#They had a lot of production problems but it's coming out in January

[meri-l]

The Master and Margarita

Russia 2024

[theweirdwideweb]

I reported my boss to HR for discrimination last week. Please tell me if I'm crazy.

My old boss got promoted so around October I got a new supervisor. We've been coworkers for about 5 years and had a friendly relationship. I'd been to her house, met her kids, we chit chatted a lot. When she started approving my time cards she noticed I was using about 3-5 hours of PTO per week at random times. I explained this was an informal arrangement I had with my previous supervisor due to my disability. I have C-PTSD and ADHD which honestly make it difficult to get through the day pretty much every day. Sometimes I need more breaks and if I'm using my PTO and being honest, who cares right? Well the new supervisor cared. She told me that if I couldn't be a full time employee they couldn't justify our headcount and my job was on the line unless I made this a formal arrangement. I was really hurt but I did it, I got all the doctors notes together and figured--while I'm formalizing it, I actually do need extra therapy so I'm gonna make my FMLA (family medical leave act) time include these sessions.

All this is approved obviously because one thing I'm not is self diagnosed. I've got medical records a mile high. So starting in January this official leave time goes into effect and I can use up to 7 hours of PTO per week. Before all this began my supervisor consistently praised me as a "rockstar" employee, saying I was the only person on the team who truly follows the rules. In general I was thought of as an excellent worker and had received a promotion. The team that I lead smashed our goals for 2023. But, strangely, once I start the FMLA my supervisor begins complaining about my lack of productivity. I kept a spreadsheet as a tool for my ADHD where I tracked how I was spending my time so I volunteered to let her see it so she could figure it out. Instead of sending the spreadsheet tracking my work in 5 minute increments once or twice, this woman has had me sending it every week for the past 7 months. Every Monday we have our 1:1 and she lets me know how poorly I'm doing. She also sends me an email on Mondays where she counts every email I have in my inbox, every claim I have across multiple programs, every minute of meetings I have scheduled and sends me the amount of time she expects it to take and if I don't make it then we have to talk about my "problems".

Now I'm practically never making it. I've appealed to her and to her boss so many times that there is something wrong with this formula they've come up with to calculate my workload--and they both just think I'm lying. Long story short in May I started measuring my time not on the spreadsheet but by the individual tasks in the email and not only am I keeping up, but there's a full 5-6 hours of work every week that she hasn't been counting (including 3 hours talking on the phone---with her!). I bring this up at our 1:1 in late May and say, See there really is something wrong with your measurement. I'm right on track productivity wise with these tasks. She doesn't acknowledge at all the flaw I've found in her formula but DOES say, "I do think there's been an improvement in your productivity and I expect it will continue to improve as you get more therapy." Full on MASK OFF. So my "productivity issues" are improved by therapy, meaning she's been ascribing those issues to my disability. Incredible.

I go to HR the next day to have this interaction on the record. First time I've gone to HR about anything ever. They are so concerned that they are going to launch an investigation and I tearfully plead with them not to because my boss's boss is out on medical leave and I don't want to cause huge problems while she's away and can't moderate. I didn't realize it would automatically cause an investigation to report this. The lady takes pity on me and says they won't investigate for now.

The VERY NEXT DAY my supervisor tells us in a team meeting (other people there to witness) that she's got a funny story about her son. It's some innocent story about how he's grounded and can't go to a party, but she continues on by talking about how she has to be extra strict with him because he has ADHD. If she doesn't enforce consequences, he'll never learn! And he has to learn because when he grows up his boss isn't going to take his ADHD as an excuse. "Policies are policies" she said, "Your boss isn't going to accept an answer like I know I was supposed to do four things but I only got to three because...." She even went further talking about how he's having trouble learning to drive because of his ADHD and just laughing about it. When he has to do something, she says, she has to remind him multiple times and set timers and double check with him otherwise he'll forget.

So I'm fucking flabbergasted at this point, right? This whole time I've been feeling like this time tracking is discriminatory and here she is just spelling it out for me in neon letters: YES, IT ACTUALLY IS. So I'm biding my time until her boss gets back from medical leave. But after 3 weeks of showing her that her method is flawed she tells me I don't have to do the spreadsheet anymore. Her boss is back but cancelled our first meeting, so I figure: If the bullshit stops, for the sake of my career and mental health I'm gonna let this go. My supervisor goes on vacation for 2 weeks. I'm doing my work exactly as I want to without the added pressure and everything is going great.

Once she gets back though we have our 1:1 and she asks me where my emails were on the 2 past Fridays telling her if I got all my work done. Which she never asked me to do, btw. Reader---I mcfreakin lost it. I belligerently asked why this was still necessary, that I felt picked on and bullied, that she isn't doing this to anyone else on the team, and that I'm sick and tired of constantly being demoralized by her leadership. I told her that I was going to talk to her boss directly about this situation. She was pissed. She actually unfriended me on facebook which for middle aged women is like throwing a grenade.

Next day I talk to her boss. I bring my evidence because of course I've been taking notes. The situation is serious. HR has become involved. And just because there are anti-retaliatory rules for reporting protected concerns doesn't actually protect me from getting fired. Suddenly I'm fearful about everything. I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job and my health insurance, bye bye therapy,, bye bye surgery I need. I've been at this job 6 years and the animosity is at an all time high. Christ almighty.

[thecurioustale]

My New Book Is Out! | Tokens of Zeal

My new book is out!

Buy it! Buy it now!

That's right: In secret, on January 2 of this year I began writing a book of essays. Some of you may know that I have an online journal, which I created in the summer of 2003 when I was just 21 years old and have kept up with ever since. For my new book I went back to the journal and read through it, entry by entry, drawing out excerpts of interest that became conversation pieces for 81 various and sundry essays reflecting on my past life and past thoughts.

The essays are short, often very short. They are less challenging than my usual writing, I would say. My purpose was not to advance my personal frontier of philosophy and intellectual thought in 2024, or to reach a niche audience of deep thinkers, but instead to reflect sincerely on some things I've seen along the way and muse upon how my thoughts have changed and stayed the same over twenty years.

I mention this to you because I am a bit worried that anyone who reads this book might think there's not much to me as an author, and might be dissuaded from reading my works of fiction when those books eventually come out, so I'll lampshade that by adding that I wrote this book in two-and-a-half months. Make of that what you will. I told myself I wouldn't self-sabotage the book by needlessly saying negative things about it, and I am proud of it, not only the fact that I finished it at all, let alone so quickly, but of the actual contents too.

This book is "Volume 1" in a hypothetical series, as it doesn't cover the entire twenty years of the journal but only the first four months, from August to November of 2003—at which point the essays had reached "book length" (lol). So really this book is a snapshot of my life in the latter half of 2003. At that time, I was fading out of college due to financial hardship and other issues, and did not realize that I would never (as yet) return.

I have been wanting for years to go back and reread my journal, and writing a book out of it was the perfect impetus to finally do it. I think a few things stand out about the Josh of 2023:

First, my principles have remained remarkably consistent, but my awareness and understanding of the world has grown drastically, and so those same principles have led me over time to some different policy views and worldviews on some things.

Second, I was a 21-year-old arrogant block of cheese, full of hormones and self-conviction, and that definitely shows up at times in ways that I simultaneously am not proud of and yet which I admire for their sheer gall. There is something very magnetic about the old me which doesn't exist anymore.

Third, following up on that point, it was pretty inspiring and encouraging to revisit the old me, with all that native optimism and drive. I don't express those qualities anymore because life has worn me down and also because I have come to recognize that humanity's problems are a lot more stubborn and irremediable than I thought. By glimpsing into the past, I couldn't help but be cheered on by the old Josh's proud, utopian sense of human inevitability. It lifted my own spirits in the here and now!

I made the mistake of announcing the book on Patreon right after I finished writing it, i.e. back in mid-March. Then I had to wring my hands every week about how post-production was taking longer than expected. Between the irritating realities of formatting a book in software not properly equipped to format a book (never write a book in Google Docs), the complexities of my detail-oriented manner and strong vision regarding the cover design (and engaging for the first time ever with modern generative AI, and having to learn those ropes), and sustaining illnesses and other life priorities and so on, it would take me another two months in all to finally reach today, where I can now publicly declare:

The book is done! It is for sale right now. It is called:

Tokens of Zeal: Words from a Vanished Age

(Caption: Book front cover of Tokens of Zeal: Words from a Vanished Age, by Joshua Calars.)

You can buy it through Amazon in either paperback or e-book format. (I recommend the paperback version for aesthetics as it is much truer to my design vision for the book's layout and appearance, but my profit margin is actually a dollar bigger with the e-book version, so really just go with whichever version you prefer.) It is available in the US as well as in basically all the other countries that Amazon has expanded its publishing service into. If you need help finding a link to a particular version, give me a ping and I will point you there (if there is a "there" to be pointed to). This is my second published book, following Prelude to After The Hero in 2015, and the first book to be published in print.

