#i'm not normal about this senior citizen and i refuse to be

[fictionallyinparadise]

☁️ and 🌸 from your daaarling rick :D

-lurker anon

WAHFHA!!!!!

☁️: have you had any nice dreams about me lately? or any bad ones you wish I could scare away?

I have 👉👈. I had a dream where we were cuddling but the blankets kept trying to fall off from us so we had to fight to keep the blankets,,,it was so silly I loved it.

🌸: what is the thing you are most proud of about yourself, love?

Aaah,,,,,I'm proud of myself for learning to love my insecurities and overall get over some deep rooted self hatred,,,I'm also proud of myself for finishing a little writing project I started!!!

[room-surprise]

Dungeon Meshi Season 1, Ep 4 Review

Spoilers below the cut! I have a lot of thoughts on this one so it's a bit long.

This is a slower episode, but I expected it to be. I worry that people will find this episode boring because there's not as much action or comedy as some of the other episodes, and what is here tends to be a lot more subtle, but this is honestly one of THE most important episodes of early Dungeon Meshi.

The pacing of this episode was great, Trigger allowed themselves to slow down and take the material more seriously when it was needed, and I really appreciate that.

Senshi and his connection to the dungeon, as always, makes me want to cry. Kui's focus on respect for the people who do the thankless, denigrated jobs in society like picking vegetables, cooking, and cleaning toilets always gets to me.

Senshi expressing the importance of being part of the ecosystem of the dungeon, and the balance of the world, protecting people not by killing monsters but by keeping the environment in check is so important to the core of Dungeon Meshi.

That, plus the sequence where Senshi refuses using magic to light a fire, instead wanting to do it by hand is also important. Later we'll get to see how magic can excel at some things that can't be done any other way, but for now it's time to focus on Senshi.

The way the party interacts with Senshi in this episode always makes me think of elderly people in Japan who are carrying on doing things the way it's always been done, even if the young people don't appreciate it or even know that they're doing it. The generational gap is a big issue in Japan, since there's so few young people and so many seniors…

It especially makes me think of the senior citizens that volunteered to go clean up the Fukushima nuclear disaster because they didn't want young people with their whole lives ahead of them to have to do it. I remember there was also an old man that took it upon himself to take care of the animals that had been left behind in the exclusion zone, Senshi's story reminds me a lot of him.

THE ANIMATION

The animation wasn't particularly exciting, but for the most part did what it needed to do. The only quibbles I have are minor ones:

There's a black-haired elf in the background of the tavern scene that had darker skin in the manga, and they made her lighter here. She's a recurring background character so I'm not super happy that they changed her skintone, since Dungeon Meshi goes out of it's way to include people of varied skin tones in crowd scenes, but I get that it was probably just to make the composition work. It still sucks though.

Most of the orcs look fine, but there were a pair of lady orcs that had purple-ish and green-ish fur that I thought looked a bit unnatural, compared to the earth tones of all the other orcs. I know Kui leans away from the unnatural skin tones thing (no blue elves, no green orcs) so I wasn't a fan of this, but it was subtle enough that I can forgive it.

I could tell the animators didn't really understand how the nose/snout/jaw situation of the orcs works, and as a result they were animating the orcs like normal human anime faces with a weird blob in the middle for a nose, instead of upturned noses that are part of a snout/mandible that effects the way the face works.

Obviously the animators are more familiar with how to draw standard human faces, and they had to cut costs on this episode by keeping the animation simple, but I didn't like how flat it all looked. Kui's solid construction (from later in the manga) is really missed here.

DUB vs SUB

The subtitles were passable, though at one point they called the dungeon lord the "lunatic magician" which gave me Yen Press war flashbacks. Thankfully the dub didn't do the same thing. Honestly I wouldn't even mind if they switch up what people call the dungeon lord anyway, since it's not like "mad magician" or "mad sorcerer" is a name or title. One of the things I've always hated about "Lunatic Magician" is the way it was used constantly, even in situations where it felt unnaturally stilted, like they had a brand trademark to maintain. The Lunatic Magician™! Now with 50% more lunacy!

As for the dub… The performances were all fine, and there weren't any glaring out of place modernisms, however I'm on the fence about what they decided to do with the orc leader, Zon.

Race and the clash between different groups is a major part of Dungeon Meshi, and this is the chapter that introduces the idea that the orcs are people and not subhuman monsters. It also introduces the idea that the orcs are a displaced ethnic group that lives in the dungeon because other races have chased them from the surface.

Imari Williams does a great job with his performance as Zon, and I appreciate that BangZoom got a person of color to play a character that's meant to be a minority. I hope that they'll continue this trend and that his sister Leed will also be voiced by a person of color, and that she'll speak in a dialect that matches Zon's.

HOWEVER… while Williams' performance is great, I'm not sure how I feel about the script.

Zon and the other orcs' dialog in the dub sounds like it's either borrowing from African American Vernacular English (AAVE), or it is broken English "caveman-speak" that orcs often use in other media.

