hurt so much if they hadn’t written Agnes and Rios into corners where the only way to bring them (and I do mean them, the actual characters that Chabon created, not the strange season 2 funhouse-mirror version, the actual characters with agency and backstory and an inner life who make, you know, decisions that inform their growth!) back into the greater Trek universe is through some very convoluted storytelling.

I mean... if they ever let me write a Star Trek novel (or bully someone into writing it), it’s gonna be “how Agnes finally leaves the collective to actually grow as a person in her own right and then goes to the past to get Rios back to where he belongs: To his friends, to his family, to his ship and his holos. To his home.

But yeah. Man this is so fucking bleak!

#negativity #i'm so sorry #it just hurts so fucking much #star trek picard season 2 #cristobal rios #agnes jurati #to say nothing of soji and elnor #but at least they have a CHANCE to have more adventures in the world they belong in #and have novels and spin-offs and cameos #i hate this so fucking much

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whentherewerebicycles · 2 years

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hello! prepare for a long chatty life update. I went out with friends last night and it was so nice wahh. then I slept nine hours and that was glorious too. turns out this week’s sleep trouble was just my usual pre-period insomnia and not my new magic sleeping meds failing me. phew!!! I took Pip to our new vet this morning for his annual checkup and he was such a sweet boy even through the indignity of many shots. 😭😭 I love my little dog so much. also when Pip sits his front paws point outwards in a way that makes him look like he’s posing, and today the vet techs were like ‘awww how sweet! you know that’s actually a genetic deformity, right?’ I was like ummm excuse me. this is the best dog who has ever lived and he is perfectly formed in every way so think carefully about how you describe his flawless & unique paws please!! anyway he is in excellent health and three different people independently praised him for being so lean & well-conditioned. I can’t wait for fall (and/or to get him to seattle) so we can resume his preferred 70 min walks instead of the 30 min forced marches we are limited to in the summer.

then I came home and started working my way through one of the books I bought on evidence-informed learning design in training contexts. it’s interesting so far! not a lot of new content yet but it’s kind of nice to go back to basics and resolidify my understanding of core concepts/frameworks. I feel like it’s making me a bit sleeeepy though so I might just do an hour each day instead of trying to power through. I have four weeks left before new job starts… I think I just want to read two or three of these fairly dense books so I go into the first month feeling like I have an understanding of how the L&D profession overlaps with/differs from the classroom pedagogy stuff I’m more familiar with. I also want to read more about the history and structure of my government agency so I have at least a rough mental framework to fit first-month new information into. THAT SAID as psyched as I am to get started on a New Project (tackling a new job lol) I need to remind myself to also enjoy this time and try to use it to really fully decompress from the year and job search stress. it’s okay to just let myself enjoy this month of very few responsibilities.

next week I need to reach out to my current boss to let her know that I accepted the position… and I need to do that sooner rather than later because they’re starting to process my security clearance and that involves interviewing my references. I hope she isn’t upset with me for kinda changing gears after we talked last, but I’m also reminding myself that it’s normal to change jobs and that I went above and beyond trying to make things work with them… they didn’t move fast enough to make it feasible for me and it’s okay for me to make decisions that prioritize my own long-term future (because academia sure as hell won’t do that for me!). I can’t decide if I hope the grant funds come through & they let me do it as a part-time position with support staff, or if I hope it doesn’t come through and my energy is just freed up to focus on the new job + creative projects. we will see what the universe decides.

we released the first two episodes of our hockey fandom podcast yesterday and have gotten a nice response so far! I am deep in planning/research mode for future episodes and might spend the rest of the afternoon working on that. I feel like my brain is a little bit too fried still to write short things or fully dive into my new long project (I need a bit more rest/recovery I think) so I’m gonna let myself continue taking a little break from writing and instead focus on building out this other project so it’s up and running by the time the job starts. ooh and I am also going to beta a friend’s fic this weekend—tonight or tomorrow tbd.

okay let’s see. going to drive to target now to pick up a curbside order and then I think I want to lie in bed doing nothing or maybe thinking a bit about podcast planning. I have this idea that if we can create like… a planning structure of some kind? a brainstorming and research template kinda thing? it’ll help organize and streamline our prerecording thinking so we can have deeper conversations in the actual recording session. I like the idea of designing a repeatable learning exercise that will make the planning process more seamless, so if we get really busy with real life stuff we won’t have to expend as much intellectual bandwidth on the prep & planning work each week. idk just something I am kicking around we’ll see. mmkay! if I go to target I will have cherries to eat 😍 so it is time to make the quick drive over.

