#Because every job I've had

[mimiyanna]

The worst part about holding a job for several years is seeing everyone you worked with come and go, over and over again, making friends with coworkers, or just learning to enjoy working with them, only for them to move on and leave forever.

[cybertron-smash-or-pass]

Rescue Bots Graham Burns

Propaganda below the cut

Need him.

[anghraine]

jenndoesnotcare replied to this post:

Every time LDS kids come to my neighborhood I am so so nice to them. I hope they remember the blue haired lady who was kind, when people try to convince them the outside world is bad and scary. (Also they are always so young! I want to feed them cookies and give them Diana Wynne Jones books or something)

Thank you! Honestly, this sort of kindness can go a really long way, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.

LDS children and missionaries (and the majority of the latter are barely of age) are often the people who interact the most with non-Mormons on a daily basis, and thus are kind of the "face" of the Church to non-Mormons a lot of the time. As a result, they're frequently the ones who actually experience the brunt of antagonism towards the Church, which only reinforces the distrust they've already been taught to feel towards the rest of the world.

It's not that the Church doesn't deserve this antagonism, but a lot of people seem to take this enormous pride in showing up Mormon teenagers who have spent most of their lives under intense social pressure, instruction, expectation, and close observation from both their peers and from older authorities in the Church (it largely operates on seniority, so young unmarried people in particular tend to have very little power within its hierarchies). Being "owned" for clout by non-Mormons doesn't prove anything to most of them except that their leaders and parents are right and they can't trust people outside the Church.

The fact that the Church usually does provide a tightly-knit community, a distinct and familiar culture, and a well-developed infrastructure for supporting its members' needs as long as they do [xyz] means that there can be very concrete benefits to staying in the Church, staying closeted, whatever. So if, additionally, a Mormon kid has every reason to think that nobody outside the Church is going to extend compassion or kindness towards them, that the rest of the world really is as hostile and dangerous as they've been told, the stakes for leaving are all the higher, despite the costs of staying.

So people from "outside" who disrupt this narrative of a hostile, threatening world that cannot conceivably understand their experiences or perspectives can be really important. It's important for them to know that there are communities and reliable support systems outside the Church, that leaving the Church does not have to mean being a pariah in every context, that there are concrete resources outside the Church, that compassion and decency in ordinary day-to-day life is not the province of any particular religion or sect and can be found anywhere. This kind of information can be really important evidence for people to have when they are deciding how much they're willing to risk losing.

So yeah, all of this is to say that you're doing a good thing that may well provide a lifeline for very vulnerable people, even if you don't personally see results at the time.

[gideonisms]

guy who needs floor time

[polypodweek]

And now!

A week after the event has (officially) ended, most works have likely been submitted - which means it's time for some light stats =D

The 17 wonderful podficcers who participated have made 66 works in exactly 66 fandoms! A special shout out goes to @kbirbpods this year, who made 21 pods all by faerself. And then one more in collaboration!

45 of those 66 fandoms were unique*, making this the most varied Poly Podweek yet! But this year wasn't just a celebration of podfic and polyamorous relationships, but apparently also crossovers - that 1:1 ratio was only possible because of 14 crossover works!

As always, unique fandoms in this context means that different versions of the same franchise were considered separate, however, different adaptations and parent tags were not. Eg. ‘Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types’ and 'Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)’ would be considered as one fandom, whereas 'Star Wars Prequel Trilogy’ and 'Star Wars: The Bad Batch’ would be two.

Continuing the trend of spreading love amongst more fandoms than ever - sometimes at the same time! - this is the first year a single fandom wasn't far more represented than any other. In fact, multiple DC properties were vying for the top spot, so it only seemed fair to give it to DCU as a whole, with 17 pods!

Together all the works amounted to 19 hours and 27 minutes worth of podfic - the perfect amount for the next little while!

And there you have it, everybody, another Poly Podweek in numbers. Once again, thank you everybody who participated for making this event what it is!