I'm not familiar enough with AAVE to know if they're using it correctly, only familiar enough to identify that they are using some of the grammatical structures of it. The fact that they hired a black voice actor to deliver those lines makes me think it was an intentional choice.

I'd love to hear opinions from people who are more familiar with the subject. Are the orcs speaking broken English or are they following the grammatical rules of AAVE? How consistent is BangZoom's script in following those grammar rules?

In the original Japanese and in the manga, as far as I can tell the orcs just speak Japanese the same way as all the other characters, so there is no verbal signal of their cultural difference. This is important because this part of the story is all about telling us that the orcs are equal to the other characters.

So choosing to alter the way they speak for the dub is a creative choice that is attempting to communicate something to the English audience, though I am not sure if BangZoom is doing it effectively, or if they are communicating what they intend to communicate.

I do think that it's an interesting choice that they made, I wasn't expecting them to do it, and so I hope they're doing it deliberately, carefully and with sensitivity.

I wonder what kind of accents, if any, the orcs may have been given in other language dubs? If you listened to a different dub let me know! (Also, next week we get to see regular-sized Kabru instead of just Giant Kabru, I'm so excited.)

[bucketsofmonsters]

Would Rook drink out of someone on day 1 ? Bc I'd be insisting on it. Like, I wouldn't sign up for the process before I know exactly what I'm signing up for, especially given that I would assume hed be drawing it with a needle and id be super surprised when Oliver told me some senior citizen is gonna put his mouth on me. and I don't think it's unreasonable to make sure rooK actually likes my blood before he offers room and board on the basis of his being able to drink it. Bc My dude, my blood could taste like a hobo jerking off with chitterlings and then, Rook, you'd STILL be on the hook to drink it. I'm gonna make broh just have a little nibble beforehand if that's alright with him. He needs to know what he's getting into before my birth control antidepressant combo has him coughing, puking, crying and screaming on the first sip

pls I'm imagining u calling Rook a senior citizen to his face, that's one way to make him not drink from you he'd be scandalized and shocked by this despite the fact that he's literally a graying man who's hundred of years old.

also to be so clear, if he thought that you believed he was only letting u stay in exchange for blood he'd start a hunger strike, he is terrified of the idea of any of his ragtag little misfits feeling obligated to give him blood and he'd wait as long as he needed to to make it incredibly clear that you don't owe him blood and you never will.

those combined with ur ask is very funny to me bc it's giving me you desperately trying to give him blood as he absolutely refuses lol

he would love to drink from someone day one tbh they'd just need to be mature and normal about it, Rook has such a petty mindset that he would respond to any foolishness with more foolishness of his own, he's a theatrical little ass and at the first Hint of drama he's starting shit. You want him to drink from you to make sure your blood is good enough to stay? Well clearly you have self esteem issues and need to be treated gently and not drunk from, this is the beginning of an incredible arc for you. His savior complex and theatrical vibes make him very hard to deal with early on unless you're so straight forward. he means well but he can make things very difficult

[master-of-shenanigans]

Tell me about your honse! 🐴

THE BOY?! YOU WISH TO HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF MY BOYYY????

We’ve known each other since I was 10 year old horse girlie and he was a scrawny rescue. When I met him at my riding lessons I thought he was ugly but the instructor kept pairing me with him for every lesson - turns out I was the only kid he listened to and he hated everyone else. We pack bonded over both being ugly weirdos and less than a year later my family bought him, because otherwise the lesson barn would’ve had to sell him, since I was the only person he wasn’t an asshole to. We both had huge glow-ups and now he is a senior citizen who is beautiful and roughly the size of a moose and we’ve known each other other for the majority of both of our lives.

Cursed Lore of The Boy:

when he arrived at the barn where he’s boarded now he was cranky from being in the horse trailer, and the owner of the place took one look at him and said “you didn’t tell me he was a maneater” in the same tone of voice people talk about lions or crocodiles in

when the whole barn got a respiratory disease he was the only one who didn’t get it

he unties knots for fun

our birthdays are two days apart (not the same year, just the same month)

he kicks with his front legs not his back legs

nobody at the barn knows who the hell I am but when I say which horse is mine they go “oh. HIM.”

he once somehow pooped in his grain bucket which was higher up than his ass. I'm still mystified over how he managed that

he’ll go over a jump perfectly one (1) time and then knock the bar over on purpose the second time

he’s terrified a farrier into refusing to work with him unless I hold him, and he’s destroyed the egos of at least three horse trainers in single combat

he likes girly pop music

he has scared himself with his own farts

he looks exactly like one of his ancestors who was a racehorse with a reputation for needing jockeys with “ice water in their veins” and boy howdy did he get THOSE genetics

I earned the nickname "Velcro" from my riding instructor after I managed to stay on him while he bucked like mad then reared vertically and bucked some more because something scared him

Thank you for asking about my extremely normal horse, I love him

[bekandrew]

Laptop Necromancy

I'm running my whole art portfolio through Glaze. If you don't know, it's a program build by a group of uni students that's won awards and is designed to basically prevent AI libraries from being able to meaningfully "learn" anything from your art. It can be found here for free. It wouldn't run on my actually functional laptop (it tried rendering for 2 days straight and then got to something like "Time remaining: -200 minutes" and still never spat out anything completed). So, while waiting for the seemingly endless rendering to stop and a reply for access to their Web option, I decided to try something a little off the wall.