#daily processing

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aartifex-a · 2 years

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i guess i’m in a thinky mood today so because of some recent info on my dash, as a white canadian person who writes an asian (specifically korean) oc i think its important to address other white writers who have characters that are a different race, culture, ethnicity, etc from them:

you will almost inevitably fuck up if you arent coming into your writing with at least an awareness of the dynamics of race re: your characters or world, and even then you probably will still fumble at times. people calling you in/out, bringing this to your attention, isnt harrassment. ive been writing jin as an oc since i was 13. i have absolutely fucked up and done problematic racist shit because im a white person raised in a society that upholds whiteness, you dont leave that kind of pervasive environment untouched by the various -isms, systems, and inequalities of those societies. this isnt me trying to be righteous or “a good white person”, its just honest. you wont ever grow or become a better writer if you dont research the cultures you write and if you dont listen to the people you are portraying and affecting with what you write. be willing to make changes, drastic ones, or take breaks to educate yourself and revamp.

i can only speak for myself, but i dont think many people would say white writers can never write characters who are of a different race, it just means you need to be more cautious because of the dynamics of how race plays out in the real world. i feel somewhat comfortable with writing jin and trying to incorporate korean culture into his character only because i’ve done both my own research and opted to take korean language and culture classes at my university. i went to the korean culture club which was run by the professor of the korean culture course, and i try to keep up with major news stories out of south korea on places like twitter. this doesnt make me an expert, and i will sometimes avoid certain topics that i dont feel adequately educated on. its something im always trying to work on, and an aspect of my writing that i welcome critiques for.

another note for writers in a similar position as me, is that while cultural research is important it can only take you so far. remember the cultures you write about contain real, individual people with a diversity of opinions and perspectives. dont make broad stroke assumptions that just because something is considered normal or common in the dominant culture of that society/culture that everyone agrees. ill speak from my own writing experience, but when it comes to writing queer poc, just because a culture/society has homophobic elements or doesnt have legal protections for lgbtq people doesnt mean that there arent lgbtq people and allies in those cultures who are actively fighting for their rights. its important to note the affects of culture on a person, but a person can never be seen only through the dominant lens of their culture. let your characters be people with agency that are shaped by their culture, not stereotypes of a culture first and people second.

its also important, imo, for us as white writers to take some of the burden off of poc in the community when it comes to speaking up about this kind of thing. thats the whole reason im writing this at all. it isnt our job to speak over or for them, but it shouldnt only be up to poc to constantly do damage control, education, and clean up for white people. thats not fair, and it puts the weight of trying to fix harmful ideas on the people who suffer the harm rather than the people who perpetuate and/or benefit from that harm.

and as an end note, i understand that we dont get to choose the environments we’re born into. we don’t all get to be lucky and have progressive families or communities, some of us grow up with some really fucked up ideas normalized to us. its not your fault if you were raised in a way thats ignorant of or hostile to people different from you, but it is your responsibility to pull yourself out of the muck once you realize youre in it. you wont please everyone or be perfect but thats not a reason to avoid growth. your past can explain how you got to where you are but it isnt an excuse to keep going down the same path into the future.

#ooc #cw dash discourse

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plethoraworldatlas · 20 hours

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My writing has forever been affected by just the sheer disappointment I had about how the MCU handled something so universally transformative as the Snap (down to giving it the Canon name Blip. Haha, billions died). I was already like this, but that made it so much more prevalent in my writing.

What do you MEAN it included all "overpopulated animals and plants" too? Entire governments and even nations stopped existing?? Mass global migrations??

Spiderman really treated it like a joke, but honestly it handled it the best of all out of the least MCU things I saw.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier was the worst about it. (And the worst in general but not gonna talk about it). The Global Repatriation Council is apparently a superpowerful international organization that can call upon militaries and intelligence agencies worldwide, yet its led exclusively by sitting US Senators, who are casually debating in favor of sudden mass deportations via the US Army numbering in the hundreds of millions at least to who knows where, if their countries even still exist.

Falcon's inspiring Captain America speech is basically telling a fascist that "you need to do better", as opposed to even mentioning the infinite logistical and humanitarian concerns (falcon's speech isn't even good as a thinly veiled allegory because its argument all hinges on the Snap).