If you do read it, first of all thank you! It's an honor that you would take the time. Second of all, I would love any feedback you care to offer. That's not a platitude either; feedback is hard to come by and I really would be interested in anything you have to say, good or bad. You can e-mail me, DM, reblog this, drop an ask, or tag me in an independent post. Whatever you like! Feedback will help me greatly when I eventually get around to writing Volume 2. And feel free to leave a review on Amazon, whether good or bad (though hopefully you enjoy the book); I am told it pleases The Algorithm. But most of all, if you enjoy the book, tell someone about it! Your word-of-mouth is currently 100 percent of my advertising budget, lol.

That's all. I wrote a book; it took four-and-a-half-months; it's done now; and it's the first time I've ever gotten to hold a book that I wrote in my hands as a physical thing, and that's pretty neat.

[chaifootsteps]

It’s almost not funny anymore seeing Viv fly off the handle over random Twitter users having even mildly negative opinions about her show. It just paints a deeply sad and almost tragic—if you leave out the part where she’s awful and did this to herself—picture of a person in free fall. As other anons have pointed out, she’s running around the glove on these expensive vacations, constantly treating herself, basically living in a dream world. And yet she’s still fixated on the opinions of people who ought to be inconsequential to her. Getting more and more unhinged by the day.

I can’t say I necessarily have sympathy for her? Like I said she’s pretty much got no one but herself to blame. But it’s objectively kind of sad just how far she’s fallen, and Hazbin isn’t even out yet. She had everything once, and it’s all slipping away from her now because she lacks the basic human decency to be good to the people around her.

I think part of her kind of sees the writing on the wall, but her ego is just so overwhelming that it drowns out whatever logic or common sense she’s got left. That’s why she’s lashing out more and more. Her sandcastle is eroding more and more by the day and she doesn’t know what to do, so she just keeps lashing out and hoping if she ignores the problem it’ll go away.

Key word being almost for me, but yeah, I agree. If she were slightly less awful, had slightly less power, it would be pretty sad.

She's gotten away with this for a lot longer than most people would have, and I think you're right, that at least part of her knows the salad days are coming to an end. She probably knows better than anyone else how bad things are, the exact details of Hazbin's troubled production, and is trying to live it up while she can -- before January, before July, before the NDAs start expiring. But even on a dream vacation to Japan with her friends, she can't resist angrily tweeting about a video that poked extremely lighthearted fun at her shows.

She could turn it all around tonight if she could just break away from the voices telling her what she's always wanted to hear, that she's gifted and brilliant and that all her critics are unfunny homophobic prudes who hate women. But she doesn't want to do that.

[viric-dreams]

It’s pretty well-established by now that I have a lot of fun dunking on Roberts and all of his problems and neuroses, but he does actually have several positive traits going for him:

• He has a very realistic sense of his strengths and weaknesses, and will not hesitate to go to someone with more knowledge in a topic for advice. He’ll also freely admit when there’s something he doesn’t know.

• If he believes he’s made a mistake, he has no problem admitting he made the wrong call and pivoting to a new strategy. He tends to have good objectivity when it comes to his own opinions and the surrounding facts and doesn’t get stuck in a rut or warp things to fit his already existing view.

• He’s creative—often problem-solving outside of the box. This is especially impressive considering the rigid and traditional navy structure he grew up surrounded by. Fortunately, this was something that the Commodore valued, and a lot of why he holds Roberts in such high regard.

• His memory is very good for dates and projects, and he can keep track of a dozen projects and their respective statuses at once (though keeps meticulous notes on it all regardless).

• Roberts doesn’t hold grudges. If he doesn’t get along with someone he’ll either avoid interaction with them or be distant and polite if forced to interact professionally. He’s also quick to forgive and move past things. There have been instances where emotions get the better of him and he reacts vindictively, but these are extreme scenarios where often all other options have been exhausted.

• He would trap and carry the bug out of his house rather than kill it. If it bites him, well, it’s scared—that’s not its fault. He doesn’t like violence and does his best to avoid it. That’s not to say he hasn’t enacted plenty of it, either directly or indirectly, and still has no problems sleeping at night, but if it’s avoidable he will try to avoid it.

• He doesn’t lie. He finds it overly complicated and bound to lead to trouble in the future. That isn’t to say that he’s not opaque, but you’re far more likely to get an “I’m not answering that” as a response, rather than any sort of untruth.

• Loves a good joke, particularly in the vein of slapstick humour, or an especially awful pun.

The Dreaded 27 reputation has overshadowed and obscured a lot of what he’s really like for the most part, and the average sequencer who’s had limited interactions with him tends to see him as the fun-killer, reaming you out for not meeting some standard or another, and some horrific horror stories in the back of your mind about the things he’s done to people that make you maybe reconsider how you approach the task you’re doing (or not doing) lest you meet a same fate.

Several of these traits (as well as a couple of less healthy ones) are direct products of getting dawnblasted at point blank range when they first turned the Machine on. Or rather, they’re traits he already had but ended up exacerbated by the Dawn Machine’s influence (ease at moving on from conflict in the aim of a greater goal, the depth of his dedication to the Commodore, and his tendency to ignore or deliberately push past his own limits for the sake of furthering the Work). I’m still rolling around how that would affect Nite, allegedly free of the Machine’s influence. If anything, it might make him someone slightly more self-serving and concerned with his own comfort? As his relationship with the LoN faction and January deepen, I think his ego and ambition get in the way of that objectivity and will eventually be his downfall.

[goose-books]

goose-books productions: a 2023 review

only [checks watch] two months late! view the image in higher quality here; read past years-in-review here; and thank you as always to my beloved @yvesdot for the template!

i shan't be dishonest; 2023 was not exactly the year of max. but i still got a lot of good writing done! transcripts + commentary under the cut, and, uh, take the godsong character roster again.

cws: animal death (february), pregnancy/miscarriage + body image issues (july), addiction (september), self-harm-as-metaphor (october)

january

what’s that? godsong ran away with me for another year? well, it does that. in the second of a plotted trilogy, anna (roughly: what if aeneas were a very sad lesbian?) and her lieutenants visit a soothsayer. ichari wants to kill for her, btw. anna please let them kill for you,

“Have we got to sacrifice an animal?” Sascha said, tilting his head. “Let you dig around in the entrails?” “If you’d like,” the Sibyl said, upper lip wrinkling. “But I’m haughty enough to believe I can make do with a bit of holy blood. Not you. Annadrijanna, if you would give me your hand.” Anna didn’t move. Her eyes widened, very slightly, as she stared at the hand the Sibyl had extended to her, palm up. Ichari’s hand was on their knife again before they could blink. Damn the gods and Avender’s Sibyl, and damn Anna’s quest, the moment she needed it they could have their blade in the prophet’s throat no matter what holy punishment tumbled down on their heels— “It won’t be like the other,” the Sibyl said, nodding to Anna’s right hand. “I keep my tools clean. Far less messy than entrails.” From their cloak pocket they drew a glinting silver pin, topped with a bead of pearl. “Just a prick, that’s all.” Ichari couldn’t tell if Anna’s chest was rising and falling beneath the robes, or if she had calcified entirely. “Anna,” they said, soft, warning. Almost pleading. Just give me the word, Anna. Just say the word. “You’ve a lot of ghosts clinging to your robes, Annadrijanna,” the Sibyl said softly. “I need a bit of life.”

february

while anna’s doing that, ambergris is causing problems. raised in regency patriarchyville, she recently befriended a dragon and received Powers; now she’s working toward 1. making it seem like her family’s manor is haunted 2. killing her parents and 3. having gay sex. not necessarily in that order.

Blood and yolk still stuck to her hands, gumming the webbing between thumb and forefinger. But it was a pretty picture, the mews desecrated, the falcons gone mad and tearing open their eggs. The duchy would whisper that Pyranimia had forsaken even the birds, that the Armindale fortune was suffocating in broken shells, and no one would consider that it was only nature, that rabbits and snakes and stable cats would swallow down their young if they got hungry. But not here, Ambergris thought, serene, picturing what her mother would say when she learned of the mews—the slight twitch of her mouth before her face settled back into glacial calm. Not you. You wish you could. You’re starving for it. But you won’t be rid of me now. You don’t know that yet. But I hold you in my hands now. If I were really a sorceress, I could twist up your body, ruin the organs that made me, the ones that hurt you. Or I could take them out and let you go free. She could sympathize. Abandoned by the goddess, she too might have withered and waned, and come to loathe the children sapping her strength as they grew inside her body. But her mother had made Ambergris too well for that—too cold to love a child or a husband, too cold to shrink from blood. You took the knife from your chest and put it in mine, Ambergris thought. But the gods have been watching. My god has been watching. The storm is building. And before I ever let you eat me, Mother, I will finish a daughter’s work and drain you dry. She raised her hand to her mouth, where her thumb met her forefinger, and licked away the blood.

march

in the spring i wrote a very long paper about antony and cleopatra (the shakespeare play, and also the people, and also the echoes of their story in the aeneid). which got me thinking about the deliberate narrative parallels between dido and cleopatra, which got me writing a ten-minute play where they have a one-night stand. happens to the best of us. i’m very proud of how this one came out, actually, but i have no idea what to do with it. target audience of weird lesbian classicists?