I ended up taking my largely non-functional old laptop (8+ yr old Dell Latitude i7) I hadn't figured out how to safely dispose of yet and see if I could give it new life. It was a mid-tier "gaming" laptop when I purchased it, though I needed the specs for heavy graphics work for work as an artist and as I was, for a time, still in uni for engineering before switching majors. It currently won't run most of the programs I need for work - it abjectly refuses to open Krita no mater what I do, and throws a fit and crashes with even GIMP sometimes. I even have to be careful with internet browsers now with that one. Its hard drive is pretty toast, hence why I needed to suck it up and get a new laptop. Something is damaged in a way I couldn't make a proper clone of the drive and something's fucked with the BIOS is fucked in a way I couldn't even run a recovery usb and it has no disk drive. It makes frightening noises from frequently trying to run its HDD at 100%. The casing itself is held together with duct tape and spite. This laptop survived several moves and homelessness before finally being too finicky to put up with after wife and I were rehoused. It literally requires support at all times to not be torn further apart by the weight of its own screen. It also needs to be elevated in a way to give the fans a little help. It's a technological senior citizen. Despite the hard drive being largely toast, the OS still works pretty fine. The RAM isn't high as I'd like, but it's not bad, either. It's main draw for this very specific purpose is the dual GPUs. There's a version of Glaze that you can force to run off a GPU instead of the CPU and make it go MUCH, MUCH (from my experience, literally 5-10 times or more faster).

I had a Solid State Drive lying around from when I'd attempted to keep the old laptop alive longer, so I stuck it in my external dock, installed Glaze on it, and filled it up with a folder of art to be Glazed. It then proceeded to take about a day and a half of fussing with graphics drivers - including uninstalling the one the uni students recommended and going back to my old one because the one they recommended was technically compatible but was borking things for some reason, and manually changing settings to force the computer to use the correct beefier GPU for the program. I also had to uninstall a ton of shit that was slowing my computer down and sometimes making it lock up entirely - things I used to need when I used that laptop for normal purposes but no longer needed there (things like Steam, Discord, Grammarly, etc).

So long as I don't run much of anything off of the internal HDD outside a couple Windows Explorer windows for viewing files and Task Manager to keep an eye on hardware status, it mostly stays nice and quiet now other than a few spikes here and there with low % usage. Glaze runs smoothly off the external SSD, the CPU and RAM usage remain pretty stable and manageable during rendering, with the GPU usage only at a little over half the computer's total capability. Despite being bested by much simpler daily usage, this old shell of a laptop now renders a resource-intensive program over in a corner and I can just check it every couple hours to see how it's doing.

[chappell-roans]

off topic but I just saw a post and the whole adults reading watching media for kids or ya is bad discourse is so stupid my god. youre an adult you should be reading Tolstoy like f-

TOLSTOY LMAO.

okay so. in discourse extremes are often bad, i do think people can consume whatever they want but there is a frightening rise in adults consuming exclusively media aimed at children. and not exploring any further. the great gatsby is too hard, i'll just watch moana again. which, is fine. i've seen moana like 5 times! it hit me hard as a young adult! but like i'm not going to only watch those things. and then companies (say, disney, but basically every entertainment company) is listening to this and making things more and more dumbed down and yeah idk. again, really nothing i can do about it and acting like no one should enjoy these things is also unhelpful. but idk i do think something changed and while i (for the most part) aged out of reading john green type of ya fiction (still wanna read his nonfiction ngl), a lot of people haven't?? and IDK. i'm not saying you're wrong and like there's layers to it. there is plenty of children's media that is GOOD and made for all types of people to enjoy, but idk. i think it's the all/nothing mindset i guess sfnldm. (and just to be clear, i know that you aren't asserting everyone should just go live in fairytales and go to disneyland everyday, anon, i truly just am a sociology nerd at heart and so am going to take this opportunity to reference some articles that i read literal years ago fohisd.)

there are some articles i've read about it in passing and they're probably going to sound harsh, take with a grain of salt, i'm not saying it's all right, etc., but i mostly just find this stuff fascinating. articles and quotes below. (i ended up copy and pasting... most of the articles, so i bolded the important parts. siodfnlk again. for general reading and mostly for myself. i haven't even read tolstoy FSDKNJ.)

but i am putting this above the cut:

"But we will never make the world better if we act like this. Thinking of yourself as a smol bean baby is a way of tapping out and expecting other people to fight on your behalf. It also makes you a more pliant consumer. Social media is awash with the idea that ‘it’s valid not to be productive’, as though productivity were the only manifestation of capitalism and streaming Disney+ all day is a form of resistance. It’s much rarer to encounter the idea that we have a responsibility about what we consume, or that satisfying our own desires whenever we want is not always a good thing: “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” has morphed into “there is no unethical consumption under capitalism”." --- Everyone needs to grow up

The infantilization of Western culture

"If you regularly watch TV, you’ve probably seen a cartoon bear pitching you toilet paper, a gecko with a British accent selling you auto insurance and a bunny in sunglasses promoting batteries. This has always struck me as a bit odd. Sure, it makes sense to use cartoon characters to sell products to kids — a phenomenon that’s been well-documented. But why are advertisers using the same techniques on adults?

