#WHAT THE FUCK WHY DID MY WILD ROBOT THING GET THOUSANDS OF NOTES

[asketchydomesticatedgremlin]

so, iterators are kinda 1/2 1/2 metal n flesh right?

What if it slowly got more biological over time? Science progressing n all that.

I think it'd be cool if iterators from different eras looked completely different from each other :3

[genderfeel]

need to gush about stewart clarke’s javert among other things from our multiple showings of lm these last couple of weeks

clarke is honestly up there for me with terrence mann in terms of my fav javerts….. he honestly kind of looked like him with his dead eyed stare and eyeliner. serving corpse

he was sooooo robotic during every fucking scene he was in apart from the finale but still had this soft emotion during stars. dude had literally no thoughts behind those eyes just staring off into middle distance while fantine is weeping. had 0 reaction to gavroche, thenardier, literally anyone.

single notable reaction pre-alleyway scene was clarke seeing valjean walk into the barricade and just. staring at him. like the entire time while gunfire is going on man is barely ducking or reacting he’s just staring at this dude. impeccable. made funnier by grantaire sitting between them

related sidenote was that i LOVED this grantaire. not someone i typically focus on while watching but tom hext is so so fun, loved his energy and thousand yard stares in equal measure. also fat grantaire based. i’m shocked people don’t go on and on about this dude bc he was also so fun to watch in the ensemble

katie hall was absolutely the best fantine i’ve seen, cried both times. she plays it nice and angry at times with the appropriate amount of acting. wonderful voice. same of the eponine, wonderful talents and spot on casting

i will relegate this to a brief note bc i don’t want to complain endlessly about it but mannnnn this valjean suckeddd. played it way way too angry (did not help that his eyebrows ((naturally??)) are super arched. super arai manga jvj vibes but irl). great voice but no good acting choices or really any at all. i got the distinct impression all this dude knew about the character was the show itself and didn’t really “get” valjean. left me extremely unemotional even in the last bits which is wild

side note to that: i did cry at the beginning of the finale but only bc i remembered nick cartell’s performance and was thinking about that instead. for those unfamiliar he walks with a prisoner’s limp which drives me fucking insane

side side note: the only good thing this valjean did was pause while reading marius’ letter at the word “love” in like an incredulous way. then at the end he crunched the letter up into a ball. extremely in character for the brick and could bring a more interesting depth that the musical lacks but terrible and aggro for no reason in the context of this performance

okay back to javert. his suicide? insane. wonderful acting choices playing it pretty tormented until near the end he was cracking his voice HARD which was just so painful every time. not overly angry at all. also particular more to our first time seeing him—this man was absolutely dribbling spit during some sections. like hanging from his mouth like a dog. you truly cannot do it better than this. it really made the best of what i would call a flawed but potentially good adaptation of javert derailed in a way where i’m sure mr clarke Gets javert and reads derailed like his character bible

i liked the way clarke ran around and writhed around on the ground. dedication.

goes without saying but i imagine clarke’s performance would be even better if he were paired with a more competent valjean. but what can you do 😔

baffled that they took away javert’s costume change during one day more. i have to assume someone thought people were too stupid to realize it’s javert in his little baker boy cap. a loss to us all

why did gavroche have the coconut head haircut

claire made me see this godforsaken show three times. i don’t even want to talk about the understudy javert we had to sit through i want to simply forget

he (they hate each other so much)

[geshertzarmeod]

Favorite Books of 2020

I wanted to put together a list! I read 74 new books this year, and I keep track of that on Goodreads - feel free to add or follow me if you want to see everything! I’m going to focus on the highlights, and the books that stuck with me personally in one way or another, in approximate order. Also, all but two of them (#5 and #7 on the honorable mention list) are queer/trans in some way. Links are to Goodreads, but if you’re looking to get the books, I suggest your library, the Libby app using your library, your local bookstore, or Bookshop.

The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell, illus. by Ned Asta (originally published 1977). I had a hard beginning of the year and was in a work environment where my queerness was just not welcomed or wanted. I read this in the middle of all of that, and it helped me so much. I took this book with me everywhere. I read it on planes. I read it on the bus, and on trains, and at shul. I showed it to friends... sometimes at shul, or professional development conferences. It healed my soul. Now I can’t find it and might get a new copy. When I reviewed it, in February, I wrote: “I think we all need this book right now, but I really needed this book right now. Wow. This book is magic, and brings back a sense of magic and beauty to my relationship with the world.” Also I bought my copy last July, in a gay bookstore on Castro St. in SF, and that in itself is just beautiful to me. (Here’s a post I made with some excerpts)

Once & Future duology, especially the sequel, Sword in the Stars, by A.R. Capetta and Cory McCarthy. Cis pansexual female King Arthur Ari Helix (she's the 42nd reincarnation and the first female one) in futuristic space with Arab ancestry (but like, from a planet where people from that area of earth migrated to because, futuristic space) works to end Future Evil Amazon.com Space Empire with her found family with a token straight cis man and token white person. Merlin is backwards-aging so he's a gay teenager with a crush and thousands of years of baggage. The book’s entire basis is found family, and it's got King Arthur in space. And the sequel hijacks the original myth and says “fuck you pop culture, it was whitewashed and straightwashed, there were queer and trans people of color and strong women there the whole time.” Which is like, my favorite thing to find in media, and a big part of why I love Xena so much. It’s like revisionist history to make it better except it’s actually probably true in ways. Anyway please read these books but also be prepared for an absolutely absurd and wild ride. Full disclosure though, I didn’t love the first book so much, it’s worth it for the sequel!

The Wicker King by K. Ancrum. This book hurt. It still hurts. But it was so good. It took me on a whole journey, and brought me to my destination just like it intended the whole time. The author’s note at the end made me cry! The sheer NEED from this book, the way the main relationship develops and shifts, and how you PERCEIVE the main relationship develops and shifts. I’m in awe of Ancrum’s writing. If you like your ships feral and needy and desperate and wanting and D/S vibes and lowkey super unhealthy but with the potential, with work, to become healthy and beautiful and right, read this book. This might be another one to check trigger warnings for though.

The Entirety of The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty. I hadn’t heard of this series until this year, when a good friend recommended it to me. It filled the black hole in me left by Harry Potter. The political and mystical/fantasy world building is just *chef’s kiss* - the complexity! The morally grey, everyone’s-done-awful-things-but-some-people-are-still-trying-to-do-good tapestry! The ROMANCE oh my GOD the romance. If I’m absolutely fully invested in a heterosexual romance you know a book is good, but also this book had background (and then later less background) queer characters! And the DRAMA!!! The third book went in a direction that felt a little out of nowhere but honestly I loved the ride. I stayed up until 6am multiple times reading this series and I’d do it again.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. I loved this book so much that it’s the only book I reviewed on my basically abandoned attempt at a book blog. This book is haunting, horrifying, disturbing, dark, but so, so good. The character's voices were so specific and clear, the relationships so clearly affected by circumstance and yet loving in the ways they could be. This is my favorite portrayal of gender maybe ever, it’s just... I don’t even have the words but I saw a post @audible-smiles​ made about it that’s been rattling in my head since. And, “you gender-malcontent. You otherling,” as tender pillow talk??? Be still my heart. Be ready, though, this book has all the triggers.. it’s a .

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender. This book called me out on my perspective on love. Also, it made me cry a lot. And it has two different interesting well-written romance storylines. And a realistic coming-into-identity narrative about a Black trans demiboy. And a nuanced discussion of college plans and what one might do after college. And some big beautiful romcom moments. I wish I had it in high school. I’m so glad I have it now! (trigger warning for transphobia & outing, but the people responsible are held accountable by the end, always treated as not okay by the narrative, and the MC’s friends, and like... this is ownvoices and it’s GOOD.)

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. My Goodreads review says, “I have no idea what happened, and I loved it.” That’s not wrong, but to delve deeper, this book has an ethereal feeling that you get wrapped up in while reading. Nothing makes sense but that’s just as it should be. You’re hooked. It is so atmospheric, so meta, so fascinating. I’ve seen so many people say they interpreted this character or that part or the ending in all different ways and it all makes sense. And it’s all of this with a gay main character and romance and the central theme, the central pillar being a love of and devotion to stories. Of course I was going to love it.

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir by Kai Cheng Thom. “Because maybe what really matters isn’t whether something is true, or false. Maybe what matters is the story itself; what kinds of doors it opens, what kinds of dreams it brings.” This book was so good and paradigm shifting. It reminded me of #1 on this list in the way it turns real life experience and hard, tragic ones at that (in this case, of being a trans girl of color who leaves home and tries to make a life for herself in the city, with its violence), into a beautiful, haunting fable. Once upon a time.

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver. I need to reread this book, as I read it during my most tranceful time of 2020 and didn’t write a review, so I forgot a lot. What I do remember is beautiful and important nonbinary representation, a really cute romance, an interesting parental and familial/sibling dynamic that was both heartbreaking and hopeful, and an on-page therapy storyline. Also Mason Deaver just left twitter but was an absolutely hilarious troll on it before leaving and I appreciate that (and they just published a Christmas novella that I have but haven’t read yet!)

The Truth Is by NoNieqa Ramos. It took a long time to trust this book but I’m so glad I did. It’s raw and real and full of grief and trauma (trigger warnings, that I remember, for grief, death (before beginning of book), and gun violence). The protagonist is flawed and gets to grow over the course of the book, and find her own place, and learn from the people around her, while they also learn to understand her and where she’s coming from. It’s got a gritty, harsh, and important portrayal of found family, messy queerness, and some breathtaking quotes. When I was 82% through this book I posted this update: “This book has addressed almost all of my initial hesitations, and managed to complicate itself beautifully.”

Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro.  I wasn’t actually in the best mental health place to read this book when I did (didn’t quite understand what it was) but it definitely reminded me of what there is to fight against and to fight for, and broke my heart, and nudged me a bit closer to hope. The naturally diverse cast of characters was one of the best parts of this book. The romance is so sweet and tender and then so painful. This book is important and well-written but read it with caution and trigger warnings - it’s about grief and trauma and racism and police brutality, but also about love and community.

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden.  This is a sci-fi/fantasy/specfic mashup that takes place in near-future South Africa and has world-building myths with gods and demigoddesses and a trip to the world of the dead but also a genetically altered hallucinogenic drug that turns people into giant animals and a robot uprising and a political campaign and a transgender pop star and a m/m couple and all of them are connected. It’s bonkers. Like, so, so absolutely mind-breaking weird. And I loved it.

Crier’s War and Iron Heart by Nina Varela.  I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVED the amount of folktales they told each other with queer romances as integral to those stories, especially in Iron Heart. A conversation between the two leads where Crier says she wants to read Ayla like a book, and Ayla says she’s not a book, and Crier explains all the different ways she wants to know Ayla, like a person, and wants to deserve to know her like a person, made me weak. It lives in my head rent-free.

Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston @ekjohnston . I listened to this book on Libby and then immediately listened to it at least one more time, maybe twice, before my borrow time ran out. I love Padmé, and just always wish that female Star Wars characters got more focus and attention and this book gave me that!! And queer handmaidens! And the implication that Sabé is in love with Padmé and that’s just something that will always be true and she will always be devoted and also will make her own life anyway. And the Star Wars audiobooks being recorded the way they are with background sounds and music means it feels like watching a really long detailed beautiful Star Wars movie just about Padmé and her handmaidens.

Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story by Jacob Tobia. I needed to read this. The way Tobia talks about their experience of gender within the contexts of college, college leadership, and career, hit home. I kept trying to highlight several pages in a row on my kindle so I could go back and read them after it got returned to the library (sadly it didn’t work - it cuts off highlights after a certain number of characters). The way they talk about TOKENISM they way they talk about the responsibilities of the interviewer when an interviewee holds marginalized identities especially when no one else in the room does!!! Ahhhh!!!

Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie. Disclaimer for this one that the author was rightfully criticized for writing a Black main character as a white author (and how the story ended up playing into some fucked up stuff that I can’t really unpack without spoiling). But also, the author has been working to move forward knowing she can’t change the past, has donated her proceeds, and this book is really good? It has all the fanfic tropes, so much delicious tension, a totally unexpected plot twist that had me immediately rereading the book. This book was super fun and also kind of just really really good Star Wars fanfiction.

How To Be a Normal Person by T.J. Klune. This book was so sweet, and cute, and hopeful, and both ridiculous and so real. I had some trouble getting used to Gus’ voice and internal monologue, but I got into it and then loved every bit after. The ace rep is something I’ve never seen like this before (and have barely read any ace books but still this was so fleshed out and well rounded and not just like, ‘they’re obsessed with swords not sex’ - looking at you, Once & Future - and leaving it there.) This all felt like a slice of life and I feel like I learned about people while reading it. Some of the moments are so, so funny, some are vaguely devastating. I have been personally victimized by TJ Klune for how he ends this book (a joke, you will know once you read it) but it also reminds me of the end of the “You Are There” episode of Xena and we all know what the answer to that question was.... and I choose to believe the answer here was similar.

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson. I wish I had this book when I was in high school. I honestly have complicated feelings about prom and haven’t really been seeking out contemporary YA so I was hesitant to read this but it was so good and so well-written, and had a lot of depth to it. The movie (and Broadway show) “The Prom” wants what this book has.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth. I never read horror books, so this was a new thing for me. I loved the feeling of this book, the way I felt fully immersed. I loved how entirely queer it was. I was interested in the characters and the relationships, even though we didn’t have a full chance to go super deep into any one person but rather saw the connections between everyone and the way the stories matched up with each other. I just wanted a bit of a more satisfying ending.

Honorable Mention: reread in 2020 but read for the first time pre-2020

Red White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. I couldn’t make this post without mentioning this book. It got me through this year. I love this book so much; I think of this book all the time. This book made me want to find love for myself. You’ve all heard about it enough but if you haven’t read this book what are you DOING.

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan @sarahreesbrennan​ . I reread this one over and over too, both as text and as an audiobook. I went for walks when I had lost my earbuds and had Elliott screaming about an elf brothel loudly playing and got weird looks from someone walking their dog. I love this book so much. It’s just so fun, and so healing to read a book reminiscent of all the fantasies I read as a kid, but with a bi main character and a deconstruction of patriarchy and making fun of the genre a bit. Also, idiots to lovers is a great trope and it’s definitely in this book.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. This book is forever so important to me. I am always drawn in by how tenderly Sáenz portrays his characters. These boys. These boys and their parents. I love them. I love them so much. This is another one where I don’t even know what to say. I have more than 30 pages in my tag for this book. I have “arda” set as a keyboard shortcut on my phone and laptop to turn into the full title. This book saved my life.

Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. This book hurts to read - it’s a story about trauma, about working through that trauma, healing enough to be ready to hold the worst memories, healing enough to move through the pain and start to make a life. It’s about found family and love and pain and I love it. It’s cathartic. And it’s a little bit quietly queer in a beautiful way, but that’s not the focus. Look up trigger warnings (they kind of are spoilery so I won’t say them here but if you have the potential to be triggered please look them up or ask me before reading)

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.  When asked what my all time favorite book is, it’s usually this one. Gail Carson Levine has been doing live readings at 11am since the beginning of the pandemic shut down in the US, and the first book she read was Ella Enchanted. I’ve been slowly reading it to @mssarahpearl and am just so glad still that it has the ability to draw me in and calm me down and feels like home after all this time. This book is about agency. I love it.

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman @chronicintrovert . I’ve had this on my all-time-faves list since I read it a few years ago and ended up rereading it this year before sending a gift copy to a friend, so I could write little notes in it. It felt a little different reading it this time - as I get further away from being a teenager myself, the character voice this book is written in takes a little longer to get used to, but it’s so authentic and earnest and I love it. I absolutely adore this book about platonic love and found family and fandom and mental illness and abuse and ace identity and queerness and self-determination, especially around college and career choices. Ahhh. Thank you Alice Oseman!!!

Leia: Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray @claudiagray​ . I have this one on audible and reread it several times this year. I love the fleshing out of Leia’s story before the original trilogy, I love her having had a relationship before Han, and the way it would have affected her perspective. I also am intrigued by the way it analyses the choices the early rebellion had to make... I just, I love all the female focused new Star Wars content and the complexity being brought to the rebellion.

[mocacheezy]

Transformers BW: S1, Ep. 12 - 21

(for I am but a snail when it comes to watching shows, and somehow I managed to watch 9 episodes in 2 days. No I don't understand myself either)

Ep. 12 (Victory):

aka I couldn't get past the halfway minute mark for 3 weeks because I expected no one will believe Dinobot (news flash, he didn't have to try and explain himself)

On a different note, I still can't get over the effects of when someone hits the ground. It's just, it's just the most comical Splat! Thump!

Ep. 13 (Dark Designs):

Megatron at the beginning of an episode? Well I can't say anything but ✨Yesssssssss~✨

Also am I glad I was not forcing myself to watch the fight scene because my head started pounding just from seeing all the flashing from the corner of my eyes.

I AM SORRY PRIMAL BUT YOU SAYING MEGATRON'S SIGNATURE YESSS? I AM DYING! XD

Predacon Rhinox: no.1 menace and threat

Poke the idiot and throw him into milk.

Shrapnel mention, def not my wife though...

...yea, Rhinox is terrifying. Was sure he'll snap Scorponok's and Terrorsaur's necks.

This episode gets 4/10.

1 point for Megatron and his yesssss',

1 point for just how terrifying Rhinox was,

1 point for everyone who said the signature yesssss

and the last point for "I am very, very unhappy indeed. Yessssssssss."

The remaining 6 points are missing BECAUSE OF THE CONSTANT EYE STRAIN.

Ep. 14 (Double Dinobot):

I would love to see you Megatron, so could your cloning process include less flashing lights. Even if I do understand the dramatic appeal.

PAT PAT! PAT PAT THE DINOBOT!

Will he push him HE PUSHED HIM.

I still can't believe their security system is called Sentinel.

Rattrap's orb ass

DINOBOT I AM INCREDIBLY AMUSED BY YOU.

Megatron's thighs. Seriously, dude needs to show his bot mode more often

... he fucking ate his clone. He FUCKING ATE. HIMSELF.

I can't with this show.

Ep. 15 (The Spark):

little cat... big cat... big bro and tiny bro.

scorponok the simp

Okay this must be Hawk guy... Damn the protoforms are weird. But at least we know how the spark looks... and that in humanoid proportions it's located in the stomach.

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS

I love how urgent they make this "protoform is dying" thing

Blackarachnia. Just her.

Why do all these robots have such nice legs?

A HAWK WIFE! Airrazor, have to remember that lovely name~

SHE HAS SUCH AN UNIQUE FACE I LOVE HER HOLY SHITNUGGETS

Rhinox was in charge of protoform rearing back on Cybertron. You can't convince me otherwise, this dude is prime dad/teacher material.

Ep. 16 (The Trigger- p.1):

You are an idiot Tigertron. I still love you though.

Seriously though, he has a very nice face.

Megatron

Illuminati island

AT THIS POINT I AM JUST ANTICIPATING EVERY YESSSSS. I almost always guess it at this point.

Also WHO TAUGHT HAWKWIFE TO SWEAR?!

Tigertron acquired a VIP pass by nearly getting slagged

My face when they try to convince the audience AirRazor died: 😒

Ep. 17 (The Trigger - P.2):

Tigertron is gonna sacrifice himself and the island isn’t he?

They really didn’t have to make that many grunts and moans for this

...Is Rhinox’s VA the same as Megatron’s?

I love how they refer to Pred’s headquarters as Pred central

Their eye effects. Oh how I love this animation.

I honestly wish we could see BW in a newer animation style, because this stuff looks really cool

Well her new color scheme is pretty

STILL NOT HAPPY WITH THE HEADACHE INDUCING EXPLOSIONS

Is Blackarachnia gonna die?

Ah, aliens. And the whole “paradise lost”

Ep. 18 (Spider’s game):

Shake that ass Tarantulas

Blackarachnia if you don’t eat him at some point of this series I will be disappointed

The ant simp? Are we getting the ant simp?

When and how did Wazzpinator grow on me?

Hawk wifey to the rescue

holy shit HOLY SHIT INFERNO IS NOT THE SIMP

HE IS HUGE

This looks very much like mating to me Tarantulas, so get yourself off her ass

YOU CAN FLY?!

Gross.

“I hunt better alone.” Yeah sure you moron

I truly missed these effects, and I didn’t even know it

HOLY SHIT THEY USED RED WITH DAMAGE

… Inferno is that easily destroyed?

Ep. 19 (Call Of The Wild):

Don’t get your bananas in a bunch - Rattrap

Thank you for the not eyestraining fight sequence

What the cheeze - Rattrap

Being a Predacon: requirement of being a backup laughter provider

Yesssss

Megatron just fucking transform

What the fuck Tigertron. Is this the were-talk 101 class?

Megatron I will fucking kick your ass for two reasons:

1. NOT TURNING INTO TREX WHEN YOU HUNT,

2. LETTING EVERYONE SUFFER THE ENERGON SURGE BCS YOU WANTED TO HUNT “IN STYLE”

Ep. 20 (Dark Voyage):

Waste of your talents as the designated Smash

What was this arrow for?

Mushroom Cloud of "They shouldn't have survived this but they sure did"

All of them are blind and out of all of them Dinobot is freaking out the most

What is this high stakes bullshit?

Good job Megatron

"There!" No one can see anything Rhinox, your acknowledgment of something moving is not gonna help

Cheetor is going to die because of Boa constrictor and Dinobot is working on cartoon logic. Love it.

What did that elephant think when a snake just suddenly smacked it in the face?

DINOBOT! BAD! NO LEAVING THE KITTY BEHIND!

