#as long as it's not as bad as whatever the fuck happened with macro

[scooters-teetlez]

Channeling my inner Donatello for my AP Calc test tomorrow because Lord knows I need all the help I can get at this point

[deliciouskeys]

Writer Tag

Thank you for tagging me, @kosmochlor and @saintmathieublanc<3

How many works do you have on AO3?

47 apparently.

What's your total AO3 word count?

469,180

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1) Attack on Titan rated T fic, macro micro (it was part of the canon there lol), blind character element

2) Zinc Molybdate (rising star but very far behind #1)

3) Another Attack on Titan fic rated T. Anime fans are all under 18 I guess.

4) Negan/Rick mpreg lol. I abandoned it when TWD season 8 deeply disappointed me and hopefully that doesn't happen again with the current fandom D: (I don't think it will unless they do something truly idiotic like kill off Ryan in an inexplicable way)

5) The Selfish Gene

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes I do. It's the least I can do when someone takes the time to write something. Plus many of the comments are so thoughtful and sometimes helpful to the writing process. And I just enjoy responding.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Um. Probably an "original fic" set in the holocaust, unfortunately. I've written fics long ago where main characters die, but those are not angsty somehow, just dark/shock value.

What’s the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

I think it might be Zinc Molybdate lol. First of all it has an ending. And I'd say it's very optimistic about the human spirit and possibilities for change.

Do you write crossovers?

The only true crossover I ever wrote was Alex from a Clockwork Orange x Norman Bates. But I never crossposted it to AO3 from LJ. Can't imagine why XD I'm more of an AU where you recast the characters into a different world girl.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes, writing bible fic is controversial apparently. Writing holocaust fic is controversial apparently. Mpreg is controversial apparently, although I have never received hate for mpreg on ao3, only on tumblr.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do..... I wouldn't say it's my forte, despite having it in almost every fic and fic chapter lol. I'd say there's always some element of something being 'off'. Normal people having bad sex, or a fucked up pairing having unsettlingly wholesome sex.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so. In small enough fandoms some ideas become sort of communal, but that's usually just fun 'sharing'.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

YES! And it's in a language that I'm pretty fluent in (but maybe not fic-writing fluent) so it was a surreal, amazing experience. I've translated several fics from Russian and one from French which was a stretch for me.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Only in terms of translating others' fics. I've always wondered if I'd be able to do it with the right person.

What's your all-time favorite ship?

Butchlander. Which probably means my favorite ship is whatever I'm currently hyperfixating on, but I've been on this kick for like 20 months now, so I don't take these things lightly :)

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

My very first fic, which I started writing at 18 and abandoned at 19 or 20. I couldn't do it, I couldn't give them a happy ending because the pairing was just too messed up, I couldn't give them a sad ending because that's just not within the realm of what I'm willing to do.

What are your writing strengths?

I think I am all about the Emotional Journey, and thus by extension, characterization. I like writing dialogue, so hopefully that's a strength, otherwise the readers get to suffer lol.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I have to remind myself to write even the most basic setting/scenery details. Most of the time I don't think it's very important. I'm probably not a very visual person (although that doesn't mean I don't love art and fanart!). I can write multiple characters outside of the pairing, and those scenes are fun, but I tend to prefer hyperfocusing on just the 2 mains, which is probably a limitation.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Oh god, I did it in a fic, and ... I shall leave it as I wrote it in my 20s, but... it was ill-advised. I'd say don't do it unless it's a language you know, and even then... why.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Uh. Peter Pan. And I don't mean during the Once Upon a Time craze that happened much later.

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

Within the Boys, I'll also say Starlander. I like it, and honestly the canon leaves much to be desired, so it's fertile ground. Fandomwise, I read quite a bit of Batjokes and Symbrock, but never wrote anything for them.

What's your favorite fic you've written?

I'll go with Zinc Molybdate. It's got that new relationship fandom energy that is impossible to just bottle up and deploy when wanted. But I like them all.

Zero pressure tags (and sorry if you've been tagged elsewhere) @phoenixtakaramono @eutz @merry-andrews and anyone who sees this and has ao3!

[tobiasdrake]

Time to crack into Torment Peak. And I think I know how.

As an aside, I've been ruminating on some of the stuff Resh'al and the Oracle said. Oracle mentioned being one of three Seers. I asked if the Elder Mist was also one but didn't get a response. Either way, I'm pretty sure the other one is Yoyo.

After all, Teaks did say that Yoyo's a seer. So it makes sense that she'd be one of the Three Seers. Three Seers, Three Sisters... wonder what else she's a Three of. I mean, she is the mystical embodiment of centrism itself, so she's well-suited to being the middleman to all kinds of spectrums.

Also, the Elder Mist said that sometimes great evils are sealed away behind those time locks. The Dweller of Torment is the great evil that the Docarri said we imprisoned in Torment Peak. So someone did know this Dweller was here.

We should assume that any kind of "great evil imprisoned behind time locks" situation is a Dweller. That. I guess. We just forgot about? Or Moraine assumed that having them imprisoned like that qualified for "Good enough" status when he was saying that the Dweller of Woe is the last.

Either way, the Dweller of Woe being the last Dweller is clearly an exaggerated claim. Either Moraine lied to us or someone lied to him. There was a lie of unclear origin that accompanied us to Wraith Island.

So, I had a thought that we could shine the crystal on top of Antsudlo down onto that prism in front of the giant to open the door. Basically the Solstice light puzzle thing but on a macro scale.

But it doesn't look like it. Clearly, this smaller puzzle is the way to open the door. Nuts to that plan.

Interesting to note that, in constract to the typical solar/lunar mix that most of these locks come with, both locks are closed solely by solar magic.

Torment Peak seems to have a preference for you, Zale, the way Mooncradle is clearly biased towards me.

Door's open. Point of no return. Either we kill it here or we've set it free.

Well that's horrifying.

No mistaking it. This is Fleshmancer shit.

You know you're in the shit when you find an ancient magical lock inside the ancient magical lock.

The door outside said "DO NOT OPEN".

This one says "NO, FOR REAL, WHY ARE YOU OPENING!?"

So far, this isn't so bad. Torment minions are even more of a pushover than Strife minions inexplicably were. Woe minions are still the toughest of the lot, no question. But Torment guys vaporize if you so much as look at them funny.

We should not assume that this means the Dweller itself will be a pushover. After all, Strife's the toughest of the lot and their minions went down to a stiff breeze, so Dweller strength and minion strength are demonstrably not proportional.

The biggest threat here is presumably the psychic assault. But since we all took our Fuck Outta My Head Juice (and we swiped an extra vial for Teaks), it's a straight shot to Violence City. Population: Your Ass.

What the atmospheric roller coaster is this?

Uh. Hi? How is your anus today? Is it safe from Torment?

How...

...long ago was that?

What the hell is happening right now? Is this the Dweller of Torment fucking with our heads? Juice or no juice, I'm not sure we can trust the reality of what's in front of us.

...though I wonder. A lone Solar warrior? I wonder if he was the one who set up the barrier out front. It makes sense that the seal would use only Solar magic if his partner wasn't with him or was dead.

Guys. Seriously. My hackles are raised right now. Yours should be too. Something is terribly not right about this situation. Us, Bugraves and Erlina, and Moraine have been the only Solstice Warriors for at least a decade. Whatever happened to their mom happened decades ago, maybe even centuries.

This reeks of a trap.

That's horrifying in a way I can't even process emotionally.

If this is some kind of divine spirit than "entwined forever in the grasp of a Dweller" is not substantively different from "destroyed". From our perspective, we'd never know the difference.

In a sense, it's possible for the Gorilla Matriarch to be here and to have been harvested. Or, more precisely, it's possible that she is currently being harvested over a long period of time? This is all god shit. We don't know everything about how it works.

So maybe these baby gorillas are not a trap, then? Maybe they're just. Like. God babies, and they have a really long life cycle? I don't know.

We probably couldn't. We're deep inside a mountain. Remember when we couldn't handle the Dweller of Woe because not enough light from the eclipse was seeping into the building? Garl had to go bomb open the roof and bathe us in eclipse light before the Dweller became manageable. Moral of the story: The eclipse doesn't matter if its light can't reach us.

We're deep beneath a mountain. We've got the fancy amulet and the fancy juice from Resh'al to make this possible for us. But from a standard Solstice Warrior perspective? How would we ever get eclipse light down here?

From a tactical perspective, so deep underground that no light from the sky could ever penetrate it is the best place for a Dweller to be. Unless Torment wants to come up to the surface for some rousing fisticuffs, this sort of stalemate is the best we could have done.

The question isn't, "How could we let this happen?" The question is, "What more could we have done?"

Yes, Garl, you can write that check. We've got the special handicaps so we can do the thing that can't be done. I feel good about our ability to cash that one.

[yarpharp]

I don't know too much about the side shows or whatever for The Walking Dead, but I gotta ask: why haven't we ever had any nods to weirder latent post-apocalypse issues?

I mean, I could probably answer some of the easy go-to ones myself. If gasoline went bad like it naturally does in reality and there weren't enough skilled humans to work any of the oil pumps across the US, then you probably couldn't have had the show go on for how long it has; I mean, the Commonwealth could not have happened otherwise. Half of the dumb bullshit drama would have never happened if gasoline was suddenly not a thing that could be obtained (or worsened; depends on how good the characters' logistical priorities are, but usually the answer is MEH OUTLOOK NOT GOOD). The silly plastic armor could not be fabricated, because materials... Which are plastics and acrylics and such.

No, I'm thinking about the greater environment. If there was suddenly about 90% human population die off, how long would it take for the planet to cope with the corpses? All dead things require many levels of macro and micro ecosystems to break down and disperse. The zombies don't seem to rot at the same rate as normal bodies, but I can only assume they eventually suffer too much damage and just collapse. That's still a slow cascade of corpses across every continent on our lovely blue marble. What would happen? What would that sudden injection of nitrogen into the soil do? Plant life adaptations (in response to so many corpses as fertilizer)? Fungi explosions??? An abrupt overpopulation of flies and other dead-body insects????

Or from a different angle: It has been proven that if they travel in big enough herds, zombies can take down big animals. How the hell would this affect the present ecosystems across the US? Would bears make it out okay, but the national deer population takes a bit because there's stubborn zombies out there chasing them like stamina predators? What about wolves? They're not domestic dogs; they're smarter, fucking huge, and gifted with enough jaw power to crush bone. Would they attempt to take down small groupings of zombies as a source of protein instead of deer? What about smaller mammals? Vultures? Would the vulture family of carrion animals see new subspecies pop-up as a consequence of "preying on moving corpses"?

These are the wacky late night thoughts that stupidly keep me at night.

[beauzos]

yeah i definitely understand why people dislike SOJ. it's a fucking mess of a game, but i absolutely love it. idk man i think it's delightful despite the shit-tier writing choices on a macro level. i think the characters and the ideas are great, just not the best executed. like Nahyuta is one of my favorite AA characters but he is NOT well-written and i kept forgetting he was even around during the trials lol. but he's got great concepts behind him and i find that compelling. i digress, though.

i also thought about how it'd be ... less than stellar to have Americans overthrowing the monarchy in an Eastern nation for sure. like i don't think Phoenix or Apollo should have shit to do with that. i just think that Dhurke, Datz, or Nahyuta of all people would have mixed feelings on the monarchy after seeing just how easy it is for someone to exploit the power that they're given because there are zero checks and balances for it. like if Ga'ran can make any law with no input from anyone else, that means anyone can conceivably exploit this power. i just can't imagine that Nahyuta wouldn't notice a glaring legal issue with that if he'd become prince regent (which him becoming regent is insane in the first place, honestly)

like, sure, Amara was a wonderful queen, and sure, whatever, Ga'ran should never have been queen for multiple reasons, but SOJ proved that it is frighteningly easy to oppress this country at the whims of a single person. but the rebels are only focused on hating Ga'ran, rather than the institution that grants her said power. again, it ties into how SOJ appears to implicitly approve of the Divine Rights of Kings. that Khura'inese queens are entitled to absolute power so long as they have the spiritual powers necessary to reign, and that the only issue is if a queen is bad, rather than recognizing just how dangerous such a political system is in the first place.

they wouldn't even have to destroy the concept of a monarchy. it could've been transformed into a state where the queen is a figurehead/symbol of the nation (because, let's face it, the Khura'in queen is very important to Khura'in culturally, kind of akin to the Japanese emperor) while instituting checks and balances to assure that even if they wind up with a corrupt queen again-- which inevitably will happen-- that Khura'in isn't completely helpless to stop her. ik this is all a bit complicated for AA, but it'd be easy for them to say "well we saw how corrupt the queen state can be, so we've decided to form a parliament or some shit so it all doesn't fall on the queen! it's tough getting it set up, though..." in the epilogue or something, par exemple.

i just feel like the rebels and their ultimate goals don't actually make very much sense from a political standpoint. like they just want things to go back to the old status quo by pinning all the blame on one woman rather than recognizing that these systems are destructive because one woman having all this power is just. deeply, deeply dangerous. like even if they use that absolute power for good-- say, Nahyuta reversing all these laws extremely quickly and implementing better ones of his own-- the fact they even have that ability seems grotesque to me. and i think Dhurke and Nahyuta would know that, how easy it is to be cast out and be harmed by this monarchy system when someone with the right schemes gets their hands on it.

ultimately, though, i do agree that there's no way they could've wrapped it all up, nor would i want them to because i'd just be baffled to see it was that easy for them. i just feel like none of the characters actually understood what the problems were and slapped a bandaid on it and called it happy. i appreciate that the epilogue acknowledges that they have so much work to do, especially in the legal system, it just doesn't feel very satisfying the way it's done, i guess? so i think the scale continues to be an issue when it feels like the slice they picked also doesn't feel very satisfyingly concluded when it takes for granted a lot of things that it shouldn't.

to go back to my point about The Great Ace Attorney, i feel this is the "slice of revolution" plot point done well. this conspiracy going on among the characters goes high up in multiple governments. things are covered up. the characters barely know what's happening because it's all being obscured, but nonetheless, they manage to dig out an answer for their small slice of what's going on, and while it's not perfectly resolved because untangling a multi-government conspiracy is way, wayyyy about Ryunosuke and Kazuma's pay grade, i still felt satisfied on a character level.

whereas in SOJ, i just had a lot of question marks seeing the ultimate end of some of these characters' stories re: the revolution, namely Nahyuta becoming regent (which continues to be a ?!?!?!? writing choice for me) considering Amara is Right Fucking There, regardless of whether she was injured or not. i don't think he'd want that. ever. he'd do it out of family obligation, sure, but after growing up being oppressed and harmed by this monarchy, to have him turn around and be thrust into this absolute power... idk. i don't think it makes sense for him to want it or to have it in the first place. again, it feels like the characters never understood the big picture, they just fell into the classic Ace Attorney "it's all this singular person's fault, and now that they're gone, everything is fine!" writing trope.

it doesn't work for revolution, basically. TGAA also has this, but i think it works more because it didn't solve all of Kazuma's problems, and he continues to struggle with himself afterwards. Khura'in isn't in perfect condition, but basically everyone's arcs are completely finished, which feels obscene particularly with Nahyuta considering there are a lot of really terrible implications with what he did for Ga'ran over the course of five years that basically gets ignored now that he's happy. they don't let him have like. Emotions in the story, though, so that's just kind of the big issue more than anything.