D: I want to be someone they don’t write tragedies about. C: (to the audience) Well. How charmingly ironic. D: If I could just—have—if I could just—just a life. Just someone who loves me. Just someone who won’t go away. Something boring. Something monotone. I don’t care how good I look burning. I want to stop being on fire. C: You have absolutely no sense of flair. D: I miss my sister. (A pause. She looks to C.) C: Can’t help you there. I had mine killed. D: (exhausted) Happens.

april

fans of the aeneid, please enjoy The Scene In Which The Protag Loses To A Tree. if godsong ever drops i will accept a 10-page double-spaced essay about how it is in conversation with the jason & medea myth.

Anna set his jaw. He braced his wooden hand against the trunk, then stepped up onto the coil and reached for the golden branch. It was slick and cold under his fingers, closer to stone than wood; Anna took hold and yanked. The branch slid from his fingers. Anna grabbed the trunk so he didn’t fall backward, ice jolting up his spine. The serpent hadn’t moved. Again he tried to snap the branch. A whisper of leaves as it bent, but there was no give; again his sweat-damp hand fell away. The word that slipped from his mouth startled him, because it was the sort of word no one used in a temple, something Caradorra had been scolded for saying in front of their mother. Another glance at Sascha. The serpent hadn’t stirred. Anna wiped his hand on his robes, straining up on his toes, and wrapped his hand around the base of the branch. If he could saw at it—but his sword lay gleaming and useless in the grass, his calves starting to ache, the branch warming under his touch. Please, Iv, please, please, please— He ignored the flicker in the corner of his eye: movement from the lakeside. But then came the hiss, rising like steam from the water thrown at the charred walls of a burning city, and his blood ran cold. Breaking from the lake, wet and shimmering, came an enormous frilled head. The second serpent, awake and alert, slitted yellow eyes fixed on Anna. It moved faster than thought—legs bunching, coils rippling, launching itself for the tree. ���Sascha, down!” Ichari shouted from the treeline, and the gun went off, louder than godly thunder, and the branch beside Anna burst into splinters, and as he gave a last desperate yank the golden branch snapped cleanly into his hand.

may

while working on the actual plot of godsong, i was also fleshing out the backstory, and ended up stumbling into the personalities of anna’s parents (a t4t4t throuple! let’s go gay people). so here’s a bit of anna backstory from the perspective of his mother, who is wonderful and nervous. did you know anna was chosen for priesthood at age 11? probably had no long-term psychological effect on her at all.

It was a celebration for Eli’s records: three days and three nights of festival feasting, of singing and dancing and hymns, of the temple bells ringing a clangorous echo from dawn until dusk. In past years, after past Ivtouchings, the celebrations had been citywide but quieter, briefer—the ceremonial anointment before the temple doors, to mark the new priest as a new melody in Iv’s living voice, and then a song. But it had been three hundred years since Iv had plucked a child from the rings of Ivander to holiness. No simple ceremony would suffice. On the first day, the older Ivtouched helped Anna atop an oxcart, the horns of each ox wrapped in gold ribbon, and led him in cheering parade through the city’s spiraling roads to the temple. In the street, in the surging shouting crowds that followed on foot, Radi cheered her voice hoarse and tried to etch the picture into her memory: the brilliant blue of the sky, the loose tail of ribbon flapping from one oxhorn, the glint of the sun off the bronze-painted spokes of the cart’s wheels. All of those details she might have set to canvas, with a small enough brush and a steady enough hand. But she knew even then that she wouldn’t try. There was no replicating her son’s smile, so broad it must have ached, or the dazed look of joy in his eyes. As if he were dreaming and praying not to wake. As if some curtain had unveiled before him to show him the heavens in shining vivid color, the world created for him anew. Someone else’s hands would mark him holy; someone else’s hands had dressed him in the dark Ivtouched robes, billowing out behind him in the breeze. He wasn’t quite tall enough. The hem was pinned up so it didn’t drag. Every few minutes atop the cart, Anna’s hand drifted down to hike the fabric up, more twitchy than deliberate, each yank a quiet spear through Radi’s heart.

june

please refer to my february comments on that list of ambergris’s.

Ambergris regarded them coolly. She had pulled them around the back of the orchestra into a corner: curtained from the rest of the room by a clot of musicians, the strings near too loud to speak over, the lanterns throwing warped shadows over the floor. “I apologize,” she said, slow, “if I startled you, Captain. I’d like a word.” Ichari’s heart still pattered at their ribs. Again they forced down the shaking need to wipe that faint smirk from her face. “You’ve had a few. You satisfied yet?” “Y-you’ve met my husband,” Ambergris said, “twice now.” So she had been watching, then, probably sunken into the shadows like a grotesque. “Twice too many times,” they said, curling their lip. “You aren’t impressed.” “Don’t let me offend your wifely sensibilities.” Ichari flashed their wickedest grin to see if she would squirm. “But you’re too pretty to go to waste on an ill-dressed fool’s limp cock.” Ambergris didn’t flinch, but her eyes widened slightly. Big innocent eyes, Sascha’s eyes, with all the guilelessness of a kitten. “Am I?” “Too good for him? I’m sorry you had to find out this way, duchess.” “Not duchess,” Ambergris said, “yet. I find—I know I’m too good. Am I pretty.”

july

more backstory, this time in second person about ambergris’s mother, who gets a POV in the book proper. not a very fun POV, but there's generational trauma to explore. creusa is the doctor that's been called in to help jonquilla through a miscarriage; she is gnc as fuck (jonquilla voice: you're insane).

Four weeks Creusa tends your bedside—four fuzzy weeks drifting in and out of fever, your thoughts racing like loosed horses, as you bleed out the last of your hoped-for heir. You loathe her for it, with a bright-hot intensity you can only grasp for moments at a time between unconsciousnesses. You loathe her for daring to pity you, for helping you sit up to drink down your pain relief; you loathe her for doing it well. You loathe her because she is fresh and young and rosy-cheeked and you are soft and lumpy and pathetic. You loathe her because she is beautiful despite all she does to destroy it, despite the way she prowls the manor in trousers, despite the fact that you have never once seen her suck in her stomach. Beautiful the way you were mere years ago. Beautiful enough to make breath catch when those worn fingers tuck her shorn hair behind her ears. What gives her the right to see you like this? What gives her the right to sprawl out in your home, in your chambers, in all her impropriety? What gives her the right to choose to be—this? Does she have a husband somewhere who lets her run free? Children she tends to with the same slight curve of a smile she gives you? Sisters? Brothers? Who does she fall into bed with at night? You want to step inside her skin, to pry it up, to take her apart and see how her heart beats. She’s had her hands in enough of your blood. You want to hold her organs. Your dreams come in tatters. Your stomach swollen to bursting again. The endless hallways. Dittany soaring away from you. Children squirming in your gut. Creusa stroking your hair. Sometimes those are not dreams, you think; sometimes your eyes flutter open and she is there, patient, quiet, calm. As she always is, except for the crease in her soft rose-petal lips, because when you are asleep she does not smile at you. She watches you as if she is afraid for you. She watches you as if she is guilty of something.  There are other dreams, too. Dreams you refuse to remember.

august

in august i had a Medical Experience. but first i finished the draft of godsong2, because i never fucking lose. this bit is from the very last scene, where no one is doing well.

