#I legitimately honestly love my job

[tardigreatest]

How did you become a pro copyeditor?

Oh boy that’s a Story. HERE GOES.

I was married for 12 (!!) years. The first three years, my ex was in law school and I worked at a law firm, which I! Hated!! So much!!!

One he started working, we didn’t financially need me to work, so I… didn’t. I finished my undergrad degree and I was going to be a writer or maybe open a bookstore or maybe look I don’t even know, I have pretty bad ADHD and most of my Brilliant Plans amounted to very little.

Once we split up, though, oh shit I had to support myself. I’ve always been a huge reader and I’ve always just NOTICED things that are wrong, when timelines don’t add up or the wrong word is used or that comma doesn’t go there and I figured, idk, copyediting might be a good fit?? I did the ACES/Poynter online certificate course (more useful for making people go “oh she must know what she’s doing” than for anything it actually taught me tbh) and I did some freelance copyediting for a while, which didn’t end up being a good fit for me because 1) freelancing does not mesh well with the aforementioned ADHD and 2) turns out I don’t actually enjoy editing fiction.

Every single time I press enter the gap is bigger is this normal?????

So anyway (oh what the fuck why’s it normal now) I redirected again and decided to try to move towards a career as a paralegal. Even though I’d hated working at a law firm before, I knew enough about the field to know there are areas that I might enjoy?? And managed to land a job at a law firm as a legal assistant, and once they realized I was a good editor they started directing more editing/proofing to me, and after my first year there they made me the copyeditor for the firm.

It’s not the only thing I do, but attorneys are encouraged to send things through me at least for a clean-up and pretty much all firm marketing stuff goes by me first (often I’m the person writing it). I’m being trained to move into a paralegal role but with the goal of tailoring that role so I can continue to be the key person for editing and writing projects. Legal editing makes me way happier than fiction editing, because I can maintain a degree of emotional removal and because the deadlines are always like… tomorrow, which keeps me motivated and also forces me to Stop rather than try to make things perfect forever.

So I don’t think this is… very instructive? As a path others can follow? Like… I’m a professional copyeditor through a combination of talent (obvious caveat re: whether or not “talent” and “intelligence” are even real; suffice it to say that, for whatever reason, I notice mistakes others don’t), necessity, luck, and pure moxie. But also I guess - there’s lots of editing opportunities in the world that don’t look like a traditional freelance or publishing house career. My job wasn’t looking for an editor but they are smart enough to lean into their employees’ strengths because they know it makes everyone’s work better.

Obviously the American capitalist landscape is a dumpster fire hellhole and I’m not going to say good workplaces are easy to find or that talent will eventually be recognized because they aren’t and often it isn’t. But there are lots of paths that can use your strengths without being the traditional way to do something.

[artsekey]

Went to apply for a job, midway through I learned that the person hiring is someone I respect very, very much in my field (who I have never spoken to), then saw the application site was closed (How Did I Miss the Deadline for this Really Cool Job!!!!) and then saw that it was the website's fault and that they were taking applications through LinkedIn DM's. So I did the premium trial & sent my reel in, and they told me they're sending it to recruitment/leads and that it's a good reel!!!! And then the person I have respected for years sent me a friend request!

I'm beside myself!!

[daincrediblegg]

love the occult status lady terror has taken in this community. I get fucking tagged shit for her now like what on earth is happening here

[doctorweebmd]

afa;ldf;lakdflk;asdf urgh sorry i've been MIA i unexpectedly got super busy with the grant and my grand rounds and having to pick up shifts for people with emergencies/illnesses/moving PLUS my 'graduation' is tomorrow so i'm all over the place AHHHHH

[frankboeijen]

work has gotten me so stressed these past few months that i just spent my morning watching slow living youtube and doing sudoku while sipping my morning coffee

[fingertipsmp3]

Ya girl may have been recruited into an MLM 👍🏻

[cartierre]

GOLDEN HOUR | cl16

SOCIAL MEDIA!AU charles leclerc x fem!holland!reader

side note: hot people listen to 'golden hour' by jvke, especially the fuji kaze remix.

♡ liked by arthur_leclerc, samholland1999, tomholland2013 and 46,302 others

tagged: samholland1999

yourusername sometimes i do get along with my brothers (harry insta when?)

view all 637 comments

samholland1999 just sometimes though ⤷ yourusername are you telling me we're not the bestest of besties? ⤷ samholland1999 maybe i'm your best friend, but are you mine? debetable ⤷ yourusername i'm gonna tell mum that you're rude to me

user1 i love their peak sibling energy

arthur_leclerc yet everytime we all meet up all you three do is bantering with each other ⤷ yourusername we shared a womb, survival of the fittest

user2 what's arthur leclerc doing here ⤷ user3 the triplets are friends with him ⤷ user4 y/n's "friends" with him ⤷ user5 she's legitimately just friends with him ⤷ user6 you must be new here

♡ liked by arthur_leclerc, charles_leclerc, samholland1999 and 47,981 others

yourusername my tattoo is the only reminder of last night

view all 708 comments

user7 IS THAT ARTHUR? ⤷ user8 now hold up, arthur's not build like that ⤷ user9 wait- chaRLES? ⤷ user10 the dots are connecting

arthur_leclerc i nearly shat myself when you half flung yourself out of the window ⤷ yourusername it was getting sticky in the car...

samholland1999 i want to say i'm surprised, but i'm not ⤷ yourusername you just know me so well

user11 i want to have a wild night out in monaco as well :/ ⤷ user12 my heart says yes, but my bank account says no