SOJ is a game with a lot of great ideas, but i just feel like they got intimidated by the scale of their own story in a way. they set up a lot of stuff they seemed to have no intention of actually exploring, so it's why the game feels so surface level with its approach to revolution. the characters are a means to an end; their motivations and actions don't actually make much sense a lot of the time because of it.

i love the game, though, for what potential it does have. and also the cases were just fun.

Spirit of Justice is such an interesting game to me because although it's about revolution and overthrowing tyranny, it is also a game that is so aggressively about maintaining the status quo at the same time. despite the fact that Khura'in appears to be an absolute monarchy and SOJ shows how damaging it is, they do absolutely nothing to change the institution beyond deposing Ga'ran and just instill a good queen instead! problem solved, i guess! never mind that it seems like the only qualification you need to be queen is to have spiritual powers, and the only reason Ga'ran is removed from the throne is because she doesn't have near the amount of spiritual power (if any at all) necessary to perform her duties as queen compared to Amara or even Rayfa.

but the only reason they even need to depose Ga'ran through proving her lack of spiritual power is because the game is obsessed with the idea of a "clean" revolution; Dhurke has to make it clear that they are actually all totally peaceful and non-violent so the player has no reason to feel guilty or uncertain of supporting the revolution. i think the issue with Ace Attorney tackling revolution is that because it's about characters who participate in the corrupt legal system nigh-unquestioningly (barring in SOJ itself to an extent, of course, considering being a defense lawyer at all is radical within Khura'in), it basically can't allow like. actual revolutionary dogma to exist in SOJ because it goes against the tenets of such a legal system that the gameplay is based on, almost diametrically opposed.

it does attempt to tackle the concept of people using the legal system to abuse others, such as how Paul Atishon manipulates Phoenix to get what he wants, or Nahyuta actively aiding and abetting the corrupt legal system that is destroying his country because he feels he has no other choice. i find the concept compelling, questioning how the legal system can be used for great harm when in the wrong hands. i also think it's completely silly at the same time just how cartoonishly evil the legal system in Khura'in is, as if Japanifornia itself isn't already ripe for examination in terms of corruption.

and yeah, yeah, i know. Dark Age of the Law and all that, but the legal system in AA has always been deeply corrupt, they just kind of act like it's singular characters doing it rather than a cultural encouragement. the legal system is seen as absolute, and therefore, questioning its conclusions is frequently not even considered until Phoenix decides to take a crack at it, and is eventually swallowed up by the corruption himself. even in the Dark Age of the Law arc of the games, corruption and lack of trust within the legal system is attributed to single people (Phoenix, Blackquill) instead of long-standing issues that existed well before Phoenix was likely even born.

SOJ was the first time they tried to address corruption in the legal system on a more systemic level, and although it can still be attributed mainly to Ga'ran as the source, they at least demonstrate that corruption is present everywhere, among every member of the legal system because they're grown accustomed to getting away with anything they want. they even add some nuance by sprinkling Nahyuta's story in there as someone who is unwillingly a part of this tyrannical machine, but... well, since this is the Funny Lawyer Game, revolution can only be done through legal means.

it makes perfect sense for the series, but to me, it feels like it bit off more than it could chew with the revolution tale. i kinda hate how they have to validate the dragons' revolution by insisting they've never done anything hurtful, reinforcing this idea that you have to be perfect and endlessly patient and Morally Superior (in a legal sense) to be a "good" or valid revolution. i don't think Dhurke and Datz should be out there fuckin killing everybody, but i just found that pacifism thing a bit silly, though i suppose it suits Dhurke as someone who was also formerly a part of the legal system.

TGAA does the revolution themes a lot better because it feels much more focused. the rot and corruption goes all the way to the top, but the rot we choose to focus on is in the legal system, rather than Ryunosuke trying to overthrow a whole fuckin monarchy lol. i also think it works because they allow the characters to be more morally grey or in the middle, rather than trying to make everyone you're supposed to care about squeaky clean like in SOJ (albeit you can argue Nahyuta isn't, but SOJ considers him to basically be totally fine at the end because it doesn't want to deal with him being morally grey?). Kazuma may not have killed anyone, but i'd consider him to be morally grey and i LOVE that about him.

idk if this makes any sense. i just think about how strange the themes of revolution are in SOJ. it's all about overthrowing tyranny, but then continuing to happily uphold the absolute monarchy that got them there in the first place once the "evil" is defeated! yeehaw! the monarchy shit seriously feels like a positive spin on the Divine Rights of Kings, and we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere because what the fuck. it's not like overthrowing Ga'ran fixed everything, the epilogue makes that clear, but it is so weird how the revolution is handled. they act like it's all over now that the big bad is gone. buddy, they got a big storm comin'.

overall, the issue with SOJ is scale. it has big dreams it can never possibly live up to because of the themes, gameplay, and nature of the stories told within Ace Attorney. there's ways to do it right, but it was not done very well in SOJ imo.

[official-alan-dabiri]

First and foremost, we have some exciting new changes that everyone can get behind. Absolutely nobody has a problem with the new experience globe mechanics. New experience globes are only at full value for six seconds, and after that are worth 25% exp. And then they last for thirty-nine seconds. Nobody finds this objectionable in any way. This change was not on the PTR due to public outcry from Reddit when it was leaked early, but it’s here live with all of its zero problems fixed.

Another change about which we have received zero complaints is a new tag system behind the scenes. People looking for just the right hero for the situation can easily find it by searching for such keywords as “CC” “Silence” “Sustain” and “Double soak” and find extremely useful and not absolute garbage results. Don’t worry about checking it ahead of time, just get right into draft mode and use it to find the perfect pick!

In addition to those minor and unobjectionable changes, we have removed Volskaya Foundry from the ranked queue, and added everyone’s favorite quickmatch map, Warhead Junction. We have also done this simultaneously with an Overwatch-themed event.

Hero changes below the cut, because this patch is another doozy, with fiiiiiive herooooo rewoooooorks, Four buffed assassins, three nerfed offlaners, two nerfed tanks and we also nerfed the looost viiiikiiiings!

Anduin is the first of our reworks and with him taking a more prominent role in Shadowlands we want to be able to welcome WoW players with open arms. He, uh, doesn’t have a new skin or anything, we just want people to play this game. The central goal of the buff is to improve his healing output in line with other heroes without removing the largest strength in Leap of Faith. As such, we’re just touching literally every part of his kit and talent try and praying that it goes the way we want.

People keep mistaking Johanna for the best tank in the game. This is factually untrue, since Muradin exists. As such, we are just gutting the absolute pants off of Johanna’s talent tree and making it weird and clunky.

For too long has Raynor been the scourge of draft play. Too good to skip, but not scary enough to ban. Perfect macro contributions, with respectable hero damage. Enough self-sustain to take weight off your healer, and self-peel for when tanks are bad. The perfect killing machine. As such, we’ve nerfed his damage into the ground. Start playing Greymane, bitches.

Stitches has proven to be a mediocre bruiser in the eyes of the community. After all these years, I think I know why. We accidentally categorized him as a tank. As such, he needs some serious changes to make him fit that label. This whole time we’ve been balancing him as a bruiser and nobody said anything? This is as much your fault as it is mine.

The average damage output of a ranged assassin has been steadily climbing for a while now. As a result, for a hero to actually be a glass cannon, they need some serious firepower. Valla now has the gunpowder to match her glass. And she’s the glassiest cannon there is. Don’t get me wrong, she still evaporates like a drop of water in California when an enemy hero looks at her. But when she has a solid tank and three healers behind her, the world is your oyster.

Oh my god they didn’t break down the heroes by category. Jesus Christ what the fuck Blizzard? You just decided that this is the line? This is the day you stop caring? Well, congratulations, you’ve made reading your patch notes mildly more inconvenient. I’m still doing this. Ya bunch of jack-offs.

Mei has been grossly overperforming, and we have no idea how that happened. We certainly didn’t buff her over and over again for an entire year. Anyway, we’re just going to roll some stuff back. Definitely probably fine.

It turns out - and bear with me here because this might be hard to follow - Hogger, D.va, and Sonya were all overtuned? For six months? So we’re just gonna tippy tappy them down the smallest little bit. And then slap them around a little for good measure. D.va’s mech form is no longer indomitable, Hogger can no longer solo any merc camp in the game in 12 seconds, and Sonya is now... Basically fine still, honestly. We kinda gave her just a slap on the wrist in comparison. But honestly after gutting Hogger like that, I just didn’t have the heart. One of the benefits from being a little later, alphabetically.

After riding the TLV train up through the ranks, I think it’s about time to recognize that I’m not actually good at them. They’re just overtuned. So it’s time to come back to earth, Icarus. Don’t be fooled by the seemingly-small HP nerf, though. The real nerf is buffing Longboat Raid. People are going to have to pick it to test it and it’s gonna murder their winrate.

Someone told me that Lucio is a problem and needed to be addressed this patch, but my cat came into the home office being adorable so I didn’t hear exactly what they said. So we had to kinda wing it. Hopefully these minor adjustments to his talent tree will solve whatever they were talking about!

Even we know Uther is a problem. Being first pickable and filling three different unique roles was what we wanted to do with Varian not Uther. So we’re going to try and make him incrementally worse at tanking until he just goes away. First up: Shaving off some of that personal armor.

AFK splitpush trash Azmodan is dead. Long live teamfight artillery mage Azmodan. Really glad I made the last HotS Content post about Nova instead of Azmodan because boy howdy do these changes invalidate the entire playstyle that post would have discussed.

W build Falstad has obviously become a problem. Not only was he riddled with bugs after the rework - don’t worry, we learned from our mistakes and made sure there were no bugs with our new reworks - but also he had the ability to point and click on an enemy hero and force them to run all the way to the next lane over in order to stop taking buckets of free damage. It turns out that ability was more powerful than anticipated, and required adjustment.

Q build Falstad has obviously become a problem. Not only was it completely overshadowed by a build that did more damage in every situation with less skill requirement, but we overestimated the value of macro power on a build that demands PvP for stacking. As such, we’ve doubled the amount of power each stack gives him! That’ll do.

AA build Falstad... Stay the course, buddy. Doin’ fine.

Junkrat has been underperforming, which is surprising for a hero with his level of power. As such, we’re going to make a few small buffs to hopefully draw attention, and then we can roll things back once the pickrate reflects his actual power. Hopefully then WE CAN FINALLY MAKE THE MANDATORY CHANGE I PUT IN EVERY MEMO. TYRE. WITH A Y. THAT’S HOW THEY SPELL IT IN AUSTRALIA. KAEO I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU- wait, did Kaeo leave? Who the fuck is still here? Kinnabrew? Adam? Jason? JASON! JASON!?

Tassadar has also fallen off a lot without us having done anything at all whatsoever to nerf him. Entirely undeserved treatment. I’m disappointed in all of you. As such, we’re going to tweak his numbers up just a little tippy tap so that you all remember who killed the Overmind. It wasn’t James Raynor or Sarah Kerrigan. It was Tassadar... Tassadar Bassadar. That’s his last name. Don’t look it up, just trust me.

In the bug fix department, we’ve had a nice sit-down with the Mountain Giants on Alterac and told them that if they have time to lean, they have time to clean. Reaching the end of their lane and expecting the core to come to them is putting undue stress on an already overtaxed position. The core is a very stressful job, and if the mountain giants could just do their part to walk into the core pit when they arrive, that’s a huge load off their shoulders. Drek’thar and Vanndar really needed this expectation taken off them right now, and I’m hopeful it will lead to a better work environment.

[iwantutobehapppier]

Nobody Loves No One (2/?)

Pairing: Bucky x Female Reader

Summary: You know one thing, James Buchanan Barnes was trustworthy and you weren't. When he inserts himself into your family drama and past can you show you're worthy of his trust or deign to hurt him as most of life has?

Word Count: 4,219

Warnings: Eventual Smut, night terrors, angst, canon typical violence, implied child abuse and cursing. 18 and older only

A/N: Hey guys! Thank you for coming back for chapter two! 💖 I am trying to get these out weekly and I don’t see that being an issue. Things are still building and the smut is coming. Hahah If you’re holding out hold out just a smidge longer. 😘

The drive should have been short but Bucky got a bit turned around or at least that's what he claimed, blaming the change in road names from his more formative years. Though you doubted that had truly changed.