Most days she shaved her face each day after morningsong, when she had the strength and a passable mirror. In Ivander she had not needed to, but she liked the look of it, the cleanness; in Armindale Manor she had been particularly careful. Sascha must have noticed, or picked it up from her face, because he scrambled wobbling back to his feet. “I’ll fetch a razor, eh?” “Sascha—” Ichari started, but Sascha waved a hand. “I’ll do it, Anna,” he said, earnest. Her twinge of warmth was faint; she inclined her head slightly. They had done something like this before, Sascha scrunching up next to her to wind his fingers through her hair—hair, Anna realized distantly, that was soot-choked and tangled now. He had spun her waves into a thick braid, then a number of tiny ones, chattering all the while; she had repaid him for it once with a spiraling swirl of mehndi across each of his fluttery hands. Now, though, when he held the razor up to her face, there was a new trepidation in the set of his lips. It took Anna too many sticky seconds to realize he was trying and failing to settle the terrible shake in his hands. “Sorry,” he said, blanching, when Anna looked at him. “Ah, I’m sorry, I…” “Armindale,” Ichari said, soft. Gentler than she had ever heard his name in their voice. They held out a palm. “S’okay.” Anna tilted her face toward them. Sascha scooted back to wrap his arms around his knees and watch Ichari sliver the hair from her chin, one hand braced against her cheek, their hands callused and cold and kind.

september

and we've reached the part of the year where school hit me like a Fucking Train. here's some carronash. that is, MILF julius caesar x neopronouns mark antony, in an extremely uneven borderline-religious-worship dynamic that has swallowed the latter's entire life (more about their deal here). you know, out of context here, they almost look sweet.

Ash shut xir eyes so xe wouldn’t see her hear it, and xe croaked, “I need a drink.” Her chest rose and fell beneath xim in silence. Somewhere beyond xir walls, a cart rattled over the streets. “I know,” Ash said, panic starting to rise cold in xir throat. “I know—I know, but it hurts, I need a drink, Julienne, it hurts, I think I’m going to die. I think I might fucking die.” I know you do, she had said the last time xe’d told her xe needed a drink. I know you do. I know you know why it’s a bad idea. And she had kissed xir forehead like an anointment and held xim when xe shook with frustrated sobs. Nothing now. Just her hand combing through xir curls. “Julienne,” Ash said, near a whine, the craving a spidery itch beneath xir skin. “Ash,” Julienne said. “Am I asking too much of you?” It didn’t sound like a condemnation. Xir insides curled anyway. “No,” xe said, small as a scolded child. “No, I just—I just…” “If it’s too much,” she said, soft. “If you can’t bear it. There’s no shame in that.”

october

i posted this poem here, but we’ll see it again! i think it’s kind of heavy-handed, but that's what happens when you try to articulate an insanity.

2:35 grindstone // max franciscovich there is a knife in my hand. there is a knife i am holding in the palm of my hand. i hold it by the blade. when i squeeze the blood runs down through the webbings of my fingers and the sting is hot. if i uncurl my fingers i will let go of the knife and it will not hurt. if i let go of the knife i will forget pain. suffering and fear will dull and scab over and my eyes will close. when i squeeze i remember it hurts. i remember i am dangerous. my eyes can close. i can cut with a touch. if i let go of the knife it will not hurt to make a fist. if i let go of the knife i will make a fist. if i let go of the knife in my hand i will forget there is a knife in my hand. when i squeeze the sting whets my thoughts and i see the world in all its brutal glory and i touch nothing i could ruin. there is a knife in my hand. there is a knife i am holding in the palm of my hand.

november

no nano this year :( i was being crushed by school and mentals, unfortunately. which sucks, because i've had a streak since 2018! but alas. next year. i did write a little more godsongverse backstory, set in anna's old city and starring the book's hector and andromache figures (ira and lucia, respectively; imi and nia are their twin toddlers).

Here was a part of the war that would not be told: that sometimes it would be late, very late, the sun sunken into the earth and the children in bed, before Ira came home. That Imi and Nia were asleep, Lucia suspected, was not an effect but a reason, because sometimes her heart-knit lover was nigh unrecognizable in the doorway, hunched and haggard, bathed in gore, and the twins would have been terrified. Blasphemous, maybe, for Lucia to see the dried blood cracking in rivulets on Ira’s skin and think of Iv’s shattered face. But even blasphemy was better than the other reason she shied from the thought—that likening Ira to the holiest of martyrs felt like giving up. Giving into what she suspected everyone else already thought inevitable. After the first night she had stopped fearing the worst. There would have been no missing the uproar in the city. Her fears were simpler: how much blood there might be, how many times Ira would wake in the night. But unless the wailing rose high enough to shake the temple down, the sixth wall of Ivander stood, and Lucia sat at home with the spinning and waited.

december

and… would you look at that, more godsong. i did write non-godsong things this year! but most of them are short stories i'm hoping to send out for publication, so i'm not keen on sharing yet. this, however, is literally a godsong x hadestown AU that i’ve been calling spadestown, and if i ever finish it i Will be posting it here. in a beautiful alternate world, godsong is an annaspades romcom. (it's not even that in this AU.)

Lying on the bed watching Anna write, Spades said, “You know xim. The queen.” Not an accusation, exactly. But a search for solid ground, an escape from the ice shifting under her. At the desk, Anna tapped the end of his pen against his lips. Distracting lips, unfairly plush. “Yes,” he said after an absent moment. “It is—natural. Xe returns every summer.” “Only here?” “As far back as I remember.” Anna blinked; Spades watched it sink in. “But not where you come from.” Spades shrugged. There were gods where she had come from, too. Not the sort one poured drinks for. “I suppose we can’t all be holy,” she said, reaching out across the narrow span of the room to his chair. Anna took her hand, his skin warm against hers, his pen calluses already familiar—the tip of his second finger, the inside of his third. When she closed her eyes, Ash’s grin flashed behind her lids. Xe must have known who she was. Gods always knew. “Sing it again,” she said, patting the bed beside her. Anna was staring at the page. He hummed another bar under his breath. Spades thought she might have to get up, to close the journal for him, to slip the pen from his hands and kiss him and hope he kissed back instead of dreaming louder. Then Anna said, “Sing what?” Spades tipped his chair back to hear him yelp. “What do you think, dipshit?” “My song?” Anna said, and there was his little winking smile. “Or our wedding hymn?” There was only one bed in the attic room, so they slept curled together. Invariably Spades woke with silky hair in her mouth. Not bad, she figured, for a night always warm.

and that's a wrap! i know i didn't post much this year, but i'm still hard at work at various odds and ends. thank you for sticking around, and i hope everyone reading this has a wonderful 2024!

[3416]

hi again my favourite mitch scholar! i have a quick question. what line did mitch used to play on in his drbut year? and the few years after and how did the progression to him getting to play on auston’s wing looked like? thanks :)

hi there! disclaimer: i wasn't a fan way back when and it's actually pretty hard to find the lineups before about 2019, but from the couple things i've looked up here... this is the lineup from january 1st, 2017, which is about halfway through his first season.

he spent a lot of time playing with jvr and bozak if what i've read/remember is right. his average toi during 16-17 was a little under 17 minutes, and he was fairly productive, esp as a rookie.

for the 17-18, here's a few lineups i could find.

still playing quite a bit with jvr and bozak, and sometimes getting elevated (or demoted) but babcock really hated playing him with auston like...... ever, lol. even when things went stale, like they never played on the same line. you can go through @1634archive for things back from 2016/2017/2018 and see where they got to be on ice for goals at the same time whether they were out there for a shift or a powerplay, but there's not a TON that aren't warmups bc they rlly didn't play together much despite wanting to. you can also look through this thread i made on twitter about all of the goals they've combined on.. though there are zero their first year in the league bc they legitimately were never out there together.

it seems like the first time they were actually put on a line together on purpose was late january 2019 bc the lineup had gone THAT stale that babcock caved, lol. here's snippets of auston and babcock media availability about them getting to play together.. and also here's a radio interview (@3:30ish) auston did around that time too where he says he liked that he was put on a line with mitch and reiterates that he played w him virtually never at 5v5 the first 2.5 years.

the fact that auston even makes a comment about how much babcock doesn't like it is just so...... telling to me, lol. either babcock hated the fact that auston had a preference or opinions about the lineup and was sticking it to him by never giving him what he wanted or... he hated mitch or both or SOMETHING. they clearly had problems... p sure there are even reports babcock literally flew to arizona to smooth things over with him at some point... babcock was a really stubborn and hardass coach who thought a lot of demented shit so lol ANYWYA.

even after that first time they were allowed to play together.. mitch finished out the 18-19 year on jt's wing and started the 19-20 year on it too.

babcock was fired 23 games into the 19-20 season after they went 9-10-4 and were on a 5 game losing streak. here's an article about it. it only came out later about the making a rookie mitch rank his teammates list but just validated the firing even more.

and here we are into january of 2020 after sheldon keefe takes over and mitch gets back from an injury, lol. he immediately was willing to give them a shot and ever since, it's been something that's always on the table when lines need a shakeup.

there are a lot of conclusions you can come to with all this information i feel like, but i hope it was helpful!! this is why it drives me nuts when people act like mike babcock was valid to "keep them apart" aka literally never play them together for years no matter how stale and bad the lineup got like... it got his ass fired, lol. no it was not a valid way to be with two exceptional players. i'm not saying a coach should just listen to their players wishes 24/7, but the inability to accept feedback or take into account preferences is wild and will get you nowhere. i wasn't around for all that, but knowing what we all know about mike babcock now.... idk, i appreciate sheldon keefe's ability to adapt more. people can think what they want about him relying on parts of his lineup as "crutches" but realistically, we don't know about his relationships with the players and 1634 are consistently the best and most dangerous part of the lineup year after year these days.

mitch and auston put up career numbers playing next to each other, and both of them know it and have wanted it since they developed their little warmup routine as literal rookies, and they're hopefully gonna get to play together for a long long time like elliotte said. :)

[prydainroyals]

[MEANWHILE...]