To me, it’s just one symptom of a broader trend of infantilization in Western culture. It began before the advent of smartphones and social media. But, as I argue in my book “The Terminal Self,” our everyday interactions with these computer technologies have accelerated and normalized our culture’s infantile tendencies.

But some cultural practices today routinely infantilize large swaths of the population. We see it in our everyday speech, when we refer to grown women as “girls”; in how we treat senior citizens, when we place them in adult care centers where they’re forced to surrender their autonomy and privacy; and in the way school personnel and parents treat teenagers, refusing to acknowledge their intelligence and need for autonomy, restricting their freedom, and limiting their ability to enter the workforce."

Visiting America in 1946, French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss commented on the endearingly infantile traits of American culture. He especially noted adults’ childish adulation of baseball, their passionate approach to toy-like cars and the amount of time they invested in hobbies. As contemporary scholars note, however, this “infantilist ethos” has become less charming — and more pervasive.

Researchers in Russia and Spain have even identified infantilist trends in language, and French sociologist Jacqueline Barus-Michel observes that we now communicate in “flashes,” rather than via thoughtful discourse — “poorer, binary, similar to computer language, and aiming to shock.” Others have noted similar trends in popular culture — in the shorter sentences in contemporary novels, in the lack of sophistication in political rhetoric and in sensationalist cable news coverage.

While we might find it trivial or amusing, the infantilist ethos becomes especially seductive in times of social crises and fear. And its favoring of simple, easy and fast betrays natural affinities for certain political solutions over others. And typically not intelligent ones.

Democratic policymaking requires debate, demands compromise and involves critical thinking. It entails considering different viewpoints, anticipating the future, and composing thoughtful legislation. What’s a fast, easy and simple alternative to this political process? It’s not difficult to imagine an infantile society being attracted to authoritarian rule.

Unfortunately, our social institutions and technological devices seem to erode hallmarks of maturity: patience, empathy, solidarity, humility and commitment to a project greater than oneself. All are qualities that have traditionally been considered essential for both healthy adulthood and for the proper functioning of democracy.

Everyone needs to grow up

"You can see it in the widely circulated – and largely untrue – idea that the human brain isn’t developed until the age of 25, which means that anyone younger is still essentially a child. It’s there in the notion that people with ADHD can’t text back their friends because they lack object permanence (a skill that babies develop at eight months old). It’s there in the narrative that, because gay people didn’t experience a normal childhood, they’re living out a second adolescence in their twenties and thirties. It’s there in the hegemony of superhero films and the cross-generational popularity of YA, whose fans insist that grown-up literature is only ever about depressed college professors having affairs.

You can see it in Disney adults; the rise of cuteness as a dominant aesthetic category; the resurgence of stuffed animals; people who identify as Hufflepuffs on their Hinge profile; people throwing tantrums when their Gorillas rider is five minutes late; people lip-syncing, with pouted lips and furrowed brows, to audio tracks of toddlers. Sometimes, it’s less about pretending to be a child and more about harking back to a lost adolescence: narrativising your life like it’s a John Green novel or an episode of Euphoria, bragging about crazzzy exploits like smoking cigarettes on a swing or doing cocaine on a Thursday; hitting 30 and still considering yourself “precocious”.

Most complaints about the infantilism of young people have typically come from the right, which has pointed to safe spaces and trigger warnings as evidence that Gen Z and millennials have been coddled to the point of softness. The right-wing critique of infantilism usually contends that, due to a vague decline in moral fibre, young people aren’t willing to embrace the mantles of adulthood, like moving out of the family home, entering into a stable career, getting married and starting a family.

For the most part, though, swerving these milestones is not an active choice that young people are making: adulthood is something that has been denied to many of us, who couldn’t buy a flat or start a family even if we wanted to. “In an age where so much agency has been taken away from young adults, when they face futures saddled with debt, unable to access the basic material trappings of adulthood, which in turn delays entry into emotional adulthood indefinitely, a retreat into the dubious comforts of a pseudo-childhood will have its pull,” Professor Josh Cohen, psycho-analyst and author of How to Live, What to Do, tells Dazed.

That said, even if the economy is foisting an extended adolescence on us, we can still choose to assert our dignity and refuse to become “baby adults” or 26-year-old teenagers, helpless and dependent. Make no mistake: the capitalist elites want you to think of yourself as a silly little goose.

What would rejecting this helplessness look like? The right see adulthood as a process of settling down, getting married and having children; in effect, conforming to conventional gender roles and being productive members of the workforce. We obviously don’t have to buy into that, at any age. But we can aspire towards a different form of maturity: looking after ourselves, treating other people with care, being invested in something beyond our own immediate satisfaction. Infantilising yourself can often seem like a plea for diminished responsibility.