Megatron will scrap us: aka we are going to get scolded and will not actually get as big a beating as we think we will.

I swear, Megatron has a completly different approach to things. Not as brutal as Prime, but also not as classy and patient as Animated. He is quite special, ✨yesssssss✨

What is it with this show and its attempts of "This is the end of them!"

Why the hell is Cheetor suddenly walking? Wasn't he close to dying like a second ago?

Do they know how to swim? Okay, Rhinox can. The other three washed up on the shore.

Why is everyone but- ah, Rhinox the meditate-and-sense-the-energy-of-your-enemy Rhinoceros

The one thing I love about this show is that the robots are actually shown glitching out and there are sparks and things like that shown

Rhinox you guys nearly died and you are sprouting wisdom. Just… yea just go smell those flowers big guy.

Ep. 21 (Possession):

Aight, a rogue protoform?

Sentinel are you any good in these later episodes/seasons?

Is it Aliens?

Welcome Predacons, enter here - RatTrap

STARSCREAM WHY THE FUCK HOW WHAT HOW

OH MY SHIT HE SOUNDS

OH MY SHIT HE IS FUCKING SPARK ONLY AND HE CAME SO FAR IN THE FUTURE

Good on you Megs for going "Can I trust you?"

I also can't believe the fact Optimus and Megatron named themselves after anchestors of Maximals and Predacons. Like… is this common? Is there a whole registry with the names? Did Autobots and Decepticons become like, CoolKidNames?

Screamer… you don't have to announce yourself to the enemies. Then again you have an ego the size of Unicron himself

Deary me, look what happens - Megatron

… Dinobot studying anything?

Starscream you truly live up to your name, and I am certain G1 is you being a child or a teen

Yes yes you are surrendering very convenient

SCREAMER! YOU SMART!

Oh your voice is horrible. I hope this is a one episode appearance

Also I hope protegee Blackarachnia is the one to kill him

XDDDD GOOD JOB PROTEGEE!

Hasta la vista Starscream - Oprimus Primal

PRIMAL WHEN HAVE YOU WATCHED TERMINATOR

No??? Megatron your catchphrase is ✨Yessssss✨

Twinkle twinkle little Starscream - Cheetor

… Listen there better be a Starscream appearance in a future BW show, set a thousand or so years after the original BW. Let's have a Starscream faceoff in WFC Kingdom!

[ai-suru-hito-yo]

Calling You (Gardner Langway x Reader)

Summary: You and Gardner have been in a relationship for about a year now. Things are going great, the ups make the downs completely worth it, and you’re so in love with this goofball it almost hurts. Based on Calling You by Blue October.

Warnings: tooth-rotting fluff, probably rambling, very light references to possible smut but nothing detailed or explicit, some angst but I only write happy endings.

A/N: Sorry I don’t have the next part of WFSTRM ready yet! My dumb ass almost forgot I signed up for this event so I’ve been working on pumping this baby out. It’s just a lot of projection, honestly, because I am lonely and would very much like a cute and goofy ginger of my own (ahem Joe Mazzello hmu) Not beta’d because what are this? Written for @littledarlingwellaway​ ‘s 1k/Birthday extravaganza! Lyrics in italics. Timeline jumps around through different events in the relationship.

There's something that I can't quite explain

I'm so in love with you

You'll never take that away

You stared at the popcorn ceiling of your bedroom in your tiny apartment. No matter how long you stared, no matter how many little bumps you counted, sleep would not come. It was quiet except for a dog barking in the distance, and the quiet, deep breathing of the man currently sprawled across your chest, auburn locks in disarray after the number of times he had nervously run his fingers through his hair.

You and Gardner had just experienced your first real fight. You had been together for about 8 months now, and those months had been filled with mostly bliss, minus a bump or two in the road as you navigated the newness of suddenly finding someone else and their needs a part of your life. You had been out at date night, and Gardner said something accidentally insensitive (And what was it anyway? You could not possibly recall anymore, it was so trivial.) You had a bad day at work and immediately took the comment to heart, resulting in a serious overreaction and argument to end the night. You had fled home, only to see Gardner running up the sidewalk about 20 minutes later, a look of utmost determination on his face.

Finally, after talking things through and lots of reassurance, he finally passed out on your bed with you, wrapped entirely around your body, as if afraid you might slip away in the night if he failed to keep you anchored.

You looked down at his face, peaceful and relaxed in his sleep, looking paler than usual and downright ethereal in the moonlight streaming through your window. His plush lips parted slightly as he exhaled, and you studied last dark eyelash as they fanned against his pale cheeks. Your fingers gently brushed through his wild hair, and he stirred slightly. You froze, afraid the touch had woken him, but all he did was rub his face against your sweater before the sound of deep breaths filled the room once again.

As you resumed your stroking of his hair, you realized that whatever it was you had argued about was unimportant. You knew you loved Gardner, there was absolutely no doubt in your mind how you felt about the goofy, soft, awkward, beautiful man with his boat and his stamp collection and his zest for life and his unrelenting passion for the people and the things he cared about. You felt your eyelids slowly droop closed as you took comfort in the weight of your boyfriend pressing into you, keeping you safe and warm and loved.

And if I've said a hundred times before

Expect a thousand more

You'll never take that away

The first time he said it was an accident. He had truly not thought about it, not taken the time to really analyze how he felt about you, caught up as he was in the exhilaration of finding you and learning about you and developing this new, wonderful thing with you.

It was the simplest thing, too, that made him say it. He had been trying to make you laugh, telling you about some of the dumb suggestions Calvin had made as far as his next employment opportunity after he had quit being a mailman. Some throw-away comment that he made just as you had reached for your drink caused you to laugh and nearly drop the glass, which just caused you to laugh even more. Your eyes lit up and you threw your head back in mirth, letting out an unrestrained laugh, loud and happy, and it just hit him.

“God, I love you.”

Your laughter died down to soft giggles, before you realized what exactly he said. Your smile was still plastered on your face, but your eyes grew wide in shock. “W-what?”

“Um, I said I- yeah, yeah, I love you. I really do.”

You stared at him for a moment, silently, and Gardner could feel his heart rate pick up, his palms going sweaty from nerves. Had he said the wrong thing? Was it too soon? Should he not have said it? He was absolutely certain it was the truth, but now he was terrified he would scare you away.

“I-I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not sorry for how I feel, I won't apologize for that. But I'm sorry if you didn't want to hear that. I'm sorry If that was too soon. I'm really sorr--”

You never found out what else he was sorry for as you grabbed his shirt front and pulled him to you, right there in the middle of the bar, and planted your lips against his, effectively shutting him up for the next few minutes. When you finally pulled away again, you made sure to whisper for Gardner only,

“I love you, too, idiot.”

So expect me to be

Calling you to see

If you're okay when I'm not around

Asking if you love me

I love the way you make it sound

Three weeks. It had been three weeks since your boyfriend had been dragged off by his “brother” on some boys' trip as he had called it, leaving you behind and without his presence for 21 long days. They were due back at the end of the week, seven days that seemed to stretch out like a year before you.

You dragged yourself back home after another long day at work, wanting nothing more than the pint of Rocky Road in your freezer and a nice, long sleep. After a scalding hot shower, you put on your favorite pajamas (fuzzy warm pants and one of Gardner's old, faded t-shirts) and promptly fell asleep before you were even able to so much as braid your hair back for the night.

What must have been several hours later, judging by the darkness outside, you were pulled slowly from a rather deep sleep by an annoying and insistent sound. You reached toward your alarm clock, only to realize that the source of the noise was actually your phone, which you hd left on your bed during your shower and was now lodged somewhere under you. You lifted your leg and dug around, retrieved it from under your thigh, and promptly smashed the volume button before throwing it back down by your pillow. You were just about asleep again when the stupid thing started vibrating, alerting you to another call. This time you decided to answer it, letting out little more than a tired grunt.

“'Lo?”

There was a moment of silence, and then an robotic voice greeted you. “Hello. You have a collect call from,” pause, then a familiar voice, “It's me!!” you sat bolt upright, nearly dropping the phone. “Do you accept the charges?”

“Yes!” you practically scream into the phone. “Yes I accept!”

There was a bit of noise down the line, then quiet for a moment, before you tentatively spoke up again, “Uh...Gardner?”

“Honey I am so sorry it's collect I SWEAR I will pay you back!” Gardner's tired and slightly panicked voice called out to you. “I promise, the moment I get ho-”

“I don't give a shit about that,” you interrupted him, feeling an ache in your chest ease at the sound of his voice. You had been a little worried all day as you had not heard form him or Calvin for nearly three whole days now. Usually Gardner was calling you every night, excitedly telling you where they were now, what they had seen that day, and reassuring you that he loved you and he would be home soon. “Why are you calling collect? Where's your phone? Better yet, where have you been for three days, I've been so worried!”

“I know, I'm sorry,” your boyfriend assured you softly. Then his voice jumped an octave like it always did when he was irritated. “It's not because I didn't want to call, believe me. Let's just say Calvin had a little...mishap...which resulted in all but one of our bags falling into the Mississippi. My phone, my wallet, my camera, all of my clothes, as well as Calvin's phone, wallet, and clothes all in the bottom of a fucking river. Thankfully Calvin had his passport stashed in his car for some reason. We've spent most of today running around trying to get bank cards replaced so we can get back home.”

You sat in silence, stunned by everything your boyfriend had just told you. You could not decide whether to laugh or cry or scream or ask him if he was lying and playing a prank on you. Instead, you just sighed and asked him, “So, you're coming home, then?”

You could almost feel Gardner's sigh through the phone. “Yes. I'm calling it, we're cutting this road trip short and coming home.”

A squeak left your lips as you tried not to scream and cry. He was coming home early! Gardner was coming home, you would hopefully see him as early as tomorrow afternoon, and it was the best news you had heard in a very long time.

“Baby, I am so sorry your trip has ended on a sour note, I really am. I know you guys were really looking forward to boys time, and you deserve it. But I am so excited to see you,” by the time you reached the end of your statement, you were practically whispering, feeling choked up and near tears. You were acting ridiculous, you knew it, but it had really been tough not to have your goofy boyfriend around, your rock and your source of comfort, the one person you had grown so used to being the one constant in you otherwise hectic life, and it was really affecting your mood and your attitude badly.

A soft huff of laughter sounded over the phone, and Gardner asked, “You really miss me that much?” When you failed to answer right away, his tone turned softer and more serious. “Hey, are you okay?”

You sniffed and promptly pulled yourself together. “Yeah, I just miss you, Gardner. I miss you a lot. When will you be back? Where are you even?”

“I miss you, too, (Y/N). We're in some podunk town in southern Missouri right now. It's about a 9 hour drive home, and we're going straight through, no stops-no stops, Calvin!- except bathroom breaks. So sometime tomorrow afternoon.” The smile that split your face was one to rival the Cheshire cat, and you felt yourself relaxing just a little more as you were reassured that you and Gardner would soon be reunited. Thankfully, you had the whole next day off to plan a little something for just the two of you to enjoy after being apart, a little welcome home party.

