#making my special interests everyone’s problem

[amynchan]

"Another one."

The file is slapped on my desk, courtesy of Jack's hand. I do my best not to sigh, but some endeavors are honestly just doomed to fail.

"New recruit or job transfer?" I know I'll see the answer in the file, but if Jack's gonna be like that, then I can be like this. I don't even open the file.

"New recruit, asshole." Wow. Someone's in a bad mood. Wonder what crawled up his ass. Okay, fine, I open up the file this time.

Oh.

Oh...

You know, years and years ago, this might have been considered a conflict of interest. When there were enough people around, working jobs, that the work could be moved from an involved or easily affected party to an uninvolved one.

Maybe there was a reason for that.

"Hey, if you need to take a lunch break—"

"Don't. Just— just don't."

Well... what else can I do? I swallow up my words, nod, and look at the beaming face of Jack's niece again. Seventeen. Sweet girl. Her grades, like everyone else's, meet standards that might have been actually necessary so many years ago. Technology's moved forward. Life has moved forward. Humanity, as a whole, has evolved out of needing so many jobs that most of today's problems are manufactured. Enough to make people think about them but not enough to cause lasting damage to... well, anything if they aren't taken care of. And the people who skim the jobs we've given them? Nothing really happens. We make the fake problems go away one way or another, and nobody and nothing gets hurt in the process. No real loss.

It's busywork is all I'm saying. People like Sarah get to do busywork. The really exceptional people get hired here. Doing this. Keeping the world running on one side and keeping the population controlled on the other.

"All she wants to do is make a difference in the world." Jack doesn't have anyone else who can do this job for him. I don't think he'd want to, either. Once you know about how the world works, there's not really a way to unknow.

Well...

No need to tempt fate with thoughts like those. I go through Sarah's file.

"There's gotta be something else she likes." And there's lots in here. She's got friends. A robust social life. There are a few ambitions, but we can make some scenarios to fit and satisfy those.

But that's not the problem, and Jack knows it. I know it.

"How am I supposed to face her?" he asks. "She's going to come to family dinners, all smiles, talking about how much better the world is because of her and her coworkers and her friends. How much good she's doing for the world. How she's going to make it better for the rest of us, just wait and see. She's going to barrel headfirst into making humanity a utopia again!"

I'm smart enough to keep my mouth shut. Jack and I both know what utopia can do to people.

When Jack yells, I'm not surprised. His brother was never like Sarah. His sister in law was never like Sarah. As far as I know, nobody in his family has been like Sarah. Sweet. Determined. Good-hearted.

All determination and heart. None of the skill sets or natural talents we need in order to make her fantasy come true.

It would make a lot of sense to make Sarah a politician. Protected. Safe. Somewhere her ambitions can at least feel fed and her dreams feel real, at least.

Enough to make her feel proud. Worthy. Dignified. In this world where corruption is nipped in the bud and no one ever gets shot or goes hungry, a politician's job is easy, and the problems they deal with are minor.

But I know it would also be also enough to drive Jack insane. Meeting with his niece throughout the years, watching her be so proud of achievements that are real to her and hollow to everyone who knows. Hollow to him. It's a special kind of hell we live in.

One hell of a utopia.

In the end, Sarah will become a small business owner. We'll lay down the trail for her to run something that runs along the lines of 20th century ethical practices. She'll have her pick of products, and she'll run the operation in the best way she knows how. We can lay down breadcrumbs of opportunities and support the infrastructure and the product line from where we sit. She'll live a perfectly respectable life in her ethical and lovely shop for as long as she wants until she wants a transfer.

Maybe she'll be a politician then. Who the hell knows.

Not me, and not Jack, by the look of it. I look at him, and he glares back.

Yeah. Okay.

Jack slaps another file on my desk. This time, I just take it. There are some days where turnabout just isn't fair play.

In the near future, 85% of all jobs have been automated, and everyone's basic needs are met for free. You work for a secret organization that creates fake busywork jobs for the majority who aren't qualified for the few real jobs left, but need perceived meaningful labor to stay sane.

[beanies-in-the-clouds]

So I drew Leo in class the other day!