But we will never make the world better if we act like this. Thinking of yourself as a smol bean baby is a way of tapping out and expecting other people to fight on your behalf. It also makes you a more pliant consumer. Social media is awash with the idea that ‘it’s valid not to be productive’, as though productivity were the only manifestation of capitalism and streaming Disney+ all day is a form of resistance. It’s much rarer to encounter the idea that we have a responsibility about what we consume, or that satisfying our own desires whenever we want is not always a good thing: “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” has morphed into “there is no unethical consumption under capitalism”.

Children are the perfect customers: suggestible, impulsive, driven by an insatiable and replenishable desire for pleasure. This is why, in the 1950s, companies leaned into ‘the teenager’ as an emerging market – you can only sell so many long-lasting household appliances. Adverts today are as eager as ever to speak to us as though we are babies, whether it’s Innocent smoothies telling us not to eat conkers or Heinz ketchup announcing that “adulting sucks”. As Felicity Martin wrote on Dazed earlier this week, pre-teen, teen and young women are increasingly being lumped together, consuming the same culture and being marketed the same products.

In a more subtle way, conservatives self-infantilise by denying their own agency: faced with the supposed “excesses” of the movements for LGTBQ+ rights and racial justice, they see themselves as being pushed towards extremism. But categorising other people as children – who can be overruled in their own best interests – forms part of the same project: in recent years, there has been a concerted effort to raise the age at which trans people can access gender-affirming care. Legislators in at least three states in the US are currently moving to deny this treatment to adults up to the age of 25, on the basis that they are not yet mature enough to provide informed consent. Oppressed groups aren’t always infantilised – in a process known as ‘adultification’, children from racialised minorities are typically viewed as having more agency, which makes them more likely to be criminalised– but the right is happy to deploy a diversity of tactics. Just as it’s a common behaviour in abusive relationships, infantilisation can be a mechanism for political domination and control.

Even if infantilisation is being pushed upon us, even if the helplessness we feel has a tangible basis in reality, even if adulting really does suck, we can still choose to see ourselves as capable of changing our own lives and the world around us. “The harms are undeniable,” says Cohen. “Bottom line: it’s a way of learning to love your oppressor. It takes an acute loss of agency and control and transforms it into a state to be desired and enjoyed. Once you embrace this way of being, the demands and rewards of adult life are going to seem all the more remote and all the more forbidding and unpleasurable.”

[xtruss]

What Is The End Of An Era?

Trebek Remembered For Grace That Elevated Him Above Tv Host

George Alexander Trebek has been the host of Jeopardy! since the syndicated debut of America's Favorite Quiz Show® in 1984. He has become one of television's most enduring and iconic figures, engaging millions of viewers worldwide with his impeccable delivery of “answers and questions.”

— By Lynn Elber | Associated Press | November 8, 2020

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Alex Trebek never pretended to have all the answers, but the “Jeopardy!” host became an inspiration and solace to Americans who otherwise are at odds with each other.

He looked and sounded the part of a senior statesman, impeccably suited and groomed and with an authoritative voice any politician would covet. He commanded his turf — the quiz show’s stage — but refused to overshadow its brainy contestants.

And when he faced the challenge of pancreatic cancer, which claimed his life Sunday at age 80, he was honest, optimistic and graceful. Trebek died at his Los Angeles home, surrounded by family and friends, “Jeopardy!” studio Sony said.

The Canadian-born host made a point of informing fans about his health directly, in a series of brief online videos. He faced the camera and spoke in a calm, even tone as he revealed his illness and hope for a cure in the first message, posted in March 2019.

“Now normally, the prognosis for this is not very encouraging, but I’m going to fight this and I’m going to keep working,” Trebek said, even managing a wisecrack: He had to beat the disease because his “Jeopardy!” contract had three more years to run.

Trebek’s death came less than four months after that of civil rights leader and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, also of advanced pancreatic cancer and at age 80. Trebek had offered him words of encouragement last January.

In a memoir published this year, “The Answer Is ... Reflections on My Life,” Trebek suggested that he’s known but not celebrated, and compared himself to a visiting relative who TV viewers find ��comforting and reassuring as opposed to being impressed by me.”

That was contradicted Sunday by the messages of grief and respect from former contestants, celebrities and the wider public that quickly followed news of his loss.

“Alex wasn’t just the best ever at what he did. He was also a lovely and deeply decent man, and I’m grateful for every minute I got to spend with him,” tweeted “Jeopardy!” champion Ken Jennings. “Thinking today about his family and his Jeopardy! family — which, in a way, included millions of us.”

“It was one of the great privileges of my life to spend time with this courageous man while he fought the battle of his life. You will never be replaced in our hearts, Alex,” James Holzhauer, another “Jeopardy!” star, posted on Twitter.

Recent winner Burt Thakur tweeted that he was “overwhelmed with emotion.” When he appeared on Friday’s show, Thakur recounted learning English diction as a child from watching Trebek on “Jeopardy!” with his grandfather.

The program tapes weeks of shows in advance, and the remaining episodes with Trebek will air through Dec. 25, a Sony spokeswoman said.