[PRYDAINIAN ROYAL NAVAL RESEARCH BASE, CABOT SOUND, ARCTIC CIRCLE]

LATE JANUARY, 202[X]--

Arthur had lost track of time.

One of his more difficult habits was his ability to hyperfocus on one thing to the exclusion of all others. This had led to an overreliance on caffeinated beverages and a color-coded system of physical and digital reminders to get through his school years and now, through adult life. This ability was excellent when he could harnass it to accomplish things that most of society might argue were "productive," but the problem was that he could not always harness it; and the hyperfocus could come and go in any direction like the wind.

This instance he'd been lucky, and had caught up on a number of reports--but the hour was getting late, so he slipped from the laboratory shed back into the research barracks with every intention of getting a bite to eat before heading to bed.

It was then that he stumbled across Captain James Walker Murray, the base's second-in-command, hovering by a heater, apparently lost in thought. Although he'd wanted to speak to Murray, Arthur thought better of it. it was late, so... not wanting to interrupt the man, Arthur turned to take his leave in silence, when suddenly--

"Lieutenant!" Murray cheerfully exclaimed, waving Arthur over to him. Arthur froze as if he'd been caught sneaking about by one of his parents. Snow was already melting off his shoulders and hair and he suppressed a shiver, wanting to shake away the residual biting cold from the Arctic winter outside.

"U-uh, Sir-"

"I was thinking you'd already bunked down for the evening. What's kept you up at this hour?" Murray waved Arthur over once more as he settled down comfortably onto one of the couches.

Arthur shuffled over to the Captain and sat next to him, silently appreciating the warmth of the communal area's heating and, in particular, that of the heater nearby.

"Everything alright?" Murray inquired curiously, now seemingly aware that there indeed was something on Arthur's mind; though he was not at all surprised, apparently.

"I'm... uh... I dunno if it's... really anything, Sir, I'm fine--"

Murray smiled warmly, encouragingly, at Arthur. There was a sense of.. was that... nostalgia? It was nostalgia and sympathy in the Captain's eyes.

"Take a breath, Arthur. I mean it," he advised. "It's too late to be worried about propriety, and too deep into winter not to be sharing what's eating you."

Arthur... really could not say "no" to such a friendly and encouraging offer.

"Of course, Sir. It's just... I've had a lot on my mind lately. I mean, about... everything! My future, as King, and... that sort of thing," Arthur admitted rather uncomfortably. Discussing uncertainty was one thing, was bad enough, but discussing uncertainty about his own role as the monarch? He had always been taught that this was out of the question.

But... things like that... seemed to matter less, there in the middle of Frozen Fuck-All Nowhere.

"Like... what if I cock it up? Let the entire United Kingdom and all our allies down because I say the wrong thing at the wrong time? What if I can't do anything good, and I'm just--a laughingstock? What if nothing I do matters? I--" he huffed. "It's stupid, it's all silly," he hurriedly added.

"'Ooh, he's worried about being the King! Poor diddums in his posh palace with all his servants and money!' Yeah, I get it. First world problems, I know."

"So what you're telling me is," Murray pondered, gesturing at the air, "that you aren't allowed to have any doubts, that you must clearly be absolutely perfect because you're the Crown Prince? Bit arrogant, if you ask me."

Arthur had grown accustomed to Murray's relatively easygoing personality over the last eight months, but that had caught him off guard. He peered at the Captain to gauge just how sarcastic the man was being, but that only confused things further.

He appeared to be completely serious, and Arthur began to immediately regret his decision to join the Captain for a late night chat.

Fortunately for him, Murray elected to elaborate without prompting.

"If I ever learned anything from Catholic school that had a positive outcome on my life," he explained, "it would be that each of us has our cross to bear. Metaphorically speaking," he clarified.

"You, your father, your sister, you're all as-- as fallible and human as the rest of us commonfolk," Murray went on. "Not a one of us, in any circumstance, is absolved of... trying to work out how to... be a human being."

"You landed a better hand in this cosmic poker game than most of the planet, what of it?" Murray shrugged. "Going and... and denying your humanity by acting like you aren't allowed to have your own thoughts and feelings, just because of your status--one you did not choose, mind you--you're still separating yourself away from the rest of us."

Arthur listened to the Captain speak, and he felt his cheeks flush red with embarrassment. But he did not interrupt the man, and listened on.

"Don't go so far up your own arse that you forget your fears are as real to you as anyone else's," Murray said, knowingly nodding.

"Kings, Captains, cadets, commonfolk--we're all afraid of letting people down, being alone, and so forth. You are allowed to be human, lad."

Arthur was abruptly left in relative silence to ponder this advice, and he glanced down at his (now somewhat soggy) boots.

The seconds ticked on and with each passing moment, he had less and less heart to look over at the Captain again.

In reality, scarcely a few seconds had actually passed, and Captain Murray seemed to be content with the brief stew in which he'd just left Arthur.

"... Though when you're King, promise me you'll tell my father that we're all allowed to be human and imperfect."

Arthur glanced up at Murray, whose smile was back, albeit a bit wry now. "Your father, Sir?"

"My old man, yes," Murray snorted. "You set fire to your Gran's apron once on Christmas Eve and you never hear the end of it--!"

---

I had to break the tension somehow!

- - -

PREV | BEGINNING | NEXT

- - -

[eruden-writes]

Ringing out 2023

I wanted to visually see all the things I accomplished this year, since it's been a little on the rougher side for me.

⭐⭐Most - not all - of the content for these particular titles can be found at Eruden Archives, here on tumblr. ⭐⭐

Lights, Camera, Orc-tion! (Kahdreg x Avicia)

Self-published as two books then as a 2-in-1 duology in ebook and paperback!

Teeth (Maktov x Thalia)

Self-published as a novella with two erotic short stories, in ebook and paperback

The Unexpected Human Problem (Tai'dqei x Rayelle)

Completed in January 2023

Went through edit and revisions most of the year

Is being submitted to publishers and literary agents

The All-Hearts Festival

Started and completed in February 2023

Going through edits and revisions for self-publication

Has some art

Room and Board (Tabaeus)

Five updates in 2023

Desperation's Summit (Rakash x Cordelia)

One update 😖

Strictly Pleasure (Jek x Heidi)

Started in July 2023

11 updates!!!

Plus some art

Scent Match (Augustine x Amber)

Started in March 2023

9 updates!!!

Some art as well

Feed the Fever (Cyd x Mara)

Started in November 2023

2 updates

Misc Projects

Various bits of art concerning Obe / Fae Courts / Faebrikins

Cranky x Stowaway art - From "Dancing" on down.

Part took of Monster March a little

. . . . . . . . .

I'm frustrated with how little I feel I've gotten done this year. Looking at this makes me feel a little more accomplished, but I didn't market my books like I wanted to or stay on top of self-publishing. I had plans to start going to conventions or writers events or maybe even orchestrating local signings.

A lot of my productive hiccups have to do with current family court litigation and we'll still be in the throes of litigation come the beginning of 2024.

However! Hopefully some machinations for the New Year will give me a creative boost for 2024.

I hope your 2023 treated you all well and I hope your 2024 is phenomenal!

[duhragonball]

Other Months

You know, I was sort of hoping that by now, there would be some sort of course correction from Nanowrimo. I mean, the backlash seems pretty substantial. I keep looking for updates on the situation, and I keep expecting Nano to issue some weak apology, or at least acknowledge the outcry. But instead, I just find news articles about the backlash, or sponsors pulling out because they can see which way the wind is blowing.

And I'm not entirely surprised, but I guess I thought the people running that organization were a little more savvy than this. Then again, all these pro-AI types only seem to know how to double-down, so I guess Nanowrimo has already demonstrated the depths of their incompetence. If they were smart enough try to clean up this mess they never would have issued that statement in the first place.

So I probably gave them too much credit, but... I mean, what other reaction could they have expected? Their whole deal depends on large numbers of human writers coming together to do this challenge every year. By refusing to condemn AI, they basically said that the efforts of the human writers are extraneous, when it's very much the other way around. The Nanowrimo organization thinks it's too big to fail, but without the writers' participation, they're nothing. Even if their sponsors are paying big bucks for AI promotion, it won't do any good if there's no one around to sell the products to. This seems blindingly obvious, but apparently Nanowrimo can't figure it out.