Then I drew many. The writing in the left corner is actual schoolwork

I am not to be trusted with a whiteboard ever

[breawycker]

Enid sniffing Wednesday repeatedly before proclaiming “you’re about to have a vision” then catching her before she hits the ground

Oooh I love this and her like growling at anyone who gets close to Wednesday when she's out. I've seen some angst-y art of Enid laying next to Wednesday worrying while Wednesday is in a vision and I just want to write something where Enid is just ready for her to wake up with some water because she knows that Wednesday's visions are often intense and having water and seeing Enid's face helps ground her. I like the idea of Enid's like inner wolf falling for Wednesday before her human self even realizes and then it hits her and she's like "oh wow 😳"

[arpeegi]

hey look

an old ass scribble

[spidori]

I wish I believed they were going to be brave instead of trying to pull a soulless cash-grab. Because if they were brave, I honestly believe they could do something awesome with this.

I'm serious, hear me out.

These are apex predators, and they are not mammalian. They should be scary lizards that trigger an instinctual fear response if it weren't for marketing pressures.

More importantly, I think the message of radical acceptance, of both the self and others, could actually be strengthened by the dragons not looking cute or approachable.

I have thoughts, so I'll put those below the cut for anyone interested.

If they were brave, they could acknowledge that a lot of the fans of the first movie are adults now, and that they don't have to make the dragons less threatening to avoid scaring the intended audience of young children. I would love to see them really play up the terror angle instead. They could make the dragons not just dangerous, but unsettling, disturbing, the exact opposite of cuddly/approachable. Essentially, you should want to hit them with a shovel at first. Especially since most of them are being controlled, and none of them have learned any of the body language to communicate with humans yet; they should feel other, and that should feel dangerous, at least at first.

If they did that, and added a couple of tweaks throughout the rest of the story, all of a sudden Hiccup's empathy would carry a lot more weight; he's not just befriending what is obviously just a special dog with scales, he's truly looking beyond his deep- and socially reinforced- fear response to empathize.

It would take some extra dialogue tweaks as well, but I think the seeds are all there already in the original script. Honestly, I think it's true to the ideas the original movie script was presenting. The whole message was radical acceptance of the self *and* of others as they are. It's easy to see that message in Hiccup, and how his empathy was the answer even though it was looked down on by everyone around him. It's even present in pretty much all the human characters, with them being comfortable in their own skins, and that contributing to them having or finding a place for themselves. I mean, consider, Stoick isn't framed as wrong for his desire to protect his village, or for using his strength and leadership skills to do so. No, he's framed as wrong for not accepting Hiccup, or the truth about the dragons, and his continued refusal to do so even when it will harm the things he wants to protect. Crucially, it's his acceptance of both his son and Toothless for who they are that acts as both the turning point for the story, and the redemption of his character.

More to my point though, I think that same message of acceptance, including self acceptance, is also present with respect to the dragons. I just think it's easier to take it for granted when it comes to the dragons.

There's lots of little examples, but I think the best one is the dragons' instinctual inability to disobey the Red Death (the queen). It's the mechanism behind the conflict of the first movie. It's not their fault, sure, but it is at the heart of the problem even if it's not the root cause. And it's not like it goes away either since it's also behind the villain in the second movie in basically the same way.

The instinct is not framed as wrong though, and that's key. Acknowledging the instinct is a key step in fixing the root of the problem twisting it towards destruction in the first movie, and in the second movie just acknowledging it and trying to overcome it wasn't quite enough. Toothless couldn't win by overcoming the instinct to obey an alpha, he had to fully accept that part of himself, and that it could coexist alongside the more human bits he'd chosen to incorporate into himself, to achieve self-actualization as an alpha. And Hiccup instantly accepted that part of Toothless, further reinforcing the underlying message that no one is inherently wrong because of who or what they are.

But I digress from my rambling. I think leaning into the dragons looking reptilian and predatory could absolutely work if they were brave about it. If they made them look truly scary, and actively framed that as ok, as not inherently wrong, just inherently different, I think that could slot right into the message at the heart of the story and add nuance, depth, IMPACT to it. If they do that they would earn my praise, even if it doesn't quite end up landing. I just wish I believed, at all, that the people making the decisions were brave enough to do so.

But hey, maybe I'll be proven wrong the same way I was with Wicked. I'll be ecstatic if that ends up being the case.

the live action httyd movie is an insult to us all and should never have been made. how is this slop better than beautiful stylized animation

I want to hit it with a shovel

[phoenixcatch7]

Reading loz/lu fics and it's just so interesting how wide the spectrum is of their personalities.

Sometimes it's got an in universe reason (different past (usually gender or species change), recent or ongoing traumatic events, a spectacularly bad first meeting), but sometimes (often) the characters are just... Weirdly angsty or peppy, there's no in between!