♡ liked by charles_leclerc, samholland1999, tomholland2013 and 51,034 others

yourusername winning the race to your heart

view all 696 comments

user13 you just made it obvious that the rumours are true ⤷ user14 i think that was the whole thought behind it

user15 aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh

samholland1999 one wrong turn of his and we'll have a problem ⤷ yourusername don't act all tough as if you weren't the one gushing over the news when i called you

tomholland2013 so i'm guessing you'll bring a plus one to every even from now on? ⤷ yourusername am i not enough for you?

user16 crying, throwing up

♡ liked by yourusername, arthur_leclerc, carlossainz55 and 497,046 others

tagged: yourusername

charles_leclerc it was just two lovers, sitting in the car, listening to blonde, falling for each other

view all 2,058 comments

user17 HIM USING THE LYRICS OF GOLDEN HOUR BY JVKE I LOVE THIS MAN ⤷ user18 my boyfriend can never compete against charles

carlossainz55 happy to see you happy 😊 comment liked by charles_leclerc

user19 i'm honestly so happy for charles. i feel like he's a relationship type of guy

arthur_leclerc say i'm the best wingman out there ⤷ charles_leclerc non ⤷ yourusername excusez-moi, wingman? you? nah-uh you just sat there and watched ⤷ arthur_leclerc guess who was "too busy" to pick you up? a good wingman does his job behind the scenes

user20 no way arthur was this sly ⤷ user21 ultimate rizz

yourusername so we're just going to skip the whole soft launch thing? ⤷ charles_leclerc they all have been knowing it already anyway ⤷ yourusername touché

[dizscreams]

Show Off — Jack Champion ★

PAIRING: Jack Champion x Fem!Reader

SUMMARY: Jack showing off ur matching necklaces during an instagram live

A/N: “honestly i know u had a thought abt the instagram live one and i feel like with him you could do a lot with answering questions and then him going over to readers dresser and showing the necklace and maybe some fluff when reader comes back?” A LITTLE COLLAB FROM ME AND @ang3lik <33 I KNOW I HAD SAID INTERVIEW WHEN I CAME UP WITH THE IDEA so I hope you guys don’t mind that I switched it to a instagram live! I just couldn’t think of a way to start the interview idea I’m sorry :(

He toyed with the initial of your first name on the gold chain he wore around his neck while thinking of what to do. You weren’t at home with him, you were at work which he was very bummed out about. Luckily being in your room comforted him as he waited for you to arrive home.

He wasn’t snooping around or anything he just missed you and your bed was comfortable. Plus the room smelt like you and he liked admiring all the posters and decorations you had in your room.

He looked at the clock, it hadn’t changed from when he looked at it just 30 seconds ago. He groaned and kept scrolling through Instagram pretty bored out of his mind and not really paying attention to his feed. After thinking of what he could do he decided it might be a fun idea to go live. Why not? He’d never done one of his own before, well he’s never done one now that he’s gained popularity.

He made sure he looked presentable and looked at the ‘Go Live’ button. He wasn’t sure what he’d do, probably just talk to fans and hope it wasn’t boring. He had a feeling they’d eat it up though. Lately, it seemed he could breathe and everyone would go wild. It amused him to be completely honest.

He propped up his phone and sat against the headboard of your bed and pressed ‘Go Live’.

Once it started he awkwardly played with his hands waiting for people to join. It didn’t take long, in about 2-3 minutes there was already a bunch of people flooding the chat with ‘hi’s’ and ‘love you’s’ and a bunch of questions. They weren’t anything specific just about him and his job, he was grateful they weren’t too invasive.

user97027: hii jack! are you working on any new films right now??

He saw the comment as it quickly flashed by, “Yeah I am actually, I’ve been working on Freaky Tales and Everything’s Going to Be Great. So yeah, I’m excited for you guys to see those,” he said with a soft smile across his face.

user88992: did you always want to be an actor?

“Uh, it wasn’t really planned,” he chuckled, “just the day I found out you could get paid for acting and it was a legitimate job I was immediately on board,” he talked with his hands as he answered the question. He leaned forward with his eyes squinted a bit, trying to find another question.

user561183: Jack!! Who would you say inspires you the most?

“Oh man that’s a good question, who inspires me the most,” he repeated the question as he put his chin in his palm and lightly tapped his fingers across his cheek as he thought of a good answer. “I’d have to say my castmastes and my family definitely. Oh! And my girlfriend, of course. They’re all very supportive of me.”

He slightly laughed as a bunch of “awe’s” ran through the chat. He scanned through the chat, almost getting a little bored cause of how awkward he felt. It wasn’t uncomfortable for him he just wasn’t used to this but he liked talking with his followers nonetheless. As he was about to come up with an excuse to log off he saw a question that made his eyes light up.

user336473: what’s the initial on your necklace stand for?

He wasted no time in answering, “The initial on my necklace is my girlfriend’s! She actually has a matching one but it has my initial instead. I could probably show you guys, one second. She didn’t take it to work today” He explained as he got up, taking his phone with him, and excitedly waddled over to your vanity. Jack propped his phone on a little stand up mirror you had and gently took the piece of jewelry and held it up. “Isn’t it cute? I got these for us on our 6 month anniversary,” he told his viewers as he proudly smiled.

A knock on your door made him quip his head towards the entrance of your room, “Jack, you in there?” He looked at his camera whisper shouting a little “She’s backk! Hold on,” he then looked back at the door, “Come in!” he yelled.

Once he saw your figure opening the door a lovey smile adorned his face. He was head over heels for you and made no effort to hide it. “Oh hey babe, I was just showing them our matching necklaces.”

“Them?” You asked raising an eyebrow.