"Your dad gets into trouble often?" Bucky's casual tone did little to hide his curiosity. He had always prided himself on being shrouded in mystery but you were just a mystery.

"Not lately but the old man seems to think to make deals with the local gang is better than taking money from his Avenger daughter." You miss Bucky's eyebrows raising, you weren’t kidding on having father issues. “Even if they’ll kill him when he fails to pay back.”

"Too much pride?" You remain silent, "too much guilt then?" You feel a stab in your chest, Bucky was too observant and it was impacting your ability to keep your private life just that, private. You couldn’t find it in yourself to be upset over it, after all, if you trusted anyone to know these parts of you it’s him. However, you weren’t going to be forthcoming.

"Listen Bucky I'm all for team building and such but this isn't a ‘let's get to know the weird father-daughter relationship’ moment." You look out the passenger window making air quotes, the familiar run-down buildings setting you on edge for the second time tonight.

"This is a ‘help your teammate kill a bunch of local thugs from killing her lousy excuse of a father’ moment." When Bucky stops the car he turns his head towards you as you continue. 

"And then maybe," you emphasized by pushing your pointer finger in his chest and he had to hold back the smile that would certainly piss you off, "Maybe we can talk about aforementioned fucked up relationship."

"Annoyed always looks good on you," Bucky steps out of the car missing the way you ground your teeth together at his smart ass response. Stepping out of the car you mutter, "I will not kill my teammate, I will not kill my teammate."

"What was that Toots?" Bucky calls out setting Betsy’s barrel upside down on his shoulder. 

"Nothing," Bucky smirks, able to hear you clear as day but to miss an opportunity to tease you wasn’t in Bucky. 

Rolling the silencer on your handgun you make your way around the corner to the front of a building you had thought left in your past. The double doors had one guy with a bat in his hand guarding. You held back a scoff if they knew you were coming clearly they forgot how you took care of business. Though back then your business was taking care of their issues, not them.

Walking up to the man before he could raise his bat you shot him dead center in the forehead. Bucky whistled as the body slumped to the ground.

Opening the double doors you took out two more mob thugs while Bucky pulls the bat-wielding thug into the building by his metal arm. 

“This is gonna get messy huh?” Bucky trusted you wouldn’t kill an innocent or lure him to do the same but he had to express his concerns.

“Anyone in here would shoot you and your family before you could ask for mercy.” Bucky signaled towards the hallway on your right, his hearing picking up the sound of oncoming footsteps.

“You used to do the killing for us.” A short older man pointed a machine gun at you three others behind him. Without a response, you shot him in the chest and then in the head as Bucky’s gun went off three times in a row taking care of the gentlemen’s back up. 

You didn’t dare look at Bucky, not wanting to answer the questions he probably had until this was all over.

After plenty of bullets, snapped necks and broken limbs you cracked your knuckles at the "final boss" door. This door was familiar though, you had spent a good portion of your youth protecting the people behind it and fighting their battles for them all at the expense of your humanity just to pay your father's debts. 

"I'd rather you stay out here Bucky." He chortled and shook his head in disbelief.

"Not gonna happen." He stepped up next to you bumping his shoulder against yours. You sighed, your shoulders raising at the growing anxiety of what Bucky may hear. Turning your head towards him he looked at you from the corner of his eyes then turns at his waist.

Reaching over with his metal hand he wiped away blood splattered on your cheek once again. If he were being honest with himself he'd tell you he hated seeing that crimson red stain your beautiful face. But he wasn't always good at being honest with himself.

You study his face trying to get a read on him after so much shared carnage. There's a softness in his eyes that's misplaced in a room full of death.

"Just remember I never said I was always a good person." Before Bucky could ask any follow-up questions you kicked the steel-reinforced door in, watching it fall down.

A smile played at the corner of your lip hearing the cry of a man being crushed under the weight of the door and the following crunching coupled with a pain-filled groan as you both stepped on top of the door making your way into the room.

Bucky checked the magazine in Betsy as you survey the remaining five thugs and a weathered senior man sitting at a desk center of the room. His hand resting on a firearm laid on top of the desk. No one appeared to be making the first move.

"Well well." The old man's voice nails on a chalkboard, just like all those years ago. You had to stop yourself from charging at him when he spoke your name with fondness.

"Keep my name out of your mouth!" You command.

"Come on now, you can't be mad at me after everything?" His sun leathered hand patting the handgun still resting on the desk. Your eyes cut to the worn corner where the wood was lighter with indents from your head being slammed against it when you failed as a teenager and young adult.

"After all your father is the one who brought you into this," his other hand waved around the room, "Only fitting this world be the reason for his demise?" You curled your fingers into fists at your side. Bucky glances down with a creased brow, standing up a bit straighter in reaction.

"Whatever he owes, whatever he did isn't worth his life Marco." Marco chuckled. "Either I kill you or you let me pay what he owes, with interest."

Marco stands up slamming both hands on the desk yelling out in Italian, Bucky aims Betsy dead center in Marco’s chest. You catch the movement out of the corner of your eye satisfied at his reflexes. Always nice to have a super-soldier master assassin on your side.

"He is bad man,” his voice thick with broken English with his growing ire “You know better than any.”

“He lives?" Marco raises his hands up as he speaks. "No, no. That's not the code you swore to when you left me." He smiles keeping eye contact. You nod to Bucky and he lowers his gun, confused but trusting you.

"Badman is a dead man, no? Tesoro,” his works eerily soft causing you to flinch, “he deserves to pay for what he made you do."

"What you made me do." You gritted out between clenched teeth. Your hands flexed open and closed along your pant legs.

"A-ah. He brought you to me, a gift, a debt paid. He is just as guilty if not more." His voice was full of the condescension you were much too familiar with. It was like stepping back in time except you knew this old decrepit man held no fear over you and could do nothing in retaliation, nothing long-lasting at least.

"Just think about it, Tesoro.” the nickname rolling off your tongue makes you want to wretch. “I know he is your father but what would your sweet moth-" before he could finish a knife flew from your hand, planting firmly between his eyes. Not missing a moment Bucky fired in quick succession laying waste to remaining thugs in the room before they even knew their boss was dead.

Marco's voice cracks as if still trying to finish the word before going silent and crumpling across the ornate desk chair. Walking up to Marco's corpse you pulled the knife out wiping the blood on his shirt before putting it away.

Pulling out your phone you went to recent and waited for an answer.

"You did it, shithead?" Bucky could hear over the phone, his brow still furrowed. He had to wonder what kind of man was your father? If this was any glimpse, none at all.

"It's done, send the cleanup.” You pause watching the color drain from Macro’s body. “Don't ever call me again." You assert before hanging up still looking at Marco's face. Bucky took a step towards you. He stretches his arm out to place his hand on your shoulder but stilled when you spat in Marco's face.

Bucky caught the small tremors in your hands as you placed your phone back in your pocket. The ragged breath you pulled in left an ache in his chest. He was overwhelmed by the need to hold you in his embrace until you feel safe. Have you ever felt safe?

Even with everything he had done in the war and as a brainwashed HYDRA assassin he could still remember feeling loved and safe. The way his mother would card her fingers through his hair when he couldn't sleep as a child. Or how it felt when his sisters would dogpile on him. He felt safe. 

He had to wonder once more did you ever feel safe? He wasn't so sure.

"Fucking hated this place. Let's go!" You extolled, turning around to face Bucky with a haunting smile. 

This was different than his beloved murder smile. Whatever this was, he knew it was a front. It reminded him of all those smiles Steve would give him after army rejections. A smile to hide the pain.

The ride back to your car in front of your father’s shop was silent. Which between the two of you wasn't uncharacteristic but there was a newfound tension like static in the air.

What could you share with him that could ease his mind? What parts of you were left to give? Your train of thought was halted as Bucky pulled up next to your parked car.

"See you back at the compound." Bucky's grip on the steering wheel tightened as he spoke. You opened the car door, the smell of the incoming dawn wafting into the small confines of the car. You started to leave the car but paused

"I-uh," Bucky watched you from the corner of his eyes. His fingers relax their hold on the steering wheel waiting for what you had to say. "I have a place not far from here," Bucky raises an eyebrow and you grunted.

"After all that happened tonight, I'd much rather lay in bed than drive all the way upstate." Bucky nodded in agreement.

"I'll see you when you get back then Toots." You sighed, rather dramatically Bucky let out a soft chuckle.

"I'm inviting you to join you, idiot." His eyes narrowed at the name-calling. After tonight he didn't want to hear another disparaging word out of your mouth for a while, if ever. It only reminded him of how you have been treated.

"I'll come with but don't talk to me like you do your father." His tone clipped but you simply smiled back at him as you stepped out of the car texting Bucky the address.

"Thought you wanted to be my Daddy, Barnes?" He didn't miss the coquettish tone and smile but failed to reciprocate. 

"From what I can tell that man was no dad." Bucky looked down at his phone surprised how close the address was. "See you there." He finalized and you shut the door making your way to your own vehicle. 

When Bucky entered your fifth-floor apartment he wasn't sure what he'd find in a space that was entirely your own. At the compound you kept things pretty minimal, some jewelry on a dresser, clothes organized, a black and white poster of some European city during the day but no real personal effects. Hell outside of a photo Wanda gave you from a team outing there was nothing in your room that showed who it belonged to.

Bucky found it odd at first however if anyone came into his room he wasn't sure there'd be terribly too much to indicate it was his either outside. Maybe the workout bench and weights he kept when he didn't want to be in the gym with others. There was also that vintage New York Dodgers poster you bought for him, similar to the one you got for Steve. 

Seeing your apartment, it made sense to him now, you kept yourself here. The living room was full of warm tones, throw blankets that looked dangerously soft, two giant filled bookcases and photos all over the place. Soft lighting encasing the room in comfort.

"It's not much," your voice pulling him from his analysis, "but it's mine." The soft ending in your tone warmed him, it was clear you were trusting him with something no one else had seen. 

The pile of mail on the other side of the door you picked up along with dust he could see on the bookcases alluded to it being a place you hadn't seen in a while. Sensing his scrutiny you felt the need to justify yourself.

"I used to stay here more often but the compound is easier for missions," You set the pile of mail on the old writing desk across from a small kitchen. Bucky's eyes caught on a framed photo next to the mail. A young woman is holding a toddler in front of your father's butchery, the building looks newer than it does now and the woman in clothes not of a recent style.

"Who's that?" Bucky looks up to catch you stretching your arms above you with your back facing him. Watching the small of your back slowly be revealed as the shirt rises, he licks his lips rapidly losing interest in the photo. But when you turned around and caught sight of what he was referring to you wrapped your arms around yourself. 

"That's me and Mom," you turn back around. Only then does he realize she does look an awful lot like you or was it you looked like her? The stark difference was her face, it appeared softer. 

Your face often held hard lines that Bucky wanted to soften with his hands. Your edges so jagged, he longed to cut himself on them. Know you intimately, deeper levels you rarely showed. The times your face would soften the most recently have been over the past few months with him. A small part of him hoping it meant you were opening up to him in ways he could burrow inside and never leave.

Bucky set his duffle back containing Betsy and gear on the floor next to the one you had set down before grabbing the mail.

"Where your ma'?" Bucky trailed his fingers on the desk as he followed behind you slowly. You turn your head and he sees your side profile, the soft lights do little to hide the pain in your eyes.

"Same place as yours." He inhales quickly at your response. "Shower down the way there," you gesture towards a cracked open door. "Bed is that way." You gestured to the hallway opposite of bathroom door and make your way down the same hallway as he heads towards the bathroom. A good scrubbing sounded nice.

When Bucky stepped out of the shower he noticed the dark blue sweatpants and a grey shirt laying on the bathroom counter that were certainly not there before. A soft blush covered his cheeks at the thought of you walking in on him showering. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about you and the past few hours. Had he been so distracted in the shower that he missed you coming in? That wasn’t like him at all. 

However, he left his guard down around you more so than he should, at least that’s what Steve had expressed concern over. Bucky shook his head, what did that punk know anyway? He couldn’t even talk to women.

After drying his hair until slightly damp he pulled the sweatpants on. They were almost too snug on him but clearly too big for you. The thought that someone else, a guy particularly, leaving them here caused an unsettling burn in his chest. He knew you weren't his but he'd be lying if he didn't relish the thought of you being so one day. Pushing the burning sensation down he made his way to the hallway you had mentioned he could find a bed.

Finding the first door he came across open he felt his jaw slide open. Your hair was down damp, wearing obscenely short sleep shorts and a tank top that strained against pebbled nipples. Swallowing away the dryness in his throat Bucky looked towards the ceiling before clearing his throat. 

"Where's the guest room?" You tilted your head at him in confusion. Turning down the sheets you crawled into the bed.

"What guest room?" Bucky eyes stopped tracing patterns in the ceiling design to look back at you in equal confusion.

"You said a bed was down the hall." Your hand gestured to the bed in reply as you lay on your side. You tried and failed to cover the smile as Bucky became flustered with realization.

"I'll take the couch." You frowned at him and patted the open space next to you.

"Don't be silly, the bed is big enough for both of us," you couldn't help the coquettish smile that pulls on your lips, "Unless you're scared of sleeping next to me."

Bucky swallows the growing lump in his throat. He wasn't scared of you, never had been regardless of some teammates’ concerns. His main concern lay with the ever-growing attraction he felt toward you. 

Bucky felt himself caving, the last time the two of you shared a bed it was after rather traumatic night terror this was different. This wasn’t comfort-based. 

"I won't bite you Bucky," bending your arm and resting the side of your head on the palm of your hand, you watch with growing interest at what the super soldier will do.

Laying down next to you Bucky folds his arms under his head and turns his head towards you with that beautiful smile that took your breath away more often than not.

"That's a shame Toots." You sputter at his response and turn towards the side table under the guise of turning the light off to hide your embarrassment, feeling the warmth in your cheeks and moving down to your chest.