The Snap canonically happened in 2018; The Wolrd population at the time was 7.66 billion. Half would be 3.83 billion instantly gone, countless governments probably collapsed in under a month, meaning even more people end up migrating or Refugees or nopat. The most generous I'll be is estimating that ONLY a billion people end up migrating; In all actuality, I'd bet it would be closer to about half of all non-Snapped people, so almost 2 Billion.

Even under the best circumstances, under the most forgiving immigration systems, 5 years is enough time to build or rebuild an entirely new life in a new country, or like many are implied to have done in Fatws, forgo being a citizen of any one nation altogether and enjoy the new borderless world, but not enough time to officially legally become a citizen in your new country. This isn't even mentioning all the already existing Refugees and Migrants who most likely would also be on the billion person deportation lists, or all the people who just don't "look legal" and are unfortunate enough to not have all their legal documents ready for constant investigation. This is all being supposedly done for the benefit of those who came back from the Snap, but Far From Home literally starts off showing us that no government cares about the returned and they have to survive off of philanthropy.

Fatws shows us that those Migrants and nopat alike are being forced into slums and camps pending deportation, and they are cut off from any source of income AND are being denied necessities which are being held up by the GRC warehouses in an attempt to push them to agree to deportation. This is happening worldwide, while we see it happening apparently in EU countries, who have free travel between each other, lightly implying that the GRC position is HARD NATIONALIST BORDERS WORLDWIDE, and the end of the right to travel and immigrate, even within organizations like the EU, if they would even still exist under such laws. This is never elaborated on in Fatws.

Hydra the fascist secret organization still has major influential power in at least the US, probably throughout the rest of the west. They are still regularly using assassination, intimidation, and various forms of corruption to influence things to their favor. High odds on at least one major GRC official, maybe even one of the Senator's inexplicably in charge of the thing, could be a Hydra plant. Fatws never elaborates on this.

The Snap would have permanent world changing repercussions, yet it's treated the same as the events of Thor the Dark World (which would also be world changing, despite being easily memeified by fans. Hell, Dark World and two other big movies take place within a single week, each one having world shattering complications and implied thousands of causalities at least) are treated by the MCU. And the Snap is a universal event, possibly even a multi-versal one.

#mcu

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adventuresinclientservice · 2 years

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Can you show up for clients and colleagues when you can’t meet in-person?

More than 50 years have elapsed since I left my birthplace Philadelphia to attend college in Washington DC. In the time since, I’ve roamed from Washington to North Carolina, back to Washington, to Boston, then San Francisco, followed by New York, and finally Napa, where I now happily call home. No one would argue otherwise if my sporting allegiances shifted as I did, but I have remained steadfastly a Philly fan throughout my peripatetic journeys.

What keeps me this way?

My dad took me to games; it didn’t matter if I was at Franklin Field prior to an Eagles kick-off, Connie Mack Stadium for the Phillies, or the old Convention Center to see the Warriors (before they migrated to San Francisco, replaced by the 76ers), from the earliest days, I knew the unmatched thrill of just being present.

Then came Covid; everything changed.

Places of worship, sporting venues, concert halls, restaurants, every gathering spot imaginable were now closed to the public. Try as you might, there was no way you could be present for any of these, or, for that matter, the agency accounts you served.

Need compelled me to turned to the Zoom videoconference platform to remain, as best I could, in contact with clients and colleagues, preferring it over FaceTime, Google Hangout, and Microsoft Meet-up, realizing it at least was better than a phone call, an email, or a text.

I wanted a better solution, revisiting this as a consequence of being invited to participate in a videoconference of a book club event hosted by Kathy Kissane and Pat Baldridge of Thomas Jefferson University’s book club. Members had read the book and discussed parts of it in series of discussions. Prior to the year’s final meeting, Kathy reached out: would I be willing to meet via videoconference to answer questions from readers?

I would. Happily.

A few readers submitted questions in advance, many of them revolving around their inability to meet in-person with clients, with one asking,

“If you were to write another edition - how would you update it for a virtual world? So much of what you talk about is getting in a room with people to collaborate or meet and getting to know people. We don't do this anymore; I need to know so I can sleep at night!”

In perpetual war with videoconferencing’s many limitations, so much so I wrote about it here and here. But as I was watching the game Sunday – Philly beat Dallas, BTW, to continue an undefeated football season – I thought not about the limitations of television, but instead about its advantages.