“Mhm, I’m on instagram live,” he softly grabbed your hand giving it a chaste kiss before bringing you in front of the camera. “Guys this is y/n my girlfriend, y/n these are my instagram followers,” he introduced with a goofy smile as he wrapped his hands around your waist and gave the back of your head a kiss.

You looked at the chat, which was gushing with comments about how cute you two were. It made you smile as you remember what he told you when you came in, “Wait, you were showing them our necklaces?”

“Yeah! Someone asked about it and I think I started rambling,” Jack explained as he toyed with the chain that was still in his hands suddenly getting an idea, “Can I put it on you?” He whispered into your hair so only you could hear. You nodded at his question not being able to contain the shy smile on your face as he let go of your waist and put your hair to rest on your left shoulder, giving you goosebumps. Once he made sure none of your hair would be in the way he undid the necklace and slowly put it around your neck. He made sure it was centered properly and closed the clasp, “Perfect,” he said as he gave a sweet kiss to your cheek.

“You’re such a show off, Jack,” you laughed at his shocked expression as he put a hand on his heart with a small scoff, “What?! Can you blame me for wanting to show you off? Look at you!” He told you as his signature goofy smile reappeared on his face causing you to laugh more. “No I guess not,” you smirked as you gave him a kiss on the cheek as a thank you, causing him to get a little flustered. To be honest you both kinda forgot you were live, you were too busy wrapped up in each other, until Butters entered the room meowing so loud you and Jack snapped out of your love sick gazes and turned to him.

“Aw, what is it, Butters?” Jack asked as he went over and picked the cat up and cradled him like he was his baby, technically he was. Butters only answered with another meow causing you to pet him on the head, “I think he’s hungry,” you looked up at Jack. Another meow followed.

“Alright, I hear you Butters,” he turned back to the camera where he saw the chat freaking out about the adorable moment you two just shared, “We have to go but thank you all for joining. Byeee!” He disconnected the live and quickly put Butters down.

You looked up at him confused but didn’t get to say a word before Jack was kissing your lips. You kissed back and pulled away after a few moments. “What was that for?”

He shrugged, “I dunno, I’ve just been wanting to do it all day,” he said as he smirked. As he was leaning in for another, his movements got cut off by another loud meow from Butters. Jack groaned as he put his head on your shoulder and you laughed as you lifted his head up and slightly pushed Jack’s curls from out of his eyes before you kissed his forehead, “C’mon lets go,” You grabbed his hand and you followed Butters into the kitchen.

He had a lazy smile on his face with hearts in his eyes. This man was so whipped for you.

HOPE YOU ENJOYED! I love this sm <33

tags: @ashlesys-blog @wekiamo @dizzyscreams

[etz-ashashiyot]

Okay I haven't yet commented on the whole Adas Torah protest/brawl, because from what I'm seeing in the news, it looks very much like an "everyone sucks here" situation.

The event that they were hosting that attracted the protesters to begin with was sponsored by a group called "My Home in Israel" and literally sells property in the West Bank in addition to Israel proper.

Honestly? That's worth being upset about, and if the protests were actually targeted at discouraging people from buying property in occupied areas, I would support them. A peaceful, respectful protest, especially one that very intentionally included liberal Jews and/or people willing to do education on this issue and meet people where they're at? Or better yet: reaching out to that community ahead of time and encouraging them to cancel the event rather than a protest? That might actually make a difference.

But of course they didn't take that tack. Why do the hard work of actual real advocacy when you could just show up to a house of worship with bear spray and aggressively block doors and verbally escalate? Why talk to Jews when you could just attack them?

So. Good job guys. Way to show up for Palestine. I'm sure all of the Jews present for this altercation will feel so safe and loved and respected that they will definitely stay in the diaspora without an army to protect them.

Because like, not to be That Guy, but I honestly can't think of a better sales pitch for making aliyah than being physically attacked by an antisemitic mob outside your shul.

That said, they weren't exactly sitting ducks, either. People found out about this protest ahead of time and set up a counter-protest who, at a minimum, fought back physically if not escalated themselves. It's unclear to me who instigated what, and so personally I'm reserving judgment on that specific issue. But this was not a situation where totally defenseless worshippers were attacked out of the blue and I don't think it helps to try and paint this situation that way.

Please note: I wasn't there, so if I have any facts wrong, please tell me and send reliable sources. I'm open to revising this view of the situation, but want to make sure I have legitimate contrary facts on which to rely.

[lawbreaker13]

There’s something about Elemental that I love but I can’t quite seem to articulate.

[Spoilers by the way]

At the end of the movie, Ember and Wade leave together so Ember can take her internship at the glass company. This is supposedly a full time thing for her, which means she’s moving. Like yeah, she underestimates herself like “oh it probably won’t go anywhere and I’ll be back home soon,” but that’s a very “ooh this is a big step and I don’t feel ready to move out” mentality (literally told my parents I’d be back at the end of my first year’s lease, it’s just a mental safety net, but boy was that a relatable line for me). Regardless of her lack of confidence in herself and this potential new job, she is moving out. And Wade is going with her.

She had said “I want to travel the world with you.” That’s great, and I hope they do, but that’s not what’s happening here. It’s said that this is several months, maybe even a year after the main events of the movie. The majority of the movie itself spans a couple weeks or so (edit: I counted, it’s about 8-12 days). So by the time they leave for Ember’s internship, Ember and Wade have been dating for a while. Anywhere between three months and a year. Wade is leaving with her, and it’s difficult for me to believe they’re going anywhere but the same place. Which means they’re moving in together.

Now I know that it sounds like I’m just freaking out and being incoherent about a ship, but the truth of the matter is, that’s really mature of Pixar.

