#I know it’s most likely a logistical / bureaucratic thing

[justfriendsbestthings]

The red light release has to be the slowest slow-burn in the history of song releases asdfghjk Omaru which author was the inspiration for this months long teasing

[tossawary]

The 3-day trial system in "Ace Attorney" is absolutely nuts. I know the game is intentionally making fun of corrupt & dysfunctional legal systems and is also upping the pacing to create a sense of urgency & excitement, but I truly underestimated just how hysterically funny it would be to play this trial system. They have created some WILD logistical worldbuilding.

Like, someone gets murdered on Day 1. Phoenix Wright finds out about this on Day 2 and goes to talk to them. This person has less than 24 hours to find their own legal representation before a public defender is assigned to them, and Phoenix has to do his own investigating before the trial tomorrow morning. Day 3 is the first day of the trial, in which Phoenix is doing everything he can to prove innocence and somehow also solve the actual murder in the middle of court, and hopefully at least get the Judge to agree that they need another day of investigation and interrogation. There's an in-universe rule that a trial can only go for 3 days, so by Day 5, the third day of the trial, this nonsense needs to be wrapped up. The first game doesn't explicitly say that this is a death penalty system, but it's heavily implied at points, so depending on the case, Phoenix has THREE DAYS to potentially SAVE SOMEONE'S LIFE.

And this is all hilariously, horribly BONKERS for Phoenix, but it's just as awful when you start getting into all the little bureaucratic details of trying to make this legal system actually work. A public defender might get a case at 5 PM for a murder trial at 10 AM the next morning?! (I know public defenders are often horribly overworked IRL. This is part of what the game is mocking.) Autopsies are being performed within, like, 12 hours of the murder?! They're getting results back from the forensics labs within 24 hours?! How much of the city budget is SPENT on law enforcement?! The overtime hours must be horrifying. No wonder things are constantly falling through the cracks; people are fucked if their defense attorneys are on vacation that day or if the witnesses aren't answering their phones that day.

And, also, like, did the courthouse not have OTHER trials scheduled for that day? Are they reserving a courtroom in this courthouse for emergency murder cases? Even if there's a 3-day limit to speed things up, it's a big city, shit happens, how are they seeing people this quickly? Are there just separate courthouses for all crimes below various degrees of murder? (Obviously, family law and small claims and minor crimes and such must be handled somewhere else, but still.) Or are people in Japanifornia getting last minute calls from the overworked scheduling people at the courthouse like, "Hi, witness for an assault trial, your testimony has been rescheduled because someone was murdered last night. This could take 1-3 days. We'll let you know." Then that poor witness is like, "Shit, I took a day off of work for this??? I have to call my boss again now. Fuck you!!!"

It's tempting to write an AA fic about a series of murders in this world, in which people are obviously being framed for these crimes but it's not clear who the real murderer is, because this is all happening to keep postponing a different trial, because murder cases apparently go to trial immediately in the AA universe as #1 priority. Someone needs this extra time to steal the evidence from the police station and frame someone else for their crime, because if this postponed trial goes to court, then a different, older, unsolved murder is sure to come to light.

This features a public defender OC who is... the most exhausted person... of all time... trying to hold the line of human rights. The burnout rate must be horrifying.

[thenightfolknetwork]

Ok so, I'm not...supposed to exist?

I am—er, well, was an imaginary friend. My "brother" was a lonely little boy who was quite neglected looking back, and he wanted someone to spend his time with, a "sister".

So he dreamed, and I came to be. Now, even as a child he wasn't the most imaginative sort, preferring to imagine things he could see and wonder about what was rather than make something new completely from scratch. So, in his mind, his sister looked just like him, just with longer hair. I think that's one of the reasons i'm...like this.

Most children describe their imaginary friends as fantastical, with great glittering wings or neon spots and the like. Most children stop talking or believing in their imaginary friends around a certain age. Most children cannot see someone else's friend. No one, outside of the child, can see an imaginary friend.

Until now? I think? These are all observations I've made.

I remember only existing when my brother was around. We would play and "go on adventures" and just have fun. When it was dinner time, I would sit beside him and eat... but couldn't eat. I would say things to make him laugh, but no one else would acknowledge I was there. I didn't think much of it at the time since..well, I couldn't think. I wasn't real.

As he grew, he must have imagined me growing as well. As he learned, I did, too, and must have adjusted accordingly. Unlike his peers, he was convinced that I was a person and was angry when people told him otherwise.

We got older and he got more insistent when suddenly, people started to play along. Pretending to see me and talk to me when it was clear that they couldn't. I think this was when I started to...feel things? Think?

We fought, my brother and I. He was graduating secondary and heading to Uni. I asked him why he still imagined me when it was clear he didn't need me anymore. He said he did need me. I didn't believe him, we argued, and he left.

I was still there.

Before, time almost seemed to...skip? Think cutscenes from those video games everyone seems to like playing. The day ends, I blink and it's morning, no sleep needed. Brother was distracted? Time skips until he addressed me again.

I've never not been without him before. I panicked. I collapsed against the wall and I felt it. The cool wall, the tears streaming down my face, my brother's hug when he came to apologize. I don't know how to handle it.

When we sat down for dinner, his mum and dad addressed me and asked if I was alright, as if they had always known I existed. They could see me and my distress. I tried to explain, but everyone looked at me confused. They told me that of course i existed, I always did.

But I know the truth. There are no pictures of me in this house. There are no school records of me or medical ones. I have no bedroom or clothes of my own. I did not exist.

I don't know exactly when I became "real" but I am now. I just...I don't know what to do? I wasn't real and now I am and everyone calls me crazy for thinking otherwise. How does one exist? My brother is leaving for Uni soon and everyone expects the same of me, as if I've been accepted into one. I haven't, I've checked.

Why do I exist? Why does no one acknowledge that I never did?

Please.

I'm scared.

I'm so glad you've written in, reader. Quite apart from the existential questions your situation raises, there is also rather a lot of paperwork involved.

It is possible to live in the UK without being part of the civil bureaucratic system – indeed, there are certain isolated genuses whose right to do so has been fiercely protected over the generations. But it's a tremendously difficult way to live if you have any intention of engaging with the economic, education or healthcare systems.

The Bunbury Institute of Manifested Personages should be your first port of call to tackle the logistical and legal difficulties presented by your case. They'll be able to get you sorted with all the documentation you need to prove your existence, including a Certificate of Corporeal Incarnation, which will stand in where others might use their birth certificate.

Once you legally exist, you'll be able to open a bank account, apply for a passport, and essentially make whatever choices you want to make about how to spend the rest of your existence. Which brings me to the real heart of your letter – the emotional impact of your change in circumstance.

Sudden onset incarnation is a profoundly disruptive experience no matter how, when or to whom it occurs. Even if your family were able to understand the situation and support you through it, it would still be an extremely difficult situation to navigate. As it is, the nature of your previous existence and the way your incarnation has taken effect means they're just not able to.

You ask why nobody acknowledges your previous non-existence. Generally speaking, most people find it extremely difficult to the point of near impossibility to really understand divergent realities. It's not that your family are trying to undermine you – they are literally, psychologically and biologically, incapable of understanding how you have come to be.

I strongly recommend you find someone to talk to about this issue as soon as you can. Without your legal paperwork in place, it will be difficult to access mental health support either privately or through the NHS. However, the Bunbury Institute and other such charitable organisations may be able to put you in touch with support groups for others like yourself.

What's important is that you know, you're not alone in this. Whatever your family may believe, your experiences are real and valid. And, now, so are you. It's going to be a big adjustment, figuring out how you want to live in the world now you're here. Try not to get too overwhelmed. Take things one day at a time, try to keep an eye on the positives, and give yourself the grace and time you need to process the negatives. In time, I feel sure you'll be able to build a life that feels right for you.

[For more creaturely advice, check out Monstrous Agonies on your podcast platform of choice, or visit monstrousproductions.org for more info]

[bluemooncove]

The group descended down the stairs into a bustling hall. An entryway by the looks of it. Sentinel vaguely remembered stumbling through here after their celebration night. There were a number of boards set up with papers posted upon them as well as a few desks.

"It would have been better to have done this before you were brought in but this here is the guild's main entrance and hall. On those boards we post announcements, minor open quests, wanted posters, calls for assistance, and gathering parties. The desks are for registration, paperwork, and the accepting of quests. More advanced quests, that is those we only want experienced guild members taking or that ask for a specific party composition are also available at their desks. Miss Secretary over there manages it all."

She points across the room to an older woman from the looks of things a second beastfolk. Her wavy blonde hair reminded Sassafras of the wheatfields of her home.

"Lets see now. Sleuth and company have put in a personal request lead an expeditionary force to Sun. Hmmm, I doubt it but I'll pass it up the chain to Beauty. Marine trade disputes? Should be simple enough. Scouting the ruins of Vo'Morath ... what was Gold General thinking accepting something like that now? Oh! It seems Phantom finished her report on the Johanna Operation, I'll see that sent to ..."

"Secretary?" She leans against the counter. "Might I trouble you to tell our newest recruits a little about what you do?"