You can find both 2025 collections right here: SFW | NSFW

[coraniaid]

Anyway, I've been rewatching the Kennedy episodes of Buffy for fanfiction-writing reasons recently (I still need to work on getting her voice down properly). And as I'm doing that anyway I thought I might make a list of all the times Kennedy unfairly undermined Buffy's authority or attacked her for no reason other than being an entitled stuck-up bully. You know, all the reasons the fandom gives for hating her.

Let's see: she spent all year lying about Buffy having attacked her at the Bronze, which played a major role in Buffy getting ostracized at hew new school. She publicly called Buffy "weird" and "a loony" and "a mental", suggested she should join a "freak show", pushed pass Buffy or pretended she wasn't there at all when she couldn't immediately do anything for her, scoffed at the idea Buffy could ever have been popular, celebrated the fact she didn't manage to get on to the cheerleading team, wondered out loud in front of her friends why the school even let somebody like Buffy join, she--

... oh, wait. That's the list for perennial fan favorite Cordelia Chase, isn't it? My mistake.

Here's Kennedy's list, three episodes in:

Bring on the Night

Notes that the Bringers "tore apart" her Watcher, implies that gathering all the surviving Potentials on a Hellmouth where they can be guarded by one solitary Slayer with no trained back-up is a pretty terrible plan. She's obviously, objectively right about this! It is a bad plan! It is a very bad plan! It only makes any narrative sense because this is Buffy's show and if the Potentials are going to join Buffy they have to do so in Sunnydale where Buffy lives, and it will turn out that (conveniently) this all works out, but there really is no good in-universe justification for Giles bringing the girls here with the information currently available to him. (If that's not enough, note that Buffy's reaction to Kennedy's complaint is literally "she's right".)

Repeatedly advocates for the Potentials to be give weapons to defend themselves. Seems entirely justified, especially since we know Kennedy herself has been trained to fight since she was eight years old, since as she notes the Potentials are "sitting ducks" without them. What is Buffy's reaction to this unfounded attack? Well, again, she almost immediately agrees with Kennedy ("we should load them up, Giles").

Showtime

When talking to "Eve" (actually the First), Kennedy is notably the only Potential to consistently argue against the idea that what they're doing in Sunnydale is pointless and to tell the others that there's value in them training and getting ready to fight. After "Eve" is exposed and one of the Turok-Han is on its way to the house, Kennedy argues (in agreement with Buffy) against trying to run, stands up for Wilow attempting to cast a barrier spell, and tries to help rally the other Potentials for a fight. What a bitch.

Incidentally, this episode establishes Kennedy's been training to be a Slayer since she was eight, and she's clearly in her late teens at least [the collective fandom consensus seems to be that she's 19, but I don't know where that comes from]. That means Kennedy's been training for probably over a decade. She literally has been doing this longer than Buffy. Later in the episode, when Buffy talks about staying behind to slow the Turok-Han down and Dawn objects that she can't fight it by herself, Kennedy -- who has seen it, and knows what it can do, and doesn't have any superpowers to rely on -- immediately volunteers to help. Now, as it happens, Buffy doesn't want this (because, as we learn through some remarkably clunky writing, she's engineered this whole situation as a way of fighting the Turok-Han alone in front of everyone else), but ... well, Kennedy doesn't know this and it's not like she causes any problems when Buffy turns her down.

Potential

Buffy takes the Potentials to a demon bar for their first group patrol. This is, um, an interesting choice on Buffy's part, I've got to say. As Rona says, they're "a bunch of fifteen year olds in a demon bar, how much blending in are [they] going to do?". [One assumes Kennedy herself is somewhat older than fifteen.] I'm not actually sure why Buffy thinks this is a good idea, because she's only just finished warning them how dangerous a place this is before she runs into Clem and starts chatting to him and she completely ditches the girls she brought with her. Not for the first time I am forced to question Buffy's pedagogical approach. Anyway, Kennedy does undermine Buffy's authority for the first time a little bit here (saying, of Clem, "do you think she dated him too?") but I am tempted to forgive her for this cruel and unprovoked assault because (1) as I said, this does seem to have been a poorly thought through training exercise on Buffy's part; and (2) Kennedy's line is pretty funny.