Family friendly and kid-centric animation tends not to push anything but the “fall in love, kiss, get married, move in, have babies” pipeline. But what I loved about Elemental was that it portrayed a REALISTIC, HEALTHY, and MATURE relationship. One where the couple has arguments about real things that matter and after space, they talk it out. One where “I don’t understand” isn’t an invitation to shut down (even if Ember meant it that way in the heat of the moment), but an invitation to try and learn. One where anger and “I’m leaving” can be met with “I’m coming with you,” and one where the couple doesn’t just love each other right off the bat, they have to DATE MANY TIMES AND GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER, SEE EACH OTHER IN THE WORST OF TIMES, and THEN, realize they’re in love. AND they said it out loud, which doesn’t happen often either (edit: I am well aware that a week or two is a very short amount of time to fall in love, but I’m gonna cut them A LITTLE slack because it’s not like. 3 days, and also they seemingly saw each other every single day for those couple weeks and had the months after that. It’s rare, but sometimes, when you know, you know).

But beyond that. Beyond dating, getting to know each other, communicating and helping each other out, and deciding “yes, we can and should be together,” Elemental showed these two doing an adult thing together—leaving home and moving out. Because they are ADULTS. And the fact that I felt like this movie was targeted towards me and my peers the same way a PG-13 or R rated movie might be, strictly because of the realism in the character’s interactions and dynamic, that is something that I absolutely adore. Like, Zootopia was a kid’s movie with mature themes. Miraculous is a kid’s show with mature themes. Even Avatar: The Last Airbender was clearly targeted towards children, even though we all know it has something for everyone.

But Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. The Spider-Verse movies. And honestly, Elemental. These feel like our movies. Movies I’m glad the kids can enjoy, but they’re made for us. The 20- and 30-year-olds.

I’m just so happy to see animation studios treating adult characters like real people. Maybe soon people will start to recognize animation as a legitimate form of storytelling, too.

I loved Elemental. I really did.

[awkwardandeccentric]

I wonder if the reason why Stolas is so blind to the class dynamic between him and Blitz is because he doesn’t feel like he benefits from it.

Work with me here. I’m not saying it’s true. I’m saying this may be how he feels.

You know those white people that say that they can’t have white privilege because they’re struggling to pay the rent? Maybe Stolas has a mindset something similar to that.

When you think royalty, you think strength and power. Stolas has neither. In terms of raw physical strength, Stolas is weaker among the Goetia. With his looks, he’s lanky and thin. “I’m so glad I don’t have to pretend to want to fuck his scrawny, twig ass.” (Stella I hate you so much). We know as the audience that it takes an insurmountable amount of strength to survive, umm, let’s see, let me check the list: missing mother, neglectful father, extreme isolation as a child, being a closeted gay man, an arranged marriage, marital rape, domestic violence, and being a teen father.

Yeah, I would have offed myself at number five.

But to Stolas, having to take SSRIs and having mental health issues is something he most likely is deeply ashamed of. Something he thinks of as a weakness.

In terms of power, he’s never had any power to control his own life. From the moment he was born, his destiny was written for him, no deviation allowed. “It is expected an oath by blood to hold the tome and the starlight passes overhead fuels all the skills I've honed. I am a guardian, a watcher of these ancient rites.” He has no power over who or when or if he commits himself to one person for the rest of his very, very long life. He has no power over Stella to make her stop abusing him. He has no power over his own brain to make him stop being suicidal.

In his mind, the idea that he benefits at all from his station is ludicrous. ‘Where is this privilege?’ He’s probably thinking to himself. ‘I don’t even get to choose who I marry, when I have children, what job I have, who I get to love, whether I make friends, how I can express my emotions, nothing. I choose nothing.’

And honestly? He’s not right…but he’s also not wrong.

There is something deeply fucked up about how the system has taken a cute, happy bird just excited to learn about his future on his birthday and chewed him up before spitting him out into a severely depressed alcoholic with C-PTSD and recovering from an assassination attempt.

It’s not that he doesn’t benefit from his status compared to other demons. He does. He has servants and can get an appointment for a hospital visit at any time and he’s welcome in any club he goes to and he’s never had to worry about whether he’ll have a roof over his head or food on the table. But compared to the standards set by the people around him? The idea is laughable. Offensive. Where is this privilege? He’s not seeing it.

And like the white people who claim that they can’t have white privilege because they struggle to pay the rent, we want to pull our hair out and scream because “holy shit how can you be this stupid?!”

But they have legitimate complaints about a system that chewed them up and spit them out. And so does Stolas.

[still-a-morosexual-help]

okay so lately I have seen a lot of people claim they hate mammon bc he steals from mc, and like there's nothing wrong with disliking a character lol but I don't recall mammon ever stealing from mc?? like the only thing I can think of is that one time in season 1 I think where he was going through their stuff and said he was looking for something to sell (I think?? it's been a while) and beel straight up calling him a liar lmao l'm just wondered if I missed something? or if this is just newer players who maybe misunderstood that one scene? and I figured if anyone would know it would be you lmao

I got so fucking pissed about this (not at you anon <3) cos this is the third time I got an ask like this, that I scrolled all the way down my 'Obey Me Mammon' tag to June/July 2020 and then slowly scrolled my way up pulling all the receipts I could.....I saw this immediately after you sent it and I just finished now...... turns out it takes 5 straight hours to go through my Mammon tag😶

I have answered this exact same ask twice before and I can only assume it's new people? Like honestly you can't play the game for a long time and still think this (they prove this false within the game in LESSON FOUR)