Anyway, enough about them. I'm planning to proceed on schedule from November 1-30, but I started thinking about what to do in the future. The rest of the world may settle on some agreed-upon "official month" to do the 50k challenge, but I'm more interested in picking something that works best for me. I'll run through some options under the cut.

NOVEMBER

Pro: Traditional. I'm familiar with this thrity-day span, so why rock the boat?

Con: The Thanksgiving four-day weekend is a pain in the ass to plan around. Also my mom's birthday is in November, and I usually drive to her place and take her out to lunch, so that's another day where I schedule minimal writing. Oh, and AEW runs the Full Gear PPV, and the NJPW World Tag League starts up in November, so it's actually kind of busy. My normal strategy is to try to get as big a lead as possible in the first week in order to finish well before all this other stuff can slow me down.

DECEMBER

Pro: None. This would suck.

Con: This would just be a harder version of November, since Christmas always falls on a different day of the week.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY

Pro: There's not much happening in these months, and I usually schedule some days off from work here just so I might miss a few lousy commutes in cold weather. February's only 28 days, but I've finished so many past 50k challenges early that it probably doesn't matter anymore.

Con: I've tried to do "Janwum" challenges in the past, but it's tough to get into gear so soon after completing one in November. I kind of had this vision of doing four writing months every year, but the non-November ones were always tough. Maybe January 2026 would be better if I didn't do any writing for November 2025. So that would push me towards...

MARCH-SEPTEMBER

Pro: I dunno.

Con: I feel like a lot of stuff happens during these months, which makes it difficult to make solid plans. Then again, this is probably just because I've devoted so much planning to making sure Novembers are as clear as I can make them.

OCTOBER

Pro: It's like November, but sooner. Fewer holidays, wrestling shows, and so forth.

Con: That's when OC-tober happens, and I really would like to keep doing that in October if I can. True, I've only done the challenge once in 2021, but I want to get back to it, so I need to start re-evaluating my priorities.

OCTOBER 20-NOVEMBER 18

Pro: This would mostly eliminate my problems with November. I always get a little anxious to start in the last week of October, so maybe I should just go ahead and start early.

Con: Well, the OC-tober stuff would still be a conflict, if nothing else.

I'm not sure I've come to any strong conclusions here, except that I might want to do these in January, but I need to schedule 2025's challenge for the middle of the year. Like... June-ish? Well, that would get it out of the way in time for the G1 Climax. Huh.

[rootvegetableboy]

cm dev log #9 - july 2024

i think july might’ve been my most productive month yet! i really surprised myself with how much i achieved. it’s really satisfying proof that development is only getting faster & smoother the longer i go on :]

some really really exciting stuff implemented, including but not limited to…

new mechanics!

a surge/dodge mechanic has been added! press the spacebar to avoid incoming attacks! you can use this both directionally for a boost of speed, or while standing still to become invulnerable to damage for 15 whole frames. woah!!!

healing flask!! fuck everything else i’ve said in every log, good game design is all about beautiful potions. like all good potion ui, you get a little visual of your flask emptying:

reworking older systems!

i’m currently in the midst of reworking my save/load system! i’m not going to say too much, because… it’s one of the main hooks of my game… but it’s going real swell. i only have to do one more thing before this is in a workable state, which is:

i need to create a new in-game menu system from scratch =_=

this is something i’ve known was coming for a while, but i find coding UI pretty annoying sometimes, so i’ve been putting it off. the current in-game menu isn’t up to par with the artistic style of everything else, so i want to re-do it. i also plan on separating out the save/load menu from the in-game menu.

HOWEVER! i was able to do a successful collisions/hitbox rework this month in its entirety! this is huge, it’s an issue i noticed in january and has been bothering me all year!! it’s kind of hard to explain this one, so let me whip out some visual aids:

the dark rectangle around her feet is her collision box; when i write code that references a collision with the player, it’s checking for a collision with that box. such as… collisions with walls! or furniture! having it just around her feet is what allows me to fake a 3D look with only 2D art, so she can stand/walk in front of walls and objects and it doesn’t look horribly strange.

if her collision box included her head, she would stop moving as soon as the top of her sprite touched the bottom of the wall.. it would look and feel very odd!

but, you can immediately see where this becomes a problem when enemy bullets are checking for a collision with the player. she would get shot in the head and just like, be fine, it would go right through her…

i had the same problem with one of the enemies i’ve implemented, where i wanted to figure out a way to have both the collision box that comes with the sprite and a differently shaped hitbox. i hunted through a lot of forum posts for the best way to do it, but ultimately decided on what i personally thought to be the most “elegant” solution:

an entirely separate invisble object that follows all of the player’s exact movements and handles all of the player’s health and taken damage. (that’s all it does: the player object got to keep all its other code.)

i actually have no idea if this is optimal! but it works, and i got it working with minimal effort. it was a little trickier figuring out how to apply this concept to enemies, but i was able to write a little script so that every enemy i place in a room will spawn its own hitbox object. task complete!! the 3D illusion is secure and i can still maintain expected combat logic.

actual game content!

ah, finally…! after 9 months of development, the first miniboss is here…!!!

like a lot of things in game dev, you never really think about how much goes into a boss fight until you make one… but i had So Much Fun crafting this. im absolutely buzzing with ideas for future fights!

so, this all included: a small arena, pre-fight dialogue that automatically triggers when walking into said arena, barrier objects that appear during the fight so you can’t escape, and associated save/load scripts so that the boss doesn’t respawn if you leave the room and go back in. as for the miniboss herself, she gets her own special health bar with her name attached, and a state machine that cycles through three different attacks until she dies. (i haven’t coded player death yet lol)

some miscellanious stuff!

you may have noticed if you watched the video above, but i’ve changed the aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9. i like the nostalgia of a 4:3 but… i think with the way combat is emerging, the experience only benefits from the added screen space. you get a lot more room to see, and thus more time to react.

i’m finally starting on implementing music!! it’s getting atmospheric, babey!!! i’ve also got a little list of sfx that needs doing and i’m stoked to get started on it. video above doesn’t contain any sound because, i have not written a boss theme for her yet, and i didn’t want it to just be the shooting/damage sounds… i promise i am thinking a lot about sounds. and i can’t wait to dive into vcv rack to whip some up!!

i finally set up a github source control. files are secured. every other hobbyist dev should do this way earlier than i did

i’m proud, i did a lot! ^_^ i really want people to be able to playtest the miniboss fight soon—currently i plan on having one available to those interested in a couple of months! i have no idea how hard it actually is and i need some different eyes on it asap, so please let me know if that’s something you would be interested in :]

signing off for now… have a good august, everyone!

[achilleanfemme]

Resisting DSA's Culture of Disposability to Win the World we Deserve.

It’s National Convention season in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the time when every caucus with 20 members and a twitter account pulls out the knives and the slander to win over the majority of delegates at the National Convention to their positions... only to have them promptly ignored. Accusations of bullying, harassment, targeted destruction of caucus literature are par-for-the-course if you want to be given the blessing of joining DSA’s National Political Committee (NPC) and have half the organization immediately hate you.

Obviously, I am being hyperbolic, but a nugget of truth resides here: DSA has an organizational culture problem. Many of our members enter into a democratically-run, working-class political organization for the first time when they join DSA, and when they do, they bring the trappings of our oppressive, exploitative, and hyper-individualistic capitalist society with them. We come to DSA with our axes-of-oppression and axes-of-privilege along with us: those of gender, race, class, disability, neurotype, sexuality, nationality, language, etc. We come to DSA with our past wounds and the harms that we ourselves have carried out, knowingly or unknowingly. Democracy is always hard because building and exercising collective power requires trusting others. The vast majority of people who come to the Left come to our side battered, belittled, and betrayed by our imperialist-white supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy and how it manifests in our day-to-day lives and interactions. Therefore, when we are wounded by someone, or someone’s, inside of our organization, we respond to that harm in the same ways that we are taught to respond to that harm in our dominant culture—in ways that dehumanize, violate, punish, belittle, shame, harm, and cage. This organizational culture of disposability cannot stand if we want our organization to persist, grow, and win.

I have been involved in my fair share of conflicts since I joined DSA in January 2017. Freshly 20 years old and full of revolutionary fervor, I was a queer kid who’d spent the better part of the previous 5 years being abused by adults in my community and my family-of-origin for being honest about who I was. I had no idea how the legacy of those very fresh inflictions of pain and isolation would manifest in my body-mind and in my relationships. Zero. I did not grow up in a home environment that encouraged emotional maturity and productive conflict. So, I did the best I could to cope and hurt a few people along the way, in my personal and organizational life. I have over-reacted and called people out on Twitter. I have gossiped about minor disagreements instead of approaching my comrade directly. I have guarded my heart from the pain of losing a difficult political fight by pointing fingers at the people organizing closest to me. I am sure that many of you have done similar things. These antisocial behaviors have never gotten me any closer to what I have ultimately wanted, which is personal healing, genuine connection, and the joy that comes from solidarity and collective action. They have lost me more than a few close relationships. They have soured promising organizing efforts. They have made me feel helpless and alone.