“Okay,” you said quietly, phone pressed hard to your ear, as if that would suddenly make the physical distance between you smaller. “I guess I'll see you tomorrow.”

You let out a yawn and heard Gardner laughing down the line. “I'll let you go, honey. I just really needed to hear your voice and to tell you that I'm coming home.”

“I'm glad you did,” you told him honestly. “I had a really shit day, but it's all better now that I know I'll get to see you soon.”

“You still love me?” Gardner asked, and you chuckled.

“Of course I do, silly,” you assured him. “To the moon and back.”

“I know,” your boyfriend told you. “I just love hearing you say it. And I love you, too. More than anything.”

You rang off with promises that you would be home all day and that he could come over as soon as he was back in town. Feeling much warmer and more relaxed, you held the shirt up close to your nose, breathing in the lingering scent of Gardner's soap and distinct smells, and fell asleep with plans for the following evening swirling in your mind.

I thought that the world had lost its sway

Then I fell in love with you

And you took that away

You take away the old

Show me the new

You and Gardner had met shortly after he had gone through a really rough patch in his life. You did not know many details, but from what you gathered after a slightly tipsy conversation with Calvin, Gardner had just lost his job and experienced his first real heartbreak before you came into his life. Well, fell in (quite literally).

You had been in a hurry, rushing to find lunch on your short break from work, and all but ran into a cafe down the street. Unfortunately, someone had been about to step out when you reached to push the door open, and you promptly tripped over them and fell at their feet.

“Oh my god! I am so sorry!” a voice called out to you, and a hand circled your arm and helped pull you back to your feet. You brushed off your dress before you caught sight of a pair of feet still in front of you. Your eyes slowly made their way up a pair of legs, up, up, up, until you were looking into a pair of kind and rather stunning hazel eyes. The man before you looked to be about your age, with a strong nose and sharp jawline, skin so pale it was almost translucent, a bright shock of messy, red hair, and a slight smile. Despite the purple shadows under the man's eyes and the general tired look to him, the man was a cutie, and you could feel your face start to heat up as you realized you had been staring for far too long now.

“Oh!” you exclaimed, snapping out of your thoughts. “It's um, no problem. My fault, actually. Should have been paying more attention. Um, I'm (Y/N), by the way. Not that you should care, I'm just some strange girl from off the street.” You were rambling now and you knew it, but you could not seem to make yourself stop. Cutie seemed to be having a strange affect on you and you lost your mental filter entirely.

“I'll...just go now,” you said, promptly turning back to the cafe door, intending to scurry off back to work, appetite gone.

“I don't think you're strange,” Cutie suddenly spoke up.

“What?” you had stopped in your tracks, quickly turning back to him.

“I don't think you're strange,” he said again. “Although, it might seem a little strange for you to walk out of here, empty handed, after having just walked in.”

“Oh. Well I-uh,” you stammered, looking for some excuse, a reason to make a quick getaway. Oh, why doesn't a sinkhole just open up and swallow me whole, you thought as you realized you were caught out.

“Come on, I'm buying you a smoothie,” the stranger said, turning toward the counter before stopping and turning toward you again. “I'm Gardner, by the way.”

Calvin told you he came home that night, smiling for the first time in weeks, and had not stopped since.

“He wouldn't shut up about you, actually,” he said, leaning quite close before pushing himself off of your shoulder back to an upright position. “It was '(Y/N) this' and '(Y/N) that' for three whole days before I asked him if he even got your phone number or anything.”

You glanced at Gardner, who was pink faced and avoiding eye contact with you at the moment, remembering how you had seen him again in the same cafe five days later, and seemed strangely relieved when you pulled a pen from your purse and wrote your number on the back of his hand, telling him he could use it sometime if he wants. It had been a further week after that before he called you, and now you understood why. He had his heart broken, and was probably not entirely keen on repeating the experience.

You stood on slightly wobbly legs and made your way around the table to your boyfriend, wrapped your arms around his neck and perched yourself on his lap. He finally looked up at you, though still a bit reluctant, and you pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead.

He smiled up at you, and you leaned in to press a gentle kiss to the curve of his lips for good measure.

“What's that for?” he asked, looking up at you with a slight furrow to his brow. You smoothed it with a light touch before answering him.

“Nothing, really. Just wanted to make sure you know that I love you and I'm not going anywhere any time soon.”

It was quiet for a moment as Calvin had run off to who knows where in the house, following whatever crazy idea his alcohol-drenched brain had come up with. You felt more than heard Gardner take a deep breath before he spoke.

“You know you don't have to worry about me, right?” he asked, head tilted back to look up into your eyes now that his brother was no longer present to spill all his secrets.

“What d'you mean?”

“I mean, that stuff is all in the past. Yeah, I was in a funk when I met you, but as soon as you showed up, it was like it all happened to another person. It wasn't me anymore. You replaced all the bad things that I held onto with the good things I hadn't realized I actually needed. The world became easier to navigate. Nothing seemed to bad or so difficult anymore.”

Gardner ended his little declaration with a shrug, as if he had not just finished saying the most beautiful and profound thing someone had ever said to you in your life.

Instead of answering him, you simply stood and pulled him up to his feet. You wrapped your arms back around his neck, pulling him close and pressing your lips to his again. You felt his arms snake around your waist, locking behind your back and pulling you close. After some time that could have been minutes or hours for all the attention you had paid to the outside world at that moment, you pulled away from him, trailing one hand down his arm and interlacing your fingers with his long ones.

“Come on,” you said, pulling him toward the door.

“Where are we going?” he asked with a puzzled look.

You threw a coy smile over your shoulder before giving his hand another tug. “To the boat.”

Calling you to see

Do I try too hard to make you smile

To make a smile

In hindsight, you really should have seen it coming.

A ring your great-grandmother had given you had gone missing off your dresser. You thought you had placed it down next to your favorite apple cider candle, only for it to disappear, causing you to spend three days searching for it. You searched all the usual places, then all the unusual places, even your desk drawers at work, thinking perhaps you had misplaced it, but it was nowhere to be found. You gave up, officially declaring the jewelry lost, and spent the evening at home alone, trying to figure out how you were going to tell your mother that you lost her grandmother's ring.

You decided to drop by Gardner's boat one afternoon after work, only to walk in to him immediately slamming his laptop shut and staring at you with a wide-eyed, guilty look on his face. When you asked what he was doing, he claimed he was looking for something for Calvin.

“He's always trying new recipes, you know, so I thought I'd look some up for him,” he said, slipping the computer onto a shelf and gesturing for you to come sit by him. You were sure this was a lie, as Googling recipes certainly did not warrant such suspicious behavior, but decided to let it slide, as you had no real reason not to believe him.

However, the strange behavior got worse. One afternoon about two weeks later, you and Gardner both had some time off and were spending it together, when he got a phone call and slipped into another room to answer it. This was odd, as he usually only received calls form you, Calvin, or his boss. It certainly was not you on the other line, and he had never felt the need to leave the room for a call from work or his brother before. You knew it was wrong, but you decided to follow him.

He had stepped outside your apartment and into the hallway, so you stood by your door with your ear pressed against it, trying to catch anything you could. He must have been pacing, because you could only catch a few words at a time as the grew louder and then softer again.

“...sure that's right? How much...? ...meet you there at 4 tomorrow...look forward to it...”

You heard him approach your front door and quickly ran into your bathroom and locked the door behind you. You barely registered the front door opening and closing as your breathing picked up and you began to think of all the worst possibilities for his behavior. You did not register Gardner calling out your name before knocking at the bathroom door. The sound pulled you rather suddenly from your panicked thoughts, and you had to quickly sit down on the toilet lid before you fell over.

“(Y/N)? Are you alright?” he called through the door, concern evident in his voice. You knew you had to think fast.

“I-I don't feel good,” you called out, which was actually not a lie. You did find yourself suddenly feeling rather ill. “Maybe you should just go home.”

“What?! Are you sick? Unlock the door, let me come in and check on you.”

“No! I um-don't want you to get sick, too. It might be contagious.”

“I don't care. I've been around you all day, if it's contagious I'm gonna get it anyway.”

“Please just go, Gardner,” you called out. “I'm gonna try taking a shower and going to bed early. Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he finally relented, sounded disappointed and defeated. “I hope you feel better soon, honey. I love you.”

“Okay, thanks, you too,” you answered, turning on the shower to hopefully drown out any further disappointed sounds or words. Sleep never came to you that night, and you spent the whole next day wound tighter than a drum and jumping at every noise and movement.

At your lunch break you ducked into the ladies' room, hoping to freshen up a bit and try to get your act together for the afternoon. You stood staring at the dark shadows under your eyes that no amount of concealer would cover up, lost in thought, when your phone suddenly started ringing in your purse, causing you to jerk back violently before stomping your foot in pure frustration. You wrenched it out of your bag and answered it without even looking at who was calling.

“Hello?” you practically shouted into the phone?

“Hi, honey,” Gardner's happy voice answered you. “How you feeling today?”

“Fine,” you lied, your grip tightening around your phone.

“Oh, um, well I'm glad to hear that,” the man answered slowly, clearly a little puzzled by your grumpiness. “Think you'd be up for dinner out tonight? My treat.”

“I don't know, Gardner, I didn't sleep the greatest last night and my appetite hasn't been the greatest today,” you answered honestly. You had softened a little, as this was still the man you loved, and thought that maybe you were reacting a little strongly based only on your paranoid suspicions.

“Okay, we'll stay in, then,” he said, clearly not to be deterred from his plan to see you. “Come by the boat. It's supposed to be a beautiful night. I just really want to see you.”

You felt the last of your resolve crumble and you caved, agreeing you would come over. He agreed that if you started to feel ill again, he would bully Calvin into driving you home.

That evening you decided to walk the half a mile or so from your apartment to Calvin's house where Gardner still had his boat parked, taking time to reflect on all that had happened recently. You were not sure what to expect upon arrival, but it certainly was not what you saw.

Gardner had taken the cover off his boat, exposing the deck fully. He had gathered every blanket he owned, as well as a few you were certain you had seen in Calvin's house, as well as every cushion and pillow it seemed he could get his hands on, and piled them on the deck like some sort of hybrid nest-pillow fort. There was a bottle of sparkling cider set beside two trays loaded with food, and fairly lights were strung around the rigging, creating a soft glow around the nest. You had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk just staring at everything, which was where Gardner found you when he emerged from below deck with two glasses in his hands.

“(Y/N)!” he waved at you when he spotted you. “Come on up!” You climbed the ladder to the deck and Gardner reached out to help you on board, hands warm and clammy in they way they were whenever he was nervous.

“Do you like it?” he asked you with a small smile.

“I love it,” you answered honestly. “Did you do all of this?”