With your back to him, you lay down and close your eyes, trying to push down the desire to curl up to the warmth radiating off his body. Bucky let out a huff hot air pushing against your back, he wraps his metal arm over your stomach, warm flesh arm snaking under you to pull your back to his chest.

Before you can start verbal spar over his actions he locks his arms around you, fingers curling into the softness of your abdomen. The intimacy of the touch taking away any thoughts you tried to voice. There was unfamiliar security in his touch that left you wearisome. Resigning that you wouldn’t be able to stop this, and honestly not wanting to you close your eyes once more. 

Bucky satisfied at your body relaxing into his hold he smiles against the top of your head.

“So is this a get to know the weird father-daughter relationship moment?” Bucky teased into your ear.

You groan a hand flying back to smack him in the head but he grabs it pulling it down to rest on your abdomen encased by his arm. You could practically hear your heartbeat thudding in your chest as his fingers intertwined with yours. Certain his superhuman hearing picking up on it.

“This is a go-to-sleep moment,” you hiss out. Trying to quell the fluttering in your chest.

“I’m not tired though.” Bucky whines in your ear, “Tell me a story,” his fingers curling into your palm between your fingers. Looking down at where he held your hand you could feel yourself giving in. Oh, how easy it would be to just fall for Bucky Barnes.

“There once was a little girl,” Bucky pulls you flush to him, leaning his head down to nuzzle into your neck inhaling deep. You were fairly certain he could feel the increasing pace of your pulse at the touch.

“Things were good for her, for a while,” closing your eyes you continue, letting his embrace soothe your growing unease at opening up. “She had a father who would pat her head sometimes but outside of that he had no love to give her but that was okay because her mother who loved her so much made up for the loss,”

“Sounds like a great mom,” Bucky whispers against your neck, his lips resting against your pulse.

“She was, she tried so hard to make her little girl happy,” you paused “But they knew something was different about their little girl. She broke bottles, toys, and cribs with the slightest grip of her fingers. One time she held a glass too tight and it shattered,” You smirked recalling the panic in your mother and father, time having a way to make the most macabre funny.

“That was the only time the little girl saw her mother cry.”  Though remembering your mother’s fear was not all that funny.

“After that, her mother kept smiling and telling her how special and wonderful she was. Neither of them knew what to do with their child. As the little girl grew her mother taught her to be cautious of pressure, always guiding the little girl’s tiny but powerful hands.” Bucky pulled your hand from against your stomach eyes peering from your neck. He notices the faint scars on the palms of your hand.

“Gentle hands like your holding an egg,” you mused, “That’s what her mom would say.” 

“What happened to her,” Bucky’s face so close to your neck you could feel the heat and moisture.

“She was murdered,” Bucky’s body tensed around you, your monotone recount of her death chilling. “Someone tried to rob the butchery, she stood up against them and paid the ultimate price.” 

“There were no more gentle hands, just the overwhelming drive of vengeance and a cold distant father.” You felt Bucky slowly relax around you, his head nuzzling into your neck once more. “He asked the mob for help in getting the person who did it in exchange for services. I was 11 at the time and Marco was just a business associate of my dad’s to me.”

“Then I killed that man who touched my friend I held worth to my father for once, he made a trade.” You trembled at the memory of being handed off to the mob, you could almost hear your cries at your father’s retreating figure. Bucky cocoons you with his warmth and the feel of his chest even breathing slowly reeling you back to the present.

He turns you in his embrace, laying you flat on the bed as he remains on his side. You didn’t know you had been crying until the cool pad of his metal fingers and warmth of his flesh thumb wipe them from your cheeks.

“You didn’t have a choice Toots, you were their weapon.” You shake your head in his hands.

“No you didn’t have a choice, I did. I could have left,” Bucky’s lips downturn at the omission. “I choose to kill those people for them and I will work until my dying breath to kill the right ones from now on.” Not wanting to talk about it anymore, you bury your face into his chest and sigh with content at the feel of Bucky’s embrace and smell surrounding you. 

“I’m not saying we had the same choices or the same circumstances that led us to do what we did but I will say,” Bucky pauses lifting your chin up but you keep your eyes closed.

“Don't ever tame your demons Toots, they keep you alive.” Opening your eyes you hold your breath at the sight of moonlight illuminating his face. You knew Bucky was handsome but coupled with his words and gentle touch you never believed a human being could be so beautiful to you.  It scared you. 

Burrowing your face back into his chest he lets out a soft chuckle. He wraps his arms around you, dipping his face down into your hair, inhaling deep. The two of you slowly drift to sleep. 

[arecomicsevengood]

Seeds

Before I read it, I had this idea I could write a review of Ann Nocenti and David Aja’s The Seeds for the Comics Journal, but the book just sucked too much. It had basically nothing going for it, or even decipherable as an advancing plot. One thing wrong with it is there’s this sort of conspiracy element, or this “no one believes the news” anymore element of it, but Nocenti didn’t want it to be about “fake news.” Donald Trump has rewired the narrative, so now entire types of subject matter feed into this propaganda machine simply by being addressed. Nocenti’s best work does not shy from topicality, addressing the currents in the cultural air, but this time the modern world feels too hot to handle.

I ordered the Daredevil: Typhoid’s Kiss trade paperback, reprinting a bunch of Nocenti’s work with the Typhoid Mary character from the nineties. The longest story in there is a miniseries with art by John Van Fleet. It’s partly about post-Tarantino video-store employees turned filmmakers kidnapping Typhoid Mary to use her as the subject of a documentary about serial killers and violent media. It’s also about Typhoid Mary working as a private detective trying to track down a killer of prostitutes, who the police don’t care about, and are maybe the actual killers of themselves. Storywise, it’s a pretty cool attempt to address real-world issues of the day within a pulp context.

Van Fleet’s art is pretty boring and bad in a way that’s distinctly ahead of its time. While the miniseries itself probably wouldn’t exist without the precedent of Elektra: Assassin a decade before, (a spinoff about a female Daredevil villain created by the writer during their run on Daredevil where that character defined their run) all the photoreference that’s probably actually just photo backgrounds run through filters sets a precedent for the Alex Maleev/Matt Hollingsworth Daredevil stuff to come a decade later. And it’s frequently annoying on a page design/panel background level. Like in terms of how the panel borders sort of default to grid shapes so there ends up being things that “read” as panels but that don’t actually do anything for pacing. It’s just fitting the narrative into regimented design choices.

This maybe only happens the once. But the art is also just super-stiff throughout, with a very chunky line that eliminates any real nuance. There’s a bunch of characters, but a lot of them are indistinguishable from one another, and that’s because the linework is about as muddy as the color palette — It kinda seems like he’s working with models and photo reference but also doesn’t have that many models to work with so he’s having them play multiple roles, but also his work basically seems more like photoshop filters than actual drawing? There’s a bunch of stuff that I think sucks, basically. But you can also draw a direct line from what Van Fleet is doing in Typhoid to what Aja does in The Seeds. All these choices that are meant to be classy and dignifed, a move away from the excess of superhero comics. The covers of Typhoid are just portraits of the main character, interchangeable from one issue to the next, which was a move that again, was ahead of its time: This is what so many Marvel covers in the 2000s looked like, the Tim Bradstreet Punisher covers probably being the go-to example. It’s pretty dull but it’s nice they’re not super-sexualized.

While the choices arguably suit the subject matter in Typhoid, which is at least partly about movies, in The Seeds, the story doesn’t really make any sense because the visuals seem so steeped in unreality. The premise is that a tabloid has photographed an alien, proving aliens are real. There is really nothing within the context of the story that explains why the news outlet would have enough gravitas to be convincing and have this be an actual news story. And the book is drawn in Photoshop, which is itself a photo-editing software, so the “reality” of the book is defined by the very medium that people recognize as why images can’t be trusted. This contributes a level of irony that could maybe be worked with if the book itself wasn’t so ugly and dull. The whole thing looks like some Banksy bullshit. Outside of word balloons, text appears in the large all-caps typeface of image macros. I don’t have scans of The Seeds because I gave my copy away on account of there not being any reason to keep it around.

The book is beyond dated at the time of its release. Partly this is due to the speed the cultural conversation has been moving for the past five years.  It’s been a difficult time period to work on a work of fiction about the news, certainly, and not only has the comic been a long time in the making, the writer has also been away from making comics for decades now. If the authors had been able to make this as a serialized monthly comic, it might’ve stumbled into timeliness, or the predictive, but as it is, the reading experience feels like a bunch of different, disparate ideas that do not really cohere into a narrative. Leaving aside how the book seems to emerge from a general cultural gestalt of the the 1990s, when The X-Files and Weekly World News were objects of discussion, every major plot point or news story chosen for thematic resonance is approximately fifteen years old. I believe 2005 was when I started to hear about colony collapse disorder. This bee metaphor has been lapped by a Honey Nut Cheerios campaign at this point. (A few years back, boxes of cereal came with seeds of wildflowers you/children could plant.)

Darin Morgan’s episode of The X-Files revival “The Mengele Effect” ably addresses all the issues with how cynicism and conspiracy theories feel different now, all the issues that Nocenti seems terrified of and hopes the audience doesn’t think of when reading her humorless X-Files throwback comic. That episode’s great.  Much of The Seeds seems like it was better done in the decidedly not-great Transmetropolitian. There’s something so dated and sad about this comic’s idea of a cool journalist protagonist: People barely smoke cigarettes anymore! I know no one wants to draw people vaping, but the imagery this book wishes meant “cool, urban, woman” reads as nostalgic affectation in 2021. That so much of the commercial landscapes of our cities has been replaced by vape shops was one of the biggest clues we were already living in a dystopia three years ago.

Nocenti, when she was working regularly, got to be a pretty effective writer for having a monthly deadline wherein she could speak on the issues of the day as they were happening. In the absence of a regular gig, this rare chance to speak her mind gets hampered by how much there is to talk about, and how complicated it all is. If it’s too complicated to address in an ongoing superhero comic, a one-off graphic novel with vaguely commercial ambitions turns out to be a worse space for it. It’s so much sadder than anything in this dream-of-the-nineties comic that the authors were given the grace to make something only under the conditions that doom it to failure. Real people made this work of fiction, and I don’t know what the fuck they’re even talking about, and that’s a more complicated narrative than the journalists in this comic who… stumble upon a story and then need to take to back because it’s too important or something? I don’t understand what this comic is about. It’s clearly gesturing at being about a bunch of different things, but what they get from being in juxtaposition with one another, I don’t know.

In interviews in advance of the release of The Seeds, Nocenti talked about how this was the first time she got to make a comic that didn’t have to have fight scenes or conflict in it. But reading Typhoid it’s clear how conflict ties the story’s disparate threads together. But also while reading Typhoid I kept on thinking about how visually, the Steve Lightle shit that preceded it is so much cooler! Here he is, bifurcating a page so two narrative threads can be told with different approaches to stoytelling:

People sometimes talk about how crazy it is that Nocenti started her Daredevil run immediately following up the Miller/Mazzucchelli Born Again run with a fill-in drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith. But I don’t think anyone has pointed out that, since these Typhoid Mary team-up comics appeared in Marvel Comics Presents, she’s basically following up Barry Windsor-Smith’s Weapon X, and Steve Lightle is totally capable of doing that! Even if these comics are kinda whatever narratively, Nocenti comes up with dense enough narratives to give him shit to do. She’s a good writer within the context of the harsh strictures of early nineties mainstream comics. Which I know seems like a harsh diss! But being a writer that makes work that consistently gives a comics artist something interesting to do is a difficult job that many people are just not interested in doing for various reasons, so it should be recognized when it’s attempted and accomplished.

It’s also interesting that the whole visual approach where both Steve Lightle and Barry Windsor-Smith shine is dependent on flat color. The changes in storytelling made to accommodate the shifts in visual language in full-color mainstream comics didn’t really benefit anyone, and now needs to be outsmarted. In The Seeds, we’ve got this pretty dull reading experience that superficially in its two-color print job and nine-panel grid, looks like it might be influenced by Mazzucchelli’s work in Rubber Blanket and City Of Glass. And we’ve got a black and white Barry Windsor-Smith comic coming out from Fantagraphics in a few weeks that I really hope blows it out of the water.

[askpetethelibrarian]

ALA is so Square

ALA made the announcement about their Free Speech Zone to attendees in the last week or so. A couple tweets capturing most of the basics:

Credit where due, the long text was posted by @flexlibris on Twitter.

We’ll talk about it as “the square” from here on out, just for brevity. Ish.

Also, it should be noted that ALA has rolled this back, most likely based on the backlash from librarian Twitter.

As an aside, librarian twitter is possibly the worst twitter. It’s the worst I’ve been a part of. Because...well, it’s a very sensitive version of twitter, and...oof, I hate to say this, but it’s heavily trafficked by librarians who have nothing better to do than get outraged about shit on twitter. I don’t think ALL librarians have nothing better to do, but some of ya’ll, based on your timelines, need a little more workload. Just sayin’.

~

The Intent?

In tent? Eh?

I like to start with intent. Because while I know the popular vote right now swings towards impact over intent, I think it matters, and because it’s not talked about so much, I think we’ll have a period of time where intent might be lost. Once things are more balanced, I think we’ll want to talk intent again. So I’m ahead of the game and a goddamn genius is what I’m saying.

The intent is difficult to parse here. A lot of the arguments were along the lines of ALA continuing to prop up the white patriarchy or something, which I didn’t totally understand because, to be perfectly honest, I thought that this was sort of the naughty jail for people sharing views that, well, to reuse a phrase, prop up the white patriarchy. I thought the intent of the square was to put people in there who were sharing views that are viewed as racist/sexist as opposed to putting in people who are sharing views that are seen as progressive. But that’s how you know you fucked up: nobody likes it. People sharing views that go against the progressive grain (who I don’t think are huge ALA midwinter attendees, but whatever, that’s a whole ‘nother topic) think they’re going to bad boy jail. People sharing progressive views think they’re being restricted, continuing a path of blah blah blah.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful to either group. I’m just not really arguing either side in this debate because BOTH sides have the same problem with ALA’s idea, and BOTH sides feel attacked by it (in theory, at least. I didn’t actually see anyone willing to say “I wanted to say some anti-diversity stuff” at a library conference). 