Later this episode, after the first lot of Potentials have started to bond, they meet the new Potential Amanda and Kennedy helps draw her into the group by getting her to talk about what it was like to stake a vampire by herself for the first time. I take it all back, I can totally see why she's the least likeable character ever now.

[fidgetspringer]

I knew my old place of work treated us like dogshit. I knew England treated minimum wage workers like they're less than human.

But nothing has driven that fact home more than telling my new coworkers about what Tesco was like and having them look at me in absolute horror.

[crosswire]

it's frustrating that i actively want to be putting on some more weight while my chronic illnesses actively seem(???) to be preventing me from doing so (has made me lose lbs in the double digits before but rn just seems to be stagnating it). and then i have people say to me shit like you're so skinny i wish i had your body and i'm like thanks! feel free to also take the diseases that prevent me from absorbing nutrients and instead have me shit them all out like five times a day!!

[mymarifae]

new job is a graveyard shift and it's so weird... i woke up at 3 pm today and it wasn't even depression-induced oversleeping it was on purpose

[platypusisnotonfire]

well.

I'm 30.

[jerma85]

pretty sure people at work are actively bullying and pushing me and netta out and even if we try to mention shit to management they don't care. i love living in a southern state that doesn't give a shit about me in any way. i love being told i deserve to be mocked, made fun of, and feel unsafe and unwelcomed in my place of work just because i'm queer. happy fucking birthday to me, everyone at work fucking hates me because i'm not cishet.

[bumblingbabooshka]

I genuinely love how terrible Tuvok is as a leader. The two times he's in charge the people under his command try to mutiny against him. Chakotay has to threaten to beat people up for the Maquis to go back to his lessons and the only reason Harry Kim didn't start a mutiny is because Kes got him to change his mind about going back to get the captain. He was literally like one second away from being forced to walk the metaphorical plank.

They just wanna talk Tuvok :) Neelix literally said it best in 'Learning Curve'

The theme of him being too rigid to lead a wide variety of people is so interesting. I assume that as a security head it's easier because you're supposed to be able to unemotionally carry out tasks...there's a certain personality I'm sure that gravitates towards that line of work and perhaps that personality is the kind that Tuvok works well with but I find his claim that he's 'never had an issue' with teaching others before in Learning Curve to be him being oblivious to those issues. In 'Repression' the Maquis crew are all talking about how they can't trust Tuvok because he's a traitor and there's no real push back against this.

No one brings up anything Tuvok's done to make up for this betrayal or soothe these clearly festering bad feelings because he hasn't. He's done literally nothing. This is season 7. He's spent SEVEN YEARS just letting that whole 'I betrayed half this crew' thing mellow because I doubt he even thought to do anything about it. I love this man - he's gonna get stabbed!!!

Chakotay & Neelix forced to do PR for Tuvok as he just obliviously marches forth, unaware that anyone might dislike him or why he should care if they do.

[gendervapor14]

i left a comment i've been meaning to leave for weeks!!

huh? did i reply to any of my comments?

.....

no.

but i left a comment. progress has been made.

[butterflies-and-bumble-bees]

.

[hotsugarbyglassanimals]

honest to god I really enjoy academics (in university, not fucking k-12), but i despise the structure of the system. since it's the goddamn united states of america the protestant view of "soul crushing work is gooder because suffering means youre dedicated to GOD" bleeds into every aspect of society. I'm especially annoyed with how seriously some professors take the 1 credit = 4 hours of work per week, meaning the work from all courses add up to 48 hours per week which is fucking absurd to me. so that means some professors litter you with pointless busywork that adds nothing of value, especially if it's just reiterating material that's already been touched upon other course materials

[hsslilly-blog]

i love claire's wardrobe because her clothes are super nice but she IS dressing like it's still 2009 in 2014. this is because those are the only clothes in her wardrobe lmao