Not only does Mammon NOT steal from MC, he also:

a.) Gets legitimate/legal jobs whenever he wants to buy MC something (which is pretty frequently)

b.) Shares the money with them when he comes into a large sum of money

But anyway here are the links to the posts talking about all this:

(everything is directly taken from canon or based off canon)

A.) No he doesn't steal from MC

• Full Summary of the Lesson 4 locked chapter where he goes through MC's stuff and a compare and contrast of what we know about Mammon from future lessons, events, devilgrams

• First post talking about this, goes more into detail about him not stealing from them

• Second shorter post about how he doesn't steal from them

• They're literally Partners in Crime

• He straight up refuses the Midas touch (multiple times I believe) after realising it means he won't be able to touch MC anymore

• HEADCANON that maybe he steals/borrows their clothes, with their knowledge, to wear

• In the small introductory manga page they say the thing he likes as much as money is MC

• In S3 he admits to loving MC more than he loves money

B.) He goes out of his way to get MC Presents (which we works actual jobs to earn money for)

• Mammon at the Office Devilgram, where he gets an actual office job so he can buy MC a watch he saw them looking at

• In the Movie Date Devilgram he rents out an entire theatre for the two of them because it was the anniversary of the day they first met

• In the You Always Ride Shotgun Devilgram he rents out a pool for the two of them

• He's always giving MC presents

• Usually he buys matching things for them

• He buys them shoes in their favourite colour

• Mammon's love language

• He wants to share his winnings from a lottery with MC

• He finds a secret second map in the pirate au event and tells only MC so they can share the treasure

C.) It's not just MC, he puts the others before Money too

• In the Presents From Mammon Devilgram he buys presents for everyone

• In The Guardian Demon Devilgram he saves a 9yr old orphaned homeless human girl from a mugger, fosters her and plans to pay for all her needs until she's an adult/can provide for herself - which is why he's always in debt to the three witches who look after her for him, there's also extortion going on from them towards him

• He'd rather lose the entire fortune he won than make Luke upset

• List of times he's put others before money

• He straight up tells Luke he doesn't mind missing out on a reward as long as it means Luke is alright

• Socks for Beel

• He gets a stone for his birthday which can give him whatever he wishes for, he wishes for fortune to come to whoever has the stone and then gives the stone to a student who tried to hurt him

D.) How Mammon works as a character

• Solmare makes you form certain expectations about him and then starts breaking them within the next few lessons and it's amazing to witness

• Friendship, Actions & Reality Vs Calling MC 'Servant'

• Mammon, MC and their Friendship

• Mammon being smart and why he comes off as an idiot

• His thoughts about himself vs MC

• He's actively changing and growing as a character and he knows it

• How Mammon actually views himself

• Why there's a difference in his level of affection in public vs privately

• Jerk with a heart of gold trope but better

• Mammon and how much he cares about consent

• How outsiders see Mammon vs how people from the city see Mammon vs how his close friends and family see him

• Chasing some creep away from MC

• How his relationship with MC changes and grows throughout the season

E.) Other reasons to love him

• Examples of how much he loves MC

• How supportive he & MC are of each other

• Some of his funniest moments

• He's objectively terrifying

• Mammon being a good brother

• He's extremely ride or die for MC

• He waits for MC when they've got to stay late at RAD for other work

• Despite being an ancient being all his best memories consist of the time he's spent with MC

• He created a whole line of toys based around missing MC

• Everything he says about loving MC in his 2022 birthday event

• List of things he's good at

• The amount he loves MC

And this is just a few of my posts about mammon, his character and what there's to love about him

And look it's MORE than okay for people to dislike a character but at least dislike them for something that actually happened?

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #48 – My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

This is the second book by Graham Jones I’ve read, though of the two it’s easily the more famous and the first I actually heard about. I was not at all prepared going into it – this is overall an interesting and engaging read, but it’s hardly what I’d call an easy one. Not do to any failures on the book’s part, really, but it’s not trying to hold your hand and you really have to meet it where it is (the mind of a traumatized teenager with a shit life and a weird obsession as a coping mechanism).

The book is told from the very close perspective of Jade, a high school senior in a tiny mountain town that was slowly decaying in the usual way right up until the moment where a collection of lawyers, real estate develops and tech moguls fell in love with the forest on the far side of the lake and decided to transform it into the perfect new home for them to raise their families. Jade, meanwhile, is living on the ragged edge of the dying town, giving her hair a shitty new dye-job every week and more focused on avoiding her drunk asshole of a father and his friends than graduating highschool. Her true love and object devotion, though, is horror movies – slashers, specifically, Friday the 13th and Halloween and all the other formulaic gore fests of serial killers and punished indiscretions and heroic final girls. And when a pair of European tourists really are mysteriously killed well tresspassing on the lake, and she meets the gorgeous, athletic, impossibly good daughter of a tech billionaire who just has to the final girl, she realizes she must be living through one.

Horror – especially slasher horror - is one of those genres where it’s feels like there are more metacommentaries and deconstructions (for whatever meaning you give the word) than there are examples played straight these days. Even if you did make a beat-for-beat formulaic slasher movie it would probably end up reading as self-parody by default. This book goes as far in the other direction as is physically possible – Jade understands the world nigh-exclusively through the lends of slasher movies, and the narration and her internal monologue is absolutely saturated with references and comparisons to them. Like Scream squared. You will, I expect, find this either charming or utterly intolerable, but you’ll find out quite early in the book; it starts in chapter one and simply doesn’t stop.

Now, I’m not particularly sure the book has much to say about horror – that the slasher genre is intensely formulaic and oddly moralistic isn’t exactly news to anyone who even slightly cares. Instead, it’s used mostly as a characterization tool. The central tension of the book (or, at least, the first 3/4 of it) is honestly whether there’s any reality to the slasher stuff or it’s entirely Jade projecting. Which is a much more tense tension than any amount of violence is likely to be, really – you legitimately don’t know which way it will go!