"Oh yes! Sentinel, Dusk Witch, Seeker, am I right? You all had a really talented showing in the trials a few days ago. The Meister Secretary, Meister Interpreter and Meister Seneschal primarily accept contracts from outsiders. We call them quests. While the three as a group accept the quests, it is my duty to see them assigned and fulfilled. On top of that I oversee all of the guild's paperwork with the assistance of Librarian. Finally, I help to facilitate the cooperation of our Meisters. For example, when the Logistic council needs to requisition new equipment I make certain that it fits within the budget set by the Finance Council. I'm something of a Meister go-between."

"Wow that all sounds really interesting! You must be incredible at your work!"

That was ... a lie on Sentinel's part. It all sounded boringly bureaucratic to her but it seemed rude not to feign interest after Dragoon had introduced them. Especially when she had been so nice to them during their entrance. As the group stepped away, Dragoon turned to face them all once they were out of Secretary's ear shot.

"What she failed to mention is that she used to be known as Wind Knight. Miss Secretary is among the most senior of guild members and her placement at the entryway to the guild is just as much a matter of security as administration. I heard she may even know Beauty's real name."

[xtrablak674]

If I Had One Regret

It would probably be wishing I had worked more. Let's not get it twisted, I am not one of those people who just loves working for workings sake. I thoroughly enjoy my in-between times, my free-time, my me-time. But there has been one through-line in my later adult life. It has become harder for me to find employment.

Let's be clear, my capabilities, aptitude and general readiness have never diminished. I am highly skilled, technologically proficient, an effective communicator and very organized, things that throughout my career employers have loved and benefited from greatly. I have also become more myself as I have matured, not that I was ever anyone's cog, but the further I have come, the more I have deepened who I am, and no one can truly ever be the boss of me, because I know what I am here to do.

And what is the problem with me? Not a damned thing, in my opinion. But the intersectionalities of my identities have only blossomed, refined and matured. I have passed from gay, to same-gender-loving to queer. I have been a boy, a man and now a person. I have been a sissy, a tranny and now non-binary. I have been a tar-baby, a spook and now beautiful. I have been sexually abused, abuser and now celibate. I have had extensive family, and lost and lost some more and now have an intimate chosen-family.

Through all of these trials and transitions I have done the best to never let my light be dimmed, I have adjusted certain aspects of my behavior for my safety, but I have never shied away from always living my truth. Part of this truth is I can wear whatever I want to and execute all the parameters of my job description. I can move through spaces without ever apologizing for my Blackness. I will be friendly, but not make myself more palatable for whyte folks. I can carry and lead a meeting, never having to explain who I go to bed with or as.

It would be false of me to not acknowledge that I have had amazing opportunities through out my life and also had financial support that is unheard of in many families, that has given me more choice and options about the kind of work that I choose to do and the kind of compensation I will accept. Due to my bearings, cultural background and excellent diction I have always assumed to be college-educated something I have never dissuaded anyone from believing nor have I ever exhibited a less than well-polished veneer.

I want to work not just because I can, but because I feel I have something to offer. I miss my mind being challenged daily and having responsibilities that varied on a everyday basis. I miss the teamwork of process mapping and smoothing out the terrain to assist my organization in working smarter and smoother not harder. I miss the satisfaction of having accomplished something that no one else thought could be done and delivering brilliantly. And it would be a whole-ass lie to not admit I miss the money. The comforts of my low six-figure salaries supported me in the way I had grown accustomed to, and it would be pure folly to say I wouldn't want to return to that level of stability.

Most importantly I want to work because this society says folks who were raised like me, have a complexion like mine, whose hair falls and grows the way mine does, whose gender fluctuates based on the day the temperature and what I chose to wear, whose creativity, gender-expression and Black pride can't be inhibited by a arbitrary dress-codes, whose defiance to bureaucratical logistical nonsense will not be assuaged.

I am I and I will do my work not by some European ethic or influence, not by some heterosexist values or persistence, not by some binary of gender and my role here-within, nor by assuaging your white guilt and privilege and molding myself to make you more comfortable with my Blackness. None of these things effect the work that I can output nor should they be necessary to me contributing brilliantly to society like anyone else can.

[Photos by Brown Estate]

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

the conclusion to the fëanorian tauriel saga! this one’s mostly about the state of affairs after she gets adopted into everyone’s favourite family of murderers, plus a couple of extra bits and bobs. there’s some more stuff i’d like to put down somewhere - a deleted scene, a minific - but this is mostly the end of my headcanons for this particular au. so far, anyway. part 1 part 2 part 3

mandos may have, in the past, given off the impression that fëanor would remain within the halls until dagor dagorath

that statement was always a bit of a conflation of terms. like everybody else in the halls, fëanor would get a clean pass for reinbodiment as and when he attended elf afterlife therapy and got a handle on his shit. it’s just nobody thought he would ever do that

but he has done that, and more besides. he’s honestly been clear to go for a while now, he just refused to leave until his sons were ready

and since then... mandos will admit to certain political pressures exerted towards keeping fëanor under lock and key

but over time, those pressures slowly yield to the fact that mandos absolutely cannot deal with this lunatic for the rest of arda

death has not put a damper on fëanor’s unstoppability. he was preoccupied for a long while with the damage done to his sons but with them all out he had a conspicious lack of things to Do

and a bored fëanor is a dangerous fëanor

so yeah. fëanor is less released from the halls of mandos as he is unceremoniously kicked out. mandos refuses to talk about it. the maiar of the halls throw a massive party

this all happens on extremely short notice. as in, manwë announces his release like half a day before it happens

this of course throws his extended family (and a decent proportion of the rest of the continent) into this massive frenzied whirlwind of panic. everybody thought they’d get more warning than this, and nobody knows what’s going to happen next

at the epicentre of this maelstrom is the elf himself. fëanor doesn’t know either, he’s still trying to catch up on everyone he left behind and everything that’s gone down since he died. so much has changed, and he’s still stumbling groggily in the darkness

at some point between his long-practiced apology to finarfin and the maglor encounter everyone’s been dreading, though, he makes an unexpected discovery

he has a daughter now. apparently

her name’s tauriel, she smells like woodsmoke. he first meets her when she wanders into the living room, blinks blearily for a couple of seconds, goes ‘hi dad!’ and immediately falls asleep on his lap

and it’s not like he’s not incredibly stoked to have another child, it’s just how???

the first time he asks this question, the motley collection of relatives and old friends he’s talking to all come to the same conclusion

they can either (a) walk him through the history of tauriel’s growing friendship with and eventual adoption into the least reputable branch of the house of finwë or (b) dump the latest copy of the grand unified tauriel conspiracy theory on him with absolutely no context

considering they’re the hellfamily and friends, they go for the chaos option

it takes fëanor, like, two days to read it. the thing was ridiculously elaborate even before people started competing to come up with the craziest possible theories

the people around him keep the ruse going as long as they can stretch it. eventually celebrimbor takes pity on him, and legolas fills in the details

(legolas currently occupies a position in the fëanorian internal hierarchy not dissimilar to fingon’s. he has no idea how to interpret that)

fëanor also just. talks to tauriel. about how she came, and why she stayed

the next day, fëanor loudly announces to the entirety of tirion that he has a new daughter, her name is tauriel and she’s amazing

she’s been a de facto part of the house for years but this is the first official confirmation of it. the news, and the gossip, spreads all over aman

not that this marks a massive turning point for tauriel. even without a big announcement, she made which side she was on pretty clear back when shit went down

and honestly her life hasn’t changed that much since then. she still spends most of her time exploring noldorin country or chilling in the forest with her silvan friends

this isn’t too uncommon a situation for a member of the house of fëanor. they usually do their own thing, whatever that may be. even nerdanel abandons her house every so often to spend a year or two in the mountains

even in tirion, it’s not that different. she still crashes in the same place, hangs with the same people

she just also occasionally does stuff for :mobster voice: the family

she’s part of the second generation’s extremely overprotective mutual defence web. she has a few responsibilities vis-a-vis the definitely-not-minions. she’s not quite as magnetic as her older brothers, but she’s charismatic enough people tend to both legitimately like and let their guard down around her

she goes to court events sometimes, if she’s in town and in the mood. she’s not virulently allergic to it like celegorm but she doesn’t thrive there the way elrond does. she prefers lower-city forge parties. way more booze, way less bling

(the greenwood elves have stopped needing to bring her along to every political meeting for quote-unquote moral support. everyone knows who she rides with now, and the court bureaucrats tend to give her people whatever they want without the need for extortion)

she’s not the rowdiest of fëanor and nerdanel’s brood, but that’s really not saying much. she’s kicked off the last vestiges of social respectably and indulges fully in her family’s ability to do whatever they want, whenever they want, because who’s seriously going to tell a kinslayer they can’t do something?