“Yep! Well, Calvin helped with the food and dragging all the cushions outside, but it was all my idea. I bought the juice and strung the lights and everything,” Gardner's hands started waving around excitedly as he explained, and you took hold of one again to calm him.

“You did this just for me,” it was more of a statement than a question.

“Well, you seemed so stressed lately I thought it might be nice for you to have a quiet, cozy way to unwind,” he explained, steering you toward a particularly plush looking pile of cushions. You arranged yourself on it in a way that hopefully looked less awkward than it felt, and Gardner promptly wrapped a blanket around your shoulders, enveloping you in warmth and his familiar scent.

You hugged the blanket around yourself, feeling infinitely better, and wondering how you could ever have doubted this wonderful man. He reached out to you with a glass of juice, and soon you both were digging into the food he had prepared. Sandwiches, fruits, and even chocolate and caramel sauces for dipping. It was delicious, and you realized just how hungry you were after barely eating for the past 24 hours. You talked and laughed over your dinner, the conversation slowly dwindling into companionable silence. You were licking a bit of stray chocolate sauce off your finger when Gardner caught your attention again.

“(Y/N)?”

“Gardner?”

“There's...another reason I wanted you to come over tonight. Another reason why I prepared all of this,” he started and turned to face you more directly. “I know I have my faults and my quirks, and sometimes it may seem like I try too hard, yet other times, not hard enough. But I love you more than life itself. What you and me have is so much...different when compared to anything I've ever known. I've not had anybody really be there for me, there because they actually wanted to be and not because they felt obligated or for some ulterior motive. When I look at you, I feel whole, I feel new, I feel invincible. Like I could fly. I could take on the world with you by my side. And that's what I really want. I'm not sure about the rest of the factors in my life, but I know that whatever happens, I want it to happen with you there, too.”

Time seemed to stand still as Gardner shifted so he was on one knee while reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a small blue box. You gasped, eyes comically wide as you stared at the box. It all made sense now. The missing ring, the sneaky internet research, the private phone calls. He had been in touch with a jeweler. He needed to know your ring size. Of course. The clues were all there, your mind had just come to the wrong conclusion.

Tears blurred your vision as Gardner opened the box, revealing the most beautiful ring you had ever seen. A princess cut stone of pure (y/b/s) sat in the middle of a sparkling white gold band, two much smaller white diamonds framing it, giving off the most brilliant shine even in the low light surrounding you. It was truly gorgeous, more so than any piece of jewelry or clothing or anything you had ever owned. Taking a deep breath to regain your composure, you looked back up into his hopeful face, flashing a watery smile.

“Ask me,” you said, wanting to hear his sweet voice speak those words. “Ask me, Gardner.”

“(Y/N), will you marry me?” he asked, brilliant hazel eyes flicking back and forth between yours.

“Yes,” you said, nodding vigorously. “Yes, yes, of course I will!”

You threw your arms around him, tackling him back into the pile of blankets and cushions behind him, peppering his entire face with kisses, leaving no exposed skin untouched. He laughed as you even kissed his ears, only stopping when Calvin's voice rang out from the house.

“Well?! What did she say?!”

“Oh, the ring!” you said, suddenly remembering it. “Where's the ring?”

Gardner picked the box up from where he had dropped it on a pillow and quickly slipped it onto your left hand. You stood and flashed your hand toward the house, making sure it caught the glow of one of the lights strung around you.

“What the heck do you think I said, Calvin?!” you shot back at him.

“Smart girl!” he called back to you. “You two have fun, now, and don't rock the boat! Or maybe do!”

You laughed as Calvin closed the window he was leaning out of. His words made you realize something and you quickly turned to Gardner, leveling him with your best serious face.

“I have one condition,” you stated firmly. The smile on Gardner's face slipped a little. “You can keep the boat, but I am NOT living in it!”

He laughed in relief, reaching out to pull you down to him again.

“Deal.”

[readingwebcomics]

Analyzing Questionable Content: Pages 1-50

And so it begins.

The very first comic of Questionable Content, posted way back in 2003 and what would eventually be Jeff Jacques’ claim to fame, the reason why everyone remembers his name and what has made him a wealthy man today.

…’s alright.

Of course, by modern standards it’s not very good. This was the early 2000s, the wild west of online artists who had nothing more than an art creation software and a dream. The Webcomic Review has a VERY good post about it right here, which explains what the landscape of webcomics were like around this time and why exactly Marten has a pet robot (tl;dr, EVERYONE had a pet robot in ye early days of webcomics because Megatokyo).

But aside from the… awkward art, this comic at least serves to set up the protagonist (as far as we’re aware right now, we’ll get into the roles of protagonists in QC later). He’s a lanky, assumedly average guy who hates where he is in life but doesn’t know what else to do or even where else to go…

…as he goes on to spell out two comics later. He’s unassuming, not really much you can say for or against him, miserable and stuck in a rut in his life that he’s too scared to escape. Sooo basically, freshly graduated college students – the exact kind of audience a RomCom like this would go after.

Oh, did I forget to mention?

Yeah, QC started off as a RomCom.

This young woman is Faye, and she immediately cuts through the bullshit with an aggressive but to-the-point introduction of herself and her intentions.

While aggressive and to-the-point, she’s also set up as someone who meshes with Marten and Steve’s interests well enough and quickly makes friends. This is probably best exemplified in the seventh page, which serves two purposes:

Purpose the First: Showcase Marten and Faye have a shared niche interest, immediately establishing chemistry between the two of them. Be it platonic or romantic, they’re quickly hitting it off and, being a RomCom, will serve as the first rope potential shippers can grasp onto.

Purpose the Second: Jeff is a MASSIVE indie music nerd and he wants the fucking world to know it.

Also Pintsize is there doing funny robot things because 2003 webcomic.

It’s not long before this initial relationship is set up that two issues serve to sew the seeds of initial conflict:

This, likewise, serves two purposes: To show where Faye works and create a believable life for her to exist in when she’s not in the story with Marten, and as previously stated to sew potential romantic conflicts in the future. Jeff employs this tactic many-a-time throughout the course of Questionable Content, beginning a conflict and letting the implications sit with the reader while life goes on in the regular comics. Is this good writing? I honestly can’t say. Is it always done well? Oh good God no, some plot beats are outright dropped or left to sit for so long the reader straight-up forgets it’s there with this method. But does Jeff make it work? It’s all on personal taste I’d say, but personally it sits well with me.

Also, for those of you wondering why it looks like the word “hump” is just pasted onto the text bubble in post… well it was. The original comic implied sexual assault much more overtly, using the R-word instead of “hump.”

*Away from mic* Wait, can-can I say [NOPE]? Better not to risk it? Alright, fair ‘nuff.

But yeah, this was pointed out by readers to be pretty fucked up and it was swiftly changed, for good reason.

Later that night, Faye asks Marten to dinner with her. Platonically, of course. And here I believe I should point out the dynamic of their relationship as it stands – Faye is the aggressor. Marten is basically a doormat. Whenever something happens, Faye is always the instigator, be it going out to dinner or tagging along with him when he’s getting shopping done. This will feed into their relationship dynamic and sets up a decent inter-personal conflict: Marten is far too passive to reach out to Faye and make the move to start something, but Faye, despite how openly and quickly she attaches herself to Marten’s life, never takes that step into making it romantic. The two clearly have the hots for each other, but their respective personalities make it so neither one crosses that threshold.

Yes I know this is basic character writing for a RomCom 101, but the fact that so much about these characters are said in 12 four-panel comics says a lot. It hooks the reader quickly and gets them on the page Jeff wants them to be, and I respect that.

And in the next page, Faye’s aggression takes on a new level, albeit extremely briefly.

This is an isolated incident of actual physical aggression rather than implications and threats in these first 50 pages, but it becomes a trend as we go along – one that feeds into Faye’s character, mind, so it’s not just physical abuse for humor’s sake – so just keep it in mind as we go along.

Also on a personal note the actual restaurant they go to is simultaneously the worst and best idea I’ve ever heard of:

This is horrible. I should not encourage this. And yet some dark part of me finds the concept utterly hilarious even though I know I’m a piece of shit for liking it.

Actually, now some part of me wants to do the exact opposite – advertise a place as a steakhouse only serve an all-vegan menu. It feels less mean but just as funny to me.

…oh right, the comic.

After sharing dinner, exchanging banter that establishes good chemistry and parting ways, we come to this comic that I’m only showing because I’m a slut for good puns and I will take any and all opportunities to share with people.

(Pintsize totally won that round with the John the Baptist zinger by the way, if I’m allowed to judge this.)

And one page later, we get the biggest shake-up in the comic thus far:

It’s established Faye herself ended up burning down the apartment because she burnt toast, but that’s not really important. I know, the fact Faye BURNT DOWN A BUILDING isn’t important sounds completely ridiculous, but follow me here – the important thing for this setup isn’t the how, but the why. “How did Faye’s apartment burn down?” isn’t the question Jeff, nor the audience, is intended to be asking, that’s merely a vessel into the situation we’re in – the answer of “Why did Faye’s apartment burn down?” which is, of course, so Marten and Faye can become roommates and facilitate future antics and further their relationship. Familiarity breeds into both affection and conflict, and the obvious case of “Well you two are already living together, aren’t you?” will serve to further the flames of their potential relationship with one another.

…granted, a better reason to create this setup would’ve been nice, and from a writing standpoint it’s ridiculous that Faye never suffers any consequences for burning an entire BUILDING down, one that had many more people than just her in it. If present-day Jeff wrote this plotline… actually. Now that I think about it, Jeff DOES re-do this plot point and make it make a lot more sense and have a lot more impact on everyone involved.

But we’ll get to that when we eventually talk about Brun…. Three thousand and something pages from now.

Either way, my point stands: This plot thread serves mostly to create the situation we’re facing now, one where Faye and Marten end up living together. This shake-up to the early comic settles us into the new status quo, one that we’ll be riding with comfortably for the foreseeable future.

Further evidence of Faye’s aggressive and troll-ish nature… one that may or may not play into future revelations about her, now that I think about it.

Remember what I said about sewing the seeds of drama? Well here we stand now – a misunderstanding, or the beginning of genuine conflict between these two?

The answer is… they talk it out like actual goddamn adults, avoiding a stupid, unnecessary fight.

Honestly? Kind of refreshing. But what makes it better is the following page:

Honestly? This moment never fails to make me laugh. The one-two punch of complete betrayal of the reader’s expectations as well as the utter dismantling and defusal of the romantic interest subplot between these two dorks – while denying some genuine romantic conflict that may force Faye into being more upfront with how she feels about the situation – is a fun denial of the kinds of RomCom clichés that one might expect to find in this story.

Sure, there are other stories that do this better, I’m not denying that. But isolated in a bubble, this stands by itself and, frankly, works well enough for the story Jeff’s telling.

Also say goodbye to Sara, once she walks out that door she goes to join the little sister from Family Matters and the big brother from Happy Days on the twisted Island of Irrelevancy, visiting the story only when she can spare the time to craft a raft out of banana leafs and... where was I going with this?