One consequence of the narrative marinating in horror trivia is that the way it actually presents violence is kind of uncanny. I’m honestly not entirely sure whether it’s intentional, but when Jade has spent the entire book blithely talking and fantasizing about fictional violence and being an utter gore-head about the coming apocalyptic violence she’s so certain is on the horizon, when it actually arrives it all feels a bit oddly unreal. Which is not exactly helped by said apocalyptic violence being incredibly confusing and hard to understand from a limited perspective until the very end when it’s just outright exposited to the reader, in a way that I wasn’t sure wasn’t Jade being Jade until the monster literally walked on water.

The book really lives and dies by what you think of Jade as a character. She is a damaged, messy teenage girl who makes consistently poor choices and responds to people trying to help her by lashing out or running away. She also literally only talks about and relates to other people through Slasher movies. She also spends a large portion of the story convinced the town is going to be massacred and ambivalent about whether it deserves it (to be fair, you will probably agree). This was a genuinely difficult read to continue at several points, and it was entirely down to sympathetic cringe and secondhand embarrassment at her every social interaction. Which to be clear I consider an absolute artistic triumph! But oh it was a struggle to get through.

The book’s approach to race, class and the general experience of being marginalized is more subtle than its take on horror tropes, but at times only barely. Jade is poor, half-Indian, and stuck dealing with a profoundly shitty home life on a few different levels. She is just barely riding the edge of graduating high-school or not, and that only from some very indulgent authority figures, with no particularly bright future to look forward to. It’s not what the book is about or anything, but the book makes absolutely no effort to paint her as a prodigy or destined for great things – and the contrast between Lethe the golden girl daughter of oligarchs is sharply and painfully clearly drawn, in how they are treated, how they go through life, and what sort of lives they seem to be cruising towards.

I am told this is the first book in a trilogy, and I’ve got to admit I have no fucking idea why or what the sequels could possibly be about. I also feel no real impulse to go chasing after them, but I’ll probably get around to it at some point.

[onlycosmere]

I wasn’t going to say anything about it because, frankly, I regularly read much better criticism of Brandon Sanderson on tumblr.

However, Brandon responded to that Wired article, so I’ll share his response with you all.

Brandon Sanderson:

All,

I appreciate the kind words and support.

Not sure how, or if, I should respond to the Wired article. I get that Jason, in writing it, felt incredibly conflicted about the fact that he finds me lame and boring. I’m baffled how he seemed to find every single person on his trip--my friends, my family, my fans--to be worthy of derision.

But he also feels sincere in his attempt to try to understand. While he legitimately seems to dislike me and my writing, I don't think that's why he came to see me. He wasn't looking for a hit piece--he was looking to explore the world through his writing. In that, he and I are the same, and I respect him for it, even if much of his tone seems quite dismissive of many people and ideas I care deeply about.

The strangest part for me is how Jason says he had trouble finding the real me. He says he wants something true or genuine. But he had the genuine me all that time. He really did. What I said, apparently, wasn't anything he found useful for writing an article. That doesn't make it not genuine or true.

I am not offended that the true me bores him. Honestly, I'm a guy who enjoys his job, loves his family, and is a little obsessive about his stories. There's no hidden trauma. No skeletons in my closet. Just a guy trying to understand the world through story. That IS kind of boring, from an outsider's perspective. I can see how it is difficult to write an article about me for that reason.

But at the same time, I’m worried about the way he treats our entire community. I understand that he didn’t just talk about me, but about you. As has been happening to fantasy fans for years, the general attitude of anyone writing about us is that we should be ashamed for enjoying what we enjoy. In that, the tone feels like it was written during the 80s. “Look at these silly nerds, liking things! How dare they like things! Don’t they know the thing they like is dumb?”

As a community, let’s take a deep breath. It’s all right. I appreciate you standing up for me, but please leave Jason alone. This might feel like an attack on us, on you, but it’s not. Jason wrote what he felt he needed--and as a writer, he is my colleague. Please show him respect. He should not be attacked for sharing his feelings. If we attack people for doing so, we make the world a worse place, because fewer people will be willing to be their authentic selves.

That said, let me say one thing. You, my friends, are not boring or lame. In Going Postal, one of my favorite novels, Sir Terry Pratchett has a character fascinated by collecting pins. Not pins like you might think--they aren't like Disney pins, or character pins. They are pins like tacks used to pin things to walls. Outsiders find it difficult to understand why he loves them so much. But he does.

In the book, pins are a stand-in for collecting stamps, but also a commentary on the way we as human beings are constantly finding wonder in the world around us. That is part of what makes us special. The man who collects those pins--Stanley Howler--IS special. In part BECAUSE of his passion. And the more you get to know him, or anyone, the more interesting you find them. This is a truism in life. People are interesting, every one of them--and being a writer is about finding out why.

In that way, the ability to make Stanley interesting is part of what makes Pratchett a genius, in my opinion. That's WRITING. Not merely using words. It’s what I aspire to be able to do. People are wonderful, fascinating, brilliant balls of walking contradiction, passion, and beauty. I find it an exciting challenge to make certain that the perspective of the washwoman or the monk sitting and reading a book is as interesting in a story as that of the king or the tech-mogul.

And I find value in you. Your passion for my work is a big part of why I write. You make my life special. Thank you.