a decent proportion of the population of tirion, it turns out. eh, the arguments are always fun

that’s the state of tauriel’s life when fëanor comes back. afterwards - like i said, it doesn’t change terribly much, fëanor rocking valinor to its core notwithstanding

he is massively, intensely supportive of everything she does. she knows that it’s partially that this family is just Like That, but she also gets the vibe he’s overinvesting a little? she’s the only one of his children who doesn’t have a reason to hate him

but they get along fine. he’s had a lot of practice at being a dad, and is trying to improve on his personal faults. his relationship with her is blissfully uncomplicated compared to the mess most of his pre-death bonds are, and while she’ll protect her brothers from him if need be she’ll protect him too when the world is out to get him

there’s this moment at one of those fancy court galas. tauriel’s chatting with some sindarin visitors when something explodes a few rooms away

almost immediately, she locks gazes with curufin, who’s peoplewatching some distance away. they have a conversation conducted entirely in eyeflicks that could be summarised as ‘did he just...’ ‘alas he probably did’

they stride out of the hall together to rescue their idiot dad from the consequences of his terrible decisions

that’s another subtlety to the way the fëanorians work, tauriel is discovering. the siblings hellspawn may be a constant fight cloud of bickering nutbags (with the obvious exception of herself) but they all always out-sane their dad

she keeps learning things like this as the years roll on and her families get closer. she finds silvans having tea with nerdanel, tirion craftselves looking for her in the woods. across both of her worlds, she’s building a posse

(just like her brothers did, long long ago under the light of the trees. when next the host rides to war, there will be those who follow tauriel’s banner)

even legolas has mostly gotten over it. their initial friendship, after all, was founded on them both being chaos children. tauriel is one in a way they called silvan in greenwood and noldorin in aman, fully conscious that the powers that be disapprove of her shenanigans and deliberately and vindictively defying them

legolas’ style is more sindarin, vaguely aware that the rules exist but doesn’t really understand how they apply to him. he did sneak a dwarf up the straight road, after all. him and tauriel got up to so much nonsense when they were kids, and no matter who else she runs with, he’ll always be her best friend

he’ll never be fully comfortable with the literal childhood horror stories she’s taken up with, but for her sake he’s willing to try. they might be scary, but, he’s realising, they can be fun too

(even if he does spend most of their family gatherings hiding behind elrond)

and then, one day...

tauriel doesn’t exactly pine for kíli, but she does kind of regret how it all turned out. she wonders what being in a relationship with him would have been like, sometimes

but he’s a dwarf, and she’s an elf, and she can’t leave the undying lands, and dwarves aren’t supposed to come here. they are sundered until the breaking of the world

when she tells this to fëanor, this massive smug grin spreads across his face. ‘unless’

three hours later, they’ve turned fëanor’s front room into a base of operations. maedhros is on project management, caranthir is on logistics, amras is going down a list of maiar they can strongarm. celebrimbor stops by, looks at the plans on the walls, and, somewhat excitedly, goes ‘are we breaking into the dwarven afterlife???’

yes. yes they are

epilogue:

when the end comes and all elves return to cuivénen, certain people tauriel knew back in middle-earth discover what she’s been doing for the past few ages

they get the full skinny later, after they talk to her and stuff, but the first whisper they hear is ‘tauriel’s been taken in by the fëanorians’

reactions vary. tauriel’s mama, who doesn’t recognise the name, goes ‘the spirits of fire? that’s sounds so much like her, i’m so happy she’s made friends’

tauriel’s mummy, who does recognise the name, is laughing too hard to speak

and thranduil cradles his head in his hands. ‘of course’ he mutters ‘of course she fucking did’

[dwimmerlaiks]

gender thoughts

Amongst all that’s been happening, I’ve been having thoughts about Gender(tm). I don’t know how my brain is fitting that in between all else, but then again, maybe that’s just a last, desperate attempt to distract myself, or reroute the crisis. It’s not working of course, and it’s not a topic that usually has a lot of emotional impact on me (gender, I mean). But it’s been in the periphery of my mind, when I’ve thought back on it, maybe since childhood, in a very vague way, never really pressing. But until the last years, when I started learning more about the topic, found language to discuss it, was able to see other’s experiences with it and expressing themselves, I’ve started side-eyeing this topic a bit more.

One of the problems that I’ve had before, was that I questioned myself for internalized misogyny whenever I experienced that flicker of aversion to being referred to as a woman. And I do know that that was something that was happening, especially from my teens to my early twenties (the 00s were.. well. you know. not to blame it on the times, like, to whatever extent that was a problem, that was of course very much a Me Problem. But I’m just saying the culture of the time didn’t help. Neither did the very rocky relationship to my mother at the time). But I feel hopeful to say that that’s not a problem anymore, or anyway, I’m sensitized towards it and always try to be reflective in regard to my weak spots). And then also, it’s much better being queer these days. I never struggled much with my identity in terms of identfying with it and being open about it, but again, the climate is a bit better these days, I feel like (at least where I live). I think that also factors into it. Also I don’t think that me identifying as a feminist has to be in conflict with me, not very strongly identifying as a woman.

Another thing is that I for example, don’t mind presenting as quite feminine I guess? I like the fashion, I like the expression, the presentation. I’ve never struggled with that much, although I do enjoy presenting much more these days as some sort of genderless blob. It feels comfortable, feels like the status quo. But I do enjoy performing feminity (whatever that means, lol).

And after all the body issues I’ve had most of my life, I do enjoy being in a place now where I feel pretty at peace with my body. I wouldn’t mind being able to switch a couple of parts every now and again (and switch back - basically I’d just love to be like a little lego guy??? does that make sense? i love a blank slate, i love being able to switch it up), and continue to have major moustache envy, but as I said, I’m fine with my body as it is, it’s mine, and I personally see it as pretty neutral.

But yeah, with the other stuff, I don’t know how that mixes with not wanting to be seen as a woman?

But then, seeing people on the street, internet, in the community who are very .. you know. Just seem better and more sure in their relation to gender, or being nonbinary specifically. Like my ex, who is like, beautifully androgynous and nb and where I’d often be like, OH. Gender envy. (Am I allowed to say that? this is all a sensitive topic, I’m sure I dont always find the right words).

So yeah, I’d feel like, ok I obviously don’t struggle hard enough with my gender or identity, these little feelings that I have, I must be faking surely, or, I don’t need to take them seriously. And it doesn’t really bother me to like, put female in document dropdowns (although clicking ‘other’, or whatever options you have these days, does look attractive sometimes). And it doesn’t bother me too much if like, strangers or near strangers perceive me as a woman. The way I feel about it, they don’t know anything else about me aside from that, either. And it’s definitely easier, logistically, bureaucratically, etc., for me to just go with the assigned binary, and yeah. So that’s also something where I’ve thought sometimes, ok does that make me a fake? I’m just faking. I’m not feeling Enough, etc. If I don’t feel like an intense urge to make big changes, if I’m not feeling super averse against it (and I’m not, it’s just unpleasant to be perceived in a certain way  by certain people sometimes)  I must not be real about it?? idk.

Although I do struggle some with the idea of like.. only being found attractive if I perform feminity to a certain degree. I would like to be also be found attractive as a neutral blob, lol. But I do feel pressured to perform feminity to a notable extend, and this has been a point where I’ve felt uncomfortable about it in previous partnerships, but mostly with cis men. But also like, this is nothing I feel the need to look at too directly just yet.

Also I’ve never had much of an urge to like, Come Out as [gender]. So that’s something where I’ve often struggled thinking, ok I’m inauthentic with these feelings. But when like, people close to me refer to me as a woman, it just feels uncomfortable. I’ve tried to express this before but I’m not very good at it, and I don’t think it registers. I was referred to twice as a [...-] woman these past days and especially one time it just made me feel - not seen, or something. But with all my own confusion, I don’t think I’ve ever really expressed this properly before, even to those closest to me. But I do feel very comfortable with those friends of mine who tend to treat me as sort of, neutral. Like, that’s just a vibe you know? But a good vibe. I like being perceived as no gender/tabula rasa gender. Sometimes I like being perceived as [none gender with left girl], sometimes something stronger feminine.

But now I think, these little thoughts and feelings matter too. Maybe these thoughts are just like a soft ball of thoughts I can keep in my hand at play with a bit, and look at a bit. No goal in sight, just like, continue exploring myself and my identities. I haven’t felt the urge to find like, the perfect identity sexuality or gender wise for some time now, but it’s nice to like, reflect and see where I’m at these days, I guess.

[superlinguo]

Linguistics Jobs: Interview with a Communications and Engagement Assistant

Your social media prowess is actually a job skill, you might just not know yet that those jobs are out there. Maggie is a Communications and Engagement Assistant at a disability peak body. Their work includes traditional and social media communications channels, and a need to think about who your audience is. You can follow them on Twitter (@vonbees) or Tumblr (@ritavonbees).

What did you study at university?

BA in Communications (Writing & Cultural Studies). I actually studied at a weird "technology" university and had to go through a totally different uni to do my linguistics electives. By the time I dealt with the forms and unit conversion and everything, I only had time for 101&102, which made me sad as I loved them! If I had been able to start in first year I might have changed my major.

What is your job?