“Jeopardy!” bills itself as “America’s favorite quiz show” and captivated the public with a unique format in which contestants were told the answers and had to provide the questions on a variety of subjects, including movies, politics, history and popular culture.

They would answer by saying “What is ... ?” or “Who is .... ?”

In November 2019, one contestant expressed what many Jeopardy! fans were feeling: For his "Final Jeopardy!" answer, Dhruv Gaur wagered $1,995 on his answer: "What is We ❤ you, Alex!"

Trebek, who became its host in 1984, was a master of the format, engaging in friendly banter with contestants, appearing genuinely pleased when they answered correctly and, at the same time, moving the game along in a brisk no-nonsense fashion whenever people struggled for answers.

“I try not to take myself too seriously,” he told an interviewer in 2004. “I don’t want to come off as a pompous ass and indicate that I know everything when I don’t.”

The show was the brainstorm of Julann Griffin, wife of the late talk show host-entrepreneur Merv Griffin, who said she suggested to him one day that he create a game show where people were given the answers.

“Jeopardy!” debuted on NBC in 1964 with Art Fleming as emcee and was an immediate hit. It lasted until 1975, then was revived in syndication with Trebek.

Long identified by a full head of hair and trim mustache (though in 2001 he startled viewers by shaving his mustache, “completely on a whim”), Trebek was more than qualified for the job, having started his game show career on “Reach for the Top” in his native country.

George Alexander Trebek began hosting Jeopardy! in 1984. He is shown above in his Los Angeles home in 1988. Alan Greth/AP

Moving to the U.S. in 1973, he appeared on “The Wizard of Odds,” “High Rollers,” “The $128,000 Question” and “Double Dare.” Even during his run on “Jeopardy!”, Trebek worked on other shows. In the early 1990s, he was the host of three — “Jeopardy!”, “To Tell the Truth” and “Classic Concentration.”

“Jeopardy!” made him famous. He won five Emmys as its host, including one last June, and received stars on both the Hollywood and Canadian walks of fame. In 2012, the show won a prestigious Peabody Award.

He taped his daily “Jeopardy!” shows at a frenetic pace, recording as many as 10 episodes (two weeks’ worth) in just two days. After what was described as a mild heart attack in 2007, he was back at work in just a month.

He posted a video in January 2018 announcing he’d undergone surgery for blood clots on the brain that followed a fall he’d taken. The show was on hiatus during his recovery.

It had yet to bring in a substitute host for Trebek — save once, when he and “Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak swapped their TV jobs as an April’s Fool prank.

In 2012, Trebek acknowledged that he was considering retirement, but had been urged by friends to stay on so he could reach 30 years on the show. He still loved the job, he declared: “What’s not to love? You have the security of a familiar environment, a familiar format, but you have the excitement of new clues and new contestants on every program. You can’t beat that!”

Although many viewers considered him one of the key reasons for the show’s success, Trebek himself insisted he was only there to keep things moving.

“My job is to provide the atmosphere and assistance to the contestants to get them to perform at their very best,” he said in a 2012 interview. “And if I’m successful doing that, I will be perceived as a nice guy and the audience will think of me as being a bit of a star. But not if I try to steal the limelight!”

In a January 2019 interview with The Associated Press, Trebek discussed his decision to keep going with “Jeopardy!”

“It’s not as if I’m overworked — we tape 46 days a year,” he said. But he acknowledged he would retire someday, if he lost his edge or the job was no longer fun, adding: “And it’s still fun.”

Trebek said he hated to see contestants lose for forgetting to phrase their answers as questions. "I'm there to see that the contestants do as well as they can within the context of the rules," he told Fresh Air's Terry Gross in 1987. Above, Trebek poses on the set in April 2010. Amanda Edwards/Getty Images

Born July 22, 1940, in Sudbury, Ontario, Trebek was sent off to boarding school by his Ukrainian father and French-Canadian mother when he was barely in his teens.

After graduating high school, he spent a summer in Cincinnati to be close to a girlfriend, then returned to Canada to attend college. After earning a philosophy degree from the University of Ottawa, he went to work for the Canadian Broadcasting Co., starting as a staff announcer and eventually becoming a radio and TV reporter.

He became a U.S. citizen in 1997. Trebek’s first marriage, to Elaine Callei, ended in divorce. In 1990, he married Jean Currivan, and they had two children, Emily and Matthew.

Trebek is survived by his wife, their two children and his stepdaughter, Nicky.

The Order of Canada (French: Ordre du Canada) is a Canadian national order and the second highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. Alex Trebek was awarded on November 17, 2017

Trebek was proud of the Peabody Award received by Jeopardy! in 2012 (left), Trebek at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan, on March 31, 2007 (right)

[thestuckylibrary]

I just finished a fic that unexpectedly ended up demonizing my career for no apparent reason, so I'm kind of in a funk. Do you know any fics where either of the boys, but preferably Steve, is a journalist and actually loves his job? Even a freelance writer. I've already been through your author! tags so not those, please. I know I've read some where Steve was a political journalist / blogger and was really good at it, but I can't find any now!

here are some journalist/reporter!stucky recs for you

Off The Record by Brenda

“This is a serious coup, James. Steve Rogers has never sat down with a member of the press and given an interview. Ever. Do you know how rare that is for the fourth-string star on a cable reality show, much less the biggest movie star in the world?”