(NOTE: I do want to make it clear, again that I bear Jason no ill will. I like him. Please leave him alone. He seems to be a sincere man who tried very hard to find a story, discovered that there wasn't one that interested him, then floundered in trying to figure out what he could say to make deadline. I respect him for trying his best to write what he obviously found a difficult article.

He’s a person, remember, just like each of us.)

[textualviolence]

Meng Yao/Jin Guangyao's Lovers Fuckability ranking

Level minus zero: Lan Xichen. Does not have even a shred of a fatherly relationship to JGY. Treats him like an equal. Is kind to him. Respects him as a person and genuinely likes who he is. Probably inspires JGY to become celibate so they can be chaste together. Some erotic tension if they don't fuck, brushes of hands, purity and chastity causing a rising of tension etc. But there's no way they can have actual sex outside of maybe the hiding from the Wen context. I bet they write poems to each other though. That's very nice. 2/10

Level 1: Nie Mingjue pre-Meng Yao's dismissal. Is technically probably Meng Yao's first dubious fatherbosslover figure. I do imagine he had a certain degree of guilt about it which isn't hot for anyone being victimized by an older authority figure. Definitely probably a lot of the sex they had and especially the kind they didn't have hinged on the fact that Meng Yao looks exactly like Nie Huaisang. I think if NMJ had been willing to cross that line and actually made Meng Yao kinda sorta pretend to be his little brother he would be further up the ranking, alas. The most morally dubious it gets is that Meng Yao is his servant and social inferior and probably aged around 15. However the incredibly high amount of approval he probably dished out regularly and easily alongside sex and orders did prepare the grounds for Meng Yao to then crave that kind of validation all the time and go to ridiculous lengths for it. 4/10

Level 2: Wen Ruohan. Will groom Meng Yao without subjecting him to his weird morality complex. WRH is just a bad guy and doesn't care. Also will favor Meng Yao over his actual blood children, partly as a manipulation tactic and also because his children kind of suck. Definitely loves to play people against each other and will use the trading of sexual favors as a political tool. Actually old enough to be his dad and is also in the same social position as his dad, currently beating his dad in a war, and acting as his dad dangling promises of legitimization in between throne room handjobs and prisoner torture sessions. Can humiliate both NMJ and JGS. Honestly the ideal situation. Too ideal? It's just too straightforward. Give yourself over to me body and soul and do my evil bidding and in exchange i'll give you all the validation you crave. That's so reliable that its suspicious and kind of a turn off. Where's the excitement and rollercoaster of unpredictable reward/punishment? 6/10

Level 5: Nie Mingjue post-Meng Yao's dismissal: No more little brother issue now it's all about how NMJ just wants to kill him at all cost and will risk political disaster in order to do so. NMJ who used to shower him with affection and validation, telling him all the time that he was proud of him and what a good job he was doing as a deputy, now wants him dead. The dick must be incredible. They probably don't have sex often & its never not violent & dangerous, but the high of it lasts for days. It doesn't lessen the rage in the long term but it evacuates it in the short term & where before the sex was coexisting with the validation now the sex IS the validation. Which makes it hot no matter how unvalidating its actually meant to be. Half those bruises he's hiding under his sleeves aren't from Madam Jin let me tell you. Plus he's writing poems to Lan Xichen and strongly considering the benefits of a chaste existence in between. The guilt and hypocrisy and having to lie to Lan Xichen's concerned and loving face when he sees the bruises is only making it more intense. 9/10

Level 7: Mo Xuanyu: He gets to become his dad(s) and take advantage of the willingness and admiration of a beautiful youth who would do anything for him. On top of that they're related. It's 100% reenactment power reversal fantasy combined with the horror of his marriage to Qin Su finding a concrete twisted sexual outlet. This time he fucked a half-sibling on purpose!!! And then he can dismiss him for sexual impropriety the second he comes to his senses and be rid of the sin forever which was half of the need. And then he can feel even more like his dad. 8/10

Level 10: Jin Guangshan: What more can I say. He slaps with one hand and caresses with another. Literally makes Jin Guangyao do the most secret taboo vile political tasks he can't offload onto anyone else and then refuses to touch him because of it until Meng Yao performs some kind of cleansing action, for which he is briefly rewarded with mild approval and even certain shows of affection, but never outside of the bedroom. Keeps a large retinue of whores and plays them off against each other, includes Meng Yao in the games to make sure he feels like one of them. No way to ever feel too comfortable in the certainty he has his father's anything because any shred of positive interaction is extremely hard-earned, unless he shows sign of wanting to leave or waver in his loyalties, in which case his father WILL pull him back with more love and care than he's ever shown which will feel like a drug. I bet he had more than one fight with NMJ over the issue of which groomer his son was to listen to and he won everytime. One show of possessiveness equivalent to 10'000 hours of basic respect in Meng Yao's heart. 10/10

[olderthannetfic]

I know about the origins of the Bechdel Test, but I do think it's inaccurate to say it's not meant as a criticism of movies that don't do that. I think that when people stop thinking in binary terms of "is this feminist?" or "is this anti-feminist?" and instead look at things more holistically, that you can recognize both that a character like Mako Mori is great, a step in the right direction for female characters in action movies and especially WOC, go forth and stan her and write all the fanfic you want.... but yeah, it is also a valid criticism of the movie (and many others like it) that she doesn't talk to or have relationships with any other woman in the film.

I think one thing to help people realize just HOW much of women's lives are being left out of media representation when we never talk to other named women about something other than a man in movies, is to just think about your own life. I talk to my mom every day, and if we are not talking about my stepdad or my brother-in-law (and I don't think we've ever had a conversation that wasn't at least IN PART not about them or another man), then it passes the test. I'm a professor and when I talk to a female student about her homework or project (which is, again, something that happens pretty much every day I teach), that's passing the test. If I order food from a female cashier and she has a name tag, that's passing the Bechdel Test! It's literally just constant for the vast majority of women on the planet, and that's what's being left out of our stories.