I have also experienced harm at the hands of people in DSA, sometimes immense harm that has lost me jobs, caused me mental anguish, and encouraged the darkest whispers in the back of my mind to grow louder. I am sure a lot of people in the organization have experienced these things too, and it sucks. I am sorry. There is no excuse. You deserved better and more. I deserved better and more, too. Ultimately, as I have moved between moments of movement activity and moments of personal rest, healing, and growth over my years in DSA, I have come to the conclusion that I am in this fight for the rest of my life. I am not, however, comfortable resigning myself to an organizational reality that our commitment to abolitionist principles of solidarity, anti-carcerality, universal dignity, and reciprocal care simply stops inside our general meetings, slack channels, signal groups, and comrade-to-comrade relationships. 

Practically this means that mandatory censure, suspensions, and organizational expulsions (including de facto expulsions), cannot be entered into without democratic oversight and under the most extreme circumstances of harm. It means that when you sign-up to join DSA that you are committing yourself to practicing transformative justice and swear to respect the rights and dignity of every person in the organization, including those you do not personally like or politically disagree with, as long as they are willing to do the same. It means committing to the work of processing your own pain and refusing to project your past onto others. It means swallowing your ego and admitting when you are wrong or you have made a mistake. It means that when you inevitably fall short of these principles, that you agree to doing the hard thing, having the tough conversations, attending the restorative circle, learning about the importance of believing that none of your comrades are disposable, and committing yourself to furthering the work of solidarity and liberation. If all of us do not do this, if we give in to the forces (state-sanctioned, societal, and personal) that seek to pit us against one another and tear our organization down (as has happened many times before on the Left in the USA and abroad) then we lose. 

Today, I invite you to lay down old grievances, dust out your mental cupboards of resentment, and recommit yourself to the work of reciprocal care, of loving your comrades more than you love being right, of embracing the blessing that is leaving that message or email in your drafts until you’ve had more time to reflect, of solidarity and liberation. We have a world to win after all. ------------------------------

Much of this essay was inspired by the work and words of the amazing folks who created or participated in the following pieces of media, please support them! 

https://truthout.org/audio/to-transform-conflict-in-movements-we-must-learn-how-to-stay-in-it-together/ 

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1922-let-this-radicalize-you 

https://www.amazon.com/Break-Every-Yoke-Religion-Abolition/dp/0190949155 

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1108-how-we-get-free 

https://www.amazon.com/Abolition-Feminism-Now-Abolitionist-Papers/dp/1642592587/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1686951405&sr=1-1 

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT ECOMMERCE NEWS (INCLUDING ETSY), January 2024

Welcome to my first commerce news update of 2024!

Now that we are through the intensity of the holiday rush, I plan on getting a few of these out each month. Please follow me on Bluesky or on LinkedIn if you want more timely updates. (New ways to get updates coming soon!)

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Some Etsy listings now have a link which displays some shop owners' names and home addresses under the seller contact info, which says “Meet your seller”. This may be legally required in some jurisdictions, including within the US if you don’t have a proper location on your shop, but here is how to remove it if you don’t need it. Here’s some of the info on the US INFORM Act which could require disclosure of your information; the EU and UK are other jurisdictions which sometimes may require this info if you sell to them. 

Reminder that UK small sellers may end up having their taxable income reported by the platforms they sell on starting for 2024. “The first deadline for firms to report details of transactions is the end of January 2025 – a year after the rules come into force. Bank account details and the cost of transactions made by sellers with sizable trading activity must be reported.” Etsy reminded shop owners that there is no change in taxes owed in the UK; the changes force platforms to report income so that people can’t evade taxes as easily. 

In case you missed it, many USPS rates, as well as forever stamps, went up again on January 21. Some label services such as eBay may actually offer decreases in certain categories, however.

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy announced 2 (very different) “privacy” changes at the beginning of January: limiting some third-party apps from receiving buyer email addresses, and making the Etsy forum a seller-only site in the near future. Shops will have to log in to read anything other than Announcements and the Technical Issues sections. We are not yet sure if this applies to shops in long-term vacation mode. 

Etsy teased a promotional announcement on Jan. 16, which is likely that the site will be launching Gift Mode [post by me with a link to another post with screenshots]. I’ll write more on that once it is officially released, but here is one of my screenshots from today, with lots of infringement. Also, the site is apparently buying a Super Bowl ad. This year’s ads are expected to cost at least $7 million USD. Etsy forum thread discussing both topics here. 

Etsy chose not to respond to this article about AI art sold as indigenous creations. “Etsy has a policy that prohibits users from selling items falsely listed as being produced by Indigenous peoples — but only in Northern America, and allows “Indigenous-style” products by non-Indigenous people.”

Some shop owners from Turkey claim their shops are being shut down at a high rate, with no explanation. At least some had issues with items that cannot be sold on Etsy, and there appeared to be some with ID or financial anomalies. I am still interested in hearing more, if anyone knows anything. 

EcommerceBytes covered the Etsy problems with the domestic pricing tool charging some international buyers domestic prices, which have been going on since May 2023. While some sellers have managed to get refunds from the company, others report no such luck. 

ECOMMERCE NEWS (minus social media)

General

The Indie Sellers Guild is running a virtual convention in April; read the panel ideas here. 

Amazon

Amazon product pages now have a link to get AI-answers to your questions. Expect to see a lot more of this on many types of sites. 

There are several keyword tools that can help you optimize your Amazon products; 5 are discussed here, but note that some may be pricy.

The latest layoffs at Amazon include people working for the “Buy with Prime” department. 

Amazon’s difficult-to-navigate system for suspensions and other punishments has led to entire law firms dedicated to supporting shops that have been closed or have had listings removed. 

BigCommerce

BigCommerce sites can now have a marketplace component, meaning that a single business site can now have other sellers on it. 

eBay

eBay had to pay $3 million over its behaviour in the cyberstalking case against Ina and David Steiner, owners of EcommerceBytes. The Steiners issued a victim impact statement; the civil lawsuit in this matter goes to trial in March 2025. 

eBay’s discounted Tracked Packet rate from Canada Post has been extended to March 31, 2024. 

Buyers and sellers are getting annoyed with long delays in product authentication. 

eBay called a few sellers and pushed them to offer cheaper shipping rates, based on the discounted rates for eBay’s labels. (They seem to have forgotten that they charge fees on those shipping rates.)

Poshmark

Poshmark’s recent policy changes included a class action waiver. Changes are effective February 5. 

All Other Marketplaces

Depop released its first Trends Report, similar to those put out by its parent company, Etsy. 

Bonanza is introducing a combo website builder/inventory integration and accounting platform called Vercado. Price will be $99 a month, so I strongly suggest investigating what - if any - advantages it provides over its competitors. 

Payment Processing

PayPal and Venmo are teasing some big ecommerce plans for this year, to be announced on Jan. 25. It involves use of AI, and the possibility of improving engagement rates. 

Shipping 

There have been numerous reports of major USPS shipping delays, especially in Texas.

[elmnts-of-art]

update #1 - january 23, 2024

1. whatʻs been happening over the past 2 weeks?

over the past two weeks, i’ve been developing my workback plan and solidifying most of the details for my project. things like determining what kind of content to post, when to post, what kind of research i’ll need to conduct before starting the self-study, and gathering inspiration for a consistent brand style. i also caught a slight cold during this time so it made it a little difficult to focus on this project but i’m feeling a lot better now!

2. whatʻs coming up for the next 2 weeks?

in the next two weeks, i plan on getting a majority of my research on the different elements of art done so i can start the actual practice studies soon after. i also want to create templates for some of my posts so i don’t have to make completely new graphics for each post and so a consistent branded style can be carried throughout the whole campaign.

3. hiccups/hurdles/AHA moments

getting sick was definitely not part of the plan so that was a bit of a hiccup, but i also had an ‘aha’ moment! for a while now, i’ve been struggling to come up with a good way to measure the success of my project besides just seeing ‘improvement’ in my own art. i was also having a hard time thinking of how to engage with my audience on instagram besides the general social media engagement stats (likes, comments, views, etc). i realized that i could solve both problems by creating polls to ask my audience how accurate my depiction of a subject is when utilizing different elements of art. this way, i can test how effectively i’m using each element to portray a specific subject and meaningfully engage with my audience too. there are still a few details i need to smooth out, but i’m starting to see the big picture form!