Communications Assistant covers a really broad range of work! Like it says on the tin, you have to assist your organisation in whatever sort of communications it needs to do. Mine is a disability rights representative and advocacy nonprofit, so my job includes advertising, political campaigns and direct member communication. I am one of the people who tweets from our official account (including sometimes live-tweeting something like a public inquiry into systemic neglect or discrimination), updates our website, edits blog posts and media releases, creates flyers, surveys and infographics... I do a lot of "translating English to English" - explaining legalese, bureaucratic jargon and policy terminology in plain language. We need to be as accessible as possible, so aside from code-switching between Plain English and bureaucratese I do a lot of image descriptions and liaise with specialists to get really important content captioned or translated into Auslan, Easy English, etc. One of my colleagues is currently in charge of our fortnightly newsletter, but when I used to do it I would also record an audio version, sort of like a mini podcast, for members who didn't have screenreader access (usually older folks who had trouble with technology).

How does your linguistics training help you in your job?

Semantics, pragmatics and a descriptivist approach to grammar are all relevant when trying to write about things like UN resolutions and discrimination legislation in plain English! (Sometimes I imagine turning a particularly stuffy government document into a series of tree diagrams, which is at least good for a laugh). Descriptivism also dovetails neatly with an anti-ableist approach to how other people speak and write, so it's helpful to have linguistic references when pushing back against harmful ideas in that department.

Do you have any advice you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?

Yes, I wish someone had convinced me not to half-ass it! See, I got into a really great creative writing course and then couldn't attend the university that taught it for logistical reasons (would have been an interstate move). I tried to do the most similar degree I could find at a local uni, but it wasn't a good compromise - it only had two writing classes each year and I was much less interested in the other parts of the course. I should have done a full pivot to something I liked in its own right, like linguistics, instead of stubbornly clinging to a shitty version of my number one choice. I guess the most useful advice without the benefit of hindsight would have been that a degree is a big commitment and it's okay to take a gap year and give yourself more time to think about how you want to go about it. Oh, also if someone had told me I have ADHD that probably would have been helpful.

Any other thoughts or comments?

I've often thought about going back for some linguistics post-grad, but it would probably be for the love of learning - none of my plausible future career moves really need one. So I'm really glad people like you make linguistics knowledge more accessible to lingthusiasts outside academia! Clinically proven to reduce symptoms of FOMO xD

Related interviews:

Interview with a Communications Specialist

Interview with two Communications Professionals

Interview with an Editor and Copywriter

Recent interview:

Interview with a Technical Writer

Interview with a Stay-at-home Mom and Twitch Streamer

Interview with a Peer Review Program Manager

Interview with an Associate at the Children’s Center for Communication, Beverly School for the Deaf

Interview with a Metadata Specialist and Genealogist

Check out the full Linguist Jobs Interview List and the Linguist Jobs tag for even more interviews  

[distortingbones]

What was the process of getting top surgery like? I want to start getting the process in motion but I have no idea where to start or even how to know if my insurance covers it.

so the process was kind of a clusterfuck for me personally for a few reasons (i started getting stuff together in early 2020 so the pandemic threw a wrench in things, my top surgeon's office was extremely disorganized, and i switched insurance partway through) but here's the basic steps i took -

1. i looked up whether my insurance covered it, and what their requirements were. you might be able to find this info online, or you might need to call, but it should be pretty easy to find out. (i was on WA state medicaid at the time - they require one letter from a medical doctor, one letter from a therapist, and they require you to be on hormones for at least one year before surgery.)

2. i got a letter each from my primary care physician and my therapist, basically confirming that i'm trans and that i will benefit from top surgery. (this is a fairly standard requirement for most surgeons and insurances.) you can find templates for this online if your doctor or therapist is unfamiliar with the process. if you don't currently see a therapist, you should start ASAP with one who's trans-affirmative. if your PCP isn't trans-affirmative, i think you can go see a trans-specific doctor to get a letter but idk how that works. maybe you can just get a letter from whoever prescribes your hormones if you take them?

3. i found a surgeon who would take my insurance who had results that i liked, i got a referral from my PCP to go see him, and i sent him a copy of my letters. finding a surgeon was tough for me because a lot of surgeons tell fat trans ppl to lose weight - but this is NOT a necessity, and if a surgeon tells you that, you should find a different surgeon who isn't fatphobic. (i found my surgeon by putting out an open question on twitter to other fat transmascs.)

4. after my surgeon's office received my letters, they called me to schedule a consultation so i could find out more about the procedure etc

5. after my consultation, my surgeon's office worked things out with my insurance. this took like 3 months so expect to wait a while :(

6. once my insurance went through, my surgeon's office called me to set a date for my top surgery and for my pre-op appointment

7. i had to set up a bunch of logistical stuff for my top surgery - my surgeon wanted me to stay in town for about a week after my surgery, so i got an air b&b, and i also needed a caregiver for that time, and somebody to drive me home from the hospital on the day of my surgery. i was able to get my best friend to fly out to be with me (they are still here, and they've been a wonderful caregiver!) so it def doesn't have to be biological family

8. i had my pre-op appointment about 2 weeks before my surgery, for answering my questions and also telling me all the things that i had to do to prepare for surgery and to recover from it

9. surgery day!

10. recovery (this is where i am now)

so like, it's a complicated and very bureaucratic process and tbh there were SEVERAL times that i thought it wasn't gonna happen at all. but it did!! and i hope it will for you too anon 🖤

[mclegibilist]

Typification Enforces Anti-Inductivity in the Game of Authenticity

Epistemic Status: Broad strokes of common gameplay.

Why is being authentic "hard"? Why is it something you have to try at?

Personally, I believe that being "authentic" is fundamentally a matter of being understood. I've seen people twist themselves into knots about how if you were a true Scotsman then you would just be able to be yourself, but I can't really see how we'd have much acquaintance with such people: eventually their notions of authenticity would butt-up against some societal norm and they would be pushed out. Most of the arguments I've heard against this seem to implicitly rely on an unawakened power of unparalleled proportions that being authentic gives you. I think this confuses authenticity and self-knowledge, and most people who we encounter with good self-knowledge are pragmatic enough to (a) know how to talk to other people in their native emotional language (b) never, ever say that they're always manipulating and restructuring their messages in order to get the most significant bits across and risk seeming inauthentic.

A lot of people who struggle with finding their authentic self tend to reach for intrinsic explanations for why authenticity is a hard problem, usually along the lines of "You've become estranged from yourself while trying to please other people, so you need to rediscover who you really are." As @in-stenography has pointed out before, we should be a bit skeptical about what it is we're discovering, and if we have any method of distinguishing between discovering and inventing.

So, take on my premise for a moment or stop reading here: authenticity is mostly invented personae, meant to incept elements of one's own self-image in the minds of others.

Why is that a hard problem?

Don't worry, I won't go full Robin Hanson on you, it's obvious why this is hard! There's no easy way to enforce honest signaling for lots of attributes people want to lay claim to like "honest" or "sexually experienced", "punctual" is a bit easier and consequently feels trivial.

Yet, we do traverse social landscapes and I would argue, on average, we do so very effectively. The average person in my broad social circles can almost immediately get across a persona, that may later come into question, but which is usually supported by initial markers or surrogates for the kinds of things we actually care about.

Sometimes, though, someone manages to feel "fresh" without (looking like they're) trying too hard. They, through pure interaction, describe a character they are that doesn't make you bucket them immediately. You get to know them, and you're amazed to find that they are, at least partially, who they say they are and begin the true exploration of friendship and actually getting to know each other.

Why can't everyone do this?

The answer is in "typification", terminology that @spilledreality introduced me to, which originates from Alfred Schütz, the philosopher and social phenomenologist. I will not use this term exactly as he did; I believe it is a basic pillar of knowledge logistics that we must make our references nods, but rely only on our presented definitions. Call this "portable foundations"—I don't want to rely on experts' interpretations of other people's definitions, I want to rely on what I can explain to you in our shared context.

Typification, as I define it, is an inherent property of cognition and expressible knowledge, basically that definitions are inherently categories. The best way to understand is to take literally any statement and see why it relies on typification, so I just took a random sentence from a random CNN article:

A North Port Police spokesperson declined to comment on the report.

What is "North Port Police"? It's a kind of bureaucratic body, we assume has certain properties because of the other similar bodies we are familiar with. We can go look it up, and we'll understand it as an entity of certain overlapping types: an employer, an arm of the executive branch, etc.

What does it mean to "comment on"—we can understand that there is some kind of message indicated by this action, but it goes much deeper. When people "comment" on things they generally have something to say about its fitness, or about some salient property that's meaningful to a the present crowd. And because the subject is a government body, that crowd is assumed to be the public.

All of this information is transferred by our understanding of "types of things"—types of entities, types of actions, types of properties. Maybe this seems obvious, but consider the opposite: what if we had some basic properties and we could mix them in any proportion like a color palette? Certainly we think some parts of the universe are like this, e.g. physical color. Yet we tend to refer to colors by types, e.g., red, yellow, mauve, maroon, etc. We tend to understand things through types, and language's focus on reusable categories is both a cause and a byproduct of this fact.

When person A discovers a way to present themselves authentically, every person who sees a little bit of themselves in the expression A managed to thread through the gravitational fields of the present-at-hand types will immediately engage in the most natural human process: memetic analysis for mimetic execution. By picking apart A's presentation of themselves, different people will carve out different collections of behavior and aspects of A's self-presentation and retool them to explain themselves. This is the origin of memes.