Like, I like the takes I've seen about how part of the joke in Dykes to Watch Out For is that this is *particularly* alienating to lesbians - as a lesbian myself I agree - but I also think it should be frustrating to straight and bi and ace women as well, because like unless you are like exclusively interacting with your husband or male relatives every single day + you work in a workplace where you are literally the only woman, you are almost certainly passing the test constantly. That's a pretty big part of women's lives that Hollywood is leaving out!

But I think it's important to view it as just one piece of the discussion about feminism and women's representation in film, not the final judge on if a film is feminist or not. Which it wasn't intended to be - as you said, it was mostly a joke on the extreme maleness of 80s action movies. Honestly, I do not miss those days on Tumblr where people were obsessed with declaring certain movies/TV shows/other fandoms they liked as "feminist" or "anti-feminist" and the really bizarre granular discussions people would have between two works that BOTH had a long way to go in terms of representing women. I remember people in the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom would use this to argue about if the original anime or Brotherhood/the manga was better - when both have some fantastic female supporting characters, but are ultimately male-centered stories where even a lot of those women's lives and stories are centered around their male love interests and family members. It's better than a lot of shounen, but if that's your bar for feminism - either version - you have a long way to go (and need to watch WAY more anime because there's sooooo much of it that is female-centric). I also remember people coming up with other tests that were blatantly silly: like I thought the Mako Mori test about "if a woman has a motivation/story that isn't centered on a man" was fair because it did point out a legitimate criticism, but there was that ridiculous "Tauriel Test" where it was "a woman who is good at her job." And it was entirely about someone just disliking that movie critics and feminist commentators alike were down on the Hobbit movie trilogy, which a) were bad movies, sorry you have bad taste, b) are absolutely not where you should focus your attention if you're so concerned about women's representation in film, Tolkein has always been a sausage fest! And her big thing was being mad that people thought Judi Dench's M in Skyfall was a better female character, and so she arbitrarily decided she was "bad at her job" and Tauriel was "good at her job" even though that's completely subjective and can be challenged in both cases.... but also, once again, why are you looking to the fucking JAMES BOND franchise for movie feminism! There's nothing like comparing the relative "feminism levels" of JAMES BOND and LOTR to make it obvious that this is 100% about validating your subjective taste preferences by giving it a "progressive" excuse, not actually about feminism and not actually caring about women's representation beyond how it makes you look good. And yet SO many people took that transparently stupid post seriously. I'd see professional articles mention the Tauriel Test as "one of the new tests" like there was anything serious about it.

And then on the flip side, over-reliance on the Bechdel Test alone led to some clueless conclusions especially in anime fandom, given that anime has an abundance of shows that exclusively feature female characters in school clubs being cute, where those characters are nonetheless two-dimensional archetypes designed for the male gaze. Someone like fandomsandfeminism did a presentation at an anime con that called one of those types of shows "feminist" and some Japanese user eviscerated it, but that just led to the equally shallow fandom analysis of "everything a Japanese person says about anime is automatically more valid" and "any Westerner who wants to criticize anime on feminist/progressive grounds is culturally appropriating and ultimately coming from a place of ignorance, even if they literally have a degree in Asian studies."

Wow, this turned into a rant about the history of bad "feminist media criticism" on this website. Sorry about that, I think I had a point in here somewhere. I guess that the Bechdel Test is indeed a joke and those origins should be understood, but also, I don't think it's wrong to say that it identifies a real problem and one that people could probably take MORE seriously than they do - but as just one part of the conversation, not the Feminism Litmus Test, and certainly not as a dick-measuring contest about whose fandom gets them more progressive brownie points.

--

I think as long as we grasp that the joke is "The bar is so far under the ground that we might as well go home and eat popcorn there", it's fine.

The real issue with the test is that people started thinking a pass was meaningful.

If you say something like "X% of 2020s movies can't even manage this weaksauce level of women existing", that's a meaningful statistic. Even if you got a couple of data points wrong, you're not factually wrong enough for it to matter because X is going to be some massive, massive percentage, and the overall trend is so clear.

But a pass is nothing to celebrate, and that's where we went wrong.

Like you say, litigating which of two big franchises that barely do anything with women wins on tumblr points is idiocy.

I think people are so unaware of what media that genuinely centers women even looks like that it's hard for them to even begin having a discussion.

I personally have been a massive fujoshi type from adolescence, and media that centers female characters isn't actually what I typically want. (Though media that is by and for women and that doesn't give a fuck what men think of this is.) I am also not much of a fan of slice of life in general...

But when I was coming out and figuring my shit out, being able to go buy collections of Dykes to Watch Out For was incredibly valuable to me.

Ditto the other lesbian comic books that were just sitting there in the bookstore. I'm sure if I went back and reread them all now, I could find things to nitpick or ways they were more for lesbians and less for me as a bi girl, but the really distinctive thing they did was let me exist in a world where media isn't all 80s sausagefest action movies where women are not people.

In fact, they were a world where men don't matter terribly much—not because they're dramatically rejecting men in some facile and reactionary way but because... who cares? They just had other priorities... and this was normal.

It feels like people who've never taken a vacation from really mainstream media just have no concept of what it would feel like to exist in some other space.

And I think that's a pity even if, like me, they later choose to go read mostly BL later instead of focusing on female characters or they genuinely love trash 80s action movies despite everything wrong with them. It's not just sexist media that's the issue: it's that feeling like the fish can't see the water it's swimming in.