I make it a habit to assume best intent. That’s a fraught idea, but I think about it like this:  #1 it’s up to me if that’s how I want to live life, not you. I’m not prescribing it for everyone.  #2 if doing this is a result of privilege...then I’ll take it. Assuming best intent seems like a good use of privilege to me.

So, if I assume best intent, I think ALA probably wasn’t trying to make a free speech jail. I think they, like many institutions, were trying to figure out a way to have legitimate discussions about topics without people just sitting in sessions tweeting about how horrible they are. 

For example, if I were to present at a conference, I might present on the topic of men in libraries. Which is going to touch some nerves. I might also present my personal feeling, which is that it’s unreasonable to expect that male representation in libraries will resemble male representation in the community. That view is based in a much longer discussion, which is that the majority of men, who cluster in spots on the gender spectrum, just aren’t as interest in books, reading, and librarianship. Now, this is not a progressive viewpoint. The progressive viewpoint is that we’re all indoctrinated from a young age to like what we like. I don’t tend to believe that so much, but in a session, I would tend to agree to disagree and move on with the fact of male librarianship being abysmally low, and that masculinity being redefined, if possible, will only lead to better representation in, say, 30 years. 

I think the square was designed as a space where people could have those discussions without those discussions derailing sessions. Not that I think these discussions aren’t valuable, but I think there are plenty of options to attend sessions based around those topics. I think it was also a way to silo those discussions in a place where all who enter are more in the “assuming best intent” mindset. That’s my guess. Heavy emphasis on “guess” because I really don’t know.

I also think that because ALA includes academic libraries and because librarians are an academically-inclined bunch, this is probably libraries following a model that has been used on college campuses. Several campuses use almost this exact model for protest and free speech, including the need to reserve time slots, and we’ll get into that shortly.

SEE, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS

I’m not so quick to blame ALA for making a boneheaded move. I think that librarians have brought this on ourselves. 

I don’t think we’re great at having the hard discussions about sensitive topics. Librarians tend to get very defensive about their work products and their professions, and it’s a problem on both the micro (single library) and macro (ALA) scale. 

I’ve mentioned this many times, but I can’t really talk about the lack of dudes in libraries without someone getting pissed off at me.

I don’t know, but I suspect that as a librarian of color, you’d probably wander into similar defensiveness if you talked about the whiteness of the profession. 

We can’t even talk about the square without basically accusing ALA of being a racist, nazi-esque mess. Our own organization, we can’t approach it with a question or even a “Can we talk about why this isn’t a good idea?”

CAN WE TALK ABOUT WHY THIS ISN’T A GOOD IDEA?

There’s an agnostic way of talking about this without getting into how or why it benefits one group or another. Because truly, it’s to no one’s benefit. 

The ACLU is against this concept. In short, speech that’s confined to a specific area is in no way free. But, more importantly, the purpose of attending a conference should be about learning and discussing, and rather than promoting learning and discussion, things like the square reduce discussion. They reduce opportunities for people to talk openly.

To take it further, a free speech zone indicates that the rest of the conference is NOT a free speech zone. 

If we can’t have civil discourse about our profession and views at a professional conference, then were ARE we able to have it? If librarians need referees to monitor and control conversations among colleagues, how will we interact with the public when there is no referee? If we can’t politely disagree, ask questions or make statements because we’re hurting someone’s feelings, then how are we ever going to address anything that actually matters?

SUGGESTION 1: ABANDON SAFETY-ISM

I think ALA is engaging in a bit of safety-ism, which is counter-productive.

Safety-ism isn’t the same as safety. Safety is making sure people are, well, safe. Safety-ism is prioritizing safety over all other things, and it coincides with the idea creep of safety including emotional comfort. 

People should not be harassed at a conference. If they are, the issues should be immediately dealt with by whoever’s throwing the conference. 

But, emotional discomfort shouldn’t be something that take priority. 

The ALA site says that attendees should vote with their feet, meaning that if they don’t like what’s going on in a session, they should leave. I 100% agree with this. If you don’t like what’s happening, if you’re feeling emotionally unsafe, leave. This applies to boredom or uselessness as well, but I digress.

There’s a famous saying I’ll paraphrase: If you walk into a library and can’t find anything that offends you, that’s a sucky library. Likewise, if you go to a conference and can’t find anything that offends you, it’s probably a sucky conference.

Safety is a priority. Physical safety. Safety from harassment. But emotional discomfort isn’t top dog. 

SUGGESTION 2: SET GROUND RULES

I think simple attendance ground rules really do solve this problem.

1. Speakers have the floor Please don’t interrupt speakers. You may have disagreements with a speaker, however the purpose of speakers is for them to express a point of view or explain a project. Different speakers have different styles, and they need to be given the room and space to express themselves completely. 

2. Attendees always vote with their feet This is always within your rights. At any time, stand up and leave.

3. The Protest Veto is a No-Go Please don’t try to silence any speakers or events via protesting or other methods. It’s not just about the speaker’s right to express themselves, it’s about the rights and needs of others to hear what that person is saying.

4. We value diversity of viewpoint We’re a very homogeneous group of people in a lot of ways. In trying to disrupt that, we will need to make room for people who don’t look like us, and we’ll need to make room for people who don’t think like us. 

5. Best intent It’s very unlikely someone spent the time and money to come here and be a jerk. If we can’t assume best intent, we can’t open ourselves up to new ideas and ways of thinking. If we can’t do that, we may as well not have a conference and everyone can continue doing what they’re doing, believing what they believe, and working the way they’re working currently. 

[sex-asteroids]

tw diet culture, ed mention

so i know intuitive eating is the thing now but it just straight up doesn’t work for me like when i count my calories and macros and whatever i stay at a (still overweight!) constant weight and when i try to do intuitive eating because everyone says that’s the only way to be healthy and everything else is disordered eating and is awful, i end up like much heavier. and i’m not saying that being fat is the enemy because it isn’t but i am saying when i am heavier my already fragile hip hurts every single day so that just isn’t for me

and of course i’m not saying that intuitive eating is bad like i’m glad if it works for you! i think it’s great if you can find a healthy way to interact with food! and eating disorders are a real problem and if this minimizes that then great! it’s harmful for most people to experience diet culture! but intuitive eating causes me horrible pain and i don’t think you can just pretend that there’s a blanket solution for every single person on this planet no matter what the problem is

and so now it comes from both sides! from normal society i get “go on a diet count your calories you fat pig” and other harmful diet culture things and then from the entire internet i get “intuitive eating is the solution to your problems and counting calories is bad in every single situation!” like it’s fine to make suggestions but why does everyone always have to say “you have to do this or it’s bad” like why can it not be someone’s choice and i have counted calories off and on for a long time and i have not developed an eating disorder because guess what! everyone is different! what causes someone psychological pain may be totally innocuous to someone else!

and i’m not blind to the fact that counting calories happens to align with society’s expectations but guess what? i shave not because it’s what society thinks is beautiful but because if i don’t i get terribly painful ingrown hairs that keep popping up no matter how long i leave my hair. i wear contacts not because society likes them better than glasses but because glasses have always made me dizzy and clumsy and no amount of time makes me get used to them. and i fucking count calories not because society thinks i should but because my hip kills me if i don’t and no matter how long i try intuitive eating that doesn’t stop

i’m just so frustrated that it’s socially unacceptable now for me to do the only thing that prevents physical pain

[sieshedsit]

2020– the year of endless road blocks.

Let’s start with the shitty parts of this year...

Roadblocks or excuses? Perhaps both. This year has been tough. The year started out with putting my grandparents in a nursing home. My grandma is was first. Then we finally convinced my grandpa that he needed to go to assisted living. I won’t go into all the deep details... but dementia sucks. Watching your grandparents get old sucks. My grandparents are my world. They raised me until I was nearly 11 and are like my parents and they’ve always considered me a daughter. It’s been especially rough with COVID-19. They are in the same facility but different wings so they currently can’t see each other and it is making them both so depressed. It’s a constant stressor for me. I am always worried about their mental and physical health. I have recurring nightmares about them. I’m trying my best to just be supportive and realize there’s nothing I can do right now but that and to let it be until this COVID-19 situation fizzles out.

COVID-19 hit right before we moved my grandpa into a facility. We all know how much the ‘Rona has made things suck more. We are our friends and family less, or less at a time. Lots of things we look forward to have been cancelled. Weddings have been moved or made smaller. Parties and concerts have been cancelled. Trips cancelled. Hawkeye football cancelled. MLB is a joke. All things that we look forward to during the spring and summer and fall months. This has greatly contributed to my depression. I often times feel like I don’t have anything to look forward to for a very long time.

In April, I got the horrific news that my dad’s best friend (who has been like my second dad my entire life) was murdered by his own wife (who has also been in my life for over 15 years). For me it was not only a total shock to hear but also the feeling of “how the fuck is this happening to me AGAIN?” For those of you who don’t know me well, one of my dear friends was murdered in 2015. It was awful. The grieving process has been everything but easy. So receiving this information was like a horrible nightmare all over again. Not only did I start reliving Andrea’s death but now another tragic and traumatic desth. It was crippling. And honestly, I’m still not okay. I’m not grieving properly. It’s hard knowing someone who was an important part of my life killed someone else who was an even more important part of my life. It’s mind-blowing that his body laid there for days before he was known to be dead. We didn’t get to say goodbye. We still haven’t had a celebration of life. It’s like my grief is on pause. I hate everything about that. It still affects my every day life. I don’t know when or if we will have answers to his death and that really affects my ability to accept it. I miss him so much and my heart is torn to shreds over how much my dad is hurting.

In June, I changed my whole career plan. When COVID-19 hit, I was a full time student in a mortuary science program and working full time at a funeral home. My school pulled me out of all funeral related activities for credit because they didn’t want to be held liable if we got COVID. I also wasn’t working as the funeral home I worked for was on limited staffing due to all the COVID restrictions. So I was essentially unemployed from March until the beginning of this month (August). I had already lost my drive to be a funeral director due to things I’d experience through my funeral home that I won’t go into detail about. The death of Brody also greatly affected my drive. With the combination of all those things I decided that I need to enter the work force. I’ve been in school for so long and never found something I truly loved so here I am back working full time in claims work which I due truly enjoy.

Alright enough of the depressing shit here’s some positives..

In May, I got engaged. It was the best day. It gave me something positive in a year full of negatives. Nick proposed at the lake house and we were surrounded by our roommate, two of our best friends, his parents, and my dad. I’m still so in love and so excited to marry him. He truly is the man of my dreams.

In August (now), I started a new job in claims work again and so far I’m really loving it! The company is fun and caring and very successful. Nick and I have also decided to buy a bigger house. With the derecho that hit (if you don’t know what that is please google Iowa Derecho and check out the Cedar Rapids damage, it’s devastating and they still need SO much help) we’ve had a hard time selling our house. I think people who were looking may no longer be because of damage sustained to their homes or homes of their families. I know this isn’t the end of the world, but it still sucks. But I’m so grateful we were only without power for 20 hours and our house and vehicles are completely fine. We are blessed and lucky.

I’m honestly blanking on more positives. I’m sure there are a few more, but it’s Monday and I’m mentally exhausted lol.

Alright, Sierra, what’s all this rambling have to do with your weight loss journey?

Everything, actually. Food is my coping mechanism. Sometimes it’s just eating crappy and others it’s bingeing. With that being said, I’ve been doing what I’ve done my whole life and diving into being healthy and then something happening and I give up. Is this an excuse or a roadblock? The answer is yes. Haha. Although let’s be honest, they’re more of excuses. Grief sucks. Bad things happen and that sucks. Sometimes everything sucks. But the thing is... we can let it suck and complain about how much it sucks and sulk OR we can rise up and do better and be thankful and do whatever we can to make the best of those situations. This is something I’m working on. With the negative things.. I’ve been binging and eating crappy as mentioned. I am at my highest weight of 267 lbs yet again. I feel disgusting. I can hardy look at myself in the mirror. I have little motivation to do anything. I have hardly went anywhere unless I don’t have to dress up or it’s people I see all the time and even then it takes a lot for me not to bail because I’m embarrassed to be seen. Yeah this is pretty real and raw.

Last night, my fiancé and I had a very deep talk. He gave me some great advice. He’s always so supportive of me and truly wants the best. I expressed to him all these awful feelings I’ve had about myself and that I want to change. I want to be healthy. I want to workout. I want to lose weight. I want to wear normal clothes. I want to feel comfortable in my own skin. What he said to me was:

Do you want to do it or are you going to do it?

He’s right. I’ve been wanting these things or trying these things but not DOING them. Yoda said it best when he said:

Do or do not, there is no try

So. I’m doing the damn thing. Today I started tracking my macros and water again. I will be working out again following Strong Daily with my Coach Maddie. You can find a link at the bottom of my blog.

I am still currently wanting weight loss surgery. I have to follow a diet and exercise regimen that is physician supervised for insurance purposes for 6 months. In these 6 months, I will work my ass off. If I am happy with my progress and results and no longer feel surgery is necessary to help me, I won’t get it. But for now I’m following the plan to get there. I’m working on my mental health. I’m a mess right now and I don’t want to be. I will do something for myself every single day to help in that journey and will be beginning therapy again as soon as I can. If you’ve read this whole post of rambling, thank you.

Peace&&Love

Sierra

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #248

“i was unprepared for fame, then everybody knew my name.”