When B, C, D, and all the way to Z do this, a wave will ripple through the local social ecosystem that causes new types to arrive, likely centering around the most easy-to-understand elements of A's new style which many of the new behavioral memes will have in common. When that happens, A's presentation will either seem less fresh, if these spin-offs capture much of A's implicit message...or will seem fresh in a ghostly and subtle way because they failed to capture it.

Eitherway, the interplay, driven by human mimesis and memetic networks, will eventually cause A's original expression lines to go stale. It doesn't go stale because it's wrong, it might be that no one ever successfully replicates A's style. But it will still go stale because the message gets distorted by the change in the communication protocol that the gravitational pull of new types causes. The expressive range may remain unchanged, but saying the same thing will require different words. And just as often, old messages become impossible to express, often due to unshakeable connotations parasitic on some original meme.

This is nothing more than anti-inductivity: authenticity is a game where (i) you reveal your strategy by playing and (ii) others can use this information for themselves, in a way that actively competes with your goals. Just because your goal was "to express yourself" doesn't mean you weren't competing with other people. Quite the opposite: your unique idea has to fight to convince people it's meaningfully unique, and the kicker is it often isn't unique as much as you want it to be, but you've still got to express positivity towards your product along the axes people understand.

Every time a new type of guy drops, someone loses their current medium for expressing themself authentically.

[aion-rsa]

The Walking Dead Season 11: Who Lives and Who Dies

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This Walking Dead article contains major spoilers.

Many of us thought this day would never come, but as all of The Walking Dead‘s characters know very well, everything that has a beginning has an end. Season 11 of AMC’s flagship zombie drama will be the show’s final run of episodes, but fortunately it’s an expanded season. Fans will get 24 more episodes, broken up into three parts, before the show — and a few of its characters — meets its end.

And it wouldn’t be a season of The Walking Dead without a few big deaths along the way. As we have in past seasons, we’ve made some predictions regarding who will bite the bullet in season 11. For the final time, here are the characters we think are on the chopping block and the ones we believe will live on to remember them after the credits roll on the series finale.

Keep track of all The Walking Dead season 11 deaths below:

DEAD

Roy (C. Thomas Howell)

Prediction: Dies

Result: Dead

Roy took an arrow to the face during a Reaper ambush.

Gage (Jackson Pace)

Prediction: Dies

Result: Dead

Gage stabbed himself in the chest twice, attempting to kill himself before being devoured by walkers in a train car. Zombie Gage was then put down with a shot to the head by Gabriel.

ALIVE

Pope (Ritchie Coster)

Prediction: Dies

I’ve never seen a guy more likely to die in the first half of a Walking Dead season than Pope, the leader of the show’s newest villains, the Reapers, who themselves strike me as filler villains for Maggie and Daryl while the real story at the Commonwealth develops. I assume the Reapers will be out of the picture by the time Alexandria needs to turn its attention to the much larger settlement in the second part of season 11.

Pamela Milton (Laila Robins)

Prediction: Dies

The Governor of the Commonwealth is poised to be the final season’s big bad. A bureaucrat hellbent on preserving the way things were before the zombie outbreak, Milton even established a caste system within her settlement to propagate class inequality. She represents everything that was wrong with the world before the fall of society and the complete anti-thesis of how the Alexandrians do things.

If you’ve read the comics, you know how Pamela’s story ends in Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s story, but the TV series is known for taking sharp left turns when you least expect it. One thing we know for sure is that the Alexandrians will have to reckon with Pamela’s rule before the series finale.

Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton)

Prediction: Dies

A Commonwealth acolyte and bookkeeper of the community, Lance is one of Milton’s chief personnel, helping her run the settlement’s government. He’s also seems like cannon fodder to me as things heat up between the Commonwealth and Alexandria, an early death that could spark a conflict between the two factions.

Mercer (Michael James Shaw)

Prediction: Lives

Mercer is loyal to the Commonwealth but there are more sides to him than his distinct orange military armor lets on. He’s one of the most interesting characters of the comic’s final storyline, and it would be a shame to lose him before we can see his story through.

Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari)

Prediction: Lives

Elijah made his debut in one of the most WTF moments of season 10 when he rescued Aaron and Alden from the Whisperers. For weeks after his reveal, people wondered who the man in the steal mask could be. When he returned in the final six episodes of season 10, the show just kind of moved on without fleshing him out, which is unfortunate since he looks so cool! I’m going to assume that the series is saving a big Elijah-focused episode for later in the season and that he’s too awesome to kill off. You don’t just introduce a blade expert in a steel mask for no reason!

Virgil (Kevin Carroll)

Prediction: Dies

Virgil has a lot to atone for after kidnapping and drugging Michonne in season 10. At the end of the season, we learn that he’s found a disoriented Connie in the woods. His redemption arc will likely include helping Connie survive on the walker-infested road back to Alexandria. Will that eventually involve a final sacrifice to save her?

Connie (Lauren Ridloff)

Prediction: Lives

Connie’s been through a hell of a lot in the past season. After surviving an explosion, a cave-in, and an entire walker horde, Connie’s made it out of Whisperer territory but is still a ways from home. Expect part of season 11’s story to be about Connie’s odyssey and ultimate reunion with her sister and Daryl.

Lydia (Cassady McClincy)

Prediction: Lives

Lydia was at the center of Alexandria’s conflict with the Whisperers for a season and a half. With Alpha and Beta defeated, and their faction all but obliterated, I have to wonder what Lydia has left to do on the show. That said, the writers have continued to find interesting ways to explore this character, and someone has to live on to lead the next generation of Alexandrians. I think Lydia is in it for the long haul.

Magna (Nadia Hilker)

Prediction: Dies

Magna was sidelined pretty quickly after her introduction. While a reunion with Yumiko seems like the logical direction for her story, The Walking Dead universe is a cruel one. She could be headed toward tragedy.

Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura)

Prediction: Lives

In season 11, Yumiko is inheriting a major storyline from the comics that likely means she’ll survive the final 24 episodes of the series. Of course, the TV show could always alter that storyline to bring a tragic end to Yumiko’s story.

Luke (Dan Fogler)

Prediction: Dies

It’s pretty wild that Luke has survived as long as he has. A man of the arts hardly has a place in the cruel world of this show, but he has clumsily persevered thus far. But if the writers are planning an especially bloody final season, I’d put Luke on the short list.

Kelly (Angel Theory)

Prediction: Lives

Kelly has been one of the best late additions to the show. It would suck for her to finally reunite with her sister only to meet an unexpected end.

Alden (Callan McAuliffe)

Prediction: Dies

Another candidate for the chopping block. I’m surprised he’s even made it this long.

King Ezekiel (Khary Payton)

Prediction: Lives

Yes, Ezekiel has thyroid cancer, and were he in Alexandria, that would mean his inevitable death. But the Commonwealth is a different ballgame, an advanced settlement in the comics that will likely have the doctors and surgical resources needed to save him. That is, if Ezekiel isn’t caught up in Milton’s caste system.

Jerry (Cooper Andrews)

Prediction: Dies

I love Jerry and don’t want to see the tank with a heart of gold go. But if the season needs an early death that pulls at the heart strings, Jerry is a prime candidate for a midseason casualty.

Father Gabriel Stokes (Seth Gilliam)

Prediction: Lives

Gabriel has evolved so much since his debut in season 5, becoming one of Alexandria’s key leaders. He’s come so far and even survived longer than his comic book counterpart. I’d hate to see him go so close to the end. So I’m just going to say he lives.

Aaron (Ross Marquand)

Prediction: Lives

Aaron seemed destined to die seasons ago, too kind and trusting to survive this long. But here he is, still fighting and surviving. He’s lost the man he loves, his arm, and many friends — and it’s all hardened him into a war machine. It’d be a shame for him to die now.

Rosita Espinosa (Christian Serratos)

Prediction: Lives

In the comics, Rosita’s head ended up on a pike during the Whisperer war, but her TV counterpart has persevered. It’s difficult to predict where her story goes at this point, but since she survived her comic book death, I assume the show’s writers have something in mind for her in season 11.

Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt)

Prediction: Lives

Eugene has become an unlikely protagonist going into season 11. From a mulleted coward hiding behind his intelligence so that others protect him to the Alexandrian leading his people to the Commonwealth, Eugene is central to the plot of the final season, and I think that means he’s safe. Plus, Eugene is hilarious, and The Walking Dead can always use a little comedic relief.

Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming)

Prediction: Lives

Result: Lived

NO.

Rick Grimes Jr. (Antony Azor)

Prediction: Lives

Nah.

Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan)

Prediction: Lives

I think The Walking Dead is going to end with one last big death, one last sacrifice before the credits roll on the massive zombie drama. Like Rick in the comics, one of the major characters of the TV series will likely become the martyr who inspires change inside the Commonwealth’s walls. Negan would probably be on the short list for this big moment from the comics, a villain finally choosing to do the right thing for a cause bigger than himself, a fitting conclusion to his seasons-long redemption arc. But Jeffrey Dean Morgan recently teased that he was already having discussions with AMC about a potential Negan spinoff after The Walking Dead has concluded, which means the former Savior leader is safe…unless the Negan show is a prequel.

Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride)

Prediction: Lives

This one’s an easy one: Melissa McBride is getting her own spinoff that will follow her character after The Walking Dead series finale. That means she’s safe.

Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus)

Prediction: Lives

Norman Reedus is joining McBride for that spinoff, so he’s safe, too. The actor even told us what the Daryl and Carol show will be about.

Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan)

Prediction: Dies

That leaves The Walking Dead with one logical choice to pick up Rick’s final storyline from the comic. It’s Maggie. It also makes a bit of sense from a logistical standpoint. Lauren Cohan has already left The Walking Dead universe once before to pursue other small and big screen projects. She’s back for the final 24 episodes of the series as a welcome legacy character but that doesn’t mean Cohan wants to stick around for longer than that. I assume Cohan’s returned to bring closure to her character, not to prepare for a spinoff.

Let us know your predictions for The Walking Dead season 11 in the comments!

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post The Walking Dead Season 11: Who Lives and Who Dies appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3yjleNH

[countessofbiscuit]

If you're taking potential prompts...Fox and Riyo discuss tattoos in their respective cultures? Maybe while one gets a new design or a touch-up?

Fox didn’t set the Republic military standards, but he sure as heck has to exemplify them. So it’s my headcanon that he doesn’t have any tats until Riyo’s affection works on him and/or the shittiness of the rest of his life strips his uptight grain. But I like to think this still fits the bill! Thanks for the prompt : )

- - - - - 

Inked

2k. Teen. Also on Ao3.

- - - - - 

The Senate concourse never slept, but most of the Dome’s regulars had long since made for their beds when Fox spotted Senator Riyo Chuchi waiting for the Annex hovertram. She stood alone on the platform, arms wrapped snugly around herself and engrossed in the floor's marbling. The hour was far from social, but Fox had both an apology to make and thanks to offer. And there was no time like the present.

“Good evening, Senator Chuchi,” he greeted from a polite distance. Natborns, especially politicians haloed round by ego, took personal space seriously; brothers wouldn’t give both ears unless someone were right on top of them and they still might not pay any heed.

She straightened up, almost startled. But then — a diplomatic smile. “Commander Fox. Is everything alright?”

Species and biographic profiles popped across his display. Fox blinked them away.

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry for the disturbance. I wanted to apologize for not addressing you properly the other day, when you kindly held the lift for me.” For him, the discomfited idiot, who couldn’t bring himself to enter the public turbolift he'd subversively called when faced with a mere Senate guard and a pretty woman. “And to thank you — for that, and for not giving me away to Senator Robb.”

They’d only just been formally introduced yesterday by the Security Committee Chair — and Senator Chuchi had not let on that Fox had recently broken a Dome directive. Ignorance or indulgence, it mattered little. The effect on the fresh-off-the-transport commander was the same: he was very grateful.

“Oh! Of course. You’re most welcome,” Senator Chuchi answered mechanically. Diplomatically. Stalling for understanding with a squint behind her smile.

“My database wasn’t synced to my input feeds yet,” Fox clarified. He’d been plagued by a deep need to reassure her that he took professionalism seriously. That he wasn’t chronically cavalier with protocol. “I didn’t know who you were, at first. But I’ve modded the software, so I —”

The tram approached. But it was Senator Chuchi’s blue hand on Fox's gauntlet that really stopped his thoughts short at the brainstem. She was very petite and looked about as warm as a silk petal in a breeze; but Fox’s skin prickled strangely under the plastoid.

And she wasn’t cutting him off: she was holding him in place. When the tram doors parted, she did not let go. Senator Chuchi meant to keep him with her. Closely. As no one else was around — especially as no one else was around, Fox had no argument against overstepping another rule if the Senator condoned it.

The tram was reserved for senators whatever time of day; when Dome-bound platforms were busy, and certainly when a vote was called, no mere aide, intern, attaché or privileged tourist could expect passage. The tram droid would spot you at fifty paces, bleat and wail with flashing lights, shame you into the permacrete. Clones were just supposed to walk — or, in Fox’s case, bike.

“Truly, you’re very considerate,” Senator Chuchi replied once they were onboard. “But I didn’t notice. I forget that my face doesn’t always give me away.”

It certainly gave her away as being very beautiful. Fox killed his display entirely. He even indulged the idea of removing his helmet, the better to appreciate her. But that would be quite forward: she hadn’t asked and the Guard had a lids-on policy handed down by the executive office.

Fox cocked his helmet in silent encouragement.

“Chuchi tattoos.” She touched two fingers to her cheek. “Obvious to Pantorans.”

Fox cast his mind back to cultural modules. He remembered certain trivia and understood that this was a situation which called for small talk. “I've read about Pantoran ink. Is there really aurodium in yours?” he asked in a carefully modulated voice, though there was no one to overhear.

“Yes. It’s still common practice for — among certain families. Impossible for the layman to tell, however.”

Fox mentally calculated about twenty seconds until arrival. The time begged another question. “Did it hurt?”

“The first time. But everything is unbearable to a child. They were filled out when I came of age and it wasn’t so bad.”

“Who did yours?” Fox found his questions coming as naturally as her answers. This wasn't so bad. Not at all.

“Someone my Grandmama knew. They decide these things. And they keep the rakes.”

“Rakes?”

“The tattooing tool. Usually the bone — well, it’s … it’s customary to keep an ulna and radius of one’s mother to be fashioned into rakes, and then into button hooks or hair pins once they’re worn down.”

Wasn’t the oddest natborn tradition he’d ever heard. And just the other day Stone reported that a detachment of MPs had cut their teeth over Ohma-D’un breaking up a brawl about some cursed finger of Jango’s. A few units claimed to possess one. Everyone deferred to Geonosis vets, and really, what was the harm? Well, until they came to blows over it. “Huh.”

“Do you have any?” she asked.

“Ma’am?”

“Tattoos?”

Thankfully, the hovertram was slowing into the station. It allowed Fox a transitory moment to consider why she’d care and to gather his conflicted thoughts on the subject as they disembarked.

Strictly speaking, tattoos were against regs, at least for clones. The RCMJ prohibited any bodily ornamentation that might bring discredit upon the galaxy’s preeminent military, but culturally significant tattoos and jewellery were permissible for natborns — the unspoken being that clones didn’t have a culture to claim.

“No, I don’t have any. It’s, uhh … not allowed in the Guard.” Not that Fox hadn’t seen some. Even before deployment — back before it was his problem to punish — the occasional itch to differentiate, to distinguish, had defied the longnecks’ surveillance, at least until the next quality control inspection.

Some experiments with filched hypos and med-markers had lasted longer than others. Stars and heavens help the bastards who’d inked themselves and paid for it in sweat and blood and punishment tours, only for the artistry to fade. Or for the shine to quickly wear off their youthful love of Coruscanti opera or the Galactic Senate. Or for the limb get plain blown off.

“Oh. On what grounds?” she asked.

In the main, Fox liked the RMCJ: it accorded a comforting set of guardrails, standards, and norms in a new and overwhelming operating environment. But he sensed a rebuke of the hard facts of life forming in the good Senator’s mind.

No point clouding the issue for her sensibilities; the regs only referenced what the Military Creation Act made plain in Section 3: all of clonedom, from marshal commanders to the lowest and last trooper on the production line, belonged to her federal government. Down to the dermis.

“Defacement of Republic property,” Fox offered as he followed her onto the Annex slideramp, since she hadn’t dismissed him yet.

Senator Chuchi did indeed frown up at him. “Does it really say that?”

“Yes. In the uniform code.” In a number of articles, actually — like the ones about mistreatment of service property and punishments for desertion. “There’s a certain leniency out in the field, I gather,” Fox added lightly, though privately he marvelled how any officer could sufficiently shake that feeling of a cold finger hovering behind their ear and get inked; would he even recognize himself without observational stress? “But it’d be nice to have it codified — or, err, uncodified.”

While he’d made it widely and painfully understood that facial tattoos would be burned off before they could be flagged as culturally insensitive, Fox wasn’t wholly a rule-bound, stuffed suit of armor. He was slightly more practical than purist. The Guard’s plates needed to be uniform and finer than dinnerware, sure; but so long as you were fit to fight, what happened under your blacks was between you, your sergeant, and your capacity to endure barracking.

Fox chose not to see a lot of things and liked to figure what natborns couldn’t see couldn’t hurt them.

Problem was, natborns liked to see fucking everything, especially politicians curious about how fully organic their new army was. Inspect, his shebs — bother, interrupt, and gawp at, more like. Guard Central off the Executive Thoroughfare was hardly incognito and not necessarily off-limits if you could nab some natborn logistics lieutenant with the most basic clearance.

It was only a matter of time before a guardsman got his favorite dancing girl slapped across his back in glorious color and some peeping bureaucrat kicked up a stink about a gross lack of standards in the locker room. Fox could do nothing about General Tiaan or other top brass, but at least they trumpeted a few hours before their arrival to ensure the proper pomp and ceremony — and they didn’t care about the showers.