Embracing the Beast by llenorion

Five years ago the heir to Barnes Genetics returned home from war after being tortured for several months. Among the citizens he was considered the ‘Prince of New York’ due to his wealth, charm, and adoration of the upper and lower class who lived there. Once a charming, reckless, musically gifted young man, the Prince had become a recluse at his large home in the Hamptons. Rumors spread that he had been disfigured and lost his mind. For five years the Prince had refused to speak to anyone other than his close staff. Until last week when freelancing journalist Steve was presented the opportunity by a cryptic guy with an eye patch write the Prince’s story. What Steve initially saw as a chance to launch his career would become a search for redemption, love and hope.

Me + You by mambo (/others)

High school was a waking nightmare for Steve Rogers, whose one highlight was meeting a mysterious guy at the end of his senior year. Years later, he’s asked to go back to high school on a journalistic assignment. He doesn’t expect a familiar face to be teaching his math class.

(A Never Been Kissed-inspired AU that you do not need to know the source material for, and which aims to be less creepy than.)

If We Are Ready To Make This Something by EllaWinchester24

The AU I’ve been dying to write- protective!cop!Steve, twink!reporter!Bucky who loves to take risks like personally meeting criminals in disguise for his stories. When the two meet, something definitely ignites. In the best way.

Investigative Journalism by GoodbyeBlues

When gossip reporter Bucky Barnes is tasked with finding out more about a rumoured engagement for one of the famous Rogers brothers, he jumps at the chance to spend a week with Steve Rogers when the opportunity falls into his lap (or, actually, when Bucky falls into the opportunity. Literally.) Unfortunately, the more time he spends with Steve, the less he seems to want to write his exposé. Especially when his tell-all would be devastating to his new ‘boyfriend.’ …But those feelings are just pretend, right?

Blue and White and Read All Over by aurilly (WIP, /others)

Mild-mannered reporter by day, superhero by… other parts of the day.

The one where Captain America has a day job, Bucky spends most of his time with superheroes and supervillains, and nothing is quite as normal as it seems.

[fandomshatelgbtqpeople]

(1) I'm sorry for this long ask but I'm looking for advice and I really love your blog. I grew up with parents with conservative views and I would uncomfortably agree with everything they say. They would both always pressure me to be “feminine”. So much so, that I just give in. My mom would even give me future marriage/motherhood advice even though I was still a teen. I just sit there silently and wait for her to finish. Now that I'm away from home, I'm learning more about the LGBTQ+ community.

2) I’ve learned that being queer is not as simple as being gay or transsexual. It’s a lot more complex than that and that there are more orientations that people still need to be educated about. Lately I’ve been a little braver with my parents talking about LGBTQ+ rights. It hurt that they would give me the “well you have your opinion and I have mine” defense. But in time, their viewpoints start to change. They would read posts and letters from the LGBTQ+ community and are now in support of

(3) their rights. They even went so far to apologize for how they raised me. It’s been easier to talk to them now. But as I learned more about LGBTQ+ rights, I’ve also been learning more about myself. I would think back at certain situations as a kid and thought “is it because I’m ____ that I thought that way” or “is it because I’m ____ that I was interested or not interested in this person”. There’s actually a show I love where I would replay scenes of a character having revelations of their

(4) orientation over and over again and still give them my undivided attention. I guess what I’m asking is, am I thinking too hard and too much? I believe I know my orientation, but I still want to learn more. Is it because that I didn’t grow up learning all these info about LGBTQ+ that I’m not sure about my own orientation? That I refused to learn about them as a kid because I was afraid what my parents would think of me? That it didn’t take until the beginnings of my adulthood to come to grips

(5) about myself? It seems that even people who came out knew who they were even when they were in the closet. Should I just finally accept it, in my mind, if though I don’t feel comfortable to say it out loud? I mean, I can’t even admit it anonymously. Is it weird that I’m projecting myself on one single fictional character? I’m sorry if I’m bugging you. What I love most about your blog is how intersectional you guys are. I hear that there’s discrimination even among different orientations. The

(6) racism sadly isn’t surprising. It’s hard enough being Asian, but to also be queer. Also, I want my parents to be the first people that I come out to. But at the same time, I’m scared, even if they are getting better. I’m an adult, and yet my parents still frightens me. Should I just stop caring what they would think of me?

Hey there, Nonny. How are you doing today? Thank you for coming to us with how you feel. It mustn’t have been easy, but I want you know that we’ve got your back! There seems to be a lot on your mind, so I hope you don’t mind if my reply’s a lengthy one.

Firstly, I’m very touched reading through your messages, because as a fellow queer Asian person living in a strict, conservative household myself, a lot of the things you mentioned really hit home for me. I hope what I have to say will be able to help you out, or at the very least comfort you, one way or another.