Are you more positive or a debbie downer? I don't think I'm either, honestly. I'm realistic. How many meals do you eat a day? Since getting a calorie & macro counting app, I try to aim for three, but sometimes I only manage two. I have to be conscious of how I'm spacing out what I eat. If you could have any talent in the world what would it be? Be realistic. Draw exactly what I see in my head. Do you brush your tongue with your tooth brush? Bitch you better brush your goddamn tongue. I didn't know until I saw this as a survey question a while back that there were people who didn't. How many times do you brush your teeth a day honestly? Once. What are you favorite type of jeans? I don't wear jeans anymore, but aesthetically, dark, skinny, torn jeans. Do you pop your bones, crack your knuckles? NO it disgusts me omg. There's this girl who sits in front of me in Women Writers class who cracks her back ALL the time and I have to fight cringing so, so hard. Do you eat your nails? YO NO. I may peel my nails when they get long (to me, anyway) but who the fuck eats their nails. Do you eat the ice in your drink? If it's that good cronchy type, fuck yeah. What do you order at Chic-Fil-A? I used to just get the classic sandwich and fries, but I stopped going there forever ago due to their connection to anti-LGBTQ organizations. By now I can't even stomach the thought of eating something from there. Damn are their sandwiches good, but I'm not giving them business. If you had to go to Mcdonalds what do you order? "Had to" lmao. I have no problem with McDonald's, honestly; you couldn't make me go, because I'd be quite willing. I love their cheeseburgers and, of course, their fries. But because I'm a fatass I have to at least get a double cheeseburger. Have you ever been addicted to cigarettes? No. Which do you use more? Facebook or Instagram? Facebook. Are you a student? If so, what classes will you take next? Yes. "Next," I don't know, considering I haven't chosen classes for next year. Currently I take Painting, Women Writers, Psychology, and Biology. Are you a good kisser? I don't know? How many real bf/gf have you had? Two. Did you enjoy your past relationships? Sure, save for the one with Tyler. That was pointless as shit. Would you ever get back with your ex? Sara, if certain conditions were right. Jason, I honestly don't know and hope I'm never put into the position to need to decide. Other exes, no. Do you like 80’s music? Rock and metal, absolutely. It was a great decade for the genres. Name a comedy that you like. Rush Hour 2 popped to mind first because we mentioned it in school yesterday. Do you like homework? ??????????? WHAT IS THIS QUESTION???????????????? NO??????????????? Something you want to buy real bad? Ugggghhhhh a lot. Being unemployed is a BLAST!!!!!!!!!! Something you would buy a friend as a gift? It depends on the person, of course. I try really hard to give very personal gifts, so what it would be would greatly vary. What is something that would be a good birthday gift for you? Donate Big Bucks to my tattoo fund and I'll give you smooches. Something you would gift yourself? Still tattoos lmfao. Favorite candle scent? Cinnamon rolls mmmmmmmmm. Do you watch beauty videos on YouTube? So here's the tea I genuinely love Jeffree Star and I'm digging NikkieTutorials lately LOOK idk I guess because I find makeup to be an art, I like watching that stuff. My YouTube interests have become seriously diverse lately. Have you ever questioned your sexuality? Ha ha obviously. What is the best thing about life? Man, that's a loaded question. I suppose having people in it that make it worthwhile and a true privilege to simply be here. What do you think will happen when you die? YO, HONESTLY, I don't know, man. I've even questioned reincarnation lately. I 100% believe we are not hollow bodies meant to just decay after death, but creatures with spirits that live on in SOME form or way afterwards. I don't believe in the concept of a "Hell," but I don't really think I accept there being a true "Heaven," either? I think there's just... something. What, I don't know, but guess I'll figure it out at some point. Are you superstitious? No. What kind of surveys do you like the most? Random ones, especially the ones that make you think. Do you go to church? No. Do you like Christian music? No. I get frustrated from just bad memories/associations. Have you ever skateboarded and failed at it? Never really tried. What show/concert have you went to that you didn’t like much? N/A Is sex a must in your life? Nah. Could you wait until marriage for sex? Lol I was the abstinent one years ago, so obviously I could, because I understand it. What do you think about weed? Medically, it's fantastic. Too much evidence of it being so to argue it anymore. For other use, I feel the same way about it as I do cigarettes: bad idea, but whatever. I personally don't care if it's made legal for recreational use or not, so long as it's treated similarly to alcohol, ex. illegal to drive while high. If you found a baby turtle on the side of the road, would you pick it up and keep it? With it being a baby, I'd probably take it to an animal rescue or something. Did you and your mum ever have a big fight that caused you to move out? I stayed at Dad's for a handful of days. Has the last person you kissed ever been to your house? Yes. Does anybody have a tattoo with your name on it? My sister has my initial, anyway. Who did you last see shirtless? My mom. Do you like to make the first move? NONONONONO I'M SHY. Do you think you will ever be married? Probably. If the last person you kissed saw you kissing someone else, would they be mad? I don't think she'd be mad, no. Do you understand football? Nope. Who last called you beautiful? Probably Mom. If you fell pregnant to the last person you kissed, what would you think? We're both female so like- Do you think the body is the most beautiful thing that was ever made? No. Name five things you did today? Stayed at the hospital for my beautiful niece to be born :'), slept far too little after getting home, and that's... kinda it. What kind of phone do you have? It's literally a Tracfone, BUT WAIT! I actually wanted it, ha ha. Mom has one and it is *genuinely* a good phone, so I got one for my birthday. Hell, it's cheaper than paying monthly, so I'm fine with it. When was the last time you talked to one of your siblings? 5 in the morning when we were all still with Ashley. Do you like fire? Sure, I like watching it. Have you ever been to a spa? Noooo, not my jam. Do you know how to do a cartwheel? No. Who’s the funniest drunk person you know? Ehhhhh. When he drank, my dad was either hilarious when drunk or hateful and short-fused as fuck. 50/50 shot. But yeah, if you got Version 1, he'd crack anyone the hell up. Now that he's sober and happy he's always like that. What would you do if your partner still kept pictures of their ex? Well, I'd say it depends on the picture's context. Like, a picture of you two kissing, then I'd be uncomfortable as shit. If you have prom pictures or stuff like that but don't like go looking through them regularly, idc. It was a special event. What if your partner went through your cellphone? BYE, CUNT. What if your partner was flirting with another girl/boy? BYE, CUNT. Is there really a difference between Coke and Pepsi? YES. I can absolutely taste it. Pepsi sucks. Are there any mistakes with your recent ex you wish you could have changed? Stupid and/or impulsive shit I'd said, sure, but for the most part, no. We had a good relationship. Has anyone ever been with you while you were throwing up? My mom always is if she's present. I am terrified of vomiting and even at my age still want her there, even though she can't do anything, obviously. I turn into a baby when I'm about to throw up. Background on your computer? My favorite picture of Teddy. Who has hurt you the most? Jason. Or hell, my own head, idk. Are you happy with where you are relationship-wise now? Sure. What language do you want to learn? I wanna be fluent in German. Who’s the last person that came to your house? A family friend. Is there anyone you would like to fight? God no. I'm not a fighter. Who did you dance with last? Sara. Who is your best friend(s)? Sara. Song playing? "It's A Raid" by Ozzy feat. Post Malone. The album's out T O D A Y , B O Y S. Who is your arch-enemy? I don't have one. What's the most attractive thing on the opposite sex? GODDAMN shoulderBLADES Do you want platinum or gold for your wedding band? Not normal gold, I know. Rose gold is my ideal one, but I really don't care much. Have you ever paid to have your eyebrows waxed? I mean my mom has, seeing as I didn't have an income then, either. Got that done regularly in high school. Not because I asked, but because it was just "normal" since my two sisters did it, too. Do you think that the tobacco companies should pay for people’s medical bills? No, it's not their choice to use the product. Sure, they're making it, but it's really too late to cease production of tobacco. It'd be catastrophic in terms of the job industry. Do you curse in average conversations? Yes; I have to actually make an effort to not curse if needed. Have you ever bought a shot glass? No. Do you have a therapist? Not anymore after my previous one that I loved and trusted gave me every reason to break her jaw. I kind of want another one, but also don't. I'm supposed to, considering my history and that I'm on a lot of medication, but I just do nooooot want to go through the whole trust process again. Do you ever fall for spam mail? No. What color do you wear the most? Black. Do you only eat cough drops because you like the taste? No. Have your parents ever walked in on you having sex? No. Do you like getting stoned? I've never been so and aren't interested in ever getting there. Have you ever gotten a bloody nose from snorting cocaine? YOIKES THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY lol no, I wouldn't touch coke with a ten-foot pole. Red, white, yellow, or pink roses? Pink. What’s the worst name your mom has ever called you? I don't know. She hasn't called me anything too awful that I know of. Have you ever done acid? No. Were you at a rave? Never been, definitely not my scene. Do you post pictures where you look good but your friends look bad? Well, I don't hang out with like... anyone, so, lmao. But I wouldn't. Are you friends with any of your exes? Yes. Would you ever dye your hair pink? ACTUALLY! Pastel pink is on my list. I tested some soft colors out in Photoshop on me and it actually looked really cute. I think I wanna be a smaller size first, though. Do you ever masturbate? I haven't since I came off that godawful birth control that drove me batshit insane in terms of libido. I still don't think it's a bad thing, my interest in that is just, gone. Are you embarrassed about your sex life or lack there of? No. Who’s the last person you said I love you to? My sister. Did you like your life when you were in middle school? Actually fuck middle school with a maul. If you went on American Idol, do you think you’d go through to Hollywood? Nope. Have you ever received an anonymous gift? No, I don't think so. What kind of laugh do you have? A loud and obnoxious one. Do you hoard anything? "Hoard" isn't the right word, no. Are you afraid of flying? I am, but I feel it's only a realistic apprehension. Especially going back and forth to Sara's a few times, you kinda have to get used to it. Most recent Facebook ‘like’? Shit man idk, I "like" a load of stuff. Have you ever camped out somewhere for an event the next day? No. Do you do anything regularly that could damage your body? Can someone please eliminate soda from the face of the earth???? What do you love most in the world? Those closest to me. What woke you up this morning? Ugh, the sun. I need to put my curtain back up after Roman tore it down. Who was the last person you rode in a car with? My mom. Is anything bothering you? There's always *something* bothering me to some degree, but nothing seriously at the moment. Are you in a good mood? My niece was born overnight and is gorgeous and healthy so I have to be. :') When were you the saddest in your life? 2016. Do you own more than one cell phone? Ha ha, I have two old ones. One I used for pictures because the camera was good, and the most recent old one, I just need to get some pictures and contacts from... but I'm lazy. Have you ever had a song written about you? No. What songs make you happy? Depends on what I'm feeling. Next concert? No clue now that Ozzy had to cancel his, bless his old heart. As a child, did you ever get the chance to go to Disney World/Disneyland? Yes. When was the last time you fought with your significant other, if any? I’m single. Do you know anyone, personally, who is in an abusive relationship? Are you? No, thankfully. When was the last time you were on a boat? Where did you travel on it? Not since I went fishing with my old best friend a few years back. We were just in a pond. Are you planning on going anywhere with someone, some time today? Probably not. Do you like cereal? What would you consider your favorite kind of cereal? Hell yeah. Cinnamon Toast Crunch is *maybe* my favorite? Idk, I like a lot. Are there any people you don’t like for your significant other/crush to talk to? This doesn't apply to me, but even if I had one, they're not my damn child. I'm not gonna police whom they talk to. I mean I guess there are exceptions, like, talking to a drug dealer to name one, but talking to most people, that's their business. Just don't hide it from me. Have you ever forgotten your birthday? Did you soon figure it out? No. What color are the curtains in your room if you have any at the moment? Maroon. Is there anyone you are currently trying to get out of trouble? Why? No. Have you ever wanted your significant other to get rid of a friend? Well, calling back to that other question, there was one in a previous relationship that I really couldn't stand, but it wound up working out. If you have siblings, have they moved out or do they still live with you? It's just me and Ma now. Do you ever go to Blockbuster? How frequently would you say you go? WHAT A CALLBACK!!!!! Omg did I love BB. Went like every weekend to rent a game, and sometimes we'd go there Fridays before a sleepover to grab a movie. Do you ever listen to music so you can actually change your emotion? Sure, sometimes.

[bigskydreaming]

maurianasravenholdt replied to your post:

So, okay. The posts about how psychodrama and...

I read all of this and was very interested. I have to sit with it for a while, because I have questions. If, for example, a non-con fic is written by a survivor, is it not also taking away personal agency to say that ‘there are too many of that kind of fic’ or ‘someone else might be titillated by your fic so it shouldn’t be published’? Some of it feels… eerily familiar to what survivors of rape and harassment face regularly. The censorship of their coping mechanisms.

See, but this is precisely why I always make a point to stress that my aim is fostering an environment that encourages personal accountability, rather than people ducking and hiding communally behind the shield of ‘well some survivors use it to cope’ - when we all know damn well from the sheer volume of noncon, pedophilia and incest SMUT specifically....that its not all being written by survivors. Not to mention there is a significant tonal difference between various fics, with many feeling more ‘permissive’ and even encouraging of the noncon scenarios vs those that have at least a bit more ambiguity to them and suggests that the author has at least mixed feelings about what they’re writing and more likely is working through some stuff than just seeking to write masturbation fodder for people into this stuff.

Like, its impossible to know how many fics like this are written by survivors as attempts at coping mechanisms vs how many are written by nonsurvivors just for sexual gratification.....just like its impossible to know which are written by which. Nor, do I think, should it even be attempted - that’s the gatekeeping I’m so often accused of wanting. The idea that survivors must flash their trauma credentials at the top of a fic as a disclaimer for being allowed to write it.

The point is not identifying works written by survivors vs non survivors, the point is merely hold a macro level awareness that REGARDLESS of which fics are written by which authors.....it remains inarguable that there is no stretch of the imagination in which EVERY ONE OF THESE FICS is written by survivors for self-healing reasons.