Senator Chuchi had gone quiet as they reached the main Annex lobby. Fox’s neck dampened to think he’d lowered her spirits or given her cause to regret his company.

He also believed guilt helped no one. She didn’t seem pompous or presumptuous, just unfailingly polite. Maybe he had a chance to make a real ally. “If I may request a favor, ma’am,” he ventured, steepling his hands at his navel like he’d seen the Chancellor do when putting forth a sensitive proposition. “For my own ... err, family.”

This time Senator Chuchi arrested Fox with both hands on his gauntlets. He couldn’t have moved if Corrie’s axis pitched. “Certainly,” she said. “I like to think I’m a public servant. And not only for Pantorans.”

Fox had been primed to make a short speech about clone personhood and the need for senatorial sympathy. He was damn tired, though. And moonstruck. Enough to make him chuckle and ask instead, “If you could maybe … I don’t know, discreetly put it round that it’s gauche for politicians to drop into the barracks unexpected? The men don’t get a lot of privacy and the shower block’s the closest thing to a spiritual retreat they’ve got.”

Senator Chuchi’s bright eyes widened, his display registering a sharp increase in her pulse and temperature. “Of course. You have my word. I’ll see if can carefully address this matter of … discretion. And I’m sorry you had to ask.” Her knuckles paled as she squeezed his armor; he felt nothing but her sincerity.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Fox was so flustered, he nearly invited her to drop by his block anytime, which would’ve been the height, depth, and breadth of stupidity. Instead he said something else that was only marginally short on sense. “It’s very late. May I escort you home?”

“That’s kind of you, Commander. But my driver will be here now.” Her driver — of course: she was as rich as Koros, she possessed a smile literally finer than gold, and she wasn’t touching him anymore. Fox bowed his head low — a head that had almost outgrown his helmet in a moment of unprofessional conceit.

He had to walk back down the Thoroughfare to fetch his bike. As he did, Fox wondered what might bring him to patronize that closet in the barracks he wasn’t supposed to know about. What he’d ask for, if he ever forgot his station enough to ask. What could ever stir his heart so much, that he’d wish to mark the spot.

Hypos and hypotheticals: Fox, senior commander and paragon of the Guard, didn’t have time or liberty for either. He tried to forget all about it.

[lux-i-fer]

This is similar to an older ask, but let’s say that for whatever reason/one in a billion shot, Chloe, Trixie, Amenadiel, Charlie and Linda, Ella and Michael, Eve and Maze, and Charlotte and Dan willingly join Lucifer in Hell as a ruling/royal family group. What do you think think their duties or roles would be? Because correct me if I’m wrong but they can’t all be on the level of King/Queen. Like, would Ella be in charge of erasing the guilt of souls whom had a misuse or crisis of faith?

This would have to be a fraction of a one in a trillion shot, anon! Assuming you’ve read the other ask, you know my feelings about the found family in Hell ideal are not positive lol 😉 But I suppose I live to indulge the dreams of others...

Just for reference I’m using the English rankings of nobility and titles because otherwise things would get confusing and way too complex. Just as basic information: since all of these characters would be titled or hold a title-equivalent job, and are therefore some form of “nobility,” they would most likely be a part of a separate council. I can’t see the demon nobility getting along with the humans too well. They’d probably take it as an infringement of their rights/culture/status and cause a bunch of bureaucratic hell for Lucifer so the humans just get split up to avoid the tension. 

Chloe: I’ve already established her roles here.

Trixie: Logistically speaking could be a princess of Hell; however, that’s doubtful considering this AU has pre-established political/social dynamics that wouldn’t allow her to be a legitimate heir. She would probably be a princess in title alone. She may learn the bureaucratic portion of Hell as she grows older, but since she’s not related to Lucifer by blood, she would probably only ever be a high ranking treasurer or another paper-pusher type.

Amenadiel: Most likely an ambassador of Heaven. Canonically, Amenadiel is the only angel to visit Lucifer in Hell. “Visit” is sort of a stretch anyways since the majority of time it was just him dragging Lucifer back from his trips on Earth. He understands the workings of Heaven, while also literally being the only one willingly to visit Hell.

Michael: I regret to inform you but Michael is not included lmao. If he is, he’s trapped in a cell like Mom was because while this is an AU, I think we’d be kidding ourselves if we thought the rest of the crew would accept him into the group considering his past actions.

Maze: The Hell/Earth ambassador. More specifically, she is the only person besides Lucifer who sits in on the demonic council and the human council. This allows her the ability to convey the demonic council’s concerns and vice versa. She helps each council understand the others concerns and helps them reach administrate conclusions based on their joint responses. The reason I gave Maze this role is because she’s the only high ranking demon the humans are familiar with and is one of the only high ranking demons that other high ranking demons all collectively respect enough to listen to.

Charlie: Prince of Hell regardless of his relation to Lucifer. He’s actually the next heir due to his bloodline. I know that canonically nobody wants Charlie to have to take up this mantle, but logistically speaking Lucifer and Chloe need a line of succession in case something happens and Charlie is the only qualifying person for the job. The throne requires angelic blood (which is why Trixie is ineligible) and Charlie is a Nephilim so I mean...He and Trixie receive similar instruction and as long as Lucifer and Chloe remain in power Charlie’s duties mirror Trixie’s.

Charlotte: Viscountess of Hell. Historically, viscounts/viscountesses were usually administrators and judges so it would make sense that this is the title Charlotte is given. Her law and law enforcement backgrounds make her a great candidate for dealing with Hell’s more complex administrative problems. Her specialty is hunting down political loopholes that could cause Lucifer trouble down the road.

Dan: Oh poor Dan! He’s perhaps the least suited for Hell. He would be a Baron of Hell. Barons were merely glorified land owners so in Hell politics he’s the low man on the totem pole. His role would most likely be assisting Charlotte. Dan’s skill set is similar to Charlotte’s and I can’t see him particularly wanting to be wrapped up in the heavy politics that Chloe or the others are.

Eve: Marchioness of Hell. The only reason that Eve’s title is ranked higher than some of the others is because of her age and her relationship to Lilith. In this AU, Lilith and Eve look identical so since Lilith is also a marchioness so is Eve. Appearances are everything in Hell so it would have been a political uproar for Lucifer to give her any other type of peerage/title. Eve mainly monitors Hell loops with Lilith and acts as her counterpart in some respects. They literally are two sides of the same coin so their differences create a nice check and balance.

Linda: Countess of Hell. Linda has shown herself to be especially sharp in a lot of areas. Countesses/earls rival marquess/marchionesses in terms of rank, which would put her relatively high in the ranking. I think its warranted, considering how much Lucifer depends on her advice. I think her main duties would continue to be advising. What I mean by advising is that its her job to keep the discussions/politics within reason. Similar to the negotiations of an ambassador. It would require her to research and understand Hell politics but I think she’s up for the challenge. 

Ella: Countess of Hell. Yes there can be more than one! Ella’s duties differ on occasion. She’s picked up Hell politics the fastest and has a weirdly positive relationship with the lower class demons. (Maybe that double life of crime paid off?) She’s usually dispatched out to solve infighting issues as well as to work closely with the demons inside the Hell loops to ensure that everything is going as it should. Her close relationship with Azrael allows her to also work with Chloe to help ferry souls where they belong. Because she’s a jack of all trades, everyone else picks her brain about something or another at least once a month.

[warsofasoiaf]

I am definitely curious about fantasy trappings and democracy PLEASE tell us

living-is-hard-with-eyes-open said:Hi! Love your blog. Not the original anon, but could you elaborate a little bit about how a democratic system could play out in a fantasy story? Your first response was fascinating and I’m really curious. Thank you in advance and I would understand if you are not in the mood! (Sorry about my English, still learning) 

Anonymous said:“If you want to know how fantasy can use it’s trappings to its benefit to write a democratic settig, let me know” (paraphrased) I do!

I figured there would be interest in it. If I’ve being honest that was mostly me stalling for time because I had some ideas I wanted to flesh out but didn’t have the time to explore right then.

As an aside, @living-is-hard-with-eyes-open, your English is pretty good. No one ever needs to apologize, to me at least, for trying to use another language. 

Early historical democracies often extended suffrage based on gender, class, amount of personal property, and other things which frequently limited the size of the voting population. The Athenian Greeks, for examples, had to own the panoply of a hoplite, thus making the voting public liable for the city’s defenses, along with being a male, debt-free, etc.. There’s no reason that these things can’t be extended to fantasy concepts that apply to fantasy wars. If magic is large enough to have a military component, powerful enough to mandate one, and controllable enough not to blow up your army in a massive apocalyptic hellstorm, then magical service might be one way to become a part of the voting public. This lends itself to a new dimension of struggle between the enfranchised and disenfranchised, which I’ve seen in fantasy works portraying these sorts of democracies (again, usually based in some fashion off the Roman Republic), as well as opening up the question of extending citizenship based on how easy or difficult magic is to learn.