…okay, personal story time. The Walmart I’m doing contract work for this week has a CD display of new-ish albums, and honest-to-God I completely forgot music CDs were even a THING. MP3s have spoiled us, and I now feel old for some reason.

Right, getting back on track.

I wanted to show this comic to establish three things.

1) Marten is the kind of person who sits on things that bother him and lets them stew for awhile. As established in the previous image I showed with Marten and Steve at the music store, it’s been at least a day since what happened with Sara and Marten’s still thinking about it. This, for better or worse, becomes a core part of Marten’s character moving forward.

2) Faye, for all her faults, is a genuinely good friend who cares about Marten and knows when to channel her natural aggression into support rather than ribbing.

3) This is another comic that always makes me laugh whenever I read it. Yes I know that’s much less of a real reason than my other two points but let me have this dammit.

This particular page itself isn’t terribly important to the ongoing narrative but I wanted to include it because it introduces QC’s unquestionably best character, Jim. Hi Jim! I like Jim.

(He’s a minor character at best but he’s just so earnest and fun and every time Jeff brings him back he just gets better and better.)

Oh, and for those who were skeptical that the more-than-platonic interest was mutual between Marten and Faye, the next two issues serve to showcase that… yeah, both parties TOTALLY have the hots for each other.

The first of those two comics, by the way, gets called back to much later down the line. And the fact that Faye speaks in a southern accent is more than just a joke, it’s going to be touched on more later.

Jeff says in the description of this comic that this is based on personal experience, and it shows – this is the most backbone Marten displays to my memory.

And in the very next page, we’re introduced to a new character – although you wouldn’t guess it from her appearance.

That’s Raven. I like Raven. Her personality changes a ton once she’s properly introduced as a character and not a nameless employee, but for posterity’s sake: Here’s her very first appearance in the comic.

There’s only one more important comic to touch on in this batch of fifty, and it’s about both Marten and Faye’s families:

While this could be as simple as a “har-dee-har, my family drives me up the wall,” this comic serves to say a lot about both characters once we know more about their families. Both Marten and Faye actually have very good reasons why they don’t want to see their respective families or go back to their hometowns… Faye especially so. We’ll touch more on that when we get more into her backstory.

Before we wrap things up, I’d like to do a quick comparison between page 1 and 50 to see in what small, subtle ways Jeff’s artistry has improved:

There’s not a LOT of difference, but the small details really showcases just how different they look. Small changes from the placement of everything on Marten’s face, to the size of the eyes, the width of the eyebrows… It’s good shit.

Overall, what did I think of batch 1? Well… for an early 2000s webcomic, it’s engaging. The characters are likable, the plot is progressing at an enjoyable pace, and I’m already on-board to see if Marten and Faye will get together. I mean, I know the answer, but my point stands.

Also because I’m a freak or something and like data compilation I went ahead and kept track of who showed up in what comic and made some numbers for it:

Not counting the one guest comic and two non-canon pages, Marten showed up in 45/50 pages, being in 90% of the comic so far.

Faye was in 38/50 pages, taking up 76% of the comic so far.

Pintsize comes in third place being in 15/50 comics, taking up a paltry 30% of the comic thus far when compared to the screen time Marten and Faye have taken up.

Likewise, Steve has been in only 8/50 pages, making up 16% of the comic up to this point.

Sara was in 5/50 pages, making up 10% of these first 50. That percentile will grow smaller and smaller with each update, believe you me.

Jim was in 2/50 glorious pages, making up 4% of the comic up to this point. And that was the best 4% this comic had to offer, let me tell you.

Raven, although still unnamed, I’m counting – she’s in 1/50 of the first batch of pages, making up 2% of screen time.

Tune in next week as we continue onwards to pages 51-100 where we’ll be introduced to the next major character in the series, who’s mere existence will further the plot more than anyone we’ve previously met. See you then.

[thenixkat]

Static Shock notes 51

Episode 12 (51)

Gear’s wild ride. Static tried to catch him but the boy is slippery and wiggly like a pool noodle

Also the only thing that Omnara hacked was his skates. Not the computer/robot on his back with deadly lasers and saws

Static, Virgil Hawkins, who’s done computer and game programming for fun, and was accepted into a school for the gifted and did programming there… doesn’t know what a computer worm is? Fuck you writers.

...how is this chick a challenge? Gear had to reprogram his hit after Brainiac and update defenses are they trying to say this chick is as powerful as Brainiac?

Why did Virgil leave his blinds open while changing?

Karen is 2 seasons behind everything going on in the company

She’s not even getting fired, just transfered to another department

Why did she expect a currupt ceo who’s down with child murder to keep his end of a deal

Bye bitch

So the Freeman center work can go def into the night. SHaron is driving.

What the fuck did Puff do to the inside of that car?

Puff and Onyx kidnapp Mr. H

Sharon chases the bitches down instead of calling the cops and nearly gets killed

Static saves Sharon. Static saves Sharon and leave the car to spin off the freeway and into a building. So not only is the Hawkins finmily several thousand in debt now,  there’s also a lot more collateral damage than nescessary. B/c Static has proven himself cabable of picking up/moving cars in the past

Static finds out his dad got kidnapped

Static goes out and beats up people until they tell him something he wants to hear

Puff uses a blowtorch to create a lightshow to attract Static

Again, Onyx contiues to have more common sense than Puff

Also they’ve given up the pretense of being bounty hunters

Also Static is bad at this. Like if Puff and Onyx weren’t dinguses they shoulda put two and two tgether based on how emotional he’s being

Also Static learned nothing from the ep were Daisy was in a coma about flying off the rails

When the fuck did Karen have the time and resources to build a secret undergound base?

Like, that base is clearly not a one person opperation

Why would Alva need a survalence system connected to every sattelite and camera in the world when Static almost exclusively operates in Dakota, can be reasonably expected to live in dakota, why waste resorces on shit ya don’t need to do?

If you pay them, Puff and Onyx will willingly work for you. Why is unwilling labor more appealing? This woman is a daft cunt.

Mr. H knows Static’s identity. But he only recently figured it out

Never ment to put his family in danger but did so by leaving them uninformed that they could be in danger. There were no downsides to his family not knowing his identity, but they were repetedly indangered by him not telling.

Static helps Omnara and makes jokes. Apparently he’s over being furious

How fucking huge is that computer

How the fuck did you implant a computer virus in every computer in the world?

It took Gear long enough to notice Static robbing shit and dogfighting with Alva’s company

Gear would take down Static if he turned bad.

Static places his family over the fate of the world

I’d be much more excited about this fight if Gear hasn’t consistantly been mostly useless since becoming a superhero

Gear uses actual fucking explosives against Static. Why did he give him time to recover… right Static has to win.

A very short fight. And yeah as soon as Static got a solid hit in Gear was down.

Wait a sec...OOOOOOO!!!

Gear split up with BacPac after STatic’s opening shot. That means the fight wasn’t over. Bacpac was circling around for an opening and STatic didn’t notice. I didn’t notice. Bacpac’s stealth for the win.

Ok like I know the writers probably had BacPaC LEAVE SO THAT HE WOULDN’T GET SHORTED OUT AND GEAR WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO HELP LATER and the reason Gear gave Static the time t recover and get back into the air to win the fight and I shouldn’t give them credit for shit. But I just love my robot son so much

Ok but I think Gear coulda won the fight

How does connecting her brain with all the tech on Earth allow her to float

Also Static, why the fuck whould she keep her end of the deal, she’s a supervillian

How does connecting her mind to all the computers on Earth (except bacpac) give her brain blasts?

Gear works quick

Gear finds out the villians main server of their super tech is their brain and is still gonna fuck it up. That boy’s a bit ruthless

World’s most dangerous limbo

So she’s just not worried about what was on that disk that he put in her computer?

Gear gets a brain blast to the chest

She controls every digital device to exist, except for Bacpac.

Why can she fly?!

Robert gets blasted

WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK how big is this facility? Why is there a main hole over it? The sewer should be there! The main facility is in the junk yard how’d it strech to the middle of down town?!

What the fuck!

Mr. h easily guesses Gear’s identity

I mean, fuckin do it bitch, Alva’s a cunt and the people who work for him are morally banckrupt. Destroy his shit

Alva just calmly escapes

The boys destroy the missiles but get attacked by vehicles

And I wonder when the writers will remember that BacPac has a laser that can cut through steel so Gear could easily get free from the garbage truck

Ok so these expplosive zapcaps clearly have different charges and why did Gear use the weak ones wile fighting fucking Static?

Oh hey Gear’s virus kicked in

And destroyed this woman’s mind

Static is ok with it

Robort is mostly ok with the boys being heros

And yeah, these boys need to think of what to do when people learn their secret identities

You see its funny to keep Sharon in the dark b/c she just found out that she’s possibly thousands of dollors into debt and has to buy another car and is overracting by having the nerve to be angry. Oh right, that’s not funny

[brydeswhale]

Top Ten Worst Elfquest Outfits Part Two

Okay, let’s just get this over with, if I have to look at one more shirtless shirt I am going to vomit.

5. Cutter’s Vest

Cutter’s never really been the most aesthetically pleasing in terms of sartorial taste. He always gives you the impression that he grabbed whatever smelled best out of a pile of clothes in the corner of the tree. He’s here to be comfortable, not to look good. Winnowill broke this rule in volume three, that was her downfall.

In this case it looks like he snuck up behind Moonshade while she was sewing, grabbed a bison hide, cut some holes in it, and acted like he had no idea what she was talking about when she came looking for it.

4. Redlance’s Beard (and Turtleneck)

Redlance has been a fan fave since he showed up in the first issue, bloody, beaten, and vulnerable. He retained that popularity through to today, you almost never find him on a least favourite list. He’s been on the periphery of almost everything that’s ever happened in the entire history of the comic, by virtue of being Nightfall(Cutter’s BFF) lifemate, and he’s remained pretty much good, sweet, and terribly bland throughout. In the first couple of arcs, he had a decent vest and shirt combo, which was actually cute. Then, in the beginning of KOTBW, he had a cute, off the shoulder number.

Then, Wendy made the worst choice of her entire career in terms of character design. Apparently, once they reach about the equivalent of thirty in human terms(Wolfriders live about three thousand years. I don’t know what the fuck this is, except for more of her shitty grasp of science and biology), Wolfriders grow fucking fur out of their faces. Apparently they’ve never heard of a razor, either.

Most of the Wolfriders look like fine, not perfect, but fine. Strongbow has a goatee, Scouter has barely visible sideburns, and Redlance, well…

He looks like he should be asking Mabel to be his gnome queen.

Someone commented that Pike has a similar beard, but honestly? It kind of works for him. It takes that whole jolly, happy addict thing he has going on, and adds to it.

On top of, or underneath, the whole beard is this. This bizarre, applique mess that kind of… I mean, it’s a, well, what can you say about it? Like many of Wendy’s efforts, it’s got big blocks and dark patches, and basically looks like the seventies met Moonshade’s scrap basket.