So the thing about the coping mechanisms argument above all else, in terms of why I hate it so much, is because by extension....given how often its held up as a defense against criticism of these works in general....there’s no way that everyone who trots out that argument is ACTUALLY one of the survivors writing these things for self-healing.

Which is a big reason why the sight of that argument always has me raising my hackles in the first place....because again - I don’t know who’s a survivor and who isn’t, I’m not TRYING to vet anyone or tell the difference...but I don’t NEED to in order to still be aware that over the years there’s been a shitload of people who have happily used survivors that happen to agree with them or hold opinions that enable their own ‘kinks’....as kinda a human shield against criticism. And that to me, is absolutely disgusting and reprehensible, and the willingness people have to engage in that kinda bullshit is a problem in and of itself, IMO.

But all of that ultimately circles back around to....personal accountability. I’ve never argued for any kind of fandom accountability, where only certain people, appropriately vetted and appointed or what the fuck ever, get to weigh in on certain conversations or write certain content. I’ve merely always been arguing....regardless of whom these things might or might not apply to...I at LEAST want the people who hear what I have to say on these matters and find I’ve mentioned new angles or perspectives they hadn’t considered before, that make them question the....unquestioning way they’ve parroted these arguments before or written these fics assuming its no big deal because general fandom sentiment assured them it wasn’t....like, if people just stopped running from even having these arguments or hearing these criticisms at all, and just started re-examining their own choices on these matters and whether or not they’re entirely comfortable with long-unquestioned decisions or arguments once they apply a little more scrutiny to them....honestly, that’s a good enough start for me. 

Again, I don’t know who is a survivor who actually uses writing dark noncon fics as a coping mechanism, and who isn’t a survivor and just writes them because they’re their ‘guilty pleasure’ or whatever. But YOU know, as in you, any individuals reading me writing posts like this. And I don’t have to know who is whom, in order to just ask that people who DO know perfectly well what applies to them and what doesn’t, like....then THINK about these things.

I’m well aware it won’t do anything to address the people that categorically just don’t give a fuck because they actually ARE pedophiles and the like, and actually get off on all this stuff with full self-awareness as to what they’re doing and seeing appeal in it at its basest levels.....like, they’re not going to do a damn thing differently, sure. But the more people stop seeing ‘well survivors use it to cope’ as an acceptable shield to hide behind if it has nothing to do with them and their reasons for writing certain content....the more these other people have to scramble for other arguments entirely, to hide behind. Which is more and more likely to show them for what they are, and make them stick out as predators rather than community.

Censorship is useless and always will be, IMO. Because the problem isn’t that these works exist. The problem is that these works and the permissive atmosphere they’re regarded in blanket all of fandom in such a way that actual predators have abundant camouflage to move around in and act like they’re just part of the gang, like any other fan.

Censor these kind of works, shut off the faucet....doesn’t accomplish anything towards the true issue of there still being predators in all these fandom spaces....and now they simply have to be even more circumspect and subtle about grooming potential victims, etc.

But the more we build atmospheres of personal accountability in our fandom spheres, expecting people to look honestly at their own actions and impacts and make their choices based on actually asking their consciences what they’re okay with rather than just blindly repeating the things they’ve been told that save them from having to do that work...THAT actually has potential to address the real root issue. Because the more being expected to be aware of your impact and footprint among your own community becomes actually commonplace....the more the behavior of those who still refuse to prioritize anything over their own wants, 24/7, sticks out and makes people wary of that. While at the same time....the more people, minors especially, are encouraged to do their own critical thinking in regards to these matters before drawing their conclusions on what THEY feel most comfortable with.....the less vulnerable they become to the grooming tendencies of predators who RELY on this idea of just....accepting ‘this is the way fandom works though’ when presented with it by older, more established fans.

So ultimately, my beef with the coping mechanisms argument is that as long as fandom’s happy to spout it unanimously as their go-to defense against criticism on these matters, really it just goes to show its being used as a derailing tactic. Allowing the people who AREN’T survivors whom its true for, to just toss it up there without a second thought, and never have to engage honestly with the conversation we’re trying to have.

As to the validity and viability of these fics as coping mechanisms? Tbh, like....that’s not really something I’m all that interested in arguing. The concerns I outlined in that other post are still there and things I stand by, but like I also said in it, and said here....I have zero interest in arguing with someone who says “no, this helps me” and instead telling them no, you’re wrong, it doesn’t. 

I do think its still reasonable to at least ask people keep in mind the arguments about why they perhaps do as much harm as good. I do think its appropriate to expect people to be a little less confident in putting forth “this is the way this works” to newcomers and minors in fandom who look to them as examples, hear all this validation of this specific coping mechanism and assume it must be a good thing, and if it doesn’t seem to work for them too, well they must be doing it wrong. And also, I think its important that people acknowledge that coping mechanisms are NOT innately good or healthy. They’re simply tools we come up with to deal with our traumas, and like any tools, they’re not inherently good or bad, right or wrong. I mean, you start going around getting into fights to distract from shit you have bottled up and aren’t dealing with, to just feel alive, as a way to punish yourself, etc....all of those reasonings for frequent physical fights can still viably fall under the umbrella of being ‘coping mechanisms’ for being physically abused at home yourself and with no possibility of fighting back against your abuser....but does that make them automatically healthy? And does that mean that you’re not still harming the people you pick fights with just to have an excuse to beat on someone? No and no.

And so on that note, I don’t think its unreasonable to expect even survivors to keep that in mind when making decisions as well, because our desire to heal and move past our trauma is not permission or an excuse to hurt other people in the process. And again - I have zero desire to track down any single individual, figure out whether or not they’re a survivor, and quiz them on their choices and motivations and decide whether I approve or not. I just want people to stop trying to act like we all live in a vacuum and our choices can somehow affect people positively, but never negatively. Simply because we don’t want to pair any kind of responsibility with the escapism we come to fandom for.

But we talk a lot about how online fandom was ‘made’ and who made it and a lot of other things that basically signal our awareness that fandom is an artificial construct. It didn’t just exist as it is, and we stumbled across it and what we found is what we got. We made it. Its homegrown.

And there’s a big problem, IMO, when we’ve ended up in a state where we go about literally building communities....while simultaneously trying to hold on to the idea that we’re each only here to take what we can from our communities and have no responsibility towards each other, to at least honestly be aware of our impact and influence on others around us...and to make an effort to not carelessly inflict or help perpetuate harm, while blithely saying oh that has nothing to do with us. 

When we ask ourselves even the simple question of “are these fics actually helping me or do I just want to believe that, or are they a placebo maybe, or are they maybe simply desensitizing me, and either way, what effect are they having on my community at the same time? And if I can’t actually confidently say they’re helping me heal, they’re what I NEED, and other people are claiming concern and harm stemming from this overall trend I’m contributing to here....does it really hurt me to look around for other potential coping mechanisms that I might feel more confident in, or won’t carry such concerns?

The reason I object so much to being constantly accused of wanting censorship, is that’s the complete ass backwards takeaway of literally everything I’ve ever said on this subject.

After all, censorship is ultimately an external third party being responsible for deciding what is and isn’t published and proliferated, based on their reasoning.

What I’m arguing for, and always have been, is the EXACT LITERAL OPPOSITE:

Encouraging and ultimately expecting individuals to be responsible for what they do and don’t publish and proliferate, and actually APPLY their own reasoning to their choices there, rather than simply hitting “Publish” without a second thought and waiting for the kudos and comments to roll in while preparing to ignore all criticism, regardless of what it may be.

[justlikeeddie]

black sails fic recs

I have got and continue to get so much enjoyment out of Black Sails and its fandom! It's so nice that this anniversary week of posts has made me realise it is two years since my dash was abruptly filled with people having full breakdowns over the S4 finale, and I was like, “man, I don’t know why this field of corn or whatever is so important, but I guess I should watch this show and find out”. And I did. AND IT WAS.

I don’t know how to make gifsets bcos I am an idiot, but luckily for this fan content Friday thing I CAN post a non-exhaustive list of fics in this fandom that I am absolutely obsessed with. You’re welcome!!!

Unaccommodated Man, The Peaceable Kingdom, and Congress by kvikindi / @septembriseur

James/Thomas, post-series

James looks at him, searching, and Thomas fears he will recognise that Thomas is not really Thomas, not quite Thomas, not the Thomas he had been, and so he says, “I have gone a little mad in this world without you, but now that you are here—” And James makes a sound, a sobbing, laughing sound, and crushes Thomas to him once more.

Like...obvs. This is one of the best series of stories I have read in any fandom, or, actually, that I have read in any context. Both on a macro level - with unbelievable fluency, this series encompasses trauma, recovery, intimacy, forgiveness, literature, the conception of madness, agriculture, 18th-century Native American tribal language, etc, etc - and a micro level, in which not a single word is wasted, and not a single sentence is unworthy of being read three or four times. Anyway. I have re-read all of these stories multiple times and Congress more times than I would admit to if I actually knew.

consider them both, the sea and the land by youremyqueen / @deathnoting

Flint/Silver, post-S3

Flint frowns, stiff and unbending, and leans down just a tad so that he is looking John directly in his eyes. If he’s uncomfortable with their proximity, he doesn’t let it show.

“Remember when you told me,” he grits slowly, each word weighted with emphasis, “that you had discovered the pleasure of being both loved and feared? Is that what you would like from me? It is not enough that you have earned my respect, my friendship. You would now like for me to be frightened of you as well?” His nostrils flare, his rage is quiet. “I am not one of your men.”

John can feel the words on his face and he bears them without flinching, says only, “And I am not one of yours.”

Flint’s brow twitches, and he moves a hair closer, disgustingly close, warm and sour with the smell of whiskey, a solid and immovable blockade between John and what he wants. And he says to him, of all the unbearable things, “Isn’t that exactly what you are?”

THIS IS LITERALLY THE FIC THAT CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT FLINT/SILVER. For like three whole series I just didn’t Get It. And then I read this and was like.....oh.....I Get It. It’s a weapon. Their attraction to each other is a weapon. And sometimes they like using it and sometimes they don’t. And I have never, my friends, looked back

and into what it will be changed by @sea-changed

James/Thomas/Miranda, pre-series

"The Hartfords left for the country last week," Miranda says; "they've merely invited us to view the painting. They cannot resist showing off, even in absentia." She and Thomas share a look, smirking at each other as if sharing an old joke. Then she looks back at James, and her mouth quirks up at him. "So you needn't worry about their judgement."

James considers protesting that that wasn't, exactly, what he was worried about, though upon second thought he wonders if it truly wasn't. "That's very kind," he says, hesitating.

"Is it?" Miranda asks, almost absently. "We do not invite you along as a kindness, Lieutenant; I believe I speak for both Thomas and I when I say we rather enjoy your company."

James feels his face heat, not unpleasantly, and he looks down at the carpet. Miranda is usually soft and kind, but occasionally she does this, speaks plain and pointed. She and Thomas both do this, push and keep pushing: Thomas seems to do so with curiosity, prodding until he finds something interesting, but Miranda does it as if she had already found the spot she wishes to target, and goes after it relentlessly. James thinks suddenly, and unexpectedly, that she would not make a bad Naval commander.

THIS IS LITERALLY THE FIC THAT CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT JAMES/THOMAS/MIRANDA. I used to be weirdly militant in the belief that James’s affairs with the Hamiltons only made sense if they were two separate affairs that didn’t even really overlap. And then I read this and was like....right okay....if they DID have a threesome it would have been like this

There’s Plenty of Men to Die by @autoeuphoric

Flint/Silver, post-S3

The five of them share a glance, passing it around the table, man to man. Flint’s mouth twitches and Madi laughs shortly. “I would wager every man here fancies themselves in charge. This is a meeting of chieftains. I say let it remain so.”

“Although…” Silver says slowly, pulling the others’ attention on to him. Flint’s eyes flick his way, and to his horror he realizes he has nothing else to say. No point, no segue, no plan for a redirection of the conversation. He had simply wanted Flint to look at him. A fierce longing for the days when it was just the two of them fills him, laying their plans together, even though the threat of sudden and nonnegotiable execution was much higher. But he knew where he stood. Here, there are complications. Confusions.

This is just a tiny little snatch of a scene but every beat of it is perfect! Silver navigating his obsession with Flint, in the midst of everybody navigating their new relationships with each other in the new fragile and tentative anti-colonial alliance.

a question of needs (and not rosary beads) by @seventymilestobabylon

James/Thomas, pre-series

Still: James wants to talk. If Thomas means this to be—what it is, what it clearly is, then he should have the fucking decency to say something about it. He also, and intensely, wants the whole business to be transacted without any conversation, but he knows better than to hope for that. Thomas is not capable of it, that implicit understanding. Even when he kissed James—

Thomas’s thumb very light at the hinge of his jaw. He felt a thrill like fear, when it happened.

Even then, Thomas said, “All right?” when it was over, and would have said more, except that James nodded mutely, minutely, and stammered something incoherent that required his presence elsewhere. Thomas and Miranda both looked hideously understanding about it, and James considered—as he walked home through ill-lit streets and inhaled familiar smells of smoke and fish and tar and shit—simply climbing aboard one of the ships in harbor and never returning to London.

This is one of the few pre-series fics I’ve read that really digs into James and Thomas’s incompatibilities and differences and misunderstandings - and sets them against how badly they want each other, and want to understand each other, nonetheless. Don’t get me wrong, obviously 1705 is The Only Time James McGraw Was Ever Allowed To Be Happy (tm), and I’m extremely into reading about him and Thomas making each other happy! But also - it’s so interesting to explore James being so frightened of how he feels about Thomas that he can be unkind to him, and Thomas being so immersed in how he feels about James that he can be complacent and sometimes a little thoughtless about it. And this pulls all of those things apart so well.

you and i survived by youremyqueen / @deathnoting

Anne/Jack, Vane/Jack, pre-series

“She’s not mine. That isn’t—we aren’t—I mean to say, do you actually understand what love is, Captain?”

