#im going to archive the first iteration anyway

[reitziluz]

when is it better to post a fic rewrite as a new work instead of editing existing chapters?

is it after a certain percentage of changes? certain amount of new content? when the comments stop matching the details of the chapters? when tags get changed? when chapter count gets altered? when scenes get shuffled between chapters? when edits break the continuity between chapters as they're added one by one? when it's fair to assume people would want to get notifications for the rewritten chapters as they're posted? when it would be less work to archive the old version rather than reposting it for archival purposes?

(feedback welcome)

[criphd]

hello.... idk how to start this tumblr so here's some stuff about logistics & what i've been doing/ what i'll be doing [?] & all the waiting & liminal space & even being excited !! about doing a phd which is one of my dreams in life !!

:)))

i’ve been having a weird time for many reasons & haven't been particularly stable for the past like six months to a year whilst i've been working on phd ideas/proposals/funding applications and although i have had some joyful moments & got to spend lots of time with my fav person i'm really glad all that waiting and deadlines and redrafting over and over and over is over. my phd as a project/idea went through i would say three main iterations - the first was mostly just.... wibbly wobbly.... but the second iteration was what i applied with to all bar one place & it did well with academics who were invariably kind to me about my project, enthusiastic about the authors/ideas in it and happy to supervise me if i got a place - & the project did get me some places.

the last proposal i wrote was for a specific medical humanities, health inequality, interdisciplinary studentship and i think it coalesced my ideas to their peak and is the most successful they've been - altho one of the other applications i did was also recieved really well & the did invite me to take up a place applying for funding & starting it in 2023, that just doesnt work for me !

so my phd, rather than being on the original four women authors i wanted to bring together is instead about a whole range of women sociaists from across the uk who were all writing fiction and non fiction about politics, women, care & relationships and it does mean my time frame shifts to focus more on the 1890s than across them into the twentieth century (so i wont include sylvia townsend warner like i had originally planned which is a little sad). it will tho still cross into 'modernism', & that's good because modernism is really important to me!

i'm also kind of hoping to read/work on some naomi mitchison but im not really sure if she fits in terms of 'era' but like... i think she's cool & vibes with the other women included atm... & i would also love love love to discover some working class women socialists lost in the archive who i can fish out and shout about. (i also need to reread my proposal lol bc i pushed a lot of it out my mind when preparing for an interview on the second project!)

anyway i thought i would write this out as a kind of reflection on what the process of applying & interviewing & not getting funding/etc was like as well as record of the amount of work and effort i put in (along with the many kind people who read drafts & supported me through each application!)

logistically i'm not in a totally fine place but i am going to reapply for funding in my first year and in the mean time get a postgrad loan [grimace emoji] to cover my fees and some living costs and i'm lucky in that my parents can help me financially a lot [!] altho i dont want to rely on them at all really bc they suck a bit. my soon-to-be phd supervisor (!) is really lovely, was rly happy when i said i would take up a place with her & thinks i have a high likelihood of accessing funding and i also have found a couple of places to apply to for small amounts of funding, which give out between around £500 to £3000 for postgrads & which i'll write an application schedule out for soon. as well as u know... finding a place to live... moving... etc etc

the process of applying itself has left me with a little web of kind women (most of whom are obviously queer) academics who loved my proposal[s] and so i also feel like i have some folks i could email for advice/checking in/whatever already, across different institutions and that's really nice!!!

anyway i dont quite know what this tumblr will be or how i will use it but yh... i'm sure i'll be sharing some quotes, some ideas & experiences, study inspiration, complaints about how im treated bc i'm disabled, being gay and falling for ghosts etc etc

[spockandawe]

Hmm. I'm not sure how long ago it was when mscott went into greater detail about how/why she'd characterize Knock Out as a fatshamer, etc., so it might be old, but I hust saw it now.

And this whole thing, his character annd her characterization, is actually something I've talked about before, but I thiiiink that the posts are buried deep in forum archives.

Because the thing that gets me, I'm theoretically down for this character flaw. But there's something about the way she'd... implement it. It makes me nope away even harder than if I'd been uncomfortable with the idea in the first place. And I like her writing very, VERY much in some ways, but this isn't the first time she's talked about taao in that way where I'm like yeah, I'm on board with-- noooooOOOOO STOP--

Knock Out, okay. He's got relatively few iterations of his character to define him, but in general? He boils down pretty easily to a vain but charming asshole. And if we've got 'vanity' and we've got 'asshole', BOOM, rich minefield for character flaws. Even charming isn't necessarily a virtue, but Knock Out just becomes even more interesting to me then. He's full of flaws with... limited redeeming features, but he's been a fan favorite from the START, so obviously there's something gold in his character.

And obviously, I don't want to iron all his flaws out of him just because he's a character I adore. I'm never satisfied until I can distill out the worst and best qualities of all my faves. If I'm writing and want to make a character compelling, I can't do that by pretending their flaws don't exist, I have to do it despite their flaws.

So, fat-shaming. That's a loaded topic to start with, and I think for it to work, it'd have to be handled with some serious delicacy and/or subtlety. And I think that's where ny first problem is with mscott's posts. Honestly, trying to do this in a comic, with limited panels and limited dialogue and no descriptions of the action? Without derailing the overall plot? I kind of think that's a losing proposition. You lose so much subtle body language in that medium, where something in motion or in prose could convey more easily.

But for a comic, dealing with a cast of characters, for Knock Out to subtly ("subtly") shame every person he deals with on the job, that's... going to be cartoonish. If he directly gets shamey with Breakdown, on the regular? Same thing. If his defining feature is 'fat-shaming', he's going to look like a caricature, and I'm going to be yanked out of the comic constantly wondering why anyone puts up with him.

It's not the same issue at all, but consider how your garden-variety casual racist actually IS racist. Not by making race-based jabs at everyone of color they meet. It's more like handwringing over the wrong sorts of people moving into the neighborhood or complaining that immigrants can be good, but these immigrants aren't even trying to assimilate. It's got a layer of plausible deniability on top, even to their own eyes.

So why not a Knock Out who looks a mech up and down and raises his eyebrows and gives Breakdown a look, because you know what I'm talking about, babe, look at how he's let himself go, right? A Knock Out who makes occasional remarks to already-slim mechs like Blurr that he's surprised Blurr hasn't gotten rid of that extra plating yet, but he knows a doctor who provides those sorts of services--

A Knock Out where Breakdown tries to talk to him about this every so often, but Knock Out makes it impossible. He's not saying there's something wrong with them, but I mean, just imagine them trying to participate im a race, right? Anyways, he's only worried for their health, he just thinks people should take care of themselves, and is that really so wrong??

A Knock Out where Breakdown works his way around, determinedly, to communicating 'this hurts me', and Knock Out being genuinely horrified and falling over himself to say no no no, you're absolutely perfect in every way, I love every part of you, you know that, and I'm just talking about them-- And being totally unable to see the hypocrisy there, even when it's right in front of his face.

I'm on mobile, so I think I'm going to cut it off there, but it's... frustrating. I see a lot of potential in there for ways this could be an interesting, nuanced point of character exploration (and growth?), and showing readers the contradictions in a person can be one of the most powerful ways to paint a picture of who they are. But just the description of how mscott would have written it sets off alarm bells in my head. I might come back to this, especially since I think 'low self-esteem breakdown' is an extremely wrong decision, but that'll do for now.