And I'm beginning to think less people have played more than one game than I thought XD.

Not that it's anyone's fault! One game is more than enough to be part of it all, and loz is exclusive to Nintendo consoles - and all the older stuff is frustratingly hard to get hold of. Heck, I'm still looking for wind waker, and that was really popular! And then you have to play it! They're not small games!!

But could people writing wild please ease off just a tiiiiiny bit so he can be a semi functional member of society pretty please XD? He's just as much a polite boy as any other member of the chain! He won't even run in shops! He can't attack npcs! He talks to every single person he's ever seen and remembers every single name. Yes, he's three quarters woodland creature with a hefty amount of trauma but he's also a fashionista who managed to avoid accidentally taking sides in a mayoral election and that's not easy!

[eclaire-went-bam]

bcs i'm aware of how i automatically percieve people, i earnestly try to give the benefit of the doubt a lot. i tend to believe people are Actually Just That Dumb™ when they're joking about something, so i try to get ahead of that & tell myself people are joking when they say something stupid, so that i don't look stupid

all i've learnt in doing that, is most of the time, people aren't joking. they actually did mean what they say, & i made the situation 10× worse by laughing at what they said.

not only does it reinforce the idea in my head that people are Dumb so i need to take the reins on literally Everything, but it also leads people to believe i'm making fun of them for saying something silly & talking to me less, when, if i knew it were a genuine thing they thought, i would have gladly explained it without judgement

but i don't really know how to stop treating them as jokes, because what if they ARE joking so they laugh at me for how Stupid i am for taking the bait? i can't handle being made a fool of, i think i'd rather die

[cimicherrychanga]

btw u guys have to promise to not be mad at me for becoming ur turtle mutual. please

[beanies-in-the-clouds]

ME WHEN I STEAL THIS FROM YOU 🤩🤩🤩

GUYS GUTS GUYS I GOT THIS FROM MY GRANDPARENTS TODAY

life is complete omg this thing is incredible!!!! It's massive and has literally every show and movie ever made it's awesome

Also here's Leo being as smug as ever

[icewindandboringhorror]

Various images from the past year or so... posting my evil little photo diary collections once again..

[applesandbannas747]

I love seeing you talk about your students bc I work at a k-6 elementary school and it's so lovely seeing someone feel the same way about their kids (students) as I do mine. sorry if this is weird just wanted to share my thoughts with you <3

this is actually so sweet omfg it's really nice to know my rambles about the gremlins are not annoying to everyone 💜 and also love to find other elementary ed folks out in the wild! Best of luck through standardized testing season lmfao

[happypeachsludgeflower]

I love non sequiturs. They’re wonderful.

Others may say that they’re a clunky way to awkwardly change the subject—that they’re inelegant and fail every stealth check possible, but really?

They’re a blunt, hardedge way of saying “no I’m done talking about this topic anymore and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

They’re just such a power move honestly.

Have you ever looked an angry 6ft something man in the eye and said, “There’s a species of single celled organisms that live in almost uninhabitable lakes and has seven genders,” and just watched as befuddlement crosses his face and he then experiences the five stages of grief in five seconds because he knows he’s now going to have to listen to me explain polyploids in excruciating detail once more because I deemed him to be an asshole.

It’s so satisfying.

[beanies-in-the-clouds]

I went to a lantern festival with my family and I shit you not my mom made her entire lantern about rottmnt

I cannot make this shit up. She loves Piebald to death and would commit war crimes for her (understandably). I wish I’d gotten the other sides of her lantern because it was golden.

Bonus:

The side of my own lantern dedicated to ninja turtles. They are very silly. I need to learn how to draw them better (Mikey in particular is very eepy here).

[pheadrus]

hate when people ask what I plan to have done with my books when I die since I write in all of them. they’re going to be put in a research library for future scholars of my work what did you think.

[arpeegi]

[senseiwu]

Just saw a video where someone mentioned reading the curious incident of the dog in the night time, and they thought afterwards they may have autism too. When they brought it up to their mum, she was like "you knew??" cause apparently she'd done that thing people seem to do where they keep an autism diagnosis secret from their kids

It made me remember when my grandma gave me that book to read when we were all at her place for Christmas. She said something like "I think you'll really like it", which confused me cause I was more into fantasy stuff than mystery novels. I mean. I did really like it. But it's one of the things that makes me wonder... did my parents do that thing too...?