“Love is possession,” Vane tells him, with his usual unselfconscious melodrama. “Not only of women by men, but of men by women. The point of owning a woman is to see to it that she doesn’t own you.” He speaks as if he’s explaining some very basic and widely known conceit.

Jack winces. “What a viciously horrible perception.”

Vane rolls his eyes. “Christ’s sake. Don’t you ever get tired of acting like a fucking woman?”

“Don’t you ever get tired of acting like a fucking man?”

And couldn’t they unpack that remark for days?

The extremely funny author’s note “if someone had told me two months ago that i would write a fic that featured charles ‘only straight person in nassau’ vane as a main character, i would not have believed them” is also a summary of how I feel about this fic. WHO KNEW that on top of every other fucking thing I have to care about in this fandom, I also care a LOT about Jack and Anne and Charles fuckin Vane! A principled, terrifying, Aslan-transfigured-into-a-human nightmare of a man! This fic is so excellent and does such justice to all of them. Their triumvirate gets kind of supplanted by the Max-Anne-Jack situation from S2 onwards, and I always forget how nuanced and odd and interesting this three-way dynamic is when we first meet them. This story does such a good job at trying to explain what the fuck that dynamic is.

Katabasis by unheroics

James/Thomas, pre-series, canon-divergent AU

There were Flint’s men, one leaving the cabin, another ransacking a chest for treasures, another still turning to speak to Randall; the words exchanged escaped Flint, as all else did, once his gaze fell to the Englishman.

He knelt barefoot on the deck, and wore the undyed, colourless linen of prison or asylum garments. For a precarious second Flint could only think that his hands had had nary a mark upon them, five years ago, and now were as scarred as those of a gamekeeper or veneur. He looked nothing like the man whose presence haunted Flint’s dreams, always at the corner of the vision, always cold to the touch and bleeding from the eyes and mouth.

In all his careful planning, and all his mirthless revenge, Flint had never thought to anticipate a variable in place of a set value. The presence of other men about was like an anchor at his feet, dragging him underwater, but it was Alfred Hamilton’s blood on his hands that kept him immobile.

“Will you kill me?” said Thomas Hamilton, in a voice harsh from paregoric. His tone had a note of morbid, queer hope. “I could pay.”

To spare you, or kill you? It was excruciating to wonder.

One of the very first James/Thomas fics I read! And certainly one of the first fics I read that started to probe and pull apart the McGraw-Flint dichotomy, by literally dropping Thomas right in the middle of it. And while the actual end of S4 is, obviously, the greatest and most narratively and emotionally satisfying thing that has ever happened on television, and you can quote me on that - one thing we do never get in canon is Thomas in Nassau, and I love getting to read that here.

[seddm]

¿Do you think is bad for me thinking that the show not making starco canon at the end of the day is plain on stupid and bad writing? I don´t about how long have you been a fan of svtfoe or when you started to ship Starco, but in my case in mainly was back on season 2 in which I felt more and more in love with the idea of starco being a thing. I don´t know what it was, but after bon bon episode aired it completely hook me to the point of me not just looking for fan art about it, but fanfics (1/5)

as well regarding this ship. And then it happen, season after season Daron not only did she prolong it the issue of Starco, but added more ships into the mix for the sake of drama (because honestly, I don't see other reason) and so far the show has done nothing more than hurt me emotionally because of it. There have been of course some people that say how "you shouldn't be complaining because she never promised you anything and she can do whatever she wants because is her show" or "that (2/5)you should be happy regardless of who ends up with who and that at the end of the day this is just a cartoon about fictional characters" and I know that they are correct with these statements,but even knowing that at the end of the day is Daron choice to decide what to do and how to end her own show, her creation, I just feel that after all the teasing, after those heartfelt moments that both characters have shown (showing how deep their chemistry is) and the fact that they (3/5)still tease it, with the whole Knight Shift episode (especially the last shot with the capes) I think is pretty unfair to end Starco after all that saying that the blood moon was mainly the cause of it and making those other ships canon, since to me they aren´t at the same height as Starco and I want to stop being so obsessed with Starco, but I just can´t do it (I really hate Daron Nefcy does she hate the people that ship Starco community, did we piss her off somehow) (4/5)I don´t know what type of response you can give me about this if you are reading this ,sadly even then I don´t know if it would help me ease my mind and hope that Starco becomes canon, after all, we have through (Obviously you might at this point be asking yourself ¿why the hell are you bothering me with this then?, but I just don't have anyone to talk to about this and it really gives a pain that you can´t imagine) I'm sorry to have bothered you and wasted your time with this question (5/5) 

Don’t worry, I completely understand, feel free to vent. Obviously Daron and her crew can make whatever show they want, and no one can be entitled to anything, it’s not like she/they owe the fans anything specific. This being said, it’d obviously look bad for any kind of show, especially one aimed at kids and made by Disney, to end in a way that glaringly goes against all its themes, going against expectations for the sake of it, or just to deconstruct a trope, when nothing in the series up to that point suggested it. And as of S4 (this was already true in S3, but there might have been some hint of wiggling room, now there isn’t anymore) there are essentially only three potential outcomes for the series (with hundreds of smaller variations and specifics obviously, I’m talking about macro themes here):

Star and Marco realize they love each other, Starco happens fully crowning the idea that the best relationships, those who can truly last a lifetime, are those based on strong friendships; the romance side is not just an extra but a whole new world that allows these two characters to truly intertwine their lives together forever with a level of commitment that platonic friendships can’t fully have

Star and Marco love each other, but for some reason the show decides to be a fucking coward and the ending is left vague and open, with the two in a state of mind along the lines of “we walk into the future hand in hand, we’ll probably get together one day but not today”, which would be ridiculous and pathetic and they essentially already did that minus the romantic undertones in The Knight Shift, the episode literally ended with them looking at their futures together while nestled in a heart.

Star and Marco decide that they work better just as friends, or that they don’t have time for love right now, which would be incredibly insulting because it’d retroactively mean that teens can’t have meaningful relationships because they can only be either like Kellco and Tomstar, which would be even more heavily characterized as useless wastes of times lead by crazy hormones by this kind of ending, or perfect mature adult relationships that can’t happen while one is young.

And it’s easy to see how the 2nd one would be absolutely infuriating and a cop out for no good reason, while the 3rd one would absolutely shit on everything the show stood for so long, essentially stating that all the shipping up to that point was useful just to make the characters feel miserable and fail over and over again, and that the final lesson was something like “True Love is unavailable to teens, don’t even waste time with it, you just can’t you pathetic kids, wait until you’re older!”.

So I’m not saying that Starco is going to happen for sure, nor that Daron HAS to give us Starco, but everything up to now (more than ever with The Knight Shift, see this post) points toward Starco, and going against such expectations wouldn’t simply be “oh what a twist!” at this point, but it’d betray the series’ intentions as a whole. There’s a difference between being entitled, and not liking being deceived and  mocked with no reason.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT JANUARY

In January 1995, we and a couple friends started a company called Artix. The forum troll I have by now internalized doesn't even know where to begin in raising objections to this project. Unfortunately picking winners is harder than that. They certainly delivered. As it turns out, VC-backed startups are not that fearsome. In the other languages mentioned in this talk—Fortran, C, Java, and Visual Basic—it is not clear whether you can actually get work done. One difference I've noticed between great hackers and smart people in general is that hackers are more politically incorrect. College trained one to be a member of the professional classes.1 But as knowledge has grown more specialized, there are more points on the curve, and the inexorable progress of hardware would solve your problems. Maybe it's a bad idea for a company.

Whoever controls the device sets the terms. But as long as it's possible to detect bias whether those doing the selecting want them to or not.2 Of all the great programmers he wanted. Apparently when Robert first met him, Trevor had just begun a new scheme for micropayments?3 A symbol type.4 Feel free to make it big.5 If any incompatibility arises, you can be wise without being very smart. Lisp function and show that it is. It's very common for a group of founders to go through one lame idea before realizing that a startup will make it big. To some extent this was because the companies themselves had become sclerotic. Bill Gates started either.6

But rather the erosion of forces that had been pushing us together were an anomaly, a one-time combination of circumstances that's unlikely to be repeated—and indeed, that we would not want to repeat. They certainly delivered. Most of our educational traditions aim at wisdom.7 So we ditched Artix and started a new company led boldly into the future of hardware, users would follow. Microsoft shows, revenue is a lagging indicator in the technology business. And I was a Reddit user when the opposite happened there, and sitting in a coma at their desk, pretending to work.8 It seems reasonable to suppose the newest one will too.9

I might into Harvard Square or University Ave in the physical world.10 And open and good is what Macs are again, finally.11 As for libraries, their importance also depends on the application. Great hackers think of it as a book.12 Or more precisely, in Trevor's office. The technology companies are right.13 This summer, as an experiment, and an experiment in a very young field. Back in the days of fanfold, there was a correct decision in every situation, and if you couldn't switch ladders, promotion on this one was the only way to read them. But when I went looking for alternatives to fill this void, I found practically nothing.14

Besides which, art dealers are the most extreme form of fluff. They get smart people to write 99% of your code, but still keep them almost as insulated from users as they would be able to say who cares what investors think? I don't know how you'd run such a class in practice. A lot of the obstacles to ongoing diagnosis will come from the fact that the best ideas look initially like bad ideas. But ITA made it interesting by redefining the problem in a more ambitious way. Note too that Cisco is famous for doing very little product development in house. Meaning that unpleasant work pays. Most of the stuff I accumulated was worthless, because I think we can now call a startup: having brilliant people do work in which people have to invent anything.15 They have a sofa they can take a nap on when they feel the same way that not drinking anything would teach you how much you depend on water. Startups are that constrained for talent. Some switched from meat loaf to tofu, and others by playing zero-sum games.

The core of ITA's application is a 200,000 line Common Lisp program that searches many orders of magnitude more possibilities than their competitors, who apparently are still using mainframe-era programming techniques. Most of our educational traditions aim at wisdom. This is the kind of people it wants. And if we don't, the US could be seriously fucked. Cancer will show up on some sort of radar screen immediately. Microsoft seems resigned to, there will be no more great new stuff beyond whatever's currently in the pipeline. I'm so optimistic about HN. Books are more like a fluid than individual objects.16 And the use of these special, reserved field names, especially __call__, seems a bit of a hack. Perhaps the absent-minded professor is wise in his way, or wiser than he seems, but he's not wise in the way Confucius or Socrates wanted people to be.17

You can only do that if you want to really understand Lisp, or just expand your programming horizons, I would learn more about macros. Not quite so dominant as it had been. The importance of the first varies depending on whether you have control over the whole system and have the source code of all the things we could do, is this going to make it something that they themselves use.18 When we started Artix, I was still ambivalent about business. But it's all based on one unspoken assumption, and that means it has to be open and good is what Macs are again, finally. There are few corporations in which it would be suggested that executive salaries are at a maximum. Stuff used to be valuable, and now it's not. The reason the expected value is so high is web services. But for someone at the top, but unless taxes are high enough to discourage people from creating wealth, certainly.19 Symbols are effectively pointers to strings stored in a hash table. Considering how basic a red circle is, it is no surprise that the pointy-haired bosses.

Notes

The founders want the valuation is fixed at the command of the leading edge of technology. This was certainly true in the 1980s was enabled by a big VC firm wants to see it in the usual standards for truth. However, it often means the right thing. The solution is to the margin for error.

In principle you might be interested in each type of thinking, but sword thrusts.

Founders weren't celebrated in the future as barbaric, but at least once for that they don't have to track ratios by time of day, thirty years later. You also have to do it. Which is also a good idea to make people use common sense when interpreting it.

The liking you have the least experience creating it.

There are lots of search engines. Particularly since many causes of the latter.

Which OS? Com. Maybe at first you make money, in the category of people starting normal companies too.

To say anything meaningful about income trends, you won't be demoralized if they seem to have the balls to ask prospective employees if they used FreeBSD and stored their data in files too.

Obvious is an instance of a heuristic for detecting whether you realize it till I started using it out of the web.

In the early empire the price of an official authority makes all the investors agree, and this trick works so well.

The First Two Hundred Years. Org Worrying that Y Combinator to increase it, because they know you'll have to be doctors? There are many senses of the world you'd want to avoid collisions in.

But I think this is to do is form a union and renegotiate all the worse if you're measuring usage you need a meeting, then you're being starved, not because Delicious users are stupid.

So as a rule of thumb, the Patek Philippe 10 Day Tourbillon, is a good way to be secretive, because the publishers exert so much better than the don't-be poets were mistaken to be, and the Imagination by Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen. This was partly confidence, and why it's next to impossible to write great software in Lisp. Most were wrong, but except for money.

Delicious that had been with us he would have been; a vogue for conglomerates in the sale of products, because they suit investors' interests. Plus ca change. Donald J.

To get a low valuation, that you can't easily get a good open-source projects now that VCs may begin to conserve board seats for shorter periods. Bureaucrats manage to think of it, by Courant and Robbins; Geometry and the leading scholars of that. The existence of people like numbers.

It's like the application of math to real problems, and on the aspect they see of piracy is simply what they said. PR firm admittedly the best case. Miyazaki, Ichisada Conrad Schirokauer trans. When I talk about humans being meant or designed to live a certain threshold.

We have no trouble getting hired by these companies substitute progress for revenue growth with retained earnings was one firm that wanted to have them soon. Perhaps it would not be true that being part of your identity. The philosophers whose works they cover would be investors who say no to science as well.

By all means crack down on these. Acquisitions fall into in the former.

Particularly since many causes of the fake.

On the other meanings. Many of these titles vary too much to suggest that we don't have to talk to corp dev guys should be working to help SCO sue them.