4. any deliverable drafts to share?

unfortunately, i don’t have any deliverable drafts to share since everything is still very much in the pre-production phase, but i do have a few screenshots of my workback plan! see below.

5. visual documentation of the progress. (please upload screenshots, WIP videos, etc.)

the first picture is my general overview/timeline of my project and the second picture lays out all the assets i believe i’ll need to post.

6. where you are on your timeline?

i’m finished with the majority of my workback plan and i’ve set up my social media accounts so now i’m getting into the research part of my timeline! excited to finally dive into the meat of my project and then get to drawing!

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

I don't believe it...

B.O.O.: BUREAU OF OTHERWORLDLY OPERATIONS was in production at DreamWorks around 2012-early 2015. The movie was, for the longest time, set to debut some time in 2015. It fluctuated a bit, until settling on a June 5th bow...

However, DreamWorks ran into a lot of problems in the days before they were owned by a massive conglomerate (Comcast, of course)...

They absolutely needed their ridiculously-expensive animated features to do well in order to keep them afloat. For a few years, they had an uninterrupted hit streak at the box office (from KUNG FU PANDA in mid-2008 to MADAGASCAR 3 in mid-2012, a good four year run with nine movies) and all seemed well... But RISE OF THE GUARDIANS didn't meet their expectations when it wrapped up its leggy run in early 2013, it was deemed a big ol' flop, 350+ staffers were laid off, and the film ME AND MY SHADOW was cancelled and later morphed into SHADOWS... Which didn't seem to go forward thereafter.

Then TURBO lost money in 2013, MR. PEABODY & SHERMAN lost money in early 2014, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 stayed flat domestically, and PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR was fall guyed - I guess - for not making typical MADAGASCAR numbers. ($500m+ region.) DreamWorks had a very bad week in January 2015... When the executives shuttered sister studio Pacific Data Images, put 500+ people out of work, and severely cut down on the movies they were making. B.O.O. was one of those movies, and it was **near done**. Merchandise... Merchandise! Was made and sold for this thing! The stuff is out there in the wild. The DRAWING FOR NOTHING book, its compiler the account that tweeted this detail, has a whole section dedicated to the unfinished movie.

And DreamWorks execs just... Cancelled it. It was said to have had story problems, but instead, DreamWorks decided to lose $100m on it *and* proceeded to lose more money by cancelling a picture called BOLLYWOOD SUPERSTAR MONKEY. A much different PUSS IN BOOTS 2 was removed from the boards, and so was MADAGASCAR 4. These movies all would've been released before 2019, if all had gone according to plan.

So... This has to be a typo, because we know that DreamWorks already has three pictures lined up for this year:

KUNG FU PANDA 4 is out in two months, its trailer available to view. THE WILD ROBOT follows in September. ORION AND THE DARK releases on Netflix in a month... Four features from DreamWorks would seem rather... Ermmm... Exhausting for the animators? And a lot for Universal and Netflix to market?

So... B.O.O. coming out this year seems like a pipe dream. How much of it was left to finish back in 2015 anyways? If someone wanted to finish it? I'd imagine the newly-created scenes would kinda jar with the 2014/15-era scenes in terms of technological progression and such.

But... How does one of the trades make an error like that? If it is indeed one... (I'm sure it is.)

It would be the most surreal thing, though, if DreamWorks randomly decided to finish this movie some decade later and release it.

[reasoningdaily]

Early risers get a lot of good press: They are supposedly more productive and possibly better problem solvers. But after a month of forcing myself out of bed at 5 a.m., I learned that getting up early isn’t always the best thing for you.

I’m a morning person, and most days I’m out of bed by 5:45 a.m. I usually have 15 minutes before the rest of my household starts to wake, and I use this time to enjoy a cup of tea as well as the stillness of the morning. I look forward to this time so much that I wondered, What would happen if I expanded the 15 minutes to an hour?

While it was a nice thought, getting up at 5 a.m. was harder than I expected. My alarm went off a mere 45 minutes earlier than normal, but I had to drag myself out of bed. With no plan other than tea and stillness, I quickly learned that an hour is too long. The second day I decided to meditate, a practice I’ve wanted to do but never seemed to have the time for. Unfortunately, I fell asleep in my chair. Eventually, I took out a piece of paper and did a brain dump of all the things I wanted to get done in January–at least I had a plan.

As the month went on, I used the time to get a head start on work, but by 9 p.m., I was exhausted and would head to bed. That meant I lost out on evening time with my husband and son.

Why was 5 a.m. so much harder than 5:45 a.m.?

Forty-five minutes can make a huge difference, says Damon Raskin, MD, a sleep expert affiliated with Concierge Choice Physicians in Pacific Palisades, California. “We get our deep restorative sleep in the early-morning waking hours when REM sleep occurs,” he says. “If you shorten that, you are going to feel unrefreshed, and you’re not going to have enough sleep.”

A Better Way to Get Up Early

Turns out that simply adjusting your alarm clock isn’t the best way to make a long-term change. Instead, understand that your brain is always looking for patterns, says Shawn Stevenson, author of Sleep Smarter: 21 Proven Tips to Sleep Your Way to a Better Body, Better Health and Bigger Success.

“Your body clock, or circadian rhythm, governs how your body is in sync with all of life, and when you make a shift in that, there will be residual fallout,” he says. “By waking up 45 minutes earlier, you proactively created at-home jet lag. If you keep pressing it for several days, your body will eventually sort itself out, but there is a more graceful way to do it.”

“By waking up 45 minutes earlier, you proactively created at-home jet lag.”

First, withdraw from electronics at least an hour before bed, which affect the quality of your sleep. “When it comes to our health, most of us know that calories aren’t equal; 300 calories of broccoli aren’t the same for your body as 300 calories of Twinkies,” he says. “Sleep is similar, and unfortunately many today are getting Twinkie sleep, not cycling through proper brain activity because electronic devices suppress melatonin (the hormone that controls sleep cycles).”

Every hour you are exposed to blue light from a device, you suppress melatonin production for 30 minutes, says Stevenson. “You may be getting eight hours of sleep, but you will still wake up feeling exhausted,” he says.

Morning exercise will also help by regulating your cortisol levels, the hormone that gets you going in the morning, says Stevenson. “Normal cortisol rhythms spike in the morning and then gradually bottom out in the evening,” he says. “If you are changing your wake time, five minutes of exercise can help reset your rhythm. Do body-weight squats or walk around the block.”

Implementing a gradual wake time will also help. “Move your wake time up by 15 minutes and go through that for a couple of days to a week,” says Stevenson. “This is especially important if you want to establish a consistent sleep pattern.”

And not having a strong plan doesn’t help, says Stevenson. “If you don’t have a reason to get up, and your body wants to rest, forget about it,” he says. “You need something that will fill that space that is compelling.”

The Benefits of Getting Up Early

Being the proverbial “early bird” has its advantages, says Shanon Makekau, medical director of the Kaiser Permanente Sleep Lab in Hawaii.

“Morning people have been shown to be more proactive, which is linked to better job performance, career success, and higher wages, as well as more goal-oriented,” she says. “These people tend to be more in sync with the typical workday schedule, versus night owls who may be still be waking up at around lunchtime.”

Early-morning hours also tend to be more productive because there are fewer distractions. Jeremy Korst, CMO of the automated tax software provider Avalara and former general manager of the Windows 10 group at Microsoft, gets up between 3:30 and 4 a.m. for two reasons: clarity of thought during that part of the day and quiet time. He does strategic work from 4 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. that requires focus, then he works out and heads to the office.

“No one else is awake yet, and it’s quiet,” he says. “This isn’t a time for clearing my inbox; this is heads-down work time, during which I’m more productive than any other time of day. Without distraction and a bit of separation from the flurry of the prior workday, I can truly focus on important work.”

Getting up early makes Korst feel like he’s got a jumpstart on the day: “I’m in the office early, so I am already ahead of the day and the schedule a bit,” he says. “This helps as calendars are nearly always jammed–getting ahead of it is critical.”

What Happened When the 30 Days Were Over

Unfortunately, my experiment didn’t produce long-lasting results. When my month was over, I immediately returned to my normal 5:45 a.m., which felt like sleeping in. I even slept until 10 a.m. on weekend mornings–a very rare occurrence for me. I feel more productive now that I’m back to my normal routine.

“The jury is still out regarding whether or not simply shifting one’s wake time earlier is enough to garner all of the positive benefits of the early bird,” says Makekau. “It may be that one’s internal tendency toward productivity is inherent or, more importantly, is tied to the congruency between the internal sleep/wake clock and one’s external schedule. Night owls could be just as productive as long as they are allowed to work on a delayed schedule.”