Watching sporting events on TV means there’s no time wasted traveling to and from the stadium, then negotiating the crush of other fans to get to you seat. There’s no sitting in a downpour or snow storm, freezing your butt off. Go ahead and pause the action anytime you want, for any reason. No need to spend a dime on parking, drinking, snacking. The commentators actually are helpful. There are multiple camera angles give lots of different viewing perspectives. There’s instant replay. Who doesn’t like that?

So, is television bad?

Trick question; it’s not bad at all. By extension, would the benefits of television translate to dealing remotely with clients and colleagues?

There’s no travel, making visit time much more efficient, both in terms of time and money.

Rather than see your client or colleague at the office, in a more formal setting, you catch them at home, curled up on the couch, wearing sweats with their dog or kids nearby, possibly presenting all sorts of relationship-building opportunities:

“Is that your dog? By or girl? Name? Hi Name!?!

“Are those your children? Names? How old are they? Hi Names! Nice to meet you!

“Any plans for the summer, school break, holidays?

“Your kitchen is awesome! Are you a chef?”

Given the benefits of videoconferencing, the question becomes, do in-person meetings still matter?

If you read Chapter 52 of The Art of Client Service, “Five Client Service Principles to Believe In,” you’ll find “Show up” the first of the five, so strongly do I believe in the prominence and power of meeting face-to-face with clients and colleagues. Videoconferencing isn’t a replacement, but it is unlikely they recede, whatever the circumstance, be it Covid, a different decimating illness, or any other unforeseen emergency.

The technology isn’t going to change.

It’s my attitude about it that does.

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anilkhare · 2 years

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A Career as An Epidemic Detective

If you are thinking of a career in the field of public health and want to understand the many aspects that affect the health of Americans, there is a very good career path for you. You can be a career as an epidemiologist in many different settings. Some of the possible settings include the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the United States Department of Agriculture. The United States Environmental Protection Agency also has a high demand for epidemiologists. A career as an epidemiologist could also lead to a position as an environmental health specialist, which would provide you with a different kind of education.

It’s easy to obtain a doctorate degree in this field. The salary for graduates with this degree is usually above $53k per year, so if you are aiming for a higher level of income it might not be a bad idea to have a master’s degree or higher. Other factors to consider when choosing a career path include your level of personal satisfaction, your interest in public health, your aptitude for mathematics, chemistry, pharmacology, biology, and other health-related subjects, your work environment, and the state you reside in.

You may choose to go into private practice after obtaining your degree. A career as a health provider can be extremely lucrative and exciting. This career option can open doors to a wide variety of positions, depending on the area of specialization you focus on. You may find employment as a medical officer in a hospital, a doctor at a general practice, in the pharmaceutical industry, or even as a researcher for a research institute.

There are also other career paths you might be interested in if you are looking to change your career field. One such path is Public Health Service. If you are looking for a job that works with people and addresses health problems, then this career path might be good for you. You might work in community organizations, government agencies, and other related agencies.

Another possible career choice is Environmental Health Specialist. You might work in a variety of settings such as public health departments, universities, colleges, and other medical facilities. Your position might be in charge of implementing environmental health strategies or devising prevention methods to reduce public health risks. For example, in the state of Utah, public health departments counsel parents on how to reduce the risks of vaccines for children. This position requires extensive scientific training in epidemiology and other relevant subjects.

Another interesting career path you might want to consider is that of Food Safety Specialist. A career as a food safety specialist monitors and regulates the safety of food in the workplace, school, and public place. As a food safety specialist, your job may involve food processing, sanitation, and safety. You might also be involved with food distribution. If you enjoy working with the public, you might have a chance to work in an area such as school lunchroom workers.

You might also want to pursue a career as a Clinical Investigator. A career as a clinical investigator involves examining a sample, testing it for disease, and then writing an article about your findings. The articles you write are often published in peer-reviewed journals. A career as a clinical investigator might require advanced degree courses in biology, virology, and microbiology. You will likely need to obtain at least a master’s degree before you can become a clinical investigator.

When you’re considering your career path options, consider the skills you have. What do you like to do? Is your career path enjoyable? If so, go for it! If not, maybe consider one of the career paths mentioned above. You should be able to find a job that you love.

#career #epidemic #protection #biology #pharmacology #chemistry #Dr. Anil Khare

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