A fun twist on a democratic medieval burgh involved as a great production center might have democracy broken down into guilds, this might be the case for a fantasy race with a caste system (we’ll use dwarves, the go-to fantasy lawful industrial race), where they are arranged from birth into different guilds based on their future profession, with a democratic tradition within the industries that send a representative to the legislative halls. If history is any judge, these industries would fiercely guard their trade secrets and trade monopolies, leading to out-and-out conflict between industries when one gets too close to the prized pony of another. That would mean, if Northern Italy is our judge, the need to establish an executive to sort out those conflicts and thus the city is in control of a powerful Factor. Or conversely, the guilds don’t want a Factor getting in the way and so purposely neuter it with restrictions and bureaucracy to the point where the position is a meaningless figure ironically called a “plenipotentiary” for how little the character can actually do while the guilds wage assassination campaigns, electoral fraud, and out-and-out private wars, seizing control of the Miller’s Guild for example to deny grain to the rest of the workers or the Aqueduct’s Guild to deny critical water to needed industries; that sounds like a society in crisis. Once you have that and you want to write a fantasy political thriller, having the protagonist be someone elected to the position of worthless PlenipotentiaryFactor use the same bureaucratic wrangling and de jure powers that have been worthless to change the society. Do something with that and you might just have the foundation and plot for a good fantasy novel, or a plot within a larger fantasy work such as ASOIAF with this Factor merely as one POV.

Speaking of conflict, one of the reasons burghs and other city privileges came into being was conflict with the feudal fief-holders. Magic might provide an alternative nexus, either to start the conflict as they become a power holder, a means for the cities to provide oomph that calls for charters guaranteeing self-governance to avoid magical rebellion (especially if magical universities are centered in cities), or a weird three-way struggle for power between the rural, the urban, and the arcane in their wizard’s towers. A wizard’s tower would almost certainly have a town spring up around it, particularly if there are services that the wizard cannot use magic to provide for themselves and the wizard can provide services for the community. Magic might become a part of charters just like it might become a part of feudal contracts, with all the realpolitik that such a thing can provide such as when the wizards say that because of the valuable service they provide, they should be afforded certain tax privileges, which pisses off the other non-magical fiefs and possibly causes a rebellion, either by mages protesting royal disregard for the rights of the arcane with all the pomp and language you’d expect from the First Barons’ War (the First Wizards’ War!) or the barons protesting the king favoring the arcane, possibly whispering about how their magic has ensorcelled the king in the vein of every wicked evil councilor. 

One thing severely limiting most fantasy societies with democracy is that for the most part, historical societies like this were phenomenally illiterate, with travel and communication technology mostly limited to horses and boats. Magic can be a way to circumvent these limitations, either by moving people away from labor-intensive work like agriculture and mining which would allow something similar to what happened in our own history with the rise of more politically-active people by class. For example, an Icelandic thing or assembly could use magic or some form of racial telepathy to actually bind the people to be able to allow them to hear their lawspeakers from great distances so that they might be instructed in what matters are being put before the assembly (probably with some sort of magically-enforced truth telling to safeguard against corruption), and likewise be able to cast their vote before the assembled magical elders in a form of direct democracy that can manage the logistical problems that such forms entail. You can go one step further to have the coming-of-age ceremony, where a child becomes recognized as a full adult, require the giving of blood to create a blood link to be able to be contacted by the lawspeakers via sympathetic magic, a formal blood magic civic ritual done either on birthdays or holy days depending on how magic works in this setting. This could create a relatively modern, even futuristic conception of democracy (some science fiction uses cybernetic implants and quantum communication to establish massive direct democracies, Iain Banks’s The Culture series of books comes to mind) that would actually be more appealing to modern audiences than traditional monarchial models or limited democracies. There’s a lot to like about this theoretical blood magic democracy; it could have modern good things: universal suffrage, equality before the law (all of you are the same because you all have blood), freedom of religion as long as it doesn’t forbid participation in this blood magic stuff, the list can keep going, but it’s so creepy that audience members are going to be a little squicked out. That’s a great headspace to put your readers in, this cognitive dissonance between admiration and discomfort can be quite unique, it could really make the story stand out. However, it also has plenty of threats that you can use for storycrafting, corrupt lawspeakers who circumvent magical safeguards to enrich their self-interest ala corrupt politicians (maybe even lying that there is such a thing as magical truth-telling), use of the blood for nefarious magical purposes such as spying on the citizens or taking control of their bodies to commit proxy crimes, magically hacking into the vote to pump up the totals by mages looking to secretly control democracy. 

At this point, I think I may have just accidentally brainstormed a fantasy setting that can explore modern political concepts with fantasy metaphors. Let me know what you think of this essay, everyone, both in general and this theoretical blood magic democracy being used as a exploration of problems that exist in modern democracies. Is this a neat idea, or am I in my own headspace where only I think this idea is good?

Thanks for the questions and encouragement, both registered members and Anons who wanted me to explore it all in more detail.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[cowtale-utau]

I was asked about this awhile ago and I’m finally getting around to it. Yee.

I’ve touched on it here and there in notes and off hand statements, but I’ve never really gotten into why exactly, Ace, or Classic Undertale Sans, is in charge. And it all comes down to power. Of the bunch, the Classic Duo, are the most powerful. This may not make sense at a glance. The Fells have LV, etc. But as the originals, Ace and Lief have certain perks.

It really comes down to the fickle nature of the Creator. Ace and Lief are the firsts. The origin from which all others are formed. None of the others would exist were it not for them. This has afforded them some favor. They simply outclass the others. More magic, more strength, and if they were to falter, magic itself would interfere. They aren’t allowed to fail.

Ace is not the “oldest” or the most willing, and despite his power, he’s not even the most “able” to lead. He hates responsibility, hates obligation, and cares nothing for order or organization. Yet he’s still in charge. He has no choice. And despite his hatred of obligation, he feels it. He feels he has to keep everyone in line. That they’re his responsibility as variants of himself and his little brother. And while he hates responsibility, he balks at turning over full control. He gets the final say. He makes the decisions.

That isn’t to say he doesn’t shirk as much as possible however. Lief does most of the actual “running” of the camp. He keeps everyone and everything cohesive and handles and in-camp conflicts. He’s an excellent mediator, and is very good at soothing tempers without bending. Strong willed and caring, he keeps everyone on an even keel, and is sometimes the only thing keeping everything from falling apart. Whip handles most of the legal aspects. Keeps them out of jail and makes sure any paperwork they need is obtained, filled, and filed. Doc handles most of the “administrative and logistics” work. He makes sure everyone has checked in, everyone is doing their jobs, locations and camp management, supplies, etc. He keeps things running and functional. While there was originally a good bit of friction, he is fairly comfortable off loading some tasks to Whip when there is some bureaucratic/legal overlap. Cook helps with supply counts, and Chisel is the “hands on” for making sure everything is physically working correctly.

So when it comes down to it, Ace is largely a figure head. He’s really only had to show force a handful of times, and only does so when Lief can’t resolve things peacefully. While Lief is more than capable of handling any of the others in combat, he simply doesn’t have the nature or disposition to use the level of force some of the others need. And so Ace steps in, puts whoever back in their place, then crawls back into his hole. Because while many of the boys are or have been “Judges”, Ace is “The Judge”. The be all end all of the skeletons. And in many ways, monsterkind. A position he loathes, and refuses to step into. He wrangles his clan, and leaves the rest to Asgore and Toriel. Should they ever need him, he’ll be there, but that has yet to happen. Generally speaking Undyne and Alphys, and their bands of guards, are more than enough to handle Ebott.

He is backed by magic and the creator. Should he falter, or start to fail, it compensates. Ace isn’t capable of failing when it matters. It’s bullshit and everyone who knows, agrees.

Fun Fact : Ace has has several arguments with Ink over it. Ink is just like, dude, you’re powerless in this. You’re whole existence is dictated by the writing of someone else. Learn to deal with it. At least you do exist.

[mrlxrd]

The only good part about the long and boring U.N. meeting was that no one seemed young enough to know what a cell phone was, much less that he had spent most of the meeting alternating between twitter, updates on project BRNY, and the Monday night game between the Meteors and his beloved National City Sharks.

He had even sent a small paper football flying across the room to alert Supergirl as to the score, which he felt had been very kind of him.

Other than that the meeting had been dull and unproductive in the way that only government bureaucrats could manage. It was truly a blessing sent directly to the United States of America that he was there, otherwise they’d spend another three years arguing the logistics of the naming conventions of their investigatory committee while cities burned to the ground. Granted, it probably also helped that he had offered a substantial amount of money to the committee with the sly suggestion that he lead the investigation himself. The council had agreed, of course, and he had landed not only full control of the investigation but also a loyal, trusting, super lapdog.

God, he loved his life.

He clasped his hands together as he stepped off his jet, the winds of star city blowing his usually perfectly slicked hair into a wild flurry of bronze locks. “Supergirl!” He grinned, “I’m sure you’re with me when I say this isn’t exactly how I pictured my return to the West Coast but I must say that I’m glad that you agreed to come and help out. My team has been here for a few weeks already, clean up and the like, but now we can really get into the nitty-gritty of this thing. You have my full cooperation and any resources you need I will get.”

@maidenxfmight​