I can’t say anything more about it. It’s yucky.

3. Skywise’s…Jewelry?

K, but, like, doesn’t he get cold? How does he wear that all winter without getting frostbite? Are those things on his arms really heavy? 

Why do people think he’s so hot, when he looks like a pre-beard Santa Clause?

2. These Shirts(and every iteration of them)

I really feel like I need to point out that this scene takes place not long after Chitter and Dart decide to move in with Ember and her group. I also feel the need to point out that Chitter’s comment to her mother on moving is that she is going to be the tribe’s tanner and make everyone nice and warm. 

Um…

Look, besides the general rudeness of that comment comment when you consider that Ember’s tribe HAS a tanner, and that Moonshade TAUGHT said tanner, I feel the need to point out that, unlike the two above pics, Tyleet managed to make shirts that covered more than a person’s arms. I don’t know about anyone else, but chest coverage is a big deal to me when I’m trying to stay cosy.

This is not the kind of shirt you make to keep someone warm. It’s the kind you make when you want someone to die of pneumonia. 

This is the trend that started with Rayek’s buckle outfit, and has continued to this horrific abomination.

Worth noting, this is the start of the couple that broke apart years of build up and backstory and left us all sort of cold and missing Kimo.

1.The Dress

This one.

Actually, I have to question, is she wearing a dress? Is this technically a negligee? Are there kids around?

It’s like one of those puffballs made of net that you put the shower gel on. I have no idea what’s going on here, and that’s not even my main problem with this dress. 

My main problem with this dress is what it symbolizes, back from its earliest appearance, in New Blood.

New Blood #4 is the story of Ahnshen, the Sun Village tailor, falling into an infatuation with Moonshade. The art(this example not withstanding) is very sweet, like a girl’s manga, and beautifully coloured, with what looks like watercolours. The storyline, about acceptance, love, cultural differences, and essentially, accepting all of someone and not controlling them. It includes a Strongbow who, rather than being jealous, or controlling, is offended on Moonshade’s behalf for what he sees as insults. Ahnshen himself is never insulting, or hurtful. Instead he comes across as young and naive. He thinks he can bring out Moonshade’s true self, with a lovely, princess like gown and cosmetics. Instead, he exposes his own self-deception, and grows. 

The dress doesn’t fit. Moonshade cannot make it fit. It is not who she is, and not what she wants.

This story is considered non-canon. That’s unfortunate, because it would have been great to see Moonshade ask Ahnshen to make it for her again, to explain that it would would fit now, both her figure, and who she is. It would symbolize her changing wants and needs.

Instead we got a few oblique exchanges here and there, and suddenly, Moonshade was living in the Palace.

Moonshade making the decision to change her life wouldn’t be entirely unexpected. Changing her life in a way that Strongbow wouldn’t be able to do would be a natural outgrowth of the early wild hunt issues, where Moonshade did begin to question the Way, and her own role in it.

But Final Quest didn’t really address this in a satisfying way. It tells us over and over again that Moonshade is happier, that she’s learning, gaining new knowledge and new skills, that she has new wants and needs. Yet, we don’t really see this. We don’t even see a montage. 

I’m not the kind to say you have show and not tell in writing. I think writing, by necessity, includes telling. But a character making a life changing decision, especially the kinds of decisions Moonshade made, we need to actually see some of it. We need to watch those experiences, understand what’s happening through her eyes with more than a few sad thoughts. 

Yeah. This is Moonshade’s penultimate goal, supposedly. A barbie doll with cut and paste hair. 

This art accomplishes only one thing. It gives an idea of how the dress is actually supposed to fit. It’s as if Moonshade sewed it in anticipation of attaining this form. 

Savah and Sun Toucher look kind of dead eyed and robotic behind her. It kind of fits the whole theme, an unwitting comment on how this pretty shape wears Moonshade’s flowers, her hair, and isn’t actually the same character at all. 

Where did this new Moonshade come from? 

I don’t know. If she took a journey, it wasn’t one the reader was invited to join. She sent us the occasional postcard, and that was it. Now we’re supposed to just accept this new dress, as if we had completely forgotten what happened the first time she put it on.

Okay, I need to do something more positive. Maybe ten best hairstyles, or something?

[meeedeee]

Dear Simon Sinek: STFU About Millennials RSS FEED OF POST WRITTEN BY FOZMEADOWS

The last few weeks or so, I’ve seen the same video endlessly going around on Facebook: a snippet of an interview with Simon Sinek, who lays out what he believes to be the key problems with millennials in the workplace. Every time I see it shared, my blood pressure rises slightly, until today – joy of joys! – I finally saw and shared a piece rebutting it. As often happens on Facebook, a friend asked me why I disagreed with Sinek’s piece, as he’d enjoyed his TED talks. This is my response.

In his talk, Sinek touches on what he believes to be the four core issues handicapping millennials: internet addiction, bad parenting, an unfulfilled desire for meaningful work and a desire to have everything instantly. Now: demonstrably, some people are products of bad parenting, and the pernicious, lingering consequences of helicopter parenting, wherein overzealous, overprotective adults so rob their children of autonomy and instil in them such a fear of failure that they can’t healthily function as adults, is a very real phenomenon. Specifically in reference to Sinek’s claims about millennials all getting participation awards in school (which, ugh: not all of us fucking did, I don’t know a single person for whom that’s true, shut up with this goddamn trope), the psychological impact of praising children equally regardless of their actual achievements, such that they come to view all praise as meaningless and lose self-confidence as a result, is a well-documented phenomenon. But the idea that you can successfully accuse an entire global generation of suffering from the same hang-ups as a result of the same bad parenting stratagems, such that all millennials can be reasonably assumed to have this problem? That, right there, is some Grade-A bullshit.

Bad parenting isn’t a new thing. Plenty of baby boomers and members of older generations have been impacted by the various terrible fads and era-accepted practises their own parents fell prey to (like trying to electrocute the gay out of teenagers, for fucking instance), but while that might be a salient point to make in individual cases or in the specific context of tracking said parenting fads, it doesn’t actually set millennials apart in any meaningful way. Helicopter parenting might be comparatively new, but other forms of damage are not, and to act as though we’re the only generation to have ever dealt with the handicap of bad parenting, whether collectively or individually, is fucking absurd. But more to the point, the very specific phenomenon of helicopter parenting? Is, overwhelmingly, a product of white, well-off, middle- and-upper-class America, developed specifically in response to educational environments where standardised testing rules all futures and there isn’t really a viable social safety net if you fuck up, which leads to increased anxiety for children and parents both. While it undeniably appears in other countries and local contexts, and while it’s still a thing that happens to kids now, trying to erase its origins does no favours to anyone.

Similarly, the idea that millennials have all been ruined by the internet and don’t know how to have patience because we grew up with smartphones and social media is – you guessed it – bullshit. This is really a two-pronged point, tying into two of Sinek’s arguments: that we’re internet addicts who don’t know how to socialise properly, and that we’re obsessed with instant gratification, and as such, I’m going to address them together.

Yes, internet addiction is a problem for some, but it’s crucial to note it can and does affect people of all ages rather than being a millennial-only issue, just as it’s equally salient to point out that millennials aren’t the only ones using smartphones. I shouldn’t have to make such an obvious qualification, but apparently, I fucking do. That being said, the real problem here is that Sinek has seemingly no awareness of what social media actually is. I mean, the key word is right there in the title: social media, and yet he’s acting like it involves no human interaction whatsoever – as though we’re just playing with digital robots or complete strangers all the time instead of texting our parents about dinner or FaceTiming with friends or building professional networks on Twitter or interacting with our readerships on AO3 (for instance).

The idea, too, that millennials have their own social conventions different to his own, many of which reference a rich culture of online narratives, memes, debates and communities, does not seem to have occurred to him, because we’re not learning to do it face to face. Except that, uh, we fucking are, on account of how we still inhabit physical bodies and go to physical places every fucking day of our goddamn lives, do I really have to explain that this is a thing? Do I really have to explain the appeal of maintaining friendships where you’re emotionally close but the person lives hundreds or thousands of kilometres away? Do I really have to spell out the fact that proximal connections aren’t always meaningful ones, and that it actually makes a great deal of human sense to want to socialise with people we care about and who share our interests where possible rather than relying solely on the random admixture of people who share our schools and workplaces for fun?

The fact that Sinek talks blithely about how all millennials grew up with the internet and social media, as though those of us now in our fucking thirties don’t remember a time before home PCs were common (I first learned to type on an actual typewriter), is just ridiculous: Facebook started in 2004, YouTube in 2005, Twitter in 2006, tumblr in 2007 and Instagram in 2010. Meaning, most millennials – who, recall, were born between 1980 and 1995, which makes the youngest of us 21/22 and the eldest nearly forty – didn’t grow up with what is now considered social media throughout our teenage years, as Sinek asserts, because it didn’t really get started until we were out of high school. Before that, we had internet messageboards that were as likely to die overnight as to flourish, IRC chat, and the wild west of MSN forums, which was a whole different thing altogether. (Remember the joys of being hit on by adults as an underage teen in your first chatroom and realising only years later that those people were fucking paedophiles? Because I DO.)

And then he pulls out the big guns, talking about how we get a dopamine rush when we post about ourselves online, and how this is the same brain chemical responsible for addiction, and this is why young people are glued to their phones and civilisation is ending. Which, again, yes: dopamine does what he says it does, but that is some fucking misleading bullshit, Simon Says, and do you know why? Because you also get a goddamn dopamine rush from talking about yourself in real life, too, Jesus fucking Christ, the internet is not the culprit here, to say nothing of the fact that smartphones do more than one goddamn thing. Sinek lambasts the idea of using your phone in bed, for instance, but I doubt he holds a similar grudge against reading in bed, which – surprise! – is what quite a lot of us are doing when we have our phones out of an evening, whether in the form of blogs or books or essays. If I was using a paperback book or a physical Kindle rather than the Kindle app on my iPhone, would he give a fuck? I suspect not.

Likewise, I doubt he has any particular grudge against watching movies (or TED talks, for that matter) in bed, which phones can also be used for. Would he care if I brought in my Nintendo DS or any other handheld system to bed and caught a few Pokemon before lights out? Would he care if I played Scrabble with a physical board instead of using Words With Friends? Would he care if I used the phone as a phone to call my mother and say goodnight instead of checking her Facebook and maybe posting a link to something I know will make her laugh? I don’t know, but unless you view a smartphone as something that’s wholly disconnected from people – which, uh, is kind of the literal antithesis of what a smartphone is and does – I don’t honestly see how you can claim that they’re tools for disconnection. Again, yes: some people can get addicted or overuse their phones, but that is not a millennial-exclusive problem, and fuck you very much for suggesting it magically is Because Reasons.