Am I thinking too hard and too much? I believe I know my orientation, but I still want to learn more. Is it because that I didn’t grow up learning all these info about LGBTQ+ that I’m not sure about my own orientation? That I refused to learn about them as a kid because I was afraid what my parents would think of me? That it didn’t take until the beginnings of my adulthood to come to grips about myself?

I think the thing about identities is that it’s a personal journey for everyone. How one feel about themselves and their identities can vary between people, as well as the ways of figuring out the details. Some have very deep thoughts and researches to how they identify, even if they’ve spent years learning about themselves or not, others consider them to be something natural to who they are from the get-go, and so on. 

It’s not your fault for not having everything figured out, nor is it something wrong. Plenty of queer adults only know that they’re queer when they’re much older, some didn’t even know until they’re senior citizens. “Knowing you’re queer” tends to be trivialized as this thing known from ages as young as early teenage years, when in fact, learning about the LGBTQ+ community is probably a luxury to many of us out there, especially among communities of color (due to the awful stigmas they have regarding non-cishet people). Many aren’t even allowed to think about the possibilities of them being anything more than Cisgender Heterosexual. While it’s sad, it’s the reality. Late beginnings of self-discovery are worth acknowledging and sympathizing, and they’re completely okay. Confusions and doubts are a natural part of everyone’s journey. They’re a telling that you need to have more patience with yourself. Don’t pressure things too much.

I’m happy for you, Nonny, that you’re making an attempt to know more about who you are. There’s never a thing called “thinking too hard and too much” when it comes to it (along with how you ID, your comfort with labels and self-presentations, etc.), because understanding helps you to connect with yourself better, and love yourself. I don’t think anyone ever really “stops” learning about themselves, even when they’re already sure of how they ID from early on. Identities have a lot of personal layers to them that only you can figure out for yourself, so it doesn’t matter if your own journey is longer, more elaborated, more complicated. Your experience is your own uniqueness. There’s no need for comparisons or set standards. 

It seems that even people who came out knew who they were even when they were in the closet. Should I just finally accept it, in my mind, if though I don’t feel comfortable to say it out loud?

This one, I’d say, is up to you. Self-acceptance is a difficult thing, I can empathize, so whether you end up accepting yourself or not, no one can police you on that. It’s all up to how YOUR comfort, YOUR safety, and that’s more important than anything.It’s okay if you don’t want to say who you are out loud. If you’re queer, you always belong to the LGBTQ+ community, no matter if you’re open or reserved about it. Give yourself more time, and relax. It’s going to be okay.

I mean, I can’t even admit it anonymously. Is it weird that I’m projecting myself on one single fictional character?

The interesting thing about fictional characters is how much we’d connect to them, even if our initial idea is just to enjoy a fictional person in a fictional story. This is why good representations of marginalized groups are so important! It’s a natural thing to deeply relate to s fictional character, especially when you’re in a place where you feel like you don’t belong. Heck, it’s even how a lot of people started to feel that maybe they might not be as Cishet as they thought. Fiction reflects reality to certain levels, ergo it affects reality. Many takes comfort in the characters they love. If that makes you happy, then go for it!

Also, I want my parents to be the first people that I come out to. But at the same time, I’m scared, even if they are getting better. I’m an adult, and yet my parents still frightens me. Should I just stop caring what they would think of me?

It’s nothing strange to be afraid of how your parents/family would react to you coming out, not to mention when they’re the people who had made such a tough environment for you to truly embrace yourself without fear. The Asian community has never been all that swell with the idea of queer people. Among us there are still so many conservatives, traditionalists and just overall bigots.You’re an adult and you’re still frightened of your parents, that’s honestly understandable. Our parents are the people we’ve always been relying on so much, and they’re the ones determining what we should and shouldn’t do, even how we should and shouldn’t feel about things. It’s suffocating. It’s exactly the reason why we’re so afraid of them in the first place - because they didn’t allow us to be who we are, or feel about certain things for ourselves, we’ve come to fear that the slightest difference in our own agency which doesn’t align to theirs are wrong, and should be shamed, even when it’s completely normal, hell, even when it’s the right mindset to have.

Saying this might sound a bit confusing, but I think whether you should stop caring about your parents’ opinions or not is also up to you. This includes the magnitude of impact your family has on your life, and whether or not you’ll be safe. Safety is always the most important thing. If you’re in a place where you can take care of yourself (even in the worst case scenario), then if you want to come out, you can always help them to open up to that idea more before you make the announcement. If your situation is that you can’t separate yourself from your family during the worst case scenario, then it’s better to not go for it, or if the situation is allowed to get better, you can always wait some more. There’s really no rush. You can’t imagine just how much time can make a difference in people’s thoughts.

It’s important to know that coming out is NOT a necessity. You don’t owe it to anyone. Your IDs are your own, and whether you want to share them is your own rights to do. Don’t feel guilty if you can’t come out right now, or even end up not coming out. Your well-being always comes first.

I hope things will work out well for you, Nonny, no matter what you choose to do. Take care of yourself, and take heart. We always have your back

~Mod H(ave waaaayyyy too many thoughts about this)