And do not even get me started on the total fuckery of millennials being accustomed to instant gratification because of the internet. Never mind the fact that, once again, people of any age are equally likely to become accustomed to fast internet as a thing and to update their expectations accordingly – bitch, do you know how long it used to take to download music with Kazaa using a 56k modem? Do you know how long it still takes to download entire games, or patches for games, or – for that matter – drive through fucking peak-hour traffic to get to and from work, or negotiate your toddler into not screaming because he can’t have a third juicebox? Because – oh, yeah – remember that thing where millennials stopped being teenagers quite a fucking while ago, and a fair few of us are now parents ourselves? Yeah. Apparently our interpersonal skills aren’t so completely terrible as to prevent us all from finding spouses and partners and co-parents for our tiny, screaming offspring, and if Mr Sinek would like to argue that learning patience is incompatible with being a millennial, I would like to cordially invite him to listen to a video, on loop, of my nearly four-year-old saying, “Mummy, look! A lizard! Mummy, there’s a lizard! Come look!” and see what it does for his temperament. (We live in Brisbane, Australia. There are geckos everywhere.)

But what really pisses me off about Sinek’s millennial-blaming is the idea that we’re all willing to quit our jobs because we don’t find meaning in them. Listen to me, Simon Sinek. Listen to me closely. You are, once again, confusing the very particular context of middle-class, predominantly white Americans from affluent backgrounds – which is to say, the kind of people who can afford to fucking quit in this economy – for a universal phenomenon. Ignore the fact that the global economy collapsed in 2008 without ever fully recovering: Brexit just happened in the UK, Australia is run by a coalition of racist dickheads and you’ve just elected a talking Cheeto who’s hellbent on stripping away your very meagre social safety nets as his first order of business – oh, and none of us can afford to buy houses and we’re the first generation not to earn more than our predecessors in quite a while, university costs in the States are an actual goddamn crime and most of us can’t make a living wage or even get a job in the fields we trained in.

But yeah, sure: let’s talk about the wealthy few who can afford to quit their corporate jobs because they feel unfulfilled. What do they have to feel unhappy about, really? It’s not like they’re working for corporations whose idea of HR is to hire oblivious white dudes like you to figure out why their younger employees, working longer hours for less pay in tightly monitored environments that strip their individuality and hate on unions as a sin against capitalism, in a context where the glass ceiling and wage gaps remain a goddamn issue, in a first world country that still doesn’t have guaranteed maternity leave and where quite literally nobody working minimum wage can afford to pay rent, which is fucking terrifying to consider if you’re worried about being fired, aren’t fitting in. Nah, bro – must be the fucking internet’s fault.

Not that long ago, Gen X was the one getting pilloried as a bunch of ambitionless slackers who didn’t know the meaning of hard work, but time is linear and complaining about the failures of younger generations is a habit as old as humanity, so now it’s apparently our turn. Bottom line: there’s a huge fucking difference between saying “there’s value in turning your phone off sometimes” and “millennials don’t know how to people because TECHNOLOGY”, and until Simon Sinek knows what it is, I’m frankly not interested in whatever it is he thinks he has to say.

from shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows http://ift.tt/2iKOneF via IFTTT

[sleepymarmot]

Twilight Mirage liveblog 4/5 (episodes 55-63)

55-56

Ha, Austin rereads the passage I just came back to relisten 

Yeah, this only proves the point that you can't put the wellbeing and infrastructure of an entire society on the shoulders of 300 people with superpowers, and the warmth of their personal relationship with the rest ot the people! Sorry, I can't make myself sad about this system that was ridiculous and inherently unsustainable from the start!

But how about… Not mean humans ~enslaving innocent Divines~ because they're not idealistic enough or too utilitarian or w/e… not the Divines going “Oh no the 30k years of our love weren't real! You only want us for our bodies! Guess we'll die” and flopping over… How about Divines actually step up and sacrifice themselves willingly for the common good, you know, the way countless humans have done in this universe across both arcs?! “They could be made to be what Candidates once were” Oh boo fucking hoo!

I'm just. Thinking of C/w finale and how unnecessarily brutal it was and how many people sacrificed themselves and others for the greater good. And you're telling me that the Divines and the entire Fleet as a society are too precious for that? And I don't mean sacrifice yourself like Belgard, I mean the bigger picture. A utopia that isn't for everyone isn't a utopia, etc, see that post about The Good Place that got a surprising amount of notes lol

Also count me as an Independence kin still. I would absolutely break up with someone over the right to die (then run away and make everyone really upset by my mere presence then behave in such a way they have to kill me, twice. Okay maybe not this part)

Honestly the whole concept of the Fleet sounds so toxic. It's like being fully financially dependent on your beloved parents forever.

Oh wait here's another thing I must rage about: they stopped making new Divines so that they wouldn't be enslaved! Here's a novel idea: how about instead making a Divine that could be turned into a more productive machine… you make that machine in the first place??? You know, how people in real life make machines to use instead of manual labor??

Like, the problem with Divines is a two-sided coin:

Flawed individuals should not possess inordinate amounts of power. They might abuse it, misuse or just use with good intentions but in controversial or questionable ways (see: the Divines in Counter/weight).

As a flip side, making an entire community almost fully dependent on labor of a small group of sentient beings of a separate species is an unfair burden to them, and even if it is provided willingly. The benefitters become dependent on providers, which is exacerbated by the latter's small numbers (the Fleet being thrown into a crisis by the loss of the final Divines and only coming out of it fine because another superpowered being happened to be nearby). The providers are put at risk of exploitation (the Divines of being “enslaved/killed”), especially since they are outnumbered. The benefitters’ genuine love for the providers is undermined and may eventually be corrupted and superseded by their vested interest in maintaining this arrangement -- but at the same time, wanting more resources is a natural thing and people cannot and should not be blamed for it. This relationship may be mutually beneficial (and it was for an astonishingly long time) but carries an inherent risk.

So Divines potentially have too much and too little power at the same time. Both of these problems could have been avoided if “a special kind of synthetic beings” and “algorithms and robots that provide unique services that form the backbone of society” were two separate things in the first place! Fine, you can't undo what happened tens of thousands of years ago under very specific circumstances and specific threat, but you could try to recognize the problem instead of building a community whose structure is bound to bring that problem to the forefront sooner or later. 

Okaaay, so where did the Divines that “didn't make the cut”, other than Independence, go? Is there a club of really bitter superpowered rejects somewhere?

I really don't get why Tender is having such a crisis

Austin and Janine are a pair of sadistic bastards lmao

I can't believe it's only been an hour into the episode, feels like an eternity (in a good way)        

On the one hand, it's nice that at least Anticipation was thinking about the things I wrote above. On the other, “They could be made to be what Candidates once were” becomes even more ridiculous, because Anticipation is using her excerpt like a candidate Right Now! In order to determine whether she and her kin should be used! 

Tender gets her own version of the “Independence makes Grand an offer he can't refuse” scene :D 

Okay, my first objection to “giving it to Sho” was “um, you want to waste that resource on becoming a museum piece?!” but my current one is, unlike the players' “Anticipation would hurt Sho”, is “do you really want to combine this with Sho's high-strung personality?”

Aaand Tender makes the right choice :D I'm glad.

Wow! This second episode has wildly exceeded all my expectations. What a ride

57-59 

No offense, but I wish the three episodes of “everything is Advent's fault somehow, again” didn't stand in my way to the much superior premise of “Grand Magnificent and Waltz Tango Cache rescue Fouteen from a newly arrived rival faction's flagship”. God, I hope this goes in some interesting unexpecting direction asap. 

Wait, was it ever mentioned that Echo's family is also separated onto the two planets? That's new to me, and it would have been relevant to the first post-Miracle arc. 

Gig making a bold move, getting hit with 4 stress at once and gaining a status at the beginning of the mission: 

Blease tell me someone has redrawn that Community gif with Echo entering the completely trashed ship. That's such a good image

The entire throwing maneuver and the rolls they got… Absolutely fucking crazy

I actually yelped out loud when Echo failed a fucking desperate roll inside the light beam

How come Echo's nanites were inactive before but got activated now? How does that work? 

It's strange how suddenly the show got intense again! The missions after the Miracle felt fun but unengaging for me, and I didn't expected it to pick up until the finale. So many ups and downs in this arc! Can't believe how quickly and often it went from “we basically won” to mortal danger in about one turn. The title should have been “Echo Reverie's Terrible, Bad, No Good Day”… Glad to see the theme of the weight of violence back. It feels very natural as a conflict between Even and Echo, but I wonder if later it would involve Grand Magnificent too – the discussion during Even's message for Cascabel reminded me of what I wrote after the holiday special.

60-61 

Being one of the only two party members doesn't suit Waltz, he has to act dumb for the sake of player agency 

I understand why Jack wants to see what the “new job” is about, but not why Fourteen does!

Ending the recap on “Now you're gonna go your separate ways, and everything's gonna fall apart” is, um, nice

Wait, why is Fourteen on their last life? And how would they know that?

Oh, here's the arms dealer Grand Magnificent I was waiting for lmao Although to be honest… That design wasn't that special in terms of military power, right? I remember the disussions of its complex appearance and the difficulty of shaping the material into this multifaceted sculpture, but it didn't have any innovative armor or weaponry, right? It's not like it's the first and only q-glass mech. I mean, setting aside the base problem that it might not be the most wise and ethical idea to give weapons to the amoral people for whom you just delivered a bomb (and are trying to ignore that fact) while they're tearing your friend's body apart, and that they would have settled for less… it's not like he gave them the part of the actual Divine Independence. I guess we'll see what Advent will do…

At some point Jack, I think, said that Grand is acting like Lem and I was like. Please don't. Can you not go into that direction in the future too please. I've already been concerned about his character arc since finishing Winter and this isn't helping!

Anyways today I had enough free time to listen to five episodes and now I'm hungover and also sad. I'm glad Grand Magnificent didn't suddenly become heroic but also this is depressing. Can't wait for everyone (minus him posssibly?) to finally meet and share the wild shit that happened to them recently. Tender is an excerpt! Fourteen is a knight and also on the brink of dying forever for some reason! Echo has fought in a civil war against their brother! Grand sold out to everyone's #1 enemy and left!

I don't really get ending episode on so much exposition… I understand the awkwardness of retelling an event that was intended to happen onscreen, but when Schism attacked, I assumed that fighting it would be the finale. On the other hand, I thought the same about the September Incident, and how happy I was to be wrong!

62-63

The downtime episode was excellent – exactly the thing I like! Two notes:

I can't be the only one bothered by the use of the word “fascist”, right? Greedy cynical bandits and graverobbers, capitalists, terrorists, whatever… but what does fascism do with any of that?

Everyone's plans for the future were pretty vague, but what I really didn't get was the heart of the debate between Signet and the Cadent. It sounded as if they were talking about the same thing with different words sometimes…

The doctor is Jace, correct? Rapid Evening, academic career, stratis, husband and wife, used to be rivals with someone named Rose? I had to relisten to the entire vignette looking for clues and trying to rememer anyone who would fit all of these descriptors.